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Not funny “ha ha”

This was what the numbers looked like over breakfast. I’ve had “In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue” stuck in my head all day. Not funny.

That’s 1,492 cases overnight. It’s hard to know what’s going on in Italy, it’s hit so fast and so hard there. I’m tempted to put all the variability down to differences in testing and reporting, but the swing is very wide.

Except for the age thing. Everywhere that give out good data is saying this is a boomer plague.

And now we’re starting to see articles like this:

Don’t take this the wrong way but if you were a young, hardline environmentalist looking for the ultimate weapon against climate change, you could hardly design anything better than coronavirus.

Unlike most other such diseases, it kills mostly the old who, let’s face it, are more likely to be climate sceptics.

Note the url for this is “coronavirus-has-a-silver-lining”. Charming.

The political classes have been churning up resentment of old people for a number of years now. Boomers are apparently the reason the environment is fucked up, young people can’t afford houses, can’t get decent jobs, etc. Much ugliness.

The UK is still under reacting, in my opinion. A few big events have been cancelled, but not enough. I suggested that we cancel an event at work next week and was told, “but Italy is miles away.” Not enough, not enough.

Well, except the nationwide run on toilet paper. I hope we laid in enough.

Comments


Comment from ExpressoBold
Time: March 9, 2020, 9:26 pm

Dear Italy,

Stop the ubiquitous kissing !!!!!! You’ll live longer (or at least have far less risk of being Wuhaned).

I just reduced your Covid-19 exposure by 50%… you’re welcome!

ExpressoBold the Observant


Comment from Gromulin
Time: March 9, 2020, 9:30 pm

My SiL lives in a suburb of Seattle. She had a fever, called the hotline and they directed her to an urgent-care to get tested. They gave her the Flu test, which came back negative. Then they told her NO COVID-19 test, they will just assume that’s what she has since it’s so widespread there. No quarantine, no “who have you been in contact with?”…nothing. Go home, drink fluids and avoid contact. No mandatory quarantine for her, her husband, or her kid. Worshington…


Comment from Gromulin
Time: March 9, 2020, 9:37 pm

Oh, and the Plague Ship is now docked in Oakland, right next to the Bay Bridge. All kinds of pictures of it on NextDoor this weekend. It was lit up on the horizon at night. You could see it with the naked eye from the bluffs along the beaches where I live.


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: March 9, 2020, 10:07 pm

Having (as I mentioned before) just gotten out of Italy on Valentines Day after two weeks there -all in northern Italy, I have been paying rather close attention to the situation there, and spent a couple of weeks waiting to be struck down. I haven’t been, and I should be safe at this point I think.

Anyhow, I have been pondering the “Why Italy of all places?” question. ExpressoBold has certainly nailed the transmission method: it’s “Left cheek, right cheek, hug!” all day, every day all over Italy. As for the origin, my wife found a Japanese article which noted that Milan has a resident Chinese population of some 300,000 some of whom surely went home to China for the New Year. This along with the popularity of Rome and Venice and northern Italy in general for Chinese tourists gave the virus a pretty good chance to establish a beachhead.

I do think that the virus will eventually reach all of us no matter what we do (anyone else ever read Poe’s “Masque Of The Red Death”? However I think it will be many months before it reaches Walmington-on-Sea, or my home in Valley Ranch. And although I’m in my mid-60’s I don’t think a very many of us really have to worry about dying. Stoaty, I know you are concerned because you have this upper respiratory thing that won’t go away, but according to

https://
http://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ *

Even among Deaths From Confirmed Cases, upper respiratory disease related deaths are only at 8%. For the age group 60 – 69 deaths overall are only 3.6 percent of cases. It’s not until you get into your 80’s where you see a 21 percent death rate.

So generally, speaking even if you’re in your 60’s and have upper respiratory problems, you have something over a 90 percent chance of pulling through after being damn sick for a while.

The reason for the concern by the governments is not from fear of vast numbers of deaths but from having factories and businesses shut down for weeks on end because everyone is damn sick….

That is putting stress on the economic system….and in today’s global economy when China sneezes the whole world’s economy gets sick.

* Link deliberately broken in a probably futile attempt to sneak past Akismet. I like this site and tried to post it a few days ago but got hurled into Cyber-Limbo.


Comment from Tim Carlson
Time: March 10, 2020, 5:12 am

I haven’t used toilet paper in 10 years.

Go filipino … a tabo (small plastic pail), some soap, your left hand, and plenty of water.

No need to buy toilet paper ever again, unless you use it as cheap tissue. You’re welcome.


Comment from Tim Carlson
Time: March 10, 2020, 5:17 am

Also – yesterday morning, we had 5 total cases, with 1 death back in early February. Today … we have 24 total cases, 2 deaths, and Duterte just suspended classes for the next week (maybe longer, we’ll see).

12 million people in Metro Manila / NCR region, an area the size of metro Phoenix, Arizona. It’s gonna get ugly before it gets better.

*sigh*

We have plenty of water, food stuffs, flu medications, _my_ old geezer medications, batteries, solar radio, etc. etc. etc.

Just waiting for Corona-Chan’s shadow to pass over our doorstep…


Comment from peacelovewoodstock
Time: March 10, 2020, 11:52 am

Fatality rate from COVID-19 in U.S. currently 0.0000049%


Comment from DurnedYankee
Time: March 10, 2020, 4:45 pm

17,000 flu deaths in the UK on average for the last 5 years.
In Italy that number was FOUR times as high – 68,000.

an estimated 17,000 died in the UK from the COLD last year, and I ain’t talkin about a virus. Cold temperatures.

CoronaVirus deaths so far in the UK…
4

Just a little “fun” with real numbers that won’t cause a run on toilet paper.


Comment from BJM
Time: March 10, 2020, 7:01 pm

@Tim, ladies have different TP requirements.

1st world priorities: toilet paper and money…kind of interchangeable ain’t they?

@Gromulin A friend is head of nursing admin at a large Bay Area hospital and she spent the weekend setting up the units for passengers who test positive or are ill. She said it was really spooky watching the patients come through their quarantine tunnel to the isolation floor… that it was like a sci-fi movie…and she has 30 yrs experience as an ER and ICU nurse, so she’s seen some stuff.

This morning I spoke with a friend who lives in Mexico City and people are pulling cash out of the bank as they fear the banks will close.

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