outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

If people are worried about a disaster scenario where they run out of water, it would make more sense to get five-gallon jugs and fill them up with tap water, rather than buy up cases of bottled water.

Locally, there are so many water line breaches in the old infrastructure that we get "boil water" advisories every 6 months lately. I've just refilled some gallon jugs with tap for that, and for hurricane season.

https://www.isitcanceledyet.com

I've arranged to see my mother tomorrow, who gets by fine-ish most days but has an ever-growing number of complications from decades of chronic illness - we still have some Christmas presents to deliver, so it's a long overdue visit, already repeatedly postponed due to some non-COVID health concerns and practical inconveniences - and now I'm listening to certain coworkers coughing a lot and hoping I'm not asymptomatically carrying any plagues to see the family

(it's pretty unlikely, and I finally decided to sort it out ASAP because I figure the risk is only going to go up from here on in tbh :| - just wanted somewhere to voice my anxiety among people who mostly take both a) this thing and b) anxiety seriously, I guess)

My mom is a retired MD who travels a lot and is in her '70s. Currently she is not concerned in the least. She's pretty blasé about it, in fact. She's a pediatrician, and she told me that 200 kids have died of the regular flu this year alone, and across all age groups, per the CDC, "So far, 16,000 people have died and 280,000 people have been hospitalized during the 2019-2020 flu season." That's the flu, it happens every year, and not many people freak out about it. This could get worse, and maybe it is worse, but we deal with death and disease and viruses every year and few people give it a moment's notice.

Re: air travel, no idea if it is related to current events, but we just found round trip tickets to LA this summer for $130. I'm going to spend all my savings on health care and toilet paper.

Starting Monday, March 9, classes at UW campuses will no longer be meeting in person thru the end of winter quarter March 20. Campuses will remain OPEN. This action is to support social-distancing steps the region is taking to fight #COVID19. More here: https://t.co/Gr0eGivlWG

— University of Washington (@UW) March 6, 2020

Is that Comic Con there still on?

an old buddy is an md working at a municipal clinic in Brooklyn. he had his first coronavirus patient yesterday. he says that they're still trying to work out protocols on how to care for these patients, but that apparently heart health seems importantly linked to mortality risk with it. I'd been hearing about lung health but not heart until now.

Josh it hasn’t been canceled but a bunch of large and small exhibitors have bowed out. It should really be cancelled but lol capitalism.

As I understand it at least they are offering full refunds, which is more than South by Southwest is doing. SXSW is offering nothing.

Wondering if MoCCA comix festival in NYC, next month, will be cancelled

xxpost The virus has been hitting the elderly the hardest, and in the best of circumstances I assume many of them have heart as well as lung concerns.

having a heart confirmed once again to be a weakness

I bet if they run the numbers they'll find at least a correlation with hearing loss, too.

This action is to support social-distancing...

I read that as social-dancing at first.

NEW - from @alexismadrigal and me

After gathering data from all 50 states, and surveying dozens of local officials, we can only verify that 1,895 Americans have been tested for coronavirus https://t.co/PWWbE6z8AE

— Robinson Meyer (@yayitsrob) March 6, 2020

lol

"I don’t know what went wrong"

New politics thread title.

“The CDC got this right with H1N1 and Zika, and produced huge quantities of test kits that went around the country,” Thomas Frieden, the director of the CDC from 2009 to 2017, told us. “I don’t know what went wrong this time.”

Hmmm, I wonder ...

was just reading that.

azar might be the fall guy, but any of them could be responsible. it looks like a management disaster, just incompetent people not even sure about the job they're supposed to do, not realizing (or caring?) that they were actually in charge of certain crucial tasks, or how the organizational mandates of CDC/FDA/HHS overlap

Re: air travel, no idea if it is related to current events, but we just found round trip tickets to LA this summer for $130. I'm going to spend all my savings on health care and toilet paper.

Looking at flights for my sister to come visit me in April, few weeks ago CHI->PHX was $380. Now it's $150.

Paris - Nashville and back currently under €1000 in Business Class with BA at the moment, though two of their staff just tested positive, so roll the dice I guess.

One of the UK’s major airlines has already gone down. Norwegian Airlines is looking shaky.

Airline tickets: buy! buy! buy!

Are you at the end of your rope? Are you dying to get away? The Florida Keys are waiting for you!

If you're out of luck or out of work, we could send you to Johannesburg!

