March 11, 2020

"To lessen the risk to our community as much as possible, UW-Madison will suspend Spring Semester face-to-face instruction effective Monday, March 23..."

"... the date that classes would typically resume after next week’s Spring Break. Alternate delivery of classes will begin on March 23 and continue at least through Friday, April 10.... Residents [of dorms] are being asked to take essential belongings, academic materials, laptops and medications with them for Spring Break and not return to residence halls following Spring Break through at least April 10. We hope that students will return to their permanent residence and complete their coursework remotely.... We recognize that some students may be unable to return to their permanent residence for various reasons and will need to stay in their residence halls.... Residence halls will remain available to these students where necessary, but we expect the majority of dorm residents to return home, leaving the residence halls much emptier and making it easier for remaining students to maintain social distance."

The University of Wisconsin announces this morning.

305 comments:

1 – 200 of 305   Newer›   Newest»
rhhardin said...

It's like not leaving for Thanksgiving break in order to write a term paper early. Residence hall to yourself.

Achilles said...

27 deaths so far.

This is Boomer revenge for getting old.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Pennsylvania, a state with 12.5 million residents, had 11 confirmed cases as of yesterday and at least one college has cancelled the rest of the face to face classes. It's crazy- I can't wait to read about the college employees taking long vacations to take advantage of presumably reduced travel and hotel prices.

Michael K said...

Interesting long discussion of why social distancing is crucial.

Mark said...

Impossible to quarantine students in a dorm as bathrooms are communal as is food service.

The cost of dorm quarantine makes buying every classroom av equipment cheap.

Bay Area Guy said...

It'd be better if they simply just cancelled college..........

Not Sure said...

Blank had a better option, which is to cancel spring break and shorten the semester by a week. Instead, she's sending students away from a pretty safe location out among the general public around the country, only to--maybe--bring them back on April 10.

WTF?

robother said...

Now, everyone will have a degree from a correspondence institution, so no shame for Saul Goodmans of the bar. Truly, its all good, man.

tim maguire said...

I'm Full of Soup said...
Pennsylvania, a state with 12.5 million residents, had 11 confirmed cases as of yesterday and at least one college has cancelled the rest of the face to face classes. It's crazy-


Of course you do it when it's crazy. When it's not crazy anymore, it's too late.

Someone this morning had the perfect metaphor--suppose you have a pond with a single lily in it and that lily replicates itself once a day--so after 2 days, you have 2 lilies. After 3 days you have 4 lilies. Suppose further that it takes 48 days for the lilies to cover the surface of the pond.

Q: How many days does it take the lily to cover half the pond?

A: 47 days.

You probably won't even notice the lilies until day 40.

Achilles said...

Bay Area Guy said...
It'd be better if they simply just cancelled college..........

If they continue this online only bullshit colleges are finished.

Coursera is better at online teaching and costs 50-100$ a course.

Nobody is going to pay thousands of dollars for online education.

And it is fucking stupid.

Bay Area Guy said...

"If they continue this online only bullshit colleges are finished."

Hey, I liked my bullshit college! The girls were pretty......

Achilles said...

Bay Area Guy said...
"If they continue this online only bullshit colleges are finished."

Hey, I liked my bullshit college! The girls were pretty......

That's my point.

Why go to school if you don't get to actually meet girls/boys.

Pornhub is better at online college than colleges are.

tim maguire said...

Achilles said...Nobody is going to pay thousands of dollars for online education.

In pretty much all non-STEM fields, you don't pay for the education, you pay for the diploma.

Inga said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Achilles said...

tim maguire said...

Q: How many days does it take the lily to cover half the pond?

A: 47 days.



It never happens this way.

Math and cool pictures are really cool on a chalkboard.

If I could bet money here I would take any bet anyone is dumb enough to take that the flu kills more people this year than Corona Virus.

And nobody here, not even the flakiest freakers, would take that bet.

Is it because COVID-19 is an acronoym?

Is it NEW? Is a NEW way to die is scarier than the OLD way to die?

Are any of you freakers going to stop driving? Start exercising? Lose weight?

It has been weeks since this started. A month? It has been 6 or so months since China started throwing people in jail to cover it up. We should be in the hundreds of deaths if not thousands of deaths by now if this was growing "exponentially."

But who is dying? Old people with damaged lungs.

We all know why 27 deaths from COVID-19 is causing a national panic and Swine Flu did not.

Inga said...

Good call. My granddaughter’s school, U of MN has given their students notice to be prepared for online classes. She was slated to go to France for an internship, that’s been cancelled. She’s flying home from Florida tomorrow, I told her to slather her hands with hand sanitizer, wipe down the armrests, etc. and don’t touch her face. I wish she wouldn’t have decided to go to Florida to visit her friend in the first place.

Eleanor said...

I think the biggest risk is the students will discover they prefer online learning, and they won't come back. We've been waiting for a seachange in the way we provide higher education, and this might just be the catalyst.

Gusty Winds said...

Seems ridiculous. Is this really for the protection of students who are not high risk, or is this more over reactive political panic.

They won't be missing out on much anyway...

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Michael K said...
Interesting long discussion of why social distancing is crucial.


This was a really good article. Thank you for posting. Everyone should consider reading this.

roesch/voltaire said...

Not Sure yes that Is a reasonable argument proposed by several people I know at the hospital but I don't think it can happen because of the timing. At any rate my wife, who cancelled all travel to conferences which have been cancelled, is preparing for Zoom teaching.

Wince said...

The college business model has never been about educating students in the first place.

Did they say anything about refunds for room and board?

Roost on the Moon said...

Achilles,

This pandemic, which has shut down half of Italy and killed thousands in its early stages, could be a wonderful opportunity for you.

If it turns out you were wrong, think hard about why, and why you felt compelled to do this uninformed blustering in public. What mental edge do you have on the people who aren't doing it? It probably feels like common sense. I hear stupidity often feels like common sense.

Unfounded overconfidence is mediocrity. Make your mind great again.

J. Farmer said...

@Achilles:

We all know why 27 deaths from COVID-19 is causing a national panic and Swine Flu did not.

Death is not the only cause for concern. A huge spike in people needing critical care services can very quickly overwhelm a region's healthcare system. Not only that, but it puts healthcare workers and other patients in the hospital at risk. If 100,000 people ended up needing ICU beds, that would be more than all the ICU beds in the entire country. And usually at any given time, only about 1/3 of total ICU beds are available. So even 30,000 people needing ICU beds would be a massive strain on the health system.

Waiting until it becomes a giant problem to start taking mitigation steps is ludicrous. Proactive measures are far preferable to reactive ones.

Achilles said...

J. Farmer said...

Death is not the only cause for concern. A huge spike in people needing critical care services can very quickly overwhelm a region's healthcare system. Not only that, but it puts healthcare workers and other patients in the hospital at risk. If 100,000 people ended up needing ICU beds, that would be more than all the ICU beds in the entire country. And usually at any given time, only about 1/3 of total ICU beds are available. So even 30,000 people needing ICU beds would be a massive strain on the health system.

My wife is a home health nurse.

I hear a lot of stuff about that buffer between ICU bed and home.

They are all going to work. They all think this is a crock of shit. Most of her patients think this is bullshit. She is not visiting healthy people.

The people getting very sick from this are smokers and people that live in heavily polluted areas.

Thousands of people have died from the flu this year. Thousands of people have died of heart disease. Thousands have died in car wrecks. Death rates for previously healthy people from COVID-19 are right in line with the flu.

If the media sat there and read the names of everyone who dies of flu every day would you people go cry in your beds all day? That is around or over 100 people a day in the US depending on the year.

The movie Surrogates covers this situation pretty well.

This is nuts.

Michael K said...

If 100,000 people ended up needing ICU beds, that would be more than all the ICU beds in the entire country.

The fundamental fallacy here is that a treatment exists and will be proven, most likely in the next two months, to be as effective as the first case report. Remdesivir cured the critical patient in 24 hours. His O2 sat returned to normal on room air and his chest xray returned to normal in 24 hours.

FullMoon said...

Some colleges in California closed because of smoke from the Paradise fire hundreds of miles away. Public schools stayed open. A matter of money, no doubt.
This time around, public schools are beginning to close.

Peripheral just called to say her medical facility is pre-screening patients outside now.
Hospital in Santa Cruz has been doing that for a couple of weeks.

Another peripheral called, a father of one of the kindergartners is positive. School still open, for now. Without directly asking, I could tell she was asking for validation to keep her child home until it passes. School says any child not attending will not be marked tardy. She seemed concerned about being labeled as over-reacting. Told her, not overly concerned myself but if it was me, I would definitely keep the kid home.

