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COVID-19 (The artist formally known as Coronavirus)

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So, this was released a few weeks ago, is anyone here thinking about getting it?

 

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I've been flirting with the idea but isn't it just a rehash of the classic influenza??

Seems like it's destined to be big though, getting a lot of buzz - even the government are predicting it will have a big impact, must have some clout behind it.

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8 minutes ago, bob said:

 

So, this was released a few weeks ago, is anyone here thinking about getting it?

 

 

It's tempting. I've heard it's best to catch live though so it will depend how busy I am.

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I've been tempted; but if I'm honest I just don't believe it would do much for me if I did. Might just wait and see what everyone else is doing first; fickle as it is.

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6 minutes ago, Rummy said:

I've been tempted; but if I'm honest I just don't believe it would do much for me if I did. Might just wait and see what everyone else is doing first; fickle as it is.

You need to be a trend setter not just a sheep!

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On 03/03/2020 at 3:43 PM, Happenstance said:

You need to be a trend setter not just a sheep!

I'm already making sure the beard stays growing if I do get it though; just so it'll be easy to keep safe and also won't lie will help people know how long I've had it compared to some others so who knows I might just still be that guy :cool:!

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Just watch though guarantee all the beardy folks will end up getting it soon now I've said that :rolleyes:

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Sitting here in Shanghai, I can tell you that it keeps getting re-released and remixed. Sick of hearing it. It's like Gangnam Style or CottonEye Joe, but with less dancing.

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For those that are interested there's now an easier way to get it

 

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SXSW has been cancelled, after concerns that it wouldn't be due to the 70,000 or so visitors it would be bringing into Austin. And it definitely didn't sound like the organisers wanted to...

...so, without any confirmed cases in Austin yet, their Mayor flexed his political power to declare an emergency and force through the cancellation of the event. Nice to see that some people in the US are starting to take this as seriously as it should be. This is after it has been reported that the US sits at a death rate of 5.4%, well above the 3.4% global average, though it's worth noting that only 1,895 tests have been carried out so far on US soil, which is likely having a large impact on their figures. 

Two more cases have been confirmed in Seattle, and further south along the west coast, 21/46 patients on a cruise ship in California have returned positive results. And, in other news, Trump is still an idiot, saying that "[he] would rather [have those aboard the Diamond Princess stay there so that US numbers don't increase] because I like the numbers being where they are. I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault". Nice to know that Pence has company in not being the only idiot in the administration over there. 

Elsewhere, Wuhan has increased the quarantine period from 14 days to 28 days due to the number of patients testing positive after the quarantine period. 

And, closer to home for many of us, Germany's number of cases have jumped by 290 up to 640. Most EU countries seem to be starting to go the way of Italy now, which only had 3 confirmed cases just some 15 days ago.

440px-COVID-19_Outbreak_Cases_in_Germany

And that's been your more serious Saturday morning roundup on the matter; stay safe, folks! 

Edited by Julius
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South Korea's death rate is weirdly low. They have had 7000 cases, but only 42 deaths so far. I wonder why?

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9 minutes ago, bob said:

South Korea's death rate is weirdly low. They have had 7000 cases, but only 42 deaths so far. I wonder why?

Lead poisoning

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1 hour ago, bob said:

South Korea's death rate is weirdly low. They have had 7000 cases, but only 42 deaths so far. I wonder why?

It's to do with the how many tests they've carried out, as well as being proactive rather than reactionary in their response to the matter. For example, South Korea has tested over 140,000 people, a much larger sample size of tested individuals than many of the other countries relative to the size of their population (around 52 mil.).

It is also because in many countries with a higher death rate, their reactionary response means that most patients testing positive are those who already have reason to believe that they have COVID-19 (i.e. they are already showing severe symptoms); in places like South Korea and the UK, where the death rate is much lower, the proactive response means that those with mild (the majority of cases, around 80% at this point) symptoms are also being diagnosed and treated much earlier on. It also means that those with mild symptoms might not even be reporting their having the illness to public health agencies as a result.

South Korea in particular have also put in place a lot of travel bans, and even have other, more draconian (and perhaps less appealing, at least to the west) measure in place, such as emergency text alerts for when someone tests positive to warn others who might also be carrying the illness, and where they tracked the illness to. For example:

Quote

A 43-year-old man, resident of Nowon district, tested positive for coronavirus.

He was at his work in Mapo district attending a sexual harassment class. He contracted the virus from the instructor of the class.

As a result, it's widely believed that a more accurate death rate is nowhere near the world average of 3.4%, but those above the average are China (who had details of the disease, and reason to believe that there would be an outbreak, as early as back in December), the US (who have handled this miserably, with the CDC -i.e. international health board- not taking action and states taking it upon themselves to handle things, such as testing and quarantine), and Italy (who have also handled things terribly). 

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I'm curious to see how the UK responds, as I imagine that we're going to see a spike of cases over the weekend, what with most people being off from work and having more time to be able to get tested. 

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11 hours ago, Julius said:

And, closer to home for many of us, Germany's number of cases have jumped by 290 up to 640.

There are 55 reported cases in the region around the city where I live. 15 of those are actually in my city (Aachen). Numbers are taken from a report from 10.15am this morning.

