New SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 Thread

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The_Impeacher wrote:

going by the 2019 numbers, 219 deaths per day from influenza and complications from influenza.

US is at 515 so far today and that number will grow each day for many months until either everyone has gotten it or a vaccine is distributed.

on the years they had hard data on in the link, 2010-2017, its averaging about 35k deaths a year. Flu deaths are concentrated in dec, jan, feb, mar, its about a 17 week period give or take. So 35k deaths in 17 weeks is about 2058 deaths a week, which is 294 deaths per day give or take during flu season as an average across that 7 year recorded period.

that flu season ends in 2 days and italy, a country with 1/5 the population of the usa is over 900 deaths per day. theyre 2-3 weeks into a lockdown so those figures are starting to be effected by the mass quarantine.

theres no quarantine for a normal flu season. when 1 person dies from this, and 2 weeks later its 200 people dying per day, and then 2 weeks after that its 900 people dying per day and you look at the shape of that rise on a graph its pretty far fetched to think if they haddent taken emergency measures it wouldnt keep going up on the same curve.

if ur a government u cant afford to sit around and say meh, keep an eye on it and let me know when its killed 35,000 people. ur system is designed to deal with the deaths per day of an average flu season, its not designed to deal with many times that per day and rising as you come out of flu season.




like the figures put up above, does this sort of fizzle out with 80k deaths or does it go on and kill 2 million people? well if u wait til uve clocked 30k deaths then which ever it is, its now beyond your ability to do anything about it, and if its 2 million then ur health system completely falls apart closely follow by society as a whole. when ur society contains more guns than people that collapse has an even bigger death toll.

thats not something you can afford to be blase about when youre the people in charge and youre responsible for the outcome. but aim is right, if u just shut up shop and people cant get food etc then you also go into that society falling apart phase. i dunno how much america is supporting families and protecting peoples wages etc. over here the government are doing it on paper, how long they can keep it up and the long term effects.... god man, lets wait and see.




if there isnt big changes to how we do things here in the west after this passes then were even more crazy than i feared. it doesnt even matter of covid-19 was an armageddon virus or not, sooner or later one will come and we have to be able to deal with this sort of thing.

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Exile009 wrote:

To be clear, about half of it (so yes not 'most', but a sizable portion of it) is classified as BBB, the grade just above junk, and about a fifth of that is junk - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-29/once-hated-now-loved-bbb-corporate-debt-is-back-in-vogue

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/us-corporate-debt-10-trillion-record-percentage-economy-expert-warnings-2019-12-1028731031

So yeah I exaggerated on that bit, but the point is things aren't running responsibly.

That's fine. Exaggerating a bit to make a point, so long as it's not about how long the bridge is that I'm currently driving on, is acceptable. :)

The Bloomberg article is actively and somewhat enthusiastically making a case in favor of BBB loans. :) Manure sells well to farmers.

Thought, that a businesses ability to pay may be effected by this epidemic. That's a given. So, what will they do? They'll borrow more and won't that be fun? (I do enthusiastically agree that it's got to stop, somewhere.)

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You don't build an economy around irresponsiblity. The countries that'll come out best from this will be places like Singapore and Norway, places that understand the importance of preparation and sound financial planning.

Correction: The countries that come out financially on top of this will be the ones with the most money, best purchasing power, and most healthy sectors that move money from one place to another in some form or fashion. What their general attitude towards fiscal responsibility happens to be is completely meaningless. Yes, once again I enthusiastically agree with you, it's important to be fiscally responsible. But, the markets don't care a whole lot about that until it's too late for someone to actually start being fiscally responsible. They care about "today," more or less. Though, news blurbs of companies being "fiscally responsible" are generally good for a few points.

PS: I am very, extremely so, in favor of good ethical and moral practices in business and that includes being "fiscally responsible." Few others are, it seems.

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My other point was more fundamental, not an reference to 2008 at all. It was about the fact that the structure of our economic system is designed to maximize efficiency and profitability above all else - including resilience, redundancy and even at a basic level, savings. Everything is highly interconnected and interdependent - which is great for efficiency AND vulnerability. Reserves are anathema and the concept of diversity extends only so far as one's investment portfolio.

Cash reserves are great. I don't recall what the high levels were, for instance, between the battling Microsoft and Apple, but at one time that was a huge selling point. But... saved money is dead money. Money doesn't make the World go 'round. Moving Money makes it move. Both Microsoft and Apple ended up being able to use those squirreled to leverage themselves into more profitable activities, IIRC.

