Why You Must Act Now

[Reinhardt Behm]

On 3/17/20 8:37 AM, mpm wrote:

On Monday, March 16, 2020 at 1:46:12 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:

It sounds rational, but the devil is in the details. What does it mean exactly "might change subsequent actions"? Anyone who tests positive will be treated for the disease even if this only means self quarantine at home. But if many are not tested, many infected won't know to be quarantined.

Rick,
Have you considered that there might not be that much difference between social distancing and self-quarantine at home?

How many people (really!) are going to STAY HOME on quarantine, especially on an honor-system basis? I can almost hear the rationalizations pouring in.. "It's only a quick run to the corner store. I'll be quick." Etc...

We have instances of criminals with ankle bracelets breaking house arrest! (Of course, one could argue that criminals are stupid.)

I believe "the masses" will mostly put up with slight inconveniences for a while, out of novelty it nothing else. But I have to wonder how much cooperation there'll really be in the long term (meaning months), if it comes to that.

Then put force to it. Here in Taiwan two guys have been sentenced 1 mio
TW$ for violating mandatory quarantine. One will probably go to jail
because he lied about his travel history, was infected and infected
somebody else.

--
Reinhardt

 

[Reinhardt Behm]

On 3/17/20 5:36 AM, Rick C wrote:

On Monday, March 16, 2020 at 4:02:48 PM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 16/03/20 18:16, Rick C wrote:

That is too little, too late. By the time you show symptoms, you have likely
been infecting people for the better part of a week. That was my point. In
the early stages of the pandemic the testing should be much more aggressive
in order to identify as many patients for quarantine as possible.

In an early stage that is impractical.

Exactly the opposite. The early stages are the only time you can get a grip on the problem. Once it starts to take off it's too late and the problem is not just larger but hugely different.

Taiwan is the prove for this. We have had nearly no community spread.

Once it
gets past the stage where the large numbers of infections make it impractical
to test widely nothing can be done about that first week of being infectious
other than social distancing. In China social distancing is the law and
enforced by authorities. Here it is voluntary and much less effective.

Agreed.


Yesterday somebody from the town 4 miles in one direction died in the
hospital 4 miles in the other direction.

Not sure what that is supposed to mean. What is the context?

Nothing more than that this is becoming closer and more
personal. Some people here need to realise that will happen.

I lurk in a UK ham group and early on one guy was talking about infections from Chinese packages and another guy talked that it "hadn't reached the UK and probably wouldn't".

Much as Edward tried to impress on us, there was no point where the epidemiologists didn't think it would be a world wide pandemic even if they wouldn't use that term. Back in January I know I was still waiting to see how effective the isolation would be. Now we know that if you think your country has a few hundred infections, there are likely 10,000 infected people. I saw a report that said 80 people were infected at a conference where there were no people with any symptoms.


The assumption here is that "everybody" (i.e. 60-80% depending on who you
listen to) will catch it sooner or later. In the absence of other
information, that seems likely.

It would seem you didn't read the link Win posted. China currently has a
cumulative infection level that is far, far below 80% and it is rising very,
very slowly, slower than in the US or the UK. So clearly widespread
infection is not inevitable. But it takes extreme measures to deal with it.

I am well aware of all that.


Who do you listen to?

To the people who know about epidemics. Not self defined experts and
fake stories.

Good question, but one without an easy answer.

I'm asking who YOU listen to. Obviously you are getting your information somewhere.

--
Reinhardt

 

[Reinhardt Behm]

On 3/17/20 8:27 AM, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 2020-03-16 11:50, Rick C wrote:
On Monday, March 16, 2020 at 9:41:32 AM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Monday, March 16, 2020 at 10:18:34 PM UTC+11, Martin Brown
wrote:
On 16/03/2020 03:20, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On 15 Mar 2020 19:26:36 -0700, Winfield Hill
winfieldhill@yahoo.com> wrote:

Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now - Tomas Pueyo

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-



f4d3d9cd99ca

"It’s a matter of days. Maybe a week or two. When it does, your
healthcare system will be overwhelmed."

He is being overly pessimistic there (although the US is actually
blind to its true infection levels due to inadequate testing
capability).

If the infection growth rate remains at the present daily value
then the daily case count increases with day number N like 1.4^N
going forward.

That means a roughly a million times more cases in about 40 days
time.

