COVID News
Mar. 26th, 2020 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneDeaths in the USA have topped 1,000. The Trump administration is thinking about stationing armed troops at the Canadian border? WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK?!
Meanwhile, Mexico doesn't want Americans down there.
****
Our Secretary of the Treasury, Steve Munchkin, says that our newly released jobless rate showing 3.3 million people out of work (raises hand!) which is more than quadruple the previous record set in 1982, DOESN'T MATTER. He says the relief bill will fix everything.
Guess what, idiot. Magical thinking. It won't. "Small businesses will be able to hire back a lot of those people." How? Most of those businesses are closed for the duration. They're not getting any income. Are the banks still demanding payment on their notes? Sadly, a lot of those businesses will never reopen. I know my credit cards still want payment. Zero income and still having to pay bills isn't a heck of a lot of fun.
This is the BEGINNING, the early stages of the shut down. 3.3 million out of work right now - that number will be higher next week, and next month as more cities and states shut down.
There's an old joke about Admiral Nelson fighting the French fleet and he's mortally wounded, lying on the deck, and he tells his aide: "Fetch my red shirt, I don't want my men to see me bleeding and lose courage." An officer comes running up: "Admiral! Another 20 French ships coming over the horizon!" Nelson says "Fetch my brown trousers!"
Munchkin is going to want lots of pairs of brown trousers soon. The graph of jobless claims isn't a curve, it's a vertical spike.
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13 die in NYC hospitals in one day. I'm surprised that number is so low.
****
A woman in Pennsylvania, described as "a chronic problem in the community", went in to a grocery store, made verbal threats that she was sick. She then spat and coughed all over the produce and meat and bakery departments. The store threw everything out and disinfected everything. $35,000 loss. She was arrested and is facing multiple counts, including terrorist threats.
Now, I'm sorry for the store. That's a considerable loss for companies on thin margins, and while their insurance will probably make good on it as if a freezer were to fail or a small fire were to happen, this also represents a loss of food available to a frightened community, which isn't a good thing in these times. Oooh, idea! Build a pillory, issue gloves to the public, and put that fruit to use!
The police issued a press release, publicly identifying the woman.
Speaking of terrorist threats, remember Atomwaffen? White supremists who want to kill non-whites, and in some cases, have? Incidentaly, I don't think I posted about this, but one of their leaders was arrested for SWATing. I was amused by that. ANYWAY, the FBI have been monitoring them (obviously). They are telling their members that it is their duty that if they get sick, to save spit, etc. and contaminate surfaces and spread disease to non-whites.
The FBI/DOJ response is that bio-attacks of such a nature will be considered terrorist attacks.
****
An Ohio megachurch keeps holding mass gatherings. I hope they're planning on digging mass graves.
In similar news, a couple of weeks ago a collegiate wrestling tournament was held in Texas. They weren't part of the NCAA, something like the NCWA. It was after the NCAA shut down all events. They said they wouldn't allow wrestlers to wrassle if they were running a fever. The only problem was they weren't taking wrestler's temperatures.
A few schools did not attend the meet.
****
New Orleans, with a quarter the population of Los Angeles, has the same number of cases. And much fewer resources.
****
In Missouri, a man suspected of planning to bomb a hospital in the Kansas City area treating coronavirus cases was killed in a shootout with the FBI when they tried to arrest him. Officials say he was motivated by racist and anti-government beliefs. No mention of any law enforcement agent injuries, so hopefully none were.
Unrelated to COVID, but in a relieving and surprise move, the Christchurch gunman plead guilty to all 51 murders.
****
I came across an article on Slate that Babe Ruth had the 1918 Spanish flu TWICE. Interesting stuff. He got it the first time doing an exhibition at an army camp. A team doctor almost killed him trying to treat him.
****
Liberty University, Jerry Falwell Jr's "educational" institution, will be open for business next week after spring break ends. In person. Some students are coming back to dorms, some are staying away. And parties are happening with no regard to social distancing. Virginia state officials are complaining that Falwell lied to them about the conditions that the school would reopen under.
****
Worldwide, coronoavirus cases surpass half a million. How long until we hit a million? How high will it go?
****
CDC is saying they found RNA of the virus on the two cruise ships 17 days after passengers left! They don't know if that represented contagious danger or not, but it's certainly a lot longer than previous tests showed the virus persisting.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/23/cdc-coronavirus-survived-in-princess-cruise-cabins-up-to-17-days-after-passengers-left.html
****
In the UK, the government is ordering 10,000 ventilators from Dyson, the makers of hand dryers, fans, hair dryers, and vacuum cleaners. Dyson set engineers working on making a ventilator from scratch, and it's going through approval. There's no doubt Dyson really knows how to move air.
