Posted on 03/05/2020 6:51:10 AM PST by Vermont Lt
A place to consolidate CoronaVirus Stories
PING
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# 136.
I'm guessing within two months we'll start to understand what damage this virus can really do...
Thanks, but no thanks. ;-)
Posting this again:
A Tale of Two Outbreaks: Hong Kong & Italy
Flattening the Curve - Credit CDC
#15,024
Up until two weeks ago Italy had but 3 known COVID-19 cases. Today the ECDC reported they had in excess of 2,500 cases, and they have also reported 80 deaths.
By contrast, Hong Kong - which not only shares a border with Mainland China, but has been dealing with cases since mid-January - has only recently passed the 100 case mark. Across the bay, Macao has even fewer cases (n=10).
If you had asked anybody a month ago which of these two regions would have the most cases in early March, few would have picked Italy. Granted Italy has a much larger population than Hong Kong, but even so, the choices made by both governments have made the biggest difference.
Hong Kong has been very proactive in their response, and closed its schools when they had fewer than 40 cases - have kept them shuttered since late January - and intend to keep them closed until mid April at the earliest.
Italy, on the other hand, only today announced a limited - two week - closure of schools across the country.
Hong Kong closed most public venues - museums, sporting events, movie theatres, bars and most restaurants - in late January (see HK Epidemic Measures: Curbing Travel From Mainland - Closing Public Places - Work From Home Orders) and has kept them closed.
Italy - not so much.
A few temporary cancellations of sporting events in the hardest hit regions, but nothing like the response we’ve seen in Hong Kong. There are signs, at least over the past couple of days, that Italy may be taking stronger actions - like canceling more sporting events, and the aforementioned closing of schools - but they may be both too `measured’ and too late to have much impact.
There appear to be two philosophies at work here.
In Hong Kong, they assumed the disease was already in the community, and they not only continued to work to prevent further entry, they put very tough measures in place to prevent its spread.
Italy, on the other hand, has been mostly reactive. Waiting for community spread to become obvious, and then dealing with each outbreak as if it were a limited event, rather than a systemic problem.
BUMP for later reading and possible commenting...
Have been self employed working from home since 1995. All I can say is buckle up kiddies. There will be ups and there will be downs. Hang on to that day job as long as possible. If we are down basically until the summer, worse case scenario, bartering will be king. Save the good barter items you have.
I am thinking we are looking at quarantines of big northern cities before that time.
I know there is debate about this, but I think the warmer weather will weaken the virus in the south.
Posting this again:
Up until now, Alabama health officials sent all samples to the CDC for testing, but staff at the Alabama Department of Public Health are working to change that.
The state health department now has testing kits, said Dr. Karen Landers, area health officer for ADPH. Landers said the state lab is conducting a quality assurance process before running tests for the new virus. She said she did not know exactly when they would be able to run the tests in Alabama.
Problems delay testing for coronavirus in Alabama, but fix coming
So, most of the country hasn't been completely flying blind, though the testing ability has been very limited to this point.
Georgia said they had been testing too.
“...actual mortality rate of influenza in the US this flu season: 6.9%.”
Pretty sure that is very high. If the flu killed 7% of people who got it this winter, it would have been a plague of biblical proportions.
What’s “TTK” stand for?
I think most of the flu season being fall to spring is that kids in school have summers off.
Folks here have raised the issue about air conditioning—and it is valid—so I will predict that southern cities will spend beaucoup bucks retrofitting buildings to allow outside ventilation to get into otherwise sealed modern buildings.
So the folks in the south will be sweating, but they will be safe.
The states and others were prohibited from doing their own testing while the CDC sabotaged us by not testing to speak of either—until Trump finally reversed the regulation on that.
It’s undoubtedly been spreading in and out of the Northern cities, with their commuters and on their public transportation, for weeks now.
It means there should be 550 cases in the US right now. 50 infected per death was early rate of China provinces outside Wuhan province area.
We have a Kent address; people around here are pissed off about it. Probably 95% of other motels in the area are set up the same way. The problem area has been 20 miles North. My wife was trying to explain to others yesterday that unless people were in close proximity to someone infected, that it didn't matter much whether the facility chosen was 20 miles away or right next door.
I just got back from the grocery store. The other day there was a run on the place. Today its completely stocked and about half as full as it usually is. Someone had wiped down the cart I was using with some type of lotion type disinfectant and that was kind of gross.
Good question. Dont know.
One more crazy prediction:
The virus will rip through Southern Hemisphere areas approaching their winter (think Australia, for example) and parts of those countries will be locked down with strict quarantines.
P.S They will blame the US for failing to stop travel to their areas in time.
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