Coronavirus - are you afraid?

[Mithlomwen]

Offers Motrin and a glass of Maker’s Mark

*accepts gratefully* 

I just....I mean.....

Ugh. 

[Callie Del Noire]

*accepts gratefully* 

I just....I mean.....

Ugh.

I literally had to send the link to a friend to make sure it wasn’t a scam..then I looked for other news about this stupidity in Walla Walla. I then did a lot of swearing. So yeah, I get it.

[Markus]

At a time when the spread of Covid 19 appears to be slowing in Italy, its been running rampant throughout Russia.
It has recently surpassed Italy, United Kingdom and Spain and now has the second largest number of confirmed cases behind only the US, the silver lining being the low number of fatalities.
There have been reports of casualties among Russian medical personnel due to lack of PPE.
Dmitry Peskov is now the latest confirmed case, the Prime Minister having being affected earlier.

Putin's spokesman has been hospitalized with Coronavirus

[gaggedLouise]

Stupidity in Florida.  These people are doing push-ups side by sde in the street to demand the re-opening of gyms...and putting themselves and their families at risk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pvyzc-iCAQ

[Oniya]

Even more stupid is the fact that they are proving they don't need the gym to be open in order to exercise.   

(Wait until they find out how much they'll save on gym memberships!)

[gaggedLouise]

Even more stupid is the fact that they are proving they don't need the gym to be open in order to exercise.   

(Wait until they find out how much they'll save on gym memberships!)

Also, they really, really should be wearing gloves if they're doing this on the pavement right in the middle of the city. :)

[Orval Wintermute]

Looks like Boris Johnson has put his foot in it again at PMQ's. After this exchange Keir Starmer wrote to the PM asking him to return to Commons to put the record straight as misleading Parliament was something people had to resign over, once upon a time. But sources form No. 10 said that is going to happen and have accused Starmer of selective quoting the advice, but if you look at what Starmer said you could only draw that conclusion by selectively quoting Starmer.

Starmer : In his speech on Sunday, the Prime Minister said that we need to rapidly reverse the awful epidemic in our care homes, but earlier this year, and until 12 March, the Government’s own official advice was—and I am quoting from it:

“It remains very unlikely that people receiving care in a care home…will become infected.”

Yesterday’s Office for National Statistics figures showed that at least 40% of all deaths from covid-19 were in care homes. Does the Prime Minister accept that the Government were too slow to protect people in care homes?

Johnson : No, Mr Speaker, and it was not true that the advice said that....

Starmer : I am surprised that the Prime Minister queries the advice of his own Government up until 12 March.

Unnamed source

A source told a Westminster briefing that Sir Keir omitted the preceding sentence which said the advice was "intended for the current position in the UK where there is currently no transmission of COVID-19 in the community".

The source said: "I think what's actually happened is that the leader of the opposition has inaccurately and selectively quoted from the Public Health England guidance and that is what the prime minister was referring to."

Full story - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-care-home-deaths-cases-boris-johnson-government-advice-keir-starmer-a9512021.html

Government advice - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-for-social-or-community-care-and-residential-settings-on-covid-19/guidance-for-social-or-community-care-and-residential-settings-on-covid-19

[Mechelle]

Also, they really, really should be wearing gloves if they're doing this on the pavement right in the middle of the city. :)

This sort of thing may be spreading. I am hearing rumours of a couple of mass gatherings planned by lockdown protesters in Greater Manchester on Saturday, one being in the area of open countryside where I sometimes go for a walk not too far from where I live.

[Beguile's Mistress]

And I overheard someone at the store where I stopped on the way home saying protesters should be video recorded and named so that they can be arrested when the number of cases testing positive goes up in their area and people die from it.

They were older individuals and one young adult who said she had children and the protesters were a threat to all of them.

[Oreo]

And I overheard someone at the store where I stopped on the way home saying protesters should be video recorded and named so that they can be arrested when the number of cases testing positive goes up in their area and people die from it.

They were older individuals and one young adult who said she had children and the protesters were a threat to all of them.

Maybe not arrested, but would like to see their incentive money taken back.

[TheHangedOne]

Maybe not arrested, but would like to see their incentive money taken back.

Same. If the virus isn't real, then I guess they don't need the stimulus money.

In fact, maybe I'll start a conspiracy about how it's all blood money, and accepting the stimulus means you're accepting the blame for the crimes committed to acquire it. Something patently stupid, but that could be rallied behind and used to ostracize individuals (since a lot of conspiracies have that "us vs. them" mentality).

[TheGlyphstone]

My place of work just finally made masks mandatory. We're essential manufacturing and have been open all this time.

