Covid19

[davids]

Beginning this week and for the next several, millions of college students will embark on their spring break trips. Some will travel home, others will fill resorts domestically and internationally. In about a month's time, the dialogue on college campuses across the states will have a different tenor.

You're not wrong Bill. But the numbers of highly-mobile college students are relatively low compared to the number of business (and leisure) travelers already out & about. And Covid-19 arrived in New England with a group of high-schoolers returning from a February trip to Europe.

The gate is wide open. No way to close it, so wash your hands!

[davids]

I was planning to attend a lecture Monday evening, Steven Pinker talking about " Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress".

Cancelled because we shouldn't be gathering in large groups. I'm not sure whether this supports or negates his thesis. I guess now I'll never know...

[Saab2000]

This bug has a very long persistence on solid surfaces. Up to 9 days.

This has me as concerned as anything. Everywhere I go in my work has been touched by so many people.

I’d be happy to endure a couple weeks of home quarantine. I’ve got my bingeable shows, my Zwift and it’s a pretty comfortable setup I’ve got.

But as of today, that’s not on the agenda. Back to the dirty airports and hotels tomorrow early.

Right now I’m happy to still have a job to report to.

[j44ke]

So just looking at some numbers coming from the NYTimes - 22 confirmed cases in NY (18 of which are associated with the lawyer in Westchester) but 2770 people are in home isolation. That suggests to me that testing (i.e. confirmation) is running way too slowly. Or no one is getting tested until they start showing signs of acute infection - restricted breathing or gastrointestinal distress.

Quoting myself but yeah...

Coronavirus Live Updates: NYC Pleads for More Tests - The New York Times

According to Gothamist, De Blasio at a news conference said that the CDC has sent NYC two test kits. Each kit allows for testing 700-800 people. The number of people tested per day is in the "dozens" (quotes as per Gothamist.)

Sigh.

[dashDustin]

in what i find to be a shocking move, SXSW has been cancelled.

[ides1056]

I was on the phone with a bank in NYC this afternoon, and the office was told to work alternate days from home beginning next week.

I applied to work for an volunteer aid organization and was required to do this online training. Doesn't seem to me the administration is following these most basic guidelines.

NIMS Doctrine Supporting Guides & Tools | FEMA.gov

[colker]

This has me as concerned as anything. Everywhere I go in my work has been touched by so many people.

I’d be happy to endure a couple weeks of home quarantine. I’ve got my bingeable shows, my Zwift and it’s a pretty comfortable setup I’ve got.

But as of today, that’s not on the agenda. Back to the dirty airports and hotels tomorrow early.

Right now I’m happy to still have a job to report to.

I am flying next week. NIght flight. 12 hrs. Transfer at Panama. Can´t wait for all the fun.

[Chik]

This bug has a very long persistence on solid surfaces. Up to 9 days. .

The figure I read in the UK media (The Guardian) is that it can linger for 48 hours or even possibly 72 hours on a hard surface, such as the hand rail in the tube (subway) but less time on a soft surface. The UK bugs are clearly not the endurance type!

[Chik]

... work alternate days from home...

Serious question: how does that help as a preventative measure?

[vertical_doug]

Can we do a March Madness thread for C19? By next Saturday, 162,000 global total infections.

And speaking of March Madness, I will be fascinated to see what NCAA Men's Basketball does.

[jclay]

Numerical methods & mathematical modelling is very cool stuff.

Kind of a neat little intro article covering some of the aspects framing the associated mathematical modelling: Disease modelers gaze into computers to see future of Covid-19 - STAT

This is a bit more involved but interesting in terms of some of the associated methodology (it's in the full download). It's nearly a month old so it will be interesting to see how these models and/or their coefficients evolve and are calibrated to a growing body of data, and how they compare to the modelling performed in the West and the real world outcome. It will also be interesting to see how the West approaches or even considers physical containment. It sounds like China has been deadly serious about quarantining certain areas; just based on first principles I can't imagine that we'd be as effective as our population doesn't much cotton to "orders" from the gubmnt, never mind the intrinsic and astronomical logistical and practical difficulties: Estimation of the Time-Varying Reproduction Number of COVID-19 Outbreak in China | medRxiv

[colker]

Serious question: how does that help as a preventative measure?

Less crowded everything.

[Too Tall]

Can we do a March Madness thread for C19? By next Saturday, 162,000 global total infections.

And speaking of March Madness, I will be fascinated to see what NCAA Men's Basketball does.

Oh you are a grim reaper aren't you? (chuckling)

*Yes please, do start the March Madness thread. This is going to be good.

[davids]

Serious question: how does that help as a preventative measure?

The only serious answer I can come up with is that each individual will be exposed to fewer others, and that could cut the odds of transmittal.

Yo, is there an epidemiologist in the house?

[vertical_doug]

Oh you are a grim reaper aren't you? (chuckling)

*Yes please, do start the March Madness thread. This is going to be good.

Even if we had a global lock down started today that mirrored Wuhan's Chinese lockdown, total infections will top 200,000. All realistic scenarios are worse.

[Too Tall]

The only serious answer I can come up with is that each individual will be exposed to fewer others, and that could cut the odds of transmittal.

Yo, is there an epidemiologist in the house?

Ask the Queen.

It's not that logical or simple. Social, political and humanity have their own will...if you will. There probably less one to one correlation than we'd like to imagine.

[GrantM]

The only serious answer I can come up with is that each individual will be exposed to fewer others, and that could cut the odds of transmittal.

I'm sort of embarrassed to say that I did think about this last week, and made a grocery list and went to the store far fewer times
instead of just stopping by on my way home from work basically every day. I logically know that it isn't going to make a difference
but it was so easy to do I figured why not just avoid the most public place in my routine.

-g

[Bobonli]

...... I figured why not just avoid the most public place in my routine.-g

Yes, but we can't live in a cave, either. I've been trying not to be overly concerned, even as my employer healthcare corp. settles in to long term crisis mode, asking people who've left bedside practice for administrative jobs to consider 'coming back' to direct patient care. Then yesterday on the way home I stopped at a Starbucks for coffee and I felt like I was in some sci-fi movie hovering above the store watching all this dangerous stuff:
-the person sneezing onto the table top
-the well-meaning customer unscrewing the lids of the milk containers and looking inside them
-the employee touching a public surface then reaching into the baked goods cabinet to grab my scone

......not to mention all the filthy money changing hands. Time for a bike ride!!

[j44ke]

Starbucks have to be some of the dirtiest places going. >Avoid<

We've been walking as many places as we can. Yes, it puts us out on the crowded sidewalks of NYC, except that for NYC, they aren't really all that crowded. We had to go to Soho today, and we didn't have to walk in the street once. Sidewalks had plenty of room - on a Saturday, in good weather. No subway unless time matters or have to go to Brooklyn.

sidewalks>subway>uber?

No scientific basis for this, but my gut tells me that at least subway is safer biologically than an Uber.

One glaring absence - there are no Chinese tourists. If you were waiting for the right time to go to Chanel or Gucci or Prada - that time is now! Almost completely empty. Some fashionable Chinese trust fund kids. That's it.

We just peeked in the window on our way to REI.

Fingers stay crossed.

[Colinmclelland]

Just scanned through this thread...didn’t see any mention of toilet paper.

In a uniquely Australian insight, we must have discovered that you can fight the virus by hoarding a product where the supply chain is entirely national with next to no chance of being disrupted.

You couldn’t make this shit up, but you also can’t buy toilet paper in an Australian supermarket.

Just trying to keep you all ahead of the curve...