A cushion, a rainy-day fun, extended operating expenses and the potential to take advantage of emerging or dynamic situations are always something considered by investors and business owners alike. It's always important. But, by itself? It's worth exactly what it is worth and nothing more than that. That could change by the day. (A company with a hefty bankroll is, indeed, more stable and healthy because of that. But, by itself, it's of only situational use.)

I don't disagree with you on any of the fundamentals, here. It's just that there are a lot of ways to create value and most of them involve "doing something." Taking on debt can enable that "doing" of things and so can spending reserve capital. Too much of either is a bad thing, I agree.

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For an example of the latter and the danger it poses, consider monoculture farming... We have little diversity, minimal walls and very little in the way of fallbacks. Hence the precariousness of our situation.

The Maya could no longer produce their nice corn crops and were hit, repeatedly, by devastating drought. They died. Or, rather, many died and the rest moved. And, the Titanic sank... (Most likely, upon some recent doodle of a documentary I watched, due to a long-running coal bunker fire that significantly weakened the bulkheads and made it impossible to stop the water from filling the ship past the "still floats" point.)

Are we in such a precarious situation?

Meeeehhhhh.... Fundamentally, many have suggested that the market is due to for a reset. That, combined with the virtually guaranteed recession arising from the epidemic situation, could combine to make for some tough moments. (It's the 28/29'th. Again - Watch for the end of the first week of April trading, maybe into the first full week. A bunch of reports to be expected. We really aren't going to know much until then, IMO. The markets are a fickle thing and "reaction" drives a lot of ups and downs. "Practical action" drives the big dips... like 2008. :))

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This basically echoes the kinds of sentiments you hear of in books like The Black Swan and Anti-Fragile.

Both of those are awesome. Taleb quickly became one of my favorite non-fiction authors. Though, Anti-Fragile was a much more difficult read. And, yes, Caleb is genuinely full of himself. I love to read his stuff, but I probably couldn't stand to be near him at a dinner party. I swear I could almost see the guy literally blowing himself while writing "The Black Swan." :)

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Our current system is incredibly fragile, always dancing on the edge of a precipice just a zephyr away from disaster. Listen to any talk by the people who work in the global catastrophic risk assessment field and you'll hear the same.

Take care, there - Hammers and nails. The hammer is always looking for a nail to hit. I'm not being glib, I'm just saying that's what these people are paid to do for a living.

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Our economy is highly vulnerable. Our electrical grid is highly vulnerable. And yesm our health system is highly vulnerable too (hospitals in normal times operate at close to max capacity, cos beds lying idle is lost money, which is WHY we've so limited immediate capacity for dealing with a major disease outbreak like this).

I agree with this, though maybe for different reasons for those things. Mostly... the same sorts of things that give a lot of those sectors their strengths. Keep in mind that what you mention for the US as a whole is largely driven by the "private sector." And, that's largely responsible for why were are as prosperous as we are. There are some strict governmental regulations revolving around all of those sectors, but it's not "government control."

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Some people like to claim that the world has been getting better overall for decades now, and have the data to prove it (less poverty, longer lifespans, etc. - all of which is true).

I'd cry BS on that... But, I'm an old fart and am prone to such outbursts.

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..Our society isn't built for shocks - it's built for keeping the treadmill running.

This is sort of your thesis statement. It's the Executive Summary of your post.

There's a segment that would argue vehemently against you. It's even possible such an argument could result in fisticuffs! They would argue that given any particular problem, one can solve it by throwing more money at it. :) They are, in loose terms, a cult named "The Money Printers." :)

Mass has an intrinsic value. It generates inertia, has inertia, acquires it.. whatever. The point is that the bigger something is, the harder it is for it to fall. Somewhere in all that "bigness" is some magic intrinsic property that can weather any related storm, or so the idea goes.

Your criticism is targeted at one aspect of that "bigness." Namely, debt or a lack of "true" value in the face of that debt. Yes? More or less?

Netflix.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=netflix+stock+chart (Just a quick link to Google's chart. Click on the 5year mark with scripts active.)

And, you read like a guy who already knows what I'm going to say about Netflix. But, in case you don't: https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/02/05/reality-is-closing-in-on-netflix/

This is your antithesis. This is the power of throwing money at something. And, now, the chickens have come home to roost and are sqawking "WHERE IS MY MONAAAY?"

