WTF :2019-nCoV NovaCoronaVirus Thread

[Evildead666]

One interesting view is that in Italy, the number of elderly infected is much higher than anywhere else (https://medium.com/@andreasbackhausa...y-c4200a15a7bf).

Not stated by the other but from somewhere else: In Italy, many elderly live together with their (grown) children and/or share meals very often. So where 0-40yo people get infected a lot but suffer little, in Italy they take it hoe to parents. Also, Germany tests way more as I understand it.

They've been parroting in the French Press that more than 50% of the ER cases are under 60 years old.

This is not just a 'old people will suffer' virus.
It affects everyone, young and old.
Young people are dying too.

I'm pretty active over on the ATS thread, even though there are a lot of nutjobs there (please don't say I said that).

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1258928/pg210

It is a good thread for updates though, even if you have to sift thorugh a biot of sh!t to get there.
Theres a lot less crap now the sh!t is hitting the fan.

I'm MonkeyBalls2 over there if anyone is wondering. (trying to be 'covert' but who gives a crap now)

Home update :
I'm in lock down with my parents (both over 70).
We are not going out, I went to the shops on last Thursday, and there was a queue outside, and they were only letting a few people in at a time.
Loads of TP and stuff, but no cat or dog food apart from dry Biscuits.

I worked from home last monday (first day back after two weeks of hols at home), not sure if I posted that here, and then on tuesday got the info that our contract was cancelled, so I'm still paid, just not at work for the moment.
Might get laid off at the end of the month, we'll see. Not bothered to much about it.

Don't expect to go out now until really, really need to.
Don't want to risk bringing something back to my parents.

The way this is going, and by the reactions of the entire world Govt's, this is bad. Really bad.

Stay Safe, Stay Home, and Stay Healthy.
This is not just the Flu, its much worse.
The only way to stop it, is to stop the spread.

Unfortunately, the US and the UK might just be too late for that.
I'm hoping France put the lockdown just in time, we'll see if that's the case.

As I said, lots of updates on the ATS thread (and lots of batsh!t crazy people, but less as the days go on).
You might just be able to help with updates from around the World.

Jez

[Dr Mordrid]

Ventilator update

Ford, GM, and Tesla (with SpaceX) have received FDA regulatory waivers to produce ventilators.

Normally producers need qualification and there's a regulatory jungle, but there's no time for that so...partners.

GM is working with Ventec Life Systems of Seattle, WA, US.

Tesla & SpaceX are working with Medtronic of Dublin, Ireland.

Fiat-Chrysler, Ferrari and Italian parts maker Marelli are working with Siare Engineering of Bologna, Italy.

Ford is in "preliminary discussions" with US & UK ventilator producers.

Game on...

[UtwigMU]

There was a terrible scene at work today. One coworker (otherwise calm factory floor guy in mid 40s) grabbed a knife from kitchen and wanted to harm himself. Two other guys restrained him, then ambulance was called. We then calmed the guy down, I brought glass of water and some wet towels. Allegedly he took a lot of prescribed antidepressants and was saying he came to work to say goodbye and told us to take care of his wife and kids. I told him that he needs to stay alive and strong for his family now. Then emergency doctor came and they took him to hospital.

Based on atmosphere at work - we're finishing tasks, while management has head in sand (2 weeks ago while I worked on VPN on my own initiative, they wanted service forms for Italy) and no leadership I predicted someone will snap any day now.

In a month or so scenes like this will be common in supermarkets. Staying home with families with barrage of bad news and economic uncertainty is badly affecting people's mental health.

[Evildead666]

There was a terrible scene at work today. One coworker (otherwise calm factory floor guy in mid 40s) grabbed a knife from kitchen and wanted to harm himself. Two other guys restrained him, then ambulance was called. We then calmed the guy down, I brought glass of water and some wet towels. Allegedly he took a lot of prescribed antidepressants and was saying he came to work to say goodbye and told us to take care of his wife and kids. I told him that he needs to stay alive and strong for his family now. Then emergency doctor came and they took him to hospital.

Based on atmosphere at work - we're finishing tasks, while management has head in sand (2 weeks ago while I worked on VPN on my own initiative, they wanted service forms for Italy) and no leadership I predicted someone will snap any day now.

