Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

Chat about stuff other than Transformers.
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slartibartfast
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Post by slartibartfast »

Denyer wrote: Sun Mar 22, 2020 9:01 pmIt's also an argument in favour of intrusive surveillance and far-reaching interventionist powers.
Yeh - I get suspicious when there's talk of voting through emergency laws in the national interest. Just imagining the kind of dystopian situations where government has home confinement powers or surveillance measures to ensure citizens are obeying public safety directives... although TBH it all seems genuine so far, I suppose it'd be a PR nightmare if it turned out they were taking advantage of the situation.
Denyer wrote: Sun Mar 22, 2020 9:01 pmGovernments are going to be under massive pressure to protect public services, put in place liveable benefits, and conceivably nationalise some things.
Must admit it was pretty amazing to hear Macron say "la santé n'a pas de prix" (can't put a price on health) during his televised speech - seems like it wasn't more than a month beforehand that hospital staff were on strike over budget cuts and wages.

It would appear though that nothing short of major social reform would have any meaningful effect since so many people are falling through the cracks of these emergency measures. The news is being very quiet about what home confinement means for the homeless, for example.

To be honest though, the situation reminds of one of my all-time favourite comic strips called "l'an 01" from the 1970s - where the premise was to stop everything and re-consider what was really necessary - although without the incurable deadly virus.
Warcry wrote: Sun Mar 22, 2020 9:37 pmIt probably should lead people to stop and think if the world being so interconnected is a desirable thing or not. Is it really good to rely so thoroughly on countries on the other side of the world for basic necessities like medicine and protective equipment?
Admittedly I have a very loose grasp on macro-economics, but whilst I feel that interconnectivity is a good thing in principle, I do agree that bringing the issue of de-localisation back into the spotlight is long overdue.
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Clay
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Post by Clay »

slartibartfast wrote: Tue Mar 24, 2020 7:27 pm.
[excited Clay noises]

Hey! I haven't seen you post in forever! I would like to tell you that I finally read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and now understand the allusion in your username. I always get tickled when reading a book and bumping into someone's post handle :).

Anyway, here in `Murica, Trump finally said it out loud:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/sta ... 8209080331
The LameStream Media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success. The real people want to get back to work ASAP. We will be stronger than ever before!
3:04 PM · Mar 25, 2020
This is all just blown out of proportion by the media to try and make him look bad and not get re-elected (because people not working is dragging the stock market down, which is his only metric of concern).

In my mind, I have loose elements of the Pied Piper of Hamlin and lemmings running off a cliff, trying to cook up a metaphor, but I'm too tired to think of a clever and laconic one at the moment. The ingredients are there, though.
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slartibartfast
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Post by slartibartfast »

Clay wrote: Thu Mar 26, 2020 12:45 amHey! I haven't seen you post in forever!
Heya Clay! Been ages since I've been around but I still think of y'all, had to check in to see if everyone was okay. Hope life's been treating you kind these past years ^^

Still wanna do that transformers comic BTW... in fact my little home confinement project at the moment is to re-do the G1 TFU profiles - thanks to the resources on the archive I might add.
slartibartfast wrote: Tue Mar 24, 2020 7:27 pmsurveillance measures to ensure citizens are obeying public safety directives
Dang it, the European Council just passed legislation allowing mobile phone localisation to do just that. I spoke too soon :(

PS. so, uh... BS Johnson tested positive huh?
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Warcry
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slartibartfast wrote: Tue Mar 24, 2020 7:27 pmMust admit it was pretty amazing to hear Macron say "la santé n'a pas de prix" (can't put a price on health) during his televised speech - seems like it wasn't more than a month beforehand that hospital staff were on strike over budget cuts and wages.
Not to sound like a conspiracy nut, but didn't Macron literally work as a banker for the Rothschilds before getting into politics? I really wouldn't expect someone who moved in that strata of society to even understand how hypocritical that comment would make him sound to the masses. Especially when they were elected not on merit or even popularity but because the other choice was named "Le Pen".
slartibartfast wrote: Tue Mar 24, 2020 7:27 pmAdmittedly I have a very loose grasp on macro-economics, but whilst I feel that interconnectivity is a good thing in principle, I do agree that bringing the issue of de-localisation back into the spotlight is long overdue.
I agree that interconnectivity is good, but I think it's important to make a distinction between luxuries and essential goods and services. It doesn't matter if we get our decorative pillows or picture frames or Transformers imported from Asia, but relying exclusively on other countries for necessities like medical supplies or vital industrial components is just asking for a disaster. Western hospitals wouldn't be facing face mask shortages if countries made make them locally, but since the big 3M factories are all in China...

