The COVID-2019 Thread

[harrybarracuda]

Spain (1362 new cases) beating Iran (1209) today.

Coronavirus Update (Live): 162,663 Cases and 6,069 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Outbreak - Worldometer

[Takeovers]

The culling continues.
One of nature's periodic cleansing.
Long overdue.

Don't get your hopes up. Even WW I combined with the spanish flu did not reduce the population, just stunt the growth.

It's going to take a breakdown of food production, caused by a breakdown of technological society, to significantly reduce our numbers.

[harrybarracuda]

Every Briton over the age of 70 will be told "within the coming weeks" to stay at home for an extended period to shield them from coronavirus, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said.

He told the BBC the advice will not come into force just yet but when it does it will last "a very long time".

Wartime-like measures will ask car makers to produce medical equipment and turn hotels into hospitals, he said.
"Every single person in this country is going to be affected," he warned.

Over-70s - and younger people with certain health conditions - will need to remain at home and have groceries and vital medication delivered, the health secretary said.

The Scottish government has set out its interpretation of the strategy, saying it had no plans to isolate the elderly, but would instead "ask them to reduce social contact".

Jeane Freeman, Mr Hancock's counterpart in Scotland, said: "We don't want people who are elderly to be stuck in their homes alone not contacting anyone, with their families not able to be in touch with them and to help them.

"What we're saying to them is, reduce your contact."

The Scottish government has also published its guidance that gatherings of 500 people or more should not take place in Scotland.

Although it does not have the power to call off events, it has urged organisers to "act responsibly" in cancelling large gatherings from Monday to help the efforts of emergency services.

All the UK deaths from the virus so far have been among people aged over 60 or with underlying health conditions.

Mr Hancock told the BBC's Andrew Marr people without symptoms would be able to visit older relatives and friends so long as they stayed two metres - or six feet - apart from them.

He said car manufacturers, weapon makers and army suppliers would be asked to change their production lines to make ventilators for use in hospitals treating coronavirus - which can cause severe breathing problems.

The health service is to stop non-urgent surgery and implement a huge training programme to retrain medics from other specialisms to treat those who become seriously ill with the Covid-19 disease.

"We will stop at nothing to fight this virus and I think people have got the impression otherwise," Mr Hancock said.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is to hold a conference call with industry leaders later to discuss the need to help produce medical equipment "at speed", Mr Hancock said.

Mr Hancock said there were 5,000 ventilators available at the moment, but that many times that number would be needed.

Work is also under way to buy up thousands of private hospital beds to boost NHS capacity should it be needed and the possibility that empty hotels may be requisitioned has not been ruled out.

Mr Hancock declined to give details of when the over-70s would be asked to self-isolate or how long the advice would last, saying: "We want to be ready to say that when we judge, based on the scientific advice, that the time has come."

"We know that when you ask people to do this sort of thing that they can tire of it, it also has negative impacts," he added.

Mr Hancock earlier used an article in the Sunday Telegraph to liken the coronavirus crisis to World War Two.
He wrote that, despite the Blitz, the UK "pulled together in one gigantic national effort" and that the same must happen once more.

It came as the government's strategy was criticised by some scientists, who wrote to ministers urging them to introduce tougher measures to tackle the spread of Covid-19.

"Of course there is a scientific debate around scientific concepts but I want to be absolutely crystal clear, we will do what is necessary," Mr Hancock said.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the public did not want ambiguity from the government.

"People just want clear advice. The prime minister should be out there daily speaking to the nation and explaining why things are changing," he told Sky News' Sophy Ridge.

The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK has reached 1,217, after 34 new cases were announced in Wales, 32 in Scotland and 11 in Northern Ireland. The latest figures for England are expected shortly.

A total of 21 people have died since the beginning of the outbreak.

Only patients in hospital are currently being tested for the virus.

An emergency bill giving the government temporary powers to tackle the outbreak will be published next week.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has asked for "urgent sight" of the draft laws and for a meeting with the prime minister to discuss the crisis.

His party has already called on the government to publish the scientific modelling and data that it is using to inform its approach.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51895873

[harrybarracuda]

Don't get your hopes up. Even WW I combined with the spanish flu did not reduce the population, just stunt the growth.

It's going to take a breakdown of food production, caused by a breakdown of technological society, to significantly reduce our numbers.

[OhOh]

Every Briton over the age of 70 will be told "within the coming weeks" to stay at home for an extended period to shield them from coronavirus, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said.

This will cause chaos.

As many will have "carers" who visit possibly the same elderly "clients", three times a day, depending on the agreed care plan. The carers then travel onto other cared elderly, or otherwise NHS classed as "needing support", client's homes.

The carers are as described, under trained in medical matters. Typical chores include cooking, feeding, personal hygiene, house work, laundry, ensuring prescription pills are taken ....

Many are divorced/unmarried mothers with school age children, a very few are men. They are allowed a certain number of hours a week paid employment, before UK tax payers money (State Benefits), are affected/reduced. Whether the carers decide the risks to themselves, their families or their clients is another aspect.

Funded by UK taxpayers money, via the NHS Administrators then micro managed by contracted private companies. Companies generally have an exclusive geographic area contract but have difficulties with finding staff. The carers work day can be from 6am to 8pm.

Multiple patients a day, school age kids and closed schools will cause infection routes on a daily basis. Carers changing hazmat suits will become essential and the shock to the elderly "patients" may be lethal.

it had no plans to isolate the elderly, but would instead "ask them to reduce social contact".

Many elderlies "social contact" is the TV/Bingo hall. For some, meeting their elderly friends for a meal once a week at a local pub/club, these will be banned.

It does of course potentially reduce pension and NHS budgets.

[Chico]

WTF They change hotels into hospitals,interesting where are they going to get the doctors and nurses.

