COVID-19 virus thread (formerly Wuhan coronavirus)

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So it turns out that the $500billion in corporate bailout money is actually only intended to capitalize a no doubt less widely-reported 4.5-5 trillion outlay from the Federal Reserve in the form of a credit facility.
 
That fool is going to kill people.

To be fair to Mississippi, they are forecast to reach daytime highs close to 30 degrees over the next 4 days. And there is data, albeit inconclusive, that that kind of warm, humid weather inhibits the spread and severity of the virus. And just because the order is lifted doesn't mean businesses and residences cannot hole up nonetheless.
 
Social distancing is slowing not only Covid-19, but other diseases too

Recent data clearly show the spread of Covid-19. On March 19, the share of Americans with temperatures indicating they had flu-like symptoms was about 4.9% when it typically would be expected to be about 4.0%. This was likely a result of the spread of Covid-19, according to Kinsa’s researchers.

If that were accurate, and predictive, that would indicate close to 3 million Americans with COVID-19 a week ago, vs the ~50k positive test results to date. Initially I thought that was entirely implausible based on my own jurisdiction's positive test rate (1%), but I checked the US positive test rate, and it's around 14% (!), so I dunno...

edit: Fixed bad number based on me comparing two numbers from different dates.
 
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Here in France we are in full state of war. This isn't an image, this is real.

We seem to lack medical staff for the peak, which is planned to be reached next week. Mobilization of everyone with medical training has been called, despite numerous retired staff having already joined back service.

Everyone is asked to participate to the national effort, either in working if that's necessary, or in staying at home to not spread that crap.

WE STAY AT WORK FOR YOU
STAY AT HOME FOR US

The French songwriter Jean-Jacques Goldman, who wrote numerous hit songs for Céline Dion, left retirement to offer a song to all those staying at work for the common good.


Link to video.

Lyrics:

They are fathers and mothers, doctors or stretcher bearers
Caregivers, nurses, security guards
Who have thousands of reasons, to stay at home
But their own reason tells them to not give up

They give us time, talent and heart
Forgetting tiredness, fear, hours
And far from rhetoric and grand theories
To their task every day, without asking to be thanked

They save lives

Cashiers, garbage collectors, managers, workers
Truck drivers, postmen, farmers, CEOs
All could very well have stood back
But they stubbornly think they have a role to play

They give us time, talent and heart
Forgetting tiredness, fear, hours
And far from rhetoric and grand theories
To their task every day, without asking to be thanked

They save our lives
 
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The mayor of the neighboring city is doing daily video updates. He's a total asshat who I completely despise, but giving credit where credit is due he did today's update standing in what I recognized as the gymnasium of one of the high schools, and they have the entire floor laid out in rows of field hospital cots ready to go. He didn't talk about it at all, but the message was glaringly clear. Unlike the president, who is also a total asshat who I completely despise, this one is at least taking the situation seriously and getting prepared. There was no way anyone could misinterpret him as saying "no big deal, go out and party."
 
People are worried about the economic consequences of large-scale spending programs? The debt incurred isn’t money wasted, it’s a loan on the future. I have faith in human ingenuity to find ways to work around the costs, but the alternative of doing nothing I think is the more dangerous path.
 
People are worried about the economic consequences of large-scale spending programs? The debt incurred isn’t money wasted, it’s a loan on the future. I have faith in human ingenuity to find ways to work around the costs, but the alternative of doing nothing I think is the more dangerous path.

