The SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 coronavirus

[MKSheppard]

Moreover, if you're going to argue one family breaking China's quarantine is proof of Chinese having a tendency to spread the disease in defiance of all the other steps China has done to contain it

There were a bunch of scares earlier this month, as students travelling to China immediately went back to school upon arriving home from China; in both cases (US and Aussie), a 14 day quarantine was then imposed.

NSW Australia case involving schoolkids

Newport News VA case involving schoolkids

TBH, I'm actually more upset with Department of Homeland Insecurity for their weeks of ineffectual screening:

"Do you have a fever or cough?"

"Have you visited Wuhan, China, recently?"

"Nope? Then you're good to go!"

Never mind that even then, we knew this thing had a 14 day incubation period, and that Wuhan was a major transport/communications hub for inter-China travel.

That quote from Hunt For Red October comes to mind:

You arrogant ass! You've killed us!

Oh, fun thought.

South Korea has already tested about 20,000 people for the Wuhan Flu, and is gonna test 20,000 more in a week or so.

Meanwhile, the US has only tested about 500 so far -- apparently a production test won't be ready until mid-March; the earlier tests sent out by CDC having to be withdrawn due to major errors.

[AniThyng]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51628484

The irony below is earlier in this thread we had the articles saying quarantines and screening are ineffective or worse. That said I'm this case it's probably unwise to not do anything at all in terms of screening but still, framing it in terms of religious conservatism Vs science seems wrong.

In Iran, a conflict between religion and science
By Rana Rahimpour, BBC Persian

The reports that we are receiving from cities around Iran suggest that the number of cases is actually much higher than the Iranian authorities are giving.

Unlike in Italy, Iranian officials are refusing to impose quarantines in areas affected by the outbreak. They say quarantines are old-fashioned and that they do not believe in them.

The Shia shrines in the cities of Qom and Mashhad are still open, despite Qom being a hotbed of the virus.

There are grand ayatollahs in Qom who believe that its shrine, which attracts millions of pilgrims from around the world, and its important seminary, which hosts many foreign religious students, are the pride of the Shia world.

Image copyrightAFP
Image caption
Teams are disinfecting public spaces in Qom, including the shrine of Hazrat Masumeh
Shutting them down would be a huge step for the clerics and not one that they would be likely to take unless they come under international pressure.

We can see the clear conflict between religious conservatism and science.

Iran also lacks the medical equipment it needs to help contain the outbreak. It has run out of masks and does not have enough testing kits.

A number of medical workers have also been infected, so there is a worry that they will soon run out of doctors and nurses to attend to those with the disease.

The majority of Iranians are extremely worried.

[MKSheppard]

Iran also lacks the medical equipment it needs to help contain the outbreak. It has run out of masks and does not have enough testing kits.

Supposedly (this is only RUMOR), most of Iran's mask stock was sent to China in a show of "solidarity" or somesuch. Again, this is only RUMOR.

[MKSheppard]

The xenophobia could get bad, especially if the case fatality rate remains at 2%. It’s fixing to be worse than a seasonal flu by at least an order of magnitude, from what I can see as a layman, but 2% is like “right now everybody knows at least 1-2 people who will be corpses by Christmas” if it goes wide.

At the CDC/HHS presser/whatever today, they basically said it's 2% fatality rate.

A new study estimates the case fatality risk in Wuhan to be 8.71% (95% CI: 79.5%-9.64%) compared to 1.21% (95% CI: 1.07%-1.40%) in other areas of China. Wang et al. (Feb 22, 2020). Estimating the case fatality ratio of the COVID-19 epidemic in China. Pre-print downloaded Feb 23 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.17.200236

Researchers estimated that 34.6% (95% CI: 24.9%-39.8%) of COVID-19 cases on the Princess Cruises Ship docked off the coast of Yokohama, Japan,were asymptomatic, with most infections occurring prior to the start of the 2-week on-board quarantine.Mizumoto et al. (Feb 23, 2020). Estimating the Asymptomatic Ratio of 2019 Novel Coronavirus onboard the Princess Cruises Ship, 2020. Pre-print downloaded Feb 23 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.20.20025866

[chimericoncogene]

It appears that the SO2 emissions reports are misleading. The data used to generate the posted forecasts is based on meteorological data and anticipated industrial emissions only, and does not include any remote sensing component for atmospheric emissions.

https://fullfact.org/health/satellites- ... ronavirus/

[chimericoncogene]

With the situation in China stabilizing and the economy badly screwed, the government is currently encouraging people in low-risk regions to go back to work.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chin ... SKCN20K029

[The Romulan Republic]

It seems unlikely that this particular coronavirus could spread quickly enough to cause wide spread epidemics before better screening and treatment options lessen the strain on medical facilities and make this disease almost completely non-threatening.

