No. The tendency for engineers to think their expertise and methods is readily transferable to other fields.
See also: over-representation among climate change deniers.
Do you mean you know a lot of engineer climate change deniers?
I think he meant that the other way around, that among climate change deniers engineers are over-represented - and indeed if someone trumpeting their advanced degrees writes on climate change denial/creationism it'll usually turn out that they are engineers of some description. If you watch the Netflix film on the flat earth you'll see a similar thing.
It's partly the same thing that leads to a high preponderance of terrorists being engineers (though there's also a socio-economic element there too).
The way in which engineering disciplines frequently rest on 'reasoning from first principles' leads to an over-warranted confidence that deep structure in other fields can be ignored (leaving aside for a minute that those 'first principles' are themselves usually approximations of physical laws and that not everything is as neat as physics). During the various dot-com booms a sizeable number of my colleagues have been playing the market, convinced that they have worked out the logic of the share movements, a number of them will argue ad-nauseam that gender and racial pay gaps couldn't exist or must reflect something real -- as otherwise some firm which didn't discriminate would clean up.
Homeless people everywhere are especially vulnerable. We're probably going to see the isolation of the wealthier and the allowing of the poor and sick to die. "Allowing" is perhaps the wrong word. Whether India or anywhere.
"We hope precisely because we are aware that terrible outcomes are always possible and often probable, but that the choices we make can impact the outcomes." (Eric Fromm, 1968).
It is behaviour that makes the difference. What I see guarantees millions of deaths. I quote someone from 1968 because it's same as ever was.
Also, totals tell us very little. The most meaningful number I can see for any given population is the rate of new infections per day, but that is not one that the media pay much attention to.
Not even sure about that, certainly in the UK. I know of at least one person who was told in A&E that he had Covid 19 but was not tested.
It's probably safer to look at patterns and anomalies. Like for example the fact that in the UK more people have died in the past few days than were recorded as serious/critical the day before. That makes the column dubious in the UK stats.
But if people have died of Covid 19 there will be signed death certificates saying so. In the UK we can be pretty certain of that.
What point does Trump have? Well, he has made the US number one, in the infection totals.
He puts the economy = money first. Everything else is secondary.
I fear the US is going to go under due to his, and his administration’s lack of ability to coordinate the effort to combat this virus.
The world's richest country is not going to "go under." We're going to have many more deaths than we would have if Trump were at all competent or caring, and the economy is already in recession, but civil society will not collapse and the country won't go bankrupt.
I think it’s possible companies like Amazon will go under too.
I don't. It's the smaller companies that don't have Amazon's riches to tide them over that will go under.
I also worry for the safety of Internet servers. I just hope there are contingency plans in place for when their staff start to get sick. 4G data is excellent but expensive.
The internet is straining to hold up under the massive use it's getting, and big bandwidth users such as Netflix YouTube have started streaming in standard definition instead of high definition in order to keep things moving. Lots of places are reporting slower speed, but so far it looks like the whole thing is holding together overall. 4G LTE is standard in the US.
It reminds me of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, various versions. In the Donald Sutherland one, there's an awful shot of him pointing to someone, who hasn't been contaminated. The other odd thing is, I am sleeping like a log. As they say in therapy, the catastrophe has already happened. My wife said her OCD clients have relaxed.
Great shot, that. I actually have that on the bulletin board in my classroom.
And you should go to youtube and listen closely to the music in that scene.
I know the scene--near the end, and he did that ululation thing that the infested people did, One of the best scenes in the film--though I like the one just after, with the person he pointed at.
stetson, why in the world do you have that pic on your classroom bulletin board?
Well, I have all sorts of stuff on my wall, a picture of my mom in her 20s, printouts of pop art paintings, a few iconic movie scenes etc.
The scream from IOTBS is not displayed with any prominence, so it's not likely to terrify anyone. The private context is that I've got it pinned underneath two art-pieces that were based on images released by Edward Snowden, so it forms sort of a paranoid, anti-government triptych.
Most of this stuff was just printed out from the imternet, nothing fancy.
No. The tendency for engineers to think their expertise and methods is readily transferable to other fields.
See also: over-representation among climate change deniers.
Do you mean you know a lot of engineer climate change deniers?
