Mar 17, 2020 Projections that Ireland may have 450,000 cases by the end of April if people dont adhere to social distancing. 300,000 jobs lost already in 1 week. 4.5 million population. This is insane.
Mar 17, 2020 I just put DNA on ignore. Man, this site is instantly much more enjoyable. You should all do the same.
Mar 17, 2020 Several very large hospital organizations are canceling all non-critical/urgent visits for the next 2 months. Shutting down. Either to make room for the sick, or to deter the spread...likely both.
Mar 17, 2020 Lemme say that again: hospitals are willingly losing 1/6 of their yearly revenues to prepare for what’s to come.
Mar 17, 2020 lol a------. You know what I meant. I rarely drink alcohol. When I do, it’s just 1-3 beers. Like 3 times a year I drink.
Mar 17, 2020 Holy s--- Durant and 3 others on the team with the virus. Durant didn’t even play in games. This s--- is more serious than I originally thought I believe.
Mar 17, 2020 this is the best source of real-time (refreshed every couple hours) data: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html open it in incognito mode, else nyt limits the number of free views on their website.
Mar 18, 2020 i've been thinking about the prospect of "chickenpoxing" (let the record show that i just coined this word) it, where a healthy sub-40 year old were to intentionally get covid, self-quarantine for 14 days, and then have the antibodies moving forward to ensure they get it when they're younger/healthier + aren't susceptible to spreading to the elderly... complications: 1.) people are stupid. if everyone sub-40 were to get it, they would spread it like wildfire to the sick & elderly 2.) even if done in smaller doses, with those who live by themselves, are younger, etc... then the virus is still mutating... mutations: at the time of initial outbreak in wuhan, 2 different strands, "S" and "L", of the virus were identified. 70% of the population infected had L, while the other 30 had S. It's thought that S came before L and L was a quick mutation that was more aggressively spread.. i've read a couple sources now that say that since december, the virus has mutated over 200 times, but it's now at a 2-mutations-per-month rate -- which, to put things in perspective, the measles mutates 10 x's a month...so, not too bad. it's unknown on how aggressive those mutations are though, and if there's risk for re-infection after your body develops anti-bodies from the previous infection. there were a couple situations where this has been said to have happened, but due to false-positive/negative testing results, it's difficult to confirm thus far. they are, however, definitively able to pinpoint where someone's infection came from now. ex: looking at an infected person's virus in San Francisco, they would be able to tell if it originated in Europe, or in Seattle, or in China.
Mar 18, 2020 i haven't read on the vaccine stuff yet, but i'm guessing that most of the above plays a role in the level of difficulty of making a vaccine for a newly identified virus that more aggressively mutates in the beginning.
Mar 18, 2020 England have now (finally) closed all the schools, taking effect from Friday afternoon. They were holding off on this measure for as long as possible. Our tactics for this is different to most other places — we are trying to infect as many low risk people as possible to develop herd immunity, hence the schools have remained open up until now. The children theoretically act as carriers which further spreads the disease (although the government hasn’t explicitly stated this, obviously. This is likely what their idea is). We are trying to find an equilibrium of patients coming in/out of the hospital so the NHS can cope. We stretched this phase as long as we could while maintaining stability in hospitals so we can safely treat the most vulnerable — now we’ve reached a critical point where the hospitals have a potential to overflow, hence the closing of schools to reduce rate of infection. The idea behind this is that when the second phase strikes, we will have more people immune and thus we will be more prepared for when it seems to be getting better but rather it’s the calm before the storm. This plan has potential better long-term consequences but it is risky trying to balance the equilibrium of infected & recovered/immune patients. If handled wrong it could be disastrous but if done correctly it is the best way to deal with the situation. We will inevitably go into lockdown within the next week. I just hope all the toilet roll hasn’t sold out by then. The world is at a standstill right now & we will see the effects of this for years to come. ...& I hope everyone here is doing well!
Mar 18, 2020 you're chickenpoxing!! it'll be really interesting to see how that plays out, since the kids just come up and spread to the older parents and/or grandparents who want to see their kids/grandchildren, or in my parents' case, they babysit for my sister's infants. hoping that'll play out in a positive direction, but def has high risk associated.
