The most intimidating thing about this, IIUC, is that Wuhan virus has a 1-to-14 day incubation period in which you can infect others without having symptoms yourself. (Which is why I was trying to get Nicole to skip her gift shopping last week— The people around us are zombies, daywalkers, genuine nightmare machines, and they don't even know it. Especially the youngsters.)

We can all hope for fast development of a safe, stable and effective vaccine, just as children dream of free candy.

Meantime, does anyone know how antibodies go with this thing? After you survive it, as you almost certainly will—

• How long are you protected from reinfection, at least from a closely-similar strain? DaysWeeksMonths, more?

• How long will you be shedding the virus?

Early spring could conceivably save a handful of lives.

There have been about two dozen emails from businesses and former vendors in the past weeks promising to do what they could to make the crisis survivable, which in the fine print, turns out to be business as usual. (The favorite was yesterday's from a parking lot at LAX.) It's weird that they imagine these messages could bring warm feelings to a customer's heart.

(For the record— T-mobile, unbidden, promised free service through mid-May.)

But look at these guys...!

https://twitter.com/Steve_Sailer/status/1240577380093022208

I'm wondering how many COVID-19 tests actually return a positive for a different strain of the virus, because the positives are coming from people who just don't have such intimate contact with recent travelers from China.

I'm wondering how many COVID-19 tests actually return a positive for a different strain of the virus, because the positives are coming from people who just don't have such intimate contact with recent travelers from China.

Radwaste at March 19, 2020 5:43 AM

Well decent journalism about the tests, their reliability and accuracy has been almost non existent.

As far as intimate contact with the Chinese. All it takes is someone using the same restroom as an infected person, in the Bradford terminal at LAX, or any travel stop across the country.

There has been something nasty going around the US since late November. Many people getting it are pretty sick, and if tested, come up negative for the flu. Many of the symptoms are the same as the COVID 19.
Whether this is the same thing that came out of Wuhan remains to be determined. Anything the Chinese tell us about the origin of the virus or the timeline is suspect, and should not be relied upon.

No links, just a few observations:

- I'm a government contractor, and our government site has gone to "extended telework" for the time being. I've retreated to a company office south of my home, where I'm the only one there.

- Virginia hasn't yet officially adopted any stringent legal measures to limit people's movements, although local restaurants have gone to a "take-out only" footing. The local Lidl grocery store has gone to reduced hours, and like most local stores, has been cleaned out of disinfectant and toilet paper. I talked to one of the workers last night, and he said several big delivery trucks were expected today. We'll have to wait and see if the supply chain disruption has been successfully mitigated.

- Maryland, where my middle daughter lives, seems to be more aggressive. In her town, the bars and restaurants have shuttered, although the local liquor store seems to be doing brisk business. The local grocery is devoid of fresh produce, even as the "vegan shit" (my daughter's words) remains unsold.

- Kiddo's on telework too, and she finds the isolation very uncomfortable. Apparently, she and some of her workmates visit from time to time and telework together, which would seem to defeat the purpose, but I don't find myself terribly troubled by the idea.

So what's going on in your community?

Speaking of the ChiComs:

https://twitter.com/noonanjo/status/1240245256609771522

It has been rather interesting. Husband and I went to Super Walmart this morning only to find that they didn’t open til seven. Prior to this crisis it had been a 24 hour store.
People were cleaning out the bread isle. Didn’t bother us. We were there for meat, produce, eggs, sour cream etc.
Daughter gave me her infilled list from yesterday. . She had been unable to find chili powder, a pork butt, ground chuck or flour tortillas the day before, We found most stuff at Walmart and the flour tortillas over at King Soopers. King Soopers had plenty of bread as well but the baking isle for ingredients was cleaned out. Mostly old people at King Soopers. Slightly younger crowd early at Walmart, but not by much.
Restaurants are only doing take out. Supposedly a big snow storm coming in today. Schools closed til April 6th. County shooting range still open. (Yay!) I live north of Denver about eighty miles.

Here in Houston all the grocery supply issues appear to be local. I.e. a Krogers will have no bread or meat but another Krogers two miles down the road will have those and be missing something else. Eggs seem to be in very short supply and stores are refusing to sell more than 36 at a time, though they are restocked daily.

Which makes me wonder just what people are doing with that many eggs. As long as they don't throw their spoiled eggs at my house in a week or two I'm fine.

A bigger issue for me is the oil field is going to crash and burn over this. Oil is down in the $20-$30/barrel range. Putin has mismanaged the Russian oil fields for decades and now is fighting with the Saudis. The Saudis can go as low as $6/barrel and still make a profit. Most of the rest of us need $60/barren and up. There was already a credit crunch happening in drilling before this. So now you are looking at ~80% of drilling and tool companies looking at liquidation. That really sucks for me and my industry. But it also has consequences for everyone else once people start back to work. Prices likely will spike back up to $120/barrel or perhaps higher then. It will be a year or two before those prices can come back down. Yes the Saudis could keep prices low, but they have no reason to do so. The higher the better for them. They just have a fixed base of cash they need to keep their government going.