I think he meant that the other way around, that among climate change deniers engineers are over-represented - and indeed if someone trumpeting their advanced degrees writes on climate change denial/creationism it'll usually turn out that they are engineers of some description. If you watch the Netflix film on the flat earth you'll see a similar thing.
It's partly the same thing that leads to a high preponderance of terrorists being engineers (though there's also a socio-economic element there too).
The way in which engineering disciplines frequently rest on 'reasoning from first principles' leads to an over-warranted confidence that deep structure in other fields can be ignored (leaving aside for a minute that those 'first principles' are themselves usually approximations of physical laws and that not everything is as neat as physics). During the various dot-com booms a sizeable number of my colleagues have been playing the market, convinced that they have worked out the logic of the share movements, a number of them will argue ad-nauseam that gender and racial pay gaps couldn't exist or must reflect something real -- as otherwise some firm which didn't discriminate would clean up.
Sounds to me like you're talking about mathematicians and physicists. The engineers I know are a) not over-bright, and (aside from the profs) mostly know it and b) used to their shitty models not working in practice, and possessing the humility and caution necessary to build in safety factors
On the subject of immunity, I'm no expert so I'm open to correction, but my impression is that it's not necessarily an all-or-nothing thing. It seems plausible that a few months after having coronavirus you might be able to catch it again, but would be less ill than the first time. In many ways this is a good thing, but the downside is that it would tend to increase the number of asymptomatic carriers who could transmit it to other people.
Ooh! I wonder whether someone who doesn't acquire immunity to one disease is less likely to acquire it for another, or are they separate issues.
This depends IMO on the reason why the person failed to acquire immunity. Was it something about that particular instance (the virus, the circumstances) or was it a general defect in the person's immune system? if it's a general defect, they are likely to have the problem with many different infectious diseases. Otherwise not.
I'm frustrated right now because they aren't testing ANYBODY in my area, probably due to lack of tests, unless they are more or less on the point of death or close thereto (yes, there may be a slight exaggeration, but not much). They are explaining this on the basis of "Well, all we could tell you if you were positive is to go home and isolate, so that's what we ARE telling you, and what good would a test do?" (Answer: It would tell me exactly how stringent my sacrifices need to be while isolating at home, e.g. do I stop making a five-year-old's sandwiches for him and attempt to talk him through the process from across the room; it would tell me that once I got through this, I was unlikely to catch it again, at least this year; I would be free to volunteer in place of people who had no immunity; it would allow me to donate blood immune globulin once recovered to protect health workers/highly at-risk people, and so forth.)
None of that is going to work when I don't know if I have the flu or what.
I've had chicken pox twice; I was 13 the first time and 37 the second. The second time was six weeks after a miscarriage, and the doctor said that the miscarriage had depressed my immunity i.e. I had been immune to chicken pox after the first lot, but that the miscarriage had created a window of opportunity in my immune system.
I had measles several times as a child; I believe you're only meant to have it once.
And I've been playing bridge on my computer. Ads kept popping up telling me that lots of single ladies in the area want to meet me. This seems unlikely at any time, but especially at the moment.
I had measles several times as a child; I believe you're only meant to have it once.
And I've been playing bridge on my computer. Ads kept popping up telling me that lots of single ladies in the area want to meet me. This seems unlikely at any time, but especially at the moment.
I had measles several times as a child; I believe you're only meant to have it once.
And I've been playing bridge on my computer. Ads kept popping up telling me that lots of single ladies in the area want to meet me. This seems unlikely at any time, but especially at the moment.
They all want to meet me, too, Robert. Maybe they just want bridge partners.
I've found a place to play hearts with three computer generated avatars. I'm ashamed to say I've developed a very strong animosity against one insufferable, "Lisa," who smiles whenever I lose a hand.
I saw something about multiple strains of COVID-19--eight of them, IIRC. IANAD, but might that mean a person could be infected multiple times with different strains?
If you have had chickenpox, you never are never really cured of it, your immune system just is able to suppress it. It can come back, often in the form of shingles.
If I am reading the coronavirus counter right, it appears Washington State may be seeing a flattening of our curve, though it can certainly start moving up again if we are not careful. We have now moved from the third-highest infection rate in the U. S. Down to the eighth-highest.
