Coronavirus

jtr1962

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Like requiring you to pay taxes?
Our tax system is progressive (i.e. based on ability to pay). If someone doesn't have much money, they pay little or nothing. Asking people to pay for quarantine basically hits them with a huge bill most will be unable to be. I'm sure it's easily $10K or more per day, so these people the government wants to pay will be getting 6-figure bills.
 

Stereodude

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Our tax system is progressive (i.e. based on ability to pay). If someone doesn't have much money, they pay little or nothing. Asking people to pay for quarantine basically hits them with a huge bill most will be unable to be. I'm sure it's easily $10K or more per day, so these people the government wants to pay will be getting 6-figure bills.
I'm sure that will all go away by the time this all settles out. Just some low level paper pusher following the "rules" sending out bills.
 

Stereodude

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And we're off to the races now. Cases popping up all over in the US. 😕

I guess the CDC strategy of refusing to test anyone who didn't have a direct link to another infected person didn't actually stop the spread. 🤯

Will the US issue travel advisories against traveling in the US? 🤣

BTW, has anyone heard from Lunar lately?
 

Handruin

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The reports I'm seeing say:
2 in Georgia: an individual who was in Milan, Italy and a close contact in the household.
1 in Massachusetts: a woman in her 20s who lives in Norfolk County and recently traveled to Italy with a school group. She is recovering at home.

On Friday Pence was appointed by the president to lead the Coronavirus Task Force.

White House told top doctor not to talk about coronavirus publicly without permission

Dr. Fauci has told associates that the White House had instructed him not to say anything else without clearance.
The latest instance occurred Thursday evening, when the president said that the virus could get worse or better in the days and weeks ahead, but that nobody knows, contradicting Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, one of the country’s leading experts on viruses and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
 

jtr1962

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Basically, if you want to buy almost anything at all, buy it now. If the supply line gets disrupted severely, it may be months or more before it's available again at the same price.
 

Stereodude

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Spread that fake news!

A top U.S. health official disputed claims that the Trump administration blocked him from speaking out about the new coronavirus.

Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, categorically denied on Saturday about being "muzzled" by any administration, dating back to the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

"Let me clarify. I have never been muzzled — ever," Fauci told reporters gathered at the White House for President Trump's news conference meant to provide an update on COVID-19.

Instead, he claimed there was a misunderstanding.

"We were set up to go on some shows, and when the vice president took over, we said, 'Let's regroup and figure out how we're going to be communicating.' So I had to just stand down on a couple of shows and resubmit for clearance. And when I resubmitted for clearance, I got cleared," he said.

 

Chewy509

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Looks like most large conferences this year will see cancellation or severe reduction in attendance.

I wonder what's going to happen to more local events, like the ComicCons, TrekCons, etc? Will the lack of attendance kill the companies that host these events?
 

Stereodude

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At least some of the Aussies have a sense of humor about running out of toilet paper.

A newspaper in Australia wants to help the #ToiletPaperCrisis or #ToiletPaperEmergency – as it’s been dubbed on social media – and decided to print some extra pages in its editions.

“Yes, we actually did print it!” NT News, a Darwin-based newspaper, said in a tweet Thursday with a video showing a special eight-page insert that can be cut into toilet paper.


The front page said: "Run out of loo paper? The NT News cares. That's why we've printed an eight-page special liftout inside, complete with handy cut lines, for you to use in an emergency. Get your limited edition one-ply toilet newspaper sheets."
 

time

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If you believe the official stats, the most dangerous country in the world to catch COVID-19 is the USA: 260 cases and already 14 deaths.

Although there are valid criticisms of how the US healthcare system works in this sort of situation, I imagine the ratio is partly inflated due to gross under-reporting of cases. About 2500 would make more sense.

Indonesia, with a population of 260 million, insists it still has only two cases. Given that they're not testing for the virus, their numbers make sense.

The rate of spread around the world is interesting. Doubling of the number of cases was originally estimated to be every 6 or 7 days, but simple arithmetic shows that to be way too conservative. At the other extreme, doubling every 2 days suggests a lag in reporting. Four days appears to be the most dependable average - less in some situations and more when enough isolation/under-reporting occurs.

Although everyone knows that China under-reported their cases by a factor of 10 or more, people seem to believe that growth of cases in China has slowed to a trickle. Does anyone else find this incredibly hard to believe?

The elephant in the room is that even if China could somehow completely eliminate the virus from its people, there is absolutely nothing to stop the remaining 1.436 billion citizens contracting COVID-19 after that magical event. It is just as vulnerable as every other country to infection from international travel, the Chinese do not have a virus force field or supernatural detection techniques.

I think it is the UK that says it is planning for 80% of their population to eventually be infected with COVID-19. The big worry is of course the unimaginable sustained overload of the healthcare system that that implies.
 

jtr1962

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If you believe the official stats, the most dangerous country in the world to catch COVID-19 is the USA: 260 cases and already 14 deaths.
My guess for these stats is either people have mild or no symptoms, and don't go to a doctor (hence the case isn't even counted in the official statistics), or they wait until they're at death's door before seeking treatment (accounting for the rather high mortality rate versus the number of cases). We obviously can't test every sick person in the US for the virus. And given that many of the uninsured are also among the most vulnerable populations, a lot of sick people aren't going to seek treatment until things get really bad. If anything, this makes the case for having universal health care for public health reasons, as well as tightly controlling immigration. Illegals obviously aren't screened for diseases before entering the country.
 