Third young peripheral teaching at private school says they may close as attendance is way down. Most parents there can work from home or can afford to miss work for weeks if need be.

J. Farmer said...

@Michael K:

The fundamental fallacy here is that a treatment exists and will be proven, most likely in the next two months, to be as effective as the first case report. Remdesivir cured the critical patient in 24 hours. His O2 sat returned to normal on room air and his chest xray returned to normal in 24 hours.

I was just reading about the clinical trial at UNMC in Omaha. It is certainly a promising option. But of course, two months is quite a long time given the rate of new infections. I read your link earlier that you described as "interesting." I'm curious what your take on the argument presented is?

J. Farmer said...

@Achilles:

They are all going to work. They all think this is a crock of shit. Most of her patients think this is bullshit. She is not visiting healthy people.

So long as we're playing the my-relative-works-in-healthcare game, my mother has been an ER physician for over 30 years. She works at a Level 1 trauma center. Neither she nor any of her colleagues think this is "bullshit."

Thousands of people have died from the flu this year. Thousands of people have died of heart disease. Thousands have died in car wrecks.

So please explain to me the last time the flu, heart disease, or car wrecks overwhelmed a region's healthcare capacity.

Death rates for previously healthy people from COVID-19 are right in line with the flu.


When do you recall the last time the flu maxed out Lombardy's healthcare system?

carrie said...

I assume that students will still go to Padre Island, etc. for spring break, so making them wait at least 14 days after that before going back to campus seems reasonable to me. You can’t trust students to be careful on spring break especially when young people supposedly get mild illnesses.

Mark said...

"Drudge" has up that 70 percent of Germany is going to be infected.

Makes Trump sound a hell of a lot better, doesn't it?

Inga said...

“Makes Trump sound a hell of a lot better, doesn't it?”

Makes Trump sound as ignorant as Achilles.

brylun said...

worldometers.info/coronavirus has now broken down the numbers by country for the major outbreak countries. When you click on USA and look at the graph, it looks like the cases in the USA are going up exponentially.

traditionalguy said...

Have they forbidden French kissing yet?

brylun said...

I listened to Rush a while ago, and some caller was making the point that the only way to damp down the fear is to dramatically increase the number of people tested. I vote for this strategy.

brylun said...

"Have they forbidden French kissing yet?"

New Zealand BANS a traditional Maori nose-rubbing greeting and handshakes at citizenship ceremonies amid fears of spreading coronavirus

Anonymous said...

WHy listen to the WHO? We have anonymous blowhard Achilles here to educate us. He's the resident expert in literally everything, if you go by what he says.

As his wife is so sure this is fake, I think she should send a formal email to her employer stating that. Nothing to worry about, right?

brylun said...

Chest CTs of coronavirus patients reveal nature and extent of damage

Dave Begley said...

Prediction: No fans at the NCAA basketball tournaments. This is a runaway train of fear. Thank you Dems and Fake News.

Mark said...

From NBC News:

Young people capitalize on cheap coronavirus flights: 'If I die, I die'
If coronavirus gets really dangerous, "I might as well be somewhere having fun," one California college student said.


https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/young-people-capitalize-cheap-coronavirus-flights-if-i-die-i-n1154326

brylun said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dave Begley said...

DOCTOR Michael K wrote, " Remdesivir cured the critical patient in 24 hours. His O2 sat returned to normal on room air and his chest xray returned to normal in 24 hours."

brylun said...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel warns coronavirus could infect two-thirds of Germany

Chest Rockwell said...

Michigan just declared a state of emergency, preemptively as of this morning there's only 2 cases. My company just gave out work from home indefinitely. Michigan State is online until the end of April. University of Michigan can't be far behind.

Gusty Winds said...

I wonder if we will ever find out if the Chinese purposely released the virus, or if it was incompetence. I'm not buying the "it came from bats" story. I think Tom Cotton was right to ask.

And let's just get real conspiratorial for a moment:

You're losing a trade war to a game changer who sees India as a key to decouple economic dependence on China. The gravy train is running dry. Protests in Hong Kong need to be stopped - and you always have a few million extra people to spare...and there's a fish market right down the road from the lab.

Everything today is seen through a political lens.

It's like the fictional Donald Sutherland character in JFK. "Who benefits most"?

Bay Area Guy said...

Was in downtown San Francisco for a haircut and lunch. It was sunny and beautiful, but quite empty.

J. Farmer said...

@Dave Begley:

Prediction: No fans at the NCAA basketball tournaments. This is a runaway train of fear. Thank you Dems and Fake News.

How do "Dems and Fake News" explain what's going on in South Korea or Japan or Italy? Is there some reason you believe that a mass outbreak simply cannot happen here?

Gusty Winds said...

"If coronavirus gets really dangerous, "I might as well be somewhere having fun," one California college student said."

"I don't know whats gonna happen man, but i wanna have my kicks before the whole shit house goes up in flames..." - Jim Morrison

Inga said...

“As his wife is so sure this is fake, I think she should send a formal email to her employer stating that. Nothing to worry about, right?”

I doubt Achilles’ wife actually said it was bullshit, or she’s afraid of disagreeing with him. If she actually thinks it’s bullshit and goes into people’s homes, then she is unprofessional and dangerous and should not be going into the homes of people with chronic illness. With that attitude her nursing license and job may be at risk.

Bay Area Guy said...

Of course, I was by the water, by the Ferry Building, not in the Tenderloin or Civic Center, jeez.

Achilles said...

J. Farmer said...


When do you recall the last time the flu maxed out Lombardy's healthcare system?

You do realize 5 times more people have died in the US from flu than have died in the entire world from Corona Virus since December right?

About 30000 people have died from flu this flu season according to estimates.

We are still below 5000 deaths world wide. At least 2 orders of magnitude more have died from the flu.

You also realize we are all going to catch COVID-19 at some point right? By the looks of it a lot of us already had it.

It is in the population. It isn't going anywhere. At best this is just dragging it out.

Speaking of Italy they had 240 people die from the flu in 1 week last year.

68,000 people died in the three 2013/14 - 2016/17 flu seasons. That is over 20000 people per year in each ~4 month period.

That is around 5000 people a month in Italy dying of flu during flu season.

Your all's sense of perspective is fucked.

J. Farmer said...

@Gushy Winds:

It's like the fictional Donald Sutherland character in JFK. "Who benefits most"?

What exactly is the long-term argument that this benefits China the most? If anything, it has revealed the absurdity of supply-chain dependence on Chinese manufacturing.

Achilles said...

J. Farmer said...
@Dave Begley:

Prediction: No fans at the NCAA basketball tournaments. This is a runaway train of fear. Thank you Dems and Fake News.

How do "Dems and Fake News" explain what's going on in South Korea or Japan or Italy? Is there some reason you believe that a mass outbreak simply cannot happen here?

It has already happened here.

People die every year to all sorts of things.

People die. Swine flu killed thousands of people. But you are freaking out this time.

Why is it different now?

J. Farmer said...

@Achilles:

You do realize 5 times more people have died in the US from flu than have died in the entire world from Corona Virus since December right?

Oh for fuck's sake, how many times do I have to say mortality is not the only concern. You wrote a lot of words there, but none of them actually answered my question, so I'll repeat it: When do you recall the last time the flu maxed out Lombardy's healthcare system?

Temujin said...

I'm about ready to cancel all of my business trips, stay home, order pizza, and watch Game of Thrones (minus the last season) all over again. Then Breaking Bad. Then The Leftovers (seems appropriate).

My only question is who's going to be around to make the pizzas?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Nobody is anywhere but Costco.

J. Farmer said...

Why is it different now?

Ask the Chinese, ask the South Koreans, ask the Japanese, ask the Italians. I am sure at least someone of authority in any of those countries must be married to a nurse.

Achilles said...

Inga said...
“As his wife is so sure this is fake, I think she should send a formal email to her employer stating that. Nothing to worry about, right?”

I doubt Achilles’ wife actually said it was bullshit, or she’s afraid of disagreeing with him. If she actually thinks it’s bullshit and goes into people’s homes, then she is unprofessional and dangerous and should not be going into the homes of people with chronic illness. With that attitude her nursing license and job may be at risk.


Bleat louder sheep.

The numbers just aren't there. If seasonal death rates hold true more people died of flu in China than died of COVID-19.

And it is already fading out there. 3158 people died in China. Numbers of deaths and new cases are almost finished.

Orders of magnitude more people died from the flu in China. Several orders of magnitude more.

Only a Biden supporter would have trouble figuring this one out.

Achilles said...

J. Farmer said...

Oh for fuck's sake, how many times do I have to say mortality is not the only concern. You wrote a lot of words there, but none of them actually answered my question, so I'll repeat it: When do you recall the last time the flu maxed out Lombardy's healthcare system?


