COVID-19

[nomadscientist]

Western "lock downs" will probably all result in the same rate of death over periods of various lengths, as they aren't really lockdowns. Asian lockdowns will save a considerable number of lives - although I'm a little suspicious that Japan is going to let the virus run deliberately without admitting that's what it did. A few Western countries may switch the Asian model successfully before their "lock downs" produce herd immunity; the US isn't likely to be one of them.

[7Wannabe5]

@nomadscientist:

I’m more optimistic about possibility for vaccine. Vaccine production is generally not very profitable, so hasn’t been a big push until now, and biological research has taken huge strides in last few decades. No possibility of a designer RNA vaccine in 1918.

I don’t think 500,000 will yet be dead in the U.S. by February 2021, and that’s my 50/50 hinge for vaccine availability. If you want to throw some skin in the game, I’m willing to bet .005 Jacobs on it.

[jennypenny]

Anyone else wondering if the astronauts on today's launch bring COVID to the ISS? I know they're being really careful, but it wouldn't shock me. That's assuming they clear the tower, of course.

I think if I lived down there I'd risk breaking quarantine to view the launch, which probably says a lot about how hypocritical I can be given the right incentive.

[7Wannabe5]

@jennypenny:

So, rocket launch is to you like opportunity to knock boots with married lover is to Neal Ferguson? I found it funny that this was offered as evidence that he didn’t believe in his own science. Old males of many species are known to take very substantial risks for sexual reasons.

[jennypenny]

Ha, yup, I'd be tempted to knock some space boots, although these two crack me up because their names are Bob and Doug ... take off eh.

[7Wannabe5]

Okay, I’ll take Victor and Mike...and Neal. (After quarantine is over, I feel better, I lose umpteen lbs, my totally rough chopped hair grows back in ( my BF says I currently look like somebody who just got over sophomore lesbian phase)I am post-post-menopause hormonally, and I fulfill my dream of building a functional victrola using only items found in nature.)

[Jason]

The mystical connection between space travel and sexual relations dates back to at least 1977, when the great American troubadour Ace Frehley sang:

Baby wants it fast, baby wants a blast
She wants a rocket ride, She wants a rocket ride.

In order to compensate for the subtlety of the motif embedded in the song, Ace sang the song dressed as a spaceman, straddling an electric guitar, exclaiming "Come on, grab a hold of my rocket" in the final verse. Rumor has it that it is the song of choice at most NASA bachelor parties.

[chenda]

Ilrc, having sex in zero gravity dramatically increases the chance of conception. At least, it is theorised, I dont believe it's ever been put to the test.

[thrifty++]

0 new cases in NZ for the last 6 days.

We are down to only 8 active cases remaining.

Lockdown ended a few weeks ago now. We also lift another restriction tommorow byt removing the limit of 10 for group meetings up to 100. Will be mot applicable to things like church gatherings and weddings, parties etc.

It wont be long until we are down to 0 active cases I think. It seems likely we will eliminate it here. The governemnt has said they view it being eliminated when we have 28 consecutive days with 0 active cases as long as we keep the borders closed.

There has been lots of talk about opening a bubble with Australia. However it doesnt seem sensible to do that for some time yet. The virus in Australis has been massively dieing out, but there are still 468 active cases. It makes a lot more sense for us to look at opening a bubble with New Caledonia and the pacific islands first, where the virus has already been wiped out. Although not until we get to 0 active cases which I think will surely be by sometime next month. That way we could feed some cash to our flailing award winning airline. Im surprised there has been such little talk of this. And on a selfish note that means we would have somewhere warm to go during winter!

Then could open up with Australia a bit later, like in September or something, once things get under control.

[onewayfamily]

Anyone else wondering if the astronauts on today's launch bring COVID to the ISS? I know they're being really careful, but it wouldn't shock me. That's assuming they clear the tower, of course.

I think they have several weeks of quarantine (and probably testing) under their belts, as do the support staff that are close to them before launch.

[CS]

@jp
Thanks for the flashback to endlessly hearing lines from that movie from my brother and his friend.

[Jason]

"Sorry, but your leukemia is not contagious."