[cyrille]

The CEO has since been replaced.

And he was a US citizen.

[snakeeyes]

All the bars in Republic of Ireland are told to close .

[Chittychangchang]

All the supermarkets in the UK have virtually sold out!

The UK’s largest supermarkets have issued a joint letter, in a bid to curtail panic-buying.
It comes as widespread scenes of empty shelves appear on social media, following the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus.


Lucky i had a modded trolley...

[harrybarracuda]

WTF They change hotels into hospitals,interesting where are they going to get the doctors and nurses.

They're going to ask retirees to come to work.

[David48atTD]

Key Points

• In an emergency move Sunday, the Federal Reserve announced it is dropping its benchmark interest rate to zero and launching a new round of quantitative easing.
• The QE program will entail $700 billion worth of asset purchases entailing Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities.

Federal Reserve cuts rates to zero and launches massive $700 billion quantitative easing program

Well, that's Fed's money shot done ... what next?

[David48atTD]

Coronavirus live updates: Fed slashes rates, New York governor wants Trump to mobilize the military

[baldrick]

what next?

the crumbling of the US health system

[katie23]

For those who want vids of the start of Metro Manila lockdown in PI:


It's 140 cases now, 12 deaths.





Even the police/ army have difficulty implementing the lockdown bcos the rules given to them aren't clear yet. Hopefully there will be clear guidelines in the next few days.



Language is in Taglish (Tagalog-English). You'll be able to catch a few words, but you'll see the vids & general situation.

Edit:

I saw an FB post from a colleague that a doctor from the Philippine Heart Center is now in ICU and in critical condition because the female doctor attended to the 88 y.o. patient, who did not disclose the travel history. As such, the attending doctor and other medical staff did not treat it as an infectious disease and just treated it as a heart case. Selfish people!

Now the attending doc is in ICU and other medical ppl are PUIs (persons under investigation). I got this news from a colleague whose bro is a doc in Manila - these docs all have networks/ chat groups. I tried to look for a news article regrarding this, and all I got was a news article in Tagalog. If you read it, you'll see the general numbers. The 88 y.o. patient has died, but has infected other people since the med staff were not aware & didn't wear the proper PPE.

39 staff ng Philippine Heart Center, 'person under investigation' sa COVID-19 | Abante TNT Breaking News

[OhOh]

The testers checking the public is a great transmission route.

[OhOh]

the crumbling of the US health system

The cashed will have no problems.

[Bettyboo]

If you take out the number for China and Korea, which were the vast majority for a very long time but have not changed in a week or so, then you see the 'real' current rate of increase - which is now rapid - fuelled increasingly by Europe and the US...

Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS

Italy is doing terribly - over 7% mortality rate.

[Dillinger]

Italy is doing terribly - over 7% mortality rate.

24% of that population is over 65.

This is worrying...

Metro Manila lockdown in PI:


It's 140 cases now, 12 deaths.

[kmart]

A bit of sage advice from George:

[katie23]

@dillinger - yes, it's worrying. 12 deaths /140 cases = 8.57%. However, to my knowledge it's mostly seniors and those w/ underlying conditions. I suspect the real numbers are higher since not all are being tested.

I hope the lockdown in Metro Manila & in other areas will help. I've heard of some in the provinces. Accdg to the news, 2 confirmed cases in a town = town can declare local quarantine/ lockdown.

There was news on local telly/ short YouTube clip that a man had covid symptoms and was discovered while alighting from a bus in the province, Saturday night. The bus was full of ppl leaving Manila/ Makati and going to Lucena city (Quezon province) to escape the metropolis lockdown. Now the passengers of the whole bus are being monitored. The local officials did temp checks upon arrival in the provincial terminal and didn't allow ppl to leave immediately. Grrr! Selfish people. I know that area - it's mostly provincial/ agricultural, lots of poor ppl who can't afford hospitalization or sometimes, even meds. Here, consultation at public hospitals are free, but you have to queue and have to buy your own meds. Private hospitals won't admit you unless you can pay.

Hospitals here are full already, even without covid cases. I have a colleague - her relative had a stroke last week and needed ICU. It was tough to find a hospital which had an empty ICU unit. Needless to say, as you all know, PIs healthcare system isn't good.

Hope that this lockdown will lessen people from going out and will help "flatten the curve".

[jabir]

figures up there somewhere

fwiw, if Iran said left and China said right at a t-junction, I'd go straight and hope for the best.

[Bettyboo]

figures up there somewhere

fwiw, if Iran said left and China said right at a t-junction, I'd go straight and hope for the best.

Ideals without context rarely make for good decision making, ask J Corbyn.

[harrybarracuda]

Microsoft has released a free COVID-19 tracker for desktop and mobile on the Bing search engine, with the essential information on the number of cases displayed in one clean UI.


The COVID-19 tracker developed by Microsoft is available online at bing.com/covid and shows the map of the world along with other information such as the total confirmed cases, active cases, recovered cases, and fatal cases.

You can also see statistics per each country and zoom in to view additional information for a specific region.

Similar services are already available online, but Microsoft tries to make this tracker a central hub for keeping an eye on the coronavirus outbreak, so it also includes news and videos regarding the infection.

Microsoft says it’s taking the data from CDC, WHO, ECDC, and Wikipedia, and also displays last update information – at the time of writing, for example, the map was last updated 11 minutes ago.

The new tracker is also optimized for mobile, so you can access all the data by pointing your smartphone’s browser to the link mentioned above.

Microsoft Launches a Free COVID-19 Tracker for Desktop and Mobile

[harrybarracuda]

It's really high quality information.

[harrybarracuda]

A Movement to Stop the COVID-19 Pandemic | #StayTheFuckHome