outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

partly. i think it's also like, unfathomably contagious

now that testing is a bit more widespread I'm seeing a lot of twitter threads along the lines of "I tested positive, I don't have the main symptoms but these weird things are happening instead", which thankfully wind up being pretty mild

All this uncertainty about 'did I already have it weeks ago' and 'did I spread it to another dozen people' and 'gee maybe I'm infected right now' is just us milling around in the dark, because the US testing regime is at least six weeks behind the curve. It is better to recognize the ignorant condition we are stuck in and try not to mill around any more than necessary.

try not to mill around any more than necessary.

let the record show that I believe Aimless to be otm here

Oregon just closed a very specific list of "non-essential" businesses that does not include mine, so I guess I will be coming in tomorrow as well

https://govsite-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/jkAULYKcSh6DoDF8wBM0_EO%2020-12.pdf

I never had a fever either, btw; I was taking my temperature daily. By "mild symptoms" I mean in my case really practically *nothing* but loss of taste, or at least loss of taste was the only thing I complained about to my family. No cough, no fever, nothing I would call congestion. Never even really needed to blow my nose. Just a little snuffy, a little more tired than usual, and total loss of taste.

Anyway, considering this was a week ago, and symptoms have gone from "complete lack of taste" to "nothing" (afaict) I'm pretty confident whatever I had has run its course. Fingers crossed!

My last few colds (over a couple of years) have left me unable to smell/taste for ages afterwards. I had a head cold last week (felt exactly like a normal cold, - just sneezing and post-nasal drip - except milder as I actually rested, no coughing/fever) and still haven't regained my sense of smell. I'm certain it wasn't CV.

my surmise is that a larger percentage than we know have barely any symptoms at all.

Both of the two situations where they've ramped up testing (Vo' and the Diamond Princess) have recorded that over 50% of the people with the virus are asymptomatic, just so you know.

Covid is coinciding with the end the influenza season and beginning of allergy season. I wouldn't trust a hunch for whether I was exposed (and hence very likely immune).

I doubt the rtPCR testing (which can capture the infectious stage) will catch up with the growth in cases, but serological blood testing should be available in a few months. Very important for health care and elder care providers, who should get priority, but if covert infection is as widespread as in say Italy, documenting immunity could be important for a lot of jobs.

Generally speaking, I agree with you. But I without question did not have the flu, and do not have allergies, and barely had would could be called a cold. The sudden and unexpected loss of taste was so weird it was all I complained about to my family, and in fact was the only thing that affected my quality of life.

(shrug)

Maybe you had the flu?

Wait, now the flu is going around, too?

Virginia now closing schools for the rest of the year

Sorry kids, third and seventh grades are gonna be an asterisk.

And the play you auditioned for and were thrilled to get a part in, nope

The school year or 2020?

academic year. no word on summer school, summer camps, or etc.

Also all parks, trails, and playgrounds ordered closed here.

Here, kid, when I was your age, all we had was a stick! Here's a stick! go to town.

Ontario should have done the same; they've instead extended the closure until May, which is just needlessly delaying the inevitable. (Mostly they've been doing okay, the past week or two at least.)

Report: Tokyo 2020 Olympics postponed to 2021 due to coronavirus

The Chuck Tingle books are starting to write themselves

thank you dick pound

"pounded by a sexy cancellation order"

What does one call the “guess some people gotta die” stage of capitalism? pic.twitter.com/ZmufExsfGz

— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) March 23, 2020

some ghoulish people out there .. just pure vermin.

is that matt walsh one very very far off an actual approach?

xpost I thought that was just called 'capitalism'

I wonder how many of these dummies are gonna stfu when this thing truly flowers in 5-10 days

UK in total lockdown.

i'll put my old conservative hypothesis to the test:

just like a number of any other issues, they won't believe it's true/change their minds until it directly happens to someone they personally know

and then there's a strong chance they'll still try to blame the person on moral grounds, right?

death rate in Italy has risen more slowly for 2nd day in a row per NPR

it's good news. even half-hearted isolation measures work.

What does one call the “guess some people gotta die” stage of capitalism?

Softball question. It's called "business as usual." This time it's not black lung, industrial accidents, or sweatshops, but capitalism has used just about every possible method over time.

xp i am 100% sure there is going to be a major push to send people back to work if not next week then the week after that

UK in total lockdown.

Supposedly, we'll see how it works in practice.

am in various cycling fb groups which have erupted with arguments about what's allowed

I had that same display name recently!

just heared talk on BBC WS that one early symptom you have become infected can be a complete loss of smell and taste, didn't catch the whole report but not heard that one before.

yep, discussed a bit upthread but thread moves fast

def worth noting

Not just early symptom, for many that may be the *only* symptom.

It means once the food's run out you can eat toilet paper instead.

probably much tastier than bark, soil or decaying human flesh - as long as it isn't 2nd hand!

has anyone else done testing on this scale before?

Are there more silent #COVIDー19 spreaders than we thought?

Iceland, which is able to test its entire population, found half of those who tested positive had no #coronavirus symptoms. More @business: https://t.co/ggejlSZKHL pic.twitter.com/jHrM7LCWct

— QuickTake by Bloomberg (@QuickTake) March 23, 2020

their population is about the same as confirmed cases worldwide...

The thing is, you can try to liberalize movement and economic activity in a few weeks in many regions if you have sufficient testing, surveillance, contact tracing, PPE, etc. But we don’t have that.

— Ed MD (@notdred) March 23, 2020

from the NYT:

The White House’s coronavirus response coordinator offered a grim assessment of the virus’s assault on the New York metropolitan area Monday evening: She said that nearly 1 in 1,000 people in the region have the virus, an “attack rate” five times that of other areas.

The coordinator, Dr. Deborah L. Birx, said at a White House briefing that the rate of infection showed that the virus has been spreading for weeks.

Dr. Birx added that 28 percent of tests for coronavirus in the region were coming up positive, while in the rest of the country the rate is less than 8 percent.

“To all of my friends and colleagues in New York, this is the group that needs to absolutely social distance and self-isolate at this time,” Dr. Birx said. “Clearly, the virus had been circulating there for a number of weeks to have this level of penetrance into the general community.”

“Penetrance”?

Apparently a term of art in the field of genetics, but certainly used wrongly here.

It was used just in case, you know.

xp: Because Iceland has 1000 years of geneological records, its long been a center for research on congenital diseases and genetic predispositions. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they tested everyone starting in January...

they stared on March 13th and had tested 9768 people as of March 21st

Unimportant question I think about anyway: how far in advance are commercial buys for television made? I find it very strange these days watching ads for a world that's not the same.