When was the last time the media drove a bunch of bleating sheep into a panic?

J. Farmer said...

@Temujin:

My only question is who's going to be around to make the pizzas?

Pizza companies should resort to delivery only, only accept credit card payments, and leave the pizza at the door.

J. Farmer said...

@Achilles:

When was the last time the media drove a bunch of bleating sheep into a panic?

So you don't have an answer, I take it. Or is your claim that Lombardy was putting perfectly healthy but paniced people in ICU beds and on ventilators?

Temujin said...

That'll work. And, it makes sense. The first one to advertise this will be doing some business.

Then we'll see Ring videos of people following the pizza delivery guys and swiping pizzas off of porches.

Anonymous said...

"By the looks of it a lot of us already had it."

Then it is incredibly more virulent than anyone is giving it credit for.

That's the thing - your whole assumption is that the flu and Covid-19 have been active since the same starting date, when the scientific community does not. Thus all your statistic-comparison rabbit hole is based on unproven assumptions that few in the field would agree with.

If you compare them with the differing starting dates as the known facts clearly show, then your flu comparison is not valid.

It's all politics to you, so much so that you're happy to believe the WHO is in with Pelosi and Chuckles on a conspiracy of millions globally.

Based on history, you'll be shown to be a liar and still adopt the same know it all blowhard personality we know so well here. What a joke.

rhhardin said...

A mortality rate of 1% means an immortality rate of 99%, which is a good deal.

brylun said...

Achilles,

Do you have any idea how strictly China has enforced their quarantine? Same with S. Korea. And these countries (if you can believe the ChiComms) have done extensive Covid-19 testing and contact tracing.

In our country, we are unable to order people around like the ChiComms.

I'm with Farmer on this one, Lombardy's health care system is overwhelmed. If things progress the same way here, ours will be too.

To my knowledge, Remdesivir has cured only one patient. Hardly enough to even make Gilead's stock rise. Apparently, Washington State is trying Remdesivir now and we will have more information soon.




Ken B said...

We have excellent public health systems. They give us advice. We should take their advice.
The advice they are giving is, social distancing. They are not suggesting panic, or shunning, or wearing space suits. But most social distancing can be done for a short period. There are issues and costs, but a lot of what is recommended is easy. It’s easy to not go to a basketball game, or political rally. It’s not scare mongering to understand that recommended precautions are in order.

Gusty Winds said...

J. Farmer - Of course the Chinese would never benefit from a huge speed bump in a raging US Economy.

You seem to have some knowledge. Did it come from bats? The Wuhan lab accidentally?

And domestically, you really gonna say there aren't political entities jockeying for an advantage here? We have media and celebs PRAYING for and economic crash.

brylun said...

"We have excellent public health systems. They give us advice. We should take their advice."

I agree completely. Here is the CDC advice:

Early information out of China, where COVID-19 first started, shows that some people are at higher risk of getting very sick from this illness. This includes:

Older adults
People who have serious chronic medical conditions like:
Heart disease
Diabetes
Lung disease

If a COVID-19 outbreak happens in your community, it could last for a long time. (An outbreak is when a large number of people suddenly get sick.) Depending on how severe the outbreak is, public health officials may recommend community actions to reduce people’s risk of being exposed to COVID-19. These actions can slow the spread and reduce the impact of disease.

If you are at higher risk for serious illness from COVID-19 because of your age or because you have a serious long-term health problem, it is extra important for you to take actions to reduce your risk of getting sick with the disease.

Anonymous said...

"And domestically, you really gonna say there aren't political entities jockeying for an advantage here?"

It's clear that Achilles and Yancey and others here are using it to make their political points.

Achilles said...

J. Farmer said...
@Achilles:

When was the last time the media drove a bunch of bleating sheep into a panic?

So you don't have an answer, I take it. Or is your claim that Lombardy was putting perfectly healthy but paniced people in ICU beds and on ventilators?

People get sick from the flu every year.

Millions of them.

Thousands of them die every year, many without going to a hospital bed. Why is the flu different?

Orders of magnitude more people are dying right now from the flu even in China and Italy. In South Korea.

Right now more people are dying from flu. More people will die from the flu this year. Orders of magnitude more people will die from the flu this year.

You tell me what is different.

n.n said...

Anti-globalists... communitists,

Gusty Winds said...

Does anybody know where I can get one of those Leslie Nielsen full size body condoms from Naked Gun?

Achilles said...

Mark said...
"And domestically, you really gonna say there aren't political entities jockeying for an advantage here?"

It's clear that Achilles and Yancey and others here are using it to make their political points.


You obviously don't care about the thousands of people that have died from the flu.

You are a piece of shit and are just minimizing the problem of the flu to score political points.

Mr. Forward said...

The Flu doesn’t have a publicist?

Jim at said...

It's all politics to you

A leftist actually wrote that.
How precious.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Our office is down the road from Villanova University and across the street is a house rented by students. They had a party on Tuesday afternoon and about 100 of them congregated in a yard that is maybe 120' x 40' which suggests they are not concerned at all about the Wuhan Flu. On Wednesday morning all that was left was a big picnic table, a tent and about 200 red Solo cups scattered around. One of these days I may crash their party since I went to VU for my freshman year fifty years ago.

rhhardin said...

Sheep don't panic. They stay with the herd.

Three sheep equals one sheep, if you want to drive the sheep somewhere.

Jim at said...

In our country, we are unable to order people around like the ChiComms.

Really? Tell that to Jay Inslee.

Inga said...

“And it is already fading out there. 3158 people died in China. Numbers of deaths and new cases are almost finished.

Orders of magnitude more people died from the flu in China. Several orders of magnitude more.”

The Chinese didn’t enact mandatory quarantine for the seasonal flu. They did for Covid19. Try to put two and two together. You can’t imagine what the death rate would’ve been had they not had strict quarantine policies? Maybe you can’t, your Trump hat might be too tight.

We don’t know how long Covid19 will be in circulation. We don’t know if it will dissipate with warm weather. If it does, we don’t know if it will come back in force in fall. But YOU know it all, eh?

J. Farmer said...

Does anybody know where I can get one of those Leslie Nielsen full size body condoms from Naked Gun?

Giant Condom

Bay Area Guy said...

People, people, no need to argue. Nobody wants to get the new version of coronavirus (it's Number 33).

Here's the list of prior coronaviruses, they seem to be fairly ubiquitous. Is it fair to ask what diseases the 43 other coronaviruses have been causing in man, bats, pigs, birds and Beluga Whales since the 1960s?

1. Orthocoronavirinae
2. Alphacoronavirus
3. Bat coronavirus CDPHE15
4. Bat coronavirus HKU10
5. Human coronavirus 229E
6. Lucheng Rn rat coronavirus
7. Ferret coronavirus
8. Mink coronavirus 1
9. Miniopterus bat coronavirus 1
10. Miniopterus bat coronavirus HKU8
11. Myotis ricketti alphacoronavirus Sax-2011
12. Nyctalus velutinus alphacoronavirus SC-2013
13. Scotophilus bat coronavirus 512
14. Rhinolophus bat coronavirus HKU2
15. Human coronavirus NL63
16. NL63-related bat coronavirus strain BtKYNL63-9b
17. Alphacoronavirus 1 – type species
18. Betacoronavirus
19. Betacoronavirus 1
20. Human coronavirus OC43
21. China Rattus coronavirus HKU24
22. Human coronavirus HKU1
23. Murine coronavirus – type species
24. Bat Hp-betacoronavirus Zhejiang2013
25.Hedgehog coronavirus 1
26. Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV)
27. Pipistrellus bat coronavirus HKU5
28. Tylonycteris bat coronavirus HKU4
29. Rousettus bat coronavirus GCCDC1
30. Rousettus bat coronavirus HKU9
31. Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus
32. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)
33. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, Wuhan 2020 nCOV)
34. Deltacoronavirus
35. Wigeon coronavirus HKU20
36. Bulbul coronavirus HKU11 – type species
37. Porcine coronavirus HKU15
38. Munia coronavirus HKU13
39. White-eye coronavirus HKU16
40. Night heron coronavirus HKU19
41. Common moorhen coronavirus HKU21
42. Gammacoronavirus
43. Beluga whale coronavirus SW1
44. Avian coronavirus – type species

brylun said...

Coronavirus is 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu, Trump's task force immunologist says

That's Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. I think we would all be well-advised to heed his warnings.

FullMoon said...

Inga:
We don’t know how long Covid19 will be in circulation. We don’t know if it will dissipate with warm weather. If it does, we don’t know if it will come back in force in fall. But YOU know it all, eh?


