outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

was just asked to order 100 webcams to enable staff to work from home. yesterday our supplier had 1000+ units, today they have no stock until mid-june

the biggest teaching building of my university is now shut indefinitely. I don’t teach there this term but other buildings will be shut soon. Gonna cancel my Japan trip I guess. Things are fraught there.

beginning to feel how brittle “things” are

people aint gonna recognize life 3-6 months from now

or maybe 4 weeks

apparently a professor at the teaching building I mentioned before has tested positive for the virus. now we wait to see if the S0rb0nn3 is closed too (I reckon it will be).

but in person university classes being replaced with online teaching will have major consequences for the residential student experience characteristic of higher ed in some countries, like the USA. as in, people will be able to reason better about why they should go to some small "liberal arts" college, and pay $50k a year for tuition, when they've experienced what could be a much cheaper experience? of course someone will have to provide that cheaper experience. it won't be the traditional universities. It's less of a thing here where students don't live on campus. But the consequences will be vast.

Daily new cases graph for Spain is frightening - it jumped from 150 to almost 600 in one day.
BBC just announced Spain's death toll has more than doubled in the past 24 hours.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/

have we considered

the plan? create a virus that infects the population in order to increase hand sanitizer sales pic.twitter.com/vblglH73Ek

— - ̗̀charis ̖́- (@indiemoms) March 10, 2020

The Danish Parliament passed new emergency laws that include giving the authorities power to access people’s homes without a court order in case of suspected Coronavirus cases.

From The Guardian's live blog. Seems… intense.

Don't like recycling my twitter content here, but the folks who were panic buying water and toilet paper in my local grocery stores have moved on to everything else - milk, canned good, basic grains, pasta, frozen vegetables, milk, eggs, and all the prepared frozen dinners/pizza.. The checker commented to me "I used to live in Florida and this is like a big hurricane."

Bare shelves on a lot of things at my local grocery store. Everyone was leaving with a full cart. pic.twitter.com/W0fgoGTnhx

— Chris Barrus (@quartzcity) March 12, 2020

I didn't realise the NY university system was shutting down until Autumn!

Speaking to colleagues in Spain, they're not confident schools will reopen this year.

The Danish situation is insane. When they went out saying that the country was on lockdown and everyone should be really smart about it, everyone ran down to the supermarkets and began pushing and shoving to buy toilet paper. We are a nation of idiots, and I fear it will get worse than Italy.

I managed to save my festival-coverage, though. They will try and send out screeners to get critics to write anyway, so I've pitched a daily column about me watching films on my couch named 'diary of a lonely filmfan'. The pay is awful, but I may make it through to may.

never ceases to amaze me the hope ye hold out for the general behaviour of the majority lads

everyone ran down to the supermarkets and began pushing and shoving to buy toilet paper

Sorry Fred, but every single (Western) nation went and did the exact same thing, so we're all idiots, not just the Danes.

Glad to hear you found a backup solution btw.

lads, the invisible hand knows what it's doing

Touching faces like there's no tomorrow.

one invisible hand washes the other

130 new cases in UK today (and 2 more deaths)

This is how the BBC chose to report this update.

https://i.imgur.com/IYVjsOa.jpg

Meanwhile, in China:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/conspiracy-theory-that-coronavirus-originated-in-us-gaining-traction-in-china

Kinda weird, Denmark and Norway has pretty much similar population size, number of confirmed cases, current growth rate, and recent governmental decisions (incl timing) as far as I can see, but I haven't noticed any TP shortage or hoarding here (Oslo) yet. A Danish fb friend hypothesized that a government signal of "a hoarding ban may soon be introduced" itself set off hoarding there, or we could have had bigger stockpiles in place, of course.

My Norwegian twitter follows seem unhappy with the prime minister? Might just be that they are leftwing and she is not

Pandemia #COVID19 #COVID19PT #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/3LMGvrSHMo

— André Ferreira (@_andrecferreira) March 11, 2020

News from one source of my work that we're supposed to continue with students unless they're infected or we are. Given that no one who hasn't travelled/come into contact with a confirmed case is able to get tested I'm not sure how we'd know.

(Also, sorry, I didn't mean that image to be so large and alarmist)

uchicago just moved all spring courses online (march 30 - june 13)

Woah, escalated restrictions in Norway just now: two-week (so far) cancellation/closedown of all cultural events, sports events, gyms, swimming halls, hairdressers/skincare/tattooers etc, clubs/pubs/restaurants etc except places serving non-buffet food where people can be kept at least 1 metre apart.

spoke to soon re hoarding upthread...

Woah, escalated restrictions in Norway just now:

aaand THAT's when the toilet paper at my local store flew off the shelves. Conclusion: people normally save on TP by crapping at gyms, hairdressers, restaurants etc (kidding).

Scotland stopping mass gatherings of more than 500 people but only after Rangers vs Celtic on Sunday.

Only applies to events that tend to need additional emergency services staff so e.g sports events are off but church gatherings are ok.

"Brazilian official who met Trump in US (on Saturday) tests positive"

Lol new (not seriously meant) conspiracy theory sighted: The outbreak is caused by a reduced amount of air travel, since They use airliners to spray vaccine down on an unsuspecting populace.

Justin Trudeau now self-isolating after his wife starting showing symptons

An update on the Prime Minister. pic.twitter.com/jS8bEvynnt

— Cameron Ahmad (@CameronAhmad) March 12, 2020

A good start

Well then.

Yesterday: One confirmed case in all of Ottawa.
Today: The Trudeaus might have it.

The Spanish PM's wife has tested positive too.

The Brazilian government has confirmed that President Jair Bolsonaro’s communications secretary, Fabio Wajngarten, has coronavirus just days after meeting Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Dom Phillips, in Rio de Janeiro, reports.

chance that trump has it, far higher possibility that bolsonaro does

The guillotine appeared in the form of a shadowy handshake.

I’m skeptical, seems unlikely the healthiest president in U,S. history would come down with this

This was too beautiful to not share:

Push me, and then don’t touch me, ‘til I can get my, vaccination. https://t.co/QqT1hjmcmq

— Daniel (5%) 🔜 EDCLV (@burkah0lics) March 11, 2020

Big Ten and Mid-Atlantic Conferences announced they're cancelling the remainder of the men's and women's basketball tournaments, so that's pretty much gonna be it for March Madness.

Map's down: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

rip american sports

Bolsonaro got it apparently 😎

source

Sauce?

i think he got tested, results unknown, i think.

but yeah, hope he gets it bad, what a fucker

Source:

#URGENTE | El presidente de Brasil, Jair Bolsonaro, dio positivo para el Coronavírus. pic.twitter.com/kEQPHzyswE

— Nexofin (@Nexofin) March 12, 2020

Weird how irrelevant a figure Trump suddenly seems.

Yeah sorry, Twitter. Unconfirmed