Corona Virus

[moonshadow]

Complicating matters is my work van is parked in my driveway in Virginia yet bears a Tennessee tag...

If some little tin god challenges you just tell him that's a company vehicle for use in company business only. That is not a crime.

Hey, it could be worse -- it could have Massachusetts tags on it. Just think of the grief you'd be up for in that case!

Yeah... or New York! I'd say a motorist stopping at a rest stop, gas station, etc anywhere in the other 49 states would draw more stares and glares than a man in a skirt!

[Happy-N-Skirts]

Moonshadow,

Pardon my ignorance about why MA and NY license plates would draw negative attention. Is that because they are Yankees?

[Freedomforall]

Complicating matters is my work van is parked in my driveway in Virginia yet bears a Tennessee tag...

If some little tin god challenges you just tell him that's a company vehicle for use in company business only. That is not a crime.

Hey, it could be worse -- it could have Massachusetts tags on it. Just think of the grief you'd be up for in that case!

This should solve all our problems. Just make this sign and display it when they stop you.

[moonshadow]

Moonshadow,

Pardon my ignorance about why MA and NY license plates would draw negative attention. Is that because they are Yankees?

Generally there would be no issues.. but New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, etc are where most of the covid19 cases are at the moment. Locals in other parts of the country are a bit apprehensive about being near folks who came from areas with high infection rates.

It's not just New York though, I've heard Florida is being restrictive on people coming from Louisiana as they too have high infection rates.

I'd say wherever you live in the U.S... now is probably a good time to stay in your own home state if possible... maybe even your home county! Currently Russell County VA has no confirmed cases.... and we like it that way!

[pelmut]

The upturn in hospital cases in the U.K. has begun to straighten out in the last couple of days (the rate of change of the rate of change has gone negative).  This would happen anyway once the number of people who could not be infected reached a significant proportion of the total population, but it is happening well below that level and may be the first sign that lock-down is having the intended effect on the virus.  Deaths have also stopped rising during the last couple of days and are now around 500 per day in the entire U.K. (compared with an average of 700 per day in the London blitz).

These figures could just be a glitch, but I'm hoping they are the first indication that we are getting it under control.

[Big and Bashful]

Here in the UK, thanks to many groups of people completely ignoring the guidance, I wouldn't be surprised to see the lockdown taken further, and I wouldn't object to that. What seems to happen is that the Sun comes out, thousands of people think "Oh it'll be alright" and head for the nearest park/hill/beach. So you then have a bunch of public places with everyone swapping viruses. Ten days later suddenly more people are showing symptoms. How can you stop that happening? Boris tried the reasoning and explaining method, hoping for an intelligent response. Unfortunately people are thick and many ignored it. So we have a much tougher approach and still people go for their exercise and flake out in parks etc. no harm on an individual basis but there are 60,000,000 of us on our damp little island. After being very emphatic about there being NO none essential travel, the Scottish Health minister has been caught heading off to her second home twice. That didn't go down well! Anyone want the job? it is now vacant!
Here West of Glasgow in the villages life is just quiet, queueing outside the local shop and being kept spaced out freaked me out the first time, but it is tolerable. Working from home is odd, I am now on leave for Easter, still basically under house arrest! it is hard to tell the difference!
I agree, it looks like this virus is here to stay. All this lockdown will hopefully slow down the spread so that the Health service can cope with the levels, rather than have 60,000,000 folk all come down with it at once. Boy am I glad we have a health service!

On a related not, there has been a furore about lack of PPE and why there aren't enough gloves and masks, leading to Trump and his mob hi-jacking the supply to Canada, why, because he can (Ooh I want to rant- I feel your pain Mr. Moon). Well yes, you could hold stocks of millions of them, but, after 3 to 5 years they would all be out of date and would need to be replaced. Yes even nitrile and latex gloves have a limited shelf life, I can't check because I am at home but I am sure the masks will also have a similar life. Replacing the millions you would need to keep every 5 years would be very expensive to say the least. Couple this with the drive to the "Just in Time" philosophy (e.g. in the car industry, the bits to make a car would arrive as they are needed, not in a heap to lie around till required); All through my working career, I have seen things change, from keeping large stores full of equipment, to ordering stuff only as it is needed, so millions of your favourite currency isn't sitting on shelves in the form of unused hardware. That drive to reduce stock has been (Bet I can't spell this one) exacerbated (thanks spell-checker!) by money getting increasingly tight. In the Government department I work for they have taken this approach to extremes, what used to be "Just in Time" is now "Three months after you needed it". Mostly driven by bean-counters who do not realise the consequences of not having enough contingency spares. Of course as the demand has dropped, so has the supply, so glovists and maskists have reduced capacity to what was enough, until a Chinese market mixed people and animals together to invent a new bug, at least it makes a change from Asian flu! I was really upset when I saw where it came from, that means Trump was actually right about something!