Wow. What confidence.

Sure, the screening could become better. Particularly with better training and greater experience of screeners. But there is NO guarantee there will be better treatment before this disease runs its course.

Whilst I understand that this disease has killed hundreds of people and that a lot of medical professionals are working very hard to stamp out this disease I can't help but quote South Park and say that 'I have SARS There's only a ninety eighty percent chance that I will live' in response to the panic about this disease.

Please try to keep up. The death toll is in the thousands. You're off an order of magnitude.

And, as I keep saying, for most people the biggest impact will not be getting sick, it will be the economic fallout. Loss of wages, loss of jobs.

They're already talking about this potentially pushing us into a recession. Which, hey, if it happens before November might save us from Trump, so, silver lining, I guess.

Then again, the 2008 recession basically lead to the Arab Spring, several major wars, the refugee crisis, and thus, indirectly, in no small part to the rise of Neo-Fascism, so...

[Col. Crackpot]

There is a possibility that a significant portion of the death toll from COVID-19 could come from the follow on economic effects. Recession brings unemployment. Unemployment brings poverty, illness and suicide.

With that in mind this will be studied as THE case study in supply chain management at places like Wharton, Sloan and INSEAD for decades.

[aerius]

With that in mind this will be studied as THE case study in supply chain management at places like Wharton, Sloan and INSEAD for decades.

Let's put all our important manufacturing in a place that's a hotbed for disease outbreaks, what could possibly go wrong?

At least they're not a key agricultural goods exporter like the US, cause boy would that ever be fun if a bunch of countries are suddenly starving.

[Col. Crackpot]

With that in mind this will be studied as THE case study in supply chain management at places like Wharton, Sloan and INSEAD for decades.

Let's put all our important manufacturing in a place that's a hotbed for disease outbreaks, what could possibly go wrong?

At least they're not a key agricultural goods exporter like the US, cause boy would that ever be fun if a bunch of countries are suddenly starving.

Not quite “agriculture” but Coca-Cola just announced a shortage of artificial sweetener that will be limiting its production of Diet Coke, Coke Zero etc. Apparently that is all made almost exclusively in China.

My neighbor is a purchasing executive at CVS. Don’t expect generic gelatin based pain relief pills to be in abundance. They are all sourced from Hubei.

The real story here will be the economic chaos.

[aerius]

I was joking with one of my friends that Walmart stores will be empty by Canada Day if this keeps up.
Wonder where toilet paper is made, probably should stock up on more bulk packs of TP just in case.

[FireNexus]

I was joking with one of my friends that Walmart stores will be empty by Canada Day if this keeps up.
Wonder where toilet paper is made, probably should stock up on more bulk packs of TP just in case.

When I worked at green peace, one of our canvassing points was that whoever makes cottonelle was chopping down boreal forest for it, so I feel like “Canada” is a safe bet.

[Broomstick]

With that in mind this will be studied as THE case study in supply chain management at places like Wharton, Sloan and INSEAD for decades.

Let's put all our important manufacturing in a place that's a hotbed for disease outbreaks, what could possibly go wrong?

At least they're not a key agricultural goods exporter like the US, cause boy would that ever be fun if a bunch of countries are suddenly starving.

That is PRECISELY the reason for nations to maintain agricultural capability, even if that might require some subsidy. It would be horrific if the world concentrated food production too much and then Something Bad happened to that location.

[Broomstick]

I was joking with one of my friends that Walmart stores will be empty by Canada Day if this keeps up.
Wonder where toilet paper is made, probably should stock up on more bulk packs of TP just in case.

Happily, last month - simply because it's the time of year I've been doing it for awhile - I did my annual bulk purchase of paper goods (TP, paper towels, facial tissue) and topped up the OTC meds.

