COVID-19

[jacob]

I'll retract my statement about panic. After today's dose of reality, all the Danish supermarkets are now chock full of people buying supplies with people standing in lines all the way to the back. Well, perhaps they're just being highly ironic given the generally dismissive statements about unnecessary panic the majority were still uttering right up until a few hours ago. Sigh...

https://www.berlingske.dk/nyheder/danma ... markederne (scroll down for pictures)

[Riggerjack]

@ Jacob

Well, I have definitely noticed a correlation between population density and the instinct to signal compliance/conformity.

Somehow, that looks like an urban scene, to me. Any rural stores getting wiped out?

[Toska2]

From what I heard about testing, I doubt the wisdom to test for it. Currently the negatives are diluting the process, and in the latter stage the positives will have filled the hospitals so we can't. Its contagious enough and its human nature to socialize so society should build to deal with the effects.

How many times will a person test negative only to become positive? How long can a country halt (government, businesses and workers) "work"?
Do we halt half and hope they get sick first to stagger the spread?

When I apply the "six degrees of separation" to the few I interact with its still an absurd amount. The radio host in our town is floating off the California coast as we speak. I go to the only YMCA with him. That is a 4000 mile leap with one person.

Here stores are slightly busier but we still bum a drag off each other's cigarette.

[AnalyticalEngine]

Crowding into the stores always struck me as a bad idea due to the need to avoid crowds.

I had a job interview today and the recruiter was complaining that the company was going to quarantine him after his grand cross country trip. I had to shake his hand then shake hands with the whole team. It was nice knowing you all...

[chenda]

@riggerjack Well with about half the population living in or around Copenhagen its probably a bit moot. Not much slack in the system in a country smaller than New York City.

[jacob]

@Riggerjack - The urban/rural cultural distinction doesn't really make sense in a Danish framework. The population density is much higher than the US. Everything is pretty close by. The countryside is never more than 8-10 miles from the center of a big city and people would just drive to the kind of Walmart sized store you see there if the plan was to go hoarding---specifically, to get to something like that store, you'd most likely need to drive since it would be located in the perimeter of the city. There are smaller (Aldi, Kroger) sized supermarkets closer by but they're mostly used for incidentals, not to stock up.

Add: I'd compare what's happening here more to the type of shopper that raided CostCo in the US.

Correction: This was everywhere. Supermarkets were cleared out. Many instances of shameful behavior. Some fights broke out. Police were called in to control the masses in some cases. Stores couldn't close because people kept pouring in. Some asshats just left their shopping baskets on the floor.

[George the original one]

State of Washington published count as of 2:28p Tue, 10 Mar
- 267 Positives
- 2175 Negatives
- 24 deaths

Cases by County (County seats)
- 1 Clark (Vancouver)
- 1 Grant (Ephrata)
- 1 Jefferson (Port Townsend)
- 190 King (Seattle)
- 1 Kitsap (Port Orchard)
- 1 Kittitas (Ellensburg)
- 16 Pierce (Tacoma)
- 54 Snohomish (Everett)
- 0 Spokane (Spokane)

Cases by Age
- 2% 0-19
- 4% 0-29
- 10% 30-39
- 14% 40-49
- 14% 50-59
- 19% 60-69
- 15% 70-79
- 22% 80+

Cases by Sex at Birth
- 56% Female
- 42% Male
- 2% Unknown

Again, about 100 new cases confirmed.

State of Washington published count as of 2:25p Wed, 11 Mar
- 366 Positives
- 3037 Negatives
- 29 deaths

Cases by County (County seats)
- 1 Clark (Vancouver)
- 1 Grant (Ephrata)
- 1 Island (Coupeville)
- 1 Jefferson (Port Townsend)
- 234 King (Seattle)
- 2 Kitsap (Port Orchard)
- 2 Kittitas (Ellensburg)
- 17 Pierce (Tacoma)
- 1 Skagit (Mount Vernon)
- 68 Snohomish (Everett)
- 0 Spokane (Spokane)
- 1 Thurston (Olympia)
- 1 Whatcom (Bellingham)
- 36 Unassigned (labs are having trouble keeping up and Dept of Health is working to determine the proper county)

Cases by Age
- 2% 0-19
- 5% 0-29
- 9% 30-39
- 12% 40-49
- 13% 50-59
- 16% 60-69
- 18% 70-79
- 25% 80+

Cases by Sex at Birth
- 57% Female
- 40% Male
- 3% Unknown

[Ego]

I've got a friend who was stubbornly uninterested in Covid-19 and determined to be both calm and ignorant about it. Panic struck her suddenly and with almost violence force when she learned that she may soon have to spend days or weeks at home with her husband and children. It reminded me of this wonderful radio story of family quarantine in Germany.

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/05/81243126 ... man-school

[daylen]

The keywords there are "can" and "so far".

If math literate people (or any other subset) can panic and panic is contagious (people panicking can cause other people to panic), then anyone can panic so far. I may have interpreted that last part about rationality wrong.

[daylen]

I've got a friend who was stubbornly uninterested in Covid-19 and determined to be both calm and ignorant about it.