Even before this virus started to spread, the Huawei 5G scandal was illustrating that all too well.
Clay wrote: Thu Mar 26, 2020 12:45 amThis is all just blown out of proportion by the media to try and make him look bad and not get re-elected (because people not working is dragging the stock market down, which is his only metric of concern).
I am so sorry for you guys, because it really seems like Trump is going to do his best to make sure that things get far worse in America than they needed to. I hope governments on the state level can undo most of the damage he's going to cause.
slartibartfast wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 1:40 pm Dang it, the European Council just passed legislation allowing mobile phone localisation to do just that. I spoke too soon :(
We're heading in the same direction too. Trudeau is threatening to suspend basic human rights because a few idiots aren't practicing social distancing. The sad thing is that there are tons of panicked folks out there who would WELCOME a declaration of martial law and celebrate having their Charter Rights taken away "for their own good". And give no thought to how that would only make it easier for the government to justify the next time, and the next, and the next, for progressively smaller and smaller emergencies.

(The fact that his daddy declared martial law over a totally insignificant terrorist incident when he was PM does not exactly fill me with confidence...)
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Tantrum
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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My state had 55 new cases Sunday morning, and another 114 new cases this (Monday) morning, bringing our total to just over 400. This afternoon, our Governor announced another 80-something cases, bringing the total to around 490. It's evening as I write this, so there's probably a few more. Given our population of 1.059 million, it looks like 1 out of every 2,000 Rhode Islanders has coronavirus.

Our Governor announced a plan to stop cars with NY licence plates as they entered our state, and check registered rental properties for cars with NY plates in the driveway, to ensure anyone coming from NY self-quarantines for 14 days. This sounds excessive. But, if someone in NY, which has a shelter-in-place order, thinks its a good idea to take an optional 150 mile trip to RI, which also has a shelter-in-place order, maybe someone does need to pull them aside and explain what shelter-in-place means.

The Governor of NY threatened to sue RI over this. Last I heard, our Governor responded by expanding the self-quarantine directive to anyone coming from out of state. I think people who live in Mass but work here can still come.

It doesn't seem too bad where I am, the part of Rhode Island that's actually an island. Most of the cases seem to be in Providence, which is our main population center. Two people where I work have tested positive. One's been teleworking, so he isn't spreading it at work. The other works several buildings away from me.

My biggest concern about work is the support staff who travel from building to building all day. Last Tues, we had a couple IT guys come to work on our network. Two people, working almost shoulder to shoulder, were there for 5 minutes before heading off to another building. Last Thurs, the disposal group sent two guys to pick up our old fax machine. Maybe some of the other jobs on their route took more than 1 person, but I wish they'd put more thought into what constitutes a multi person job.
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Sades
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Provincial total of COVID-19 cases is 754 currently, with I think it was 75 being community transmission. My province seems to be doing a good job at staying inside and away from others, which surprised me. Lots of people here were saying it was a government conspiracy or a flu or some shit a week or so ago.

I'm keeping an eye on it, and trying to keep the anxiety to a minimum. I am afraid that if my kid gets sick enough to require medical care that they won't let me go with. My kid can barely go to bed without attempting to pop out 2-3 times a night afterward for a hug and a chat. She's so social and talky that the thought of her completely by herself in a hospital room fighting something like this just tears me up inside.

I'm worried about Hound too. A grocery job isn't worth this shit. And again, if he gets sick I can't go with. I'd really like it if he just found some way to stay home and we took our chances on riding this thing out with nearly no money but he's not having it so I'm consoling myself by bringing him a multivitamin every evening. I know it does bugger all but at least I feel a little helpful.

And I know I'm repeating myself a lot, I think I'm venting. Meh.

So yeah. Gahhhh *eats feelings* :p
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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I know it doesn't help, but right now people like Hound who are going to work at grocery stores are about the only thing keeping us from even worse mass panic and hording. I hope customers are at least being respectful and keeping their distance, but if my shopping on Sunday is any indication there's at least a couple inconsiderate asshole customers in the store at any given time. :( I hope he stays safe!

