OT: Corona virus

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

And if Covid-19 doesn't get you, maybe Chernobyl will. A forest fire near the reactor site has raised radiation levels in the air 16X normal. I hope they do a better job of protecting their firefighters this time!

warspite1

For those with some expertise in this area, I am curious to know how the fire in the forest around Chernobyl has raised the radiation levels.

Thank-you.

[Encircled]

At least the infection rates and death rates are dropping in Spain and Italy, so we know there is going to an end in sight.

I can't speak for anyone else on here, but when you are in a situation like this, living in the sticks is certainly a huge advantage!

But it will be interesting to see how each country returns to normal, and how quickly it decides to do it.

Those hoping for pubs/restaurants/sports events* might have quite a long wait I fear.

*Lots of talk over here about the football season being finished live on tv but with no fans in the ground.

[Sardaukar]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

And if Covid-19 doesn't get you, maybe Chernobyl will. A forest fire near the reactor site has raised radiation levels in the air 16X normal. I hope they do a better job of protecting their firefighters this time!

warspite1

For those with some expertise in this area, I am curious to know how the fire in the forest around Chernobyl has raised the radiation levels.

Thank-you.

Ground vegetation burning and revealing radioactive isotopes bonded in ground. Bit of nature's "dirty bomb" but in much milder way.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Can we change the name of the thread to China Virus?


"Hall monitor"[:D]

Words matter. This isn't funny.

I see the intended humour, but you may not realise that for people of any asian decent that has dire consequences. You're a reasonable person (mostly) and can understand that the government of China is the issue, not the people. Using this phrase though, for people who already have some bias or overt racism, enforces those beliefs and is causing them to act on them.

Here in Britain and from reports around the world, East Asians, whether Chinese or not, have been verbally abused, ostracised and physically attacked after the Corona Virus began moving out from China.

This is from yesterday in NYC
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-amer ... y-n1177146

Here is another. The anxiety of moving through an environment that is turning against you is also damaging.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/c ... tacks.html

As bigots blame them for the coronavirus and President Trump labels it the “Chinese virus,” many Chinese-Americans say they are terrified of what could come next.

Yuanyuan Zhu was walking to her gym in San Francisco on March 9, thinking the workout could be her last for a while, when she noticed that a man was shouting at her. He was yelling an expletive about China. Then a bus passed, she recalled, and he screamed after it, “Run them over.”

She tried to keep her distance, but when the light changed, she was stuck waiting with him at the crosswalk. She could feel him staring at her. And then, suddenly, she felt it: his saliva hitting her face and her favorite sweater.

In London a student from Singapore was beaten so badly by thugs in the middle of the biggest shopping area in London, Oxford St, in the middle of the afternoon, that he may require facial reconstruction.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/03/uk/c ... index.html

None of this is funny.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Grocery workers are beginning to die of coronavirus
1 hr ago

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/groce ... li=BBnb7Kz


"Major supermarket chains are beginning to report their first coronavirus-related employee deaths, leading to store closures and increasing anxiety among grocery workers as the pandemic intensifies across the country."

"Those efforts are likely to take on new urgency, analysts said, as supermarket workers across the country begin to see colleagues fall ill from covid-19. More than 356,000 Americans have tested positive for the coronavirus as of Monday afternoon, and nearly 10,500 have died. "

Two of the local shops we've gone to have cashiers without facial protection. It's hard to see. I go in with my overused but still effective PPE3 mask (stock from my construction projects reserve), sanitiser in pocket, gloves on and full sleeves to limit exposure.

I've been thinking for a while this could be bad. What do you do if no one is willing or able to work in stores and there is not enough PPE to go around?

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy


There have been enough mentions by Senators and Congressmen/Congresswomen about "working on ways to have sessions electronically" that it would not surprise me if the "vacation" is a break in face-to-face meetings so they can install some hardware for teleconferencing hundreds of people and hiring techs to run it during sessions. I hope they find a way. Canada is working on the same issue.

It doesn't require a break to do that. Schools have been doing it for many weeks. It took us four days to transition, and most of that was for students to be let into school at scheduled times to safely retrieve their books and belongings.

We use Zoom but any kind of teleconferencing should be useable, and the US government should be able to set that up within a day or two at most.

[obvert]

This is the FT cases graph for today. it's very good to see curves flattening, then even dipping, and others aiming toward a peak on a much lower angle. I am wary of getting too excited, but it does look like measures are having a pronounced effect.

[obvert]

This from their economic updates page shows the lessening of traffic around the world. London is looking much lower than a few weeks ago, which is positive for the lockdown phase. I think construction slowing has a major effect.

[Sardaukar]

.....

Disregard [8D]

[Sardaukar]

This is bit amusing..just before Easter...[:D][8D]

But there is an explanation...

