Covid 19 conversation

Norway:
30 minutes ago, the first death. confirmed 734 infected.
1 hour 50 minutes ago: Large number of services etc. close for atleast the next 2 weeks: Churches, schools, kindergardens, cinemas, hair saloons, pretty much all sport events etc. etc.
Gatherings of 100 people or more inside is not allowed.

This belongs in Off Topic as this does not related to zero-k.

done

I'm in America. From home to the workplace to Washington DC there's a mix between hyperconcern and absolute apathy about the whole situation. As cases start to pop up in the general neiborhood of my metropolitan area, I'm becoming concerned, but not enough to change my routines. All the colleges in my area are open, but all classes are cancelled and being replaced with something online. We are urged to cancel any unnecessary visits to anywhere, but on a volentary basis ie. Public transit is running normally but with slightly less commuters. A lot of day time/night time talk shows are filming without the standard live studio audience. Face masks have been sold out in all major stores for about 2 months, with a special concentration of Chinese people buying them, but now the general population is buying out all the hand sanitizer, which has been scarce to find for just about 2 weeks.

My personal opinions on the situation is that it's overblown. I hear the death rate is low, those most at risk are not a young guy like me, even though it's coming closer to my doorstep I expect to miss it.

quote: Long incubation, infectious without symptoms, and a very rapid spread

Are there -any- numbers at all on how infectious it is on people not showing symptoms?
All I can find is rumors and statements that the transmission rate in such cases is -insignificant-(N of people an average person not showing any symptoms is capable of infecting) compared to the greater picture of carriers who actively display the symptoms.

As we all know mainly coughing, sneezing and direct contact via shared items(after touching your mouth, eyes, etc which are boiling with wet viral particles due to all the coughing and sneezing) are the main factors contributing to transmission of any air-born virus.
With no coughing and sneezing it will be MUCH harder for virus to spread and the viral load itself present on the surfaces/air person breaths out may be not enough to cause the disease in the first place.

How infectious the agent itself is when presented on a dry surface?
How long can it survive in such environment while staying contagious?

No facts, but fear, misinformation and proofless speculations.

TL;DR; Dry air-born viruses are useless in 99.99% cases and cannot survive out in the open for long without water/host, is covid 19 any special in this regard?

Corvid 19 is looking like it is able to stay alive on a dry surface nearly a day and a wet (or hard) surface multiple days. Transmission rate is lower while asymptomatic, but as it turns out, lower is not 0, and it looks like cases are approximately increasing 10-fold every 2 weeks. This is a very good growth curve for a virus with this level of response.

Death rates are likely unusually high in China, where a significant portion of the population was especially unprepared, but rest of the world isn't looking great, will probably total well over a million deaths.

In the US, I have a lot of people who want to be cautious, but the disease is going to go on for months, probably. How are people supposed to live their entire lives trying to avoid a 1% death change. This means there are a lot of nervous people who want easy answers, but a lot of defeatism too. Its a bit of a mess, but nothing near total chaos. Many schools closing down, many public spaces or events delayed.

Italy is 90% closed and every citizen is forced to stay at home. If you drive your car around you may be stopped by police and you have to justify what you are doing with a pre-compiled sheet. Roads are like wastelands and it is quite impressive.

We will be forced to stay at home for at least 2 weeks.

I would like to specify that Italy has made tons of covid tests , that's the reason why we had so many official cases compared to other EU nations

Our Health system is very good but is not capable to sustain this spread rate. We are buyin new ventilator machines to keep in life as much people as possible.

I fear that this covid issue will have , in the next months , a tremendous impact on Italian economy which was already in a bad spot.

The general feeling here is that this situation will spread over whole Europe and every country will be more or less like Italy in a few days

Anyway , as obvious as it may seem , the only certain way to stop the virus is to shut down everything and stay at home.

Ah , btw I love how Sadiq Khan is completely understimating the issue

We exactly started like that

Italy is close to the best possible case: one of the world's best health care systems, and authorities that reacted quickly and efficiently (to the surprise of many Italians apparently). France, Spain and Germany are probably going to follow the same model. They could start reacting proportionally earlier thanks to limited early cases compared to Italy, which helps, on the other hand it remains to be seen if our respective govts will do as good a job as the Italians.

Looking at the Italian case, they are fighting tooth and nail not so much to stop the epidemic (trying to limit the total population exposure is a bonus goal at that point) but to slow it down enough for the health care system to manage the bad cases. That's also why they started calling back retired medical personnel, graduate trainees early and mobilize the army's medical resources. So far it looks like they're going to avoid having to choose who to hospitalize.

Now that's basically the best-case scenario. Places with a less good healthcare system, authorities who screw up, or plain bad luck (or both) will be overwhelmed and won't be able to hospitalize all the bad cases. In this case, young, healthy people will most probably be given priority as they have a higher survival rate and can be discharged faster. In this case, it's not 2% death rate (a few tens of times the flu) but 20% death rate (low end of the Spanish Flu).

Also getting it early while hospitals are still empty won't work, there are apparently cases of reinfection, potentially even more dangerous.

That said, panicking is probably the worst thing we can do. Society is not going to break down - it did not even with the insanity of both the Spanish Flu and WWI at the same time - and basic measures are actually pretty helpful. The virus has a lipid shell that makes it especially vulnerable to soap, so wash your hands and all that, because it does help.

Also pandemic bonds - that kind of thing that would have been hilarious if people weren't dying.

Germany here,



(well currently in UK to visit fam and get products not available in germany)

as ThornEel already said we are following what Italy is doing.



We don't have that many infected yet and the death toll is low so far but i see that people are getting scared...

The current plan is to keep functioning as long as we can and try to have stricter health and hygiene regulations, almost all company's have banned their workers to shake hands and told them to wash their hands more often.



The current strategy here is to not decrease the number of people infected as a whole but rather maximize the time of infection

for example: rather have 100 sick in a week than have 1000 sick at a time. So healthcare can care for the sick... basically not lowering the infected count but stretching the infected count out.



Furthermore we try to shield the vulnerable (Sick and Elderly) from it because they have the highest potential to actually die from it.



Currently the panick is lowish some stores have run out of stock of antibac soap, toilet paper, rice and noodles but overall we still havent had Bulk buying much.



Also authorities are allowed to take surgical masks and antibacterial stuff from hoarders and company's to first of all have it always in stock at hospitals and secondly showing the public that selfish hoarding will not be tolerated.



sorry for bad grammar.