"Nobody knows what Mueller knows"

(not fair,too easy?)

J. Farmer said...

@Achilles:

You tell me what is different.

Are you thick? I have said over and over that the mortality rate is not the only concern here. Maybe if I ask you a third time, you might actually take a second to consider an answer instead of merely repeating yourself. The flu has never overwhelmed Lombardy's health system, but this virus has. And within three weeks of the first patient being identified.

Explain this disparity.

Achilles said...

Inga said...
“And it is already fading out there. 3158 people died in China. Numbers of deaths and new cases are almost finished.

Orders of magnitude more people died from the flu in China. Several orders of magnitude more.”

The Chinese didn’t enact mandatory quarantine for the seasonal flu. They did for Covid19. Try to put two and two together. You can’t imagine what the death rate would’ve been had they not had strict quarantine policies? Maybe you can’t, your Trump hat might be too tight.

We don’t know how long Covid19 will be in circulation. We don’t know if it will dissipate with warm weather. If it does, we don’t know if it will come back in force in fall. But YOU know it all, eh?


We do know. It will be around forever. It is in the population. And it looks like the flu will kill orders of magnitude more people every year.

But sheep will bleat and sheep will baaaah and democrats will circle like jackals and try to use it for political gain.

Ken B said...

Achilles to Farmer:
“ Right now more people are dying from flu. More people will die from the flu this year. Orders of magnitude more people will die from the flu this year.

You tell me what is different.”

1 we don’t know your claim about flu deaths is true. It is probably false actually, but even if it turns out to be true it will be only because we have taken measures against covid.

2 one thing that is different is that covid could explode very quickly in a region and overload the health care system. That does not happen with the flu. That is a real threat.

3 aside from 2, covid seems to be at least 10 times deadlier than the common flu. It makes sense to worry more about a more deadly disease. SARS was worse, and we worried about it.

Nonapod said...

So far the confirmed case count for the USA has only gone up by about 50 today (it was 1,062 this morning and now it's at 1,110). I assumed it would be climbing at a much faster rate by now since the test kits are becoming more widely available. We'll see if this trend continues.

Achilles said...

J. Farmer said...
@Achilles:

You tell me what is different.

Are you thick?

I gave you the numbers.

I gave you the context.

There are more people in Lombardy sick with the flu right now than COVID-19. The chances are extremely high more people have already died from the flu in Italy this year that will die from COVID-19.

Italy also has some problems with immigration and a high smoking rate.

I am not the one who is thick.

rhhardin said...

Somebody said it's actually just kennel cough.

Inga said...

“We do know. It will be around forever. It is in the population. And it looks like the flu will kill orders of magnitude more people every year.”

No dummy you don’t know this. Is a NEW virus, never seen before. Also the Spanish Flu that killed 50 million world wide in the 15 months it was in circulation, is no longer “in the population”.

Mr. Forward said...

Avoided Coronavirus but probably should have taken the mask off before I went to the bank.

rcocean said...

Surprising. This will very unpopular with students, who love nothing more than going to class.

Chuck said...

Good thing PDJT has this under control. I remember just a week ago he was talking about how we had 15 cases that would soon be zero.

He’s doing a beautiful job with some very beautiful people and we will very soon have a beautiful vaccine. Not like those vaccines that cause autism.

Mark said...

You are a piece of shit and are just minimizing the problem of the flu to score political points.

He's also causing confusion about who is really commenting.

And he doesn't know what the word "virulent" means.

n.n said...

With the development of communication systems, there is no need for social distancing. What they need is physical separation to mitigate symptomatic sharing and progress.

mockturtle said...

This whole routine is good practice for what may lie ahead. At some point, not if but when, we shall be exposed to a bio-weapon geared to wipe out huge swaths of our population. So we may as well use this as an exercise in preparedness. [It is still my contention that this virus was the result of experimentation and was unintentionally released. But China's not talking and those individual scientists who have tried are being shut down].

Ken B said...

Achilles:” There are more people in Lombardy sick with the flu right now than COVID“

This is what proves you are thick. The flu did not overwhelm the Lombardy healthcare system. Covid did. There might be more people with diabetes in Lombardy too, or more with poor vision or vitamin D deficiency than have corvid. Those aren’t problems growing at a fast exponential rate, corvid is.

Anonymous said...

"You are a piece of shit and are just minimizing the problem of the flu to score political points."

Well, you are a piece of shit who is minimizing the problem of coronavirus to score political points.

Takes one to know one, I guess. Now will you finally shut up?

J. Farmer said...

@Acholles:

That said, scientists have studied seasonal flu for decades. So, despite the danger of it, we know a lot about flu viruses and what to expect each season. In contrast, very little is known about the new coronavirus and the disease it causes, dubbed COVID-19, because it's so new. This means COVID-19 is something of a wild card in terms of how far it will spread and how many deaths it will cause.

"Despite the morbidity and mortality with influenza, there's a certainty … of seasonal flu," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a White House press conference on Jan. 31. "I can tell you all, guaranteed, that as we get into March and April, the flu cases are going to go down. You could predict pretty accurately what the range of the mortality is and the hospitalizations [will be]," Fauci said. "The issue now with [COVID-19] is that there's a lot of unknowns."

Scientists are racing to find out more about COVID-19, and our understanding of the virus that causes it and the threat it poses may change as new information becomes available. Based on what we know so far, here's how it compares with the flu.


-How does the new coronavirus compare with the flu?

Achilles said...

Ken B said...
Achilles to Farmer:
“ Right now more people are dying from flu. More people will die from the flu this year. Orders of magnitude more people will die from the flu this year.

You tell me what is different.”

1 we don’t know your claim about flu deaths is true. It is probably false actually, but even if it turns out to be true it will be only because we have taken measures against covid.

I posted links and widely accepted information.

2 one thing that is different is that covid could explode very quickly in a region and overload the health care system. That does not happen with the flu. That is a real threat.

3158 people died in Wuhan province. Many many more died of the flu in Wuhan province.

It does happen with the flu during flu season every year.

3 aside from 2, covid seems to be at least 10 times deadlier than the common flu. It makes sense to worry more about a more deadly disease. SARS was worse, and we worried about it.

We worried about SARS and Swine flu. They both also killed orders of magnitude more people before we declared pandemics and emergencies.

We didn't cancel March madness or cancel all college classes for the rest of the year.

I wonder what was different then?

Mark said...

Hey Chuck --

A simple and common cognitive test for you, since you were discussing them elsewhere.

Here are three words that I will ask you about later:

Go.

Away.

Now.

Later in the discussion, we'll see how well you remember these words.

Gusty Winds said...

Somebody always benefits from the panic.

Ask yourself. Who benefited from the parade panic at the end of "Animal House"?

DELTA TAU CHI - that's who!

Bay Area Guy said...

@brylun,

Coronavirus is 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu, Trump's task force immunologist says

That's Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. I think we would all be well-advised to heed his warnings.


Yes, Fauci does say that. He also qualifies it. From your quote:

At the same time, he did clarify that 10 times figure actually brings the new coronavirus' fatality rate lower than official estimates, which hover around 3 percent. The flu has a mortality rate of about 0.1 percent, so, when considering the likelihood that there are many asymptomatic or very mild cases that have gone undiagnosed, Fauci places the new coronavirus' lethality rate at somewhere around 1 percent.

So, think this through. Seasonal flu has a Case Fatality Rate of .1 percent. This "new" bug kills at a rate of 1%. Ok, I will accept that, as has most Americans, since the CDC reported 45 Million Flu cases, with 61,000 fatalities in the winter of 2017/2018.

So, the question is, if the country did not freak out two winters ago when the US had 45 Million flu cases and 61,000 deaths, why are they freaking out now with numbers at 1100 cases and 27 deaths?


Mark said...

That test is for you too, "Mark."

Ken B said...

Achilles at 2:53
You quoted my point about overwhelming systems. Then did not respond to it.
You asked what was different. I told you. THAT was different. You ignore it.

JohnAnnArbor said...

Michigan State out; U. of Michigan not yet.

It's interesting. I just learned about the 1957 flu in the US/world.

Wow. Almost 70,000 dead in a population of around 170 million. Yet we don't think of 1957 as the year of the flu. That was Sputnik.

Oh, and it came from Red China, too. I wonder what their public health was like under Mao. Scary.

Ken B said...

“We worried about SARS and Swine flu. They both also killed orders of magnitude more people before we declared pandemics and emergencies.”

Farmer: there is a nice slow fat one right over the plate.

Bay Area Guy said...

The Warriors will now be playing in empty multi-billion dollar arena, because SF banned groups over 1,000.

