Coronavirus COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) Thread - 2020 Breaking News

[Sicks_Ate]

@Dr.Drake

Yes: the same amount of wealth was redistributed among fewer people.

I had the morbid thought today that the used car and home markets will be flooded, bringing costs back down.

[kenobi_65]

@Northern_Piper

Who? Why is that significant?

He’s an English actor. He starred in the BBC crime drama Luther, played Heimdall in several Marvel Cinematic Universe films, and has been rumored to be the next actor to play James Bond.

It’s not significant, beyond “someone you may have heard of has the bug.”

[dtilque]

@teela_brown

But damn, the freeways were empty this morning. The commute, usually brutal, was a breeze.

That’s because the cars are social distancing too.

@Sicks_Ate

I had the morbid thought today that the used car and home markets will be flooded, bringing costs back down.

This is not going to be like the Black Death with a large fraction of the people dying. So far the worldwide death toll is around 7000. That’s less than the error in estimates of the world’s population.

[Darren_Garrison]

@Dr.Drake

Yes: the same amount of wealth was redistributed among fewer people.

In Japan there is/was an idea of earthquakes redistributing wealth.

[Euphonious_Polemic]

@Amara_1

I

Right now, money is incredibly cheap to borrow. Putting it to good use to help folks pay for food, utilities and rent would be useful. Bailing out airlines, hotels and oil companies would be much less useful.

How about just giving a billion dollars to each CEO? That would be the Republican thing to do. Maybe they will spill some and the little people will get a taste.

[Rick_Kitchen]

The housemates on Big Brother Germany still are unaware of the virus outbreak. They’re going to be informed just before they introduce four more housemates.

No news is good news: Big Brother guests unaware of pandemic

[ThelmaLou]

“I’m speaking to you from the future…”

10 Days Later: What Italians Wish They Had Known
Mar 16, 2020 | 826 videos
Video by Olmo Parenti

When the Italian media began reporting on the increased community spread of the novel coronavirus across the country, Olmo Parenti, like many Italian citizens, didn’t take the threat of the pandemic too seriously. “My friends and I were almost mocking the few people who believed the issue was serious from the get-go,” Parenti, a young filmmaker, told me.

Just days later, Parenti felt like he was living in a different version of reality—a dystopian one. The number of positive cases had spiked dramatically. The entire country had shut down. The economy took a nosedive. Hospitals, overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, were being forced to make impossible utilitarian decisions: Which critical patients would receive lifesaving artificial ventilation, while the others would effectively be left to die?

Parenti and his friends were disturbed by the fact that they had severely underestimated the situation, a perspective that perhaps contributed to the spread of the virus. “We read in the news that the U.S., England, Germany, and France were all taking the COVID-19 progression just as lightly as we had,” Parenti said. “We decided we had to redeem ourselves in some way.”

Together with other members of his filmmaking collective, Parenti put out a call for citizens across the country to film themselves in quarantine. “We asked them to talk in first person to the camera,” he said, “and give themselves advice based on their own past behavior.”

The resulting film, 10 Days, features messages from dozens of terrified Italians. The videos play as if warnings from the future. Like Parenti, many of the people who submitted quarantine videos chide themselves for not having taken precautionary measures, such as self-isolation and social distancing, as early as they could have.

“This isn’t all bullshit like you thought,” says one young man.

Another woman, who is seen wearing a face mask, admits that she used to make fun of people wearing masks. “The worst-case scenario? That’s exactly what will happen,” she adds.

As though to underscore the importance of quarantine compliance across age groups, a teenager in the video reveals an eye-opening fact: “There are currently kids our age who are intubated and in intensive care.”

Many experts believe that the United States is just 10 days behind the level of severity of the pandemic in Italy. We are at a crucial inflection point, according to the surgeon general, Dr. Jerome Adams, and the time to prepare for what’s coming is now.
…

[Senegoid]

@suranyi

The 9 counties of the Bay Area are going to “shelter in place” starting at midnight tonight. That means we have to stay at home and not go anywhere except for “essential needs”, e.g. grocery, pharmacy, etc.