****
I hadn't thought about it, but with people under lockdown, this is could be a great season for sea turtle births! No one on the beaches, lights turned off. Here's hoping for a boom year for sea turtle populations!
****
If you are bored at home, how about helping to preserve 200 year old rainfall records?
The British meterological office has records going back to 1820, but has only computerized them from about 1960 onwards. Everything has been scanned, but the handwriting and variable forms makes optical character recognition difficult. Now they're trying crowdsourcing. If you've got any amount of free time, you can type in numbers into a form and help make future weather predictions better!
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52040822
****
Kinsa is a medical thermometer that's connected to the internet. They've been aggregating people's readings and making projections and tracking them against other data stores, and one piece of information that's been quite interesting is that social distancing has reduced other transmissible diseases, such as flu!
In 2008, I was at Mayo Clinic having surgery to have a busted parathyroid gland removed (you have four, so losing one was no big deal). My wife caught pertusis there (whooping cough) as there was a bit of an outbreak at that time, and the following weekend went to a fanfic convention in LA. As far as we know, no one else caught it. The worst bit was later finding out that there was a pertusis vaccine booster that she could have gotten.
https://qz.com/1824020/social-distancing-slowing-not-only-covid-19-but-other-diseases-too/
****
Early numbers show internet use is up 50-70%, streaming is up 12% according to a tech research firm Omdia. They also project an 25% hit for the movie industry or $11billion and a 15% hit in TV advertising, largely for events like concerts and shows that can't happen. They predict recovery for these industries will start in 18-24 months. I think that may be a reasonable estimate.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markbeech/2020/03/25/covid-19-pushes-up-internet-use-70-streaming-more-than-12-first-figures-reveal/
In other media news, YouTube is cutting down the resolution of all videos around the world to reduce bandwidth consumption for the duration. Smart move. Streaming services would be smart to reduce 4K down to 1080.
****
Interesting arguments to NOT bail out the cruise ship industry.
1. They're not really US companies.
2. They pay basically zero federal income tax.
3. They're bad corporate actors: These companies use the protections offered by the countries they are incorporated in as a shield. They make passengers sign over a ton of rights before they even come aboard. Many employees often face long hours and brutal working conditions.
4. They pollute the air and oceans. Every fossil fuel-powered mode of transportation pollutes the air, but cruise ships are among the worst. They emit more sulfur dioxide than all of the passenger vehicles in Europe combined. Cruise ships also pollute the oceans by dumping waste. Not just illegally, for which these companies have been repeatedly fined, but also in some cases with impunity, again thanks to protections afforded by the laws of the countries where they're incorporated. And where they've been caught, there have been coverups.
5. They are not necessary.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/23/21187076/cruise-line-industry-bailout-trump-coronavirus-us-companies-tax
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Nuclear scientists in Austria are working on a new test for COVID that will deliver results in a few hours and will cost a bit under $11US. The current test can cost $400 in private labs.
"The IAEA’s lab outside Vienna has previously developed kits testing for Ebola, Zika and African Swine Fever. ... The effort drew an extra $5 million of funding on Tuesday from the U.S. State Department."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/virus-test-in-hours-for-under-11-eyed-by-atomic-scientists
****
The government of Singapore has released the code for their contact tracing smartphone app, TraceTogether. It uses Bluetooth, sets up anonymous tokens, and if you spend more than 30 minutes in proximity to another TraceTogether phone, tokens are exchanged. If a user gets sick, that user can unlock their phone for a tracer to track down the people whose tokens that phone contains so they can be tested.
Yes, the government of Singapore has some civil rights abuses. So does the government of the United States. So do many governments. These are trying times.
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/coronavirus-spore-government-to-make-its-contact-tracing-app-freely-available-to
****
Amazon, a company that had $280billion in sales last year and just under $12b in profit, and is owned by the richest person in the world, and has one of the stingiest leave policies in corporate America, is doing something interesting.
It is soliciting public donations to pay workers' sick leave.
/facepalm
Meanwhile, apparently the virus is sweeping through its fulfillment centers.
https://popular.info/p/amazon-soliciting-public-donations-141
****
In celebrity infection news, Prince Charles of the British Royal Family has tested positive of the coronavirus and is apparently doing well in isolation.
