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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2020 11:24 pm 
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There are absurdly large numbers of cars waiting outside many food banks in the US these days, because people with no economic reserves are out of work and staples are somewhat problematic at the stores. Hoarding and price increases, don't you know. With that said, the closure of all those restaurants and schools has a number of American farms destroying a great deal of fresh food. Part of it is that people don't want to cook veggies so much as order them; but a great deal is that the parts of the food distribution industry that supply schools and restaurants just isn't set up to package food in useful ways for retail buyers, and no one wants to spend the money to convert when they expect to go back to supplying their normal customers eventually.

And just on a local note: the 7PM cheer for the health care workers coming off shift is still a thing here in NYC.

Meanwhile, the folks who filed Federal income tax returns in 2018 or 2019 that opted for direct deposit of refunds (if any) started to get their stipend from the emergency bill. Those who haven't checked those particular boxes will start to see their checks in May. The IRS is suggesting that if you didn't file for whatever reason, you may want to and give them a bank account to deposit your money to in order to speed things up.

And finally, courtesy of Youtube and some folks with lots of time on their hands: a celebrity seder to raise funds for Coronavirus relief. It's cute.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2020 2:49 am 
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I mentioned that the folks who make internet connected thermometers have a page where their information about flu like illnesses in the US and it's various counties can be contemplated. The reason I bring it back up is that according to them, social distancing is working. Right now there are only five counties in the US where the percent of the population with such fevers is climbing; two in Alabama and each one in Nevada, Indiana and Mississippi. Which hopefully means that over the next couple of weeks the daily count of new cases detected nationwide will start to decline.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2020 10:28 pm 
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Per the decree of the Governor of Montana it's officially acceptable for magical creatures to do their duly appointed functions. Yes, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and 'other magical entities, including but not limited to elves, unicorns and friendly dragons' are authorized to perform their 'essential functions as they see fit' for the duration of the emergency. I'm sure they're breathing easier.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2020 5:36 pm 
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The governors of nine states are forming two regional coalitions (one in the north-east, one on the west coast) to coordinate reopening their economies. It'll be interesting to see if they grow or if others form.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2020 10:36 pm 
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Virus models in the news explained in comics for non-data science people.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a- ... -modeling/

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2020 11:49 pm 
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One little study of just 215 pregnant women showing up at the maternity ward in NYC, but 15% were positive for the Covid virus. 29 of the 33 detected were asymptomatic when admitted to the delivery ward, two of them developed symptoms before being discharged two days later. That may make some modelers unhappy.

Actually, worldwide it seems that half to three quarters of the cases are asymptomatic. We really are going to need antibody testing and to find out how robust the immune response is.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2020 3:38 pm 
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The latest recruits to the war against the coronavirus? Rebels, terrorists and drug traffickers. With varying degrees of sincerity, the failures of central governments to deal with the epidemic has prompted various other armed groups to get involved.

Also, it seems various US hospital groups have agreed to share respirators. FEMA will handle delivering them to the hot spots.

One interesting note: according to a polling house called Morning Consult, American adults are using a lot more social media right now. That's fine, but 6% are using more dating apps? I wonder how that's working out.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2020 3:08 am 
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I've been reading that the Coronavirus attacks multiple organs when it becomes a severe case, causing among other things severe inflammation of various internal organs like the heart and it's sack. Now one of the problems that induces is cardiac arrhythmia (uneven heartbeat) which can kill you. By coincidence, hydroxychloroquine also increases the likelihood of cardiac arrhythmia; that's how it kills the folks who succumb to it's side effects (which is why the CIA told it's people not to take it). This might not make it the bestest of choices for treating severe coronavirus infections, which is apparently one of the reasons the Chinese stopped testing it for treating this particular disease.

In passing, the official statistics of mortality owing to the virus in NYC was roughly 5,000 yesterday. What they did was to fold the surplus mortality into the official statistic on the basis that they died of, or because of, the virus; and to simplify things the total so far was added to the day they decided to do that. Yes, the death toll nationwide is up today (2,300 people); but not that far. Oh, and for the American History buffs; this disease has now killed roughly as many Americans as died during the Revolutionary War.

One final note: having repeatedly refused to impose social distancing, South Dakota has just been forced to shut down the Smithfield pork processing plant in that state after hundreds of the workers were discovered to be coronavirus+. That's going to cause some shortages of pork here and in China, the relative degree depending on what happens to our exports of that particular meat.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2020 7:10 am 
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Weremensh wrote:
Oh, and for the American History buffs; this disease has now killed roughly as many Americans as died during the Revolutionary War.


