Coronavirus

[mockbee]

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/10/sim ... -covid-19/

We can expect a doubling of cases every six days, according to several epidemiological studies. Confirmed cases may appear to rise faster (or slower) in the short term as diagnostic capabilities are ramped up (or not), but this is how fast we can expect actual new cases to rise in the absence of substantial mitigation measures.

That means we are looking at about 1 million U.S. cases by the end of April; 2 million by May 7; 4 million by May 13; and so on.

As the health care system becomes saturated with cases, it will become increasingly difficult to detect, track, and contain new transmission chains. In the absence of extreme interventions like those implemented in China, this trend likely won’t slow significantly until hitting at least 1% of the population, or about 3.3 million Americans.

What does a case load of this size mean for health care system? That’s a big question, but just two facets — hospital beds and masks — can gauge how Covid-19 will affect resources.

The U.S. has about 2.8 hospital beds per 1,000 people (South Korea and Japan, two countries that have seemingly thwarted the exponential case growth trajectory, have more than 12 hospital beds per 1,000 people; even China has 4.3 per 1,000). With a population of 330 million, this is about 1 million hospital beds. At any given time, about 68% of them are occupied. That leaves about 300,000 beds available nationwide.

The majority of people with Covid-19 can be managed at home. But among 44,000 cases in China, about 15% required hospitalization and 5% ended up in critical care. In Italy, the statistics so far are even more dismal: More than half of infected individuals require hospitalization and about 10% need treatment in the ICU.

Maybe waiting rooms and other open buiding spaces, like auditoriums or stadiums, and can be converted to stage beds and triage.



Maybe they will play Minutemen jams over the loud speakers to ease, or reflect, anxieties felt by the caretakers and the sick.... oh wait.

[Artemis]

I just watched this and thought it was pretty good. Consider it a companion piece to Hype and mock's posts.

https://kottke.org/20/03/exponential-gr ... X0PM5RvkJY

From 3blue1brown’s Grant Sanderson, this is an excellent quick explanation of exponential growth and how we should think about it in relation to epidemics like COVID-19. Depending on how rusty your high school math is, you might need to rewind a couple of times to fully grasp the explanation, but you should persevere and watch the whole thing.

The most important bit is at the end, right around the 7:45 mark, when he talks about how limiting person-to-person exposure and decreasing the probability of exposures becoming infections can have a huge effect on the total number of people infected because the growth is exponential. If large numbers of people start doing things like limiting travel, cancelling large gatherings, social distancing, and washing their hands frequently, the total number of infections could fall by several orders of magnitude, making the exponential work for us, not against us. Small efforts have huge results. If, as in the video, you’re talking about 100 million infected in two months (at the current transmission rate) vs. 400,000 (at the lowered rate) and if the death rate of COVID-19 is between 1-3%, you’re looking at 1-3 million dead vs. 4-12,000 dead.

So let’s start flattening that exponential. South Korea and China both seem to have done it, so there’s no reason the rest of the world can’t through aggressive action.

[Larry B.]

That was really cool.

Today, a friend who is a doctor and traveled to South East Asia called me to ask me for a favour, if I could take his car from the hospital to his house, because he and his girlfriend are highly likely to have the virus and will have to spend the night there.

I did it, and as soon as I got back home I just lathered myself with soap and a bit of alcohol. My nostrils might not have been the only body cavities I washed thoroughly. I disinfected my glasses, wallet, earphones, his car keys and my house keys. I washed the clothes I was wearing and the towel I dried myself with.

Please dear holy mother of yahova don't let me get infected by helping a friend.

[Larry B.]

I’m a bit in shock by the state of things. The US closing its borders to Europe but not the UK is... odd, to say the least.

In Italy, only pharmacies and grocery stores can open their doors. Everything else is closed.

It feels like a new dystopia in an already dystopian world.

[Bandit72]

Tin Foil Hats on!

[mockbee]

Italy is having a hard time....it is also weird. Shutting all things down will help....necessary? Hmmmm. Whenever ive been traveling there over the past 20 years, they do weird stuff sometines and stuff is just shut down for no reason.?..maybe par for the course...?..

