outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

xps

Royal Bank of Scotland defers mortgage payments for customers hit by coronavirus.

https://t.co/dkcJ1tKKtR

— James Melville (@JamesMelville) March 10, 2020

If the virus mutates into sentience we'll all doomed.

Not that having a Twitter account is a surefire way of passing the Turing test.

Maybe the virus has become self-aware.

Just checked again, and looks like most reliable symptoms are fever and dry cough 2-14 days after exposure. Right now I have a stuffed up nose ... but that's it, and considering it's exactly what one of my kids had a week ago, I find my stuffy nose reassuring. But I still get paranoid. The other day I woke up sore and thought oh no, here it comes! But then I remembered I spent a couple of hours the previous day delivering heavy food pantry bags to homebound seniors and I thought, oh yeah, that's why.

xp the fever is the most common symptom iirc?

Legit misread this as 'the fear'.

Snitch tagging has so far proved ineffective against the virus

I was being bad at maths above too... S Korea have tested around 0.4% of their population (not ten times that, as I wrote). USA have ticked up from 0.0006% to 0.0026% now. UK at 0.032%.

The known symptoms for influenza and covid-19 are nearly identical: fever, cough, body aches, fatigue and at times vomiting and diarrhea. Both illnesses can manifest in mild or severe ways or even cause death, according to Lisa Lockerd Maragakis, senior director of infection prevention at Johns Hopkins Health System.

As of now, there are “no unique clinical signatures” that distinguish the onset of covid-19 from influenza, Nolan said. Research on the known cases so far suggests that the vast majority, some 80 percent, are mild. Health officials have urged those experiencing mild symptoms to self-manage from home with over-the-counter cold and flu aids, rather than crowding hospital emergency and waiting rooms.

Those experiencing more severe symptoms, such as trouble breathing, lethargy or a fever that won’t break, should call a doctor. Both the coronavirus and influenza can cause pneumonia, an infection of the lungs that can be life-threatening in infants, children and people over 65.

The definition of "mild" seems to be wildly varying from "what the average person would call mild" right up to "hellishly sick but doesn't need hospitalisation"

Idk why Coveney felt the need to @ the virus though

COVID-19 is the disease, not the virus

CHRIST

It also includes people who are asymptomatic, like the old British pair who spread it through Vietnam and are now being quarantined there.

Greatly enjoying the video produced by the HSE about covid-19 (coronavirus):

Really important public health information about steps you can take to protect yourself and your family from #coronavirus #COVID19. Please retweet. We can all play a part in this national and global effort pic.twitter.com/o8tg9jqk6m

— Simon Harris TD (@SimonHarrisTD) March 10, 2020

The definition of "mild" seems to be wildly varying from "what the average person would call mild" right up to "hellishly sick but doesn't need hospitalisation"

Yeah, I've been wondering about this. There is/was one case on Oahu, the Japanese guy who was on a cruise ship. He apparently showed no symptoms at the time, but later developed a cold and went to the doctor. I asked myself, what would it take for what seems like a mere cold to send me to the doctor? As I related about my one experience with pneumonia, I only went to the doctor when I had a 100+ degree fever and horrible cough that was not going away after a few days, but I assume some people go to the ER for headaches. In fact, I know they do.

I need to be shitting blood (or have my brain metaphorically shitting its blood) to see a doctor tbh

I once sliced my ankle open on a piece of broken glass. A nice, clean slice. I put pressure and bandages on it until it stopped bleeding, then went to a clinic the next day to have it looked at. They asked me whey I didn't go to an emergency room, and I told them because it wasn't an emergency. Duh

three weeks ago I took a really bad flu - I had the full fever sweats, couldn't sleep properly, felt cold, didn't want to eat, nausea and migraine. I've had colds that last a few weeks, and I've had bad headaches and flu-like illnesses that last a couple of days, but this was still hanging on badly a week later. I took some time off work but only the minimum as we operate on the leanest core staffing possible and things would literally disintegrate if I hadn't been able to go in, and I think not being able to take proper bedrest etc contributed to the symptoms lingering. I still have a really dry cough and stuffed nose. I don't believe it was anything other than a particularly bad flu. But my phone beeps every hour with breaking news updates about coronavirus and it's so hard not to get paranoid. I haven't even been out of the UK in two years.

I had a very bad flu around age 13-14, that I still remember vividly as the sickest I've ever been. My family was vacationing in a wilderness area so they couldn't get me to an ER quickly or easily and so for better or worse, I guess, they just let me sweat it out in bed? Idk, I had a fever of like 103+ for days. Hours and hours of my body aching unrelievedly. I crawled to a nearby bathroom to vomit and crawled back to bed. After 4-5 days it broke but I couldn't sit up or wash myself, I was that weak. Luckily, I guess, no one else in my family got it but me?

That's p much what I'm anticipating, PLUS the risk of pneumonia? GOOD TIMES.

My ex and I each had a lovely bout of mono, one after the other. Some of the symptoms were too gross to recount here. That's the worst I can recall ever feeling.

I can't remember any bout of the flu and I've never had pneumonia or mono. But I feel like if I sneeze more than twice I get bronchitis (fun asthma). I thought I had an enterovirus like 5 years ago when that was going around but I was fine after one day of antibiotics that teledoc prescribed me.

testimony from an Irish patient here

https://www.thejournal.ie/irish-coronavirus-patient-5039299-Mar2020

summary: it was grand

What does "a little bit of fever" mean? 99? 102?

