Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[bobz]

Oh, and Bay Area update, part 2: It's not just toilet paper any more. There's a feeding frenzy at our suburban Safeway, with entire shelves cleared out, lines going out the door, and so on. This was pretty common in SF in the past few days, but now it's reached our burg as well.

[PNWbrit]

I forgot all the "more guns!" Bullshit too.

[Core Shot]

Meanwhile, it's hilarious watching the usual suspects call me "disinformation" and "conspiracy" when I'm literally posting links to the CDC, the DHS, and the NSC.

Attachment 320643

Don’t let it get you down.
You posted interesting data points that could lead to a calm discussion, but we got pitchforks and torches here

[::: :::]

Meanwhile, it's hilarious watching the usual suspects call me "disinformation" and "conspiracy" when I'm literally posting links to the CDC, the DHS, and the NSC.

what about twitter? or dr kevin? or the speculative "i thought of it myself" part of your posts? please don't forget to cite those...those are the best parts, and most esteemed

[riser4]

Cue mormon couples solemnly debating whether or not to try for that 9th kid.

Um, that would be 6th kid, you do the math.

[Boissal]

Meanwhile, it's hilarious watching the usual suspects call me "disinformation" and "conspiracy" when I'm literally posting links to the CDC, the DHS, and the NSC.

Along with a big pile of nonsensical speculations. You really think sprinkling legit info into your bullshit and formatting it semi-cleanly will obscure the fact that you're a complete fucking kook?
Acronyms won't save you fool...

[Bunion 2020]

Restaurants and Bars in Bozeman closed until further notice.

Reaction is swift

Why do we need to capsize the economy to keep the boomers comfortable. If you’re at risk and scared, stay home. Why does local business need to suffer even more? Boomers with respiratory issues are still more likely to die in a car accident. Y’all are losing your minds and we’re all going to suffer for it

From Facepalm ^^^ Where else.

[SKIP IN7RO]

[KQ]

Just got off the phone with my 87 yo grandma who lived in Normandy during WW2. Her stories are definitely crazy. She didn't have rats to eat, they ran out of potatoes pretty early and finished the war eating a type of beet that is usually given to goats only as it's so fucking hard.
She said the situation in France is starting to remind her of the war. She's quarantined in her apartment with my grandpa who is unmanageable due to advanced alzheimer's. My parents drop off groceries for them but they don't interact directly since they live in a village that had 5 cases in February (a Brit tourist returning from Asia and 4 family members). My parents are done with work for the winter as the ski resort they both work for closed with 20 minutes advance notice. My mom had to hike up the cat track today to get her gear down. My dad is out touring every day, he's definitely handling it better...

We're all gripped for my sister who is 5 months pregnant and works as a nutritionist at a large hospital in Annecy. Thank Jeebus she actually left Paris 6 months ago, it's apparently full-blown chaos out there, all my buddies who live in town have stopped laughing about it and drinking themselves silly.

Ms Boissal is a trauma & critical care PA at the big IHC hub in SLC where most of the patients are being treated. She's been told that people may be re-assigned away from their departments as needed. CC is definitely going to be dealing with the worst of the infected patients. She's fucked which means I'm fucked. I'll continue touring solo until I have a reason not to (read: I get sick). I also will offer violent cock punches to anyone who runs their mouth about the situation being overblown.

Crazy stuff. Mrs. Wolfenstein told me about SS officers shoving her off the sidewalk and seeing people walking around with body parts blown off.

Just searched my town for a butternut squash or maybe some sweet potatoes - FORGET IT! Rood veggies are gone (for the moment hoping for some later in the week).

[Deebased]

Spats you are a simpleton.

Only a fucking idiot would look at this pandemic and only look at mortality.

You are clearly way out of your league here and just grasping at whatever tidbits of information your brain pretends to understand.

Don't worry - the adults will get you through this. And at the end you get to tell the experts "See! I told you it wasn't that bad! I am so smrt!"

Is the CDC wrong?

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...ses-in-us.html


We'll see in the coming 4-5 days.

One of the worst and best things that might come out of this pandemic is it to be a relative non-event.

