Coronavirus

[Old Man]

Will SARS-CoV-2 Outbreaks be an Annual Occurrence?

 

In any case where immunity to SARS-CoV-2 isn't permanent, the virus is capable of producing sporadic outbreaks. If the duration of the immunity is less than a year, the outbreaks will be annual. If it's longer, we could see bi-annual outbreaks of COVID-19 cases.

[Old Man]

[Old Man]

I guess this one is nsfw:

 

[Ragitsu]

 

 

[unclevlad]

The woman showing her gray roots...

 

I was flashing back to the stupid git at the market a while back, and some comments I'd never say out loud (I hope anyway) included "yeah, sucks to be missing your hairdresser appointment doesn't it? "

 

That was a milder one....

 

As I'd largely expected, my chiropractor's office called today.  Appointment WAS set for Monday...but the stay at home orders included medical stuff that could be put off.  This is just a regular adjustment;  no reason it can't be put off.  My dental cleaning was next week too...but that office is more tech-savvy and their web site's already posted that they're only taking emergency cases.

 

And gee...the guy has his facts right.  Michigan...29K cases (#5), 1200 new cases today (#4), #8 in cases per 100,000 people, #5 in deaths per 100,000 people.  There's some argument for saying our governor's overreacted;  we're at about 1/3 the average in cases and about 1/6 the average in deaths per 100,000.  BUT I"D RATHER IT STAYED THAT WAY, THANK YOU!

 

It's only going to get worse, tho.  

[Simon]

20 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

As I'd largely expected, my chiropractor's office called today.  Appointment WAS set for Monday...but the stay at home orders included medical stuff that could be put off.  This is just a regular adjustment;  no reason it can't be put off.  My dental cleaning was next week too...but that office is more tech-savvy and their web site's already posted that they're only taking emergency cases.

I've been doing the exact same with my chiro -- they're still open, but I'm not in any dire need.  Heck, with the forge closed down I'm doing pretty well of late.

They still keep checking every 2 weeks, which is nice of them, but I keep pushing them out until I either _really_ need it or our stay at home orders are relaxed.

[Old Man]

Not to get anyone's hopes up, but there is some optimism around early results of remdesivir trials.

[Lawnmower Boy]

7 hours ago, Pariah said:

These two stories were side-by-side on the NBC News website this morning:

 

 

Issue a stay-at-home order? You get protests and people calling for your job.

 

Don't issue a stay-at-home order? You get a disproportionately large number of COVID-19 cases and people calling for your job.

 

What's a Governor to do?

 

I'm wrong about stuff all the time, but the protests in Michigan and Ohio smell like astroturf to me. They're too localised to be a response to national trends, and in the wrong states to be a response to local events. 

[Ragitsu]

6 minutes ago, Lawnmower Boy said:

 

I'm wrong about stuff all the time, but the protests in Michigan and Ohio smell like astroturf to me. They're too localised to be a response to national trends, and in the wrong states to be a response to local events. 

 

The Michigan protests may be backed by members of the DeVos family.

[Cygnia]

1 minute ago, Ragitsu said:

 

Apparently, the Michigan protests may be backed by members of the DeVos family.

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/lock-her-anti-whitmer-coronavirus-lockdown-protestors-swarm-michigan-capitol-n1184426

 

Quote

The protest — dubbed "Operation Gridlock" — was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and the Michigan Freedom Fund, a DeVos family-linked conservative group. Protesters were encouraged to show up and cause traffic jams, honk and bring signs to display from their cars. Organizers wrote on Facebook: "Do not park and walk — stay in your vehicles!"

 

[Ragitsu]

1 minute ago, Cygnia said:

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/lock-her-anti-whitmer-coronavirus-lockdown-protestors-swarm-michigan-capitol-n1184426

 

 

 

First, Betsy DeVos works to strip public education of vital funding and now this? She truly is a catalyst for societal progression.

[Ternaugh]

Happily, Smith's (Kroger) had TP today.