That'll do for now!

[pelmut]

The spread of the virus can only be stopped by ensuring there are fewer chances for an infected person to infect an uninfected person.  Normally that is brought under control by the virus itself leaving an increasing number of naturally-immune people in the population and by vaccination pre-empting the virus.  With no natural immunity in the population and no vaccine, the only remaining way is isolation, but it does not need to be total isolation as long as the average time-to-infect can be stretched to the point where there is a flattening-out of the infection rate and held there.  Once the infection rate ceases to increase, the number of naturally-immune people will slowly increase and the infection rate will then begin to drop without any further measures. 

That seems to be the basis of the current U.K. strategy and it will lead to some deaths because it allows the virus to continue spreading.  The hope is that by keeping the infection rate just below that at which the health service can cope with the extra number of patients, those who can be saved will be saved and the number of immune people will increase at the greatest allowable rate.

If really draconian measures of total isolation were enforced and obeyed, it would all be over in three weeks because the virus doesn't stay viable for longer than that in most cases.  After that, partial isolation for a few more weeks would take care of the remaining isolated cases.  For that strategy to work in the longer term, all borders would have to be sealed and separation from other countries rigorously enforced until a vaccine became available

[Shilo]

It’s disappointing, although not unexpected, that some antisocial d***heads flout the physical distancing rules. The answer isn’t to impose stricter rules but to enforce the existing ones. Maybe they should be forced to work in frontline healthcare Not in any skilled capacity obviously but there are plenty of low level cleaning jobs and refuse collection

[moonshadow]

Boy am I glad we have a health service!

Yeah... rub it in!

On a related note, there has been a furore about lack of PPE and why there aren't enough gloves and masks, leading to Trump and his mob hi-jacking the supply to Canada, why, because he can

I've also heard about the American plane showing up in China, waving a wad of cash, and basically hijacking a plane of PPE bound for France and Germany.

I may be American, and I understand the need... but stabbing our allies in the back is no way to treat a friend. And why? All because our faultless leader didn't take the time to make PPE orders back in January when the first case showed up in the U.S.

I'm not ranting because I'm some sort of "anti-Trump" or trying to dog on our president, but you'd really have to be high on the kool-aid to not see the man's true colors on this one.

He has demonstrated time and time again that he doesn't take the matter seriously and is more concerned with his ego and reelection chances than being responsible and doing the right thing!

When this is over I'd be surprised if we have an ally left! The behavior of hijacking PPE from other nations may benefit us in the short term, but it ruins us in the long term by stressing or outright severing international relationships!

To the citizens of Canada, France, Germany, and any other nation stabbed in the back by our president.. I deeply apologize. He does NOT represent my heart or will and HE SURE AS HELL isn't BEING CHRIST LIKE with behavior such as that!

Because our nation fiddle farted around when it mattered... we're going to undercut and steal from smaller countries.... Shameful.

Speedy recovery to you alls PM (Johnson) over there by the way...

[moonshadow]

On a less hostile note, I once again question how bad this pandemic really is nation wide (I know things are a mess in New York).

I'm found out that the Virginia Department of Health isn't reporting recoveries. I wonder how many other states aren't reporting recoveries either?

It seems that would be a useful piece of information to help determine what kind of active case load we actually have. To say that Virginia has had 3,000 confirmed cases only tells half the story. I began to grow suspicious when I realized we've had at least half of those cases for more than two weeks.

Presumably, a good portion of those cases should either be recovered or dead. They are reporting deaths, but not recoveries!

Another example of state and government fear mongering. We really can't call this "media fearmongering" as technically, it's the media that pointed this out.

[Shilo]

The thing is that they just don’t know. The majority of cases are not admitted to hospital and recover at home without even being reported. Some might not even know they’ve had it.
As for your comments on Trump; nothing that man does surprises me. To the rest of the world he appears as a selfish buffoon. Vladimir Putin must be rubbing his hands together with glee as he watches him shoot himself in the foot again and again

[moonshadow]

To be fair.. Trump is between a rock and a hard spot now.