DrunkenBastard

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CDC is now advising that the elderly and those with chronic conditions avoid going out and about:


Time, the US death rate looks bad because many of the deaths were from a nursing home in Washington with sick hosts.
 

jtr1962

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You're probably way too late to buy that with any reasonable delivery time frame.
Probably but I figured I would ask. I meant to buy one a long time ago just as an insurance policy but never got around to it. At least I have plenty of toilet paper, paper towels, and hand sanitizer. 😀
 

snowhiker

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I wonder how many of these companies cancelling their trade show appearances are just using COVID-19 as an excuse to get out of attending the show without having to explain to shareholders or the public the real reason they do not want to attend.
 

Handruin

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I was supposed to run a 5K race this coming Sunday and it got cancelled due to coronavirus. They won't refund us the registration fee and said they'll try planning it for the fall.
 

Handruin

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Also, I stopped at my local super market and of course the entire isle of TP was empty.
 

snowhiker

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I just received an email from BestBuy regarding COVID-19. (see below)

I'm starting to see this standard boilerplate corporate response from many different sources now. Even my HOA sent out an email with almost the same wording as the BestBuy email regarding "increasing cleaning services and adding hand sanitizers" everywhere.

Whether the COVID-19 is a serious thread or blown out of proportion, we may never know, but it's being addressed more and more by business and organizations. "We are aware of the situation, we are taking steps to combat the issue, but please continue to buy our products" seems to be the gist of said statements.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To our customers,

Like so many of you, we have spent the last several days and weeks learning about the coronavirus (COVID-19) and how it is impacting our world. For Best Buy, that means understanding how it affects our employees, customers and communities, and then making the necessary adjustments to our work and operations.

We have one simple objective that guides us: keeping you and our employees safe. This has been at the center of our conversations every step of the way. With that in mind, we have made several moves in our business in response to the threat of the coronavirus.

We have ramped up cleaning services at our stores and are adding hand sanitizer at the front entrances and at all cash registers. Sanitizing wipes are near workstations and counters so that employees can keep them continuously cleaned.

We are closely following the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) guidelines and recommendations on the steps we can take to help prevent the spread of the virus. We have shared specific instructions with our employees on the importance of washing their hands and staying home if they feel sick or are returning from an area of the world identified as posing a coronavirus-related risk. Per CDC recommendations, we will ask employees who have traveled to such locations or have been exposed to others who have traveled to such locations to self-quarantine for 14 days.

A strict travel policy for our employees is in place, and we have canceled meetings with large gatherings, again to do what we can to help prevent the spread of the illness.

If you don't feel well, or choose not to visit one of our stores, of course we are ready to serve you at BestBuy.com or through the Best Buy app.

We know that many of you have scheduled in-home consultations, deliveries, installations or repairs with us. If you have any concerns, we will be happy to partner with you to reschedule your appointment at no additional cost. Simply call 1‑888‑BEST‑BUY, and we will take care of it. For in-home consultations, we offer options for phone or video conversations with our experts if you so choose.

We will continue to closely monitor the situation and do all we can to protect you and our employees.

Thank you
 

Stereodude

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Also, I stopped at my local super market and of course the entire isle of TP was empty.
I haven't seen that at my local super market yet. Just the Costco I go to.

Time to get a bidet? (Though I don't understand how only squirting some water on your butt only will actually clean things acceptably. I've seen how clean my hands aren't when I just rinse them under the faucet with no soap or rubbing them together or how clean my car doesn't get when sprayed with a 1000+PSI pressure washer.)
 
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DrunkenBastard

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Before you use a bidet you would use a little toilet paper for an initial wipe. There's the spray style where pressure washes you off, the other design you fill it like a sink and use soap and your hand.
 

snowhiker

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I saw this pic on hardforum showing drop in air pollution in China due to factory shutdowns. Don't know if it's accurate, but it is interesting.

china_air_pollution.png
 

Handruin

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I haven't seen that at my local super market yet. Just the Costco I go to.

Time to get a bidet? (Though I don't understand how only squirting some water on your butt only will actually clean things acceptably. I've seen how clean my hands aren't when I just rinse them under the faucet with no soap or rubbing them together or how clean my car doesn't get when sprayed with a 1000+PSI pressure washer.)
We've also had a few recent news-worthy cases crop up in the past few days with the Biogen. 70 of 92 coronavirus cases in Massachusetts linked to Biogen. There have a been a few cases reported in the town next to mine. Despite what has been claimed, this virus has not been contained. I would expect in the next 4-5 days the counts will double and follow the trends of other countries. These are only the ones reported. Other reports unverified are that people are turned away when having symptoms if they haven't been out of the country or in known contact.
 

Handruin

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Interesting discussion with Joe Rogan Experience #1439 - Michael Osterholm.

 

Stereodude

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Despite what has been claimed, this virus has not been contained. I would expect in the next 4-5 days the counts will double and follow the trends of other countries. These are only the ones reported. Other reports unverified are that people are turned away when having symptoms if they haven't been out of the country or in known contact.
It's not contained nor will it be contained in the US. It's going to run its course. The "it's just the flu" crowd is probably right in at least one regard. Like the flu, pretty much everyone is going to be exposed to it and likely there will be at least 10's of thousands of deaths (in the US). If the Chinese numbers are accurate they're going to look like they handled it well compared to the US or Europe.
 

jtr1962

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It's not contained nor will it be contained in the US. It's going to run its course. The "it's just the flu" crowd is probably right in at least one regard. Like the flu, pretty much everyone is going to be exposed to it and likely there will be at least 10's of thousands of deaths (in the US). If the Chinese numbers are accurate they're going to look like they handled it well compared to the US or Europe.
Actually, if the 3.4% mortality rate holds, and everyone gets exposed, you're looking at 10 million dead in the US alone, as many as 250 million dead worldwide. My guess though is the real mortality rate is much, much lower than 3.4%. Most of the mild cases go completely unreported. When all is said and done, I'd be surprised if the overall mortality rate was over 0.5%. Still, that's potentially 1.5 million dead in the US.
 

Handruin

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