I think things the world will shut down fie a month, the get back to mostly normal......gflu mk


Not that the world/US has major things to deal with related to global capitalism, environment, health etc. But the powers that be arent giving up that easily.........

[Artemis]

Norway's a little ahead of Canada in terms of their COVID-19 case load. I'm thinking a couple weeks?
The entire country got shut down today. Groceries and health care only.

[Bandit72]

A third of Italians are over 65.

[Hype]

Many universities are switching to online-only courses for the rest of this semester, and urging students not to return to dorms after spring-break, or to go home.

[chaos]

https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/03/11 ... ronavirus/

Here are the Boston-area colleges sending students home over coronavirus

By LISA KASHINSKY | lkashinsky@bostonherald.com and STEFAN GELLER | sgeller@bostonherald.com |
PUBLISHED: March 11, 2020 at 7:49 a.m. | UPDATED: March 12, 2020 at 8:35 a.m.

Colleges and universities across Massachusetts are sending students home mid-semester as the number of coronavirus cases continues to climb in the Bay State.

After initially telling students and faculty to prepare for classes to move online, schools began telling students not to return after their spring breaks as colleges work to get ahead of the COVID-19 outbreak, several of them making the decision after Gov. Charlie Baker declared a state of emergency on Tuesday.

Colleges and universities say they are working with domestic students extenuating circumstances, as well as international students with visa issues and those whose countries are hard-hit by the virus, to continue to provide housing.

Here is a list of colleges and universities sending students home and moving classes online:

Amherst College

– Classes canceled March 12-13.

– Students to leave campus housing by March 18.

– Classes move online Monday, March 23, after spring break.

Babson College

– Students to leave campus housing by March 21.

– Online classes begin March 10.

Berklee College of Music

– Classes and midterms will continue through March 13.

– Online learning begins March 23.

Boston College

– All on-campus classes canceled starting March 12 through the end of the semester.

– Students must leave on-campus housing starting at 3 p.m. March 12 and depart fully by 9 p.m. March 15.

Boston University

– Classes will move online between March 16 and April 13 on the Charles River and Medical campuses.

– Students are “strongly” advised not to return to campus after spring break. Those who remained on campus during spring break are encouraged to “consider going home.”

Brandeis University

– Classes with more than 100 students move online by March 16. Last day for in-person instruction is March 20. Online classes begin after March 25.

– Passover and spring recess dates will shift to March 23-25, April 9-10 and April 15-16.

Bridgewater State University

– Residence halls closed until March 22.

– Classes canceled until March 23.

– Suspended all university-sanctioned domestic and foreign travel.

College of the Holy Cross

– Online classes begin March 23.

– Students are required to move out by March 14. International students may petition for an exception.

– On-campus events will be canceled beginning March 12.

Emerson College

– The last in-person classes will be held March 13. No classes will be held March 16-20.

– Online classes begin March 23.

– Students have the option to remain on campus through the end of the spring term. The Los Angeles campus has not been affected.

Fitchburg State University

– Classes canceled until March 23.

– Campus will remain open.

– Large gatherings have been canceled or postponed.

Harvard University

– Students to leave campus housing by 5 p.m. March 15.

– Online classes begin March 23.

Massachusetts College of Art and Design

– All campus activity and events suspended March 16-22.

– Students asked not to return to residence halls until March 22.

– MassArt Art Museum closed March 12-24.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

– Classes canceled March 16-20.

– Students to leave campus housing between March 14 and March 17.

– Online classes begin March 30.

Northeastern University

– Boston campus to join Seattle and San Francisco Bay Area campuses in moving to online learning beginning March 12.

– Students are not being asked to move out of residence halls, though students “may elect to do so.”

Olin College of Engineering

– Online classes begin March 23.

– Students asked not to return to campus after spring break.

Regis College

– Online classes begin March 16.

– School-sponsored international travel is canceled.

