COVID-19 virus thread (formerly Wuhan coronavirus)

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Commodore said:
To which the government should respond "Your grandpa was going to die anyway, if not from this then from something else. We can't condemn millions of others to poverty by shutting down society in a way that could crush us economically for who knows how many years after this is over just to save people who are at the end of their lives anyway."

That's another thing people are failing to see. The issue with workers isn't just about getting paid while they aren't working, it's about shutting down everything sparking another recession. And what happens during recessions? People lose their jobs to layoffs. The government needs to start looking at the consequences of what they are doing and see if the secondary effects of their actions are going to be worse than the virus they are trying to contain.

I want to also point out that a lot of the people freaking out in this thread are the exact same people who have routinely complained about government shortsightedness in the past, yet now fail to see the shortsightedness in the current response to this virus.
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I usually agree with your politics, Commy, but YOU are the one who is shortsighted here. The entire world is (and should be) taking this seriously, not just the Trump administration. People getting an illness so bad it’s even worse than getting the flu would be catastrophic if it affected a significant minority of the general population, even most of them didn’t die from it.

Theres a shortage of healthcare staff/hospitals/ resources/ things people need like disinfectant and toilet paper as it is. Not even trying to contain it will only make the problem 10 times worse. Italy is having so many problems even with the fact that they are taking it so seriously. Imagine how much worse it would be if they didn’t. I don’t want us to end up like that. I don’t want to get this disease even if I don’t die from it. Do you ?
 
Commodore said:
To which the government should respond "Your grandpa was going to die anyway, if not from this then from something else. We can't condemn millions of others to poverty by shutting down society in a way that could crush us economically for who knows how many years after this is over just to save people who are at the end of their lives anyway."

That's another thing people are failing to see. The issue with workers isn't just about getting paid while they aren't working, it's about shutting down everything sparking another recession. And what happens during recessions? People lose their jobs to layoffs. The government needs to start looking at the consequences of what they are doing and see if the secondary effects of their actions are going to be worse than the virus they are trying to contain.

I want to also point out that a lot of the people freaking out in this thread are the exact same people who have routinely complained about government shortsightedness in the past, yet now fail to see the shortsightedness in the current response to this virus.
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I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this isn’t a hill worth dying on. It’s uncontroversial among society broadly that we should prevent a few percent of seniors from dying and avoiding a massive medical crisis if we can. If your moral calculus disagrees, grumble all you want, but you don’t get to call everyone else hysterical.
 
innonimatu said:
He can be forced to sign, can't he?
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His veto would be overridden with a 2/3 majority of both houses. He has 10 days to sit on the bill as well. If Congress is not in session (e.g. in recess because of all the old infected politicians) at the end of those 10 days, he could "pocket veto" it by refusing to do anything, killing it with no possibility of override, because the US is stupid. I'm still thinking the political pressure will be strong enough that he actually will end up signing.
 
Here an article on the negatives of quarantine actions from a behavioural point of view: the fatigue, the risk on non-compliance, the psychological damage, etc.

The body of research included a rapid review published in the Lancet last month on the psychological impact of quarantine, which found that self-isolation can lead to post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression and public anger.

Indefinite quarantines with no well-defined end point – such as those imposed in Wuhan – risk having the most negative side-effects, the paper suggested, recommending that quarantines be restricted to the shortest time period possible and that the public be given a clear rationale for such measures.

Other influential research includes a paper by the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin on how to harness behavioural science to fight the coronavirus. It found that extending isolation periods beyond initial suggestions risked demoralising people and increasing noncompliance. “Thus clarity and certainty about timelines are both important,” the paper concluded.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-form-new-front-in-battle-against-coronavirus
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Commodore said:
To which the government should respond "Your grandpa was going to die anyway, if not from this then from something else.
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Lets decriminalise arson then!
 
Bootstoots said:
I guess I would have to ask - if I purchased the alcohol legitimately, can you make a moral argument against putting more sanitizer on the market at prevailing prices? Or to use aimee's argument and sell somewhat below current ebay prices? Not all alcohol currently on the market is being used for disinfectant, so the total available supply of disinfectant to the public would be increased on net. And rationing by shortage doesn't seem to be all that different to my mind than rationing by price - some people are deprived of it either way. Now it's a different story if I were to buy up all available alcohol I could find that was already being marketed for disinfectant and reselling it at a large markup.
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To be honest I don't think alcohol, specifically, is even very relevant. It's necessary for "industrial" uses: cleaning in businesses, large institutions, etc. But those will be buying it through their usual channels, not retail. At personal/home user level I can say I haven't even bothered buying any when I did my own preparations and there was ample supply of everything. The only things I worried with were some medications that I might need (I don't trust quality control to be good in the next few months), and slightly raising my usual two weeks food in the pantry.

