The Virus - Are You Affected?

[ZiprHead]

 

[TSwizzle]

The insufferable governor of California, Gavin Newsom has taken time to admonish and scold the residents of California for taking to the beach during nice weather.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom sent a clear message to his state's residents after images circulated of throngs of crowds on Ventura and Orange County beaches this weekend: stop flouting social distancing guidelines or it could delay the state's reopening. "The reality is we are just a few weeks away, not months away, from making measurable and meaningful changes to our stay-at-home order," he said. "That is a very optimistic point to emphasize. However, that's driven by data, it's driven by behavior, and as we change our behavior, we can impact the science the health and the data. This virus doesn't take the weekends off. We will avail ourselves to more aggressive enforcement of the stay-at-home order, of the social distancing, of the guidelines and procedures that we expect to be followed all across the state of California, if there are people thumbing their nose and abusing it, putting their lives at risk because they're impacting the lives of others, and ultimately setting back the cause of reopening the economy as quickly as we'd like to, I think we may have to do a little bit more."

CNN

No mention of protecting the care homes where the actual deaths are occurring. Overall in LA, more than 40% of the deaths have occurred in care facilities.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

View attachment 27384

In case you were wondering, yes... it is the year 2020. The right-wing propaganda machine has riled these people into the state of perpetual partisan stupidity.

 

[Emily Lake]

Holy cow, crazyfingers, that's just nuts. I'm sorry you're getting that kind of harassment on top of quarantine. It's just ridiculous and I don't have words for how wrong I find it.

It's nuts you're right. With her heater in there she's got the tent at 73 degrees. It's 41 degrees outside. Our house is only set for 67 degrees. She's streaming her favorite shows on her Chromebook and I just finished serving her green beans, garlic bread and a crock of home made chowder and with a chocolate pudding and cookies. Cripes, she's doing some woodworking project she wanted to do.

If I had to self isolate, I'd choose that kind of a life too instead of being stuck in my bedroom. Nice and warm. Someone bring me all the food I want and I could go outside whenever I wanted. The only drawback is the potty in the woods and showering. But of course we bring her the hot water and her shower is set up so that she's inside a tarp.

But no. Closed minded morons think she should be bored stiff isolated in her bedroom and only use the bathroom when someone else can disinfect it.

Honestly, "camping" seems a lot more fun than "quarantine".

 

[Jokodo]

The insufferable governor of California, Gavin Newsom has taken time to admonish and scold the residents of California for taking to the beach during nice weather.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom sent a clear message to his state's residents after images circulated of throngs of crowds on Ventura and Orange County beaches this weekend: stop flouting social distancing guidelines or it could delay the state's reopening. "The reality is we are just a few weeks away, not months away, from making measurable and meaningful changes to our stay-at-home order," he said. "That is a very optimistic point to emphasize. However, that's driven by data, it's driven by behavior, and as we change our behavior, we can impact the science the health and the data. This virus doesn't take the weekends off. We will avail ourselves to more aggressive enforcement of the stay-at-home order, of the social distancing, of the guidelines and procedures that we expect to be followed all across the state of California, if there are people thumbing their nose and abusing it, putting their lives at risk because they're impacting the lives of others, and ultimately setting back the cause of reopening the economy as quickly as we'd like to, I think we may have to do a little bit more."

CNN

No mention of protecting the care homes where the actual deaths are occurring. Overall in LA, more than 40% of the deaths have occurred in care facilities.

I don't know about your version of math, but in the version I and I believe most people use, 40% in care facilities leaves 60% outside of care facilities, which is a majority.

Also, the only proven method to keep care facilities relatively safe - short of literally incarcerating residents (and nurses, cleaners, facility managers...) for months - is to keep the number of infected people generally low.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Holy cow, crazyfingers, that's just nuts. I'm sorry you're getting that kind of harassment on top of quarantine. It's just ridiculous and I don't have words for how wrong I find it.

It's nuts you're right. With her heater in there she's got the tent at 73 degrees. It's 41 degrees outside. Our house is only set for 67 degrees. She's streaming her favorite shows on her Chromebook and I just finished serving her green beans, garlic bread and a crock of home made chowder and with a chocolate pudding and cookies. Cripes, she's doing some woodworking project she wanted to do.

