[Trunk Monkey]

Going to start a thread on this here. I imagine that in the next few weeks and months, and possibly years there will be much to discuss on this topic.

Missed opportunities ...

Scientists were close to a coronavirus vaccine years ago. Then the money dried up.

"We just could not generate much interest," a researcher said of the difficulty in getting funding to test the vaccine in humans.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[T6Rocket]

Everyone's getting paranoid AF about catching it. I am one of them. I'm concerned about going to a hockey game next weekend, last time I went I caught a cold. Having second thoughts about planning a flight/vacation later in the year.

The number of cases could start multiplying 10 fold every day.

It's time to recite the old "enjoy life while you can".

Al

 

[CDsDontBurn]

I would say that my family has a fairly high risk of getting it. My wife works as a patient intake receptionist at an urgent care. A lot of the work I do is visiting field offices to provide on site IT support for the staff, the staff work directly with the public. Many times, when visiting these field offices I have to pass through the public waiting areas or where people (in general) congregate for work or social purposes.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

Be safe out there.

 

[MadMikeyL]

Relax. It's just a nasty version of the flu. If you catch it, it will suck for a week or 2, and then you'll be fine. You aren't going to die from it, at least not in this country. Just live your life and don't play into the fear-mongering.

 

[XR7-4.6]

I just loath the idea that I’ll inevitably catch it from a douchebag college student who was in a useless “study abroad” program, some international businessperson who just refuses to stay home and needs to shake hands, or morons who go on cruise ships. There couldn’t be a more hatable demographic of patient zeros!

On the plus side I’m already a vigorous hand washer, don’t like crowds of people, and most precautions(like not shaking hands or hugging for greetings) I’m happy to finally have an excuse to avoid, without looking transparently antisocial!

 

[CDsDontBurn]

Speaking of hand washing, the thing that really irks me about this outbreak is that this is supposed to be a type 4 lab quarantine type virus where the people working on it have to wear super protective gear to not catch it, yet they tell the public to just wash their hands. Like, I'm not saying that hand washing won't prevent it, but they're saying that hand washing is your best recourse against catching it.

Separately, there's this map for anyone who's interested. It doesn't seem to work very well in Chrome for some reason, but it'll be alright on IE or Edge.

Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS

gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com

 

[XR7-4.6]

Speaking of hand washing, the thing that really irks me about this outbreak is that this is supposed to be a type 4 lab quarantine type virus where the people working on it have to wear super protective gear to not catch it, yet they tell the public to just wash their hands. Like, I'm not saying that hand washing won't prevent it, but they're saying that hand washing is your best recourse against catching it.

Separately, there's this map for anyone who's interested. It doesn't seem to work very well in Chrome for some reason, but it'll be alright on IE or Edge.

Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS

gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com

yeah, same with the face masks. A lot of news is “these won’t prevent you from getting coronavirus”... yet then you hear in the same story “there’s a shortage of masks for doctors”.

Conflicting info makes me want to walk around like this to be safe 🤷‍♂️

 

[Trunk Monkey]

I plan to "live my life" in an ordinary way but I'm going to keep an eye on this for sure. Conditions can change rapidly and my work requires much travel.

COVID-19 is not influenza (the flu). I wouldn't make an apples to apples comparisons between the two.

In short: Death rate for the seasonal flu is .1% in the U.S.

Death rate for COVID-19 by age group:

Those 80 and older 14.8%
70 to 79, the COVID-19 death rate in China seems to be about 8%
60 to 69 it’s 3.6%
50 to 59 - 1.3%
40 to 49 - 0.4%
10 to 39 - 0.2% (2 times the rate of Seasonal Flu)
No deaths in children under 9 have been reported.

So, the mortality rate is quite a bit higher than the flu all the way down to 40 years old and 2x the rate of the flu for the 10 to 39 age bracket.

How does the new coronavirus compare with the flu?