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Can we change the name of the thread to China Virus?

"Hall monitor"[:D]

Words matter. This isn't funny.

I see the intended humour, but you may not realise that for people of any asian decent that has dire consequences. You're a reasonable person (mostly) and can understand that the government of China is the issue, not the people. Using this phrase though, for people who already have some bias or overt racism, enforces those beliefs and is causing them to act on them.

Here in Britain and from reports around the world, East Asians, whether Chinese or not, have been verbally abused, ostracised and physically attacked after the Corona Virus began moving out from China.

This is from yesterday in NYC
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-amer ... y-n1177146

Here is another. The anxiety of moving through an environment that is turning against you is also damaging.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/c ... tacks.html

As bigots blame them for the coronavirus and President Trump labels it the “Chinese virus,” many Chinese-Americans say they are terrified of what could come next.

Yuanyuan Zhu was walking to her gym in San Francisco on March 9, thinking the workout could be her last for a while, when she noticed that a man was shouting at her. He was yelling an expletive about China. Then a bus passed, she recalled, and he screamed after it, “Run them over.”

She tried to keep her distance, but when the light changed, she was stuck waiting with him at the crosswalk. She could feel him staring at her. And then, suddenly, she felt it: his saliva hitting her face and her favorite sweater.

In London a student from Singapore was beaten so badly by thugs in the middle of the biggest shopping area in London, Oxford St, in the middle of the afternoon, that he may require facial reconstruction.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/03/uk/c ... index.html

None of this is funny.

It is not funny but there are bullies and blowhards every where.

Are you going to rename the Spanish flu?

Are you going to rename the Hong Kong flu?

Are you going to rename the Asian flu?

Are you going to rename the Zika virus?

Are you going to rename Ebola?

There are many other examples as well throughout history.

I described concentration camps in this thread and a government worker thought that it was funny and responded accordingly.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Can we change the name of the thread to China Virus?

"Hall monitor"[:D]

Words matter. This isn't funny.

I see the intended humour, but you may not realise that for people of any asian decent that has dire consequences. You're a reasonable person (mostly) and can understand that the government of China is the issue, not the people. Using this phrase though, for people who already have some bias or overt racism, enforces those beliefs and is causing them to act on them.

Here in Britain and from reports around the world, East Asians, whether Chinese or not, have been verbally abused, ostracised and physically attacked after the Corona Virus began moving out from China.

This is from yesterday in NYC
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-amer ... y-n1177146

Here is another. The anxiety of moving through an environment that is turning against you is also damaging.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/c ... tacks.html

As bigots blame them for the coronavirus and President Trump labels it the “Chinese virus,” many Chinese-Americans say they are terrified of what could come next.

Yuanyuan Zhu was walking to her gym in San Francisco on March 9, thinking the workout could be her last for a while, when she noticed that a man was shouting at her. He was yelling an expletive about China. Then a bus passed, she recalled, and he screamed after it, “Run them over.”

She tried to keep her distance, but when the light changed, she was stuck waiting with him at the crosswalk. She could feel him staring at her. And then, suddenly, she felt it: his saliva hitting her face and her favorite sweater.

In London a student from Singapore was beaten so badly by thugs in the middle of the biggest shopping area in London, Oxford St, in the middle of the afternoon, that he may require facial reconstruction.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/03/uk/c ... index.html

None of this is funny.

It is not funny but there are bullies and blowhards every where.

Are you going to rename the Spanish flu?

There are many other examples as well throughout history.

As I'm sure you know well, the generally accepted term for this viruses has been Coronavirus, technically SARS-CoV2, and it is now more often referred to as Covid-19.

We were all raised during an era when humour was different. I am no exception. I love Rodney Dangerfield. He made fun of every culture, equally, for the most part. And himself.

This is not the same thing. In this time, (and probably in times past when racism was much more a common thread of humour and much more dangerous to minorities even than it is now, but was often institutionalised like in the US) using this kind of language normalises the implied blame for the pain, anger, confusion and difficulty people are feeling now. Especially now we have to be more careful about how we speak about others.

There are bullies and blowhards everywhere, but the difference is that since this crisis has begun, they have been targeting asians with increasing frequency and violence. That is the problem. The language and the attitude are all intertwined, and it for some reason makes some people respond in ways they haven't been until now, and targeting people they haven't been until now.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Coronavirus: Tiger at Bronx Zoo tests positive for Covid-19

3 hours ago

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52177586

A four-year-old female Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo has tested positive for the coronavirus.

"The tiger, named Nadia, is believed to be the first known case of an animal infected with Covid-19 in the US.

The Bronx Zoo, in New York City, says the test result was confirmed by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Iowa.

Nadia, along with six other big cats, is thought to have been infected by an asymptomatic zoo keeper.

