News COVID-19 pandemic

[garyw]

Typical UK - Our health minister has the virus! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51827356

 

[Urwumpe]

Typical UK - Our health minister has the virus! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51827356

If it makes you feel better, our minister of homeland security, Horst, has been quarantized after attending a meeting with somebody diagnosed with the virus.

 

[Marijn]

 

[Notebook]

That series always has something relevant, bit cynical though...

 

[Urwumpe]

OK, COVID-19 is now officially a pandemic. We'll all get our share.

 

[4throck]

It already was pandemic, but for some reason they only called it now.:hmm:

Well, any estimates on how long until we all have contact with it ?

 

[Urwumpe]

It already was pandemic, but for some reason they only called it now.:hmm:

Well, any estimates on how long until we all have contact with it ?

Knowing it is so is more complicated than believing it could be pandemic.



Well, each infected seems to infect 2-4 further humans. Could be rapid, thats way faster than H1N1 (1,3 humans). Each cycle is about one week, recent research seems to suggest that patients are no longer contagious in the second week.



Also, it will not be all humans. When about 70% have been infected, that could be enough to make sure that enough survivors are immune. Of course, that will mean MANY critical conditions. And MANY deaths. Or as you can also see it, opportunities for promotion (Since it mostly affects older males).









One member of parliament in Germany has been tested positive for COVID-19.

 

[4throck]

Not so sure about only affecting older guys. Here it's infecting females of around 40.
But too much going on at the same time to get a good picture.

 

[Urwumpe]

Not so sure about only affecting older guys. Here it's infecting females of around 40.
But too much going on at the same time to get a good picture.

As much as I have heard from the local scientists, children are not getting any symptoms at all when infected, while older males have the highest chance for critical symptoms and deaths. There is little known risk for pregnant women, also older women seem mostly be in danger when they also have heart diseases.

 

[Ripley]

In a few minutes our PM will address the nation again.

 

[Urwumpe]

In a few minutes our PM will address the nation again.

Good news or bad news?



I had seen the number of deaths in Italy declined again, which at least sounds like a good trend after the initial shock.

---------- Post added at 22:12 ---------- Previous post was at 21:50 ----------

Ok, Italy closed all shops and restaurants except supermarkets and pharmacies.

THAT is a huge hit to the Italian economy. So, the Italian government is expecting more bad news.

 

[Fabri91]

Good news or bad news?



I had seen the number of deaths in Italy declined again, which at least sounds like a good trend after the initial shock.

---------- Post added at 22:12 ---------- Previous post was at 21:50 ----------

Ok, Italy closed all shops and restaurants except supermarkets and pharmacies.

THAT is a huge hit to the Italian economy. So, the Italian government is expecting more bad news.

This is correct, all shops and services to the "normal person" except essentials will be closed, but crucially industries will remain operational, with some caveats, such as having to implement home working where possible and implementing measures to reduce possible infection vectors (think limited meetings, ensuring people wash their hands and such).

Personally working from home is not an option since my workplaces internet line has an upload speed of approx. 1Mbps optimistically.

---------- Post added at 22:25 ---------- Previous post was at 22:16 ----------

Just as additional info: our civil protection service has a GitHub page which serves as repository for all sorts of data.

Among the links, a sort of dashboard.

 

[Urwumpe]

Personally working from home is not an option since my workplaces internet line has an upload speed of approx. 1Mbps optimistically.

No problem here, I can easily work from abroad and do that actually pretty often since my children live around 380 km away from my main customers.



But I work in IT, in a company with a cloud computing service and lots of near-shore and off-shore outsourcing - if we would have a poor internet connection, we should close the business.

---------- Post added 12th Mar 2020 at 00:00 ---------- Previous post was 11th Mar 2020 at 22:25 ----------

Looks like the doctors in Italy have resorted to wartime triage to handle the large number of critical cases, that exceed the resources of the medical system, there is a document in italian language circulating describing the classification and decision process for all intensive care patients in such a situation, especially mentioning Covid-19.

 

[fred18]

Looks like the doctors in Italy have resorted to wartime triage to handle the large number of critical cases, that exceed the resources of the medical system, there is a document in italian language circulating describing the classification and decision process for all intensive care patients in such a situation, especially mentioning Covid-19.

yeah they are preparing and they are right: even though the measures are tough we will see basically no outcome from them before two weeks. The cities with most cases (Bergamo and Brescia to mention a couple) are in a super serious crisis. there is a story of a married couple around 80 years old that were perfectly healthy and they spent a whole week at home with high fever and when they finally found the place for them in the hospital it was too late and they both died in a matter of hours one from each other.

So it depends on where you are at the moment, but in case in this two weeks other areas see any explosion of the virus, it's right to be prepared.

Also TBH I see these new measures as good news. There was actually no point in stating in a law that you can go out from home only to go to hospital, work or to get food and in the meantime leave all the shops open. This lead to confusion into a lot of people and anyway there was the risk to extend the emergency further more if the first measures were not working enough.
It's better to give a simple and clean message and to have a sort of fixed time frame for this. We know that 2 weeks from now the situation must radically change so that we will have the ability to plan the recover and we will see a date for the end of the infection. The first city that got hit, is called Codogno, and got everything closed for two weeks and guess what... today was the first day since all this started that they had 0 new cases. It's hard but better hard for a short time than having to deal with this for months and months.

 

[GLS]

Meanwhile in Portugal.... icard-facepalm:icard-facepalm:icard-facepalm:

(yes, it's a party)

 

[4throck]

Yes, it's not fake, there really was a Corona party complete with doctors, ambulances, etc. Fun times indeed...

 

[Frilock]

U.S. Will Suspend Travel From Europe as Countries Tighten Lockdowns

---------- Post added at 09:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:34 PM ----------

Looks like the NBA has suspended the rest of its season as well.

 

[GLS]

Quarantine: Italy vs Portugal

(yes, the bottom picture is from yesterday)

 

[4throck]

Sadly yes... but not unexpected.

You see officials on TV saying "better keep 1.5 meter distance" while they are seated shoulder to shoulder with someone. Hard to take seriously.
This answer by Klopp sums it up:

I completely agree. It's so serious that they play with an empty stadium, but at the same time journalists are traveling around Europe...

 

[Notebook]

Ireland closing schools and colleges, banning mass gatherings.