COVID-19 thread

[Raphael]

Here's a video of Cuomo from today. Not the one I originally saw, but the content seems similar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2khIjJuLHI

For the record, Cuomo is generally seen as one of the most pro-Wall-Street Democrats even by some people who are on the supposedly "establishment" side of the "Sanders vs Establishment" divide, but, well, when he's right, he's right.

[Pabappa]

Ive gained a new respect for Amato's, a local restaurant chain that I criticized a few years ago for being overpriced. Their prices have risen less than competing chains lately, and their food is good .... they served me my first hot meal .... in fact, my first meal .... when I was sick and hadnt had solid food for four days. And now that we're in quarantine, they apparently are one of the few restaurants allowed to remain open to the public, because they also sell groceries. I dont know if that exception will hold, but for the time being, I plan to keep going there.

[chris_notts]

Here's a video of Cuomo from today. Not the one I originally saw, but the content seems similar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2khIjJuLHI

For the record, Cuomo is generally seen as one of the most pro-Wall-Street Democrats even by some people who are on the supposedly "establishment" side of the "Sanders vs Establishment" divide, but, well, when he's right, he's right.

As I said, I know nothing about him in general really, but he comes across as being on top of the corona virus issue.

[Jonlang]

I'm genuinely terrified about catching this virus. I work for Her Majesty's Prison Service and am one of Boris' "key workers" so I am expected to work as normal. I have asthma and a compromised immune system (my immune system has tried to kill me in the past).

[Raphael]

The latest news seems to be that one researcher in the UK who had made predictions about how many people would die if the UK wouldn't do anything, has now made new predictions about a lot fewer deaths based on the fact that the UK has started to do something, and a lot of people on the Internet who seem to have trouble understanding the meaning of the words "if" and "then" are jumping on that to claim that everyone who predicted bad things has supposedly been "proven" wrong.

[chris_notts]

Anyone know where Joe Biden is? You'd think the almost certain challenger to Trump would have something to say loudly and frequently about how badly he's handling it.

[Raphael]

Sending out various videos, which his opponents don't pay attention to because it's more convenient for them to pretend he's doing nothing.

[chris_notts]

A test for corona antibodies is being reported as a way to "get people back to work" and will apparently be available very soon:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... th-england

The idea is that if you have the antibodies you've already acquired immunity so can safely go back to normal life.

I'm not sure quite how it helps immediately though. Unless there are a very large number of undetected cases, right now the vast majority of people haven't had it, and therefore cannot be safely exempted from restrictions without accelerating the spread again. I can see how this test might be useful in a few months, but is having it now going to do much for 99% of the population?

[Raphael]

And I think I remember hearing of cases where people who already had it apparently "caught it again".

[Richard W]

I'm genuinely terrified about catching this virus. I work for Her Majesty's Prison Service and am one of Boris' "key workers" so I am expected to work as normal. I have asthma and a compromised immune system (my immune system has tried to kill me in the past).

Were you expecting to get the letter telling you to stay home for 12 weeks? (As opposed to the text baldly telling you to stay home.)

[Raphael]

You do all realize that, when this is all over, there will almost certainly be a lot of right-wingers who caught Covid-19, were among the high percentage of people who survived it and recovered, and got even more insufferable as a result, right?

This might be one of the first examples of what I was predicting:

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/st ... ffle-house

[chris_notts]

I'm genuinely terrified about catching this virus. I work for Her Majesty's Prison Service and am one of Boris' "key workers" so I am expected to work as normal. I have asthma and a compromised immune system (my immune system has tried to kill me in the past).

Were you expecting to get the letter telling you to stay home for 12 weeks? (As opposed to the text baldly telling you to stay home.)

Were they sending letters? I'm really not sure how they would identify everyone "at risk". My wife has asthma, repeated chest infections and had a case of pneumonia a couple of years ago that required a brief hospital stay, and she's very worried right now. She's also yet to receive any kind of letter, despite these facts being known to our GP.

[Raphael]

Here's hoping that jonlang and chris_notts wife, and all others, stay ok.

[zompist]

This might be one of the first examples of what I was predicting:

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/st ... ffle-house

And this might be the first examples of one of my predictions: musician/evangelist Landon Spradlin posted a couple of week ago that the virus was "mass hysteria" designed to harm Trump, and "the Spirit of God" would protect believers from "germs."