The cats started showing symptoms, including a dry cough, late last month after exposure to the employee, who has not been identified. "

That was on the news earlier and they said that France had a case of a dog carrying the virus some time ago. I guess the message is: don't get too cozy with your pet or tiger.

I live with seven cats and feed a half dozen more. Have seen the same headlines, and also the story of a captive tiger testing positive.

Did some follow up research and found several articles by medical professionals stating that the positive feline tests should not be taken as representative of a threat to humans as the feline versions of Corona viruses are unique to felines and are NOT the same virus currently attacking humans.

I hope I can believe the medical professionals more than the journalists looking for something to hype.

[Canoerebel]

On the 6th, mortality in the US was 700 less than the 1,967 projected by the Univ. of Washington site (https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america).

To this point, each day has been below the projection, which I assume is the kind of trend that helped lead the researchers/modelers to issue the encouraging update yesterday morning. Hopefully that trend continues.

[Canoerebel]

Spain's new cases chart, through yesterday. The number reported today is 3,835. If that's the final report on the day it would be a big drop. (Usually, Spain is updated on Worldometers once per day but not always. There was a late addendum to yesterday's mortality number bringing it up to the same as the day before.)

[Canoerebel]

With yesterday's news from Denmark re: gradually relaxing countermeasures, a quick look at nearby Netherlands showed that the number of new cases may have flattened and mortalities may be dropping a bit, but the bell curve still seems fairly early. Belgium seems earlier in its curve, especially for mortalities. Both nations have fairly high Mortality/M, though not close to Italy's and Spain's levels yet. Germany new cases way down but mortality very high in the bell curve ...though total numbers still low in comparison to many countries (just 22/M).

Saw a news report last night that more than half of cases in Chicago are African American (https://abc7chicago.com/coronavirus-ill ... o/6081249/). 32% of Chicago's population is black and about 66% overall is minority (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Chicago).

[RangerJoe]

We could be vastly overestimating the death rate for COVID-19. Here's why
04 Apr 2020
Nina Schwalbe
Member of the Council on Foreign Relations; Principal Visiting Fellow, United Nations University International Institute for Global Health

A lack of adequate testing means many of those who have been infected with the coronavirus will not appear in official statistics.
This suggests that many estimates for its mortality rate are much too high.
We need to build better systems for sharing and reporting data.

Public health epidemiology is the science of counting to prevent disease and promote health. We count the number of new cases of a particular disease; this is the incidence. Then we count how much a disease has spread in a population; this is the prevalence.

When it comes to COVID-19, counting is a challenge. Despite all the news articles and reports, we know very little about the incidence or prevalence of this new disease. And as is always the case: ignorance breeds fear. In my hometown of New York City and elsewhere one fear is on just about everyone’s mind: death rates here appear to be considerably higher than rates reported elsewhere.

Or are they? Using patient data from China, public health officials initially estimated that 80% of COVID-19 cases are either asymptomatic or have mild disease. Given that hospital beds, health workers, and test kits are in short supply, only highly symptomatic people are advised to go to the hospital. Because of lack of adequate testing, including in the United States, in many places only hospital patients are now counted as cases. The people who do not feel seriously ill stay home, recover quietly, and are never counted. This matters because they do not appear in any of the official statistics.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/ ... heres-why/

[RangerJoe]

Oh boy, look at Ireland!

Ireland's PM will work as a doctor during the coronavirus crisis
06 Apr 2020
Thomson Reuters Foundation

Ireland's Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar has re-registered as a medical practitioner in an effort to help out throughout the coronavirus crisis.
He will work one shift a week, whilst continuing to lead the country through the pandemic.
Varadkar worked as a doctor for seven years before entering politics.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/ ... 19-health/

[Canoerebel]

I just went back and skimmed through the first five pages of this thread. Lots of interesting reading there. Early projections and analysis from rank amateurs, thoughtful forumites and outright experts. Some things gotten right and some wrong. Back then, the mortality figured used was 2% in this thread (and, from memory, 3% to 5% in many sources). Right now that figure seems to be mostly at 1%. If RangerJoe's source is right, and if things continue improving, in the end this may be much less than 1%. There was some early discussion of that possibility in this thread, at a time when it seems hopelessly optimistic.

[Cap Mandrake]

That was on the news earlier and they said that France had a case of a dog carrying the virus some time ago. I guess the message is: don't get too cozy with your pet or tiger.

[/quote]

I would be careful if I were you. Almost all covid testing is a viral RNA PCR test where the test sequence chosen was a genome region specific to covid-19. Also, don't forget, the Civet was the likely amplification species for SARS-1. The story seems plausible to me. Also the bat is NOT a bird. It's a mammal. I would keep your cats in if possible. Unless they are roaming around they are more likely to get it from you than vice versa.