Just looking over some statistics; if things keep going as they have, it would not in the least surprise me if ten times as many Americans as have already died to it find themselves also succumbing to his virus.

Hence, I really hope that things do change, such as someone finding a quick, easily applied form of cure.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2020 6:38 pm 
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Just because it's out there: neither the recent major recession nor the Great Depression caused a decrease in life expectancy in the US. In fact the Depression saw life expectancies go up with the decrease in economic activity. Which probably says something about the life of a worker in the US in the 20s and 30s.

The IMF is loosening up it's restrictions on credit a bit to help poorer nations deal with the pandemic. Whether or not the donor nations who supply the funding go along will be determined later.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2020 3:07 pm 
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You know things are interesting when live yeast can be hard to get at the local stores. Still, I suppose all the stress baking is helping keep folks in fresh bread.

China has imposed new export restrictions on Covid-19 related medical supplies. Ostensibly to keep up standards, exporters must certify that their goods meet both Chinese and the importing country's quality standards. This can be tricky when there is no Chinese standard for the product in question, but that aside it's more paperwork hoops to jump through. Needless to say this has caused some delays in getting products shipped.

Oh, and New York State now thinks that it's infection rate (R0) is down below 1. That means that each person who has the disease gives it to, on average, less than one additional person. Which is a good thing so long as it can be maintained; it means the number of cases will decline as the currently infected get better.

Now for some perspective: the first time the US faced a dangerous epidemic (and successfully dealt with it) we weren't technically the US yet. At that point the problem was smallpox and the treatment was largely illegal, which made things delicate.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2020 10:54 pm 
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An interesting look at the national CV numbers: basically that the number of cases has plateaued because our test rate has plateaued. Long story short: as long as the positive rate remains about 20% we're missing most of the cases, and we can probably expect the death and hospitalization rates to keep going up. Oh, goody.

Oh, and apparently there are some changes to normative behavior owing to the lockdown.
USA Today wrote:
“Maryland police remind residents to wear pants to mailbox: ‘This is your final warning.'”


Another coalition of states has formed to coordinate reopening planning. This one is in the Midwest, and the six states mentioned in the story have since been joined by another (Minnesota).

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2020 4:46 am 
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Weremensh wrote:
You know things are interesting when live yeast can be hard to get at the local stores. Still, I suppose all the stress baking is helping keep folks in fresh bread.

China has imposed new export restrictions on Covid-19 related medical supplies. Ostensibly to keep up standards, exporters must certify that their goods meet both Chinese and the importing country's quality standards. This can be tricky when there is no Chinese standard for the product in question, but that aside it's more paperwork hoops to jump through. Needless to say this has caused some delays in getting products shipped.

In the scramble to buy PPE, there's been many a case where somebody purchased a shipment of unspecified quality from some dubious middleman in China only to be told when it arrived that it couldn't be used because it didn't meet domestic standards. Consumers in Hong Kong have been warned to be on the look-out for dodgy masks since early February; we're not just talking about slight but ultimately meaningless differences in national standards, there were a few cases of dealers picking used masks out of the trash, sorting them, and repackaging them for sale. One particularly incautious US buyer who didn't review the terms of the contract wound up receiving a crate full of Hallowe'een masks, with no recourse. The extra paperwork may end up saving people time in the end.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2020 9:06 am 
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I've heard stories about Chinese exports before, yes. That said it's going to be interesting to see how well this is administered.

In passing, Massachusetts has joined the east coast states coalition in regards to reopening as the epidemic winds down. I'm idly curious what's going through the minds of the folks in Vermont and New Hampshire, honestly.

And just because: the US unemployment rate is almost certain to be in the neighborhood of 6-10% when it's next released. This is just an artifact of the requirement that the unemployed be looking for work to be counted, as for obvious reasons most of the folks who just lost their jobs aren't and so they won't be counted (and a more realistic rate would be roughly 20%). A better gauge will be the employment to population ratio, which will fall from 60% to roughly 50%. That will be roughly five percent below the lowest it's been since we started calculating it in 1948, back when women were still being largely kept out of the workforce. Hopefully these coalitions of governors, the 17 of whom represent over half the population, manage to work things out smoothly when it comes time to start.

Oh, and there is, tentatively, an anti-viral drug that seems to be useful in severe cases of Covid infection. Hopefully the large scale testing currently underway works out; we could use something like that.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2020 12:20 am 
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I'm not sure where the money is coming from, but I've read that the FDA has announced that it will be buying $3 billion worth of food to give to food banks. If so, that'll help.

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