Damn grim.
Significant shortages for 18 months. Should I order a couple of Mormon one-year-supply kits for MrsRico and myself?
Well, all of California is now all-in on the lockdown.
I saw on the news ticker that an Amazon warehouse employee in Queens tested positive for the virus.
I’m going to make a prediction, just so I have a time stamp when the Coronavirus Response Team starts claiming that no one could’ve predicted this.
I see problems with the highly touted food supply chain. I see supermarket employees getting sick en masse or getting scared to come to work. Some of them are highly exposed, coming into close contact with hundreds of people a day at a time when most of us have successfully isolated.
And these are, for the most part, low wage employees. Many of whom are unmotivated and underpaid. I think they will be a lot of supermarket closures unless our government takes action to see that they remain staffed. Which they could do but they apparently aren’t that far-sighted.
I also have similar concerns about food processing employees and people at medical supply factories though they’re not as exposed as supermarket employees.
And I question the size of the stockpiles. Free markets are pretty goddamned effective at eliminating excess capacity, which is a bitch at times when you need excess capacity - like now. Supply chains have become more finely tuned as technologies increased reliability and they often aren’t incredibly robust in the face of massive disruption.
Or maybe it’s my midnight pessimism brought on by rage-tweeting all day because I kept getting 502 errors here. Which is unhealthy, but i’m really twisty today as the implications of all this start to sink in. I’ll probably be in Twitter jail tomorrow anyway.
245,749 confirmed infections
10,046 dead
88,441 recovered
In the US:
14,340 confirmed infections
217 dead
125 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
If there starts to be even shadows of problems with the food supply chain in any country, I think THAT is when governments are going to start making the decision to release restrictions and concentrate on medical resources for the inevitable overload. If people start getting hungry, they’ll be breaking quarantine anyway, either by sneaking out or getting together in large groups to riot. I do not see starving in homes or the military making food rounds in many countries’ future.
Something that puzzles me: How come India hasn’t had a massive infection crisis by now? By the numbers, it’s one of the best-performing nations in the world as far as Covid-19 is concerned, yet it has a huge population, relatively meager healthcare system and many places with poor sanitation. One would have expected Covid-19 to explode there.
If you don’t test you don’t know.
US jails begin releasing inmates
Anyone who has been a COVID-19 news junkie like me will recall that Iran did the same thing early on in its outbreak.
At this point, I have some microscopic amount of compassion for the “It’s just a flu, stop worrying!” folks. To be sure, they were hella annoying and I wanted to wring their necks for swallowing the propaganda so eagerly. But despite having what I thought was a sober grasp on the reality, I never thought we were going to be at the place we are now. Two weeks ago if someone had said we’d have states under lockdown, I would have told them to stop with the doom-and-gloom shit.
On the radio this morning someone called this “our generation’s 911”. That is crazy to me. This is a thousand times more intense than 911. No one was told to shelter in place under the threat of prosecution during 911, not even in NYC.
I can’t find my driver’s license. I’m hoping I left it at my office. I’m one of those folks who really like having my “papers” with me at all times. So when I discovered I didn’t have it, I was not happy. I went to the DMV website to see if I could replace via mail. Turns out all offices are closed till April 2. All paperwork that’s set to expire (registrations, licenses, etc.) have been given a 60-day waiver. That’s great! I figure I’ve got a good excuse to give a police officer if I get pulled over.
But now I’m up here thinking to myself that the April 2 is a pipedream. Nothing magical is going to occur in a little more than a week to make April 2 safe for operation. What’s funny is that I no longer care about my license. Last night I was freaking out about it, but this morning I’m like big fucking deal. Makes me wonder what I’m going to be saying “big fucking deal” about next week.
Another fast news day for Austria. Already by noon there have been a number of significant developments:
[ul]
[li] The nation’s one-week mandatory home quarantine has been extended for another week, to 13 April, and the restrictions have been tightened. The few businesses that are permitted to remain open must now close no later than 19:00. This means no more late-night grocery shopping.[/li]
[li] To head off a future shortfall in health care workers, the government has loosened occupational qualification requirements, both for health workers in training as well as for doctors coming out of retirement to help with the crisis. The health minister reports that the country has enough ventilators for the time being and has placed an order for more.[/li]
[li] The justice system is going into hibernation until at least 1 May: most trials are suspended and asylum hearings are on hold. All relevant deadlines have been lifted. Urgent business, such as arraignments for newly committed violent crimes, are being conducted by videoconference rather than in person. Schedules concerning child custody arrangements for separated parents have been frozen: henceforth children are to stay with whatever parent they are currently living with, and “visit” the other parent only by phone or videoconference. In-person visits to prisoners are now prohibited.[/li]
[li] A poll has shown that the population is 92% in favour of the government-imposed restrictions on public movement and activities.[/li]
The interior minister has repeated that compliance seems to be around 95%. Police are nonetheless stepping up their enforcement, and have issued 1200 citations (including fines of up to €3600 for individuals and €30,000 for businesses) since the mandatory home quarantine began. Some of the violations are rather egregious. The University of Linz is considering expelling students who threw drinking parties on Saturday, one attended by 15 and another by 26. On Sunday, one attendee at the latter party tested positive for coronavirus.