Simmons University

– Spring break extended to March 22 and students should not return until then. Classes resume March 23.

Smith College

– Students to leave campus housing by March 20.

– Online classes begin March 29.

Stonehill College

– Spring break extended to March 17.

– Online classes begin March 18.

– Students asked to remain home. Residence halls open only to some international students and spring varsity athletes.

Suffolk University

– Online classes begin March 18.

– Students asked to make plans to move out of on-campus housing. Students who move out of residence halls will be eligible for a pro-rated refund for the rest of the semester.

Tufts University

– Classes canceled March 13. Undergraduate spring break extended until March 25.

– Students to leave campus housing by March 16.

– Online classes begin March 25.

UMass system

– Online classes begin March 16 for the Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell and the Worcester medical campus.

– Most students will not be on campus through April 3.

Wentworth Institute of Technology

– Spring break extended through March 18.

– Classes move online March 19.

– Residence halls will be closed for the remainder of the semester. International, co-op and domestic students with special circumstances can petition to stay on campus.

Westfield State University

– In-person classes canceled from March 16 to March 20.

– All classes will be exclusively online from March 23 to March 27.

Wheaton College

– Spring break extended through March 22.

– Remote instruction begins March 23.

– All students expected to leave campus by 5 p.m. March 22. Students will not have access to residence life after that date. Belongings must be picked up by May 9. Housing petition due by 1 p.m. March 18.

Williams College

– In-person classes will end March 13. Students will go on spring break March 14, a week earlier than planned.

– Online classes begin April 6.

– Students must leave campus by 5 p.m. March 17 unless they receive permission to stay.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

– Spring break extended through March 24

– Online classes begin March 25, will last at least two weeks.

– Residence halls will be closed from March 16 until at least April 4. Students currently on or near campus have been told to go home. Students who are away have been told not to return.

[Mescal]

Yeah, serious measures in Belgium as well.

Even the swimming pool is closed till further notice

[Larry B.]

Most European football leagues are getting suspended too.

In Chile, we have a very important referendum on April 26. We are all keeping an eye on whether the party with more to lose will propose a postponement or something like that.

[chaos]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... e-updates/

By Anna Fifield, Rick Noack, Marisa Iati, Alex Horton, Miriam Berger and Katie Mettler
March 12, 2020 at 1:09 p.m. EDT

A Brazilian official who met President Trump and Vice President Pence at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday has tested positive for coronavirus, though Trump said he “isn’t concerned” about the development.

[mockbee]

Anybody heard from the Ayatollah lately?

He was supposed to have met with the Iranian Health Minister that got sick.

Great we have three choices for leader of free world who are/will be pushing 80......

[Hype]

A third of Italians are over 65.

Suppose that only 40% of these are infected. That's 8 million people. The death rate increases markedly above 80, but averages to about 6-7% (up to 15%), for these age-groups. Even conservatively, that puts the number of dead at 480,000 people, just for Italy.

Nevertheless, the 1918 influenza pandemic is estimated to have had a case-fatality ratio of less than 5% but had an enormous impact due to widespread transmission, so there is no room for complacency.

[mockbee]

This is huge.


Everything cancelled. No joke on the stocking up on things....

I don't see how things just ramp back to normal in a month. Millions and millions of people are effectively out of work for the next month, most likely longer. How are the working class going to pay the bills....?

There needs to be a plan..... Where is the leader?

[mockbee]

Oh, for those who can afford it.....a month off!

[mockbee]

Something Weird Is Happening on Wall Street, and Not Just the Stock Sell-Off
A sinking feeling reminiscent of the global financial crisis, when all kinds of obscure markets went haywire.

Neil Irwin
By Neil Irwin
March 12, 2020
Updated 6:46 p.m. ET



Wednesday was an unsettling day on global financial markets, and not just because the stock market fell sharply enough to bring a decade-plus bull market to an end.

Underneath the headline numbers were a series of movements that don’t really make sense when lined up against one another. They amount to signs — not definitive, but worrying — that something is breaking down in the workings of the financial system, even if it’s not totally clear what that is just yet.