If we can use social distancing to get the daily growth factor
down to 1.2 or 1.3 then the corresponding figures are much
better. Tens of thousands in the best case and a much more
manageable broad hump.

Social distancing can do better than that, and seems to have done
so in Hubei Province.

"Social distancing" in Hubei???  I don't think that is the right term
for it and that is the problem.  China seems to be the only country
that has its infection rate under anything like control.  They did it
by draconian measures that are far beyond "social distancing".

Taiwan has done an excellent job with far less heavy-handed measures.
The SARS experience was an excellent dry-run.  A pity the rest of the
world didn't take heed.

Having an expert (well known epidemiologist) as health minister was also
of great help. They started to take care of this beginning of January
and identified potentially infected people and forced mandatory, checked
quarantine with heavy fines (1Mio TW$) in case of violations. Cases were
below 50 for 23 mio population a few days ago, now we have some imported
cases.


--
Reinhardt

 

[whit3rd]

On Monday, March 16, 2020 at 8:06:16 PM UTC-7, jurb...@gmail.com wrote:

CDC budget cuts occurred at ...

They occurred roughly at the Twilight zone. Trump shook down the place a bit yes, but it probably needed it.

What kind of need do you imagine, and is this a 'probably' drawn directly from thin
air?

> And the budget cuts he proposed were mainly for...

Sounds like an imaginary distinction; there's no difference in 'chronic diseases' and 'preparedness'
because folk can die if either is mismanaged (or entirely neglected).

Public health efforts (starting with the Balmis/Salvany Expedition of Vaccination)
are a major victory for wise government spending, and even the Donald should
know this. He was being careless, negligent, dismissive, and decidedly unprofessional.

I see now they are closing bars and restaurants. Well I guess that makes sense but the people who own those businesses can't take it forever. So we need this resolved.

And we don't need people politicising it.

By politicising, do you mean making public policy? Of course, that's EXACTLY what
this (widely accepted as effective) kind of disease containment requires.

 

[Martin Brown]

On 17/03/2020 01:23, Rick C wrote:

On Monday, March 16, 2020 at 8:27:28 PM UTC-4, Phil Hobbs wrote:

Taiwan has done an excellent job with far less heavy-handed
measures. The SARS experience was an excellent dry-run. A pity the
rest of the world didn't take heed.

I did read that Taiwan and some other Asian locations are doing
better than typical because of their prior experiences, but no
details. Do you know what they are and aren't doing that is
working?

The ones that have got away with it are mostly island states and like
the UK they tested aggressively and did contact tracing. Most Far East
countries people always wear face masks in public when they are sick.

Now they have closed their borders as well. UK managed to flat line the
Covid-19 outbreak for quite a while before losing it. The tendency of
people who are sick with cold symptoms but not very badly affected to
still go into work was very probably our undoing. Statistics from the
Diamond Princes suggest that half the healthy people with the virus show
no symptoms but tested positive see:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/16/diamond-princess-mysteries/

I don't like his trick of showing "not infected" graphs as a way of
hiding the factor of 3 difference in the infection rates between 70+ and
fit healthy adults 20-50. The teenage 20% infection rate is worrying.

Italy did the opposite (and the US followed the same crazy path) -
totally inadequate testing and the disease spread widely by asymptomatic
carriers or people with mild symptoms continuing to go to work when ill.

I'm just not convinced the "social distancing" thing is going to work
here. It's a limited measure in what will soon be a dire situation.

It helps. In exponential growth the closer to unity you can get the
daily growth factor the slower the curve rises. UK has just locked down
essentially bankrupting all consumer facing high street businesses!
France has done the same lock down measures only more so but also
promising money to businesses to tide them over the crisis.

I've been in contact with a few friends today and it seems a number
of them are taking this seriously, but can't just quit their jobs.
But it seems companies are starting to realize they can't expect
people to come to work only to get sick. Maybe a four week shutdown
will cut contact enough to get the disease under control. But no one
at the top (or near it) seems to realize that or at least is not in a
position to discuss it publicly.

It is even harder for the health professionals - they have to continue
to work even as other systems like childcare collapse around them.

The data is just so clear. In less than two weeks we will be where
China was around their peak. The numbers don't lie. We don't need
Larkin's suspect simulations. Anyone can do the math, even him. An
engineer should be able to believe the numbers.

No. It is slower than that. UK's best estimate to criticality is 4-6 weeks.

