outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

afaics, all food processing that requires workers standing at a conveyor belt performing hand-processing will present the same problems as pork or poultry processing plants. Here in Oregon, one frozen food plant that processes field-harvested vegetables, and a seafood plant that processes ocean-harvested seafood have been hot spots, cited for unsafe working conditions, but no meat-processing plants. Many non-food manufacturing plants have not become hot spots for the simple reason their assembly lines are shut.

if i understand what you're saying, you think that meat processing plants are no more dangerous to workers than non-meat processing plants?

i honestly can't respond to that with certainty. i know for certain what factory farm meat processing facilities look like, and i understand why they're dangerous. i tried to look up, just now, what it looks like inside of food processing plants that don't involve meat. as you might expect, it seems to vary widely depending on the product.

all i know is that in all of the coverage about how nationwide, meat processing plants have been popping up as hotspots, it's almost always emphasized that it's meat. if the conditions in meat and non-meat processing facilities are the same, it would be very odd for this pattern of covid19 infections to emerge in just the meat facilities:

Case numbers spike in meatpacking cities
Across the country, production at meatpacking plants and other food processing centers has slowed or stopped because of large outbreaks, including one at a Smithfield facility in South Dakota that sickened more than 1,000 people and three at Tyson facilities in Iowa that sickened hundreds of people.

The Times has identified more than 100 food processing facilities across the country with coronavirus outbreaks. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at least 4,900 meat and poultry processing workers had been infected across 19 states, and at least 20 had died. Though outbreaks have been reported in every region of the country, the rural Midwest and South have been especially hard hit.

Some companies, including Smithfield, have refused to answer even basic questions about the size of their outbreaks. And in some places, state and local health officials have also been silent. In Kansas, state officials said there were more than 2,100 meatpacking-related cases and six deaths spread across 10 clusters, but they refused to name those facilities. In Nebraska, where the National Guard has helped with the mass-testing of meatpacking workers, state and local officials have often refused to provide details. Officials in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina, among other places, have also not provided that information.

Small counties with large meatpacking industries have reported some of the country’s highest numbers of cases per capita. In Nobles County, Minn., 631 workers at a pork processing plant have tested positive. In Cass County, Ind., where at least 900 Tyson workers tested positive, the number of known cases surged from roughly 50 to more than 1,400 over three weeks. And in Dakota County, Neb., which has the second-highest per capita infection rate of any American county, roughly one of every 13 residents has tested positive.

The outbreaks have proved devastating to the immigrant communities that often supply much of the labor at those plants, as well as to the farmers who depend on the facilities for their livelihoods.

Mr. Trump recently declared the meatpacking plants to be critical infrastructure, part of an effort to keep the facilities open. But restaurants have already reported meat shortages, many grocery stores have imposed quotas on meat purchases and some farmers have euthanized animals they could not take to market. In central Nebraska, the mayor of Grand Island called for federal help testing employees of his city’s hard-hit JBS USA beef processing plant. And in Illinois, where there have been multiple meatpacking outbreaks, Attorney General Kwame Raoul called for federal action to keep workers safe.

“This executive order lacks meaningful safety measures and puts workers at processing plants at risk,” said Mr. Raoul, a Democrat.

(yes, i know that article refers to "other food processing centers" as well. but in almost all the specific examples that have emerged, at least that i've seen it's a meatpacking plant)

you think that meat processing plants are no more dangerous to workers than non-meat processing plants?

When you speak of "dangerous" I will presume you are speaking of the danger of spreading covid-19, not the dangers of wielding razor sharp knives or being spattered by fecal matter. In which case, I would expect a major difference in the danger of contracting covid-19 between the Oregon frozen vegetable processing plant and the Smithfield or Tyson plants would be sheer size and number of workers crammed together.

a Smithfield facility in South Dakota that sickened more than 1,000 people and three at Tyson facilities in Iowa that sickened hundreds of people.

The Oregon processors could not begin to duplicate those kinds of numbers, if only because nowhere near those numbers were employed there. Much like the super spreader in the Korean mega-church, one highly infectious person is going to spread the virus more widely in a factory employing 5000 workers than in one employing 80. It's still just one infectious person, but the opportunities are far greater.

lol

After Coronavirus, Office Workers Might Face Unexpected Health Threats

Stagnant plumbing systems in emptied commercial buildings could put returning employees at risk of Legionnaires’ and other illnesses.