People will become complacent at a much more rapid rate and I personally like the idea of mother fuckers washing their hands.

[Danno]

Meanwhile, it's hilarious watching the usual suspects call me "disinformation" and "conspiracy" when I'm literally posting links to the CDC, the DHS, and the NSC.

oh, cool, somehow I achieved "usual suspects" status even though I don't think I have ever e-argued with you before, nor have I been a source of much/any info in this thread. I'm just doing something shocking here, reading what I can from legitimate sources and trusting credentialed experts (neither of which includes you, AFAIK). But I guess you have to figure out some way to discount the opinions of people calling out your posts as dangerous rubbish.

[El Chupacabra]

Danno is Keyser Soze?!?

[rideit]

Villim defoe

[BmillsSkier]

Well this just a whole lot weird.

[Benny Profane]

If you want those people to start going to where you vacation, you just keep on wishing that.

They'll just go to Sandals or Disney World.

[The Suit]

Cases: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...ses-in-us.html
Attachment 320635

I think this particular graph is misleading. It doesn't indicate a flattening curve, just incomplete data. The double-asterisked fine print says the following:

does not include U.S.-identified cases where the date of illness onset has not yet been reported.

[Danno]

Danno is Keyser Soze?!?

oh, don't you wish

[Benny Profane]

Oh, and Bay Area update, part 2: It's not just toilet paper any more. There's a feeding frenzy at our suburban Safeway, with entire shelves cleared out, lines going out the door, and so on. This was pretty common in SF in the past few days, but now it's reached our burg as well.

Well, you now have millions and millions of people who have survived on fast food , pizza, and take out that have to cook. It's a dramatic market shift. They need a lot of shit, and most don't know what.

[Goniff]

This is not a fun read but at this point required. The pandemic is so bad in Italy that they cant process the dead fast enough and funerals cant be attended due to everyone either being sick or quarantined. Stay healthy everyone.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/w...gtype=Homepage

That article is misleading and sensationalist as it implies that all of the bodies "piling up" were caused by the virus. Simple stats prove that wrong. In 2018, there were 633,300 deaths in Italy, well before the virus. On average, that's 1,735 deaths per day. Of course bodies will pile up if cemeteries are closed, but the ones piled up from the virus (300 on Monday according to the article) are only 17% of the average daily total. Even assuming all 300 deaths occurred in Lombardy, which the article does not specify, it's 65 less deaths than the daily average deaths for that region. The article does not say whether there were additional deaths due to other causes, but even if there were a total of 665 deaths (300 from the virus and the daily average 365 from other causes), most of the bodies piling up were not likely from the virus.

The article also fails to mention that some, perhaps many, of the 300 deaths are likely part of the average 1,734 deaths for the given day because these people would have died from other causes as the virus is striking predominately elderly people and people with underlying severe health problems. We won't know the true story until the end of the year when the 2020 total deaths are compared to historical average annual total deaths.

sources: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-i...-idUSKCN1TY204

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...aly-by-region/

[Adolf Allerbush]

Time to go to the beach https://twitter.com/adamcbest/status...784937987?s=20

[k2skier112]

Don’t let it get you down.
You posted interesting data points that could lead to a calm discussion, but we got pitchforks and torches here

I saw more panic and fear mongering in his posts than common sense. When you mix facts and "speculation", you whole post falls in the crapper...

[Bunion 2020]

Another point of view.

Pls don't shoot the messenger or the Piano Player.

As an America desperate to stem the coronavirus outbreak put in place sweeping restrictions last week on every facet of public life, the University of Wyoming economist Linda Thunstrom asked what felt like a taboo question: “Are we overreacting?’’

It helped that Dr. Thunstrom was in her kitchen, drinking coffee with her husband, Jason Shogren, a fellow economist who studies how much Americans are willing to pay to reduce risk of threats like terrorism, food-borne illness and climate change.

Calculating the economic costs of curtailing social interaction compared with the lives saved, he agreed, might yield a useful metric for policymakers. The U.S. government routinely performs such analyses when assessing new regulations, with the “statistical value of life” currently pegged by one government agency at about $9 million.