I've had chicken pox twice; I was 13 the first time and 37 the second. The second time was six weeks after a miscarriage, and the doctor said that the miscarriage had depressed my immunity i.e. I had been immune to chicken pox after the first lot, but that the miscarriage had created a window of opportunity in my immune system.
AIUI the chicken pox virus is with you forever, but the vaccines still help reduce the incidence and severity of recurrence as shingles.
I saw something about multiple strains of COVID-19--eight of them, IIRC. IANAD, but might that mean a person could be infected multiple times with different strains?
Covid-19 is the disease.
The virus is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 or, abbreviated, SARS-CoV-2.
The virus will mutate, it sure the disease does.
I've had chicken pox twice; I was 13 the first time and 37 the second. The second time was six weeks after a miscarriage, and the doctor said that the miscarriage had depressed my immunity i.e. I had been immune to chicken pox after the first lot, but that the miscarriage had created a window of opportunity in my immune system.
AIUI the chicken pox virus is with you forever, but the vaccines still help reduce the incidence and severity of recurrence as shingles.
You are correct, there are vaccines that will help reduce the severity of shingles.
When I first became eligible for the vaccine, I immediately got the shot. I encouraged my wife to get vaccinated too, but she deferred. Then all of a sudden she got a small rash, about the size of an American quarter on her neck. It really burned, so she went in to get it looked at--low and behold, it was shingles. As soon as she was clear of the shingles, she got vaccinated--yes, you can have repeated shingles.
I did not mention this, but throughout my childhood, I would get sores in my mouth, From what I now understand, they may have been eruptions of the chickenpox,
I saw something about multiple strains of COVID-19--eight of them, IIRC. IANAD, but might that mean a person could be infected multiple times with different strains?
If it behaves anything like the flu a new version of the vaccine will be needed every year.
The world's richest country is not going to "go under." We're going to have many more deaths than we would have if Trump were at all competent or caring, and the economy is already in recession, but civil society will not collapse and the country won't go bankrupt.
I’m not talking about the economy or the money.
But civil society already seems to be under enormous strain. Everything is still being done in such an individualistic way that the very concept of ‘society’ doesn’t seem to be grasped.
The word ‘socialism’ has been a dirty word for so long I fear that pulling together either as a nation or states seems to be beyond them.
I dearly hope I’m wrong. I have visited the US many times. My husband has visited every state. We love it. 😢
For anyone interested in advice from the front lines, this is an hour-long video discussion of CoViD-19 by Dr. Dave Price from Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, which is a 1,500-bed hospital that has been dedicated to treating only CoViD-19 patients. It was originally addressed to his extended family and is dated March 22nd.
In the first half, he says that he is no longer scared because they now understand the disease, and he discusses the 3 basic rules that will allow you to avoid getting the disease (clean your hands after touching anything in public, don't touch your face, and wear a generic mask to remind you not to touch your face). He also discusses how the disease is rarely contracted by breathing in droplets, and how to handle a situation where someone in your house has the disease. In the second half he answers questions from his extended family.
I found it to be both informative and reassuring, especially about how to avoid risk when going out in public.
List of countries with at least 5,000 known COVID-19 cases.
United States - 142,178 (135,135 / 4,559 / 2,484)
Italy - 97,689 (73,880 / 13,030 / 10,779)
China - 81,470 (2,466 / 75,700 / 3,304) 4.2%
Spain - 80,110 (58,598 / 14,709 / 6,803)
Germany - 62,435 (52,683 / 9,211 / 541)
France - 40,174 (30,366 / 7,202 / 2,606)
Iran - 38,309 (23,278 / 12,391 / 2,640)
United Kingdom - 19,522 (18,159 / 135 / 1,228)
Switzerland - 14,829 (12,934 / 1,595 / 300)
Netherlands - 10,866 (9,845 / 250 / 771)
Belgium - 10,836 (9,046 / 1,359 / 431)
South Korea - 9,661 (4,275 / 5,228 / 158)
Turkey - 9,217 (8,981 / 105 / 131)
Austria - 8,788 (8,223 / 479 / 86)
Canada - 6,320 (5,682 / 573 / 65)
Portugal - 5,962 (5,800 / 43 / 119)
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1. Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
Since the last compilation no nations have joined this particular club.
I saw something about multiple strains of COVID-19--eight of them, IIRC. IANAD, but might that mean a person could be infected multiple times with different strains?