I'm in tune with citing meat consumption as a major problem in global warming. Factory farming is often cruel, too. But trying to use the current pandemic to indict meat-eating by playing on the fact that covid-19 is zoonotic is very special pleading that would never originate from an epidemiologist, because the causal link being flogged here is far too weak to support the argument.

― A is for (Aimless), Thursday, May 21, 2020 10:57 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

although we don't have any reason to think that covid originated from factory farming it was the likely source of H1N1 (overcrowded pigs in Mexico).

there's a book called "big farms make big flu" which I had in my hold queue at the library before the libraries were shut by covid - which argues that factory farming not only makes pandemics more likely but in fact inextricably leads to virus evolution

xp to aimless

the full op-ed is behind a paywall so i understand if you haven't read it, but i guess i'd just say that the "zoonotic origins" mention was not a major component of his argument against eating meat

Stagnant plumbing systems in emptied commercial buildings could put returning employees at risk of Legionnaires’ and other illnesses

Soooo fucking glad I'm not office bound

i'd just say that the "zoonotic origins" mention was not a major component of his argument against eating meat

there are many good arguments against eating meat, especially as a daily part of one's diet, but the zoonotic origins of pandemics is very weak and given how many good arguments can be made, totally unnecessary to raise at all.

factory farming it was the likely source of H1N1 (overcrowded pigs in Mexico)

if, by "source" you mean a reservoir of infection from which the H1N1 jumped to the human population, that seems reasonable. if by "source" you mean that H1N1 did not exist until it originated among those pigs, that would be incorrect.

as for virus evolution, crowding can be a factor that allows a new viral variant to easily spread within a local population, by ensuring a continuous chain of transmission. Bats seem to be a perfect model for this, too, but bats don't interact with humans as much as domesticated animals do.

Spock, what are the odds of getting a royal fizzbin?

My tricorder is giving a surprising result, Captain, I’m afraid I will need to consult with the ship’s computer.

copy that

readings are all over the place due to the ion fizzbin

Interesting read on how covid clusters and doesn't spread uniformly https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/why-do-some-covid-19-patients-infect-many-others-whereas-most-don-t-spread-virus-all#

What has Australia done that has worked so well? Anything different than the well-known strategies (stay at home, masks, etc.)? In early March, when I was tracking the Worldometer page closely, Canada and Australia were moving in lockstep for about a week. Canada has done a good job throughout this, but I noticed this morning that Australia has virtually eradicated COVID--almost nothing for the past month. Seems like this should be a huge story.

http://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/australia/

Australia is huge and doesn't have as many people in it? Just guessing here.

True, but that applies to Canada, too--it made sense to me early on that we would track similarly because our countries are so similar geographically.

Checked, and we're almost next to each other on the world's population density list: Canada's 187th, Australia 192nd. (We're ahead in raw population, 38M to 25M.)

Most Australians live in about six cities, irrespective of how large the land mass is.

The short answer seems to be early border closures and huge amounts of testing.

I have no science to back this up by the UV is brutal down here (and worse in New Zealand); does that kill more virus out in the environment?

Locked borders and mandatory quarantine for arrivals came in pretty early, but on the other hand we had a direct flight to Wuhan right through Chinese New Year and generally a lot of Chinese (and other) tourists through the summer Lockdown hasn’t been severe and people have been pretty shit at distancing, very few masks out there, but lockdown started early in terms of the curve.

Did we get exposed to a less virulent strain than the one that spread through Europe and the US?

Most Australians live in about six cities

We're a little bit like that, though probably not as extreme: our six biggest cities account for 40% of our population. (Toronto and Montreal account for about a quarter.)

Did we get exposed to a less virulent strain than the one that spread through Europe and the US?

I wonder if there's some validity to that.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52754280

UK scientists are to begin testing a treatment that it is hoped could counter the effects of Covid-19 in the most seriously ill patients.

It has been found those with the most severe form of the disease have extremely low numbers of an immune cell called a T-cell.

T-cells clear infection from the body.

The clinical trial will evaluate if a drug called interleukin 7, known to boost T-cell numbers, can aid patients' recovery.

It involves scientists from the Francis Crick Institute, King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital.

They have looked at immune cells in the blood of 60 Covid-19 patients and found an apparent crash in the numbers of T-cells.

Prof Adrian Hayday from the Crick Institute said it was a "great surprise" to see what was happening with the immune cells.