[TrickstaPriest]

5 minutes ago, Ternaugh said:

Happily, Smith's (Kroger) had TP today.

 

I'm glad to be so wanted nowadays.

[Old Man]

Wait’ll you see what he wants you for. 

[Pariah]

2 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

First, Betsy DeVos works to strip public education of vital funding and now this? She truly is a catalyst for societal progression.

 

...which makes her a perfect operative for the Administration she's bought her way into.

[Pariah]

[Bazza]

ACLU WHITE PAPER — PRINCIPLES FOR TECHNOLOGY-ASSISTED CONTACT-TRACING

https://www.aclu.org/report/aclu-white-paper-principles-technology-assisted-contact-tracing

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, Pariah said:

 

Yup, Mongols were the Spanish Flu and Bubonic Plague combined. If turnips provided immunity to Mongols, that might have been worth the risk.

[massey]

Unfortunately, right now we lack basic information on how this virus works.  We don't know the right thing to do, and people's lives and livelihoods are at stake.  We don't know for sure if certain medications are working, or if people can be reinfected after they've had it.  Everyone is in the dark on the best way to handle this, but we're also in an election year and so we're all on edge and ready to point fingers.

 

Combine that with the fact that a lot of stay at home orders are probably legally suspect.  In my state we don't have a shelter in place order (just a strong recommendation), but if we did you can't even challenge it because all the courthouses are closed.  We don't have a particularly bad outbreak, but I don't think our governor even has the statutory authority to order something like that.  For now, staying at home is definitely the wise move.  But for how long?

 

I work for a small firm, and my office has been closed for the last three weeks.  No money is coming in at all.  While I have a job right now, that could change tomorrow.  My wife got laid off because of the virus, and has been getting unemployment checks, though that doesn't last forever.  Eventually you have to brave the Mongols and go out to get the turnips, otherwise you starve.  People are going to lose their houses over this.  People are going to commit suicide over this.  But we don't know how many.  We don't know if it's more than the virus would kill, or less.  It depends on variables that we don't have solutions for.

 

Two good friends of mine were both recently released from ICU.  They'd been in there for weeks, some of the first people in my state to get Coronavirus.  One guy's office was on the floor below mine.  The other said he was so miserable he wanted to die.  So I'm certainly taking it seriously.  An economic recession is better than millions of people dying from a plague.  But an indefinite shutdown that could continue for a year or more... people just aren't going to follow it, regardless of the consequences.  It is not a choice that is available to us.

 

[Badger]

11 hours ago, Old Man said:

Will SARS-CoV-2 Outbreaks be an Annual Occurrence?

 

 

 

 

Don't know if we can survive through an annual quarantine.

[massey]

One more thing.  I think this could very easily slam the door shut on trade with China.  The longer the shutdown goes, the more likely it becomes.  What good is a cheap iPhone if it makes you vulnerable to a global pandemic because of their non-existent health regulations?

 

This has the possibility to be one of those once in a generation economic and political realignments, something on the order of the Great Depression, World War II, or the end of the Cold War.  We just went through 30 years of ever-increasing free trade, with factories moving overseas and prices of consumer goods coming down.  I think that's about to get thrown into reverse.

[Lord Liaden]

Will Rogers said, "Worry is like paying interest on a debt you may never owe." It's natural to imagine the worst cases, especially when scientists keep giving us worst-case projections. It's normal to be scared, and to feel helpless. But as massey pointed out, there's a lot that even the experts don't know yet. We don't know how long this wave of infection will last, we don't know how easy it would be to become reinfected, we don't know if an effective treatment is on the horizon, we don't know what the long-term economic effects will be. In my lifetime I've seen diseases that surprised and shocked us with how serious they were, and others anticipated with dread that fizzled out. Nature rarely follows our road maps.

 

Right now we're all trying to do what we can, and we're in agreement that it's the right thing to do for now. There's really nothing more in the power of most of us, so I recommend preparing as best we can for the worst but hoping for the best, and waiting to see what actually falls out.

[Bazza]

[Bazza]

[Bazza]