Which one is more worrisome?

www.livescience.com

 

[Trunk Monkey]

I just loath the idea that I’ll inevitably catch it from a douchebag college student who was in a useless “study abroad” program, some international businessperson who just refuses to stay home and needs to shake hands, or morons who go on cruise ships. There couldn’t be a more hatable demographic of patient zeros!

On the plus side I’m already a vigorous hand washer, don’t like crowds of people, and most precautions(like not shaking hands or hugging for greetings) I’m happy to finally have an excuse to avoid, without looking transparently antisocial!

Speaking of patient zero. Steve Wozniak was joking about being patient zero.

‘PATIENT ZERO’: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak describes coronavirus-like illness

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said he and his wife had fallen ill after a trip to China in January and joked that they could have been “patient zero” in the United States.Describing hi…

canoe.com

 

[Trunk Monkey]

Irony.

 

[CDsDontBurn]

🤣

 

[RalphP]

Actually, it makes sense they're looking for masks for doctors ... the doctors may be infectious, but still have to work on patients if they're in good enough shape.

You don't want to go to your dentist for a tooth cleaning and come down with CoVID-19, right?

RwP

 

[CDsDontBurn]

You guys heard about the one patient who came down with COVID-19 last week (or maybe the week before, I forget exactly when) but hadn't come into contact with anyone who was in an affected area or any affected people? Well, it may have been through handling of cold hard cash.

My uncle posted that on his FB a little bit ago, and it got me thinking of that one unknown origin case here on the West Coast.

Contaminated cash could spread the coronavirus, World Health Organization warns

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Contaminated banknotes could encourage the spread of the coronavirus, World Health Organization officials warn. Instead, the WHO is asking people to continue to wash their ha…

myfox8.com

 

[Trunk Monkey]

Cash? Well, any contaminated surface could be a vector for contagion. As to how long the virus can survive on any given surface is - as far as I know - under study at this very moment.

Wear gloves and wash hands frequently. Our mail carrier still wears light weight laytex or neoprene gloves when delivering mail. A hold over from the anthrax attack in 2001.

 

[CDsDontBurn]

Cash? Well, any contaminated surface could be a vector for contagion. As to how long the virus can survive on any given surface is - as far as I know - under study at this very moment.

Wear gloves and wash hands frequently. Our mail carrier still wears light weight laytex or neoprene gloves when delivering mail. A hold over from the anthrax attack in 2001.

This is a month old now, but it suggests that it can be a little over a week on a surface. So it can easily be conceivably made that an infected person not showing symptoms handled cash that was then handled by someone else and became infected that way.

New Study Indicates How Long Coronaviruses Can Survive on a Surface

If the new coronavirus 2019-nCoV (now also called COVID-19 virus) is anything like its family members, a new study suggests it could survive on inanimate objects for well over a week.

www.sciencealert.com

 

[Trunk Monkey]

Nine days! Wow. That's a while. Wash up!

Unless things get REALLY bad and my schedule changes. I have several trips around the country scheduled from now through early May. I'll take photos at airports and share my experiences as I travel.

I traveled from Dallas (DFW) to Jackson, Miss. (JAN) via. Atlanta (ATL) on February 23 and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary at any of those airports. I'm interested to see if there are more people wearing masks and being general germaphobes about everything when I leave this job to go home. I'll keep ya posted.

 

[XR7-4.6]

9 days! Well that settles it, I’m a germaphobe now. 😷

 

[Rodeo Joe]

Ron, be careful traveling out there bud!

Me, I think it's something the Russians brewed up to bring the world to it's knees. Haven't heard too much about outbreaks there.

Anyway, look what it's done to stock market. People are in a panic, I gave up beer for Lent and broke out last night!

My 88 year old father is in a home and I'm seriously thinking of staying away, most of the deaths in Washington are in nursing homes and they think it's from people coming and going.

Don't forget to wash your hands, cheers!

Joe

 

[Grog6]

I'll just drop this here...

Self-Isolate