A couple of schools are now closed and will be for at least a week. 

Will be an interesting month. Aachen has an internationally renowned university and in April a new semester will start which means: Lots and lots of international students will arrive, new German students will start their education...many people will spend time together. Thankfully, the universitsy has already taken lots of precautions (enrollment can only be done online, for example).

I'll keep doing my thing, which is: wash my hands regularly and don't panic. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX keeps me locked up anyways :D 

Edited by drahkon
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It baffles me that it's taken this long to implement something like this. The whole wait and see approach that many countries leaders have taken was never going to work and now people are paying a heavy price for it.

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Just read this over on BBC news.

Quote

An actor and Venice resident has told one news agency that many people fled after word got out that Lombardy and 14 other central and northern provinces were being locked down late on Saturday night.

"My cousins, my friends, they packed bags and left last night," Vincenzo Tosetti told AFP. "This is going to test the Italians' ability to behave responsibly, and I have to say that up until now they've been failing. There's been an exodus".

Television showed hundreds of travellers flowing into Milan's central station overnight to catch trains out. Under the new measures, people are not supposed to be able to enter or leave the so-called red zone, except in emergencies or for health reasons.

On Sunday, the governor of the southern Italian region of Puglia, Michele Emiliano, urged those who had left the locked down zone for their family homes in the south of Italy to turn back.

So much for quarantine. Absolutely nuts. 

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22 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Just read this over on BBC news.

So much for quarantine. Absolutely nuts. 

Yeah, was reading about this earlier; it's an absolute mess how the majority of countries have handled this situation. 

Not sure if it mentioned this in the article, but the reason people were leaving in the first place as a way of bypassing the quarantine is because the mass quarantine was planned, and I can't recall if it leaked ahead or, much more likely, just seemed like a  possibility, which was pushed over into certainty by the point below. 

Problem as well was that their PM (I believe it was him, anyways) called for an emergency conference on the day that it started at something like 2 AM - it's the best way to enforce quarantines, sure, but I feel like many would have caught on after reading that similar quarantine measures were put in place in effectively the same way, and at the same time, in China a while back. 

I'm scared for America, and I'll leave it at that for the moment. 

I wonder how long it's going to be before we in the UK start closing things down. Our public transport links, whilst a bit unreliable at best, are actually pretty amazing, and a high volume of passengers, a high population density per settlement in most places, and everything being connected as well as it is in this country just seems to be begging to be at the mercy of an outbreak like this. I take a bus, tram, and a train to get to work in Birmingham, and you can bet that the train will always be rammed at the typical 08:00/09:00 starts and 17:00/18:00 finishes; it just seems like a terrible idea for public transport to be ran how it traditionally has been to this point, considering the potential health risks at play. 

Edited by Julius
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My friend's parents live in Emilia-Romania and his father has poor health generally anyway and I'm getting a bit worried about them. His sister is a teacher and she's now having to deliver classes online. The nearest town has been shut down. I've asked if they've got everything they need and apparently they're not complaining at the moment, but no idea how long its going to go on for.

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Our university's officials announced that all study rooms and sports grounds will be closed until April. All "non-educational" events are cancelled.

Wow, what the hell half-assed measures are these?

Home office for people who are able to do this is still not mandatory and seminars/lectures/exams will still take place. Things like this is why we're having this pandemic.

I really hope governments take Italy as an example and follow suit. The country made mistakes but are now doing everything to keep things in check. They are drastic measures but they are necessary.

Edit: Forgot to mention: Those measures taken by our university will be in place from next Saturday onwards. Why not starting now? Your guess is as good as mine...

Edited by drahkon
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3 hours ago, drahkon said:

It's officially a pandemic.

2020 is AWESOME. 

bcs.gif

I love the WHO. Over 125,000 cases worldwide across 121 countries, and now it's a pandemic? 

Some of their statement was ironically self-referential:

Quote

WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction

Yep. Well if the WHO called this a pandemic when it should have been, over a month ago, then I think this would have been maintained much more effectively than it has been. It's gotten too big to prepare for - now we're just reacting and being brought along for the ride.

Had a small talk about it in a team meeting at work earlier today. Embarrassing how misinformed some people are on the matter, going "iT's JuSt ThE fLu" and saying that X or Y hasn't been cancelled, so not to worry. I don't get how these people can be so boneheaded: there are literally lives at stake if this is not handled effectively. It's a joke.

To sum it up, at work at the moment, listening to my manager: their stance is that if one person on our floor does have coronavirus and tests positive for it, if they're the only one, then everything will go along as normal, and the only people potential in self-quarantine are those sitting within a 2m radius of them on a regular basis. So yeah, I'm sure the NHS is in a great position to test our entire floor for coronavirus. Do they not understand the words "asymptomatic incubation period" at all?! And I did I mention that we hot desk at work? 

Urgh. It's definitely frustrating. 

Exponential growth + limited number of hospital beds = way more severely ill and dead people, probably at an exponential rate once the beds are filled. 

Won't be surprised if most schools in the UK are shut by the end of next week and if the country is effectively on lock down by the end of the month. 

Edited by Julius

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