[li] The federal government has deployed 3200 soldiers to guard all foreign embassies and consulates in Vienna and elsewhere. This was done to free up members of the police force (who had previously been tasked with guarding embassies) to deal with coronavirus containment issues.[/li]
[li] The government’s official and hastily constructed coronavirus information website has been found to have a data leak: personal details of individual coronavirus patients were inadvertently available to those browsing the website source code. The details did not include the patients’ names and addresses, but did include their state, district, latitude, longitude, age, and sex.[/li]
[li] In Vienna, public transit is being scaled back. On weekdays, buses, trams, and subways will operate on the Saturday schedule, and on the weekends, they will operate on the Sunday schedule.[/li]
[li] This morning’s coronavirus statistics: 2203 infected, 6 dead, 9 recovered.[/li][/ul]
Italy now has more deaths from COVID-19 than China does. (Info current as of March 20, 2020, 11:32 GMT.)
[ul][li]Deaths in China: 3,248[/li][*]Deaths in Italy: 3,405[/ul]
Just wanted to thank **psychonaut **for those updates!
One update from Germany:
The federal state Bayern will apply a curfew. They won’t stop people going to or coming out of Bayern but people are only allowed to go out to get your groceries etc. And they are also allowed to go for a walk or for a jogging session alone.
Wow…that doesn’t make sense at all. I should have written “has been extended for three weeks”. It seems that “home office” is affecting not only my ability to speak English but also my ability to do basic math. 
Anyway, a lot more has happened in Austria this afternoon. I’ll post another update later this evening.
The UK has closed all pubs, nightclubs, gyms, cinemas etc - basically every social space.
The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) Rishi Sunak announced that employees who are now unable to do their job will have 80% of their wage paid by the government up to £2500 p/m, allowing businesses to retain their staff. He didn’t set any end date or upper limit on the cost of this.
This is an enormous state intervention into the private sector, and from a Conservative government too. Incidentally, Sunak is only 39 and has been in the job for a whole five weeks.
The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Illinois is next for a shelter in place order.
New problems in the US: Lab supply shortages.
So, I just read something scary. It took 3 months for the first 100,000 cases of covid-19. It took 12 day for the next 100,000.
Diagnosed cases. Once you know what to look for, you get more hits of course.
Still, exponential growth is exponential.
If only we could mutate the virus to make people smarter…
More breaking news from Austria:
[ul]
[li] A member of parliament has tested positive for coronavirus, leading to the immediate suspension of business for 90 minutes. Parliament was in the middle of a televised sitting when this news broke; I don’t believe the affected member was in attendance, but five other members of parliament who had had close contact with him in the last few days had to immediately leave in order to get tested and self-isolate pending the results. The chancellor has already made plans for the cabinet to continue functioning in isolation if necessary.[/li]
[li] The government has passed a new regulation requiring certain workers to spend their accumulated annual leave with immediate effect.[/li]
[li] The government has further loosened the qualifications for health care workers in order to get more manpower for the coronavirus crisis. The new rules make it easier for foreign doctors to practice in Austria. It’s now permitted for paramedics to take nose and throat swabs for coronavirus testing. And any individual who has successfully completed a university degree in the natural or veterinary sciences will soon be permitted to carry out pandemic laboratory tests; this allows such people to be conscripted into medical labs should the need so arise.[/li]
[li]The government is rolling out a new emergency warning system on the cell phone network. It will soon have the ability to broadcast emergency text messages concerning the pandemic, either nationwide or in certain areas.[/li]
[li] The number of workers registering as unemployed is still soaring. So far 97,500 have registered since Sunday night.[/li]
[li] The banks have seen a run on corporate loan applications and deferments. Thousands of existing loans have had their payments rescheduled and over €3 billion in additional credit has been granted.[/li]
[li] Restaurant food delivery services are struggling to stay afloat While restaurants are permitted to remain open to take orders for delivery, a great number of them have opted to close down during the crisis. And in any case, people stuck at home are opting to cook for themselves for the most part.[/li]
[li] This afternoon’s coronavirus statistics: 2388 infected, 6 dead, 9 recovered.[/li][/ul]