Seven counties are included – Six in the Bay Area plus Santa Cruz County.

The order explicitly allows outdoor recreational activities, as long as nobody congregates in groups (a “group” apparently being just 2 or more), and everybody stays 6 feet away from everybody else. The order seems to implicitly allow travel to and from such recreational activities.

ETA: Link to the full text of the order.

[Alley_Dweller]

The Santa Cruz County California shelter-in-place order (pdf).

[Senegoid]

@Alley_Dweller

The Santa Cruz County California shelter-in-place order (pdf).

Appears to be, verbatim, the same order that those six Bay Area counties issued (linked just above). Your link, being a PDF, is better formatted and easier to read.

[Rick_Kitchen]

The housemates on Big Brother Germany still are unaware of the virus outbreak. They’re going to be informed just before they introduce four more housemates.

No news is good news: Big Brother guests unaware of pandemic

[Aspenglow]

@ThelmaLou

“I’m speaking to you from the future…”

Thank you for finding/sharing this. I just sent it to half a dozen people whom I feel need to hear it. If people pay attention, it will save lives.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

182,609 confirmed infections
7,171 dead
79,883 recovered

In the US:

4,712 confirmed infections
91 dead
74 recovered

By my estimation, total confirmed infections will pass 200,000 no later than Wednesday. The US will likely have roughly 6,000 confirmed infections by the end of tomorrow and will prolly pass 10,000 confirmed infections no later than Friday. The US will pass the century mark for COVID-19 deaths tomorrow.

[UltraVires]

@Broomstick

Yeah, I did - where did you say that?

You went right to the assumption that masses of people were all going to run out to the nearest hospital. For what? Fun? Entertainment? I don’t know anyone who goes to the doctor for fun.
See, that’s the problem - rich and powerful people get tests. A nurse who was treating someone with the infection was told she couldn’t get the test even though she had symptoms and was sick because she’d been wearing PPE while treating said patient so couldn’t possibly have covid-19.

If you’re rich or important or connected you get a test. If you’re a peon you don’t. Even if you should.

The people rushing out and demanding tests are the people who can (and presumably do) pay for them, but that should NOT be the criteria for medical care of any sort. It should be apportioned by NEED, not by WEALTH.
Those guidelines have been up for weeks.

Try actually looking at the CDC website before spewing such untruths - I’m presuming ignorance on your part. Go read the website, I promise it won’t give you “liberal cooties” or whatever you’re afraid of.

The problem was not a lack of guidelines, it was a lack of access. Poorer people couldn’t get the test NOT due to lack of guidelines but due to LACK OF MONEY.
What we don’t need are more conservatives dithering about how this is going to cost money. IT HAS ALREADY COST MONEY. It has already cost some people their lives.

If we don’t start testing people without regard to whether or not they have thousands to pay up front we will NOT know the true extent and picture of what’s going on in this country. Your requested guidelines ALREADY EXIST and have existed for weeks. But they aren’t being used because in this country you don’t get access if you don’t have either money or good insurance or both. This is STUPID. It is CRUEL. One more time, it is STUPID.

What is the end goal here for conservatives? To have the ICU’s overwhelmed and people dying at home and declare “well - they haven’t been tested so they can’t possibly have covid-19 - WINNING!”

This is like saying they people should only have fire department services if they can afford to pay for them. The problem with that: fire spreads. If they slum burns down it might set the rest of the city on fire, including the fancy mansions. In fact, this used to happen in history. That’s why everybody gets a fire truck when they need one regardless of income. Because putting out fires in slums does, in fact, protect the rich. Also, it’s the right thing to do but I realize not everyone is moral.