What they're probably talking about with multiple strains is the fact that the virus, like all living things, changes a bit as it goes through its generations (that is, mutates). Over time these small changes develop into different strains of the virus--like different branches of a single human family--all still the same basic thing, but having identifiable differences that allow scientists to track them--for instance, to say that the outbreak in Place A was caused by a traveller who brought it from Place B and not from Places X, Y or Z. So that's useful, if you're tracking "how did this happen."
The thing is, the little mutations are usually not enough to cause an actual change in the experience of the sickness--or at least not this quickly. Over time they add up, and by the year whatsit we may well have a descendant virus that is much milder (bugs tend to get milder over time, as they adapt better to their host--there's not much use in making your host so sick he/she can't go out and be infectious everywhere!). Nevertheless, we aren't likely to have enough changes between now and, say, next year, to make the experience of being sick much different.
What that means in terms of immunity is that once you've caught one strain, you're probably safe from them all--at least until your immunity wears off. And we really don't know yet how long the immunity lasts. There probably IS an immunity, in spite of reports of people being infected twice, because there usually is, isn't there? It's basically what the immune system does for a living, is creating more-or-less permanent immunities. Otherwise we'd all be forever getting colds all our lives on a monthly basis (like young children) instead of getting down to one or two in a long while (as older adults). Because, of course, by that time we've met most of the most common cold viruses.
As for those who catch COVID-19 twice, there could be a ton of explanations:
a) a temporary immune problem, like the miscarriage (so sorry) mentioned above;
b) a permanent immune problem or quirk of an individual's system that leaves him/her unable to build immunity, unlike normal people;
c) a mistake in testing, either the first or final time (false positives/negatives);
d) when the person appeared to have become reinfected, it was actually a resurgence of the original infection which had never fully cleared, but had died down enough (temporarily) to not register on whatever measure they were using to say "you're cured."
tl/dr version: We probably don't need to worry about catching it twice, at least until a year or so has gone by, and possibly for even longer--at which point, please God, we'll have a vaccine.
The world's richest country is not going to "go under." We're going to have many more deaths than we would have if Trump were at all competent or caring, and the economy is already in recession, but civil society will not collapse and the country won't go bankrupt.
I’m not talking about the economy or the money.
But civil society already seems to be under enormous strain. Everything is still being done in such an individualistic way that the very concept of ‘society’ doesn’t seem to be grasped.
The word ‘socialism’ has been a dirty word for so long I fear that pulling together either as a nation or states seems to be beyond them.
I dearly hope I’m wrong. I have visited the US many times. My husband has visited every state. We love it. 😢
Boogie, dear, give me a break. You are usually optimistic--please use it here. We are not under any greater strain than anybody else, IMHO, though that's setting a low bar, as the whole world is strained. We have every reason to count our blessings when it comes to $, infrastructure, staffing and technology--God help the poorer nations of the world!
We do have the grievous misfortune of suffering under a complete lack of responsible leadership from Trump--but then, y'all have the Mad Mophead, I understand, and then there are creatures such as Bolsonaro loose in the world...
You say that "Everything is still being done in such an individualistic way that the very concept of ‘society’ doesn’t seem to be grasped." Let's re-cast that. Washington has flat out failed. Very well, that sucks, but that is not our last resort. In fact, we had already been in the habit, most Americans of any governmental/supervisory responsibility at all, of NOT looking to Washington for sage advice. Three years of chaos teaches you to consider your other options.
That's why it looks individualistic to you--we have 50-some governors all pulling their other options out of their back pockets and attempting to lean on local, inter-state, and inter-national relationships that do NOT go through Washington, because duh. Yes, it looks freaking uncoordinated, but that doesn't mean it's ineffective or useless. It's just multiple. Governors and health departments and mayors and (fill in the blank) are busy learning from one another and filching each others' ideas, as well as bypassing Trump and hitting up national resources like the CDC on their own.
So yeah, we're in a bad spot. But America is not about to dissolve. We are a strongly patriotic country, in spite of recent, ah, misfortunes, and like most human beings, we will find a way of rising to the challenge. It just won't look coordinated. But looks are not important at this point.