[stormwyrm]

There are some people saying that we ought to work towards achieving "natural herd immunity" to COVID-19, by deliberately infecting people in the hopes that these people will become immune if they recover. This is a very bad idea:

https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/coronavirus-herd-immunity-without-vaccines-will-not-save-us

With current estimates of the R₀ of SARS-CoV-2 at around 3.9, we would need to infect some 74% of the population to achieve herd immunity and stop the spread of the virus. For the United States alone, that would mean 200 million people have to be infected. The low end of the case-fatality rate of COVID-19 is 1%, so if you infect 200 million people, some 2 million of them will die, even if they receive the best possible care. That's the equivalent of a nuclear warhead detonating over Houston. If the virus mutates rapidly and/or any immunity from infection is short-lived, then all that death will be for nothing. There are also signs that COVID-19 infection may cause permanent organ damage even if you do survive. There is some evidence (not yet fully clear though) that these three might be true. If so, you let all those people die for nothing and the disease goes on stronger than ever.

No, the only way you can realistically achieve herd immunity is via a vaccine.

[Oreo]

Like smallpox we really need to wait on a vaccine for the disease. Having it mutate is a scary thought. If we can eradicator it through vaccine we stand a chance of killing it off for a few centuries.

[Beguile's Mistress]

We should be able to develop a vaccine for the current strain and then for other strains if the virus does mutate.

This is what we do every year for influenza virus and why we need a virus shot every year.

The worry is that COVID-19 mutates too fast for us to keep up with it.

[Callie Del Noire]

Well John Bolton just crawled out of his hole wherever to tweet that his his decision to kill the pandemic team on the NSC

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/487581-bolton-defends-decision-to-shutter-nsc-pandemic-office

It’s apparently a lie by the left that killing off a dedicated team already in place had anything to impede our response?

[MistyMoon]

I work at a Costco in Canada and due to being immune-compromised, I started to quarantine before the first wave hit my area it took far too long for them to implement any safety measures for employees in my department(gas station) all of their efforts went to people inside the building. Even now they are just having us keep our distance from people and clean the gas pumps after every member no real safety for us other than a nurse's mask and permission to ask people to stay away. Recently my city has started opening up again the photos of the pandemonium at malls where most of the stores are not even open yet people are going just for the sake of going it seems.

This may just be my opinion but with everything opening up far too soon it seems like the governments are trying to force the second wave to try and get this over with quicker but that's just not how it works.

[Markus]

Anyone have any news on that Chinese lab from where Covid 19 supposedly originated?

[TheGlyphstone]

Yeah, they tracked it to Dracula's moon base where he does duets with Elvis on Saturday nights. It's as real as the contents of that sentence.

[Beguile's Mistress]

Didn't hear about that but I heard Wuhan is having to deal with a second wave of the virus.

[Markus]

Yeah, they tracked it to Dracula's moon base where he does duets with Elvis on Saturday nights. It's as real as the contents of that sentence.

[Mechelle]

This sort of thing may be spreading. I am hearing rumours of a couple of mass gatherings planned by lockdown protesters in Greater Manchester on Saturday, one being in the area of open countryside where I sometimes go for a walk not too far from where I live.

For anyone interested, one of these did take place, but it was more of a small protest than a mass gathering. There was more publicity for one in London, in which Jeremy Corbyn's brother, Piers, was involved.
There is a worry in the north, in fact, that the relaxation in the lockdown is coming too early and being timed to match London which is ahead of the rest of the country in its progress through the rate of infection.
Boris Johnson had said that you could travel anywhere in England (Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland still have strictter lockdowns), but the local authorities in holiday areas had asked people not to travel as they weren't in a position to handle ab upsurge in cases. Facilities weren't open, anyway, and my impression is that not that many people did travel, although there have been some conflicting reports.
There has also been a swing in polling in the last week, with more people now thinking that the government is not doing a good job of handling the crisis.

[Azuresun]

There has also been a swing in polling in the last week, with more people now thinking that the government is not doing a good job of handling the crisis.

[stormwyrm]

Some good news on the science front.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/05/15/good-news-on-the-human-immune-response-to-the-coronavirus

They have observed a robust immune response to certain specific coronavirus proteins in people who were previously infected, most strongly in the spike protein. So now the nightmare scenario of immunity to COVID-19 not being reasonably persistent seems to be somewhat more unlikely, and that current vaccine research is on the right track. Unfortunately it still might take at least three years for a working vaccine to be developed unless some ethically problematic short-cuts to clinical trials are taken.

[Orval Wintermute]

Unfortunately it still might take at least three years for a working vaccine to be developed unless some ethically problematic short-cuts to clinical trials are taken.

Well AstsaZeneca are aiming to have 30 million doses of the Oxford vaccine ready by September. That won't be sitting on shelves for 3 years.