Corona Virus 2019-nCoV

Discussion in 'World Events' started by Quantum Quack, Jan 29, 2020.

  1. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,353
    Lol! There’s such a thing as “especially bad” Archer novel? One is really much worse than the others?
    Newspaper would have worked... but iPads aren’t quite as accommodating.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Anyhoo - consensus in UK is that... we’re screwed!
    Seriously, though, headline yesterday was that BoJo said that one-fifth of workers could be off work during the peak of this thing. What he doesn’t realise is that has now given everyone pretty much carte blanche to take a couple of weeks off work during the epidemic, whether they catch the virus or not. Self isolation... via Mallorca! (if one can get a flight!).
    (Un)fortunately I’m able to work from home if the need arise. Damn you, technology!!
    They reckon we’re on the border between containment and delay, but moving into the delay phase will need to be a global decision, as no point in one country trying to contain it when everyone else has gone into delay phase.

    They (news, presumably from experts) also seem to be talking as if this will be a one-off infection... i.e. once everyone is affected it will have nowhere else to go, which is unlike seasonal flu which seems to change its clothes each year and comes back again for another round! Anyone seen anything to explain why they think this, and why it won’t go through flu-like mutations and keep coming back?
     
    exchemist likes this.
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. LaurieAG Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    586
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    Provisional estimate, which will change: https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-02-11/how-deadly-is-coronavirus-fatality-rate

    1) There are no solid numbers on mortality because there are no solid numbers on infection timing or prevalence or duration. In the US, for example, most of the infected so far appear to be unrecorded - probably many asymptomatic, probably many only mildly ill and uninsured or underinsured (unwilling to risk a doctor visit debt for minor issues).

    2) The mortality rate will probably vary greatly by time and location, as the virus mutates and the varieties spread differentially around the globe. (The danger is the chance of a very lethal strain catching hold and escaping isolation).

    If I had a family with children in a one bathroom house or apartment, and was threatened by a disease whose symptoms included severe diarrhea, I would hoard toilet paper.
     
    Last edited: Mar 4, 2020
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. exchemist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,451
    Diarrhoea does not appear to be a symptom of this disease. Nor, it seems, is a runny nose. They talk of fever and a dry cough.
     
  8. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,353
    www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus
    Common signs of infection include respiratory symptoms, fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. In more severe cases, infection can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and even death.

    Although it is also reported elsewhere (different sources) that some patients do experience nausea, vomiting, gastrointestinal problems, or diarrhoea before they get a fever.

    So get that toilet paper stocked up!

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  9. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,634
    Well, true. But you could just as validly say that some people experience nausea, vomiting, GI problems and diarrhea before Christmas - so always stock up on toilet paper on Thanksgiving!

    Come to think of it, with retail outlets suffering due to the move to online shopping, this could be a great rumor to give Black Friday a needed boost.
     
  10. exchemist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,451
    Nah. It push comes to shove, I can just pop down to Waterstones and get a job lot (as it were) of Jeffrey Archer's works.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  11. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,634
    Looks like we've hit the peak in China.
    ===================================================================
    China’s cases of Covid-19 are finally declining. A WHO expert explains why.
    “It’s all about speed”: the most important lessons from China’s Covid-19 response.

    By Julia Belluz julia.belluz@voxmedia.com Updated Mar 3, 2020,

    There’s one country in the world that currently has the most knowledge of and experience with Covid-19: China.

    China, and specifically Hubei province, is where the Covid-19 disease emerged; it’s where 83 percent of the 89,000 cases known to date have been recorded; and it’s where doctors and health authorities have been battling an epidemic for two months — while other countries braced themselves for outbreaks — using unprecedented public health measures, including a cordon sanitaire and lockdowns that affected millions.

    In recent weeks, though, the number of new infections and deaths reported in China has been declining, which suggests spread of the virus may have peaked there and that transmission is slowing down.
    At the same time, cases are rapidly increasing in several other countries, with major outbreaks in South Korea, Italy, and Iran — and a growing case count in the United States.

    It’s now critical that the rest of the world learn as much as it can from China’s efforts to respond to and limit the spread of the virus.