I can't find the latest Imperial college report that so spooked the
government last night that they went into panic measures but I have
found one for seasonal flu based on 35% population vulnerability which
you can roughly scale up by a factor of 3 to get an idea. Fig 3 in:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/61968/flu_pandemic_science_paper1.pdf

Except that at present we don't have any effective prophylaxis and the
need of 30% of hospital admissions for oxygen or ventilators is a very
serious problem. There are only 5000 such beds in the entire UK and the
model shows that would be an order of magnitude too few at the peak.

USA could well get into crisis sooner since the CDC pandemic response
team was largely destroyed in one of Trumps earlier anti-science purges.


--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Martin Brown]

On 16/03/2020 18:16, Rick C wrote:

On Monday, March 16, 2020 at 1:57:42 PM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 16/03/20 17:46, Rick C wrote:
On Monday, March 16, 2020 at 1:15:53 PM UTC-4, Tom Gardner
wrote:
On 16/03/20 16:04, Rick C wrote:
On Monday, March 16, 2020 at 10:44:50 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner
wrote:
On 16/03/20 14:23, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com
wrote:

What's also increasing exponentially is the availability
of testing kits.

In the US that wouldn't be difficult!

In the UK we are scaling back testing of people with cough
or fever in the community, reserving testing for those in
hospital.

And that is part of the problem. People don't universally
end up in the hospital with this disease. They live their
lives and infect others. Without widespread testing many
don't know they are infected and the problem appears better
than it really is.

Agreed.

The counter-point would be that there's no point in testing for
something if the answer won't change subsequent actions. Better
to concentrate limited efforts where the effort might change
subsequent actions.

I don't like that, but it is rational.

It sounds rational, but the devil is in the details. What does
it mean exactly "might change subsequent actions"? Anyone who
tests positive will be treated for the disease even if this only
means self quarantine at home. But if many are not tested, many
infected won't know to be quarantined.

It is sufficient detail in the context of the UK recommended
actions, which I'm not going to repeat in full here. Summary: new
persistent cough or temp >37.8 and you and your family should self
isolate for 7 days - and not go to a GP or hospital unless you get
significantly worse.

That is too little, too late. By the time you show symptoms, you
have likely been infecting people for the better part of a week.

UK was doing that with reverse contact tracing and held the baseline
down for more than a month. But the thing that makes it almost
impossible is that something like half of all those infected show little
or no symptoms but are still shedding virus. That is based on the
preliminary statistics from the Diamond Princess cruise liner. The only
decent sized exposed population to be fully screened so far.

That was my point. In the early stages of the pandemic the testing
should be much more aggressive in order to identify as many patients
for quarantine as possible. Once it gets past the stage where the
large numbers of infections make it impractical to test widely
nothing can be done about that first week of being infectious other
than social distancing. In China social distancing is the law and
enforced by authorities. Here it is voluntary and much less
effective.

UK has just passed that point (at least in London) and so the government
has panicked and applied a lock down to the entire country. There have
only been a total of 6 confirmed cases to date in my very rural county.

Yesterday somebody from the town 4 miles in one direction died in
the hospital 4 miles in the other direction.

Not sure what that is supposed to mean. What is the context?

I think he is saying that it is now very close to home. Not just an
abstract concept for him now. I'm involved in the planning for my
village to ensure that the now quaranteened elderly can get shopping
delivered to their door. There are a lot of them in rural Yorkshire.
Young people cannot afford to live here any more.

This is going to be long and painful. I have no idea what I am
going to do with myself over the next few weeks. That is
assuming I don't catch this bug.

The assumption here is that "everybody" (i.e. 60-80% depending on
who you listen to) will catch it sooner or later. In the absence of
other information, that seems likely.

It would seem you didn't read the link Win posted. China currently
has a cumulative infection level that is far, far below 80% and it is
rising very, very slowly, slower than in the US or the UK. So
clearly widespread infection is not inevitable. But it takes extreme
measures to deal with it.

Those extreme measures will only work though whilst they remain extreme.
The moment you allow social contacts again the thing will take off.

You can smother a fire but unless you completely extinguish it then it
will come back again the moment you lift up the fire blanket.

> Who do you listen to?