Good thing, they suck this year.

J. Farmer said...

@Bay Area Guy:

So, the question is, if the country did not freak out two winters ago when the US had 45 Million flu cases and 61,000 deaths, why are they freaking out now with numbers at 1100 cases and 27 deaths?

Fauci answers that question in the piece I quoted above.

Francisco D said...

This whole routine is good practice for what may lie ahead. At some point, not if but when, we shall be exposed to a bio-weapon geared to wipe out huge swaths of our population. So we may as well use this as an exercise in preparedness.

Yes. That is why I am very hesitant to criticize the different actions taken by different institutions to combat COVID-19. This is a learning experience for the future.

TomHynes said...

I am 66, my wife is 65. We have an 8 year old foster son who goes to elementary school every day and they all have typical 8 year old hygiene habits. We are going to die, but we have had a good run.

Achilles said...

Ken B said...
Achilles at 2:53
You quoted my point about overwhelming systems. Then did not respond to it.
You asked what was different. I told you. THAT was different. You ignore it.



We have already "overwhelmed the system." The system is overwhelmed. Colleges are closing, Schools are closing, businesses are taking days off, the economy is taking a hit, Democrats are cackling with glee.

That is my point.

And it took a tiny fraction of the people the flu kills every year to accomplish that.

Anonymous said...

J.Farmer to BAG: "So, the question is, if the country did not freak out two winters ago when the US had 45 Million flu cases and 61,000 deaths, why are they freaking out now with numbers at 1100 cases and 27 deaths?"

Fauci answers that question in the piece I quoted above.


This question has been asked and answered so many times, here and elsewhere. Even if the answers were missed, a little light googling would enlighten the curious. And yet, it seems to show up again in some form, in every thread.

It's almost as if the people asking the question aren't really interested in the answer.

J. Farmer said...

@Achilles:

We have already "overwhelmed the system." The system is overwhelmed. Colleges are closing, Schools are closing, businesses are taking days off, the economy is taking a hit, Democrats are cackling with glee.

How does your conspiracy-to-get-Trump theory explain what's happened in South Korea, Japan, Singapore, or Italy?

Francisco D said...

I think it is premature to state with any confidence what the mortality rate is for the coronavirus.

Estimating it at 3% because 3000 out of 100,000 diagnosed victims have died does not take into account the people who had the virus, were not diagnosed and did not die.

Anonymous said...

Achilles: We have already "overwhelmed the system." The system is overwhelmed. Colleges are closing, Schools are closing, businesses are taking days off, the economy is taking a hit, Democrats are cackling with glee.

I would've thought that "the system" being referred to here would be obvious from the context, but apparently not.

JohnAnnArbor said...

Now U. of Michigan out.

Achilles said...

Francisco D said...
This whole routine is good practice for what may lie ahead. At some point, not if but when, we shall be exposed to a bio-weapon geared to wipe out huge swaths of our population. So we may as well use this as an exercise in preparedness.

Yes. That is why I am very hesitant to criticize the different actions taken by different institutions to combat COVID-19. This is a learning experience for the future.


I can almost get behind this.

It is true that humans will not prepare rationally or intelligently.

But it is still really dumb when you step back and look at the full context of what is actually going on in the world.

madAsHell said...

Seattle Public Schools have shutdown for the next two weeks. It seems that reflects the number of snow days written into the union contract.

Achilles said...

J. Farmer said...

How does your conspiracy-to-get-Trump theory explain what's happened in South Korea, Japan, Singapore, or Italy?

Do you think Trump is the only target here?

Are you not paying attention to the rest of the world?

Every country in the world is throwing the globalists out one way or another. The EU is falling apart. China cannot survive 4 more years of Trump. And now they found a way to force everyone to stay home and do what they are told.

China is getting some cheap oil out of it. They got to go through millions of homes and grab thousands of people and "quarantine" them. I wonder what they are going to do at the Greek/Turkey border now.

Francisco D said...

But it is still really dumb when you step back and look at the full context of what is actually going on in the world.

Achilles,

That statement accurately applies to almost any event going on in the world and how the media reports it.

Whether different institutions took good, bad or dumb actions is something to determine over the next few months. I welcome diverse actions, even the foolish ones at this point in time. We will learn. America is the worlds best learning lab.

J. Farmer said...

@Achilles:

But it is still really dumb when you step back and look at the full context of what is actually going on in the world.

The 9/11 attack killed .001% of Americans, orders of magnitude less than many other causes of death. And yet we responded by spending trillions of dollars, sacrificing thousands of American military lives and tens of thousands of disabilities, and caused chaos in countries that got hundreds of thousands of their people killed. And if I recall correctly, you were a supporter of those actions.

J. Farmer said...

So I ask you, "How does your conspiracy-to-get-Trump theory explain what's happened in South Korea, Japan, Singapore, or Italy?" And your answer was to tell me what happened in China. Okay.

Achilles said...

Angle-Dyne, Samurai Buzzard said...
Achilles: We have already "overwhelmed the system." The system is overwhelmed. Colleges are closing, Schools are closing, businesses are taking days off, the economy is taking a hit, Democrats are cackling with glee.

I would've thought that "the system" being referred to here would be obvious from the context, but apparently not.


It is obvious from the context.

You just have to step back and look at everything that is going on and look at the actual numbers involved.

You want to find some fault with my logic and pretend I am missing some point. You know this is not the case.

Michael K said...

The article I linked is interesting because it has a lot of data and much of it is done graphically.

I think/hope Remdesivir changes the mortality numbers since my wife and I are high risk.

So far, most of the stuff I am seeing is ignoring treatment as an option. This virus is a reverse transcriptase virus like HIV and we know a hell of a lot more about antivirals than we did ten years ago. I am being optimistic.

Achilles said...

J. Farmer said...

The 9/11 attack killed .001% of Americans, orders of magnitude less than many other causes of death. And yet we responded by spending trillions of dollars, sacrificing thousands of American military lives and tens of thousands of disabilities, and caused chaos in countries that got hundreds of thousands of their people killed. And if I recall correctly, you were a supporter of those actions.

I was young and naive. I thought Bush actually cared about freedom and democracy. I thought everyone in the country cared as much as they did in 1946 and 1951. Sadly I did not learn the lesson of the Vietnam war. Our government was riddled with traitors and scum.

If we were committed to bringing freedom to as much of the world as we could that we take for granted here it was worth every life and every penny. Almost all of us in the Armed Forces would say the same. That is why we joined.

But that is a side issue. A true non-sequitur.

The fact is you all are acting irrationally in this case.

And the numbers prove it.

FullMoon said...

Either an extraordinary amount of deaths will occur, and many will say the government failed us.

Or,not so much, and many will say, extraordinary measures taken have saved us, while others will say, See, it was a total over reaction.

Naturally, MSM and Dems will spin it as bad because of Trump, no matter what happens.

BTW, why did racist Trump appoint a black guy Surgeon General?

J. Farmer said...

@Michael K:

I think/hope Remdesivir changes the mortality numbers since my wife and I are high risk.

So far, most of the stuff I am seeing is ignoring treatment as an option. This virus is a reverse transcriptase virus like HIV and we know a hell of a lot more about antivirals than we did ten years ago. I am being optimistic.


Completely agree with all of that. As I understood the study underway in Omaha, they are expecting initial results by April. If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a couple of other questions:

1) Do you think Covid-19 poses a serious risk to healthcare delivery systems?

2) Do you think starting social distancing now is a prudent step to avoid spread?

Michael K said...

As far as colleges going to online teaching, this is about a decade past due for all higher education. It may be a useful learning experience for them as college education is not an economic good anymore.

I am reading Tom Perkins book and enjoying the similarity between his life and mine. Mine, unfortunately, did not end up with his millions but there were similarities early on.

Michael K said...

Do you think Covid-19 poses a serious risk to healthcare delivery systems?

2) Do you think starting social distancing now is a prudent step to avoid spread?


1) If remdesivir fails, we are in trouble. Maybe Chloroquine is a good alternative.

2) We have started social distancing but we are old. If you are under 50 and have no comorbidities, you are probably safe. We have talked about looking into Costco deliveries. Not quite there yet but we did cancel a trip from relatives next month.

Fortunately, we are close to Tucson summer where people, let alone viruses, have trouble surviving.

Achilles said...

Francisco D said...

Achilles,

That statement accurately applies to almost any event going on in the world and how the media reports it.

Whether different institutions took good, bad or dumb actions is something to determine over the next few months. I welcome diverse actions, even the foolish ones at this point in time. We will learn. America is the worlds best learning lab.


What will life will be like when a majority of people in the US decide it is unsafe to participate in any even with more than 10 people?