The one silver lining of all this is that kids don't seem to be getting very sick from it. I worry about my boy too, but rationally I know that he'd be just fine if he got it. I have to stop and remind myself of that a few times a week, though.
Tantrum wrote: Wed Apr 01, 2020 12:32 am My state had 55 new cases Sunday morning, and another 114 new cases this (Monday) morning, bringing our total to just over 400. This afternoon, our Governor announced another 80-something cases, bringing the total to around 490. It's evening as I write this, so there's probably a few more. Given our population of 1.059 million, it looks like 1 out of every 2,000 Rhode Islanders has coronavirus.
Yikes.

Manitoba has about the same population, but only 100 cases. But I'm pretty sure those numbers are artificially surpressed because they still won't test anyone unless they've travelled, contacted a confirmed case or are seriously ill. Our real numbers are probably right where yours are.
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Sades
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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117 more cases overnight, they say the sudden jump is because they completed a backlog of tests. They say the numbers will be up to date now. The province's first outlier from "the norm", or whatever you want to call it, died of covid this week. A guy in his 30's. No mention of if he had any preexisting conditions.

Yeah, if there's a chance she could end up in a bad way because of it I'm going to do my level best to make sure she doesn't get it. I'm not sitting here fretting constantly about it, but I am cautious. I'm more worried about Hound tbh. Because he's OLLLLLD.

But not too worried... I just looked at him and made the worst smallpox blanket joke ever.

... Time to make brownies!
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Multiple studies now in that strongly indicate that whilst keeping 2m away from people is a good idea, keeping 6-8m is better if they look like they might cough or sneeze;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52126735 / https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... le/2763852

https://www.unmc.edu/news.cfm?match=25341 / https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 20039446v2

Hoping that antibody tests become available Real Soon Now, as it's likely a lot of people will have had mild exposure and been relatively asymptomatic. It'd at least help give more people some confidence in their immune systems.
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Tantrum
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Warcry wrote: Wed Apr 01, 2020 5:24 pmManitoba has about the same population, but only 100 cases. But I'm pretty sure those numbers are artificially surpressed because they still won't test anyone unless they've travelled, contacted a confirmed case or are seriously ill. Our real numbers are probably right where yours are.
Manitoba only has 30% more people than Rhode Island, but more than 200 times as much area. RI has 1,212 square miles; just the Winnipeg Metro Region is over 3,000 sq miles with 800 k people. With our increased density, the virus will travel faster, so your real numbers probably are better than ours. Plus, it's not like the US has been on the ball with testing, either.

I should probably use sq km when discussing Canada. But, I was checking a map of my area earlier. By sticking to home, work, and the grocery store, I've been living in a single square mile for over two weeks, so I'm thinking in terms of sq miles.

Sadie and Hound - what kind of precautions is Hound's store taking? Here, they've restricted the number of people in any stores still open to 20% of what's normally allowed under the fire code. There's clear plastic barriers at every check out between the cashier and customer. There's lines taped down at the checkout lines marking every 6 feet. The baggers won't touch reusable bags; if you want to use them, you bag yourself.

Not that it helps much. I had just started unloading my cart onto the conveyor belt an hour ago, the guy behind me put down the divider to start unloading his. That's rude even when we're not social distancing. I had to tell him to back off so I could unload the rest of my stuff.

And, we're up to 1 out of every 1,600 RI residents having coronavirus now. That's still better than the national average of 1 out of every 1,380. NYC is something like 1 out of every 190.

At least the xkcd comics about coronavirus (starting here) have been pretty good.
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

Post by inflatable dalek »

The fact the BBC are now pushing "Well, all these old people were going to die soon anyway" makes me pretty firmly convinced the Lockdown is going to be lifted early and thousands are going to be sacrificed to the economy.
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Wouldn't disagree but the Conservatives are going to have a tough job of that whilst headlines are the number of high profile cases and care workers dying, which are unlikely to go away even if the curve is flattened.

The thing is it isn't just the highly emotive death rate, it's the hospitalisations, uncertainty of prognoses and growing reality of more people knowing those directly affected.