In a month or so scenes like this will be common in supermarkets. Staying home with families with barrage of bad news and economic uncertainty is badly affecting people's mental health.

I can beleive it.
You, Sir, are a Genuine Good Person.
Major props to the collegues who restrained him, it can't have been easy to make that decision.


All you get now is 100% 24/7 Coronavirus on TV News.
BUT, that is the world we now live in.

UK Has just gone on lockdown as well, same as us in the rest of Europe.
(About bloody time if you ask me, considering all the outdoors mingling they were doing this weekend.)

There is only one way to beat this right now, and that is to stop the spread.

Italy, may be on the decline, but the next few days, maybe week, will confirm or not.

The queues outside supermarkets tomorrow morning in the UK are likely to be worse than what we've seen so far unfortunately.
I hope i'm wrong, but considering how they've behaved so far, not holding my breath.

Stay Safe everyone.

[VJ]

The queues outside supermarkets tomorrow morning in the UK are likely to be worse than what we've seen so far unfortunately.
I hope i'm wrong, but considering how they've behaved so far, not holding my breath.

Not sure if you can say the people were behaving badly, as there were no restrictions (and we don't know how it was presented in the country). The government was gambling on letting it spread to achieve group immunity (just like Netherlands). Now they realized the national healthcare would not be able to cope, so they are resorting to isolation. But they start this with a large number of infections...

[Umfriend]

No just like the Netherlands. We were late but our policy was (and is) to flatten the curve, not to contain, and group immunity is a by-product of that (assuming we do build lasting immunity after an infection). The UK until recently went for full-on only herd immunity. BIG DIFFERENCE!

[VJ]

Almost all countries have the goal the flatten the curve, so far only China and South Korea managed to contain it... I read somewhere that Netherlands initially was set on rapidly achieving group immunity but as the curve is too steep they had to increase efforts to flatten the curve... But with so many news floating around, it may have been wrongly reported...

[dZeus]

Almost all countries have the goal the flatten the curve, so far only China and South Korea managed to contain it... I read somewhere that Netherlands initially was set on rapidly achieving group immunity but as the curve is too steep they had to increase efforts to flatten the curve... But with so many news floating around, it may have been wrongly reported...

The goal of most western countries is not to contain, because we don't have the right society and/or authoritarian government that can implement the required measures that would also involve privacy-busting level of following each individuals activities to trace contacts and/or breaking containment rules.

As alternative to containment there's really only achieving herd immunity while flattening the curve to avoid overloading the healthcare system. We cannot stay confined to our homes forever, and every time the rules are relaxed we'll see an uptick in new cases, as the disease is now world-wide and it will become a seasonal disease like flu.

Note that flu causes up to 650000 deaths a year according to the WHO, and this has become a figure that is accepted by society as 'normal' (as in, not require more measures than inoculation of the people most susceptible to get severely ill from it).

[Umfriend]

Yes, that was the initial idea in the UK as I understand it. Our initial policy was more like "We'll contain it because it isn't here yet" but then it got here BIGLY as quite a few people had returned from Italy (infected, contagious but not feeling to bad) and celebrated Carnaval... Not quite as big as the Woman's Day March in Madrid or the elections in France but enough (and that was earlier, 20-25 feb).

We are terrible at testing, apparently our capacity is at a few thousand or less than two thousand a day or some-such. So we're really rather flying blind, just looking at incomplete statistics of hospital admissions and deaths. I have some hope that tests for immunity on blood donated in blood banks will give a better picture of where how many had been infected but who knows, we'll see what happens.

Personally, I am optimistic the measures taken in the Netherlands will just, _just_, keep our health industry from overflowing (which it did/does do in the South). I expect new cases to decline as of the coming weekend. But then the hospital will need a bit of time to deal with the backlog and recuperate and it remains to be seen how and when we should relax a the constraints a bit. Ideally you'd have millions of tests so that you can contain quickly and sufficiently on a small scale but that does not seem to be feasible here.

My main concern right now is the US actually. The way I see it is the US is going to sacrifice elderly, people with conditions, physicians/nurses etc and people in general because of the economy. Trump, as usual, promises a whole lot but the US is simply not ready to deal with a few million of seriously ill in hospitals. Of course Trump will tout GM and Tesla etc. making ventilators but if lucky, there'll be some sort of untested prototype by April 12th and serious production, say 100 a day, is months away. Carnage is what I fear.