If I had to self isolate, I'd choose that kind of a life too instead of being stuck in my bedroom. Nice and warm. Someone bring me all the food I want and I could go outside whenever I wanted. The only drawback is the potty in the woods and showering. But of course we bring her the hot water and her shower is set up so that she's inside a tarp.

But no. Closed minded morons think she should be bored stiff isolated in her bedroom and only use the bathroom when someone else can disinfect it.

If something came up that meant I had to isolate from my wife that's the path I would take. The gear to head out into the wilderness is cheaper than a hotel room for the incubation period--and I wouldn't even have a heater.

 

[Keith&Co.]

If something came up that meant I had to isolate from my wife that's the path I would take.

I have a pretty straightforward plan. If we need to isolate from each other, i'll kiss her and call her by her sister's name. I won't see her for a month.

 

[marc]

My brother’s father-in-law just passed from it.

Have a lot of elderly relatives, but no other known cases so far

 

[DrZoidberg]

They had an epidemiologist on TWIV for yesterdays episode who discussed what South Korea did right, that everybody else did wrong. It's important to realise that South Korea didn't shut down. They managed to contain it while society in general went on much as usual.

His take aways were these.

1) South Korea had had MERS. Which created political will to invest in preparing in advance.
2) They were prepared in advance.
3) Libertarians/anarchists won't like this one. They had passed a law to give the authorities free access to people's GPS's and credit card purchases. This made contagion tracking incredibly easy. And he argued, necessary. For a virus that spreads as sneakily as SARS Covid-2.
4) They had a type of social workers that checked up on people who self quarantined. Partly to check that they were respecting the self quarantine, but also... and here's a big factor... to help them do stuff they need doing... so they don't need to leave their homes, for any reason. They would also check up on people's mental health, and psychological online and phone support was provided. People who didn't respect the quarantined could be forced by the police.
5) An ample supply of personal protective gear for all health workers.
6) Compulsory face masks for everybody. And everybody already had them at home. It's part of the South Korean culture already.
7) A public who had already read all about how viruses spread (because of MERS). So an entire nation all pulling in the same direction.
8) Well prepared testing capabilities and routines. Their labs and procedures were already in place to quickly ramp up testing.

All of this takes planning and preparation. No other country stood a chance in hell to handle this as well as South Korea.

 

[Jokodo]

They had an epidemiologist on TWIV for yesterdays episode who discussed what South Korea did right, that everybody else did wrong. It's important to realise that South Korea didn't shut down. They managed to contain it while society in general went on much as usual.

His take aways were these.

1) South Korea had had MERS. Which created political will to invest in preparing in advance.
2) They were prepared in advance.
3) Libertarians/anarchists won't like this one. They had passed a law to give the authorities free access to people's GPS's and credit card purchases. This made contagion tracking incredibly easy. And he argued, necessary. For a virus that spreads as sneakily as SARS Covid-2.
4) They had a type of social workers that checked up on people who self quarantined. Partly to check that they were respecting the self quarantine, but also... and here's a big factor... to help them do stuff they need doing... so they don't need to leave their homes, for any reason. They would also check up on people's mental health, and psychological online and phone support was provided. People who didn't respect the quarantined could be forced by the police.
5) An ample supply of personal protective gear for all health workers.
6) Compulsory face masks for everybody. And everybody already had them at home. It's part of the South Korean culture already.
7) A public who had already read all about how viruses spread (because of MERS). So an entire nation all pulling in the same direction.
8) Well prepared testing capabilities and routines. Their labs and procedures were already in place to quickly ramp up testing.

All of this takes planning and preparation. No other country stood a chance in hell to handle this as well as South Korea.

SARS, not MERS. And most other countries significantly deteriorated their chances by doing literally nothing for literally 10 weeks. An inquest into domestic mask production capacities and contacting garment producers to see what they'd need in order to vamp up mask production on short notice is something any Western government could easily have done in January, without creating panic. They chose not to, and now are scrambling to buy overpriced masks on a world market that just doesn't offer enough. And that's just one example.