Sounds to me like you're talking about mathematicians and physicists. The engineers I know are a) not over-bright, and (aside from the profs) mostly know it and b) used to their shitty models not working in practice, and possessing the humility and caution necessary to build in safety factors
“After scrapping that idea, I was still a bit bored, playing with the magnets. It’s the same logic as clipping pegs to your ears – I clipped them to my earlobes and then clipped them to my nostril and things went downhill pretty quickly when I clipped the magnets to my other nostril.”
Reardon said he placed two magnets inside his nostrils, and two on the outside. When he removed the magnets from the outside of his nose, the two inside stuck together. Unfortunately, the researcher then attempted to use his remaining magnets to remove them.
It's about a choir in Washington state. Long article (mostly the actual events), but good.
I had wondered if it might be airborne. To my layperson mind, that seemed likely: even with air travel, I wouldn't think direct contact would move the virus so quickly and so far.
The pilot wisdom I hear is that you're more likely to pick it up from the passenger next to you than from the air recirculation system due to the mesh size of the particle filter in the latter.
(Not that I can see many people flying anywhere in the near future...)
The pilot wisdom I hear is that you're more likely to pick it up from the passenger next to you than from the air recirculation system due to the mesh size of the particle filter in the latter.
(Not that I can see many people flying anywhere in the near future...)
There were four people coughing at the departure gate.
Pilots have their own air system, better than that of the passengers (they spend day in day out in it). My son is a pilot for EasyJet. They have grounded all their planes today. He’s now on unpaid leave for three months.
Luckily he recently bought a beat up old VW camper van so he’ll have a project to keep him busy for the duration. He’s also volunteering locally to help the old people in his area with shopping etc.
I had wondered if it might be airborne. To my layperson mind, that seemed likely: even with air travel, I wouldn't think direct contact would move the virus so quickly and so far.
I think it depends what you mean by airborne. When a person with Covid-19 coughs or sneezes, they exhale droplets which can be inhaled by other people if they are in the close vicinity. It doesn't surprise me that a choir would be a place for the virus to spread quickly. Singing is an excellent way of expelling all your lung contents, and this is incidentally a very strong argument for closing churches IMO.
OTOH, it doesn't look like Covid-19 nebulises, in the same way as a virus like measles, for example. In other words it doesn't hang in the air for any significant length of time. Instead the infected droplets settle on surfaces and then go on to infect others when they touch those surfaces and then touch their face. That's why the best defence we have is thorough handwashing.
LambChopped wrote: Governors and health departments and mayors and (fill in the blank) are busy learning from one another and filching each others' ideas, as well as bypassing Trump and hitting up national resources like the CDC on their own.
Yes, the Prez and our Ohio governor speak at the same time every afternoon and everyone I know tunes into the governor.
Lately I've been so grateful for the ship and all it's super smart people like LC. While other unfortunates are having to wade through all the mess at Google news for information, I just come to this thread every morning.
A million thanks to all of you! -- even Croesos who will probably pick apart this post showing me where I'm wrong.
This must be Merkle's doing? I can't imagine any other country behaving like this in the current climate. I'm deeply impressed.
Frau Merkel's compassionate action in allowing so many refugees into Germany a few years ago (you know, those Horrid Foreign People Not Like Us, so unbeloved of our 'government') is reaping its reward.
I can't locate the link just now, but it seems that many of those refugees, taken in by Germany, are healthcare professionals of various kinds, and are now ready and willing to pitch in to help the country that helped them.
A lesson here, surely, for the English xenophobes?
Alas, yes - there was much right-wing (even Nazi ) opposition in Germany to Frau Merkel's welcome to the refugees (back in 2015, was it? Seems so long ago now), although most Germans seem to have accepted it, perhaps in some parts of the country more than others.
German xenophobia was, and is, a frightening force. The same applies to other countries, of course, but not perhaps with quite such a hideous and menacing past...
The virus is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 or, abbreviated, SARS-CoV-2.
The virus will mutate, it sure the disease does.
Apparently they have identified 8 strains of SARS-CoV-2, and it's mutating significantly slower than many other viruses. So that's good news, for what it is.
(On masks, I gather that they're better at preventing infected people from filling their airspace with a big cloud of virus than they are at preventing mask-wearers from catching it.)
The virus is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 or, abbreviated, SARS-CoV-2.
The virus will mutate, it sure the disease does.
Apparently they have identified 8 strains of SARS-CoV-2, and it's mutating significantly slower than many other viruses. So that's good news, for what it is.
