outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

new york's suny and cuny schools are closing . . . but not until next thursday (they might be on spring break now? not sure)

https://media.giphy.com/media/bqOXGPltRyedrOrB6h/giphy.gif The Yelawolf concert on Friday will happen as planned https://media.giphy.com/media/bqOXGPltRyedrOrB6h/giphy.gif

BBC staff all continuing to go to work smh

india has suspended all tourist visas through april 15

enbb so glad like gyac I've been seething privately about that post you made

couple I know just proudly announced they are still going on their cruise today smh

At this point choosing to go on a cruise feels like locking yourself in a castle to avoid the Red Death.

L. Ron Hubbard knew what was up.

A friend reports that some late-night shows (i.e. Fallon) will go ahead without audiences

We are all set up to work from home (and usually do a couple of days a week) but weirdly we’ve been told it’s business as usual. Have told my team to stay home this week, would imagine now it’s an official pandemic the advice might change.

Friend of mine (from Manchester, Chinese parents, lives in Madrid) has had people yelling CORONAVIRUS at her in the street and someone in her office asked if she was Chinese and then, when told ‘no’, said ‘oh you’re not dangerous then hahaha’. One of the worst things about any sad/bad situation is how it shines a light on how awful people are.

um this is odd

The White House has ordered federal health officials to treat top-level coronavirus meetings as classified, an unusual step that has restricted information and hampered U.S. government’s response to the contagion, according to four Trump admin officials https://t.co/LoQmWZyGez

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 11, 2020

they were told that the virus just dies when it gets warmer!

arrggh! viruses aren't alive. they don't eat, can't metabolize, and can't reproduce outside of a host cell. they're just rogue bundles of genetic material that enter your cells and fuck them up. they can't 'die', but they can become damaged to the point where they become functionally inert.

The zombie apocalypse was in us all along.

So much for pathology, the study of disease, with an emphasis on bodily pain, which at the same time was an emphasis of the body, an emphasis on its pleasures - disease was life’s lascivious form.

I have friends (who are over 65!) who were going to be going on a cruise starting this weekend. But that's off, thank goodness.

The reason the flu drops down in warm weather has less to do with the temperature and more to do with people spending less time in close quarters indoors, iirc.

I think it's because the virus spread more easily in dryer air/lower humidity?

Maybe both?

Glass half full:

Sophisticated modelling of the outbreak suggests that China had 114,325 cases by the end of February 2020, a figure that would have been 67 times higher without interventions such as early detection, isolation of the infected, and travel restrictions.

Glass half empty:

But if the interventions could have been brought in a week earlier, 66% fewer people would have been infected, the analysis found. The same measures brought in three weeks earlier could have reduced cases by 95%.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/research-finds-huge-impact-of-interventions-on-spread-of-covid-19

One line I saw was that humidity is worse because the virus 'lingers in the air' longer.

gonna C&P a long thing from a Seattle resident via Yetimike on FB:

Random notes from the epicenter:

Car traffic is drastically reduced.

Three downtown restaurants closed today. For good, not for safety's sake. They ran out of money.

Movie theaters are open but some are capping ticket sales at 50% capacity, to allow for space between people.

As of tomorrow, all gatherings for over 250 people will be banned. I've had two events cancelled in the past two days. I'm not financially impacted by those cancellations but many Seattle artists are. A fund has been started to help them out.
A $2M fund has also been started to help gig workers and other vulnerable communities during what is really the both a health and financial crisis.

Our fatality rate looks insanely high, around 10% vs the 3% reported globally. This is because the supply of test kits is staggeringly inadequate, so the people getting tested are mostly the people who are obviously sick. The state is now spinning up its own test production--and tests will be free-- but the time lost due to federal government incompetence was not time we could afford to lose.

Fewer than 5,000 Americans have been tested. South Korea is testing 10,000 people a day. At the Kirkland nursing home where most of the deaths have occurred, 65 of 170 staff members are showing symptoms but no tests are available to confirm it's corvid19, or to ascertain whether any of the other 105 staffers might be infected but asymptomatic. South Korea is testing 10,000 people a day. South Korea is testing 10,000 people a day.

The cherry trees are blooming. I’m tipping baristas and waiters a hundred percent.

If you can live in a state that believes in science and in helping people, do that. The conversations I overhear in coffee shops (the coffee shops are jumping) are intelligent and rational. People talk about "flattening the curve," a phrase you will come to know well. Flattening the curve means trying to at least slow the spread so that hospitals aren't too overwhelmed. Whatever number of infections we are going to have, if we can have them over three months instead of two, or four instead of three, that's a flatter curve.