He's trying to provide supplies for the U.S., which is what any admirable leader would do. But my gripe is his failure to acquire these supplies back before this thing really broke out in the U.S.

So what does he do now?

Well... I admit, that's a tough one! If he does nothing he will draw the fire of the public and that will magnify his short sightedness back in Janurary.

Step one might be to just admit he messed up, eat a slice of humble pie and attempt to work with other nations. This may very well kill his reelection chances as it illustrates a weakness in what his demographic has always felt was rock solid. But it would open the lines of mutual cooperation between us and other nations, having the beneficial side effect of building bridges down the road.

America needs to learn a lesson here.. sometimes you're the hammer... sometimes you're the nail.

Right now, we're the nail, and we need help from abroad, particularly from our allies. We'll be hard pressed to receive this help of we keep pissing off the international community.

America has helped other nations before, and we have that in our pocket. But diplomacy should reign here, not tribally circling the wagons.

Trump needs to do the ethical thing. Humble himself, jettison the worry over November, and work with the international community to work the problem.

A good man does the right thing, even if it means him ultimately losing his job over it. He screwed up in January, the more he shifts blame, deflects, and engages in underhanded tactics within the international community, the worse he makes the situation.

If it's any consolation to our friends overseas, he's got the individual states fighting against each other too.

Its chaos... utter chaos.

[crfriend]

On a less hostile note, I once again question how bad this pandemic really is nation wide (I know things are a mess in New York).

Much depends on where one is. There are large swathes of the United States that won't see a case for years because they're so isolated (on several levels), and -- for them -- they are lucky. Whether (if) a vaccine is developed (and is affordable), will afford them some defence; however, if no vaccine is forthcoming (or unaffordable) then they will remain without a shred of immunity, possibly leading to outbreaks twenty years from now.

I'm found out that the Virginia Department of Health isn't reporting recoveries. I wonder how many other states aren't reporting recoveries either?

They're probably reporting recoveries -- if they're tracking them, that is -- but they will be listed somewhere other than with the Scary Data. Recall that they want the population scared; that gives them immense power and control. Pointing up that more folks survive this thing than die from it is not a good way to keep folks frightened.

Massachusetts has finally started reporting the rate of infection, but in an out-of-the-way corner of the spreadsheet in use. They should be leading with it, and then supplying the aggregate numbers. Again, "Keep 'em scared." "13,387 infections!" looks one Hell of a lot scarier than "1,337 new infections today, up from 764 yesterday." (to use yesterday's actual numbers from The Bay State). The "up from 764" is frightening enough, and shows the peril of taking one day's worth of numbers and trying to spin that into "The worst is over".

The number of recoveries can be inferred by taking time into account. The virus has a time-to-live in one host, there's a time where that host is considered "infectious" (to others), and there's a time where the patient's symptoms make life difficult for the virus, and after that the host has an immunity. That seems to be about three weeks' time. So, if we take the number of infections from three weeks ago, subtract the number of deaths (which they have to report) we wind up with an approximation of the number of recoveries. There's no measure of how complete those recoveries are, of if lasting damage was done by the virus, but we've got an approximation.

The Johns Hopkins page on the matter reports several tens of thousands of recoveries in the USA, however those are reported as a national aggregate, not at the county level which is what the infection numbers reflect. "Figures don't lie, but ..."

[Uncle Al]

To those people who think that the POTUS has pi$$ed off our allies,
this flight came from Russia -
Antonov AN-124 LANDING AT KENNEDY FULL OF MEDICAL SUPPLIES!

About the flight to China, bringing a full load of supplies to the U.S. -
The New England Patriots Are Sending Surgical Masks to NYC | COVID-19 Coverage from NBC New York
and
Patriots plane loaded with supplies headed to Massachusetts

Not much coverage of the flight from Russia but the New England Patriots owner received quite a bit.

The above scenarios were not at Trump's request. They were done out of a willingness to help
their fellow mankind. These are but a few of what's been reported on the evening news casts.

Uncle Al

[moonshadow]

I read a news report a short while ago regarding Russia sending medical supplies to the U.S. Indeed that was a good gesture. China has also sent supplies.