 

[DrZoidberg]

They had an epidemiologist on TWIV for yesterdays episode who discussed what South Korea did right, that everybody else did wrong. It's important to realise that South Korea didn't shut down. They managed to contain it while society in general went on much as usual.

His take aways were these.

1) South Korea had had MERS. Which created political will to invest in preparing in advance.
2) They were prepared in advance.
3) Libertarians/anarchists won't like this one. They had passed a law to give the authorities free access to people's GPS's and credit card purchases. This made contagion tracking incredibly easy. And he argued, necessary. For a virus that spreads as sneakily as SARS Covid-2.
4) They had a type of social workers that checked up on people who self quarantined. Partly to check that they were respecting the self quarantine, but also... and here's a big factor... to help them do stuff they need doing... so they don't need to leave their homes, for any reason. They would also check up on people's mental health, and psychological online and phone support was provided. People who didn't respect the quarantined could be forced by the police.
5) An ample supply of personal protective gear for all health workers.
6) Compulsory face masks for everybody. And everybody already had them at home. It's part of the South Korean culture already.
7) A public who had already read all about how viruses spread (because of MERS). So an entire nation all pulling in the same direction.
8) Well prepared testing capabilities and routines. Their labs and procedures were already in place to quickly ramp up testing.

All of this takes planning and preparation. No other country stood a chance in hell to handle this as well as South Korea.

SARS, not MERS. And most other countries significantly deteriorated their chances by doing literally nothing for literally 10 weeks. An inquest into domestic mask production capacities and contacting garment producers to see what they'd need in order to vamp up mask production on short notice is something any Western government could easily have done in January, without creating panic. They chose not to, and now are scrambling to buy overpriced masks on a world market that just doesn't offer enough. And that's just one example.

He did say MERS and not SARS. So I think it was MERS he meant. And not SARS. And after googling, South Korea had a MERS outbreak in 2015. So I think that is what he was talking about.

I don't think the politicians in western countries could have done anything else. Without political support by the people a politician in a democratic country is fucked to do anything. The number one thing this epidemiologist cited was the fact that the authorities had access to credit card information and phone GPS tracking. That's politically sensitive to push through.

Not only did South Korea test more than any other country, their testing was highly focused. They knew exactly who and where to test. No other country (apart from China) had this information. Everybody else were basically flailing in the dark. Sweden, Denmark, Italy and France all stopped testing en masse because the information it generated was worthless. Because the rest of society wasn't adapted to use the information for useful containment purposes.

 

[Jokodo]

They had an epidemiologist on TWIV for yesterdays episode who discussed what South Korea did right, that everybody else did wrong. It's important to realise that South Korea didn't shut down. They managed to contain it while society in general went on much as usual.

His take aways were these.

1) South Korea had had MERS. Which created political will to invest in preparing in advance.
2) They were prepared in advance.
3) Libertarians/anarchists won't like this one. They had passed a law to give the authorities free access to people's GPS's and credit card purchases. This made contagion tracking incredibly easy. And he argued, necessary. For a virus that spreads as sneakily as SARS Covid-2.
4) They had a type of social workers that checked up on people who self quarantined. Partly to check that they were respecting the self quarantine, but also... and here's a big factor... to help them do stuff they need doing... so they don't need to leave their homes, for any reason. They would also check up on people's mental health, and psychological online and phone support was provided. People who didn't respect the quarantined could be forced by the police.
5) An ample supply of personal protective gear for all health workers.
6) Compulsory face masks for everybody. And everybody already had them at home. It's part of the South Korean culture already.
7) A public who had already read all about how viruses spread (because of MERS). So an entire nation all pulling in the same direction.
8) Well prepared testing capabilities and routines. Their labs and procedures were already in place to quickly ramp up testing.

All of this takes planning and preparation. No other country stood a chance in hell to handle this as well as South Korea.

SARS, not MERS. And most other countries significantly deteriorated their chances by doing literally nothing for literally 10 weeks. An inquest into domestic mask production capacities and contacting garment producers to see what they'd need in order to vamp up mask production on short notice is something any Western government could easily have done in January, without creating panic. They chose not to, and now are scrambling to buy overpriced masks on a world market that just doesn't offer enough. And that's just one example.

