lowenz on 25/3/2020 at 18:25
More a jerk than a pastor.
Gryzemuis on 25/3/2020 at 18:25
Quote Posted by Starker
Sure, if by really early on you mean a week ago.
I don't want to turn this into another russian-pissing-contest. I haven't written down exactly when I read that Russia was forbidding foreigners from entering the country. But I think it was the first week of March. Before our government was even advising us to "just wash your hands, and you'll be fine". I think it was just before Trump banned flights from China.
(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Russia)
It says here that Russia banned foreigners from entering the country. It doesn't say when they did that exactly. The wiki-article suggests it happened shortly after March 2nd (3 weeks ago).
There is a candidates-tournament going on in Moscow. Eight of the world's best chess-players battle to determine who gets to challenge the world-champion (Magnus Carlssen) at the end of the year. The first game was March 17. But the 8 participants (including US-citizen Caruana, and Dutch citizen Giri) were in Moscow 2 weeks ahead. I followed the situation a bit, because I was wondering if the tournament would proceed or get cancelled. And also I wondered if the candidates would be allowed to enter the country. That's another reason why I think I am correct to remember Russia to close it borders 3 weeks ago. BTW so far none of the candidates have gotten ill.
That's the benefit when you are a dictatorship (China) or semi-dictatorship (Russia). You can employ very strict measures very early on, without parliament blocking you, or everybody else suing you. :/
Renzatic on 25/3/2020 at 18:53
Quote Posted by lowenz
More a jerk than a pastor.
WELCOME TO AMERICA, WHERE EVEN THE BUGS ARE POLITICAL!
There's also that story about all those kids organizing a Coronavirus party in Kentucky, and one of the kids who joined in on it has been diagnosed positive.
As long as no one takes it seriously, it's gonna keep spreading.
heywood on 25/3/2020 at 18:57
Quote Posted by catbarf
Right, so how do you tell the difference between:
1. Effective containment measures stemming the spread of the virus until it starts to burn itself out, or
2. Ineffective containment measures allowing the virus to spread through the population until it starts to burn itself out
if you can't trust the reported values for number of infected or deaths? How do we know that 'China showed us how to beat this thing'?
I mean, yes, factually China appears to be over its hump- but that was always inevitable. We'll be over the hump real quick if Trump gets his way and we're all back to work in the next few weeks, with no attempt at quarantine.
You can tell the difference by the infection rate.
China is reporting 82k cases in a population of 1.4B, for an infection rate of 0.006%. We know the number of confirmed cases doesn't include people who get sick and don't need any medical attention and never get tested. And maybe China's public numbers are low. But still, even if it's off by a full order of magnitude, the virus only reached a tiny fraction of the population. Same with South Korea, where 9137/51M = 0.02%
In contrast, the herd immunity solution requires 60-80% of the population to be infected. More recently I've heard an alternate estimate of 40-70%. It depends on R0. If we don't try to contain it and just let it spread while we go about normal business, it could take 6 months or even a year to spread through the population to that extent, depending on whose speculation is right.
Gryzemuis on 25/3/2020 at 18:59
I like this story:
(
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EWpWmyjzM4sNBF-7jp_1Y9a-pqiRg0wakGXy7kj11RA/preview)
In the Czech Republic, there was a shortage of protective gear. So the public decided to make their own masks. People make them at home. Companies make them. They hand out the self-made masks to anyone who needs them. Including large amount of masks made by the public given to hospitals and institutions. And the people wear masks when they go outside ! Thanks to this, there are only 2 covid-19 deaths in the Czech Republic, and the outbreak is slowing down.
Maybe we should start likewise initiatives in our own countries. In NL early-on we were told that "masks are useless". I can't believe that. I think that statement was mostly inspired by the fact that we don't have (any) masks for our general population. If I had a mask, I'd wear it. If I had a sowing machine, I'd make my own. Tonight I will check out those links, and see if I can make my own mask after all.
Renzatic on 25/3/2020 at 19:05
Some guy in Canada found a way to keep 9 people on one ventilator. Ford has also repurposed one of their assembly lines to make ventilators, which is at once heartening, and kinda concerning, cuz I've seen how Ford builds their fucking trucks.
Renzatic on 25/3/2020 at 19:34
I'd rather die on a Ford than breathe a Chevy! :mad:
SubJeff on 25/3/2020 at 19:40
Quote Posted by lowenz
"I suspect SubJeff is a researcher (medical or something else)" -> Zombe is of course a researcher/medic.
SubJeff is the classic (GOOD) skeptic.
SubJeff is a physician (anaesthetic background), ex-behavioural pharmacologist and a drug researcher/developer.
Quote Posted by zombe
I have been keeping an eye on this virus situation since we got our first cases.
What speciality zombe?