In idiot infection news, when Senator Rand Paul wasn't feeling well and knew he had been exposed and was waiting for results, rather than self-isolating, he continued working out in a public gym, swimming, etc. Absolute fucking bastard. And the test was positive. Pillory time.
A 17 y/o male died in California from the virus, I hope this shocks some of those college kids who were partying on the Florida and California beaches during spring break and teaches them that they weren't quite so immune and immortal as they thought.
Meanwhile, Mexico doesn't want Americans down there.
****
Our Secretary of the Treasury, Steve Munchkin, says that our newly released jobless rate showing 3.3 million people out of work (raises hand!) which is more than quadruple the previous record set in 1982, DOESN'T MATTER. He says the relief bill will fix everything.
Guess what, idiot. Magical thinking. It won't. "Small businesses will be able to hire back a lot of those people." How? Most of those businesses are closed for the duration. They're not getting any income. Are the banks still demanding payment on their notes? Sadly, a lot of those businesses will never reopen. I know my credit cards still want payment. Zero income and still having to pay bills isn't a heck of a lot of fun.
This is the BEGINNING, the early stages of the shut down. 3.3 million out of work right now - that number will be higher next week, and next month as more cities and states shut down.
There's an old joke about Admiral Nelson fighting the French fleet and he's mortally wounded, lying on the deck, and he tells his aide: "Fetch my red shirt, I don't want my men to see me bleeding and lose courage." An officer comes running up: "Admiral! Another 20 French ships coming over the horizon!" Nelson says "Fetch my brown trousers!"
Munchkin is going to want lots of pairs of brown trousers soon. The graph of jobless claims isn't a curve, it's a vertical spike.
****
13 die in NYC hospitals in one day. I'm surprised that number is so low.
****
A woman in Pennsylvania, described as "a chronic problem in the community", went in to a grocery store, made verbal threats that she was sick. She then spat and coughed all over the produce and meat and bakery departments. The store threw everything out and disinfected everything. $35,000 loss. She was arrested and is facing multiple counts, including terrorist threats.
Now, I'm sorry for the store. That's a considerable loss for companies on thin margins, and while their insurance will probably make good on it as if a freezer were to fail or a small fire were to happen, this also represents a loss of food available to a frightened community, which isn't a good thing in these times. Oooh, idea! Build a pillory, issue gloves to the public, and put that fruit to use!
The police issued a press release, publicly identifying the woman.
Speaking of terrorist threats, remember Atomwaffen? White supremists who want to kill non-whites, and in some cases, have? Incidentaly, I don't think I posted about this, but one of their leaders was arrested for SWATing. I was amused by that. ANYWAY, the FBI have been monitoring them (obviously). They are telling their members that it is their duty that if they get sick, to save spit, etc. and contaminate surfaces and spread disease to non-whites.
The FBI/DOJ response is that bio-attacks of such a nature will be considered terrorist attacks.
****
An Ohio megachurch keeps holding mass gatherings. I hope they're planning on digging mass graves.
In similar news, a couple of weeks ago a collegiate wrestling tournament was held in Texas. They weren't part of the NCAA, something like the NCWA. It was after the NCAA shut down all events. They said they wouldn't allow wrestlers to wrassle if they were running a fever. The only problem was they weren't taking wrestler's temperatures.
A few schools did not attend the meet.
****
New Orleans, with a quarter the population of Los Angeles, has the same number of cases. And much fewer resources.
****
In Missouri, a man suspected of planning to bomb a hospital in the Kansas City area treating coronavirus cases was killed in a shootout with the FBI when they tried to arrest him. Officials say he was motivated by racist and anti-government beliefs. No mention of any law enforcement agent injuries, so hopefully none were.
Unrelated to COVID, but in a relieving and surprise move, the Christchurch gunman plead guilty to all 51 murders.
****
I came across an article on Slate that Babe Ruth had the 1918 Spanish flu TWICE. Interesting stuff. He got it the first time doing an exhibition at an army camp. A team doctor almost killed him trying to treat him.
****
Liberty University, Jerry Falwell Jr's "educational" institution, will be open for business next week after spring break ends. In person. Some students are coming back to dorms, some are staying away. And parties are happening with no regard to social distancing. Virginia state officials are complaining that Falwell lied to them about the conditions that the school would reopen under.
****
Worldwide, coronoavirus cases surpass half a million. How long until we hit a million? How high will it go?