He did say MERS and not SARS. So I think it was MERS he meant. And not SARS. And after googling, South Korea had a MERS outbreak in 2015. So I think that is what he was talking about.

I don't think the politicians in western countries could have done anything else. Without political support by the people a politician in a democratic country is fucked to do anything. The number one thing this epidemiologist cited was the fact that the authorities had access to credit card information and phone GPS tracking. That's politically sensitive to push through.

Not only did South Korea test more than any other country, their testing was highly focused. They knew exactly who and where to test. No other country (apart from China) had this information. Everybody else were basically flailing in the dark. Sweden, Denmark, Italy and France all stopped testing en masse because the information it generated was worthless. Because the rest of society wasn't adapted to use the information for useful containment purposes.

My bad, it was MERS.

I mentioned a concrete thing the Danish, British, Austrian, Swedish government could have done in January which you simply ignored.

 

[DrZoidberg]

He did say MERS and not SARS. So I think it was MERS he meant. And not SARS. And after googling, South Korea had a MERS outbreak in 2015. So I think that is what he was talking about.

I don't think the politicians in western countries could have done anything else. Without political support by the people a politician in a democratic country is fucked to do anything. The number one thing this epidemiologist cited was the fact that the authorities had access to credit card information and phone GPS tracking. That's politically sensitive to push through.

Not only did South Korea test more than any other country, their testing was highly focused. They knew exactly who and where to test. No other country (apart from China) had this information. Everybody else were basically flailing in the dark. Sweden, Denmark, Italy and France all stopped testing en masse because the information it generated was worthless. Because the rest of society wasn't adapted to use the information for useful containment purposes.

My bad, it was MERS.

I mentioned a concrete thing the Danish, British, Austrian, Swedish government could have done in January which you simply ignored.

You sound very annoyed about something. It's anybody's guess as to what went on internally in our various countries parliaments. But if any goverment would have gone on a spending spree and bought a shit tonne of face masks that ended up not being necessary, I think voters would have been annoyed. Typically I think politicians have two modes.

1) Do nothing.
2) A show of strength.

A politician is essentially an actor. Politics is entertainment. What they can't afford to do is to show uncertainty or hesitation. So if there's any question about what the correct action is, doing anything would risk political suicide. So given the political environment within we in the west live, I think you are being unfairly critical of our politicians. Politics is the art of the possible. You're asking them to do things our system is designed to prevent. So I disagree... I don't think they could have done more.

It's like shaming the fat kid for not being as brave at flirting with girls as the athletic boys. It's just mean and pointless. They're not going to change. If you want it to change you need to change the whole incentive system in politics. In South Korea is was different, because everybody was already on board. The politicians had the mandate from the people. There was no need for debate. They just went ahead and did it because they knew everybody remembered the MERS situation.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Belarus has provided us with a natural experiment. They have not put any restrictions in place. People are still social distancing. But on their own initiative. When schools started buying face masks for the students, (on the schools own initiative) the country's president stopped it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Belarus

While awful for the Belarussians, it will provide us with good data on how it would have gone if we did nothing.

 

[Jokodo]

He did say MERS and not SARS. So I think it was MERS he meant. And not SARS. And after googling, South Korea had a MERS outbreak in 2015. So I think that is what he was talking about.

I don't think the politicians in western countries could have done anything else. Without political support by the people a politician in a democratic country is fucked to do anything. The number one thing this epidemiologist cited was the fact that the authorities had access to credit card information and phone GPS tracking. That's politically sensitive to push through.

Not only did South Korea test more than any other country, their testing was highly focused. They knew exactly who and where to test. No other country (apart from China) had this information. Everybody else were basically flailing in the dark. Sweden, Denmark, Italy and France all stopped testing en masse because the information it generated was worthless. Because the rest of society wasn't adapted to use the information for useful containment purposes.

My bad, it was MERS.

I mentioned a concrete thing the Danish, British, Austrian, Swedish government could have done in January which you simply ignored.

