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Daily coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - March 23
This thread is posted daily, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!
Is there any particular reason Germany is reporting, or otherwise has, very low death rates from this? According to the Wikipedia summary article for this pandemic, Germany has "only" seen 119 deaths from over 29,000 infections. Contrast that to China or Italy and it's a very different story.
German cases are mostly spread very wide, see this or this - the map respectively. The second one is two days out of date but still has actual numbers. The case numbers aren't overwhelming the healthcare system yet because they're evenly spread - flipside: it's harder to quarantine effectively. Can't just lock down a few districts.
I also believe we have a very low rate of undetected cases compared to italy, this being a very plausible consequence of the first: If the hospital is known to be overburdened, mild cases will just self-isolate and not report to the ER. Thus, less numbers in the statistics.
I've also heard the conjecture that german's afflicted are more predominantly young, presumably because the virus didn't fester for as long without being noticed. If you don't notice it, old people will catch it. If you suppress outbreaks as they pop up, the most likely group you won't be able to trace well is people who travel a lot - and can be presumed to be more healthy and young. Compare this to the figures in the RKI reports, at least as far as we know of the cases, that conjecture holds.
This makes me wonder if either Italy's virus mortality figures are inflated or Germany's are deflated...
It's also easy to justify many different manners of counting deaths. Old man has a brain tumor, is given a month to live, catches corona, dies after 3 due to brain cancer. Death due to corona? What if it was lung cancer? What if he dies due to corona, but his life expectancy was very low anyway? Those kinds of things are best resolved after the fact by counting "excess deaths" but that of course includes people not saved from other conditions due to lack of resources. Gives you a better picture regardless.
New Zealand is entering a nationwide four week lockdown from Wednesday at 11:59PM, currently reporting 102 cases, with only about a dozen not linked to overseas travel—but community transmission is obviously present.
I'm very much still hoping idealistically we can stamp it out, and as the flow of infected New Zealanders returning to the country slows, start opening things up again, albeit cut off from the rest of the world in terms of passenger transit, and be declared COVID-19-free. Our tourism industry would be fucked, but at least our internal economy would otherwise be functional.
I luckily had my return flight home booked for last night before the lockdown goes into effect. Damn, travelling through the airport was an eerie experience: lots of signs, people wearing masks, constant PSA's about social distancing, etc, and the plane itself was near-empty. There were maybe 30 people on the entire A320.
EDIT: We are now up to 155 cases, confirmed and probable. 12 cases have now recovered. Most are from international travel.
The US seems to be making moves toward fewer restrictions instead of more, even as their case count balloons rapidly: Trump says coronavirus restrictions will be lifted "soon," dismissing health experts
Other officials have been making similar statements: Trump signals an economic pivot on coronavirus shutdowns
It's not necessarily clear how much difference this will make, since many of the restrictions are state-based instead of federally. But it's interesting to see, with so many other countries moving rapidly to locking down more, not easing up on it.
This is primarily because Trump seems to care more about the imaginary points on the Dow Jones Industrial Average than the health of his citizens and his country. We're lucky that he's such an remarkably ineffective leader, because it means most of what he's talking about probably won't come to pass.
Washington state going on lockdown starting Wednesday.
Governor Inslee finally announced it. I was expecting his press conference on Friday to call for it, but he opted instead for some half-assed "stay at home if you don't want to kill grandma" lecture rather than a legally enforceable order.
Boeing also finally got off their asses and announced they're closing their plants here in WA, also stupidly behind the curve - they waited until one death and 30 confirmed cases from their employees before doing so.
Reading between the lines, Inslee was afraid to order Boeing to close, he waited until after they had announced closure voluntarily. I'm getting thoroughly frustrated with Inslee and will probably be voting for his challenger when he's up for re-election in November. He learned nothing from his failed presidential bid.
I feel like people are going to be gaining massive amounts of weight. I have been severely depressed since around middle school and it is hitting me hard. I don't know the point of this post. I guess just reaching out.
Yep. I've become a snack monster, stuck inside all day. Ugh.
Are you staying alone? One week alone
was significantly harder than the three weeks I've done with family. In fact, I didn't realize I have quarantined for three weeks (total, not consecutive) until I started writing this. If you're alone, try to find someone to stay with.
yes I live alone, but 5 minutes from family.
If you can stay with them, or they with you, I encourage you to do so. I wish my family was close enough I could.
This is probably true. And we're going to have goofy haircuts, since all the barbershops are closed. I can't wait for the massive party afterwards.