I can usually find the reports that the government is citing although in
this instance the actual Imperial College research is still not out.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Martin Brown]

On 16/03/2020 17:46, Rick C wrote:

On Monday, March 16, 2020 at 1:15:53 PM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 16/03/20 16:04, Rick C wrote:
On Monday, March 16, 2020 at 10:44:50 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner
wrote:
On 16/03/20 14:23, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

What's also increasing exponentially is the availability of
testing kits.

In the US that wouldn't be difficult!

In the UK we are scaling back testing of people with cough or
fever in the community, reserving testing for those in
hospital.

And that is part of the problem. People don't universally end up
in the hospital with this disease. They live their lives and
infect others. Without widespread testing many don't know they
are infected and the problem appears better than it really is.

Agreed.

The counter-point would be that there's no point in testing for
something if the answer won't change subsequent actions. Better to
concentrate limited efforts where the effort might change
subsequent actions.

I don't like that, but it is rational.

It sounds rational, but the devil is in the details. What does it

The one where the UK is getting it totally wrong at the moment is that
they have said any family member with symptoms entire family must self
isolate. This sounds OK at first glance *BUT* many medics marry other
medics so you lose two trained staff each time one of them gets sick and
if they do have coronavirus you really need to test for it.

People that have recovered no longer need full PPE since ordinary
barrier nursing will be sufficient protection for them and I strongly
suspect that running out of PPE mid-pandemic will be the next disaster.

mean exactly "might change subsequent actions"? Anyone who tests
positive will be treated for the disease even if this only means self
quarantine at home. But if many are not tested, many infected won't
know to be quarantined.

There is no realistic treatment for the disease beyond helping people to
cope with the symptoms and oxygenation or ventilation if they are unable
to breathe. UK only has about 5000 ventilators and the health minister
has been asking JCB if they could knock some up on their heavy tractor
production line (they mostly make quarry trucks and earth movers).


--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Jasen Betts]

On 2020-03-16, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org <DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org> wrote:

John Robertson <spam@flippers.com> wrote in
news:6_qdnRheKdXzg_LDnZ2dnUU7-bGdnZ2d@giganews.com:

On 2020/03/15 11:10 p.m., DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org
wrote:
Winfield Hill <winfieldhill@yahoo.com> wrote in
news:r4mo4s07rk@drn.newsguy.com:

Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now - Tomas Pueyo

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-wi
ll -die- f4d3d9cd99ca



Place a < and a > around your links... please.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-wi
ll- die- f4d3d9cd99ca

Works better that way in a Usenet client or Internet browser.


Well, no, the "<" ">" didn't work any better.

John :-#(#


AAAhhh! You are right!

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-
die- f4d3d9cd99ca

Me try. Could be a news client thing.

It's a news client thing. Apparently Forte Agent needs that to stop it
from breaking lines.

For slrn, if I write a single line it stays a single line.
It complains when I hit send, but the line doesn't get mangled.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

You'll have to figure out what if there's a way to disable wrapping in
xnews.


--
Jasen.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Wednesday, March 18, 2020 at 1:01:24 AM UTC+11, dagmarg...@yahoo.com wrote:

On Tuesday, March 17, 2020 at 5:46:58 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:

USA could well get into crisis sooner since the CDC pandemic response
team was largely destroyed in one of Trumps earlier anti-science purges..

Our foreign friends often fail to understand that our government is
a system of independent states with their own health departments, each
able to react and respond. Unlike our smaller European friends, we're
not bound by one central agency, nor one central bureaucracy.

The reactions and responses aren't always that good. Pence is notorious for shutting down the Planned Parenthood offices in his state, who turned out to be the only people doing free HIV testing. He kept his evangelical supporters happy, but created a local HIV epidemic in the process.

James Arthur does have a sentimental fondness for even the daftest consequences of the founding tax evaders somewhat clunky attempt at a constitution, but many his foreign friends have much more sensibly constructed social systems which do work rather better.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 2020-03-16 22:18, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

John Larkin <jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in
news:mhdv6fl7a4la7ripccsrq07d00h16nlmv1@4ax.com:

On Mon, 16 Mar 2020 11:42:21 -0400, Bob Engelhardt
BobEngelhardt@comcast.net> wrote:

On 3/16/2020 10:23 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
...
The US press, and TV news, and internet, are hyperbolic on this.
There was Climate Change, then the Mueller/Russia thing, then
impeachment, now this. Single-subject hysterical monoculture.

