Why is it ridiculousness? Is it really that incredible that this is a situation that requires such measures to avoid a scenario with severe loss of life?

My company is based in northern Italy, the stories I’ve been shared are sobering. That region is basically Germany/Switzerland south, in terms of efficiency and productivity, and they are at the breaking point (or beyond).

We don’t want to go there.

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Originally posted by Prefontaine:

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Originally posted by Rightwire:


They shut down because workers refused to work and then walked off the line.

Honda is shutting down their Alabama plant for a week minimum, just announced.

Also Nissan North America, closing all plants starting Friday.

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Originally posted by reloader-1:
Why is it ridiculousness? Is it really that incredible that this is a situation that requires such measures to avoid a scenario with severe loss of life?

My company is based in northern Italy, the stories I’ve been shared are sobering. That region is basically Germany/Switzerland south, in terms of efficiency and productivity, and they are at the breaking point (or beyond).

We don’t want to go there.

I agree. We don't want to go there. Do you own that company and you're kind of responsible for those people's livelihood? Or are you an employee that can draw unemployment if there's a layoff? Perspective does change the picture.

Texas and Florida needs to shutdown springbreak yesterday!!!

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Originally posted by reloader-1:
Why is it ridiculousness? Is it really that incredible that this is a situation that requires such measures to avoid a scenario with severe loss of life?

My company is based in northern Italy, the stories I’ve been shared are sobering. That region is basically Germany/Switzerland south, in terms of efficiency and productivity, and they are at the breaking point (or beyond).

We don’t want to go there.

What makes you think there would be a “severe loss of life here”? China has even seen their cases level off.

Link

An Optimisitic Take on Covid-19

Michael Levitt is an “American-British-Israeli” chemist who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2013. He spends a lot of time in China and has followed the coronavirus epidemic from the beginning. The Jerusalem Post highlights Levitt’s optimistic view of the epidemic, in part because the contagion is waning in China:

“The rate of infection of the virus in the Hubei province increased by 30% each day — that is a scary statistic. I am not an influenza expert but I can analyze numbers and that is exponential growth.”

Had the growth continued at that rate, the whole world would have become infected within 90 days. But as Levitt continued to process the numbers, the pattern changed. On February 1, when he first looked at the statistics, Hubei Province had 1,800 new cases a day. By February 6, that number had reached 4,700 new cases a day.

But on February 7, something changed. “The number of new infections started to drop linearly and did not stop,” Levitt said. “A week later, the same happened with the number of the deaths. This dramatic change in the curve marked the median point and enabled better prediction of when the pandemic will end. Based on that, I concluded that the situation in all of China will improve within two weeks. And, indeed, now there are very few new infection cases.”

By plotting the data forward, Levitt has predicted that the virus will likely disappear from China by the end of March.

Levitt explains one of the reasons why the spread of the disease slows:

The reason for the slowdown is due to the fact that exponential models assume that people with the virus will continue to infect others at a steady rate. In the early phase of COVID-19, that rate was 2.2 people a day on average.

“In exponential growth models, you assume that new people can be infected every day, because you keep meeting new people,” Levitt said. “But, if you consider your own social circle, you basically meet the same people every day. You can meet new people on public transportation, for example; but even on the bus, after some time most passengers will either be infected or immune.”

Levitt also concludes that most people are naturally immune to COVID-19:

In Wuhan, where the virus first emerged, the whole population theoretically was at risk of becoming infected, but only 3% were.

The Diamond Princess cruise ship represented the worst-case scenario in terms of disease spread, as the close confines of the ship offered optimal conditions for the virus to be passed among those aboard. The population density aboard the ship was the equivalent of trying to cram the whole Israeli population into an area 30 kilometers square. In addition, the ship had a central air conditioning and heating system, and communal dining rooms.

“Those are extremely comfortable conditions for the virus and still, only 20% were infected. It is a lot, but pretty similar to the infection rate of the common flu,” Levitt said. Based on those figures, his conclusion was that most people are simply naturally immune.

Let’s hope that proves to be true. The cruise ship experience seems to be powerful evidence that it is.

Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chucky Cheeseball Schumer - "A single $1,000 check ... what happens after that? ... If a package does include direct payments, they need to be "bigger, more frequent, and more targeted,".

https://abcnews.go.com/Politic...o_live_headlines_hed

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Really? More targeted?

Hey Chuckles Schmuck Schumer...

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Originally posted by PowerSurge:

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Originally posted by reloader-1:
Why is it ridiculousness? Is it really that incredible that this is a situation that requires such measures to avoid a scenario with severe loss of life?

My company is based in northern Italy, the stories I’ve been shared are sobering. That region is basically Germany/Switzerland south, in terms of efficiency and productivity, and they are at the breaking point (or beyond).

We don’t want to go there.

What makes you think there would be a “severe loss of life here”? China has even seen their cases level off.

Did they get there by going on with business as usual, or did they put every remotely affected area in the country in lockdown?

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Originally posted by ensigmatic:

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Originally posted by Joe123:

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Told us to self quarantine and monitor.

No of the locals in Heathrow were wearing masks.

In Kroger now, meat diary dairy products are at 20% stocked...of course no TP Roll Eyes

Produce is stocked though....

Buying what we normally eat....but adding 1 or 3 packages.

Going to Costco next....pray Wink for us

It sounds like you forgot to self quarantine.

They gotta eat, don't they?

One presumes they took appropriate precautions in breaking their quarantine--just in case.

Holy Christ.....

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Originally posted by PowerSurge:

quote:

Originally posted by reloader-1:
Why is it ridiculousness? Is it really that incredible that this is a situation that requires such measures to avoid a scenario with severe loss of life?

My company is based in northern Italy, the stories I’ve been shared are sobering. That region is basically Germany/Switzerland south, in terms of efficiency and productivity, and they are at the breaking point (or beyond).

We don’t want to go there.

What makes you think there would be a “severe loss of life here”? China has even seen their cases level off.

And region wide house level mandatory quarantine in credited for that leveling off, weird huh?

"Soon after, people in many Chinese cities were told to stay home and venture out only to get food or medical help. Some 760 million people, roughly half the country’s population, were confined to their homes, according to the New York Times.

It’s now two months since the lockdowns began — some of which are still in place — and the number of new cases there is around a couple dozen per day, down from thousands per day at the peak. “These extreme limitations on population movement have been quite successful,” says Michael Osterholm, an infectious-disease scientist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00741-x

At one time during this craziness, wasn't the Chinese government actually forcibly WELDING people into their homes? Kind of a FORCED quarantine??

^
Would Americans be willing to put up with that?

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Originally posted by 1KPerDay:
FYI from my brother the ER doc if interested:


Hey guys, I have been meaning to send a text out to you especially after the meeting I had this morning with the other doctors at my hospital (by phone). It was all about the coronavirus. Initially I think we all felt this was just a dumb virus and there was a lot of social over reactions, however we are seeing two things happening, number one this is more deadly and more contagious than influenza by a long shot, And hospitals are already being overwhelmed. People are getting very sick, and especially the elderly, by which I mean anyone older than 65.
All of the data shows that by decreasing the rate of spread we will prevent the high spike in transmission which will help hospitals not be overwhelmed. Which helps people not die.

New data shows about 25% of infected patients don’t have symptoms, but they are highly infectious. Especially in the first week of infection.

We are also now realizing that there are likely thousands of true positive cases that aren’t reported, and I think we will all have friends or family that end up being infected by this virus.

My guidance Would be to not have any get togethers. I think we need to understand how serious this really is.

Happy to discuss this further and answer any questions. It is a daily change of information, the situation is very fluid.

More medical experts weighing in with their assessments and recommendations. We should listen.

Sadly, I fear it will not change one person's mind. This will always be seen as "less deadly" than the flu, and we are way overreacting, despite what all the medical experts are saying.

While we're on this topic a few questions.

1. Why is it these viruses die out in warm weather?

2. What is the chance of a vaccine being developed quickly? I've read that Germany and Israel have promising prospects.

3. How do these vaccines work? It seems to me it exposes you to a small amount of the virus for your immune system to remember, but don't they need to figure out how to keep the virus from reproducing within the closed system of the person?