Ignorance is bliss... until it's not.

[theanimal]

I think a lot people will start to take it more seriously from here on out with all the schools closing today, Tom Hanks testing positive, an NBA player testing positive/the season being suspended, and the travel ban from Europe.

Whether that prompts action or not in combating the actual virus itself remains to be seen...

[George the original one]

and the travel ban from Europe.

Excluding England/Great Britain... I don't know, maybe because they had that whole Brexit thing so they're no longer part of Europe?

Trump is closing these gates waaay too slowly. He's totally ignoring the fact that the virus is on the loose inside the USA and the administrations guidelines (not taking charge, mind you, but merely guidelines) doesn't limit travel inside US borders. You'd think we would have learned from the Lombardy quarantines that you have to do it early to have a chance. We're now 15 days after the Lombardy lockdown and still ignoring internal transmission, so it's not going to even be slowed down.

Taken more seriously? Yes, people know today that WHO declared it a pandemic and Trump addressed the nation.

[Jin+Guice]

This shit is wild, New Orleans declared a state of emergency today. I went to the grocery store (fully stocked except bleach wipes and hand sanitizer). People were partying in the streets almost comically (this is normal for March though, it's the nicest month of weather here). Yesterday I worked, all of the NURSES were complaining about people taking the disease seriously and shit getting cancelled. I asked the surgeon what he thought would happen, "I think it will blow over, I hope they don't cancel jazzfest." I lost a little faith in humanity on that one.

Also, thanks to this forum for being an excellent resource. Thanks to y'all I have stayed ahead of the curve on stocking up on food. I was also 90/10 VTSAX until last year when I cashed out because I lost faith in that plan, largely based on discussions I had here.

Many of my friends are concerned about losing revenue (for more than a week!) and being able to pay rent. ERE has paid of big time in the face of this pandemic.

[Jean]

I think i got it last week, flu like symptômes, weird head diziness, Bad cough. My mom got similar symptômes with a much worst cough (1 week in bed with a lot of mucus in lung). She got better and temporarly stoped smoking. Others relatives had no symptômes. My main concern are my grandma (she seems do to fine now), and my tenant not getting a job due to the economical chaos.

[thrifty++]

Trumps decision to close off Europe seems a bit foolish. There is already heaps of virus in USA anyway, that horse has already bolted. The economic consequence of all this border shutting will be significant. It would make more sense for NZ to shut Europe and Asia off given that we have only 5 stagnant isolated cases reported for ages, but that's not happening.

[Ego]

Credit where credit it due. Trump got health insurance companies to waive copays and costs associated with Covid-19 treatment.

They spent a lot of time in the Clade-X Pandemic Exercise discussing whether border closures work. It seemed like all the pandemic pros in the exercise agreed that it did not work and was counterproductive. I understood why it might cause problems but never quite grasped why they felt it didn't work. I have to admit, I have only made it through the third video so far, They may explain more in the next video. It seems that we have now blocked Europe? Europeans? Those flying directly from Europe? Those who have been to Europe?

I will have to start watching Clade-X again as real life is catching up with where I left off...

Clade X: http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/ ... livestream

[onewayfamily]

Someone asked for a population adjusted chart a few pages back:

https://twitter.com/SMerler/status/1237 ... 04673?s=20

[Seppia]

@Seppia - How rigorously do you think this be enforced ? Can/will Rome assert its authority down south over local mafia businesses and the like ?

There’s police and the military deployed in the streets.
They were already stopping cars yesterday and asking for the self-certification of very important work or family matters.
I’m thinking this will be tightened up today.

So technically if one wants to cheat, he/she can do it: you just need to download a form and state a very important + time sensitive work or family matter.

Lying could put you in jail though, so institutions don’t take this lightly, plus everybody from politicians, celebrities, etc are constantly on TV hammering the messages of
Stay at home
Wash your hands
Etc

Mafia people I suppose are as scared of the virus as the general population: they’re criminals not idiots.

The overwhelming majority will comply.

[EMJ]

Crowding into the stores always struck me as a bad idea due to the need to avoid crowds.

I had a job interview today and the recruiter was complaining that the company was going to quarantine him after his grand cross country trip. I had to shake his hand then shake hands with the whole team. It was nice knowing you all...

Lots of alternatives to shaking hands:
https://www.nrk.no/video/51d7661b-67d8- ... 699730d11e

[C40]

I'm being very lazy by asking this, and maybe it is too earlier to be able to predict.. but you folks know a lot more than me so far, so I'll ask

I'm trying to decide between going back to the U.S. now, or staying here in Vietnam. I've nearly decided to go back to the U.S. I have some personal notes - sets of pros and cons for both staying and going back to the U.S.

What I want to ask you folks is - what do you project the atmosphere being like after about 6 months? My assumption or guess is that the initial spread will be very rough, and then maybe after that, once many people have had the virus once, things may calm down and now we have something similar to our previous 'normal' - which is the old normal plus something like another flu but much deadlier, though life goes on fairly normally. But how long will it take to get back towards normalcy?