outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Most people I talk to around here or at work think I'm nuts for doing the barest amount of prep for this shit. There are tons of folks out there who thinks it's just a lit of panic over nothing.

All international travel now banned at my company. Probably not far off from banning international customers from visiting us.

xpost Tbh it kind of is, for now, at least in this country. But all the same there's no harm in doing the barest amount of prep for this shit. Or any shit. I believe that is the official CDC position.

Is this the first of these global flus/viruses to hit in the age of peak internet?

My last couple of companies I worked at were really nice in that people were very distrustful of any soothing announcements being made and would completely listened to any of their feelings of unease. They would peace out and go home very quickly. And everyone was very respectful of that because they didn't want to be the one blamed for keeping someone in the building if shit went down (NYC).

SARS in 2003 actually caused a WHO travel advisory for Toronto if I recall correctly, but because it was pre-Facebook days, we all kind of forgot about it after the first few news cycles. I saw a few people on Spadina wearing masks at the time, but no panic like now.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90469200/this-coronavirus-suit-protects-you-inside-a-literal-bubble

Could be a matter of concern that we’ve all seemingly forgotten that overuse of sanitizers breeds terrifying antibiotic resistant bacteria, which was already becoming a big problem, but I’m no expert.

kim i would recommend reading this thread

Thanks but I was referring to the wider “we” who are clearing supermarket shelves of the stuff. Though I admit I was glad to have one container of Lysol wipes in the house since my kid decided it was a good time to get a stomach bug.

Unfortunately I don’t think we’re at peak internet yet

I'm officially going to be working from home indefinitely, I was in the office yesterday losing my marbles and reapplying purell every six minutes

which sucks, mind you, I don't have a good chair or a good desk or a good monitor

lol being as i work in a shop at an airport i just figure i've already had it/got it/about to get it. it'll probably work out okay.

usefully we did recieve a memo from the airport to stay 2 metres away from any passenger who becomes ill (ie is coughing/sweating/out of breath) which considering most passengers have their winter coats on and are rushing to get flights whilst quickly trying to find a suitable book to buy in our warm shop is most of them.

Reuters: Thousands wait for hospital beds in South Korea as coronavirus cases surge

Acute care hospital beds per 1000 population, per OECD:

Japan           7.79
Korea           7.14
Germany         6.02
Switzerland     3.56
France          3.09
Ireland         2.77
Netherlands     2.92
Italy           2.62
New Zealand     2.59
United States	2.44
Denmark         2.42
United Kingdom	2.11
Canada          1.95

not sure that all 2300 of those people need a hospital bed. they probably give them out based on risk and even reserve some for developing higher risk cases.

Canada's acute care hospital bed numbers not exactly comforting

if you press the "flag" link on the post, a nurse will be along to adjust the number for you

wework: a place you join as an individual, 'me', but where you become part of a greater 'we'

An employee who works from a Midtown WeWork location has been self-quarantined over possible exposure to a coronavirus patient, according to a memo from the company.

The financial organization Teachers, Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA) notified the co-working space that one of their employees may have been in contact with someone who was contagious with the coronavirus, the notice obtained by The Post said.

The worker has been ordered to self-quarantine for 14 days while the location on 51st St. and Lexington Ave. is set to undergo a deep cleaning overnight Wednesday, the company said.

Just had a minor freakout because I was washing my face with my contacts out, reached for my towel, dried my face, and then realized one of my housemates had hung their towel over mine and I was using theirs. My house is quite possibly riddled with coronavirus because we had a fever and a cough going around and everyone who had it is still coughing. Now my housemate (in the bathroom coughing at this moment) thinks I'm crazy. I hate this.

NYTimes has a "we're tracking every case" map of the US on their splash page. How long do you figure before throw their hands in the air?

two weeks tops

but when will they wave them like they just don't care

btw sorry kim i realized my post was in error the moment i clicked "submit"

Mutated?

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/04/coronavirus-chinese-scientists-identify-two-types-covid-19.html

this... seems good?

The more aggressive type of virus was found to be prevalent in the early stages of the outbreak in Wuhan — the Chinese city where COVID-19 was first detected late last year.

But the frequency of this type of virus has since decreased from early January, the scientists said.

Yes it would seem like it but then:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/confirmed-coronavirus-death-rate-3-020009251.html

Is this the first of these global flus/viruses to hit in the age of peak internet?

Is it ever.

if jamband music has taught us anything, the next mutation will be most intense

Guys have we considered ILX might be infected

Every post might be contaminated

Cape of Good Hope might be a quarantine area

fret not

VP Pence: "The greatest concern is testing. I am pleased to report we have 2500 kits available that we will distribute. We approved a process that will allow testing at state and university laboratories."

2500.

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) March 4, 2020

https://i.imgur.com/nR0vims.gif
From gisaid.org

Dozens of mutants found to date. ssRNA viruses have really shoddy replication. Most mutants wouldn't change behavior enough to be called a strain. And in large host populations, there's not much selective pressure to lower lethality. If some mutant arises that more transmissible, that would be favored (a branch that grows to dominate the phylogenetic tree).

Coool. Cool cool cool. It's like the thing after the hurricane in PR where they had like twelve meals to hand out or whatever. Just the coolest.

I'm not going to be alarmist and say we're all gonna die but I'd say the majority of us in the US will contract this shit.

The clamour for testing kits seems misplaced. If you get a cough and a fever right now you should go home and stay there for a couple of weeks. If every person with those symptoms decided to go to the doctors to get tested that would actually be bad.

My understanding is that symptoms in the vast majority of people are not usually bad, and that those that get it bad are in conspicuously at risk (for everything) groups, like 80-year olds.

As far as I can tell, each of those testing "kits" above is a set of lab reagents required to do 500 to 1000 tests in individuals. So we're looking at ~1.25 million tests.

Given this bug is infectious in the nonsymptomatic, widespread testing of anyone whose suspicious they had contact is a really good idea. Providing some sense of security for the anxious, identifying those that need to self-quarantine and getting them under medical surveillance for contacts, permitting most society to continuing function.

Korea has done >90k tests to date, and is probably doing much better than otherwise for the effort. They just really got screwed by the Shincheonji cult situation.

xpost I wouldn't call 80% a vast majority. A majority, sure, but not all that vast, especially given the numbers we're talking about.

80% is a vast majority

4/5

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_1600/k56uryal1yejdimkk8mf.jpg

I mean... it depends what you're talking about. If you win an election with 80% of the vote, yes, it's a vast majority. If you're talking about rates of severe illness requiring hospitalization, in a population where a lot of people are going to get the virus, 20% of illnesses being severe seems pretty significant.

I know everyone here is taking this seriously, I'm just getting really frustrated with being in Seattle and having people around me downplay this.

I feel like the prediction (mentioned by someone way upthread) that this will eventually become like the flu, sort of an ongoing and omnipresent risk that many people get at some point in life (but that we develop reliable treatments and periodically-administered vaccines for), is probably sound.

My thinking also.

Maybe washing my hands with habanero seeds would be effective aversion training. BRB.

Its weird, I'd started to get myself into the "wash hands often, especially just after public transport use, and STOP TIOUCHING YR FACE" like a year ago, because I was tired of getting colds - and it worked pretty well too, so I'm already in good habits but now I also have severe eczema on my hands :(

Guessing we'll see a lot fewer "Kiss Me - I'm Irish" t-shirts at St. Patty's Day parades this year.