Do you believe that the situation in Italy is just hyperbole? If
you accept that it's real, do you have any reason to think that
the US will be any different?

It is interesting that some countries are so different from
others.


Were the population of the US told to stay at home locked inside,
we would NOT be at our windows singing songs of joy and greeting each
of our neighbors.

Rank individualism fucked this country's communal mindset decades
ago. Yeah.. it's rank alright.

Don't be silly--if you go into the real world instead of social media,
you'll see that we're already encouraging each other. If you don't see
that, then when this has run its course, you need to move to a better
nabe, guy.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 17/03/20 09:46, Martin Brown wrote:

I can't find the latest Imperial college report that so spooked the government
last night that they went into panic measures

Perhaps?
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf?referringSource=articleShare

 

[Martin Brown]

On 17/03/2020 14:04, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On Tuesday, March 17, 2020 at 5:48:27 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:

There is no realistic treatment for the disease beyond helping people to
cope with the symptoms and oxygenation or ventilation if they are unable
to breathe. UK only has about 5000 ventilators and the health minister
has been asking JCB if they could knock some up on their heavy tractor
production line (they mostly make quarry trucks and earth movers).

"A February report reveals that the US has about 170,000 ventilators."
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-hospitals-may-be-short-ventilators-as-coronavirus-spreads-2020-3?op=1

Why does the U.K. have so few?

The UK government has been underinvesting in the NHS for more than a
decade now. Under normal circumstances they don't need all that many ICU
beds and they really have cut things to the bone.

They are also massively short of doctors and nurses too. They cut the
funding for nurse training don't pay the latter well enough for them to
stay in the NHS. Private locums and contract nurses get much better pay.

They are presently asking for retired medics (potentially in the high
risk 70+ age group) to re-register and provide emergency cover.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

On Monday, March 16, 2020 at 10:32:57 AM UTC-4, legg wrote:

On 15 Mar 2020 19:26:36 -0700, Winfield Hill <winfieldhill@yahoo.com
wrote:

Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now - Tomas Pueyo

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-
f4d3d9cd99ca

reposting, with apologies . .

The Lancet published a recalculation of the case fatality
rate, taking the delay between 'diagnosed' and death into
account, as of March 1st. This looked to have stabilized at
about 6%, vs the 1-2% being generally spouted before March 15.
It's now 3.5%.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099%2820%2930195-X/fulltext

The CFR of SARS rose from 3% to 10%, as all the data came in,
without similar delays being considered in the mean time.

By age, in China, up to Feb 11:

https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/03/Coronavirus-CFR-by-age-in-China-1-800x526.png

With underlying health conditions:

https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/03/Coronavirus-CFR-by-health-condition-in-China.png

Seasonal flu fatality rates are generally an order of magnitude lower.

RL

Don't go by any of that, these figures are changing by the minute. The epidemiologists now estimate that less than 14% of the infected people developed symptoms serious enough to seek testing or treatment. This means they weren't included in the mortality statistics, making everything about 1/6 of what they have been reporting.

 

On Tuesday, March 17, 2020 at 5:48:27 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:

There is no realistic treatment for the disease beyond helping people to
cope with the symptoms and oxygenation or ventilation if they are unable
to breathe. UK only has about 5000 ventilators and the health minister
has been asking JCB if they could knock some up on their heavy tractor
production line (they mostly make quarry trucks and earth movers).

"A February report reveals that the US has about 170,000 ventilators."
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-hospitals-may-be-short-ventilators-as-coronavirus-spreads-2020-3?op=1

Why does the U.K. have so few?

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

On Tuesday, March 17, 2020 at 5:46:58 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:

USA could well get into crisis sooner since the CDC pandemic response
team was largely destroyed in one of Trumps earlier anti-science purges.

Our foreign friends often fail to understand that our government is
a system of independent states with their own health departments, each
able to react and respond. Unlike our smaller European friends, we're
not bound by one central agency, nor one central bureaucracy.

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote in
news:05d9d422-8bc1-ac53-9842-f9dd9a3e6399@electrooptical.net:

Don't be silly--if you go into the real world instead of social
media, you'll see that we're already encouraging each other.

As I stated. SOME folks ARE still of good character and live with
high integrity and honor. Sorry, but we are the exception.

The retard voter turn out for the dangerous buffoon proves that.