I've got a good friend on Stanford's medical faculty essentially pulled off a flight to Europe and South Africa because the school has apparently more or less grounded all faculty, staff and students.

Bad time to be a Tool fan:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/06/man-with-coronavirus-went-to-packed-rock-concert-at-new-zealand-arena

I see that the U. of Washington Seattle has cancelled all classes for the near future.

Nope. Moved to the internet. We just wrapped up an enterprise Zoom license for the whole campus a couple days ago.

I mean functionally some instructors will be too doddering to successfully conduct class on Zoom but the idea is to continue instruction.

I'm signed up for an education program there that starts at the end of the month and includes an internship in a middle school. I wonder what will happen there. I'm tempted to drop out just to be on the safe side but who knows?

My wife has to go to SXSW (she is hoping it is delayed or cancelled). Almost right after that is when we all go as a family to Maui. Obviously if she were infected in Texas (that would be a great name for an album) she wouldn't know, and might not know for weeks. Likewise all of us in Maui. You can't just not go anywhere forever, so the best we can do is follow the news and see if there was any overt risk to exposure in Austin, or for that matter Maui, then act accordingly when we get home. Which I guess would mean self-quarantine (which would also be a great able title).

But this is all hypothetical, because as of yet there is no more risk for her there than there is for her or us here.

supposedly SXSW's insurance only kicks in if they're *forced* to cancel by like government decree, which is why they're being dicks about it

infected in Texas,
sequestered in Memphis

Hah

I just saw her
in quarantine
just saw her
getting her hands clean
do you know what I mean?

just got back from Illinois
lock the front door, oh boy!
got to sit down, take a self-quarantine

health dept in my county just released info that 140 ppl in the county are currently under quarantine, also news that 350 students from the local university studying abroad in "high risk areas" are being flown back here for quarantine. Had some travel to NYC planned for next month that I was about to cancel, now wondering if its any riskier than where I am now, tbh

At last, ECCCCCCC postponed, that’s a relief

https://dangerousminds.net/content/uploads/images/made/content/uploads/images/mad166printid_TCJp64_465_618_int.jpg

just got back from Illinois
lock the front door, oh boy!
got to sit down, take a self-quarantine

Dinosaur coronas,
infectious like Buck Owens.

Comic con finally postponed till summer.

More like comic-off, right?

Oh whoops missed the earlier post about it. Sorry!

Bad time to be a Tool fan:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/06/man-with-coronavirus-went-to-packed-rock-concert-at-new-zealand-arena

not to be overly pessimistic, but i kind of imagine every large sports or music event on every continent is probably at risk of this right now? seems like you could imagine that headline reappearing again and again.

Yes. I mean the objective here public-health-wise is to slow the spread of disease as much as possible by limiting the raw volume of personal contact happening in areas with incipient outbreaks, but it doesn’t mean that everyone going to a concert with a sick person will get the 28 Days Later disease

Obviously if she were infected in Texas (that would be a great name for an album)

All the infectious live in Texas
And Texas is the place I'd dearly love to be
But all the infectious live in Texas
And that's why I hang my hat in Tennessee

Had a little sore throat, a little congestion this morning. Quarantining myself by virtue of not having a day job but I do wonder if it's irresponsible to go to the gym. My by thinks I'm being ridiculous but I can't figure out how much to worry/"worry" about getting this since neither of us nor my roommate have health insurance.

https://www.wcpo.com/news/state/state-indiana/indiana-confirms-first-case-of-covid-19

Since (again) the vast majority of people are not seriously at risk (that is, at risk of death, fwiw), I still see no reason to self-quarantine unless you know you've been exposed or truly feel like shit and/are coughing all over the place. On one hand, I've seen people make the argument that the nominally healthy should try to stay that way to help the people who might not be able to help themselves, if this becomes downright disastrous (which nothing like this in recent memory has really been; you never know but I doubt we'll see any great novels about the fabled, feared Covid Years, fingers crossed). On the other hand, getting out and about if you are nominally healthy is a bit like getting your vaccine. Exposure means *immunity*, which means you won't be passing it on to others in the future. This strain, at least.

The Times of Israel: Israel weighs barring Americans, quarantine for Israelis coming back from US

Author Max Brooks:

If the Israelis are on to anything, the movie shows it when they think that any danger, no matter how small, is quite possibly cataclysmic and demands our sharpest attention and dispassionate calculation. To put it bluntly, the only Jewish virtue trumpeted in this film is neuroticism.