Sonic Youth Gossip - Coronavirus

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I'm not exactly outdoorsy - if I could order food and have a decent internet connection I could stay indoors for weeks. (No dog - after my buddy Emilio died long ago I felt I couldn't take another loss like that, and besides he was my dog, you know?) The internet issue is the worst, because as a Dimeadozenholic I need to keep up with the goodies that interest me, and I can only download big filesets from the office. And that, my friends, is where the zombie apocalypse could hit me harder, as there's talk of closing the office building altogether until shit is contained.

Which brings me to: what does containing the disease mean, anyway? Obviously I know the literal meaning, but let's go practical: we take the sanitary precautions, we don't go out, so deaths go down, cases go down. And then what? Isn't the virus gonna be there waiting for us like the zombie which for some reason is more clever than the other zombies? Or will hazmat-suited cats be spreading Lysol over every goddamn squared centimeter of the planet?

we’re buying time to make tests & masks & develop vaccines & build capacity for treatment

eventually everyone is gonna get it and the virus will mutate like viruses do and people will die like they die from the flu and so forth.

but a flu vaccine gives you a 50% chance to prevent it, we can treat the flu, and flu treatments don’t overwhelm hospitals

Quote:

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

we’re buying time to make tests & masks & develop vaccines & build capacity for treatment

With the sorry-ass state of both our countries' healthcare systems, and with Trump and Piñera in charge, good luck with that. And may Vishnu/Zeus/Ra have mercy on us all.

After Pence said every person insured could get tested, they asked him what would happened with the (at least) 30 million people uninsured. The super-compassionate evangelical walked out of the press conference. You can do that these days, because that's the fucking world we're living in.

From the BBC:
Coronavirus: When will the outbreak end and life get back to normal?

Quote:

The world is shutting down. Places that were once teeming with the hustle and bustle of daily life have become ghost-towns with massive restrictions put on our lives - from lockdowns and school closures to travel restrictions and bans on mass gatherings.

It is an unparalleled global response to a disease. But when will it end and when will we be able to get on with our lives?

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he believes the UK can "turn the tide" against the outbreak within the next 12 weeks and the country can "send coronavirus packing". [:rolleyes:]

But even if the number of cases starts to fall in the next three months, then we will still be far from the end.

It can take a long time for the tide to go out - possibly years.

It is clear the current strategy of shutting down large parts of society is not sustainable in the long-term. The social and economic damage would be catastrophic.

What countries need is an "exit strategy" - a way of lifting the restrictions and getting back to normal.

But the coronavirus is not going to disappear.

If you lift the restrictions that are holding the virus back, then cases will inevitably soar.

"We do have a big problem in what the exit strategy is and how we get out of this," says Mark Woolhouse, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh.

"It's not just the UK, no country has an exit strategy."

It is a massive scientific and societal challenge.

There are essentially three ways out of this mess.

vaccination
enough people develop immunity through infection
or permanently change our behaviour/society

Each of these routes would reduce the ability of the virus to spread.

Vaccines - at least 12-18 months away

A vaccine should give someone immunity so they do not become sick if they are exposed.

Immunise enough people, about 60% of the population, and the virus cannot cause outbreaks - the concept known as herd immunity.

The first person was given an experimental vaccine in the US this week after researchers were allowed to skip the usual rules of performing animal tests first.

Vaccine research is taking place at unprecedented speed, but there is no guarantee it will be successful and will require immunisation on a global scale.

The best guess is a vaccine could still be 12 to 18-months away if everything goes smoothly. That is a long time to wait when facing unprecedented social restrictions during peacetime.

"Waiting for a vaccine should not be honoured with the name 'strategy', that is not a strategy," Prof Woolhouse told the BBC.

Natural immunity - at least two years away

The UK's short-term strategy is to drive down cases as much as possible to prevent hospitals being overwhelmed - when you run out of intensive care beds then deaths spike.

Once cases are suppressed, it may allow some measures to be lifted for a while - until cases rise and another round of restrictions are needed.

When this might be is uncertain. The UK's chief scientific advisor, Sir Patrick Vallance, said "putting absolute timelines on things is not possible".

Doing this could, unintentionally, lead to herd immunity as more and more people were infected.

But this could take years to build up, according to Prof Neil Ferguson from Imperial College London: "We're talking about suppressing transmission at a level whereby, hopefully, only a very small fraction of the country will be infected.

"So eventually, if we continued this for two-plus years, maybe a sufficient fraction of the country at that point might have been infected to give some degree of community protection."

But there is a question mark over whether this immunity will last. Other coronaviruses, which cause common cold symptoms, lead to a very weak immune response and people can catch the same bug multiple times in their lifetime.

Alternatives - no clear endpoint

"The third option is permanent changes in our behaviour that allow us to keep transmission rates low," Prof Woolhouse said.

This could include keeping some of the measures that have been put in place. Or introducing rigorous testing and isolation of patients to try to stay on top of any outbreaks.

"We did early detection and contact tracing the first time round and it didn't work," Prof Woolhouse adds.

Developing drugs that can successfully treat a Covid-19 infection could aid the other strategies too.