Remember, people will still get sick with other things during this pandemic, and they'll need hospital beds, and the hospital beds might all be full.

Microsoft and Amazon employees are working from home all month, and both are paying hourly workers for forty hours a week. Amazon has started a $5M fund to help the businesses around campus weather the storm, and isn't collecting March rent from any tenants in its own buildings. Seattle Power and Light won't be switching off anyone's utilities for nonpayment this month.

All of which is good, because because our president's economic harm-reduction plan is to bail out the oil industry. South Korea is testing 10,000 people a day.

Except for hand sanitizer, the supermarkets are totally normal. My Whole Foods had dragonfruit and toilet paper and something called "cauliflower-based breakfast" and Meyer lemons. No Parmesan, though. Is it somehow related to the virus? I asked. No, the cheese person said. We did a Parmesan demo last week and since then it's just been flying off the shelves. People are just finding out about Parmesan? my husband said when I told him.

The NYT reports today that a research team in Seattle sought permission weeks ago to test samples they had collected for a flu study for coronavirus. The government said no. The team did it anyway, and that's how we know that coronavirus was widespread here much earlier than initially suspected. That no from the government cost a lot of time we could not afford to lose.

Fissures in our safety net are being exposed. For instance: whether to close public schools is a hotly debated topic, and one argument against closure is that some children are reliant on school for food, health monitoring, and medications. This is not something I had ever really considered in my life.

The hospitalized man from my mother-in-law's community died, but only one other resident has been diagnosed so far, and they are getting enough kits from somewhere to test everyone. Maybe from South Korea, which is testing 10,000 people a day. My mother-in-law has a gentle, cheerful kind of dementia and doesn't really remember she's in quarantine. You know, John, I was just thinking I might drive out to the ocean for a week, she told my husband the last time he saw her.

Our next-door neighbor is a two-decade Amazon employee. John keeps finding him wandering aimlessly in his backyard. Oh hey, he says. I'm just picking up dog poop, I guess. Maybe I'll build a new shed. You work from home, right? One question: how? One day John overhears our neighbor on a conference call. So has everyone made their April Fool's Day plans? he is asking.

xp
I also heard that kids in school is a major vector, one kid comes in with it and the rest take it home to their families. Summer break eliminates this pattern.

Yeah, many of my friends are teachers and many have kids on top of that and I don't think I'll be spending much time around them in the short term. Especially my friend who's in Scotland with 20 students currently.

Kids are perfect vectors for everything.

One line I saw was that humidity is worse because the virus 'lingers in the air' longer.

I've always heard that stuff like the flu (by all indications covid is spread like the flu) actually doesn't transmit that well by air. It's overwhelmingly person to person, like direct contact (shaking hands, touching faces) or spending 15+ minutes a few feet from someone coughing, or from direct contact with contaminated surfaces.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130227183456.htm

The conversations I overhear in coffee shops (the coffee shops are jumping) are intelligent and rational. People talk about "flattening the curve" ...

Wouldn't avoiding bustling coffee shops be an intelligent, rational step toward "flattening the curve?" That's been part of the messaging confusion, imo. How much of a crowd is a large crowd? Does it matter? At what point should we avoid *all* gatherings? I saw something in I think the WaPo about limiting personal exposure, and the piece said going to a 200 person jazz club is probably ok, but maybe not a wedding. Why the former but not the latter?

“If you’re going to a concert in a small jazz club, that’s not a big deal. But if you’re going to a family wedding where there are 200 people drinking and eating, that’s a bit more concerning,” said Jeanne Marrazzo, the director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine. It really comes down to how much people are sharing personal space and the extent to which people can trust that others who attend an event will stay home if they aren’t feeling well.

you're probably going to touch a lot more people at that wedding

also eating

Very depressed thinking about the likely effects on every cafe and bar and theater and performance space that makes this city somewhat worth living in, and the amount of money Amazon is going to rake in from this, and the lengths our mayor will go to to make sure they don’t get taxed.

the piece said going to a 200 person jazz club is probably ok, but maybe not a wedding.

that's not what the piece said, but yes, the messaging is confusing. i think the real public health advice is "stay the fuck out of public places if you can", but they can't say that because of the economic fallout

xpost Serious question: how many people would I touch at an NBA game? More than I'd touch at a jazz club? St. Patrick's parade? If it's only a matter of direct contact - and maybe it is - then why limit any gatherings, large or no?

3. exactly equal to jazz club. 10. it's not a matter of direct contact - no it's not.

