Latest in COVID weirdness
Mar. 19th, 2020 12:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneWe've had a case diagnosed in El Paso, 100 miles or so south of us, which means it'll be hitting Las Cruces and Alamogordo/Cloudcroft soon.
People in the USA who owe on their taxes are supposedly going to get a 90 day extension on paying, official information is not yet released. You may still have to get your filing in on/before April 15, so be prepared for that.
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Major department stores are closing for the duration: Macy's, Nordies, Needless Markups, etc. Some mall owners (in Canada?) are telling restaurants to pay your workers instead for your rent! [applauds] That should be world-wide. HUD has been ordered to suspend evictions for the duration, many municipalities have been told to suspend utility shutdowns for lack of payment.
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There's going to be a massive shortage of ventilators throughout the USA, and the world. This is something that needs to be a worldwide priority to ramp up production, and some are recognizing that this has to happen. This will also require building clean room manufacturing. Any contractors with this experience need to stop whatever they're working on and start making factories, and they need to have government protection for temporarily breaking contracts and payment assurances. This is just a bit of an emergency with literally millions of lives at stake. Including mine, not that I have a dog in the race. My dogs would just run off in random directions.
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Some very good news. There's an effective drug for early treatment from Japan: favipiravir/Avigan. It, like some HIV retrovirals, are very useful if COVID is caught early before it begins massive replication. Not very effective if its already widespread in a person.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/japanese-flu-drug-clearly-effective-in-treating-coronavirus-says-china
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Two US Navy(?) hospital ships are being deployed, one on the east coast near New York City, one on the west coast, I'd guess near LA or San Francisco. I have no idea where they're normally based or how long they'll take to deploy. They'll certainly help.
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My wife was telling me of some interesting logistics that the Chinese deployed. Basically they said THIS hospital is exclusively for people with coronavirus, THAT hospital is for people without. It led to much better usage of personal protective gear and lower incidence rates of medical staff getting sick. And I'm guessing some regularly scheduled important but non-critical surgery could continue? My wife told me in no uncertain terms to not break my ankle for the next couple of months, I'm pretty sure that was not on my calendar.
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El Presidente is getting ready to sign a war powers act which will let the United States government order industry to redirect towards specific goals, see the manufacture of ventilators above. It needs to be done, the question is whether or not he will "go with his gut" or actually listen to experts and do the smart thing.
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Tom Hanks and his wife were released from hospital in Australia, I imagine they'll be staying down there indefinitely. They'd be facing a 14 day quarantine if they came back here.
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Speaking of Australia, remember how El Presidente said the virus would go away when it warmed up? Remember how Australia is two seasons different from us? And it's late summer there? Remember those fires? They've got a lot of cases, and it's hot down there. I don't see any reason to think that it's going to calm down when it warms up here in the northern hemisphere in spring/summer.
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My boss just sent me a text asking me if I wanted to telework. I have no idea what I can do, we'll see what happens. But some income is greater than no income. Looks like "LibAnswers, a virtual library presence." There's only three of us who are permanent library employees, plus three students. Looks like they may be closing the library next week, boss says "she and I will be taking turns being in the library next week."
People in the USA who owe on their taxes are supposedly going to get a 90 day extension on paying, official information is not yet released. You may still have to get your filing in on/before April 15, so be prepared for that.
****
Major department stores are closing for the duration: Macy's, Nordies, Needless Markups, etc. Some mall owners (in Canada?) are telling restaurants to pay your workers instead for your rent! [applauds] That should be world-wide. HUD has been ordered to suspend evictions for the duration, many municipalities have been told to suspend utility shutdowns for lack of payment.
****
There's going to be a massive shortage of ventilators throughout the USA, and the world. This is something that needs to be a worldwide priority to ramp up production, and some are recognizing that this has to happen. This will also require building clean room manufacturing. Any contractors with this experience need to stop whatever they're working on and start making factories, and they need to have government protection for temporarily breaking contracts and payment assurances. This is just a bit of an emergency with literally millions of lives at stake. Including mine, not that I have a dog in the race. My dogs would just run off in random directions.
****
Some very good news. There's an effective drug for early treatment from Japan: favipiravir/Avigan. It, like some HIV retrovirals, are very useful if COVID is caught early before it begins massive replication. Not very effective if its already widespread in a person.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/japanese-flu-drug-clearly-effective-in-treating-coronavirus-says-china
****
Two US Navy(?) hospital ships are being deployed, one on the east coast near New York City, one on the west coast, I'd guess near LA or San Francisco. I have no idea where they're normally based or how long they'll take to deploy. They'll certainly help.
****
My wife was telling me of some interesting logistics that the Chinese deployed. Basically they said THIS hospital is exclusively for people with coronavirus, THAT hospital is for people without. It led to much better usage of personal protective gear and lower incidence rates of medical staff getting sick. And I'm guessing some regularly scheduled important but non-critical surgery could continue? My wife told me in no uncertain terms to not break my ankle for the next couple of months, I'm pretty sure that was not on my calendar.
****
El Presidente is getting ready to sign a war powers act which will let the United States government order industry to redirect towards specific goals, see the manufacture of ventilators above. It needs to be done, the question is whether or not he will "go with his gut" or actually listen to experts and do the smart thing.
****
Tom Hanks and his wife were released from hospital in Australia, I imagine they'll be staying down there indefinitely. They'd be facing a 14 day quarantine if they came back here.
****
Speaking of Australia, remember how El Presidente said the virus would go away when it warmed up? Remember how Australia is two seasons different from us? And it's late summer there? Remember those fires? They've got a lot of cases, and it's hot down there. I don't see any reason to think that it's going to calm down when it warms up here in the northern hemisphere in spring/summer.
****
My boss just sent me a text asking me if I wanted to telework. I have no idea what I can do, we'll see what happens. But some income is greater than no income. Looks like "LibAnswers, a virtual library presence." There's only three of us who are permanent library employees, plus three students. Looks like they may be closing the library next week, boss says "she and I will be taking turns being in the library next week."
no subject
Date: 2020-03-19 07:42 pm (UTC)Neither I nor my librarian son have heard from our respective branches as to work status. I’m home because we’re closed. He’s home because he’s not feeling well (and three others here have *hopefully* basic colds).
no subject
Date: 2020-03-19 07:50 pm (UTC)Our library is not closing, YET, but they're not allowing public patrons in, only students.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-20 09:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-20 05:24 pm (UTC)Sadly, I don't think ours is going to do squat for us half-timers or the student work/studies. I'm glad for you, though.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-20 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-20 05:27 pm (UTC)And there's the problem. We're going to have people with clean rooms and no equipment. The ones with the equipment already have clean rooms, but you can't always run that equipment 24/7/365 without suffering major breakdowns. And regardless of what someone in charge of government might want, you can't turn the dial up to 150% of production volume. And you can't make the machinery for making ventilator parts at the proverbial drop of a hat. Though it's possible that some of your gear could make subassemblies with some modification. Casings and such?
no subject
Date: 2020-03-20 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-20 05:41 pm (UTC)Yeah, as is happening more and more. I was reading someone's post from yesterday, IIRC (can't find it now), their grandfather (or great-grand) was a baker during the 1918 flu pandemic and was classed as critical. Lived in the bakery, couldn't have contact with anyone. Spoke with his son across a field. Assuming production people are not sick or quarantined, someone is going to have to work up and coordinate the logistics for companies/plants like yours to get this done! Not to mention final assembly/testing to make sure the final units work properly: you can't just assemble them and ship them off to hospitals: they need a 24 hour burn-in to make sure they work and won't fail two hours after being hooked up to a patient who's going to depend on it to breathe for them for a week!