(On masks, I gather that they're better at preventing infected people from filling their airspace with a big cloud of virus than they are at preventing mask-wearers from catching it.)
ISTM, because people touch things and then touch their mouths, eyes and noses. In the air, the virus can apparently last 4 hours, but that needs still air to be a major concern. On surfaces however, it can last up to 96 hours, depending on the material. Glass 96, steel and plastic 72, cardboard 24, copper 4, air 4. Only guidelines, of course, more caution is better
The university affiliated lab here VIDO-Intervac was trying for years to get funding for research into a general vaccine against corona viruses. But it wasn't a priority. It is now.
There are 10 labs of which it's one we're told that work with WHO but USA is reported to be out of that group. Which makes me wonder about the profit motive and intellectual property. Which, if happens would be scandalous.
Frau Merkel's compassionate action in allowing so many refugees into Germany a few years ago (you know, those Horrid Foreign People Not Like Us, so unbeloved of our 'government') is reaping its reward.
I can't locate the link just now, but it seems that many of those refugees, taken in by Germany, are healthcare professionals of various kinds, and are now ready and willing to pitch in to help the country that helped them.
Five years ago the arrival of a wave of refugees caused much consternation and fueled support for Germany’s far-right. Now, the country is turning to its migrant community to plug an anticipated shortage of medical staff battling the coronavirus.
The German government says it can double its number of intensive care beds, and even produce more ventilators but a medical staffing crunch is shaping up as the Achilles heel of its strategy to fight the coronavirus.
In Saxony, the heartland of the nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD), the regional medical board is advertising for migrant doctors to help tackle an expected rise in cases.
"Foreign doctors who are in Saxony but do not yet have a license to practice medicine can help with corona(virus) care," read a Facebook appeal. here
Apparently people who are resourceful enough to escape a war zone are talented and motivated. Who knew?
At present, three British doctors have died of covid-19 contracted while working to treat patients and protect the country from the worst effects of this virus. These are among the heros that our media and politicians, and ordinary people from their doorsteps and windows, have been applauding.
Hopefully the fact that these three heros tragically taken from their families too soon were all muslims and born outside the UK (or of parents born outside the UK) should put an end to the evil nonsense of xenophobia and islamophobia. I fear that it will take more than doctors heroically putting their lives in danger to help everyone to knock some sense into many of the bigoted idiots.
Comments
I think he meant that the other way around, that among climate change deniers engineers are over-represented - and indeed if someone trumpeting their advanced degrees writes on climate change denial/creationism it'll usually turn out that they are engineers of some description. If you watch the Netflix film on the flat earth you'll see a similar thing.
It's partly the same thing that leads to a high preponderance of terrorists being engineers (though there's also a socio-economic element there too).
The way in which engineering disciplines frequently rest on 'reasoning from first principles' leads to an over-warranted confidence that deep structure in other fields can be ignored (leaving aside for a minute that those 'first principles' are themselves usually approximations of physical laws and that not everything is as neat as physics). During the various dot-com booms a sizeable number of my colleagues have been playing the market, convinced that they have worked out the logic of the share movements, a number of them will argue ad-nauseam that gender and racial pay gaps couldn't exist or must reflect something real -- as otherwise some firm which didn't discriminate would clean up.
"We hope precisely because we are aware that terrible outcomes are always possible and often probable, but that the choices we make can impact the outcomes." (Eric Fromm, 1968).
It is behaviour that makes the difference. What I see guarantees millions of deaths. I quote someone from 1968 because it's same as ever was.
It's probably safer to look at patterns and anomalies. Like for example the fact that in the UK more people have died in the past few days than were recorded as serious/critical the day before. That makes the column dubious in the UK stats.
But if people have died of Covid 19 there will be signed death certificates saying so. In the UK we can be pretty certain of that.
The world's richest country is not going to "go under." We're going to have many more deaths than we would have if Trump were at all competent or caring, and the economy is already in recession, but civil society will not collapse and the country won't go bankrupt.
I don't. It's the smaller companies that don't have Amazon's riches to tide them over that will go under.
The internet is straining to hold up under the massive use it's getting, and big bandwidth users such as Netflix YouTube have started streaming in standard definition instead of high definition in order to keep things moving. Lots of places are reporting slower speed, but so far it looks like the whole thing is holding together overall. 4G LTE is standard in the US.