Hopefully people are able to look back and realize how dumb they were.

But I think there will be many that would rather rationalize their stupidity and gullibility.

Look at this thread. On one side there are clear numbers and facts and they are being mercilessly attacked by "seems" and non-sequitur. In the future many of these people will say thousands of people would have died if we didn't take these ridiculous actions without noticing the irony.

This, Farmer, is more dangerous than immigration.

J. Farmer said...

@Achilles:

I was young and naive. I thought Bush actually cared about freedom and democracy. I thought everyone in the country cared as much as they did in 1946 and 1951. Sadly I did not learn the lesson of the Vietnam war. Our government was riddled with traitors and scum.

If we were committed to bringing freedom to as much of the world as we could that we take for granted here it was worth every life and every penny. Almost all of us in the Armed Forces would say the same. That is why we joined.


I don't agree with a lot of that, but I do appreciate the thoughtful reply. Sometimes I forget that was 20 years ago, and it was a bit imprudent of me to not consider how time has changed your perspective. So I do apologize for that.

The fact is you all are acting irrationally in this case.

And the numbers prove it.


The problem with "the numbers" is that you are comparing the numbers for a disease that has been studied and tracked for decades and the numbers for a disease that is basically brand new. The head of Trump's own task force has made that point.

brylun said...

5:28 pm Mar 11

A family of four was found hiding in the Wuhan seafood market, the place from where the coronavirus believably stemmed, for 43 days. They remain uninfected, despite using zero protection, reported local television.


If, after all of this is done, it is determined that the Wuhan virus actually escaped from the Wuhan Virus Research Laboratory where they had been conducting virus warfare experiments, instead of jumping from species in Wuhan, what should be the penalty for the ChiComms?

Gilbert Pinfold said...

@Michael K: Coronaviruses are not retroviruses with reverse transcriptase like HIV. Coronaviruses are negative-strand RNA viruses, and as such encode an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase to generate messenger RNA and RNA negative strands ready for nucleocapsid packaging. Drugs that affect RNA polymerases are potential treatments, but NOT because coronaviruses are like HIV.

J. Farmer said...

But I think there will be many that would rather rationalize their stupidity and gullibility.

Look at this thread. On one side there are clear numbers and facts and they are being mercilessly attacked by "seems" and non-sequitur.


Anthony Fauci, an extremely respected immunologist who has been the head of the NIAID since 1984 and is heading up Trump's coronavirus task force does not agree with you. Read his statements. What is he getting wrong?

brylun said...

Coronavirus patient in Spain reportedly recovers after being treated with HIV drug

brylun said...

Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag

Achilles said...

J. Farmer said...


The problem with "the numbers" is that you are comparing the numbers for a disease that has been studied and tracked for decades and the numbers for a disease that is basically brand new. The head of Trump's own task force has made that point.

There has been a new disease killing several thousand people every year or two for decades.

If this works a new disease that kills off a few thousand people in the world is going to come out every year until they get their way. They will destroy every institution and gathering that makes up the social fabric of our country and every other free country in the world.

Only rich people get to work from home by the way.

J. Farmer said...

All right, since there isn't much point to us all just saying the same things back and forth to each other, how about we pick this back up in about three weeks and see where things are at then?

Achilles said...

J. Farmer said...

Anthony Fauci, an extremely respected immunologist who has been the head of the NIAID since 1984 and is heading up Trump's coronavirus task force does not agree with you. Read his statements. What is he getting wrong?

He is getting nothing wrong. We don't know much. There are no facts about COVID-19. Only current cases and current numbers.

Every day everyone in the world thinks we are all going to die Anthony Fauci is on TV. He is the most important person in the world. He gets billions of dollars in special COVID-19 budget. He gets to say things and people will do them.

I can't see any reason why he would tell us COVID-19 is the most dangerous thing in the world right now despite the small number of cases and we should all listen to him and any other immunologist in the world telling us how bad this is.

brylun said...

Trump on tv tonight at 8pm...

Nick said...

The University of Maine System has followed suit. There are no cases in Maine yet, but hopefully we will be like South Korea Japan and Taiwan in taking action before it even shows up.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

They're simply trying to increase panic to put a Dem in the White House. They're like Bill Maher hoping for a recession, only their taking Progressive measures to do something about it. If ChiCom ends up killing a lot of people, it will prove them right. If the ChiCom bombshell turns out to be a dud, they'll take credit for stemming the tide.

Trump did too much too soon in shutting down travel from China, while simultaneously doing too little too late, and both for selfish and racist reasons.

madAsHell said...

The Germans have a word for that.......

Hamsterkauf - hoard shopping,.......but it does conjure up images of frantic hamsters digging in the wood chips at the bottom of the cage.

brylun said...

CBS News Buildings Evacuated After Coronavirus Outbreak

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"How does your conspiracy-to-get-Trump theory explain what's happened in South Korea, Japan, Singapore, or Italy?"

Progs didn't have to CAUSE the disease to TAKE ADVANTAGE of the disease for political advantage.

Achilles said...

Nick said...
The University of Maine System has followed suit. There are no cases in Maine yet, but hopefully we will be like South Korea Japan and Taiwan in taking action before it even shows up.

Then they should refund the students tuition this term.

Calypso Facto said...

Johns Hopkins comparison:
Infections
COVID-19: Approximately 121,564 cases worldwide; 1,050 cases in the U.S. as of Mar. 11, 2020.
Flu: Estimated 1 billion cases worldwide; 9.3 million to 45 million cases in the U.S. per year.

Deaths
COVID-19: Approximately 4,373 deaths reported worldwide; 29 deaths in the U.S., as of Mar. 11, 2020.
Flu: 291,000 to 646,000 deaths worldwide; 12,000 to 61,000 deaths in the U.S. per year.

Maybe Farmer's right, and this all changes in 3 weeks time, but I'm going on record with Achilles here saying it's being WAY overblown at this point. Italy's health system is overwhelmed right now because they've quarantined a large segment of their doctors and support staff. The same thing would happen with regular flu if quarantine was the solution. Are you an older person who wants to avoid crowds for awhile? Good on ya. But this complete government enforced/endorsed shutdown of society and the economy is going to do way more harm than COVID-19 mortality I suspect.

And I'm just cynical enough to think that might be a feature, not a bug, for some.

J. Farmer said...

@Achilles:

I can't see any reason why he would tell us COVID-19 is the most dangerous thing in the world right now despite the small number of cases and we should all listen to him and any other immunologist in the world telling us how bad this is.

Okay, you just confirmed that there really is no point in trying to have a discussion with you about this issue. Making an evidence-free accusation of an ulterior motive against people who disagree with you is not a response. It's a dodge.

brylun said...

https://nypost.com/2020/03/11/suny-and-cuny-cancel-in-person-classes-over-coronavirus-pandemic/

Francisco D said...

since there isn't much point to us all just saying the same things back and forth to each other, how about we pick this back up in about three weeks and see where things are at then?

Yes. Everyone is struggling in the dark here and in the real world. That is not meant as a criticism.

We will understand more in the next few weeks and certainly in the next month. It will be a learning experience.

Of course, I am hoping to survive the experience. On the cusp of 67, I am somewhat vulnerable but determined to attend community meetings that I committed to. Maybe it is foolish, but life has its risks.

J. Farmer said...

@Char Char Binks:

Progs didn't have to CAUSE the disease to TAKE ADVANTAGE of the disease for political advantage.

Don't deny that, but those are not mutually exclusive propositions. People can self-interestedly use a crisis to their advantage, and the crisis can be a real one that poses a significant threat. The fact that some group is taking a political advantage is not a reason to avoid social distancing.

brylun said...

NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade canceled, latest victim of coronavirus

Lincolntf said...

My tickets to the NCAA Tournament in Greensboro are now invalid. Anyone here ever buy tix through VividSeats? I dare not look to see if they have a no refund policy. I did not buy the promoted Ticket Insurance, because I'm dumb.

FullMoon said...

Gilbert Pinfold said...

@Michael K: Coronaviruses are not retroviruses with reverse transcriptase like HIV. Coronaviruses are negative-strand RNA viruses, and as such encode an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase to generate messenger RNA and RNA negative strands ready for nucleocapsid packaging. Drugs that affect RNA polymerases are potential treatments, but NOT because coronaviruses are like HIV.

3/11/20, 3:39 PM


One of great things about this blog is that experts in different subjects are lurking.

On the "Dr.Chu" thread, there is an actual vaccine scientist posting comments.(Machu)

brylun said...

March Madness 2020 will be played without fans because of coronavirus

Lincolntf said...