On #3, vaccines are usually inactivated strains of the virus in question. In theory, this will stimulate your own immune system to begin producing anti-bodies so it is up and running should you be exposed to the active virus. Since the vaccine has been made inert in some way, it won't cause the disease itself.

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Originally posted by BBMW:
^
Would Americans be willing to put up with that?

Well...that's kinda my point and you're correct. I don't think there's an American alive that would voluntarily succumb to that. AT. ALL. About the closest our government could get to that is mandating a curfew. And I'm thinking at this point, it would be VERY difficult to justify Martial Law.

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Originally posted by BBMW:
^
Would Americans be willing to put up with that?

The point was not if Americans would accept it, the point is quarantine is one method that has proven to work. The South Koreans took a more democratic approach that seem to have worked as well but would be much harder to implement with the size of our population as well as geographic, economic and societal differences.


"South Korea is a democratic republic, we feel a lockdown is not a reasonable choice,” says Kim Woo-Joo, an infectious disease specialist at Korea University. South Korea’s success may hold lessons for other countries—and also a warning: Even after driving case numbers down, the country is braced for a resurgence.

Behind its success so far has been the most expansive and well-organized testing program in the world, combined with extensive efforts to isolate infected people and trace and quarantine their contacts. South Korea has tested more than 270,000 people, which amounts to more than 5200 tests per million inhabitants"

https://www.sciencemag.org/new...s-secret-its-success

Many pension funds have failed to make provisions for adverse economic conditions, such as caused by this virus, and will soon be bankrupt. They’ll demand government bailouts. I hope President Trump hangs tough. Especially for so-called sanctuary cities and states.

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Originally posted by sigfreund:

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Originally posted by Doc H.:
And that one probably originated in China as well.

Interesting; I have never run across that idea in all the reading I’ve done on the subject. Any views on how it spread to the US? I don’t recall that there was much Chinese immigration at that time.

Added: Just researched the Chinese Labor Corps that consisted of many Chinese in Europe during the war: American soldiers got infected there then returned to the US, but it was already spreading by that time—? The thing that doesn’t seem to fit that theory was that disease’s short incubation period (as I recall).

A number of theories of the 1918 pandemic's origins have been proposed, including Haskell County, Kansas. The problem with Kansas is, that pretty much concurrently France was seeing a rise in cases of some unknown respiratory infection, chiefly among servicemen. And there were some cases in Aldershot, UK prior to that, which may have been reported in the article you read. Several things impact any retrospective studies:

1. Poor record keeping, everywhere.
2. The world was in, and just ending, the bloodiest war in human history, and resources were strained, everywhere.
3. Panic influenced whatever concurrent reporting there was, everywhere.


Just my own opinion, shared among others, is that it came from the Shaanxi Province in Northwest China. Which, interestingly, borders Hubei Province, the known origin of SARS-CoV-2. In 1917, an upper respiratory infection ripped through the province, and, seemingly, fizzled out, with relatively mild effects. And then it came back.

The most compelling evidence, to me, is that the 1918 H1N1 pandemic occurred in three waves over the next 18 months, and the first was probably the "bow wave," relatively mild also, mistaken for the yearly average of respiratory infections. But the Chinese were virtually immune to this wave, unique in all the world. Indicating that their population was already very familiar with this disease, and in fact, lived alongside it. And Chinese labor was indeed used in both England and France in the same time period, where Americans were just leaving to go home from the Great War. By the Spring of 1918, the virus had matured and mutated, and the second wave was not so kind to the Chinese, or anyone else. Anywhere from 1 to 10 million Chinese died in that wave, and in my opinion closer to the second number.

The Asian flu pandemic in 1957 shared phylogeny with the H1N1 virus of 1918. And the H1N1 "Swine Flu" pandemic in 2009, although the index case was in Mexico, had parent genes from the same virus. That's why I also believe the next pandemic, the one after this one, the one with no date as of today - the really bad one - will come from Northwest China.