So after Corona is over you will see gas and other energy prices spiking. As I said earlier there are tradeoffs with all these choices. Save some lives now and lose them later when heating oil gets too expensive.

Oh.

NASA FIXES MARS LANDER BY TELLING IT TO HIT ITSELF WITH A SHOVEL

https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-mars-lander-hit-itself-shovel

Amidst the coronavirus outbreak, I spoke with Aldrin on Tuesday by telephone. He is at home, hunkering down, and doing fine health-wise. Aldrin turned 90 years old in January, and at this age, he is in the very highest of risk categories for COVID-19.

"Buzz, what are you doing to protect yourself from the coronavirus?" I asked.

"Lying on my ass and locking the door," he replied, without hesitating.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/dont-worry-buzz-aldrin-is-protecting-himself-from-the-coronavirus/

Known unknowns and unknown unknows.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/health/coronavirus-young-people.html

On a side note: After brushing your dogs, don't throw the fur into the trash, leave it outside for the birds to make their nests:

https://twitter.com/planetpng/status/1235611864916086786

A new word to learn:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/caligynephobia

But the Diamond Princess cruise ship offers an interesting insight. It had nearly 4,000 people on board—many of them in risk groups. (Somebody who used to perform aboard cruise ships quipped that passengers are mostly “the newlywed and the nearly dead” ;)) You’d expect these packed together on a ship in quarantine to be all infecting each others. And yet… 4,061 passengers and crew were examined, on board what effectively became an unintentional virus incubator. Only 712 contracted the virus (about 17.5%), of which 334 asymptomatic (8.2% of the total), leaving 378 (9.3% of the total) ill. Only 7 people died (1.85% of those ill, or 0.17% of all passengers and crew examined), all of them age 70 or older. (Remember, the passenger population is skewed toward the elderly.)

One might treat Diamond Princess stats as an upper limit (since spreading in even dense urban areas will never be as efficient as on a cruise ship)

https://spinstrangenesscharm.wordpress.com/2020/03/18/covid-19-interesting-data-from-korea-and-from-the-diamond-princess/

Someone just texted me this joke: "Fastest way to kill the coronavirus is to convince Hillary Clinton that it will testify against her."

https://twitter.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1240721910859730946

something something didn't hang itself.

It's time for some more rhetoric from the 'it only affects old and health-compromised people anyway' crowd. Hi, M4! Speak up and be heard!

Anyone approaching labor this month or next was pregnant before this thing jumped to humans.

Our government: "It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away."

Specifically.

Take off and nuke 'em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

'Boomer Remover' Spring Breakers Don't Care if You Live or Die Because They Need to Party

"NASA FIXES MARS LANDER BY TELLING IT TO HIT ITSELF WITH A SHOVEL"

And that's why I'm not getting married again. I won't do it.

I won't.

Day 21 Corona Virus Thread

My gift shopping was the right call. I have my garden suppplies for the season... and now, all the garden centers are closed. Apparently the supermarkets no longer carry garden supplies because the garden centers complained.

Yes, you heard that right! In the middle of this pandemic our ability to grow our own food has been taken away!

Isab, I've noticed it was a nasty flu year, too. I had a bad cold in the fall that just lingered... and now I'm getting over a weird flu from February. I say weird because my lungs made bizarre gurgling noises, similar to the noises one's gut makes before a big fart, but in my lungs, and I'd never had that before.

I'm basically over it but I still cough a little and my lungs feel different. Hard to describe. Like I breathed in cold air. Nothing horrible, just slightly off.

I'm wondering if I had it.

Or if I didn't have it, I'm wondering if whatever caused the Covid also caused extra flus.

I don't know, I could be wrong but it seemed like this year the flu was constantly going around, more than usual.

Sounds like fluid in your lungs NicoleK. Yes Covid can cause that, among many other diseases. It is something I would have a doctor check out eventually. But you will have to judge just how urgent it is. I don't know what the rules are for seeing a doctor in your area right now.

It doesn't feel urgent right now. I've had a humidifier every night...

If you are asking did your humidifier cause this problem, the answer is no. I am not a doctor (don't just trust me) but to the best of my knowledge fluid in the lungs is caused by inflammation in the lungs. I.e. you have some sort of infection. Most likely it is an opportunistic bacterial infection from when you were sick earlier. The older you get the more common such problems become. But I don't have the feeling you are at nursing home age. So a short shot of antibiotics usually clears the stuff out. You may also want to talk with your doctor about pneumonia vaccines and such. (They've been highly recommended to me lately by friends and family but seriously, talk to a real doctor. Randos on the internet are no replacement for a real doctor no matter how well intentioned.)