The republicans would prefer to do nothing and hope for the best.
 
my , the UK betrays New Turkey . There was a time when all the PR was about how efficiencies meant they had to close hospitals there and how great the medical care on this country was . Plus how we are warm people while damn Englanders hate their parents so much to lock them up in retirement houses : Meaning all we had to do was in we modernizing the healthcare sector . Which then meant we had PPP contracts , the first 10 big hospitals built required enough money in their first year as "rent" that would have 10 small state hospitals built , a wealth transfer of 145 billion US dollars over 25 years have been calculated . So , instead of sending their patients over , because we were always told the Brits loved being treated here , Boris Johnson asks for 250 000 volunteers ! And possibly because he couldn't find that many , some Oxford University is reported as declaring people might have acquired the herd immunity ... Amazing how the richest countries apparently have failed to hoard enough money , to sit out for a while . ı do hate the impressed looks , ı was quite the same back in 2005 , nothing changes except the frequency of waking up in the morning , enjoying that feeling of waking up and then have some spasm for no reason , except getting old . A feeling of getting torn and the idea it won't go away , because it happened before ...

massively increases the feeling of whatever . New Turkey is calculated to be bankrupt , can not face a lock down , naturally the Goverment figures are 180 degrees off . They have massively increased the tests , like almost 4000 yesterday or whatever . They would only find increased numbers of infection , because it is official that it's all over the country . And ı don't know why it is declared that the country can produce 2 million test kits per month ... Certainly would not be used ... There are allegations that American authorities deny that they have bought that 500 000 contract . Quite the global norm , ı must say , waiting for contracts to show up . Superb handling , because loser Kemalists have China delivering stuff for free in return for stuff in 1940 , New Turkey has China delivering that fari whatever drug , despite they sell it to NO other country , you know despite it being Japanese . ı know , because it is by Fuji , which adopted to new realities , while everyone laughs at its erstwhile competitor Kodak , famous photographic supplies producer , because it was on all the newspapers and stuff . (Fate of those who do not adapt is being laughed at , New Turkey tells .) Against allegations A-K-P closed the national vaccine center , the very drug to be now manufactured , slightly modified out of patent rights , in a military factory established during the Crimean War , easily beating Kemal's center from 1928 . Politics do not die , ı have no idea why am not surprised at all .

also not surprised at how the stockmarkets go up and down . It's politics in US , that 2 trillion package , but the German trillion dollars or so shows Capitalism can create money easier than most people breaking wind . So mysterious then that news aren't news and they let you wondering why . The WHO chief says isolation is not good enough , stronger measures are required , but no idea on what . Faster development of drugs ? There were 20 vaccines a month ago , now maybe 40 , with maybe 8 making the grade already or whatever . What's supposed to happen with further news that it was also Germans 8 years ago , having a simulation of some SARS could become pandemic , for 3 years because they can't find the vaccine in 3 years ? 19 million deaths . One would expect this to be taken as a threat . You know , there are so many fools

at a time the young balk at not getting laid for two weeks . To save some old guys , who might happen to their grandparents . Will they consider like not getting laid forever , because they would be like disrupted down to their atoms , for people who are not even their own grandparents ?

luckily ı am stocked heavily with stuff to read , instead of pondering the unponderable . (Of course a lie , but they won't let me!) So , you can even read Disney novels , as long they don't have Poe or Finn or something , but the one right now involves Norra Wexley so she is like expanded universe for OT anyhow . But the best of the current batch must be the one about Sabé . Keira Knightley's in Phantom Menace . Like one third of the book involves dresses and girly stuff but still staggeringly nice . Don't ask why ı was like so ready to laugh at almost every page . Yes , only because writing they discovered one janitor with corona in Ankara is so banal . Everybody already knows they immediately closed that dental hospital and sent 260 people home . They are all professionals , 75 of them dentists , they all know why none of them were ever tested , because you know they might have it already and they can be expected to sit tight for the next two weeks . Instead ı can go troll Padmé like the famous Ottoman way . If ı am the admiral let me dig some holes , if you are the sovereign of some planet , a relief convoy from Naboo please ...
 
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People are worried about the economic consequences of large-scale spending programs? The debt incurred isn’t money wasted, it’s a loan on the future. I have faith in human ingenuity to find ways to work around the costs, but the alternative of doing nothing I think is the more dangerous path.