Even before the pandemic I was planning to buzz my head (had thinning hair for a long time). Welp, no time like quarantine time.....
I'm letting my beard grow out, but I'm torn between buzz cut or 70s style lion's mane
It's been the opposite for me, I started eating healthier thanks to having to stay at home. No more long commutes and being able to sleep more has helped me be less tired during the day, now I have enough energy to cook good meals. I'm also less depressed, it seems that I needed some isolation, being around people is stressful.
Yeah, my weekly intake has been easier to manage. Black coffee in the morning since I make better coffee than the office coffee, a low-key (and low calorie) lunch instead of my normal full breakfast for lunch, and then the same dinners as always. I have had a couple of snacks in there that I wouldn't normally, but overall, I'm down about 300 calories a day, plus with no commute, I've had time to actually do some of the honeydo list I've had on the go for a while, so generally things are looking up.
You know other than the worry about imminent societal collapse.
This extra free time has been amazing for me too, I've finally managed to do something other than just work, eat, shower and sleep. It feels like life has returned to me.
If it looks like what's going on right now I would not mind it.
Will repost my comment from yesterday's thread here:
I read this Twitter thread about Zoom having spyware.
https://twitter.com/Ouren/status/1241398181205889024?s=19
As someone who is new to working from home is there any way to contain or block these permissions?
Might be a good idea to run it in a virtual machine. I'd recommend downloading VirtualBox and a linux distribution such as Ubuntu. Create a new VM, install ubuntu, install guest additions, then if you click on the "Devices" menu, you should be able to give your webcam to the VM. From there, Zoom will only see your activity within the VM, not the rest of the system. When you're done with it you can simply nuke the VM.
Thank you! I got comments in the previous day's thread (thank you @pvik and @Sunward).
I took the suggestion from @pvik and installed the browser redirect extension. Normally I would try to use my work laptop as much as possible but its so locked down that the work-issued VPN does not work half of the time on the laptop. I will take the advice that @pvik gave and create a separate work account on my machine that will limit file access and search.
The VirtualBox sounds like an intriguing idea. I will investigate it further as it may have some use in other instances as well.
Belgium is seeing a confirmed drop in daily new cases. 2 days ago there was a tiny tiny drop; yesterday a pretty sharp one. There's no reason to think the trend won't keep up: We are 5 days into the full lockdown (6 if you count the announcement), and the median incubation period is 5 days.
It's not unexpected or surprising, but it feels great to wake up to good news.
It's official, Michigan is on lockdown until the 13th, essential traffic only. Awful
goodthing that we moved all the computers home. I guess I'd be unemployed if we didn't, but Day 1 of work from home is kind of nice. Hopefully we can do it some more when society isn't falling apart.Also in Michigan, also glad I can WFH. Not only fit to WFH fur the job I had last week, but also the job I started this week. It's been a surreal experience.
There's a thread on Reddit right now making note if which businesses in Ann Arbor have already thrown in the towel for good. Which is depressing even though I don't actually know anyone directly that has been affected by it.
No new cases in my province today. We are certainly going to get more, but just one good day feels good.
The US has seen a pretty quick rise in confirmed cases over the past few days. I'd expect Italy to exceed China this week and the US should follow shortly thereafter.
gotta remember, confirmed cases are only the people testing positive. many many more people are infected
For the first time since starting the self-quarantine 10 days ago, I got into a groove and had a productive day. I had been so distracted up to this point. I've got an April 3rd deadline I'm working towards, and it actually looks doable after today.
Tweet thread from a public defender in Brooklyn about conditions at Rikers Island:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1242289100071342080.html
LA lockdown checking in...
I had to go check out a car today. While that might not seem like an essential elsewhere, it's absolutely an essential here in LA. It's a long story, but I'm stuck in the position of finding my first new car at a very odd time.
That said, the lockdown seems to be going well here. It'll be at least another week before we start to see what sort of effect it's having. I'm suspecting an initial spike because there were a lot of people panic shopping (standing in long lines with tons of other people) on the last day before the lockdown took effect.
But here's why I think it's going well: I drove through the 405/101 interchange at 5pm and again at 6pm going around 75 mph on average. For those unfamiliar with the area, that interchange is one of the most heavily trafficked interchanges in the country. Driving through there during rush hour, you're lucky to be going faster than 10mph. The traffic present today was mind blowingly low. Which tells me that people are taking heed, by and large. Sure, there were cars on the road and I was among them. But I have a good feeling that people here are trying their best.