It's just... nasty to take advantage of people in stress to price gauge them, when they might even be poor, afraid and spending their last money on that rather than something else more necessary. The general price gauging that goes on in these occasions is nasty.

@caketastydelish in my corner of Europe there was some panic yesterday, and some apprehension today, but people settled in quickly for some weeks of quarantine. They're more eager to do it than the government, I don't think there will be any trouble keeping it up for the few weeks necessary. I'd done my (few) preparations already. And I'm finally happy that this is taking a turn for the better.
The economic consequences of the crisis exposed by the coronavirus emergency will be another matter. But for the time being governments seem to be moving towards giving some support to people (paid leave, suspension of debt and other payments, we'll see lots of discussion about that and perhaps some good actions).

Hrothbern said:
What goes down under in the current newsmedia discussions is the importance of washing your hands and distancing (that 1-2 meter).
It is a very effective factor in the infection rate decreasing possible with Covid-19

Mass gatherings of the type "long distance spreading" are imo also very dangerous.
They can infect villages, neighborhoods that were so far clean.
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Yes, everyone in the media here is repeating that advice now. Finally. Apart from the UK, I'm now much more optimistic that people are on the good track. Extra care with sanitation, and no mass gatherings. On that last one, the UK needs to get rid of the sociopaths in governments!
 
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It is encouraging that SARS was eliminated despite ~8000 known cases, so maybe a couple tens of thousands of total cases if some of them were not as severe. Affected areas did put in place quarantines, restrictions on gatherings, and other public health measures, which reduced its basic reproduction number (R0) below 1. Apparently it remained that way for long enough to kill it off almost entirely by the summer of 2003, so that only a few scattered cases occurred from then to early 2004 after which it died off entirely. I find it remarkable that the disease was successfully contained after that many cases occurred, although it appears there were no more than 1000 at any given time. SARS outbreak wiki article link.

I'd like to learn more about the dynamics of diseases. Do the odds of the disease becoming endemic and never fully exterminated despite public health measures increase dramatically between ~10,000 cases and ~1,000,000 cases, especially when it goes truly global like the current situation? My intuition says that it probably does, which is why I'm guessing a high proportion of the world becomes infected within the next year and it stays endemic after that, although probably less lethal partly for virus evolution reasons (like how the 1918 flu didn't return with the same mortality the next year). But perhaps inno and hobbs are right, and a disease really can be stopped by measures similar to the ones used for SARS despite a global spread and a huge number of cases. It certainly does appear possible locally, given the fact that China has greatly reduced new cases, but I don't see how the number of cases doesn't increase again (R0 goes back above 1) once the measures end and the economy gets moving again, unless they were in place so long that the virus went extinct entirely.

edit: fixed link
 
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hobbsyoyo said:
Why's it stupid?
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Because it's an overreaction. Life is carrying on as normal, I bought groceries, did a yoga class, brushed past dozens of people walking around downtown.

Kids don't need to be shut indoors isolated all day. Like that's good for their immune systems.

aimeeandbeatles said:
Because it's inconvenient.
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That's part of it, it's disrespect to the parents masquarading as caring about the safety of the kids. The school just doesn't want to be liable.
 
The damage to society by all this mass-hysteria far outweighs the harm reduction that will come from it.
 
@Narz people are correct to be concerned. This is a problem that should be taken as seriously as possible at an international level. You're wrong about the harm reduction.

Bootstoots said:
It is encouraging that SARS was eliminated despite ~8000 known cases, so maybe a couple tens of thousands of total cases if some of them were not as severe. Affected areas did put in place quarantines, restrictions on gatherings, and other public health measures, which reduced its https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number]basic reproduction number[/url] (R0) below 1. Apparently it remained that way for long enough to kill it off almost entirely by the summer of 2003, so that only a few scattered cases occurred from then to early 2004 after which it died off entirely. I find it remarkable that the disease was successfully contained after that many cases occurred, although it appears there were no more than 1000 at any given time. SARS outbreak wiki article link.

