COVID-19 virus thread (formerly Wuhan coronavirus)

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Valka D'Ur said:
Yep. It's the perfect time for Jason Kenney and his Gang of Idiots (aka his cabinet) to close the rural and small-town emergency rooms and tell people to "just drive to the nearest hospital"... which could be almost an hour away.
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We're going to be faced with the same problem. Ontario has neglected hospital funding for a long time in the name of efficiency. When I had to go in 2018, I laid on a stretcher for 3 hours. Middle of summer, hardly peak flu season. I know we have lots of empty rooms and lots of doctors and nurses working outside hospitals who can be drafted, but I'm not optimistic.

As I mention in the toilet paper thread, I sold some of mine today, to a friend who tried to buy some at Walmart... and they don't have any left. She joked about "buying toilet paper on the black market" (I didn't ask any more for it than I paid in the first place).
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The only sign anything is amiss here is lysol wipes and hand sanitizer are nowhere to be found. I had no problem finding toilet paper, on sale no less.
 
emzie said:
Don't think it's going to matter much. After the quarantine was announced, more than 20 flights went ahead from Northern Italy to the UK. I imagine similar numbers for the rest of Europe.
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Maybe they shouldn't have announced it.
 
Thorgalaeg said:
I think epidemy is definitely exponential now, approximately
N=e^(×/3.6) where N is the number of cases outsude China and x the number of days since February 1st. Give it about a month and the whole world may be infected.
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Even Madagascar?
 
The only safe place right now would be Antarctica, assuming they haven't had any planes landing there in the last 2 months.
 
Kaitzilla said:
It is really amazing that Africa has only 90 cases so far.

Does hot and humid weather really hurt the virus that much?
That would be awesome if heat mows the virus down.

Are Africans having a genetic quirk that makes them resistant to the virus?
Or is it just lack of testing for the low number of cases? :hmm:
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One factor I haven’t seen discussed is: how mobile are Africans in general? If people don’t travel as much, I would think the spread of the coronavirus would be less severe than in highly-mobile countries where people are on trains and airplanes a lot.
 
Kaitzilla said:
Does hot and humid weather really hurt the virus that much?
That would be awesome if heat mows the virus down.
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I read somewhere yesterday that there's a hypothesis that heat will kill it (like 30C and above). Keep in mind that this is mostly happening in the northern hemisphere, and it's still winter (in fact, we're having a bit of a cold snap after a chinook). So maybe we might get lucky and this will be over by fall.

Then again, they still need to come up with a vaccine.
 
"All of Italy placed under coronavirus lockdown

The entire population - some 60 million people - are told to stay at home amid the outbreak."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51810673

Not that surprising. Just as China did, it seems Italy is resorting to national chemotherapy in the face of this outbreak. Horrifying.
 
Valka D'Ur said:
I read somewhere yesterday that there's a hypothesis that heat will kill it (like 30C and above). Keep in mind that this is mostly happening in the northern hemisphere, and it's still winter (in fact, we're having a bit of a cold snap after a chinook). So maybe we might get lucky and this will be over by fall.

Then again, they still need to come up with a vaccine.
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Time to open up a sauna and go every day if it really works.
 
Valka D'Ur said:
I read somewhere yesterday that there's a hypothesis that heat will kill it (like 30C and above). Keep in mind that this is mostly happening in the northern hemisphere, and it's still winter (in fact, we're having a bit of a cold snap after a chinook). So maybe we might get lucky and this will be over by fall.

Then again, they still need to come up with a vaccine.
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Whereas down here its peak may coincide with winter and flu season
 
Arwon said:
Whereas down here its peak may coincide with winter and flu season
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Speculation: the isolation measures you'll be putting into place for COVID-19 may suppress flu season entirely. If people are forced to self-isolate for flu-like symptoms, they'll be isolating with the flu as well. The flu is already a lot less transmissible than COVID-19. Mass societal action like this might bring the R0 for the flu well below 1.
 
Valka D'Ur said:
I read somewhere yesterday that there's a hypothesis that heat will kill it (like 30C and above). Keep in mind that this is mostly happening in the northern hemisphere, and it's still winter (in fact, we're having a bit of a cold snap after a chinook). So maybe we might get lucky and this will be over by fall.
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There is still no confirmation of that. But there's no proof it won't happen either. I'm guessing this will be controlled the old-fashioned way, by reducing spread. If hot weather helps even a little, so much the better.
 
https://www.msn.com/en-my/news/worl...0-to-be-infected-with-coronavirus/ar-BB10V6Up
UK researchers are calling for volunteers to be deliberately infected with a coronavirus and held in quarantine in a race against time to find a vaccine for the deadly COVID-19,

Human guinea pigs will be offered £3,500 (NZ$7000) in exchange for two weeks in a secure London facility, where they'll be banned from outside contact and constantly monitored for symptoms, The Times reports.
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Whoa, that is $4600.
...
:salute:
The 24 volunteers will be infected with two common strains of coronavirus, 0C43 and 229E, which are similar to COVID-19. However, these two strains only cause a mild respiratory illness.

The infected patients will then be used to test antiviral medications as well as help develop a vaccine for COVID-19.
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Heh, ok, that is not so bad.
I thought it was gonna be the real thing.
They won't be allowed to exercise or have physical contact with other people, and their diet will be controlled.

However they will be allowed to spend their time watching TV and playing video games.
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:)
 
Planning to move to UK?
 
If I wasn't in such poor health (and lived in the UK), it's actually something I would consider.
 
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