Viruses spread. Let the slum become a death zone and the virus will then spread to all the tasty, tasty rich hosts next door. That is why it is in YOUR self interest to see that poor folks also get tested and treated appropriately. Yes, even if it costs *>gasp!< * money.

Post #728. You quoted it. The government should pay for the tests. However not every.single.person should be tested. When this congresswoman showboats for the cameras, she feeds the panic that if you sneeze you should go to the hospital and demand that you be given the government imposed right to have a test, overwhelming an already overwhelmed system.

I don’t disagree with hardly anything you said. But people need to chill the fuck out. No fist fights at stores. If the panic doesn’t stop, the next step is shootings. This is not the Black Death.

[Broomstick]

@ThelmaLou

Is this one payment of $1,000 period, or is this $1,000/month? I’ve heard both. A flat, one-time payment of $1,000 is NOTHING against the expense of supporting a family. That’s not even a month’s rent or mortgage. I don’t get it.

Well…

Actually, $1000 covers my rent and utilities just fine. But I’m one lone adult living a very modest lifestyle. For people in my sort of work/income level $1000 is likely an adequate amount to keep them housed.

Those at higher incomes levels? Yes, it falls short. But higher socio-economic levels should have more resources with which to weather this sort of problem. Should. Because I know a lot of people are in hock up to their eyeballs.

This also favors two-parent households, which would get $2,000, over single-parent homes. I’m not entirely happy with that, but getting anything to folks on the lower rungs of society is such a trial in this society.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@UltraVires

When this congresswoman showboats for the cameras, she feeds the panic that if you sneeze you should go to the hospital and demand that you be given the government imposed right to have a test, overwhelming an already overwhelmed system.

This is such a gross mischaracterization of the congresswoman actions and the outcome of them that it is ridiculous (and I’m being charitable).

[Dr.Drake]

@Broomstick

Well…

Actually, $1000 covers my rent and utilities just fine. But I’m one lone adult living a very modest lifestyle. For people in my sort of work/income level $1000 is likely an adequate amount to keep them housed.

Those at higher incomes levels? Yes, it falls short. But higher socio-economic levels should have more resources with which to weather this sort of problem. Should. Because I know a lot of people are in hock up to their eyeballs.

This also favors two-parent households, which would get $2,000, over single-parent homes. I’m not entirely happy with that, but getting anything to folks on the lower rungs of society is such a trial in this society.

Geography matters. It doesn’t matter how modest your lifestyle, if you like in the Bay Area in California, $1000 is not going to cover your rent.

[PoppaSan]

@ThelmaLou

Is this one payment of $1,000 period, or is this $1,000/month? I’ve heard both. A flat, one-time payment of $1,000 is NOTHING against the expense of supporting a family. That’s not even a month’s rent or mortgage. I don’t get it.

Pays my mortgage plus my 'lectric bill. I have 3 adult children living at home plus my wife. That’s a free $5k. My hours have not been cut. Nor have my wife’s or 2 sons work been affected. We all get all the overtime we want, at least for the next few weeks until someone at work gets infected and requires everyone else to go into 14 day quarantine. My daughter is in high school and is not leaving the house. This is money we might get that really goes straight to the bottom line and isn’t required to survive at the moment.

[Ike_Witt]

So, I am sitting here at home and decide to turn on the TV see if there are any new developments.

On CNN there is a live press conference from the White House about the virus and testing. There are by my count at least 5 maybe 6 people, including Trump and Pence, all standing in a small crowded area.

I switch channels to the CTV 24 hour news channel (Canadian). There is also a press conference with various Canadian officials. They are all seated at a long table with at least one arms length between the people.

The differences were startling. Canadians were showing practical social distancing and the Americans sure seem to be acting like nothing was different.

[TroutMan]

@Ike_Witt

The differences were startling. Canadians were showing practical social distancing and the Americans sure seem to be acting like nothing was different.

I saw this on imgur today. Sadly true for too many people.