Rhode Island National Guard are going to go door to door looking for New Yorkers to force them into quarantine.
All of Hawaii is on lockdown now, supposedly. It is quieter out there but far from deserted. I can move around freely, because while I’ve never said exactly what it is I do here in Hawaii, I am firmly in the Essential category. But I sure do see a lot of non-essential folks running around. Restaurants are all closed except for takeout. Most places are closed – shopping malls parks.Unemployment id Hawaii was less than 3% last week. This week, it’s shot up past 12% and still rising.
Oh, and while I’m at it, Thailand is on lockdown now too. With everything closed, a mass exodus started from Bangkok back to homes upcountry, so the government halted bus-ticket sales. Foreign nationals are now barred from entering the country, while Thai nationals returning will need a form from a Thai embassy or consulate abroad affirming they’re really Thai nationals along with a fit-to-fly certificate. I already mentioned before that Vietnam was also barring foreign nationals, and so apparently is Hong Kong and I hear even China too now.
Several friends with young-adult kids are finding their kids displaying willful cluelessness.
- The ones who don’t understand why they can’t go out in public and hang out with their friends as long as they stay 6 feet away (their state has mandated “no public or private gatherings” but they refuse to comprehend that)
- The one whose daughter things she can persuade the parents to go to a beach house (rented) because they might as well be locked up there as at home (and getting there and back involves a lengthy drive)
- The one whose boyfriend is going to a public place tomorrow and plans to invite friends over to their apartment afterward.
- The father and son who plan to go boating several hours away from home
Sigh…
I’m here too. Traffic is down which is nice as opposed to the rush hour(s) rolling roadblock that is the H1. “Just going to Costco” is the stock line of folks on the road. A few of the golf courses are open for very limited times. You can walk “through” the parks to get to the ocean to surf - just don’t stop in the park. Our daughter and granddaughter just flew back to Korea (dad is US Army there). Most airlines have slashed service in the 80% range or stopped completely. Some airlines are just moving freight now; no passengers.
“Only” 120 cases so far but expanded testing will probably pump that up.
I really hope a judge requires him to appear in person to defend his cease & desist order against outfits airing a particular video. It’ll be great to see the judge laugh himself/herself silly right there on the bench, pointing at him all the while.
Sorry. Reading that I imagined a zombie army coming into everyone’s living room.
The Vietnam conflict was the first one televised in real time and many people had relatives who had been drafted and subject to getting sent to combat. Those who had relatives who died, of course felt it personally, but for everyone else it was still a bit abstract. This will be thousands and thousands of dead Americans in America. There’s no way that’ll be an abstract.
My school has a few foreign teachers stuck in Thailand and Vietnam because they had been unable to return for a while now. I already posted upthread the announcement from China’s government barring foreigners from entering China effective this morning (00:00 hours, 28 March 2020).
Taiwan news:
There was a controversy where the mother of a British woman turned to the press to complain about her adult daughter’s treatment and the mother claimed the woman was being helped. Taiwan wasn’t happy about the article, and provided enough information that the BBC retracted the story. Taiwan normally provides NT$1,000 (US$30) per day but won’t provide it to either the woman or her partner.
The woman did apologize for the article.
When there are only a limited number of infected people, they can trace those that people have contact with and isolate them. You just can’t do that when there are tens of thousands of infected people.
Taiwan isn’t doing a lot of testing because there are so few cases of unknown routes, so far. It could blow up at any time, but they have done well so far.
Other news: Taiwan had built a 40-bed [del]detention center[/del] quarantine facility for people who break home quarantine.
Taiwan is still doing OK. I hope it keeps it up.
Here’s an excellent article from The Guardian about the development of a vaccine. The article includes stories, in a non-hysterical manner, about past vaccine successes and failures. And no, traditional Chinese medicines are not under serious consideration by reputable researchers.
This is a major point that they “Let 'er rip. Lockdown is for losers.” people need to understand.
It’s not just the medical system that’s going down. All sorts of services are seriously affected. If there isn’t enough police on duty to sustain basic civil order things will get very, very ugly. The economic and social impact would be far worse than what we are experiencing.
And those numbers are in a city with strong lockdown rules. Without them, imagine the number of cops out of commission. (And how many of them would end up dead or seriously disabled.)
Due to that 225-247-268 sequence, I’d had a brief flicker of hope that our social distancing was paying dividends sooner than I’d thought possible, but clearly not.
Saw a tweet yesterday: “Okay I’ve had the 90 day trial and would like to return 2020.”
If only. 
My mom was telling me that her friend’s adult sons were planning to drive from NYC to Hilton Head next week to play golf. Looks like they may be closing the courses, there, thankfully. It’s astounding how stupid people are.
Africa sees violence used to enforce lockdowns
Looking at the pictures, it’s obvious that this is going to be very, very bad for some of these places. Too many people packed into an area with too little infrastructure.
What happens in Zimbabwe will be very informative. 43% of their population is 19 or under and only 3% 65 plus. They may not get too badly hit just by virtue of age demographics. But a model that count kids as contagious and one that handles them as functionally resolveds will predict different points that their curve flattens. Even with baseline other health challenges.
I seriously wonder what happens to Democratic societies that are currently dabbling with authoritarianism and right wing nationalist populism (i.e. the US and Europe).
Just a heads-up/FYI: World O Meter has added “1st case” (the date that the first case appeared in a country) to their spreadsheet and they’ve added a daily total bar to the top of the spreadsheet (so you don’t have to scroll all the way down to see, for instance, the number of new confirmed infections worldwide for that day).
Zim’s HIV rate is still high, though, which doesn’t help resistance to other pathogens.
And on that note, this morning’s US States death per million, from Worldometer (state deaths calculated by me with Wikipedia population figures), with countries for comparison except where small populations skew the stats. Since the US is at 5 / million, I’ll only give those states ahead of that curve.
Italy 151
Spain 124
Netherlands 37
New York 31.15
France 31
Belgium 30
Iran 30
Switzerland 28
Louisiana 25.6
Luxembourg 24
Washington 23
Vermont 16
UK 15
New Jersey 12.2
Denmark 11
Portugal 10
Sweden 10
Michigan 9.2
Austria 8
Connecticut 7.6
Georgia 6.1
Guam 6
Iceland 6
District of Columbia 5.7
Colorado 5.4
Nevada 5.2
Massachusetts 5
USA 5
Germany 5
Guadeloupe 5
I’m surprised by VT, I would have expected it to be behind the curve. Maybe it’s too close to NY. Or maybe it’s small and the stats were distorted by a small cluster of deaths.
Paging Snake Plissken…
Canada has almost 4800 cases and 55 deaths. The CFR has increased somewhat, and is expected to rise due to returning Canadians and folks from cities going to cottage country. Testing remains somewhat restricted. Hospitals are low on protective supplies and awaiting promised orders. People in parks and grocery stores seem to be doing a good job of distancing. Some folks getting more frustrated, which will increase as this goes on longer.
Canadian politicians were unhappy with the American idea of placing troops near the border. Complained. The US didn’t, not yet. Doesn’t bother me much.