They could be used as soon as people show symptoms in a process called "transmission control" to stop them passing it onto others.

Or to treat patients in hospital to make the disease less deadly and reduce pressures on intensive care. This would allow countries to cope with more cases before needing to reintroduce lockdowns.

Increasing the number of intensive care beds would have a similar effect by increasing the capacity to cope with larger outbreaks.

I asked the UK's chief medical adviser, Prof Chris Whitty, what his exit strategy was.

He told me: "Long term, clearly a vaccine is one way out of this and we all hope that will happen as quickly as possible."

And that "globally, science will come up with solutions".

It. Is. GLAMOROUS. :mad:

china is managing to flatten the curve so i would not be completely pessimistic here

but yeah a lot of challenges ahead. are you working from home yet?

Quote:

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

but yeah a lot of challenges ahead. are you working from home yet?

Hard to do with this connection. Some things can be done, but it's a real estate business (my mother's), and obviously NOBODY'S GONNA GO LOOK AT PROPERTIES (to rent or buy) with CRAPVID-19 around. We're tanking, man, it's not pretty. A couple of weeks ago or so a friend of my mom's arrived at the office with a couple of bags of groceries for us - it was certainly welcomed, but the sheer sight of it was heartbreaking. Not even during the dictatorship things were this brutal in the economic sense for us.

I would start one of those gofundme pages if people weren't gonna give a damn about it because other people happen to be dying.

everybody has to put themselves on hold for some time, that’s just the reality

for the reboot it’s gonna be MMT or bust

anyway i would plant potatoes in the backyard but i don’t have one, get some chickens & rabbits going.

otherwise maybe record some VR tours and see if you can broker online?

a lot of transactions are moving online now, it’s just the future, accelerated.

but yeah with everybody losing income—workers, businesses—only the printing press can keep things going

there is still demand, supply will meet if the means are available. but there will be retooling. we won’t go back to the same. you need to look ahead to readjust.

maybe there will be demand for cheaper housing. maybe you market one socioeconomic level up for the new poor. maybe ditch the office and do all online. maybe meet the clients via facetime so you won’t have to breathe the same air. do you guys have docusign?

First I hear of Docusign; looks very convenient, but I'll have to look into it to make sure it's accepted by local regulations. As for Facetime, people are OK using WhatsApp for now, but we'll incorporate it if necessary. Thank you.

@Soup Nazi, won’t the virus just die on its own? It’s not nag on a sit waiting forever....or am I missing something?

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

Which brings me to: what does containing the disease mean, anyway? Obviously I know the literal meaning, but let's go practical: we take the sanitary precautions, we don't go out, so deaths go down, cases go down. And then what? Isn't the virus gonna be there waiting for us like the zombie which for some reason is more clever than the other zombies?

Thing is, people do recover from the virus. Putting it in a simplistic way.

Asymptomatic covid-positive people seem to become "negative" in around 14 days (still early to be sure about that, in china a patient tested positive after a bit more than a month), and even people with mild symptoms seem to become "less contagious" after 10-14 days (possibily need more to get rid of it). So the quarantine helps to prevent spreading the virus, and also to "fight" it home alone without even knowing it (you might have it, be asymptomatic, "let it die" during the extent of the quarantine).

The virus needs a host to be alive, so when things get kinda "back to normal" (I think we'll have to be pretty damn patient for that, all over the world..), at least in terms of people's circulation, its presence should be way less threatening : either people "won" over it, and supposedly their immune system can fight it, or at the very least they'd be way less contagious (weaker virus + no symptoms = less sneezing and coughing etc.).

In the meantime, there's studies on drugs (apparently working at least on some of the more dangerous complications), on the future vaccine etc..

Again, this is info I gathered around, things are still a bit up in the air in terms of scientific certainty..

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

Or will hazmat-suited cats be spreading Lysol over every goddamn squared centimeter of the planet?

yup, that too (picture from Turin).

with robots too, in china!

not every squared cm, but every bit helps (here they're doing it mainly on the usually more busy streets / squares).

meanwhile in the united states of america...

ok this was from last week, but still...

MORONAVIRUS

^here they use remodeled snow guns.
take care nicfit... all the best to you and yours.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nicfit

Looks like that guy's going "DIE, MOTHERFUCKER!!!"

I’m still going into work every day. It’s — ahhhh — not ideal.

Also, I’m about to melt down with all the anxiety in the air. It’s driving me fucking crazy, and I’m feeling increasingly paranoid and crazy.

Feels like Cthulhu is feeding off our madness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EVOLghost

@Soup Nazi, won’t the virus just die on its own? It’s not nag on a sit waiting forever....or am I missing something?

Shit, you’re in Seattle still aren’t you?
How are you doing? Or did you gtfo?
I’m very worried about my friends and family in the area.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Severian

Shit, you’re in Seattle still aren’t you?
How are you doing? Or did you gtfo?
I’m very worried about my friends and family in the area.

no, he went back home to chicago long ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by A Thousand Threads

take care nicfit... all the best to you and yours.

Thanks man. Same goes for everyone, everywhere.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Severian

I’m still going into work every day.

Work is a four-letter word.