Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Wait til you find out what they did to Magellan

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I’m scheduled to go to a long-anticipated concert tomorrow. I have to cancel, don’t I?

Hmm, it appears that Merkel’s opinion is in line with what we’ve known ITT at least a month ago.


She said since there was no known cure, the focus would fall on slowing the spread of the virus. “It’s about winning time,” she explained.


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Things I have purchased in the last day to add to my doomsday prep supplies:

  • clear plastic sheeting & duct tape (if somebody in my house gets sick I have a guestroom/bathroom suite I intend to keep them in, my idea is to mostly seal it off)

  • pulse oximeter (I’m going to get a baseline on everybody this week so that even if the thing isn’t too accurate hopefully it’ll be able to show a big drop)

I think my biggest worry today is that both my wife and I get sick at the same time. I have no ideas about what I’m going to do if that happens. Can’t send kids to friends/relatives in that situation since obviously they’d be potential carriers. I guess I’d have to count on them to mostly take care of themselves. They’re capable of it but my God that sounds scary.

And then next on my list of worries is my business/employees. I’m a talent agent. I have to imagine casting directors will stop holding auditions sometime soon. At that point I’ll have a bunch of people with no work to do. Much of their work typically could be done remotely, but there won’t be any work to do. I can pay everybody for a while, but not indefinitely obviously. At that point the most critical job function will be processing the money that IS still coming in, but that will require asking one of my employees to pick up mail, open it, etc etc etc. Or, I could do that myself, but then I’d either not be paying the guy whose job it is, which is not something he can afford, or I’d be paying him while doing his job, which is a little hard to swallow.

So yeah I’m spinning out a little today.

Yeah but that’s the case for practically every infectious disease. Nobody washes their hands and thinks they can eat a bag of coronavirus without getting it.

I’m looking at pulse oximeters online but I don’t understand why they’re important in this scenario.

What are you learning from using it?

This article is really good and everyone should read it:

With R0 values for COVID-19 in China around 2·5 in the early stages of the epidemic, we calculate that approximately 60% of the population would become infected. This is a very worst-case scenario for a number of reasons. We are uncertain about transmission in children, some communities are remote and unlikely to be exposed, voluntary social distancing by individuals and communities will have an impact, and mitigation efforts, such as the measures put in place in China, greatly reduce transmission. As an epidemic progresses, the effective reproduction number (R) declines until it falls below unity in value when the epidemic peaks and then decays, either due to the exhaustion of people susceptible to infection or the impact of control measures.

First among the important unknowns about COVID-19 is the case fatality rate (CFR), which requires information on the denominator that defines the number infected. We are unaware of any completed large-scale serology surveys to detect specific antibodies to COVID-19. Best estimates suggest a CFR for COVID-19 of about 0·3–1%, which is higher than the order of 0·1% CFR for a moderate influenza A season.

The key epidemiological issues that determine the impact of social distancing measures are what proportion of infected individuals have mild symptoms and whether these individuals will self-isolate and to what effectiveness; how quickly symptomatic individuals take to isolate themselves after the onset of symptoms; and the duration of any non-symptomatic infectious period before clear symptoms occur with the linked issue of how transmissible COVID-19 is during this phase.

Individual behaviour will be crucial to control the spread of COVID-19. Personal, rather than government action, in western democracies might be the most important issue. Early self-isolation, seeking medical advice remotely unless symptoms are severe, and social distancing are key. Government actions to ban mass gatherings are important, as are good diagnostic facilities and remotely accessed health advice, together with specialised treatment for people with severe disease.

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Have not received it yet, but my understanding of the use is to help distinguish between whether it’s safer to stay at home and recover or seek immediate medical attention.

I got one so that I know when it’s safe for me or a family member to stay at home if we’re sick versus having to bother a doctor or hospital. If you have a serious case that requires hospitalization your O2 levels will drop. If you’re just sick with a moderate fever but O2 levels are nice and high, you’re probably fine to stay home. (I’m not a doctor, but that’s our plan.)

Thank you friends

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EDIT: Had to bold my response since I can’t get the quotes right.

A little presumptuous there. Not all men think exactly alike.

But again, you can act a bit cooler because you’re informed. Most Americans, through no fault of their own, are not. That’s why there’s all sorts of chaos and stockpiling while in the Czech Republic (and maybe Germany?) almost none of that is happening. Plus, the attitude and approach to this stuff is very different here. Most people in the CR are pretty blasé because they’ve seen and lived through some real shit. America hasn’t experienced war on its own land since The Civil War.

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This is close to the first real shit in the greater living memory of America. There are a scattered few of us who have experienced it in specific situations, but nothing like it for the broader populace.

Roach music is a bit clickety for me though.

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I think your bolded is wrong. Healthcare workers and their families are going to be tremendously strained over the coming months fighting this and trying to save lives.

But if you carefully read the rest of my post that you responded to, you will see that much of what I wrote involves preparing so that we can stay out of way of the system. (i.e. - not flood hospitals and doctors offices, which will only make things worse.)

But eventually the healthcare system will need help, even if it’s just for menial tasks. Tons of stuff I can think of. And it’s likely that people with immunity will be able to eventually provide a tremendous service if we remain organized. To the extent I’m “freaking out”, it’s because there is no leadership in the US helping with anything right now. And we stand a good chance to descend into chaos or worse as supplies and medication become limited. And we’re all armed to the teeth. So yes, I’m worried about those things. But trust me, these are valid worries here. And thinking and talking about these things is not the same as freaking out. It’s not.

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I see we’ve now moved on to extremely low risk individuals buying up all the oxygen monitoring equipment. One more item people who really need it won’t be able to find when it’s most critical.

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Thread still in borderline panic mode I see.

If you’re youngish with a decent immune system and have no history of respiratory disease there’s not much to worry about apart from spreading it to the vulnerable.

Actual infection rates are obviously way higher than known and published eg Germany’s is 4 times higher than the UKs due to national variations in testing

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It’s much easier to figure out how to be a good Samaritan in something like an earthquake. How do you help people keep away from everyone, including yourself?

If it gets to where you have sick friends and neighbors you can figure out a way to drop off supplies without getting exposed. One could be doing this for at-risk people so they don’t have to go out.

We already tried this with Trump, it didn’t work.

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I just picked up an intubation machine for everyone in my house and a couple spares just in case.

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