    That was precisely the intention of a recent World Health Organization (WHO) mission to China, led by the agency’s assistant director general and veteran epidemiologist Bruce Aylward. Its major finding: “China’s bold approach to contain the rapid spread of this new respiratory pathogen has changed the course of a rapidly escalating and deadly epidemic.”
     
    Quantum Quack likes this.
  12. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,353
    I do recall someone once commenting on one of his works and saying "It's so bad I wouldn't wipe my arse with it!"... time will tell, I guess.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  13. exchemist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,451
    That sounds like my brother, who, when he was a city lawyer with Linklater's in the 80s, actually said that to a particularly inept and lazy typist (they had them , in those days). He got away with a mild reprimand - because the typist in question was universally acknowledged to be crap.
     
  14. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,328
  15. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    Wait until it happens where you live. It's bloody annoying.

    I was in a supermarket yesterday - only to buy some bread and milk this time, not stocking up for the Zombie Apocalypse. Sure enough, all the toilet paper was gone. But tomorrow I'll need to do a real shop, and toilet paper is one of things I don't customarily keep an enormous stock of. Like a sane person, I buy it when the amount I have gets low. I'm betting I won't be able to buy toilet paper tomorrow. It's not an immediate problem, but it might mean an extra trip later. So, annoying.

    There are still warehouses full of the stuff. Paper is still being pulped, turned into toilet paper and distributed to retailers. The world isn't ending. This is a temporary retail shortage brought on solely by mindless panic.

    Where I live (not sure whether this applies nationwide), one of the two major supermarkets has decided to place a restriction on how much toilet paper somebody can buy in one transaction. I wonder how many people will be making multiple trips so they can fill their garage with hoarded toilet paper, or delegating different family members to make sure they get their hundreds of rolls?

    Not necessarily. I have already heard some talk about people trying to start up an operation in black market toilet paper, hoping to turn a nice profit. It's the toilet paper equivalent of ticket scalping. There's always somebody selfish enough to want to game the system for their own benefit.

    I hope those people end up with their houses so full of toilet paper they can't sell that they can't move.

    This is how tulip crazes get going!
     
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2020
    exchemist and LaurieAG like this.
  16. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    If it follows the common, standard, established pattern of such epidemic diseases, there is no "the" peak. It's "a" peak - the first or second (the records are not clear) one.

    The normal expectation is for more peaks to come.

    They boom and bust, especially the more lethal ones, repeatedly. The booms peak at lower levels, the busts extend, over time - that's how one recognizes subsidence. Normally, in the past, that required either exhaustion of living victim pools by death (as in the Black Plague) or buildup of natural immunity among large populations (as in ordinary flu these days).
    Aylward has a record of skillful and effective political maneuvering in these situations - but that includes public praise and crediting of local officials beyond their contributions, rewarding them for cooperation however grudging and partial. He's good, and doing what he has to do in his undeniably expert opinion and emergency circumstances - but such announcements should not be mistaken for reliable descriptions of physical reality, especially when they are - carefully read - noncommittal.
     
    exchemist likes this.
  17. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,328
  18. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    There are restrictions in place now.

    And not just for toilet paper either.

    It's kind of embarrassing really.
     
  19. foghorn Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,453
    Is that sheets or rolls?
    BTW where I live supermarkets are running out of packs and bars of soap, the hand gels are gone.
     
  20. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,328
    Was told today some print newspapers were printing blank sheets in their news papers....lol
     
  21. exchemist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,451
    Well, it serves me right for poking fun at the Australians, but this was the scene in Balham Sainsbury's this morning:

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    The epidemic of fcukwittery has now taken hold in England, too, it seems.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    foghorn likes this.
  22. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,353
    Maybe it’s an as yet unrecognised symptom of the actual virus?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Touch wood (or is that cloth? ... see what I did there!

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    ) my own ASDA has not yet experienced such “Black Friday” mania over toilet paper, but I suspect it is not far away. How quickly do you think the virus will spread 80 miles from Balham??

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  23. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,328
    Here it is not just hygiene products it is sugar, milk, canned soup, baked bean and spaghetti cans, all pasta, pasta sauces, rice, flour, even fresh minced meats. Walking into a super market is just about useless for anything. No hope of normal shopping...

    UHT Milk 1 lt has gone up 25%
    oh yes.... no toilet paper or tissues at all...
     

Share This Page