But yeah, might want to purchase items sooner rather than later.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Well this is gonna be fun. Foxconn was shut down earlier this week and the restart has been denied by the Chinese government.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coron ... us-sources

So production of pretty much every Apple product plus a whole bunch of other consumer electronics is indefinitely on hold. If this goes on long enough, we might just see a global shortage of consumer electronics especially once word gets out and hoarding kicks in.

You called it.

At a Birmingham IT company today, I watched a real time information screen displaying dwindling supplies from China.

Some computer parts needed in the U.K. are now in such short supply they are being rationed.

The original epicentre of coronavirus is the area of China where most IT parts are made.

Multiple factory closures there have led to shortages and consequently prices have risen up to 25%.

Problems for other sectors were evident today, as travel firms led stock market reaction to the virus.

TUI and Carnival Cruises were both down around 2%.

Drinks giant Diageo warned of up to a £325m drop in sales, depending on the pace of recovery.

Meanwhile, the influential Moodys Analytics warned of a potential global recession in the event of a pandemic.

Fashion too is among the U.K. industries most exposed to this crisis 6000 miles away.
TUI and Carnival Cruises are down around 2%.
TUI and Carnival Cruises are down around 2%. Credit: ITV News

Our high streets rely on clothes made in China and one expert told me we can expect a reduced range and some higher prices in the shops.

Many garment importers are looking for alternative suppliers, but long lead times make it hard to act swiftly.

It’s not all so grim for UK firms.

I went to see Brandauer, a precision engineering firm in Birmingham.

It supplies a key component for face masks. Demand has doubled.

Communication with China has been difficult and the uncertainty is something no business likes - but there is more than one silver lining.

After decades of “off-shoring” work to China, some customers are calling this company to discuss “re-shoring” - bringing back some manufacturing to Britain.

[MKSheppard]

Then there's this dickhead:

https://katu.com/news/nation-world/man- ... ac-airport

SEA-TAC AIRPORT, Wash. (KOMO) -- An Oregon comedian who had been stranded on a Holland America cruise ship in Cambodia due to COVID-19 virus concerns managed to get a flight back home by breaking quarantine in a hotel where ship's passengers were being held pending test results.

Frank King arrived at Sea-Tac Airport Monday afternoon on his way home to Eugene. He was a performer on the M/S Westerdam when their two-week cruise turned into quite the saga after a former passenger tested positive for the virus.

The ship left Hong Kong on Feb. 1 and was supposed to visit Shanghai but couldn’t because coronavirus gripped China. The ship was then denied entry in Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Guam and Thailand before finally being allowed to dock in Cambodia.

An 83-year-old woman who disembarked the ship tested positive for coronavirus in Malaysia, bringing the whole disembarking process to a halt. Some passengers had been put up in a five-star hotel in Phnom Penh awaiting travel home when the news of the positive test hit, meaning those on board and those at the hotel would have to all be tested and await results before being allowed to leave.

But King, who says he had an important speaking engagement back in the U.S. decided he couldn't wait.

"There was no official 'you can't leave' (at the hotel) but if you tried to go out the front door with your luggage, security would stop you," King said. "But if you went out with your backpack and you were sightseeing, not a problem."

He said they were all tested for the virus on Sunday.

"How long is it going to take to get all those results back? Because I've got an engagement on the 20th of February," he told KOMO News, adding he speaks on suicide prevention and wouldn't get paid if he didn't make it.

"So I thought, you know, I'm outta here," he said.

King said he first walked around the entire hotel scoping out security and noted lesser security was along the back gate.

"So out I go the back gate with my luggage," he said.

King says he was stopped by someone and repeatedly told he was not to leave, but he refused to comply unless he was going to be arrested and instead got into a waiting three-wheeled tuk-tuk, even carrying his luggage on his shoulders, to get to the airport.

He says he chose to fly back on his own on a more full-service airline, even purchasing a full-price, upgraded ticket as not to raise suspicion that he was trying to quickly leave the country at the last minute as cheaply as possible.

King said he sailed through the airports on his three connecting flights, only being asked if he had been to China, and had a rental car reserved in Seattle to get home to Eugene if he couldn't fly from here.