Not that I agree with any of that, but it's a case to be made. Rather than something like Facebook or Amazon that just milks the F out of the money-cow, we have here a company that is force-feeding a toilet at an astonishing rate. And, yet... they are still here? WTF?

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And for all the danger it poses, Covid-19 is actually a pretty small shock. And yet we're still struggling with managing just this. God help us if the worst predictions of climate change come to pass. Or another world war. Or a Carrington level solar storm comes our way again. Or just an even worse pandemic. We're just not in a position to deal with things getting majorly messed up, ever.

Covid-19 is far from an existential risk. I agree. The "worst predictions of Climate Change" are going to come to pass. Sorry... But, there's no escaping that. The reason why the scientists and those politicians who still care aren't saying it is that there's a chance we can still mitigate some of the problem for the future. But, yes, we're already screwed. Future generations will have a very different world than we do, today. I'll be dead before it gets really, really, bad. Some that are still here right now may have to "live it." World War? Not gonna happen. Limited? Eh... <handwave> maybe, but not likely. As far as true existential events, yes those could happen. I don't know that a CME is going to do it, but there are tons more rocks out there. We're also leaking atmosphere, but we've got a bunch of it so... :)

Existential Threats are the most important. I agree. But, they're also the ones that we are least able to prepare for and able to deal with. Which is probably why they're existential events.

I'm cool with the whole idea of major change being forced upon us by our lack of preparedness. I'm on-board with that general theme. But, Rome didn't bite, scratch, and claw its way to its grave, fighting back as the shovel-fulls of dirt were thrown on top of it. And, neither will we.

The cost, today, of preparing for tomorrow has never been adequately paid by anyone.

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HamsterRebellion wrote:

The WHO just released this on facebook about 1hr ago.

C-19 is not Airborne.

So someone sneezing on you or coughing on you can spread it.

But not someone talking or breathing. (assuming the person isnt a
talker who spits alot)

Which means plastic visors and masks will protect almost everyone
from it.

And not wiping your mouth, picking your nose or rubbing your eyes with dirty hands.

Very good news for sure.

I wrote on this earlier in this thread. Glad to see it appears to be confirmed. (Yay me being sm4rht!) In short:

What it means is that you are not as likely to be infected by someone breathing on or near you. But... you are much more likely to be infected by coming into direct contact with their body fluids. ie: Getting coughed on or touching a surface with a big ol' glob of spittle on it.

This is an extremely good thing for general transmission considerations. But, as I think I wrote in another post, what it means is this thing may not spread as easily as we feared but it's spreading at such a rate that it's a darned site more friggin' nasty. It's not "generally" more dangerous because it's harder to get routes to you than we thought. But, instead of being gasoline it's hydrazine... Very nasty little cuss. In short - Considering the numbers, if you get it near you or on you where it can get inside you, you're friggin' infected. Do not pass "Go." Do not collect $200. Drink plenty of fluids.

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Aim_Deep wrote:

...According to CDC a light concentration of bleach kills it in >1 min. I soak our toothbrushs in this bleach. I wipe all door handles and light switches off in this bleach. I wipe my steering wheel and stick shift off with bleah as I am fortunate to still go to work/shopping.

Bleach kills the F outta stuff... It's awesome! Well, except against certain things that take more dwell time to kill. Tuberculosis... Herpes.. These still get killed dead, but are bit tougher. Herpes hangs around like old luggage. (Toilet seat + Herpes = Reduced dating frequency...)

I was successful in getting some bleach this afternoon. It's just standard household grade, but that's better than nothing. It just means keeping it on a surface a bit longer. If you can, get the more expensive bleach. It has stablizers in it that will make it more potent for a longer period of time. Sodium Hypochlorite solutions rapidly diminish in strength depending on a number of factors, mainly from offgassing of the chlorine. It just... leaves solution and goes on its merry way somewhere else. Stabilized solutions are common in more expensive bleach products. They will last longer, and be better at killing stuff. :)

Note: Typical 2% household bleach shouldn't really be diluted if you're "sterilizing" something. Most surfaces don't like bleach very much, though, so many people dilute it. Diluting it by half, for instance, and putting it in a spray bottle to "sterilize" a surface means it has to stay on that surface twice as long. It's not "coverage," it's dwell time. Even so, it's better than nothing and I don't know what the requirements are for Covid-19 as far as that goes. (Pine oil based disinfectants, some with supplementary additives, are good for surfaces that can't deal with bleach, too.)

