outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

xpost. Oh ha, I thought he sounded overly optimistic. I guess he was just being factual.

Also this:

Q: Aren’t the two initial symptoms most commonly fever and dry cough?

Bruce Aylward:

Right. [But many still think] it’s a runny nose and cold. Your population is your surveillance system. Everybody has got a smartphone, everybody can get a thermometer. That is your surveillance system. Don’t rely on this hitting your health system, because then it’s going to infect it. You’ve got this great surveillance system out there — make sure the surveillance system is primed. Make sure you’re ready to act on the signals that come in from that surveillance system. You’ve got to be set up to rapidly assess whether or not they really have those symptoms, test those people, and, if necessary, isolate and trace their contacts.

Here, again, is where I’ve seen things starting to break down. What I’ve been told is if you think you’ve been exposed and have a fever, call your [general practitioner]. We’ve got to be better than that. If we are going to use our GPs — do they have an emergency line where you can get through? Do they know what to do?

In China, they have set up a giant network of fever hospitals. In some areas, a team can go to you and swab you and have an answer for you in four to seven hours. But you’ve got to be set up — speed is everything.

throwing away my secret hopes this would finally be the disease one cures by eating cacio e pepe for every meal

beginning to wonder if I had this back at the beginning of February

please let us know if you progress to mid-wonder so we may divest all stock holdings

maybe you will know if you have it if you *don't* crave cacio e pepe.

oops now I crave cacio e pepe

i am going to make a mask of it to wear.

sorry guys I ruined SXSW, who wants cacio e pepe

Theres a case in Chile now, Yerac. In Talca tho, not Santiago

in the clear so far! no one will come looking for me. Maybe if i keep my blood alcohol content above a certain amount that will keep me sanitized from the inside.

just imagine. an entire case of cacio e pepe.

Yeah, no, sorry. Not gonna do "My Corona."

— Al Yankovic (@alyankovic) March 3, 2020

Joey Corona wept

xpost Presumably because he's working on his Steely Dan lampoon 'Covid-19'.

Our whole (tech) company is working from home on Friday, in preparation.

how many deaths am i willing to accept in exchange for the destruction of open-plan offices

probably just as well i don't get to decide

Given a) the advanced age/infirmity of an alarming number of my coworkers and b) our management's incredibly stupid mid-20th Century insistence that EVERYONE work in the actual office a certain number of days/week (or in the case of yrs truly all five of those days), I am 100% certain that my workplace will be m/l responsible for at least one death in the event that we get hit with this thing.

leadership continuing to tell us it's business as usual but considering my anxiety level I am probably just gonna work from fucking home tomorrow at least

12 of 30 first responders at the Kirkland nursing home have flu-like symptoms. Beast of a bug.

I will say ease of transmission is something that could use a little clarification from officials. I've seen it reported that it is actually harder to transmit than the regular flu, but I don't know if that is old information.

i'm not sure they actually know

i was under the impression it manifests as pneumonia? or was that only early reports.

While the USA refuses to test people because it's too expensive, in Spain they're retroactively testing people who died of pneumonia recently. They discovered the virus had arrived earlier than previously known. https://t.co/efeXYbmQaH

— It's a-me, Mario! (@Mario_Vilas) March 3, 2020

fuuuck

this isn't the disease to do it but later on in years we'll be the first nation to fall due to everybody dying due to livign not being cost effective

uh

every now and again lads, every now and again.....eesh

ilxors showing the strain of simultaneous election angst, pandemic angst, and economic crash angst. it can emerge as odd squeaks.

i am not worried about everybody dying at all.

I'm positively eager for some cases.

I'm getting in on the new Australian tradition of stockpiling TP, but only because I needed something to tip me over the free delivery threshold from the organic grocers.

xp there it is

sanpaku slathering himself with purell in his basement cleanroom asking Siri about casualty figures

hot

that is strangely hot.

ha! xpost.

The White House would not allow audio or video of today’s federal coronavirus response news conference https://t.co/d2xc7vrtqV

— Jon Passantino (@passantino) March 3, 2020

....ok

No doubt they didn't want any clips going vi ...

My online customer service job just sent out an email saying they are taking the threat seriously, along with a fact sheet and tips about avoiding people who are sick, staying home if not feeling well, etc. They hasten to add, of course, that there's no need to change the harsh attendance policy. (Without a doctor's note, an unplanned absence is three points; it takes six months for a single point to fall off one's record. Nine points is termination. We don't get sick days, so to get paid, must use our limited PTO retroactively.)

So, of course, very few employees will actually stay home, especially if they can't manage to drag themselves into a doctor's for a note. No doubt people have similar circumstances throughout the service industry.

that is strangely hot.

Well, at the least it would probably sting a lot.

Very normal WH behavior, certain to quell fears and keep the stock market securely rocketing into the stratosphere.

My daughter's high school has a very strict absentee policy, basically 12 days max, for any reason. Well, *had* a very strict policy, because we got an email telling us that starting tomorrow they would prefer sick people just stay home, thank you very much.

ok fuck management, I'm wfh from tomorrow until TBD, only a matter of time before they tell us to do that anyway

i also expect to get an email sometime later this week instructing everyone to work from home if possible

the US response is awful. no leadership.

the supposed "leader" of the response is a guy famous for being a completely empty vessel of a man, and they won't even allow their press conferences on the topic to be recorded. it's fucking pathetic

the silby is not in your place

surely pence worried an audiovisual stimulus of his likeness in complete control of the situation might cause too many to stray

or if he is secretly dying of coronavirus, same thing but for a different set of people

if trump and pence die of coronavirus the US will have its first woman president

and coronavirus will be the first illness democratic nominee

But if just Trump dies of coronavirus and Pence becomes president, he will suddenly look like the fearless leader who piloted us through this national emergency.