Coronavirus Updates

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Tom Hanks and his wife, currently traveling in Australia, have tested positive per a post by Hanks on his Instagram account.

 

[Caete]

Snippets of info can be found on the CDC's youtube channel

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

 

[Salome]

A practical thread on what to have and prepare for if you actually do get the virus:

 

[Kara Spengler]

Current trend seems to be youtube is actually demonitizing all videos regarding the pandemic. Hopefully that will put a stop to most of the hey I just read wiki and made this video crowd. Yes I know it seems like a form of censorship but false information can lead to deadly results.

They have been doing it for weeks. One channel I watch has decided to call it the cool virus. Others have just faced facts that their vids will be demonetized.

I am just annoyed at the people on our local mailing list that spew whatever. One magat, another that wants to talk about a conspiracy to hide ozone therapy. I am on the tennant board here but only the president can take action against them [after which our local yellattheboardaboutanything person will complain to him].

 

[Innula Zenovka]

It's a whole lot of "closing the barn door after the cow ran away" after the cruise ship fiasco anyways.

I think his handlers convinced him he had to be seen "doing a thing."

More like closing the barn door after the farmhouse catches fire.

 

[Clara D.]

More like closing the barn door after the farmhouse catches fire.

The cow in question belonged to Mrs. O'Leary.

 

[Caete]

And now the phising scams/malware attacks start with a subject line of "New US Coronavirus Cases - CDC warning Mar 11" the sender shows as "survivecoronavirus.org" but are coming from the "support" account from funnymondays.net which was just registered on March 9th 2020. It is the typical badly slapped together conspiracy style email using many different fonts, fuzzy pics of "official" bits of documents and preying on the fear and eagerness to get any info possible regarding the pandemic to infect your pc/mac. Yes I'm saying mac as well since last year we got the funnymonday series of infections. Funnymonday is a family of websites, which operate by endorsing untrustworthy applications. How to get rid of Funnymonday POP-UP Scam (Mac) - virus removal guide (updated)

I'm pretty sure the info on whois.net is all fake. The phone number is used on quite a few fake scam sites but also as a fax machine in Los Angles CA.

Just be wary of any unasked for emails showing up in your inbox regarding COVID-19. Also remember when in doubt, don't click any links!

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

At the arena in Oklahoma City, basketball players for the Utah Jazz and the OKC Thunder were on the court warming up when they were abruptly recalled back to their locker rooms and it was announced the game was canceled "due to unforeseen circumstances".

Soon after, the NBA announced that the entire season has been suspended after a Utah player tested positive for Covid-19. The particular player was not at the arena at the time.

 

[Salome]

It occurs to me that having huge numbers of people staying home 24/7 indefinitely, we could see some strains on areas where electrical black/brownouts happen. If you live in one of those areas, you should add some extra supplies like flashlights, etc to your safety kits.

 

[eku zhong]

 

[Free]

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

So hey about that NBA thing.

It turns out the player has already been out sick for a few days. He had flu-like symptoms but did not test positive for the flu, which is one of prerequisites for covid testing. The team at the time put on a news conference with him, explaining that he would be getting tested for the coronavirus. But, it was clear that at least the player himself wasn't taking the concern seriously. Here's how his press conference ended:


Yeah - ouch. He actually was already infected at that moment, and didn't know it.

 

[Caliandris]

My adult children think I am overreacting, and want to cut off my internet, but, honestly, if we are going to be hit like Italy there are so many things I think we should be doing apart from testing, testing, quarantining. We should have reserved occupations which are exempt from any lockdown - the obvious ones are medical staff, gas, water and power engineers, food chain workers, and we need to be working out how to cover childcare for people in those occupations if schools are closed. We should be sending people with Covid-19 to different places from those with broken legs or wounds, if possible. (I've always thought that clinics and hospitals ought to separate the clearly contagious from the physically damaged or chronically ill but not infectious, although in the current crisis, who knows who is infected without waiting 5 days here for the test results?)

The trouble is, our government says it is in the delay phase, but are doing bugger all to delay it. The Cheltenham racing festival went ahead this week because "it isn't proven that stopping those events would have any effect". Football matches are played in front of full stadia of people, even though all ours are seated only places.

Just call me Jonah... I am definitely risk-averse in general, but particularly in this area because of my son. I just saw him and he is also inclined to think I am over-reacting, and has to go to London in two weeks for a training course. I told him to cancel, and he is hesitating. He's a grown up so there's nothing I can do to stop him.

I think the likelihood is that economies are going to be drastically affected by the virus, I just hope that things don't get as bad as they are in Italy now. I'm beginning to wonder if it is their triage system that is the cause of the high death toll, the age of the population in the affected area, or maybe their version of the virus has mutated? It seems to be affecting children and young people too, and the death rate seems to be around 6% overall, which is considerably higher than any other country.

I see people talking about herd immunity, but I am sure I read somewhere that one of the problems with coronaviruses is that you can get them more than once... or would that have to be a mutated strain? Can't seem to find good information about that.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The science of soap – here’s how it kills the coronavirus | Pall Thordarson

Alcohol-based disinfectants are also effective, but soap is a highly efficient way of killing the virus when it’s on your skin, says chemistry professor Pall Thordarson

www.theguardian.com

TIL it's not simply a question of washing off virus particles from your skin, apparently. Soap contains fats that break up the virus' chemical structure on contact with it, so it becomes inactive.