I find the tales of Italian quarantine to be pretty amusing. The entire country is on travel lockdown ... except for work and other exceptions. And everything is closed ... after 6pm.

That is the single most reassuring link I've read, Number None. I'll now convince myself that the bug that had me in bed for two days (despite no real fever) was it. I'm safe now!

(this post will look terrible on my obit thread)

"I'm Safe Now!"
1975-2020

Airlines are running empty flights so they don't lose runway slots. Ridiculous.

I now have a sore throat and dry cough, working from home until further notice and I'm going to minimise going outside significantly as a precaution.

I don't know where you're at, but do you have reason to believe you came in prolonged contact with someone that could have had it?

Airlines are running empty flights so they don't lose runway slots. Ridiculous.

are you fuckin serious

A little bit of fever in my life
A little bit of diarrhea by my side
A little bit of dry cough's what I need
A little bit of vomit is what I see

COVID number 19

It's real. A side of disaster capitalism I wasn't familiar with.

xp

I find the tales of Italian quarantine to be pretty amusing.

Except for the news about hospitals being at 200% capacity and people arresting in hallways and no one even coming to check on them while they die. That part is less quaint.

irl lol.

2xp

but do you have reason to believe you came in prolonged contact with someone that could have had it?

Not really. Our team bosses have jumped the gun slightly in telling us to work from home (was told last week we couldn't). Over the last week I've had a few brief phases of teaser symptoms but right now it just feels like what anyone would get this time of year.

testimony from an Irish patient here

https://www.thejournal.ie/irish-coronavirus-patient-5039299-Mar2020

summary: it was grand

It would be nice if they told us yer man's age, at least. "I am quite young" can mean different things to different people.

Little bit of covid, it’s no fun
Little square of TP, the rest is gone
Little bit of fatigue, working from home
Little bit of stay in, don’t you roam

xps

xpost Yeah. "I am quite young," "a little bit of fever." Generalities are not helpful.

Yeah my colleague just showed me a video her dad took while driving somewhere for work and it looked real enough for something taking place in peacetime, a seemingly endless row of military vehicles lining an otherwise empty road xps

Like, that’s the way an Irish person would put it! I doubt he had a thermometer handy.

*adding thermometer to store list*

everyone should have a thermometer handy.

as cost-effective as it may seem at first, resist the urge to share a "group thermometer" with your friends and neighbors.

yeah, i have no clue why we don't have one. We have been going by the "do I look sweaty" test.

Lol. I did buy a digital thermometer, purely for the fever reason I said upthread

not sure whether to be reassured by "no symptoms, just fever" articles since I had a (probably purely hypochondria-induced psychosomatic) mildly scratchy throat and slightly weird head-feeling when I visited my mum; wanted to take my temperature before leaving to be sure since that seems to be the main method of diagnosis short of a swab, but no thermometer and all body temperature thermometers under like £80 have been panic-bought

(I got a cheap forehead strip thermometer off Amazon last week; it does not work. I held the weather station thermometer probe in my armpit - yes, I wiped it down a lot before and afterwards - and it told me I was 34 degrees, so that didn't help much either)

my org now has a 4 (or was it 5?) stage Plan but nobody's told us anything about working from home. the official word is we are on stage 1 which appears to be "don't do very much" even though we actually appear to have passed all the milestones to put us in stage 3, which was, like, "probably we will start shutting buildings down around here but we haven't thought about it yet"

There's never any reason to be without one. The rectum is nature's thermometer scabbard, iirc.

Anytime I am in a group of people I touch each and every one of their foreheads with the back of my hand.

fwiw I don't think anybody or anything has said fever but no symptoms is a thing. fever just seems to be the most universal symptom.

xp I did not think inserting the weather station thermometer there would be universally appreciated, for some reason

“But you look flushed—as though you had fever.” She never stopped trying to fix him with her gaze, and always the eyes glided off to one side. “Have you measured?” He answered in the negative.
“Why not?” she asked, and her protruding lower lip hung in the air after she spoke.
He made no answer. The poor youth was still young; he had never got over his schoolboy shyness. He sat, so to speak, on his bench, did not know the answer and took refuge in dumbness.
“Perhaps you never do take your temperature?”
“Oh, yes, Frau Director, when I have fever.”
“My dear child, one takes it in the first instance to see whether one has fever. According to you, you have none now?”
“I can’t tell, Frau Director. I cannot really tell the difference. Ever since I came up here, I have been a little hot and shivery.”
“Aha! And where is your thermometer?”
“I haven’t one with me, Frau Director. Why should I, I am not ill; I am only up here on a visit.”
“Rubbish! Did you send for me because you weren’t ill?”
“No,” he laughed politely, “it was because I caught a little—”

have bumped a bunch of elbows today, could get used to this greeting
trains have seemed as busy as usual today but apparently the RATP has a crisis plan ready if we need it

I have an instant read digital cooking thermometer, is there any reason that wouldn't be accurate?

And this is how not-quite-at-the-peak Italy looks like, from her perspective pic.twitter.com/Vrn5xusB6u

— Dimi Reider (@reider) March 10, 2020

back to business as usual