I'd like to learn more about the dynamics of diseases. Do the odds of the disease becoming endemic and never fully exterminated despite public health measures increase dramatically between ~10,000 cases and ~1,000,000 cases, especially when it goes truly global like the current situation? My intuition says that it probably does, which is why I'm guessing a high proportion of the world becomes infected within the next year and it stays endemic after that, although probably less lethal partly for virus evolution reasons (like how the 1918 flu didn't return with the same mortality the next year). But perhaps inno and hobbs are right, and a disease really can be stopped by measures similar to the ones used for SARS despite a global spread and a huge number of cases. It certainly does appear possible locally, given the fact that China has greatly reduced new cases, but I don't see how the number of cases doesn't increase again (R0 goes back above 1) once the measures end and the economy gets moving again, unless they were in place so long that the virus went extinct entirely.
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But SARS went on for literally 2 years. This hasn't even been 2 months yet, has it? If there continues to be more cases within that period of time, the damage from this will be wayyyyyyyy worse.
 
Bootstoots said:
but I don't see how the number of cases doesn't increase again (R0 goes back above 1) once the measures end
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With as assumption that at a later stage unlimited test kits are available...
It depends on the likelyhood whether an infected person does not realise he is sick (call that P) and infects other people at that R0 rate.

As soon as someone does realise he is sick and a test confirms it is Covid-19, the contact-tracing must find the ring of contacts that is possibly infected and needs testing. (in a sharpened regime the second ring of contacts is found and they get immediately a test as well).
The other effort is to trace back by whome this "someone" was infected, most likely in his first ring of contacts, and visible because that person should already have antibodies or remaining RNA fragments of Covid-19)

What remains to estimate the epidemiological effect is to estimate the R0, the likelyhood that someone never notices he was infected (a dark link in the chain), and the likelyhood that the active testing of the rings forward and backward finds all infected people.

When P is not too high... with a bit of effort and therefore a not overwhelmed investigation team from low enough number of patients because of the restrictions still in place... the overall R0 should become very low. Low enough to have the disease die out in a couple of infection generations.

Time will tell what P will be (easier in summer without the noise of the normal flu and cold)
 
Hrothbern said:
One thing you do not want is that the tea tree oil becomes rancid, because it oxidises. You can smell that. Mother Nature has given us a distaste for rancid, for oxidised oils and fatty acids.
EDIT oxidised tea tree oil has negative side effects on your skin.
I would mix it with a vegetable oil if you sell the mixture because of oxidation of tea tree. Oil closes off the tea tree in the oil from the air in the bottle. Oil is also for sure safe for children.
IDK if a combination with water is the right way to go because the oxygen in the air in the bottle will mix all the time in the water and reach the tea tree oil.
(because of that oxidation, you should also store your stock of pure tea tree oil in a dark place and cool, if possible in the fridge)
If you have a bottle of tea tree oil and make yourself a mixture that you use up in relatively short time that oxidation will not play a role.

But trying out is always the way to go, and you have your nose to test your solutions over time.

IDK what minimal tea tree concentration is needed... where the effect of a higher concentration starts to saturate,

I give it a dig in literature to see if something usefull is there... keep you posted
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You are too nice and too kind, me and my wife thank you a lot Hroth we hope only the best for you and family:thumbsup:
 
Narz said:
You're entitled to your opinion. I'm going to continue going out & having a social life. :)
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All the elderly and immunocompromised people in your city thank you.
 
Narz said:
The damage to society by all this mass-hysteria far outweighs the harm reduction that will come from it.
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We're not being hysterical, you're being dumb.

caketastydelish said:
@hobbsyoyo and @innonimatu i hope you two are right! I’ve never seen anything like this.

I also highly suspect part of the reason why it’s so hard to get tested for this illness in the United States is Trump is deliberately making it as hard as he can. Why? To help his re-election campaign. If people can’t even get tested at all, then we will have far less known cases than other countries, making it APPEAR as if his administration is particularly competent at getting this under control.

I have heard he’s already denied international aid that were trying to supply testing kits.
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I think that gives Trump too much evil genius credit to be honest. And even if it were some sort of master plan - it's a remarkably dumb one given this virus in particular almost seems designed to target and kill his base.
 
Fair enough, never thought of it that way.
 
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