It's preferable to alcohol-based sanitiser (which works the same way) because it's so much easier completely to cover all the surfaces of your hands and fingers with a soapy lather than with sanitiser, unless you're soaking your hands in the sanitiser.

 

[Stora]

Republic of Ireland to close schools and colleges

Schools, colleges and other public facilities in the Republic of Ireland are to close in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Leo Varadkar said the measures would take effect from 18:00 on Thursday to 29 March.

He said indoor mass gatherings of more than 100 people and outdoor gatherings of more than 500 should be cancelled.

He added that where it is possible to work remotely people should do so.

Schools and colleges to close in Republic of Ireland

 

[Beebo Brink]

Coronavirus is mysteriously sparing kids and killing the elderly. Understanding why may help defeat the virus.

Because so few cases have been found in children, there’s been speculation children are simply less likely to get infected.

But many epidemiologists suspect mild symptoms may simply be masking that children are getting infected the same rates as adults. New data published last week by Chinese researchers showed authorities searching for coronavirus cases based on symptoms found lower rates in kids. But when they relied on contact tracing — testing people who come in contact with a confirmed case — children seemed to be getting infected at the same rate as adults.

 

[Luisa Land]

The Trumps speech leaves the most people in Europe stunned

One of the leading daily papers here writes for example an angry but I find good comment
under th Heading:



"The Cowardly Mr Trump

Stopping travel between the USA and Europe sounds drastic and determined. In fact, it is merely a negligent attempt to divert attention from one's own failures

There is only one right way for good leaders in a crisis: to make the situation clear and serious. US President Donald Trump did none of this when he gave his almost nine minute long television address to the nation in the Oval Office on Wednesday evening.

It was a speech that left speechless. The problem is not that he has put air traffic from the Schengen area to the USA on hold because of the coronavirus crisis. The World Health Organisation does not think this is particularly clever, but I am sure there is a difference of opinion. Nor is the problem that he promises to keep the financial damage to the individual as low as possible. In New York's China Town, one restaurant after another is currently closing down, because the guests have stayed away for fear of the coronavirus. This help is urgently needed



The problem is that he so bluntly ignores the virus crisis in the country. What sounds so drastic and determined is nothing more than a cowardly attempt to distract from one's own failure. No mention of the rapidly increasing number of cases in the USA, of the threat posed by this corona virus. There is no mention of the inability of his government to provide sufficient testing. No mention of what the United States is almost certainly facing.

Trump has only one recipe: Close borders, build walls

The virus doesn't care whether it rages in China, the EU or the USA. It also makes no difference where it comes from. It does to Trump. He's talking about the "foreign virus", the virus that spread from China across the world. He talks about the virus the way he talks about illegal immigrants. And he has only one recipe for that: sealing borders, building walls.

Virologists say there can only be one goal now: To slow the spread of the disease. To prevent the hospital system from collapsing under the weight of many new cases. So that people don't have to die because there's no bed for them.

Trump doesn't have anything to say about that.

Trump, as so often happens, puts his own interests ahead of the country's. He's trying to win an election this fall, so he wants nothing to do with the virus. And that is why he puts all the blame on foreign countries, why he is even asking the question of guilt. He doesn't want to be held accountable if something goes wrong. Instead, he wants to blame governors when their case load explodes. Just like he did with the governors of Washington and New York, who both have to struggle with particularly high case numbers.

The virus, however, has long since arrived in the country. And if the epidemiologists' calculations are correct, it won't disappear again any time soon, as Trump may believe. It'll stay. It'll still be there on November 3rd, when the U.S. Election is held. By then, it's likely there will have been many deaths in the US as well. There will be Trump's dead. Maybe by then his supporters will realize that too.

Coronavirus in den USA: Der feige Herr Trump

Den Reiseverkehr zwischen den USA und Europa zu stoppen klingt entschlossen. Tatsächlich will Trump nur vom eigenen Versagen ablenken.

www.sueddeutsche.de

 

[Sid]

The idiot! We are just as much as a hub for travel to the US from Asia, Europe and Africa as any of the other large airports in Europe. We’re not immune from a pandemic.

The Donald has to protect his income from the golf resorts in Scotland.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The idiot! We are just as much as a hub for travel to the US from Asia, Europe and Africa as any of the other large airports in Europe. We’re not immune from a pandemic.

Well, yes. Heathrow is the biggest connecting hub in Europe, I think, and many EU carriers connect through Heathrow on their transatlantic flights, so it's not going to achieve a great deal.

I see Rishi Sunak was on the Today programme saying, as politely as possible, that of course we're not going to impose a similar ban, because Trump's an idiot and we're not:

UK does not need to copy US ban on flights from EU, says Sunak

Chancellor says travel bans ‘are not going to have material effect’ on spread of infections

www.theguardian.com

 

[Kara Spengler]

It occurs to me that having huge numbers of people staying home 24/7 indefinitely, we could see some strains on areas where electrical black/brownouts happen. If you live in one of those areas, you should add some extra supplies like flashlights, etc to your safety kits.

Hopefully people in those areas have flashlights and generators anyway.