****
CDC is saying they found RNA of the virus on the two cruise ships 17 days after passengers left! They don't know if that represented contagious danger or not, but it's certainly a lot longer than previous tests showed the virus persisting.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/23/cdc-coronavirus-survived-in-princess-cruise-cabins-up-to-17-days-after-passengers-left.html
****
In the UK, the government is ordering 10,000 ventilators from Dyson, the makers of hand dryers, fans, hair dryers, and vacuum cleaners. Dyson set engineers working on making a ventilator from scratch, and it's going through approval. There's no doubt Dyson really knows how to move air.
****
I hadn't thought about it, but with people under lockdown, this is could be a great season for sea turtle births! No one on the beaches, lights turned off. Here's hoping for a boom year for sea turtle populations!
****
If you are bored at home, how about helping to preserve 200 year old rainfall records?
The British meterological office has records going back to 1820, but has only computerized them from about 1960 onwards. Everything has been scanned, but the handwriting and variable forms makes optical character recognition difficult. Now they're trying crowdsourcing. If you've got any amount of free time, you can type in numbers into a form and help make future weather predictions better!
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52040822
****
Kinsa is a medical thermometer that's connected to the internet. They've been aggregating people's readings and making projections and tracking them against other data stores, and one piece of information that's been quite interesting is that social distancing has reduced other transmissible diseases, such as flu!
In 2008, I was at Mayo Clinic having surgery to have a busted parathyroid gland removed (you have four, so losing one was no big deal). My wife caught pertusis there (whooping cough) as there was a bit of an outbreak at that time, and the following weekend went to a fanfic convention in LA. As far as we know, no one else caught it. The worst bit was later finding out that there was a pertusis vaccine booster that she could have gotten.
https://qz.com/1824020/social-distancing-slowing-not-only-covid-19-but-other-diseases-too/
****
Early numbers show internet use is up 50-70%, streaming is up 12% according to a tech research firm Omdia. They also project an 25% hit for the movie industry or $11billion and a 15% hit in TV advertising, largely for events like concerts and shows that can't happen. They predict recovery for these industries will start in 18-24 months. I think that may be a reasonable estimate.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markbeech/2020/03/25/covid-19-pushes-up-internet-use-70-streaming-more-than-12-first-figures-reveal/
In other media news, YouTube is cutting down the resolution of all videos around the world to reduce bandwidth consumption for the duration. Smart move. Streaming services would be smart to reduce 4K down to 1080.
****
Interesting arguments to NOT bail out the cruise ship industry.
1. They're not really US companies.
2. They pay basically zero federal income tax.
3. They're bad corporate actors: These companies use the protections offered by the countries they are incorporated in as a shield. They make passengers sign over a ton of rights before they even come aboard. Many employees often face long hours and brutal working conditions.
4. They pollute the air and oceans. Every fossil fuel-powered mode of transportation pollutes the air, but cruise ships are among the worst. They emit more sulfur dioxide than all of the passenger vehicles in Europe combined. Cruise ships also pollute the oceans by dumping waste. Not just illegally, for which these companies have been repeatedly fined, but also in some cases with impunity, again thanks to protections afforded by the laws of the countries where they're incorporated. And where they've been caught, there have been coverups.
5. They are not necessary.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/23/21187076/cruise-line-industry-bailout-trump-coronavirus-us-companies-tax
****
Nuclear scientists in Austria are working on a new test for COVID that will deliver results in a few hours and will cost a bit under $11US. The current test can cost $400 in private labs.
"The IAEA’s lab outside Vienna has previously developed kits testing for Ebola, Zika and African Swine Fever. ... The effort drew an extra $5 million of funding on Tuesday from the U.S. State Department."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/virus-test-in-hours-for-under-11-eyed-by-atomic-scientists
****
The government of Singapore has released the code for their contact tracing smartphone app, TraceTogether. It uses Bluetooth, sets up anonymous tokens, and if you spend more than 30 minutes in proximity to another TraceTogether phone, tokens are exchanged. If a user gets sick, that user can unlock their phone for a tracer to track down the people whose tokens that phone contains so they can be tested.
Yes, the government of Singapore has some civil rights abuses. So does the government of the United States. So do many governments. These are trying times.
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/coronavirus-spore-government-to-make-its-contact-tracing-app-freely-available-to
****
Amazon, a company that had $280billion in sales last year and just under $12b in profit, and is owned by the richest person in the world, and has one of the stingiest leave policies in corporate America, is doing something interesting.
