Well, the virus just hit home for me. My son and I have been fundraising and saving money for our High School Orchestra trip to New York city.

We were scheduled to leave on the bus this Weds.

Well, I just got a call that there is an emergency meeting after school today to discuss cancelling the trip due to the virus.

Bunch of High School Seniors will not be happy if they cancel today.

A bit of humor in all this doom and gloom. This is me 100%

My company just sent an email; all non-essential travel is restricted. This affects 50,000 employees. I'll be glad when this is over.

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It appears to be not a very fast-mutating virus, a vaccine is very much in the works, current antivirals being tested appear to be effective, there could be some sustained immunity from previous contact with other, similar viruses, and the index source of the infection appears to be leveling out or even falling, indicating SARS-CoV-2 could be fading back into the jungle from whence it came, at least in the place where it came from. We shall see.

Thanks, Doc. Good news.
If the trajectory is anything like what it was in China, we probably have 6 more weeks or so of increasing "community spread" here in the US before it levels off and starts fading here. Disruptive?, sure. But TEOTW, no!

I'm still perplexed by this whole run on toilet paper thing.

I understand Australia is basically out of TP as they don't produce their own TP and rely on places like China for their supply.

The US does produce their own toilet paper and there was a piece by some TP industry guy saying this is stupid as there are huge amounts of it made and it's not going to run out any time soon.

I went to Walmart this past Friday to pick up some charcoal briquettes for my grill and nearly everyone with a cart there had a pack or two or more of TP and bottled water.

I just don't get it; it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy as people say to themselves "I hear TP is getting hard to find!" then they run out and help MAKE IT HARD TO FIND by buying up all they see.

If anything, this panic is going to open people's eyes to just how reliant we have become on China for way too many things and how dangerous that could be.

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Originally posted by chellim1:

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It appears to be not a very fast-mutating virus, a vaccine is very much in the works, current antivirals being tested appear to be effective, there could be some sustained immunity from previous contact with other, similar viruses, and the index source of the infection appears to be leveling out or even falling, indicating SARS-CoV-2 could be fading back into the jungle from whence it came, at least in the place where it came from. We shall see.

Thanks, Doc. Good news.
If the trajectory is anything like what it was in China, we probably have 6 weeks of increasing "community spread" here in the US before it levels off and starts fading here. Disruptive?, sure. But TEOTW, no!

Something else to consider is the way the Chinese handled the outbreak; by herding entire regions into collective quarantine areas, they all but assured the highest possible exposure rates possible, and consequently, the highest possible death rate. Their system, such as it is, was predictably overwhelmed. Here in the US, the spread is much slower, and can be dealt with by the medical community. The biggest danger is still the panic as we've seen from the buying and hoarding.

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Originally posted by gearhounds:


Something else to consider is the way the Chinese handled the outbreak

And lets not forget that the Chinese are VERY different culturally than us and would be perceived as being some dirty, nasty MF's by the western world.

I was just reading about a woman who had traveled and lived in China for years and gave one example that would horrify us; she was sitting in a nice upscale restaurant somewhere in China when this guy nearby just leans over in his seat, hocks up and spits a huge nasty loogie right on the floor. No one batted an eye apparently.

Went to Costco earlier. Strolled down the paper isle just out of curiosity. Yep, no TP.

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I'm still perplexed by this whole run on toilet paper thing.

Try living in a Hurricane area once it's reported that certain death, destruction and Cat X winds are coming your way.

You'll sell out bread, milk, water, canned goods, plywood, plastic, nails, screws, drills, hammers, gas, runs on cash machines....

People are like that, you hear enough times that TETOWAKI is coming your way and they over react.

You see 20 people with cases of TP in their carts and you figure you need one as well.

Real Impact of the Disease is on Health Care Systems: A normal flu season kills about 30,000 Americans each year. The impact of COVID 19 is not that the death numbers may eventually be higher, lower, or the same. The impact is that 20 percent of people are hospitalized, and of those hospitalized, 1 in 5 require ICU care / respirators to stay alive. Thus, the medical treatment systems get overwhelmed trying to keep people alive. There are not enough respirators. Thus, that was the craziness in Wuhan, and the construction of hospitals in 1 week etc.

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Originally posted by PASig:
I'm still perplexed by this whole run on toilet paper thing.
...

I just don't get it; it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy as people say to themselves "I hear TP is getting hard to find!" then they run out and help MAKE IT HARD TO FIND by buying up all they see.

...

Exactly.

A lot of this is similar in the 1973 "gas crisis".