It's the very essence of penny wise, pound foolish. With monetary policy where it is, central banks are all but begging governments to borrow against the future, and a normal economy is all but impossible during a deadly pandemic regardless of whether governments choose to let people die.
 
oh , by asking for volunteers instead of letting New Turkey make some money . Because they will end up cash strapped and those PPP contracts should have got a year or two in delays except it would mean poison as London would enable one of two New A-K-P , nobody can dare think about the corruption cases that would ensue . Because all the good people would flock to where the money would be . And many thanks , for like proving the idea nobody reads r16 in CFC is not totally true .

and yes , with Naboo and Trade Federation we all know what will happen to PPP , too ...
 
Necessity knows no law

If there is a big draught and one farmer owns a big sweet water lake, with not enough pumps to sell all the other farmers water.... will these farmers choose to die ?.... Or will they put their own pumps in place to pump out water ? Happy to pay money as well for that water.

A no-brainer
Pumps will pump water.

But now that one farmer with that sweet water lake is the Big Phama company Hoffman La Roche who is not able to supply enough test kits, but does not want to share as temp emergency IP knowledge enabling countries to do more testing.

Is that also a no-brainer ?

Here the details from Dutch national news:
Dutch hospital laboratories are facing problems with corona tests due to their dependence on the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche. This is evident from conversations of the Follow the Money research platform with, among others, RIVM and laboratories.
Roche supplies machines that allow labs to perform corona tests. The company owns about 80 percent of the Dutch market, so many hospitals have Roche's test equipment. To use them, they also need other Roche items, such as pipettes, plastic plates and liquids.
But because the global demand for test material has risen enormously due to the corona crisis, Roche - which is also the market leader in the rest of the world - cannot supply all of the necessary test materials.
Secret recipe
Laboratories could easily make one of those materials themselves, writes Follow the Money. It concerns the 'lysis buffer', a special fluid that can break open cells so that genetic material is released. The exact recipe is known only to Roche, but so far the manufacturer has not released it to laboratories. There was no answer to Follow the Money of Roche's question because of the corona crisis.
In a response, the pharmacist points out that there are general recipes for lysis buffers. But according to Follow the Money, laboratories can't just switch to that because in the machine they probably don't work exactly the same as Roche's. In addition, the labs should first extensively test the homemade liquids.
Necessity knows no law
Microbiologist Ann Vossen expressed last week in de Volkskrant the hope that Roche will release the recipe anyway. "They won't like that, but need breaks the law. We all have to settle for something."
Incidentally, the problems with the test capacity are not the same everywhere in the Netherlands. For example, testing at the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) is still possible on a larger scale. That hospital has test equipment from various and mostly other manufacturers.
"We are fortunate that our suppliers still have stock," UMCG physician-microbiologist Corette van Leer told Nieuwsuur on Monday. "I think other hospitals would have been able to continue testing for longer if they had spanned suppliers."
New tests
Today, the government has appointed a 'corona envoy' to focus on corona tests and their availability. Feike Sijbesma, former CEO of biochemistry group DSM, will take on this task. Medical technology companies are currently working hard on (new) corona tests. Two more Roche tests came on the market two weeks ago. This can be done automatically and in large quantities simultaneously, up to a maximum of 4000 tests per 24 hours. However, sufficient test materials must also be produced for this. "We have increased production to the maximum and are now able to produce 8.5 million corona tests per month," said a Roche spokesperson at the time. The total global demand for corona tests is unclear.
https://nos.nl/artikel/2328393-bijn...t-roche-leidt-tot-tekort-aan-coronatests.html
 
The Governor of Mississippi issued a state wide ban on any city and town to limit closures or stay at home orders. That is, no city or town can limit business activity because of the virus. Any city that had already issued such orders had to rescind them.
Can't your president or central government overrule them, in case of emergency like the one we currently have?
 