King said somebody asked him if it was "kind of selfish to self deport?" He said while the results of his virus test weren't back, he's confident he's OK since he has not shown any symptoms, nor fever, and says he had been essentially in quarantine for 14 days.

Officials with Holland America said guests at the hotel completed their screening, saying in part in a statement, “Results are being returned when completed, with the first batch of 406 all being negative. Cleared guests may travel home, and arrangements are being made for those guests.”

The cruise line said it expects it will be several days before the remaining passengers are allowed to leave the boat.

"It was frustrating," King said. "It was disappointing, especially for the passengers because you know, some of these are bucket list destinations. But Holland refunded the money. You can put it on another cruise. They did everything to 'make 'em whole' -- as they say."

https://nypost.com/2020/02/13/north-kor ... uarantine/

A North Korean official who returned from China has reportedly been executed for going to a public bath in violation of his quarantine – while experts express doubts about Pyongyang’s claim that the hermit kingdom doesn’t have a single case of the coronavirus.

The trade official, who had been placed in isolation after traveling to China, was arrested and immediately shot for risking the spread of the deadly disease, the Dong-a Ilbo news outlet in South Korea reported.

[Col. Crackpot]

thia Is a little long winded but bear with me...
An ATM cassette holds about $40,000 in $20’s. That’s jam packed to capacity. Most Diebold and NCR (the most popular ones attached to banks, the little stand alone ones are smaller) ATM’s have 4 or 5 cassettes. Banks almost NEVER fill these to capacity. How much cash is based on historical data. On average, A freshly replenished suburban ATM is probably no more than A third to half full.

Most ones attached to banks are serviced in house by the people who work there and get cash shipments once a week. How long do you think that $100-$150k is going to last in widespread work disruption with people pulling out $500 a pop because the bank is closed? Not long. I’ve watched urban center ATM’s burn through a million dollars a week during income tax season.

I’m not saying panic and cash out of your bank, but the average household in the US (I’m sure this also applies to Canada) has access to what? A couple hundred bucks in cash. Maybe keep some extra cash on hand along with that toilet paper and beans.

[mr friendly guy]

thia Is a little long winded but bear with me...
An ATM cassette holds about $40,000 in $20’s. That’s jam packed to capacity. Most Diebold and NCR (the most popular ones attached to banks, the little stand alone ones are smaller) ATM’s have 4 or 5 cassettes. Banks almost NEVER fill these to capacity. How much cash is based on historical data. On average, A freshly replenished suburban ATM is probably no more than A third to half full.

Most ones attached to banks are serviced in house by the people who work there and get cash shipments once a week. How long do you think that $100-$150k is going to last in widespread work disruption with people pulling out $500 a pop because the bank is closed? Not long. I’ve watched urban center ATM’s burn through a million dollars a week during income tax season.

I’m not saying panic and cash out of your bank, but the average household in the US (I’m sure this also applies to Canada) has access to what? A couple hundred bucks in cash. Maybe keep some extra cash on hand along with that toilet paper and beans.

Silly question, but do not most Americans or Canadians not use credit cards, preferably ones with a decent interest free period. Most of my purchases are paid in credit card these days.

[Ralin]

Silly question, but do not most Americans or Canadians not use credit cards, preferably ones with a decent interest free period. Most of my purchases are paid in credit card these days.

Plenty of people don't have credit cards or don't like to use them for whatever reason. A non-negligible chunk of the population can't use/don't have bank accounts. And there are many contexts where they can't be used for whatever reason.

[Col. Crackpot]

thia Is a little long winded but bear with me...
An ATM cassette holds about $40,000 in $20’s. That’s jam packed to capacity. Most Diebold and NCR (the most popular ones attached to banks, the little stand alone ones are smaller) ATM’s have 4 or 5 cassettes. Banks almost NEVER fill these to capacity. How much cash is based on historical data. On average, A freshly replenished suburban ATM is probably no more than A third to half full.

Most ones attached to banks are serviced in house by the people who work there and get cash shipments once a week. How long do you think that $100-$150k is going to last in widespread work disruption with people pulling out $500 a pop because the bank is closed? Not long. I’ve watched urban center ATM’s burn through a million dollars a week during income tax season.