How is it being "overblown"? We all see the same numbers/comparisons, etc. ? What less do you think we should do to prevent the spread of the virus? 4,300 people have died from something that didn't exist until last year. Informed concern is the right approach, not panic or spurious minimization.

Anonymous said...

"You just have to step back and look at everything that is going on and look at the actual numbers involved.

There is nobody disputing with you who is unaware of or in denial about "the actual numbers involved". If your increasing hysteria wasn't interfering with your reading comprehension and ability to follow other commenter's points, you'd respond to their actual points instead of simply repeating yourself over and over and over.

"You want to find some fault with my logic and pretend I am missing some point. You know this is not the case."

It is the case. You are missing the point. You are being quite remarkably obtuse.

Not that there is anything wrong with the *internal* logic of your assertions, as they follow quite logically from your one big erroneous assumption. You just don't seem to grasp that people are disputing just that assumption.

J. Farmer said...

@Calpyso Facto:

Italy's health system is overwhelmed right now because they've quarantined a large segment of their doctors and support staff.

“The war has exploded and the battles are uninterrupted day and night. The cases are multiplying, we have a rate of 15-20 admissions per day all for the same reason,” he wrote on Facebook last week. “There are no more surgeons, urologists, orthopaedists — we are only doctors who suddenly become part of a single team to face this tsunami that has overwhelmed us.”

...

“Frankly, I don’t know for how long the health system can cope, I don’t even want to think about how it could end,” Massimo Galli, head of the department for infectious diseases at the Sacco Hospital in Milan, told the Financial Times. “We are holding up, but other hospitals are much worse off than us and it is a fact that we will come increasingly under pressure in the coming days.”

Giorgio Gori, Bergamo mayor, tweeted: “It seems that the increase [in the number of cases] is slowing down, but it’s only because we have no longer beds in intensive care (few are added with great effort). Patients who cannot be treated are left to die”

There are signs that the system is already near capacity. In Veneto, which has 3.6 beds per 1,000 people, 80 per cent of the region’s 450 intensive care beds were occupied as of Tuesday, with 67 of those taken by coronavirus patients.

-Coronavirus ‘tsunami’ pushes Italy’s hospitals to breaking point

Bay Area Guy said...

@Calypso Facto,

Maybe Farmer's right, and this all changes in 3 weeks time, but I'm going on record with Achilles here saying it's being WAY overblown at this point.

I'm in the same camp. It's totally overblown. The John Hopkins site you reference is very good . It notes that 67,000 people have already recovered, as anyone with brain knows will happen to the vast majority of those who get it.

@Francisco D,

Of course, I am hoping to survive the experience. On the cusp of 67, I am somewhat vulnerable but determined to attend community meetings that I committed to. Maybe it is foolish, but life has its risks.

I think we can all agree with this. My Dad is in his late 70s, and my Father-in-Law is 84. For them, the common cold and flu are very rough, and can push them close to pneumonia. So, we all take the necessary precautions with them. Yes, social isolation, no crowds, washing hands, etc, etc.

But for the young, the healthy, the active, the mobile, No, the freak-out is not warranted, in my opinion.

brylun said...

Milan Mayor Massimo Galli: "Patients who cannot be treated are left to die."

Maybe Trump can stop this from happening here... He'll be on tv tonight at 8pm.

Anonymous said...

Calypso Facto: Italy's health system is overwhelmed right now because they've quarantined a large segment of their doctors and support staff. The same thing would happen with regular flu if quarantine was the solution.

Hey Achilles, look and learn. Calypso just gave a reasonable, adult response to J.Farmer's question about the situation in Lombardy.

Don't know if he's right, but his answer is plausible, and interesting. No evasive blustering necessary.

Sheridan said...

brylun at 4:13pm - someone told me Jim Acosta was visiting CBS at that time. Coincidence?

brylun said...

I don't like Acosta either.

J. Farmer said...

@Bay Area Guy:

But for the young, the healthy, the active, the mobile, No, the freak-out is not warranted, in my opinion.

The problem with that line of reasoning is that social distancing isn't just about not getting sick. It's also about not spreading it to other people if you are infected.

Jim at said...

The problem with that line of reasoning is that social distancing isn't just about not getting sick. It's also about not spreading it to other people if you are infected.

Which is precisely what smart people do during the cold and flu season. Every. Fucking. Year.

We are in dire need of the SMOD.

FullMoon said...

More "incompetence" HT ACE

Trump Admin Gets Major Insurance Companies to Waive Copays on Coronavirus Testing

Eleanor said...

Have you checked out airfares? I can get round trip tickets from Boston to Florida for less than $75 round trip. Do they really think sending the kids home is going to put them into isolation? They'll all be headed to the beach. This isn't about protecting the kids. This is about colleges and universities doing a CYA.

MadisonMan said...

"Better than nothing is a high standard"

I think of that when I read of University responses. I understand the desire to "flatten the curve" as the epidemiologists say, but I question whether this achieves it.

Calypso Facto said...

Yeah, I read the "tsunami" article, Farmer, it says they're overwhelmed but it doesn't really say why. The "why" is a combination of "10% of Lombardy’s doctors and nurses cannot work because they tested positive for the virus and are in quarantine" and hospital beds are filling up. I still don't really understand the bed issue yet, since only an estimated 10% of COVID patients seeking medical attention require hospitalization, while an estimated 4% of a much higher number of flu patients do. Maybe it's about the normalized expectation and time distribution of flu cases, versus COVID? Or maybe it's because, without a tested treatment protocol COVID patients are staying in hospital beds longer? Not sure.

brylun said...

If Italy's hospital bed shortage doesn't convince you, then think about this:

How China Built Two Coronavirus Hospitals in Just Over a Week

There was a bed shortage there too. And in Iran, you can't get reliable news.

Italy announces all shops except pharmacies and food outlets will be CLOSED as coronavirus death toll climbs by 31% to 827 in 24 hours and intensive care units are advise to stop treating the elderly

J. Farmer said...

@Calypso Facto:

The "why" is a combination of "10% of Lombardy’s doctors and nurses cannot work because they tested positive for the virus and are in quarantine" and hospital beds are filling up.

I agree.

Maybe it's about the normalized expectation and time distribution of flu cases, versus COVID?

I think that is probably a good assertion. It was the same point Dr. Fauci made when describing the differences between Covid-19 and the flu. It doesn't seem to be a steady build up of cases but rather being hit with a big wave at once that causes a lot of problems.

YoungHegelian said...

@Eleanor,

This is about colleges and universities doing a CYA.

No, this is about universities not wanting to have all those disease vectors commonly known as students coming in and infecting the faculty, who are disproportionately in a high-risk group because of age.

J. Farmer said...

Jim T:

Which is precisely what smart people do during the cold and flu season. Every. Fucking. Year.

Except those diseases have been around for a very long time, and we have tons of research on them. This is new. And the growth rate of new infections hasn't been promising. Those places that have managed to slow the rates have done so through testing and isolating patients.

bananarepublic2020 said...

trump on tv tonight. Presumably to tell us there are only 15 cases and that number will soon be zero. Or perhaps to tell us that it is good that there are lots of infected people out there who aren't getting very sick because that brings down the mortality rate. Or to call the governor of Washington a snake.

What a fucking moron. In case you disagree, spend an hour listening to his press conference at the CDC last week. Just when you think he can't say anything stupider, he rises to the occasion five minutes later.

Bay Area Guy said...

I spent 3 weeks in Italy last summer. Nice place! Took a plane. Pasta was delicious, the wine was great, the ladies looked nice. Florence has a lotta nice art, for the erudite-cultural types. The Uffizi. Walking thru Rome is like walking thru a large museum of Western Civ. The Vatican has long, long lines -- gotta get a tour guide to snake your way past all the masses. But it's damn hot in the summer. Did a night tour of the Coliseum, which was a genius move. If it gets too hot, it's good to slip away to the Amalfi Coast, ahh the Med. Refreshing to swim, rent a boat and cruise along the coast. Hey, that's where Gore Vidal lives up high on that amazing cliff!

I guess I was lucky to miss the viral pandemic and quarantine. Maybe this summer airfare will be cheap as hell.

brylun said...

American Health Care Association President says coronavirus is a 'perfect killing machine' for the elderly as Washington care home reveals residents are dying just HOURS after first showing symptoms

If you're not elderly, then "What, me worry?"

Lincolntf said...

Again, I ask those who think that the coronavirus prevention methods are "overblown", what less should we do?

Spiros said...

Maybe Mr. Biden has Lewy body dementia? Since we're speculating...

Jim at said...

Or to call the governor of Washington a snake.

I admit. He was wrong to do that.
Snakes everywhere were offended.

Gilbert Pinfold said...