He died yesterday from Covid19.

The reality distortion field placed by right-wingers is strong— this won't change their minds. But the point is... the virus doesn't care. And unlike climate change, this is a problem where denial will cause deaths in a matter of weeks, not decades.

[Ares Land]

@Jonlang, @chris_notts,

I'm sorry to hear that. That's insane, and bordering on the criminally insane. Any chance of reaching out to HR and explaining the situation?

@Raphael:

As for second contaminations, at this point we really don't know, I believe. There have been some reports of people getting reinfected, but apparently they were testing errors (in other words, they were still infected). On the other hand, immunity is fairly short-lived with other coronaviruses. As usual, I'm not a doctor, so take anything I say with a grain of salt.

[Raphael]

This might be one of the first examples of what I was predicting:

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/st ... ffle-house

And this might be the first examples of one of my predictions: musician/evangelist Landon Spradlin posted a couple of week ago that the virus was "mass hysteria" designed to harm Trump, and "the Spirit of God" would protect believers from "germs."

He died yesterday from Covid19.

The reality distortion field placed by right-wingers is strong— this won't change their minds. But the point is... the virus doesn't care. And unlike climate change, this is a problem where denial will cause deaths in a matter of weeks, not decades.

No disagreement there.

Ars Lande: Ah, thank you, good to know!

[Ares Land]

Small lockdown notes. I had to get out today for work-related reasons. (Long story short, it turns out IT security stll trumps pandemics as priorities go).
Well, I know about the ' We are the problem' meme... But I don't miss atmospheric pollution one bit, and it's gonna take a while to get used to noise again. Also, apparently birds aren't afraid of humans anymore. A crow I met on my way was utterly uninterested in the strange featherless biped approaching it, even when I was so close I could touch it. It was a little eerie. I mean, does it know something I don't?

[chris_notts]

Small lockdown notes. I had to get out today for work-related reasons. (Long story short, it turns out IT security stll trumps pandemics as priorities go).
Well, I know about the ' We are the problem' meme... But I don't miss atmospheric pollution one bit, and it's gonna take a while to get used to noise again. Also, apparently birds aren't afraid of humans anymore. A crow I met on my way was utterly uninterested in the strange featherless biped approaching it, even when I was so close I could touch it. It was a little eerie. I mean, does it know something I don't?

Well, the corvids and covids are only one letter away from each other....

[zompist]

Here's a good article from Vox that (in its second half) talks about what happens after lockdown.

Briefly: testing, testing, testing. You don't get anywhere without knowing exactly where the virus is, and isn't. And when you have enough testing, you can do social tracing.

The lockdown is partly to keep the infection rate down, and not overwhelm the health care system. But it's also a way of buying time— time to ramp up testing, ramp up production of health care supplies, and of course look for medicines and a vaccine.

Sadly, we're likely to have a lot of natural experiments as countries or states decide to handle the virus responsibly, or irresponsibly. It's already quite clear that "responsibly" does better (cf. South Korea), but a lot of people will insist on trying the other route.

[chris_notts]

But I don't miss atmospheric pollution one bit, and it's gonna take a while to get used to noise again.

Two weeks of home working and barely going out in, and I'm still mostly enjoying it. Working from home every day immediately cuts 1.5 hours of driving per day out of my schedule, which I can use to play with my son, garden, etc. And as you say, there's been a massive improvement in road noise pollution, and noise from the train station not too far from us. Quality of life is good so far, but that's mostly because we have access to a reasonable amount of outside space. If I lived in a house without a garden and also wasn't really allowed to spend much time in nearby parks I'd go crazy.

To be honest, what this has shown me is that a fairly large reduction in consumption would not be the end of the world in a rich country like the UK, as long as the distribution issue and fair access to resources is solved. The big challenge / problem is that, under the current system, if there's a recession or an economic hit then millions of people, mostly poorer anyway, get thrown under the bus.

The current semi-secret solution of the UK government, which in normal times they claim is not available to fix distribution and debt issues, is basically to print money by having the Bank of England buy government bonds in the primary market. This is, of course, a special case, and shouldn't give the plebs any ideas for future economic crises. Funny how there is no magic money tree until the rich and powerful want there to be one.