Still, Dr. Thunstrom asked, “Do we even want to look at that? Is it too callous?”

No one wants to be seen as prioritizing profit or, say, youth soccer over saving lives. But in recent days, a group of contrarian political leaders, ethicists and ordinary Americans have bridled at what they saw as a tendency to dismiss the complex trade-offs that the measures collectively known as “social distancing” entail.
a group of people sitting at a table: Prof. Malcolm Campbell argued unsuccessfully against sending Davidson College students home for an extended break because of the coronavirus outbreak. His introductory biology lab course cannot readily be taught online. © Travis Dove for The New York Times Prof. Malcolm Campbell argued unsuccessfully against sending Davidson College students home for an extended break because of the coronavirus outbreak. His introductory biology lab course cannot readily be taught online.

Besides the financial ramifications of such policies, their concerns touch on how society’s most marginalized groups may fare and on the effect of government-enforced curfews on democratic ideals. Their questions about the current approach are distinct from those raised by some conservative activists who have suggested the virus is a politically inspired hoax, or no worse than the flu.

Even in the face of a mounting coronavirus death toll, and the widespread adoption of the social distancing approach, these critics say it is important to acknowledge all the consequences of decisions intended to mitigate the virus’s spread.

Some college students who were abruptly ushered off campus last week complain that they are more likely to infect higher-risk older adults at home than they were at college. Among the throngs who have been ordered to self-quarantine, some people question the purpose of isolating themselves if the virus is already circulating widely in their communities. Certain parents balk at the pressure from friends to withdraw their children from schools that are still open, or at what they see as group-think that has prompted the cancellation of events that are still weeks or months away.

And how do you weigh the risk of an unknown number of deaths against the possibility that several hundred thousand students who depend on free lunch at school will go hungry? Or against other lives that may be lost in an economic contraction born of social isolation?

“We have to give due seriousness to this disease breaking out across the globe,” said Nicholas Evans, a philosophy professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell who has criticized Harvard University for failing to put a comprehensive plan in place for financially disadvantaged students before announcing a move to online classes. “At the same time, we have to think about equity and the way the risks and benefits of measures we take are distributed.”

Until he reversed course on Sunday under mounting pressure, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City had suggested that there was a lack of evidence that closing the nation’s largest school district would significantly slow the virus’s spread.

What such a closure would do, he said before reversing himself, would be to force parents to stay home, including those who work in the hospitals that are expected to fill with coronavirus patients. While school districts in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere have shuttered, “we don’t model off anyone else,” the mayor said.

Of course, policies are changing by the day. Malcolm Campbell, a Davidson College biology professor, outfitted his undergraduates early last week in rubber gloves to discourage face-touching. “Still teaching labs and keeping students safe," he tweeted.

But he was bidding those same students goodbye on Friday when Davidson, a liberal arts college in North Carolina, sent students home for an extended spring break.

To some extent, Dr. Campbell said, he understood the school’s choice as rational. About 45 million Americans have been infected by the flu this season, which typically peaks in February, and about 40,000 have died. For the coronavirus, health officials predict between two and six times as many infections, and between four and 40 times as many deaths, in the absence of social distancing or as-yet-nonexistent pharmaceutical interventions.

But Dr. Campbell said he had argued for Davidson to remain open, based on the relatively low risk the virus poses to college-age students, and the virtue of classes like his, which cannot be taught online.

It was hard to escape the conclusion that Davidson, like others, was influenced by social pressure, he said: “It’s like, if you don’t close, then you’re a heartless, cruel organization.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the recent plunge in value to their stock portfolios, some Silicon Valley figures have taken to social media to underscore the economic impact of social distancing.

“The fear is far worse than the virus,” tweeted Tim Draper, a venture capitalist, using the hashtags #corona #dustbowl, #food, #clothing and #shelter. “The governments have it wrong. Stay open for business.”

But America’s hashtag has become something akin to #hunkerdownathome, with a series of closings, suspensions, postponements by businesses and cultural institutions.