Some blurbs: https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/guidelines/disinfection/disinfection-methods/chemical.html

Basically, the "hydes, phenols, and quats" are your "industrial disinfectants." Quat compounds are used extensively in food production facilities, slaughterhouses, milking operations, places where really nasty stuff needs to die, but good stuff shouldn't be killed. The hyde and phenols are more of the hard top-end stuff for heavy medical needs, etc.) (In my experiences a few decades ago.) It's a great deal about the surface and its own chemical resistance. A toothbrushes bristles should be fine with Chlorine, but will probably break down a bit after a few weeks.

And, that's it for me tonight. Sorry with my blather. Just like many of you, I'm stuck at home and a bit too hungry for human interaction. :)

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Aim_Deep wrote:

I think you never shut down your economy for anything. Even if someone drops 10 nukes on your largest cities. Because more people will die of starvation, suicide and other malignancies like strokes and heart attacks when hospitals shut down with no tax base.

Well that says a lot about your thinking...Ah well, I've (and others here) already written about the issues with that ideology earlier in both this thread and the previous one. Here, a short little video talking about the concept of freedom you seem to prize so much - https://youtu.be/YF7wKayTq8o

As for the expected death toll from different decisions, that's a hypothetical and, besides, you did say "anything" so it'd be trivial to simply construct a worse threat that exceeds 10 nukes if need be (assuming that's not bad enough already). But then the expected deaths aren't what's motivating you anyway, holy principle is.

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The_Impeacher wrote:

@ Hamster - Not seeing it on the Canada.ca site yet. Hopefully they can confirm it (Facebook is GRU influenced)

Apparently the WHO (not even just its director) is controlled by China despite that its funding is heavily sourced from sworn enemies of China (such as the US and Japan).

And now Facebook is controlled by Russia despite that it's a US company subject to the US govts. whims and directives.

Wonderful. No wonder Americans feel a persecution complex - the people of the most dominant country on Earth are deathly afraid of the comparatively piddling influence other nations might have, while completely blind to the enormous power (both hard and soft) it holds.

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Morkonan wrote:

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Exile009 wrote:

..Our society isn't built for shocks - it's built for keeping the treadmill running.

This is sort of your thesis statement. It's the Executive Summary of your post.

There's a segment that would argue vehemently against you. It's even possible such an argument could result in fisticuffs! They would argue that given any particular problem, one can solve it by throwing more money at it. :) They are, in loose terms, a cult named "The Money Printers." :)

Mass has an intrinsic value. It generates inertia, has inertia, acquires it.. whatever. The point is that the bigger something is, the harder it is for it to fall. Somewhere in all that "bigness" is some magic intrinsic property that can weather any related storm, or so the idea goes.

A silly idea, imo. There's a reason we have the saying, 'the bigger they are, the harder they fall.' Glib proverbs aside, there's evidence for it too - mass extinctions tend to end the stories of the biggest species more than the small. Not that I necessarily think we're heading for a mass extinction, but it is instructive - when things get real bad, the biggest collapse, while it's the small and adaptable that make it through better. Btw, the US' response to this outbreak actually makes for a perfect opportunity for an Izaro quote - "Slowness lends strength to one's enemies." :D

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Morkonan wrote:

The cost, today, of preparing for tomorrow has never been adequately paid by anyone.

Indeed. And that should worry everyone...These guys should really have taken off a lot more, but a quarter of a century later they're still largely unknown - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Now_Foundation

Ok, looks like Mexico is stepping up. And so is the UK, which is contemplating stricter measures. Funny how this works, almost all countries which tried to act tough are now introducing lockdowns.

Not sure how that's funny.

Locking things down is the last thing a country wants, and acting tough is better than inducing widespread panic.

Also, how's Sweden doing there?

By acting tough I mean not introducing restrictions soon enough.

Sweden, Norway and The Netherlands are the only countries in Europe without strict restrictions I believe. Norway and Sweden are doing fine, probably because they are not that densely populated. The Netherlands is a different story. If statistics are to be believed, they have more coronavirus-related deaths than Germany and very few recoveries. Hopefully this wont bite them in the ass too hard.