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London report.

We managed to get out twice again today. Really pleasant. A trip to the playground, with hand sanitiser in use. Lots of bird chasing today anyway, so not too touch focused. Again, only 3-4 families at a time. The last day of schools and nurseries being open though which will change things incredibly.

A huge move by the govt today, pledging to give those out of work 80% of their pay. This was quickly followed by an 80% reduction in our nursery fee during the closure, and the added benefit of some distance learning each day from the key educators. So that was all good news.

Friends are now planning cocktail hours on FaceTime, zoom or google hangouts. Essentially sitting in our homes and drinking while talking to friends on screens, but a lot of them instead of just one at a time. Huge dance parties of up to 7k are being organised but the younger crowds. My wife is having a group meeting with the local mamas right now, about 8-10 all on a chat. So there is some interesting connection going on that wasn't happening before in quite such persistent group focused ways.

Also just heard in the nightly briefing that "following agreement of all the four nations of the UK, Johnson said all cafes, bars, pubs and restaurants must close tonight. Night clubs, theatres, gyms, cinemas and leisure centres must also close on the same timescale."

I'm predicting a lockdown imminently, with similar restrictions to those elsewhere in Europe. I'm only hoping the UK changes the stipulation most commonly used that only one person can get out of the house. Not getting to the park with my daughter will be very hard. Also because she's three and has no idea anything is wrong right now. We're just on holiday.

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

"Give me liberty, or give me death!"




"Take my liberty, I'am scared to death."

Liberty is a conundrum in the social contract that holds societies together. Letting people do whatever they feel like has never held a society together - there has to be laws and regulations to guide behaviour. It turns out that once your liberties begin affecting your neighbours, their liberties are being violated. An example would be playing music really loud such that the neighbours cannot hear their TV or enjoy the tranquility of their patio. Whose rights are more important?

In a life or death situation such as this epidemic, I suggest that the first item in the declaration of independence indicates priority - life is listed before liberty. IMO this applies to all liberties that could result in the death of an innocent person.

New Hampire motto: Live Free or Die

BBfanboy, I agree 100%. But, man, are there awesome ironies in your declaration: life ahead of liberty; especially when the liberty might result in the death of an innocent person. Wow. Yes. If only the civilized people of the world agreed with that sentiment.

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

"Give me liberty, or give me death!"




"Take my liberty, I'am scared to death."

Liberty is a conundrum in the social contract that holds societies together. Letting people do whatever they feel like has never held a society together - there has to be laws and regulations to guide behaviour. It turns out that once your liberties begin affecting your neighbours, their liberties are being violated. An example would be playing music really loud such that the neighbours cannot hear their TV or enjoy the tranquility of their patio. Whose rights are more important?

In a life or death situation such as this epidemic, I suggest that the first item in the declaration of independence indicates priority - life is listed before liberty. IMO this applies to all liberties that could result in the death of an innocent person.

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

More than 70% of Coronavirus deaths in Italy are men and scientists admit they are 'mystified' by the disparity between genders


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... y-men.html


"At least 3,400 people in Italy have died of the devastating disease - it yesterday announced it had a higher death toll than China - but less than 1,000 of them have been women"

I use to joke that "they" would release a virus that would kill just men.

I'd guess this is more of a social gender difference with men covering more territory, spending more time out of the home, and seeing more people. There may also be the bravado/carelessness that they wouldn't be affected. In general when you hear or see of those now breaking curfew, the majority are men.

This is mostly old men, but men in general are more risk-taking than women.

It could also be due to worse health, including the use of cigarettes.

There's a lot of buzz about chloraquine, the anti-malarial drug now being touted as a possible treatment, even a cure for Covid-19. There are a few non-breathless, non-media publications at NIH, should you be interested. Here's a French article giving a short overview of the trials in France, which gave the most promising results.

However this plays out, it does seem that it would be extremely useful in boosting the resistance of medical workers, and reducing the amount of time that serious cases would otherwise spend in hospital beds. Even if it only cut the recovery time in half (and it seems to do more than that), it would effectively double bed availability.

ORIGINAL: Kull

There's a lot of buzz about chloraquine, the anti-malarial drug now being touted as a possible treatment, even a cure for Covid-19. There are a few non-breathless, non-media publications at NIH, should you be interested. Here's a French article giving a short overview of the trials in France, which gave the most promising results.

However this plays out, it does seem that it would be extremely useful in boosting the resistance of medical workers, and reducing the amount of time that serious cases would otherwise spend in hospital beds. Even if it only cut the recovery time in half (and it seems to do more than that), it would effectively double bed availability.

There is a hospitalized COVID-19 patient in our area who they are trying chloraquine on.

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

IMO this applies to all liberties that could result in the death of an innocent person.

That is horrific thinking. "People gave up ALL their liberties, but we did save the life of one person. Enjoy your slavery!"

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Kull

Spain is the next train wreck. Today they moved into 3rd place in the world in terms of known cases (see attachment), but they've only tested 30,000 (they finally appeared in the wiki testing table today), substantially less than Italy's 182K.