"They're trying to protect us, but the virus seems to be doing something that's pulling the rug from under them, because their numbers have declined dramatically.

The researchers say these findings pave the way for them to develop a "fingerprint test" to check the levels of T-cells in the blood which could provide early indications of who might go on to develop more severe disease.

But it also provides the possibility for a specific treatment to reverse that immune cell decline.

Manu Shankar-Hari, a critical care consultant at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital, said that around 70% of patients that he sees in intensive care with Covid-19 arrive with between 400-800 lymphocytes per microlitre. "When they start to recover, their lymphocyte level also starts to go back up," he added.

We've been testing like crazy, that's the big thing. My state has had 1 case in the last 4 weeks, but they're still doing thousands of tests.

This would in theory explain the very broad range of reactions to the virus, I guess? (xpost)

We're a little bit like that, though probably not as extreme: our six biggest cities account for 40% of our population. (Toronto and Montreal account for about a quarter.)

40% of the Australian population live in Sydney or Melbourne. In all the top 6 cities account for two-thirds of the Australian population.

.. I feel like I had a similar conversation to this on here recently?

clearly the UK is controlled by Big Tea

And Big Tea is controlled by Jews or Muslims apparently:

https://www.newsweek.com/covid-19-conspiracy-theories-england-1505899

At least they've separated England out from the rest of the UK there.

Can't say I'm surprised:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/may/22/hydroxychloroquine-trumps-covid-19-cure-increases-deaths-global-study-finds

Hope Trump dies from taking it

Independent Armed 70-year-old tried to steal helicopter so he could fly to a hospital and free quarantined coronavirus patients

Police in Michigan have arrested an armed 70-year-old man who allegedly plotted to steal a US Coast Guard helicopter and rescue hospitalised coronavirus patients.

Arenac County Central Dispatch warned police about Mr McFadden’s motives, with concerns that he was an ex-Michigan Militia member armed with guns.

So according to the figures here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus, the US should be officially hitting 100,000 deaths some time this weekend. Is this a notable figure now or has the media spotlight moved on? Seems like it should be at least vaguely significant, I dunno.

CNN's web page will have a screaming headline, guaranteed. I don't mean to minimize the tragedy of these deaths--but CNN will treat it like the number 100,000 dropped out of the sky from nowhere, as opposed to a slow, steady march to that inevitable benchmark.

And a slow steady march right past it, 1200 or 1400 a day for the foreseeable.

A quarter of French people would refuse to be vaccinated against the rona.

We are full of dummies here too.

i hear people are really going back to normal in France. dinner parties, shopping, etc. My parents in law are never home.

Le Monde had a good rundown of the Bill Gates microchip antivax conspiracy theory this morning and how it permeated the francosphere. Turns out Juliette Binoche subscribes to it as well.

Meanwhile, in Eastern Europe:

https://www.rferl.org/a/moldova-s-orthodox-church-lashes-out-at-anti-christ-plot-to-develop-virus-vaccine/30624250.html

"Turns out Juliette Binoche subscribes to it as well."

Y do u break heart? :'-(

💔

So over her >:(

tbh the UK and France being full of heid-the-ba's doesn't really surprise me.

Isabelle Adjani has been peddling anti-vaxxer garbage since 2017, so Juliette Binoche is in good company.

Yeah I just watched a bus go by packed with people, like pressed up against the glass. These are certainly not commuters. wishing this crisis over does not make it so.

This belief in magical protection from harm seems to me like a fascinating manifestation of white/western privilege, a subconscious acceptance that the world is arranged to provide for your personal safety.

It kinda feels like the general attitude is rapidly shifting towards 'the weather's getting nicer so the pandemic is over, right?'. Can't wait to spend another several months in lockdown after cases spike again a few weeks from now.

it's just like how when hurricanes come and people say "it's not coming here" and think that saying "it's not coming here" will make it not come here.

(I'm one of those people that rails against hurricane hysteria but mostly at those civilians that misinterpret hurricane forecasts as being fixed in stone and don't know what a 'cone of uncertainty' is).

on the plus side, if we have one this year, we're already hunkered down.

Cone of Uncertainty is the name of my String Cheese Incident tribute band

This belief in magical protection from harm seems to me like a fascinating manifestation of white/western privilege, a subconscious acceptance that the world is arranged to provide for your personal safety.

Euler is in Paris which is a long way from being a 'white' city tbh.