Disneyland — closed. The Metropolitan Opera — closed. Shuttered as well are research universities and day care centers, Broadway theaters, Apple stores, local libraries, ski resorts, March Madness and professional basketball, hockey, and baseball.

On Saturday, the mayor of Hoboken, N.J., banned restaurants and bars from providing food, and established a curfew requiring people to be in their homes between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. The next day the governor of Puerto Rico went even further, ordering nearly all businesses to close and imposing a 9 p.m. curfew.
a vase of flowers sits in front of a building: A man walks through an emptier-than-usual downtown Seattle. © Andrew Burton for The New York Times A man walks through an emptier-than-usual downtown Seattle.

Organizers of professional conferences, political fund-raisers, book talks and shivas have sometimes been chastised in recent days for daring to even consider not canceling their events.

[Bunion 2020]

The scientists organizing a Genetics Society of America meeting scheduled for April 22 near Washington, D.C., tried to put off a decision on canceling the gathering until later this month. But the conference joined the list of shuttered professional meetings late last week after some members complained that the delay was creating bad optics for the group.

“People had this feeling, like, ‘Just do something,’” said Denise Montell, a geneticist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the society’s president, “‘because somebody needs to do something about this virus.’”

Of course, there is plenty of scientific backing for the benefits of social distancing in delaying transmission of the virus.

China’s quarantine measures, a recent paper concludes, helped it cut infections to a fewer than two dozen a day from over 3,500 a day in late January. Restrictions on gatherings in western Washington State have been guided by a model suggesting that such measures could save 400 lives in the region by April 7.

“Cancel everything," concluded one political scientist, writing in The Atlantic. “Now.”

Amid the concerns out there that society may be overreacting are a chorus of calls for even bolder action.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday that he favors a 14-day national shutdown to slow down coronavirus. “I think we should really be overly aggressive and get criticized for overreacting,” Dr. Fauci said.

But even the many experts who agree on social distancing as an effective remedy worry about some of the fallout. There are civil liberties concerns surrounding quarantines. There is economic hardship for hourly wage workers. Few have thought through how sick people staying in their homes would be cared for.

“We need to give the response to the virus our full attention,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “But we’re following every rabbit that pops out of its hole, as opposed to trying to prioritize responses that have the most impact.”

It may prove impossible to know whether the policies the country adopts were just enough, or more than necessary, to quell the spread of the virus.

That thought has occurred frequently to Rick Wright, an insurance broker in Redwood City who tested positive for the virus after being evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship to a military base in California last month.

He has never felt sick. But because his nose and throat swabs have continued to show evidence of the virus, he has remained in self-quarantine, alone at home, for 19 days after an eight-day stint alone in a San Francisco hospital. He and his wife, who has moved out and is staying with her sister, wave to each other through the window when she drops off food.

“Is it overkill?” he frequently asks himself.

He is not certain. But if he weren’t quarantined, he acknowledged that he might drop in on his elderly parents, who are at higher risk of suffering the effects of the coronavirus.

“We could look back at this time in four months and say, ‘We did the right thing’ — or we could say ‘That was silly,’” he said in an interview.

Then he added one more likely scenario: “Or we might never know.”

.

[Toadman]

Norway just sent an alert to all Norwegian students studying aboard to get out. Especially 3rd world countries like the USA.

Norway’s renowned University of Science and Technology has issued an alert urging students studying abroad to return home as a response to the coronavirus pandemic — specifically singling out the U.S.

The warning from the nation’s largest university, with some 40,000 students, applies “especially” to students staying in nations with “poorly developed health services,” as well as countries, “for example the USA,” with a “poorly developed collective infrastructure.”

The alert notes it can be difficult in the U.S. to “get transport to the airport if you don’t have a car.” It added, apparently referring to “poorly developed health services,” that, “The same applies if you don’t have health insurance.”

So much for thinking the USA was 2nd world status, but nope, 3rd world for America!

https://twitter.com/andraydomise/sta...025826376.html

[My Pet Powder Goat]

Are bars in Moab open?

Catching coronavirus at woody's would be the least of my concerns.

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