I’m not saying panic and cash out of your bank, but the average household in the US (I’m sure this also applies to Canada) has access to what? A couple hundred bucks in cash. Maybe keep some extra cash on hand along with that toilet paper and beans.

Silly question, but do not most Americans or Canadians not use credit cards, preferably ones with a decent interest free period. Most of my purchases are paid in credit card these days.

The overwhelming majority or transactions are done electronically via card. I use my American Express Card for almost everything. Need to get those points for free Amazon shit. But maintaining the Transaction processing system is labor intensive.

When you swipe a credit card, that transaction runs instantaneously from a terminal, through a merchant service network to the card vendor to a banks data center for authorization and then back.

Bank data centers regular experience outages. Merchant processing networks experience outages. Credit card terminals are run by fickle software. These things fail regularly. In a normal environment these are resolved fairly quickly. In an environment where restoration is delayed by folks working offsite, or not at all it isn’t far fetched to say an outage could last days.

[The Romulan Republic]

With that in mind this will be studied as THE case study in supply chain management at places like Wharton, Sloan and INSEAD for decades.

Let's put all our important manufacturing in a place that's a hotbed for disease outbreaks, what could possibly go wrong?

At least they're not a key agricultural goods exporter like the US, cause boy would that ever be fun if a bunch of countries are suddenly starving.

Not quite “agriculture” but Coca-Cola just announced a shortage of artificial sweetener that will be limiting its production of Diet Coke, Coke Zero etc. Apparently that is all made almost exclusively in China.

My neighbor is a purchasing executive at CVS. Don’t expect generic gelatin based pain relief pills to be in abundance. They are all sourced from Hubei.

The real story here will be the economic chaos.

At this point, I'm just hoping it doesn't get bad enough, and last long enough, that the Trump Regime can say "Due to the risk of infection, public assemblies including polling stations are closed indefinitely."

Because be honest, is there one person here who thinks the fucker wouldn't do it if he thought he could get away with it?

[Col. Crackpot]

Let's put all our important manufacturing in a place that's a hotbed for disease outbreaks, what could possibly go wrong?

At least they're not a key agricultural goods exporter like the US, cause boy would that ever be fun if a bunch of countries are suddenly starving.

Not quite “agriculture” but Coca-Cola just announced a shortage of artificial sweetener that will be limiting its production of Diet Coke, Coke Zero etc. Apparently that is all made almost exclusively in China.

My neighbor is a purchasing executive at CVS. Don’t expect generic gelatin based pain relief pills to be in abundance. They are all sourced from Hubei.

The real story here will be the economic chaos.

At this point, I'm just hoping it doesn't get bad enough, and last long enough, that the Trump Regime can say "Due to the risk of infection, public assemblies including polling stations are closed indefinitely."

Because be honest, is there one person here who thinks the fucker wouldn't do it if he thought he could get away with it?

Donnie has been somewhat calm. By Trump standards anyway. That scares me more than him flying off the handle.

[The Romulan Republic]

Not quite “agriculture” but Coca-Cola just announced a shortage of artificial sweetener that will be limiting its production of Diet Coke, Coke Zero etc. Apparently that is all made almost exclusively in China.

My neighbor is a purchasing executive at CVS. Don’t expect generic gelatin based pain relief pills to be in abundance. They are all sourced from Hubei.

The real story here will be the economic chaos.

At this point, I'm just hoping it doesn't get bad enough, and last long enough, that the Trump Regime can say "Due to the risk of infection, public assemblies including polling stations are closed indefinitely."

Because be honest, is there one person here who thinks the fucker wouldn't do it if he thought he could get away with it?

Donnie has been somewhat calm. By Trump standards anyway. That scares me more than him flying off the handle.

Maybe they've upped his meds.

[mr friendly guy]

China is now reporting LESS new cases vs the rest of the world. The number of recovered in China continues to rise vs the number of deaths. On a plus side, winter is ending which will hopefully make it harder for the virus to take hold elsewhere, where they might not be able to institute Chinese style quarantines eg look at South Korea with religious nutters having a public gathering because allegedly a doctor told organisers you can't catch covid 19 from public gatherings, and now already a few hundred cases have occurred linked to this public gathering.

[Col. Crackpot]

My level of trust in the Chinese government is somewhere less than Donald Trump but more than a fart after 6 bean burritos