Can't your president or central government overrule them, in case of emergency like the one we currently have?
Even if he can, you do know who that president is, right? ;)
 
Necessity knows no law

If there is a big draught and one farmer owns a big sweet water lake, with not enough pumps to sell all the other farmers water.... will these farmers choose to die ?.... Or will they put their own pumps in place to pump out water ? Happy to pay money as well for that water.

A no-brainer
Pumps will pump water.

But now that one farmer with that sweet water lake is the Big Phama company Hoffman La Roche who is not able to supply enough test kits, but does not want to share as temp emergency IP knowledge enabling countries to do more testing.

Is that also a no-brainer ?

Here the details from Dutch national news:

It's the lysis buffer! Thanks, I was wondering what the bottleneck was. All the news reports just mentioned shortages of unspecified reagents.

Yesterday I looked up RT-PCR test kits from Sigma Aldrich and noticed the same issue - the individual reagents weren't being sold separately, instead a "master mix" was being sold at thousands of dollars per mL and the mix was proprietary. There almost certainly wouldn't be shortages if this was known. If there's a global lack of reverse transcriptase or something else critical this would be understandable, but something stupid like the buffer shouldn't be stopping testing and putting millions of lives at risk.

PCR reagents are needed at amounts of roughly 1-10 uL per test, or 1-10 L per million tests. For an enzyme, there really could be a shortage - those are legitimately expensive and difficult to make. But for simple chemicals, there should be no shortfall of anything.

Anyone with access to a lab where RT-PCR is done needs to try to reverse engineer the buffer, or come up with their own buffer that they can show works comparably, and tell everyone what your results are. Anyone working for a large biotech company who can access the actual composition needs to leak it publicly - don't worry about the inevitable IP lawsuits, you'll save thousands to hundreds of thousands of lives. Anyone working for a testing lab needs to be willing to ignore regulations and just do the tests as soon as you know one way or another how to get reliable results. Anyone who is in any part of the bureaucracy that makes it difficult to do things unofficially needs to back off and do whatever it takes to get results, with whatever caveats, to the doctors and patients who need them.

It is extremely important that we break any rules that are holding back testing and deal with the consequences later. I wish I were in a position to do this myself because I'm absolutely willing to go rogue like this.
 
But now that one farmer with that sweet water lake is the Big Phama company Hoffman La Roche who is not able to supply enough test kits, but does not want to share as temp emergency IP knowledge enabling countries to do more testing.

I conclude that there are similar issues with ventilators in that companies in the
UK are talking about designing ventilators rather than utilising existing designs.
 
I conclude that there are similar issues with ventilators in that companies in the
UK are talking about designing ventilators rather than utilising existing designs.
Of course this should not be done for IP reasons, but if I was building a new ventilator for the current crisis, I would not make it to existing designs that work for 1 or 2 people, I would make one integrated with the building that works for 100 or 1000 people.
 
Forgoing the usual more detailed translations here but this afternoon Prime Minster Abe met with the Countermeasures Office of under the Coronavirus Special Measures Law. The article basically says that national and regional governments, health workers, businesses and the people themselves need to further the measures to prevent spread of the coronavirus.

This includes a possible declaration of a state of emergency. Furthermore, nationals of 27 countries will be denied entry into Japan starting from midnight: Spain, Italy, Germany, 21 other European countries (not specified in article) and Iran.

The video (3:25) reiterates the article and there are two specialists.

The first one talks about two unexpected events that happened: first, the highest daily confirmed number in Tokyo the other day and the opening of the K-1 kickboxing event in Saitama where 6,500 spectators attended. He also mentions that a state of emergency was, while discussed in the countermeasures office, was not referenced directly by PM Abe in his public statement.

A brief explanation describes how people might be confused about a state of emergency: is it okay to ride the train? Is it okay to go shopping?

The second guy says that while there is no formal legal penalty as of now, he thinks the Japanese people are inclined to defer to decorum.

https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/videonews/fnn?a=20200326-00434593-fnn-pol

I hope for everyone's sake that second guy is right and people take it seriously.
 
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