Bond prices and stock prices were moving together, not in opposite directions as they usually do. On a day when major economic disruptions resulting from the coronavirus pandemic appeared to become likelier — which might be expected to make typical market safe havens more popular — many of them fell instead. That included bonds of all sorts and gold.

And there were reports from trading desks that many assets that are normally liquid — easy to buy and sell — were freezing up, with securities not trading widely. This was true of the bonds issued by municipalities and major corporations but, more curiously, also of Treasury bonds, normally the bedrock of the global financial system.


People, it is fair to say, are worried about bond market liquidity.

Any one of these moves on its own wouldn’t really matter. Markets can move for all kinds of reasons, most of which affect only the investors and traders involved. But these types of swings give experienced financial market watchers a sinking feeling, the kind last felt widely during the global financial crisis when all kinds of obscure financial markets went haywire.

Suppose you looked at the score of a football game, and it was a 31-3 blowout.

You would have a pretty good guess about what had happened. The winning team’s offense must have gained huge amounts of yardage, enabling it to score all those points, while its defense was tough and prevented the opposing team from gaining much yardage.

That guess would usually be correct, but once in a while, when you look deeper into the statistics you might see that the opposite happened — for example, a winning team that scored lots of points despite not gaining much yardage, with an opponent that did the reverse. It would tell you that a deeply strange game had been played.

The global financial markets this week, and especially Wednesday, have been that very weird game of football. At some point, the weirdness can be as important as the final score in terms of understanding what is likely to happen in the future.
.........................

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/upsh ... e=Homepage

[Hype]

This is huge.


Everything cancelled. No joke on the stocking up on things....

I don't see how things just ramp back to normal in a month. Millions and millions of people are effectively out of work for the next month, most likely longer. How are the working class going to pay the bills....?

There needs to be a plan..... Where is the leader?

Impeached. And hopefully voted out of office after this massive clusterfuck of a response to a disaster far greater than 9/11.

[Larry B.]

He might even have it and die whilst in office.

[mockbee]

This is huge.


Everything cancelled. No joke on the stocking up on things....

I don't see how things just ramp back to normal in a month. Millions and millions of people are effectively out of work for the next month, most likely longer. How are the working class going to pay the bills....?

There needs to be a plan..... Where is the leader?

Impeached. And hopefully voted out of office after this massive clusterfuck of a response to a disaster far greater than 9/11.

Biden.....

How America did you fuck this up so much.......?



I guess if he can just string the words together...."Where is the leadership......?!"

And remember the order of those words between now and election day....and ZIP it otherwise!!!!!
We'll be okay.....

Nothing against dementia patients, just not leadership caliber. Pick the VP very wisely.....

[Artemis]

This afternoon it was announced in Ontario that all publicly funded schools will close for 2 weeks after the March break, so kids will be off until at least April 6th.

I went grocery shopping for my mom today and I have to say the hoarding and panic buying is really ridiculous. The shelves in the supermarket were empty or sparse. People had carts packed with food and whatever paper products were left. It was nuts! Even beer is running low! Tomorrow I'm going to stock up on wine before that's gone too.



Even the flour section was almost sold out.

[mockbee]

Why do you have so much crappy American beer??!!!

Is that all thats left...or is that what people are buying????!

[Matz]

This afternoon it was announced in Ontario that all publicly funded schools will close for 2 weeks after the March break, so kids will be off until at least April 6th.

I went grocery shopping for my mom today and I have to say the hoarding and panic buying is really ridiculous. The shelves in the supermarket were empty or sparse. People had carts packed with food and whatever paper products were left. It was nuts! Even beer is running low! Tomorrow I'm going to stock up on wine before that's gone too.

Why? So you'll have wine for the next three weeks and then maybe run out for good? Hoarding isn't saving anyone. let others have wine too is my advice

[kv]

Look if she wants to grab a few bottles so what...if she was panic buying she would have grabbed them today....if we're gonna be locked down...being locked down with wine seems better than without