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... year-study

[jennypenny]

Is the WHO now saying -- if you're healthy -- you don't need a mask unless you're taking care of someone who's sick??https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease ... -use-masks

Masks don't help ... wear a mask! ... now don't bother unless you have an issue. Plus not a pandemic ... keep everything shut/reopening too soon ... never mind, it's not that bad. W.T.F.?! I knew the WHO/CDC had issues before this, and our current administration is impotent (and T has chosen this moment to finally go completely batshit), but still ... this is pretty inept. I know COVID is new (-ish), but after six months their track record is dismal.

The one person who's been measured and mostly right throughout all of this is Osterholm at CIDRAP. I wish he was running the CDC.

[7Wannabe5]

I read that some businesses are now posting “No Masks Allowed” signs. I may be wrong, but I think there may be some basis for disallowing this for same reason “No Wheelchairs Allowed” signs aren’t legally enforceable. I mean, I’ve often had medically fragile kids in a class who choose to wear masks when any virus is going around.

[Mister Imperceptible]

Maybe the WHO’s problem is that they do not have enough funding./s

Referring to T, Twitter played into his hands. Big media outlets censoring views that do not meet their agenda is playing into T’s hands. Just like they have censored views on COVID-19 that do not meet their agenda. That is more food for T and his base. Once again the institutions are overstepping and I look forward to it blowing up in their face.

[Jason]

I apologize if someone has linked this already. I did a word search and didn't find a match so if it's a duplication, blame the technology.

https://covid19primer.com/dashboard

The site states it will help you "quickly understand the scientific progress being made on Covid-19." I'm not a scientist, but being that on January 22 there was 1 paper on Covid 19 but by May 28, there were 22,000+ papers, with an additional 2,300 posted in the last seven days, that's quite a mountain of research.

[jacob]

I don't know if 2300 papers in a week is a lot. I do note that the site also tracks the most prolific authors. The top guy has their name on 60+ papers That's 15+ per month or almost 200 per year. To compare, a highly productive physicist would end up having their name on ~500 papers over an entire career. My non-domain conclusion is that a lot of what's produced here is "data" and "results" rather than knowledge or original insights.

I can't find the quote but some physicist (Chandrasekhar?) famously quipped that scientists were increasingly publishing so many papers that if they were all stacked on top of each other the front would soon reach the speed of light. Yet that this wouldn't violate any laws of physics because at that point the information content would have dropped to zero.

[Jason]

Is it customary during the inchoate period of an epidemic/natural disaster/man made disaster or any event with far reaching health consequences to see this type of scientific output i.e. all the Dr. Lemmings running into the scientific sea?

[fiby41]

Doubling period pushed from 13 days to 16 days.

India's recovery rate has approached 50%. Some cities have given up on hospitalizing patients and quarantining buildings unless serious. Neighbouring apartment with which we have kitchen and bedroom windows within 4 ft has a positive patient in home isolation. The app notified us we were in yellow zone when their first positive report came, after the second report we had to answer a self assessment:
Have you come in contact with an affected person
Have you travelled abroad recently
Are you feeling uneasy
Have you ventured out recently
Before being notified we were in high-risk red zone and being able to use the app. A call also was received regarding the same athough where the new patient was found was not disclosed.

Recently the number of negative tests required for discharging a patient was reduced to two, after stocking up on frontlog the requirement was again raised to 3 but with a day between tests as opposed to the earlier 5 days between 3 tests.

Repatriation from UK costs ₹50k plus ₹1k / day for 14 days of self quarantine in govt assigned hotels. I think it's the same for repatriates from USA. Employment search database is being updated with skills of workers returning from the gulf countries so I guess it is assumed they've lost employment over there permanently.

I know they're being really careful, but it wouldn't shock me.

Related:
Flight from Delhi to Moscow was called back over Uzbekistan after airline realized that one of the pilots was positive.

Extension of nation wide lock down until end of June.

[chenda]

@fiby41 From what I can tell Modi has handled the situation with remarkable courage and success, notwithstanding the enormous scale of the challenge. I would be interested to hear your perspective.