[dZeus]

Yes, that was the initial idea in the UK as I understand it. Our initial policy was more like "We'll contain it because it isn't here yet" but then it got here BIGLY as quite a few people had returned from Italy (infected, contagious but not feeling to bad) and celebrated Carnaval... Not quite as big as the Woman's Day March in Madrid or the elections in France but enough (and that was earlier, 20-25 feb).

We are terrible at testing, apparently our capacity is at a few thousand or less than two thousand a day or some-such. So we're really rather flying blind, just looking at incomplete statistics of hospital admissions and deaths. I have some hope that tests for immunity on blood donated in blood banks will give a better picture of where how many had been infected but who knows, we'll see what happens.

Personally, I am optimistic the measures taken in the Netherlands will just, _just_, keep our health industry from overflowing (which it did/does do in the South). I expect new cases to decline as of the coming weekend. But then the hospital will need a bit of time to deal with the backlog and recuperate and it remains to be seen how and when we should relax a the constraints a bit. Ideally you'd have millions of tests so that you can contain quickly and sufficiently on a small scale but that does not seem to be feasible here.

My main concern right now is the US actually. The way I see it is the US is going to sacrifice elderly, people with conditions, physicians/nurses etc and people in general because of the economy. Trump, as usual, promises a whole lot but the US is simply not ready to deal with a few million of seriously ill in hospitals. Of course Trump will tout GM and Tesla etc. making ventilators but if lucky, there'll be some sort of untested prototype by April 12th and serious production, say 100 a day, is months away. Carnage is what I fear.

The US has even more critical care beds per 100.000 adults than Germany does, so they'll probably be (relatively) alright.

It's most of Europe that's really screwed, as the ICU capacity cannot deal with a large influx. This means that either we'll have to commit economic suicide (i.e. indefinite confinement until a large portion of society is immune or a magic bullet treatment / vaccine becomes available), or we'll need to make the choice to let the most vulnerable people die if self-confinement of that category fails.

[Evildead666]

The BIG problem with herd-Immunity, is that we still don't know if we can even GET immunity from it.
Some of the Cold Virus strains are caused by a Coronavirus (~15%), and we never get immunity due to it mutating so much.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cold#Cause

If that is the case with COVID-19, any country relying on immunity, may be sentencing their population to unknown effects.

The reason other countries are doing what they are doing, is because of the Unknowns.
We just don't know so much about this Virus yet.

[MultimediaMan]

I doubt seriously, with over 1.1 billion people, that China has "contained" anything... They kicked out all of the Journalists and most of the epidemiologists.

[Dr Mordrid]

I doubt seriously, with over 1.1 billion people, that China has "contained" anything... They kicked out all of the Journalists and most of the epidemiologists.

Agreed!! China has been lying their asses off since November with no sign of letting up.

Tesla's CEO Elon Musk and Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak confirm Tesla's Buffalo
New York Gigafactory (Giga NY) will re-open ASAP for ventilator production. Tesla has already acquired & delivered 1,200+ ventilators for California.

[Umfriend]

The US has even more critical care beds per 100.000 adults than Germany does, so they'll probably be (relatively) alright.

It's most of Europe that's really screwed, as the ICU capacity cannot deal with a large influx. This means that either we'll have to commit economic suicide (i.e. indefinite confinement until a large portion of society is immune or a magic bullet treatment / vaccine becomes available), or we'll need to make the choice to let the most vulnerable people die if self-confinement of that category fails.

Realtively, yeah, perhaps.Although the distribution of ICU beds differs vastly within the US. Give how much effort it costs to move people between hospitals in the Netherlands, it'll be dramatic over there. And of course, having about 10% more than Germany and almost 300% compared to Italy won't help if you they do nothing to limit R.

I think the idea in Europe is that once R is below 1 and we can get to grips again, we would then monitor heavily and have strict isolation of cases where it pops up again.

[Umfriend]

Agreed!! China has been lying their asses off since November with no sign of letting up.

Tesla's CEO Elon Musk and Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak confirm Tesla's Buffalo
New York Gigafactory (Giga NY) will re-open ASAP for ventilator production. Tesla has already acquired & delivered 1,200+ ventilators for California.

So we think China has not contained anything but had 1200 spare ventilators?