You sound very annoyed about something. It's anybody's guess as to what went on internally in our various countries parliaments. But if any goverment would have gone on a spending spree and bought a shit tonne of face masks that ended up not being necessary, I think voters would have been annoyed. Typically I think politicians have two modes.

Buying a shit tonne of face masks while they were still cheap, or talking with domestic garment producers what it would take them to switch production to face masks, would barely have registered with the public, certainly not enough to significantly annoy voters.

1) Do nothing.
2) A show of strength.

A politician is essentially an actor. Politics is entertainment. What they can't afford to do is to show uncertainty or hesitation. So if there's any question about what the correct action is, doing anything would risk political suicide.

And yet politics routinely demands dams to be built in a way that they can withstand a once-in-a-century storm and worse, and I'm not aware of any politician that got ousted for demanding this. More generally, I highly doubt that erring on the side of caution is tantamount to political suicide. Can you give a specific example?

So given the political environment within we in the west live, I think you are being unfairly critical of our politicians. Politics is the art of the. You're asking them to do things our system is designed to prevent. So I disagree... I don't think they could have done more.

If you think the system is designed to force politicians to not do anything ever unless the public loudly demands it, can't we just do away with parliament and the gouvernment and do all our decisions through facebook polls?

I don't think you understand what the system is designed to achieve.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Sweden still has severe shortages of personal protective gear for health care workers. Workers are often handling patients without gloves. It's a complete shit show still. A big reason is because the abysmal handling of the 2015 refugee crisis, that burned a hole in budgets. They still have not recovered financially. And now this. They're broke and are up shit creek.

 

[Keith&Co.]

A woman in the supermarket had a mask on, strung ftom ear yo ear, but pushed up on top of her head like sunglasses.
Kind of useless. Not sure what the point would be.
But, i thought, she is alone in the shampoo aisle. Maybe she intends to lower it for interactions?
Later, saw her at checkout, leaning in to hand cash to the cashier. Nope. Mask was still raised to full mast on her hair.
I dunno, maybe she's a Gorgon? Her head snakes are protected from virii?

 

[TSwizzle]

While awful for the Belarussians, it will provide us with good data on how it would have gone if we did nothing.

I think doing something was the right thing to do initially. i.e. the lockdown was probably the right decision at the time. However, as things unfold and we see who are bearing the brunt of this pandemic in economic terms and who are the casualties of the pandemic (i.e elderly people in care homes etc), it seems that the lockdown as it stands now, is not doing much good. We have effectively trashed the economy (and continue to do so), thrown millions out of work and into poverty from which they may never recover to protect a small segment of society. We have used a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Moving forward it seems clear who needs to be protected and that is where the focus should be. In some cities in California, the elderly in care homes and nursing homes are as much as 70% of the deaths. But our insufferable prick of a governor is determined that young people should not enjoy the beach.

 

[Angry Floof]

I don't know how the "yEr nOT tEh bOsS oF mE" crowd thinks the economy will be fine when workers fall sick and die.

Sweden still has severe shortages of personal protective gear for health care workers. Workers are often handling patients without gloves. It's a complete shit show still. A big reason is because the abysmal handling of the 2015 refugee crisis, that burned a hole in budgets. They still have not recovered financially. And now this. They're broke and are up shit creek.

More emphasis on staying home and social distancing in 2020 would have helped. No need to go back five years.

 

[blastula]

They had an epidemiologist on TWIV for yesterdays episode who discussed what South Korea did right, that everybody else did wrong. It's important to realise that South Korea didn't shut down. They managed to contain it while society in general went on much as usual.

Maybe they weren't as locked down as other countries, but they did so some locking down.

Commitment, transparency pay off as South Korea limits COVID-19 spread – EURACTIV.com

South Korean authorities banned large gatherings, shut down educational institutions and other public spaces – such as parks, sports facilities and daycare centres – and cancelled all major sports events soon after discovering the first major eruption of disease in the country, in the southeastern city of Daegu.

In Seoul, a city of 9.7 million, public spaces were closed and protests banned as early as on 21 February, when the number of infections across the country was just 150. The total number stands at more than 8,000 currently.