Several events and actions did result in a small decrease to oil supplied from the OPEC, but many factors, from Nixon's price, control to the large oil companies stopping distribution to the smaller independent stations, led to the appearance of a "larger crisis", and then the reaction of the media and people, resulted in people "getting what you can, while you can".

Certainly, energy supplies were affected, but the greater impact and damage to the economy, society and a great number of things, was due to people's overreaction and making mountains out of molehills.

This "viral thinking" is a greater destructive force than most anything that we face from nature.

While the typical flue virus can survive for up to 24 hours on an object, COVID 19 virus appears able to live for 72 hours in room temperature on surfaces where it lands. So use common sense avoid touching your eyes and mouth with your hands and wash your hands often, especially after touching high touch objects in public places like door knobs, shopping cart handles, etc.

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Originally posted by Doc H.:
SARS-CoV-2 could be fading back into the jungle from whence it came, at least in the place where it came from. We shall see.

Doc,

Any thoughts on the possibility of a second outbreak this fall?

Thanks for all your info.

An upside to this whole thing! YAY!

Hollywood won't be making as many shitty remakes and reboots! What a bummer!

How the Coronavirus Will Hurt Hollywood

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Any thoughts on the possibility of a second outbreak this fall?

The SARS outbreak happened in 2002-03. There was no second outbreak. It's possible but probably too early to tell at this stage. Linky

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Originally posted by sigalert:

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Originally posted by Doc H.:
SARS-CoV-2 could be fading back into the jungle from whence it came, at least in the place where it came from. We shall see.

Doc,

Any thoughts on the possibility of a second outbreak this fall?

Thanks for all your info.

There are currently (at least) two strains of the virus - one significant mutation - so you could argue we've already seen a "second" outbreak. That's not unusual or unexpected, and in fact this virus doesn't show the same activity as some others, but some kind of variant at the end of the year wouldn't be surprising. And in fact the virus could well convert to a less infective strain for humans, which may be what we're seeing in the early stages - too soon to tell.

But I'm almost 100% confident that based on its behavior and origins, it's not leaving us, at least in the animal reservoir. So an effective vaccine is critical, and I really believe we'll see one sooner rather than later. I wouldn't be surprised to see some testing stages even accelerated (read, skipped) because of the (perceived) urgency, so also wouldn't be surprised by an announcement within a few months. This is a virus that, good or ill, will be part of the human condition, like a host of old friends we already know. Once the panic dies down, perhaps by Thanksgiving, it will largely be forgotten or part of the background noise, but best we are prepared to snuggle up for the rest of our collective existence, just a fact of nature.

There is an abundance of caution out there and it's just hit home when we received this e-mail from our Atlanta-area school system:

"Our school system has been alerted by public health officials of a confirmed employee coronavirus case within our district. The employee is currently being treated at a local hospital. We are working with public health officials to determine the impact to our local schools and community. Based on this concern, all schools and offices will be closed on Tuesday, March 10, with additional closures communicated as determined. This closure will allow us to clean and sanitize affected schools as well as share additional details of our ongoing plan. Updates regarding this concern will be shared..."

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Originally posted by ridewv:
Real Impact of the Disease is on Health Care Systems: A normal flu season kills about 30,000 Americans each year. The impact of COVID 19 is not that the death numbers may eventually be higher, lower, or the same. The impact is that 20 percent of people are hospitalized, and of those hospitalized, 1 in 5 require ICU care / respirators to stay alive. Thus, the medical treatment systems get overwhelmed trying to keep people alive. There are not enough respirators. Thus, that was the craziness in Wuhan, and the construction of hospitals in 1 week etc.

This bears repeating. Society will not collapse, there will be no bodies in the street, there will still be water and electricity, and there is no need to break into the national strategic toilet paper reserve. But read this Twitter thread about conditions in Italian hospitals because the spread wasn't stomped on early and hard:

https://twitter.com/silviast9/.../1236933818654896129

Got the first two dead in Germany, an 89-year-old woman in Essen hospitalized last Tuesday with diarrhoea and blood sugar problems who died of pneumonia today, and a 78-year-old man with multiple pre-existing conditions in the county where the NRW outbreak originated who went to hospital with symptoms on Friday and died of heart failure. A 60-year-old German tourist also died in Egypt yesterday after having been hospitalized with a fever on Friday, the first COVID death in Africa. I guess we were somewhat overdue already with 1,176 cases reported as of this afternoon.

Just read where Lufthansa is getting ready to ground some of their a380s with a possibility of grounding them all and Air France is talking about it. Lufthansa is only running at 38% capacity on their a380 flights. Smh.