If
you don't see that, then when this has run its course, you need to
move to a better nabe, guy.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I use exactly ZERO "social media". Except that now Usenet qualifies
too.

WTF is a "better nabe"?

 

[Martin Brown]

On 17/03/2020 15:13, Rick C wrote:

On Tuesday, March 17, 2020 at 5:48:27 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:
On 16/03/2020 17:46, Rick C wrote:
On Monday, March 16, 2020 at 1:15:53 PM UTC-4, Tom Gardner
wrote:

The counter-point would be that there's no point in testing
for something if the answer won't change subsequent actions.
Better to concentrate limited efforts where the effort might
change subsequent actions.

I don't like that, but it is rational.

It sounds rational, but the devil is in the details. What does
it

The one where the UK is getting it totally wrong at the moment is
that they have said any family member with symptoms entire family
must self isolate. This sounds OK at first glance *BUT* many medics
marry other medics so you lose two trained staff each time one of
them gets sick and if they do have coronavirus you really need to
test for it.

Testing for this virus is not like connecting your oscilloscope to a
circuit. First it takes over a day to get a result. Then there is a
non-trivial false negative result rate. Then there is the delay in
being infected and testing positive or showing symptoms. Considering

The test being used in ROW are not as crap as the USA ones.

that medics will be dealing with a lot of people it makes sense to me
that anyone with a reasonable possibility of being infected should go
into quarantine at least initially.

Yes. But once they have had the infection tested positive and recovered
they are effectively immune to it and so can work freely without PPE in
the hostile environment. That makes it very important to know whether or
not they really have had the Covid infection or not. Health workers with
a natural immunity will be invaluable during the peak period of stress.

UK policy has changed to not testing anyone who isn't really poorly and
admitted to hospital (so that the medics know what PPE to wear). Medics
with symptoms are no longer being tested for Covid-19 but sent home and
told to self isolate - along with their entire family.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 2020-03-17 11:04, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote in
news:05d9d422-8bc1-ac53-9842-f9dd9a3e6399@electrooptical.net:


Don't be silly--if you go into the real world instead of social
media, you'll see that we're already encouraging each other.

As I stated. SOME folks ARE still of good character and live with
high integrity and honor. Sorry, but we are the exception.

The retard voter turn out for the dangerous buffoon proves that.


If
you don't see that, then when this has run its course, you need to
move to a better nabe, guy.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I use exactly ZERO "social media". Except that now Usenet qualifies
too.

WTF is a "better nabe"?

Neighbourhood.

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

[Rick C]

On Tuesday, March 17, 2020 at 3:00:14 AM UTC-4, Reinhardt Behm wrote:

On 3/17/20 8:27 AM, Phil Hobbs wrote:

Taiwan has done an excellent job with far less heavy-handed measures.
The SARS experience was an excellent dry-run.  A pity the rest of the
world didn't take heed.

Having an expert (well known epidemiologist) as health minister was also
of great help. They started to take care of this beginning of January
and identified potentially infected people and forced mandatory, checked
quarantine with heavy fines (1Mio TW$) in case of violations. Cases were
below 50 for 23 mio population a few days ago, now we have some imported
cases.

I gather you are talking about the population of Taiwan at about 23 million, but I don't recognize the abbreviation "mio". Several pages of Google with -water excluded still did not turn up any reference to this abbreviation.. Can you explain?

--

Rick C.

-+-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Martin Brown]

On 17/03/2020 14:18, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 17/03/20 09:46, Martin Brown wrote:
I can't find the latest Imperial college report that so spooked the
government last night that they went into panic measures

Perhaps?
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf?referringSource=articleShare

Thanks. Someone sent me a link to it directly earlier today.

The one thing that strikes me about their simulation is that comparing
"do nothing" peak in June to their best scenario merely delays the
inevitable by 5 months and creates an even higher spike in mid-November:
Fig 3(A&B) green line in the above.

Looks like schools will shut down at Easter and for the foreseeable
future to try and keep the profile under the critical care capacity.

The original slowly build herd immunity strategy was probably correct
from a purely technical point of view but politically unacceptable to
have to tell the population that possibly 1% of them were going to die.

Have to wait and see what sort of rabbit Rishi Sunak can pull out of his
hat tonight. He's my MP and an impressive guy but I don't envy him the
job in hand (or for that matter the new head of the Bank of England).

--
Regards,
Martin Brown