@brylun: The alleged “insertions” of HIV sequences into the coronavirus spike protein being from HIV is arrant nonsense. Amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) can be represented as single letters. Finding two six-letter words in both “David Copperfield” and “Anna Karenina” does not make Dickens the author of both. There is such BS floating around it just amazes me. I’ve been through Asian flu, swine flu, Ebola, Zika, SARS, MERS, and many others—no one cares that 80,000 Americans die each year from regular influenza, and the media doesn’t say “Boo”.

Fernandinande said...

IIRC Newton invented calculus while Cambridge (?) was closed because of plague.

brylun said...

@Gilbert Pinfold: I'm sorry, but I'm not convinced because so little is known about this virus currently, and most efforts are focused on stopping the spread, not determining where it came from. You may be right, or you may be wrong, but only time and some serious study will convince me. A quick opinion like yours has little reliability.

Jim at said...

Again, I ask those who think that the coronavirus prevention methods are "overblown", what less should we do?

So you don't think banning public gatherings of more than 250 people is overblown? And why 250? Who decided that was the number?

You don't think banning all fans from both men's and women's NCAA tournament games is overblown?

You don't think canceling all spring events at all Ivy League schools is overblown? Golden State Warriors playing to an empty stadium. Seattle Mariners moving their home games. And on and on and on.

You don't think it's just a little much that there's this complete and total meltdown over a disease from which many people have already recovered?

Fine. Sit in your closet. Listen to some old Art Bell radio shows.

The rest of us will wash our hands, refrain from sneezing on people and maybe take extra care in handling things that are already touched by lots of people.

You know. Just like we do every cold and flu season.

Jim at said...

Except those diseases have been around for a very long time, and we have tons of research on them.

There are many different strains of the flu every year. Every. Year. Some vaccines work. Some don't. People survive. Some people die.

Every. Year.

Bay Area Guy said...

Coronavirus conference in NY cancelled due to the coronavirus.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

insty:

"THE PRESS IS GARBAGE: ‘Trump’s Chernobyl’: Media Wuhan Virus Hysteria Stokes Public Panic. “Not only is it clear that corporate media can’t be trusted to provide accurate information about an issue of public concern, it’s clear they don’t care about public health or the economy.” I think the Wuhan virus is a real threat. I also think the press is trying to use it politically against Trump. Both can be true at the same time."

Lincolntf said...

Private associations like Sports Teams, Leagues, Conferences,etc, know full well how quickly the regular flu travels through them. It is real. Same as in the Army, when someone in the barracks had a bad cough, the next week half the morning formation was at sick call. Diseases spread, you get that right? How much more would you like this one to spread? By the way, I've spent the last three days on the road, shooting at schools and even an orphanage. I am hardly shuttered up. And my plans to travel to Europe in June remain intact.

Enlighten-NewJersey said...

Gilbert Pinfold said..."no one cares that 80,000 Americans die each year from regular influenza." Of course, they care, that's why over 170 million Americans got the flu shot in 2019. As to the 48% of Americans who didn't get the flu shot, you'll have to ask them why not.

gilbar said...

Many people might have noticed, that i think the whole covfefe-19 crisis is a pile of dog doo

But NOW i'm not too sure; i just watched This Video, which placed things in a whole new light
Now, i think the Real Question is: ARE We WORRYING ENOUGH?

narciso said...

another freshly minted health expert

Inga said...

“There are many different strains of the flu every year. Every. Year. Some vaccines work. Some don't. People survive. Some people die.”

And none of them have the fatality rate as Covid19. To hear people still equating regular seasonal flu to this new virus never seen before in the population is just stupid. Dr. Fauci says it is10x more fatal than typical flu. And in Italy the strain that is prevalent there may be even more than 10x more fatal. The equating of this Covid19 to seasonal flu really is beyond dumb. If Covid19 would be allowed to spread without the mitigation of enforced quarantine and personal distancing, we would be seeing FAR more deaths than the typical seasonal flu.

J. Farmer said...

@Jim at:

There are many different strains of the flu every year. Every. Year. Some vaccines work. Some don't. People survive. Some people die.

Every. Year.


And when was the last time the flu maxed out hospital resources in a wealthy region of Italy with 10,000,000 people?

brylun said...

There has been some speculation that the coronavirus will disappear when the warm weather comes. Some evidence to the contrary:

Coronavirus infections in Qatar rise 1,000% in ONE DAY as cases go from 24 to 262

Qatar is about as warm as you can get...

Bay Area Guy said...

"And none of them have the fatality rate as Covid19. To hear people still equating regular seasonal flu to this new virus never seen before in the population is just stupid."

I guess Johns Hopkins is stupid.

Fact 1: Flu deaths in the US - 61,000/year

Fact 2: Coronavirus deaths in the US - 29

Michael K said...

@Michael K: Coronaviruses are not retroviruses with reverse transcriptase like HIV. Coronaviruses are negative-strand RNA viruses, and as such encode an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase to generate messenger RNA and RNA negative strands ready for nucleocapsid packaging.

Yes, I could swear I saw that it was a retrovirus that uses RT but I can't find it now.

The test uses RT PCR and maybe I misunderstood.

J. Farmer said...

@Bay Area Guy:

I guess Johns Hopkins is stupid.

From your link:

"The COVID-19 situation is changing rapidly. Since this disease is caused by a new virus, people do not have immunity to it, and a vaccine may be many months away. Doctors and scientists are working on estimating the mortality rate of COVID-19, but at present, it is thought to be higher than that of most strains of the flu."

Lincolntf said...

Fact 1: Science and medicine have been devoted to treating/preventing the "flu" for over a century.

Fact 2: The novel coronavirus has been studied for less than six months.

Fact 3: Anyone who deliberately conflates the two in order to make a rhetorical or political point is an asshole.

Inga said...

A doctor in the heart of Italy's outbreak shares what life is like in the hospital now

“After much thought about whether and what to write about what is happening to us, I felt that silence was not responsible.

I will therefore try to convey to people far from our reality what we are living in Bergamo in these days of Covid-19 pandemic. I understand the need not to create panic, but when the message of the dangerousness of what is happening does not reach people, I shudder.

I myself watched with some amazement the reorganization of the entire hospital in the past week, when our current enemy was still in the shadows: the wards slowly "emptied", elective activities were interrupted, intensive care were freed up to create as many beds as possible.

All this rapid transformation brought an atmosphere of silence and surreal emptiness to the corridors of the hospital that we did not yet understand, waiting for a war that was yet to begin and that many (including me) were not so sure would ever come with such ferocity.

I still remember my night call a week ago when I was waiting for the results of a swab. When I think about it, my anxiety over one possible case seems almost ridiculous and unjustified, now that I've seen what's happening. Well, the situation now is dramatic to say the least.

The war has literally exploded and battles are uninterrupted day and night. But now that need for beds has arrived in all its drama. One after the other the departments that had been emptied fill up at an impressive pace. The boards with the names of the patients, of different colours depending on the operating unit, are now all red and instead of surgery you see the diagnosis, which is always the damned same: bilateral interstitial pneumonia.

Now, explain to me which flu virus causes such a rapid drama. And while there are still people who boast of not being afraid by ignoring directions, protesting because their normal routine is"temporarily" put in crisis, the epidemiological disaster is taking place.

And there are no more surgeons, urologists, orthopedists, we are only doctors who suddenly become part of a single team to face this tsunami that has overwhelmed us. Cases are multiplying, they arrive at a rate of 15-20 admissions per day all for the same reason. The results of the swabs now come one after the other: positive, positive, positive. Suddenly the E.R. is collapsing.


Reasons for the access always the same: fever and breathing difficulties, fever and cough, respiratory failure. Radiology reports always the same: bilateral interstitial pneumonia, bilateral interstitial pneumonia, bilateral interstitial pneumonia. All to be hospitalized.

Someone already to be intubated and go to intensive care. For others it's too late... Every ventilator becomes like gold: those in operating theatres that have now suspended their non-urgent activity become intensive care places that did not exist before.

The staff is exhausted. I saw the tiredness on faces that didn't know what it was despite the already exhausting workloads they had. I saw a solidarity of all of us, who never failed to go to our internist colleagues to ask "what can I do for you now?"

Doctors who move beds and transfer patients, who administer therapies instead of nurses. Nurses with tears in their eyes because we can't save everyone, and the vital parameters of several patients at the same time reveal an already marked destiny.”

Mark said...

Well, I was going to ask You Know Who and the identity thief to tell me the three words, but I see they followed them and left.

Browndog said...

I'm leaning towards achilles' point of view.

I'd rather the economy collapse and the nation shatters over the corona virus. Not over the fear of the corona virus.

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