It is soliciting public donations to pay workers' sick leave.
/facepalm
Meanwhile, apparently the virus is sweeping through its fulfillment centers.
https://popular.info/p/amazon-soliciting-public-donations-141
****
In celebrity infection news, Prince Charles of the British Royal Family has tested positive of the coronavirus and is apparently doing well in isolation.
In idiot infection news, when Senator Rand Paul wasn't feeling well and knew he had been exposed and was waiting for results, rather than self-isolating, he continued working out in a public gym, swimming, etc. Absolute fucking bastard. And the test was positive. Pillory time.
A 17 y/o male died in California from the virus, I hope this shocks some of those college kids who were partying on the Florida and California beaches during spring break and teaches them that they weren't quite so immune and immortal as they thought.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-26 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-26 10:11 pm (UTC)U.S. troops and their commanders have specific orders to follow the Constitution of the United States and NOT to follow illegal orders. Times could get quite interesting indeed.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-27 12:20 am (UTC)preserving rainfall records
Date: 2020-03-26 11:06 pm (UTC)https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/edh/rainfall-rescue
(I get Zooniverse email.)
Yeah, so much idiocy right now that's NOT helping. Argh.
Re: preserving rainfall records
Date: 2020-03-26 11:48 pm (UTC)That would be the place. Yeah, I know about crazy. Me, I'm feeling a bit crappy right now: got a sinus infection banging on me right now.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-27 04:27 am (UTC)I have a...friendly acquaintance, I guess, who I'd always thought of as a very intelligent person. We tended to mostly discuss theology and philosophy, as that's his educational background, and I have some background in that stuff too. But I've had to revise my opinion of him downward drastically, because a couple of weeks ago he was boasting about how amazing this year's Mardi Gras had been, and how people freaking out about the corona virus were taking things much too far, and he's so glad the party wasn't shut down, and anyway, the whole state only had six cases at the time, so the celebration was *fine*, no risk at all.
Turns out he's one of those people who's an absolute moron once you get away from the topic of his degree. Good gods. Now, of course, he's staying in and properly concerned, because it's finally hit home, but I just boggle that he could be bitching about people being worried only two weeks ago.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-27 09:12 am (UTC)Times are weird. I try to remember that everybody is someone else's weirdo, and everyone knows something that I don't. It is definitely staggering how stupid people can be. Since last week Monday, I've been to the post office once at 9pm, wearing gloves. I've taken the trash out to the dumpster once, wearing gloves. I haven't encountered any people aside from my wife and our housemate. I am fighting a sinus infection right now, but I started antibiotics this evening and after a nice nap feel better already.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-27 06:18 am (UTC)When this scandal emerged, the UK government later claimed they'd misplaced the email from the EU making this offer (see link above.)
The worst is expected to hit the UK in the next 7 to 14 days. London hospitals are already running out of beds.
But hey! Dyson are going to build ventilators! With a new, untested design! They're going to build a new factory to make those new ventilators! Because that will be quicker than help from the EU!
Dyson... why buy a $10 hairdryer when you can buy one for $400 that is heavier and has bits snapping off it within weeks?
By coincidence, Dyson himself is a famous Brexit supporter (who shows his support for the UK by moving all his factories and taxes out of the UK) and funder of the Tory party, but I'm sure this is just incidental information.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-27 09:05 am (UTC)Yep. I love the sleek design of Dyson stuff, but damn is it expensive! I hope he can design a good one because BoJo et al certainly blew it. I love the line about incompetent or lying, followed by why not both. Certainly describes our administration to a T.
deAdder had a good cartoon on the border thing
Date: 2020-03-29 05:19 pm (UTC)Apparently some Mexicans make their way here and then south, which is probably the *real* reason Trump's exercised. Of course, I'd bet some significant minority of Americans still believe the 9/11 folks came to the US via Canada too.
But I haven't wanted to visit the US very much since 9/11 and especially not since Obama's second term, never mind Trump's election, so I'm less "no problem" and more "why the heck do you think I'd WANT to go there?" anyway.
Re: deAdder had a good cartoon on the border thing
Date: 2020-03-29 05:22 pm (UTC)That's a brilliant cartoon! Wait about 2 weeks, and the U.S. Military will be on their knees. They're still doing close-order formation, body drag and carry drills, not wiping down equipment after gym, etc.
Re: deAdder had a good cartoon on the border thing
Date: 2020-03-29 05:49 pm (UTC)