This article talks about the state of testing in Spain. The tests they use take a long time to process, and while Spain has the ability to manufacture their own kits, they are dependent on parts from outside, and those sources are drying up. As a result, the testing guidelines specifically exclude using tests for contact tracing, so you can imagine what's coming.

Really too bad about Spain. I thought they had enough warning to get testing going, and prepare a bit. Crazy how fast this goes once it takes hold in a place. They're testing per million is where the UK was yesterday, but the UK has jumped a lot, yet positives/1000 are way lower than Spain.

I've been wondering if mortality numbers multiplied by 0.5% (low mortality estimate) might be a closer indicator of actual cases in the respective countries. For the UK today that would be 177. The resulting number would be 35,400 cases. Judging by the information that a fifteen fold increase in critical Covid cases are now coming into hospitals here, I'd say at least this and probably higher. This may get bad here soon too.

The testing chart data is interesting about the positives/1000 tests. Italy and the US are practically on par for that stat, France is not far behind and Spain has double the number of positives while Canada has only 14.8 or so per thousand tests. I figure this means that Italy, the US, France and Spain did not start testing early enough and now are mostly testing people who have already shown strong indications they have the virus. This in turn indicates the lack of test kits or personnel/venues/geographic coverage to test broadly where there is any suspicion at all that the virus could be there. The latter is what is needed to get a handle on this.

Canada has been lucky with most of the travel-related initial cases coming in to Toronto and Vancouver. But we let it get out to other cities around the country before starting closures and travel restrictions so we will likely see a sharp rise for a few weeks before it tapers off. Still, I think we are luckier than most and will have a modest curve to suffer. We might even end our quarantine earlier than most countries.

Science News has an article about 'Why some heart patients may be especially vulnerable to COVID-19'
People with hypertension and cardiovascular disease risk severe bouts of the disease

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cor ... vulnerable

I just want to thank all of you gentlemen again for keeping things quite civil in this discussion. Unlike the fiasco running in the General Discussion forum, this one continues to be a very valuable exchange of information, thoughts and discussion.

It will also be interesting to see how the virus may prefer smokers to non-smokers. China is a country still badly hung up on tobacco; as I recall older generations of Italians were similarly disposed to smoking.

+1, USSAmerica

There was a report yesterday that younger people in China seemed disproportionately affected, possibly due to smoking; and ditto with young folks in the west who vape.

ORIGINAL: pontiouspilot

It will also be interesting to see how the virus may prefer smokers to non-smokers. China is a country still badly hung up on tobacco; as I recall older generations of Italians were similarly disposed to smoking.

ORIGINAL: Kull

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

IMO this applies to all liberties that could result in the death of an innocent person.

That is horrific thinking. "People gave up ALL their liberties, but we did save the life of one person. Enjoy your slavery!"

I am not suggesting there should be no liberties. You should be free to drive the car and roam the sidewalks on foot, but in the situation we are in it must be OK for the government to make rules about how we do it. That applies to all kinds of activities. There is no absolute and complete "liberty" or "freedom" unless you are a hermit with no neighbours.

ORIGINAL: USSAmerica

I just want to thank all of you gentlemen again for keeping things quite civil in this discussion. Unlike the fiasco running in the General Discussion forum, this one continues to be a very valuable exchange of information, thoughts and discussion.

warspite1

Not really a 'fiasco'. A robust exchange of views. One person decided that the best way to calculate death rate would be to completely and utterly ignore the biggest variable in the data set. Despite numerous more measured heads pointing out why that is not a sensible idea, he continues to provide this alarmist nonsense on a daily basis. Fiasco? Not really.

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: USSAmerica

I just want to thank all of you gentlemen again for keeping things quite civil in this discussion. Unlike the fiasco running in the General Discussion forum, this one continues to be a very valuable exchange of information, thoughts and discussion.

warspite1

Not really a 'fiasco'. A robust exchange of views. One person decided that the best way to calculate death rate would be to completely and utterly ignore the biggest variable in the data set. Despite numerous more measured heads pointing out why that is not a sensible idea, he continues to provide this alarmist nonsense on a daily basis. Fiasco? Not really.

Wouldn't be surprised if cyber-warfare pros are poking at every discussion to try and turn it into a shouting match. I am very suspicious of every troll that posts outrageous stuff and refuses to listen to reasonable criticism.

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: Kull

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

IMO this applies to all liberties that could result in the death of an innocent person.

That is horrific thinking. "People gave up ALL their liberties, but we did save the life of one person. Enjoy your slavery!"

I am not suggesting there should be no liberties. You should be free to drive the car and roam the sidewalks on foot, but in the situation we are in it must be OK for the government to make rules about how we do it. That applies to all kinds of activities. There is no absolute and complete "liberty" or "freedom" unless you are a hermit with no neighbours.

You go too far in your brief, absolute statement. There must be some reasonable balance.

ALL activities could result in the death of an innocent person. People like to pretend otherwise when promoting one course of action over another. There are ALWAYS consequences.

Sometimes one person's exercise of a given liberty may directly result in the death of an innocent person. This can be at a 1:1 ratio repeated millions of times over many decades. Then a society has to choose which has priority: the given liberty or the given life. It's very hard and very sad.

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

+1, USSAmerica

+2

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