Very depressed thinking about the likely effects on every cafe and bar and theater and performance space that makes this city somewhat worth living in, and the amount of money Amazon is going to rake in from this, and the lengths our mayor will go to to make sure they don’t get taxed.

Yes this is making me very sad as well, it's just going to accelerate the die-off of local businesses that's already happening. I feel guilty when I don't go out but also feel guilty plus scared when I do go out; there's no way to win.

I have been avoiding coffee shops myself; don't really know why they would be jumping. Maybe it's that a lot of people have been made to work from home who don't actually take the danger seriously and are just going to coffee shops to work instead.

Let’s not risk it for a *maybe* is the thing.

I keep thinking about this. I'm definitely not going to any concerts or bars anytime soon now. But there's stuff like this, for example--I facilitate a weekly meditation meetup at a local yoga studio, but it's a small group of regulars and maxes out at like 8 people. Not a large gathering. OTOH, we use cushions that are definitely shared by others in the studio, and it's in a small room where we're all sitting somewhat close together. Do I cancel? I feel like I shouldn't.

WA governor just banned gatherings of over 250 people. How did they pick that number?

is there an answer that would make sense?

why ask a question that doesn't have an answer?

zen koans irl, the thread

Local physician who is treating three L.A. area men who tested positive for coronavirus says they were part of a group of 14 who went to a ski trip to northern Italy and he stated all 14 tested positive. Seems like it’s fairly contagious, best to err on the side of caution especially in certain areas. Especially due to the symptoms showing up after the virus is contagious.

The chief medical officer said this morning that people who have had - and got through - Coronavirus says they will then likely to have a "very high degree of resistance" to the virus at least for a year (so will avoid catching it again), Matt Hancock just revealed

— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) March 11, 2020

based on what?

history of viruses

People in the UK:

With the number of UK coronavirus cases set to rise, NHS England says it is scaling up its capacity for testing people for the infection.
It means 10,000 tests a day can be done - 8,000 more than the 1,500 being carried out currently.

Confirmation of any positive test results will be accelerated, helping people take the right action to recover or quickly get treatment.
Most of the people tested should get a result back within 24 hours.

Denmark is shutting down. All schools, all non-essential public institutions. I sing in a church, honestly don't know if I just got two weeks paid holiday. The film festival that begins next week is probably cancelled.

Not sure, but apparently Denmark is the place with most new cases these last few days?

On reinfection:

"There is some evidence that people can be reinfected with the four coronaviruses and that there is no long-lasting immunity," Dr. Susan Kline, an infectious disease specialist at of the University of Minnesota. "Like rhinoviruses [which cause the common cold], you could be infected multiple times over your life. You can mount an antibody response, but it wanes, so on subsequent exposure you don't have protection." Subsequent infections often produce milder illness, however.

I think the same sort of thing is true for the flu. That's why, when the year's vaccine isn't that effective, you still typically have much milder symptoms.

Buncha fucking wusses:

Like hundreds of thousands of people across the world the super-rich are preparing to self-isolate in the face of an escalation in the coronavirus crisis. But their plans extend far beyond stocking up on hand sanitiser and TV boxsets.

The world’s richest people are chartering private jets to set off for holiday homes or specially-prepared disaster bunkers in countries that, so far, appear to have avoided the worst of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Many are understood to be taking along, on their flights, personal doctors or nurses for treatment for themselves and their families if they become infected. The wealthy are also besieging doctors in private clinics in Harley Street, London, and across the world demanding private coronavirus tests.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/disease-dodging-worried-wealthy-jet-off-to-disaster-bunkers

this is bleak but sounded hypothetical...

The Italian College of Anesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation and Intensive Care just published the most extraordinary medical document I’ve ever seen.

To help people from Germany to America understand what we’re about to face, I am publishing translated extracts here.

[Thread.]

— Yascha Mounk (@Yascha_Mounk) March 11, 2020

3)

"It may become necessary to establish an age limit for access to intensive care.

This is not a value judgments but a way to provide extremely scarce resources to those who have the highest likelihood of survival and could enjoy the largest number of life-years saved."

— Yascha Mounk (@Yascha_Mounk) March 11, 2020

but https://www.itv.com/news/2020-03-11/italy-doctors-coronavirus-covid-19-quarantine-milan-health/

"A lot of patients need help with breathing but there are not enough ventilators.

"They've told us that starting from now we'll have to choose who to intubate - priority will go to the young or those without comorbidities.

"It may become necessary to establish an age limit for access to intensive care." haven't countries with socialized care been making decisions like this for quite a while in terms of apportioning treatment based on prognosis, age, etc?

yeah it's like this normally in europe