It is likely to be stop-start for an extended period with the loosening of restrictions, though, particularly with the absence of reliable vaccines and antibody tests.
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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The Lt Governor of Texas said old people like him would be willing to risk their lives for the economy. Some other Texas Republicans back him. Putting aside how morally abhorrent this is, it wouldn't even work. How good is the economy going to be with millions sick and dying, and everyone else afraid of getting sick and dying? Some people are blowing off social distancing now, because they're still in denial about how bad this is. But, when hospitals everywhere are packed, and there's not enough undertakers to bury the dead, we'll all move on to the other stages of grief pretty quickly, especially depression. Even if we make it to acceptance, and try to go about our business like in the olden days of a few months ago, we can't really participate in the economy if we're too sick to get out of bed.
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Plus if widespread enough there's greater risk of further mutation.

Some somewhat positive news;
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/scie ... 42536.html
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Actual useful advice if you've got pneumonia/ symptoms not serious enough for hospitalisation;



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwLzAdriec0
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Apparently your PM is in intensive care?

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5522983

Would it be better or worse for the country if he gets offed by this?
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Difficult to work out what the seriousness of that is, his party members have given a whole gamut of responses. Including this gem -- https://twitter.com/Hanna_Jameson/statu ... 1934595072 (IDS being one of the bloodless horrors presiding over various cuts to support for the disabled, unemployed, etc and that message really does read like he think Boris is shirking and should either get back to work or shuffle off).

It's allegedly a precaution, following a sustained high temperature, and allegedly he hasn't needed more than precautionary oxygen. Whilst I can well believe he's ignored being ill and bullheadedly tried to press through with long working days, it's difficult to have much sympathy considering he likely contracted it whilst stupidly shaking hands with patients and passed it on to his pregnant other half and people like Chris Witty who were unfortunate enough to share space with him.

Better or worse? Well, Raab (deputising) is in the IDS mould. Boris at least bothers to try to pretend to be all things to all people. Not sure what it says that he picked Raab over Gove -- as I say, another charmer: https://twitter.com/UKLabour/status/1046697458565349376 (all unedited footage AFAIK).

The thing is the more far Right tendencies in the Conservatives are currently under a lot of pressure to seem human, support key workers, etc. So short term, I imagine things would play out the same. Longer term there'll still be a lot of pressure to follow other countries that are further ahead in their curves with what's seen to work. There'll be a lot of infighting either way.
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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This Saturday, for the first time in 3 weeks, I left the single square mile containing my home, work, and grocery store, and made a three mile trek to pick up a pizza. Either the pizza was bad, or I ate too much, as I had a stomach ache Sunday night into Monday morning, and didn't even leave the house to go to work Monday.

I wouldn't mind staying in so much if it seemed to be helping. After more than a week of averaging a hundred new cases a day, today we've got 229, for a total of 1,458. One out of every 725 Rhode Islanders has it. It's mostly in Providence and a few surrounding cities. Where I am, the rate's quite a bit lower. Still, it's really starting to feel like a matter of when I'll get Coronavirus, not if.

The grocery stores have implemented one way aisles to reduce the number of people crossing each others' paths. I'm used to crossing the store in the back to avoid the cluster of people and carts at the register. I'll see tomorrow if this works better. I wonder if they'll put away the dividers that go between orders on the conveyor belts. There's no reason for them now, since using them means you're too close.
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/ ... -1.4222110

Didn't realise school TB vaccinations were no longer a thing in the UK, apparently stopped in 2005.

edit: Also an interesting train of thought -- https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=16 ... d=59921250
it's really starting to feel like a matter of when I'll get Coronavirus, not if.
Yeah. The trick for most otherwise healthy individuals is keeping exposure to high viral loads limited, allowing some immunity to develop, and staying away from anyone more vulnerable. There's a strong likelihood that, assuming reliable antibody tests appear, a lot of people will be in this category.
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

Post by Skyquake87 »

I had to go to the Post Office yesterday on my way to work. My first trip in the age of the pandemic. The only one to keep reasonable opening hours is in town and is one of those concessions in WHSmiths. So I queued up with my parcel and was thinking 'this is a lot of people'. When Smiths opened, they were letting in just a few people in at a time, but also asking "What are you coming in for? We're only providing essential services (i.e. the Post Office) ?" They turned away 6 people who had come "for a look around".

In other puzzling retail excursions, B&M are open as they carry food and household essentials. Oddly, aisles with non-essentials - gardening, DIY, toys - were all fenced off. Yet Supermarkets who have a mix of essentials and non-essentials are okay to sell non-essentials..?
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