Not th
Well, I have all sorts of stuff on my wall, a picture of my mom in her 20s, printouts of pop art paintings, a few iconic movie scenes etc.
The scream from IOTBS is not displayed with any prominence, so it's not likely to terrify anyone. The private context is that I've got it pinned underneath two art-pieces that were based on images released by Edward Snowden, so it forms sort of a paranoid, anti-government triptych.
Most of this stuff was just printed out from the imternet, nothing fancy.
Sounds to me like you're talking about mathematicians and physicists. The engineers I know are a) not over-bright, and (aside from the profs) mostly know it and b) used to their shitty models not working in practice, and possessing the humility and caution necessary to build in safety factors
This depends IMO on the reason why the person failed to acquire immunity. Was it something about that particular instance (the virus, the circumstances) or was it a general defect in the person's immune system? if it's a general defect, they are likely to have the problem with many different infectious diseases. Otherwise not.
I'm frustrated right now because they aren't testing ANYBODY in my area, probably due to lack of tests, unless they are more or less on the point of death or close thereto (yes, there may be a slight exaggeration, but not much). They are explaining this on the basis of "Well, all we could tell you if you were positive is to go home and isolate, so that's what we ARE telling you, and what good would a test do?" (Answer: It would tell me exactly how stringent my sacrifices need to be while isolating at home, e.g. do I stop making a five-year-old's sandwiches for him and attempt to talk him through the process from across the room; it would tell me that once I got through this, I was unlikely to catch it again, at least this year; I would be free to volunteer in place of people who had no immunity; it would allow me to donate blood immune globulin once recovered to protect health workers/highly at-risk people, and so forth.)
None of that is going to work when I don't know if I have the flu or what.
And I've been playing bridge on my computer. Ads kept popping up telling me that lots of single ladies in the area want to meet me. This seems unlikely at any time, but especially at the moment.
Flight of the Conchords: Ladies of the World
They all want to meet me, too, Robert. Maybe they just want bridge partners.
I've found a place to play hearts with three computer generated avatars. I'm ashamed to say I've developed a very strong animosity against one insufferable, "Lisa," who smiles whenever I lose a hand.
If I am reading the coronavirus counter right, it appears Washington State may be seeing a flattening of our curve, though it can certainly start moving up again if we are not careful. We have now moved from the third-highest infection rate in the U. S. Down to the eighth-highest.
AIUI the chicken pox virus is with you forever, but the vaccines still help reduce the incidence and severity of recurrence as shingles.
The virus is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 or, abbreviated, SARS-CoV-2.
The virus will mutate, it sure the disease does.
You are correct, there are vaccines that will help reduce the severity of shingles.
When I first became eligible for the vaccine, I immediately got the shot. I encouraged my wife to get vaccinated too, but she deferred. Then all of a sudden she got a small rash, about the size of an American quarter on her neck. It really burned, so she went in to get it looked at--low and behold, it was shingles. As soon as she was clear of the shingles, she got vaccinated--yes, you can have repeated shingles.
I did not mention this, but throughout my childhood, I would get sores in my mouth, From what I now understand, they may have been eruptions of the chickenpox,
If it behaves anything like the flu a new version of the vaccine will be needed every year.
I’m not talking about the economy or the money.
But civil society already seems to be under enormous strain. Everything is still being done in such an individualistic way that the very concept of ‘society’ doesn’t seem to be grasped.
The word ‘socialism’ has been a dirty word for so long I fear that pulling together either as a nation or states seems to be beyond them.
I dearly hope I’m wrong. I have visited the US many times. My husband has visited every state. We love it. 😢
In the first half, he says that he is no longer scared because they now understand the disease, and he discusses the 3 basic rules that will allow you to avoid getting the disease (clean your hands after touching anything in public, don't touch your face, and wear a generic mask to remind you not to touch your face). He also discusses how the disease is rarely contracted by breathing in droplets, and how to handle a situation where someone in your house has the disease. In the second half he answers questions from his extended family.
I found it to be both informative and reassuring, especially about how to avoid risk when going out in public.
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1. Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
Since the last compilation no nations have joined this particular club.
What they're probably talking about with multiple strains is the fact that the virus, like all living things, changes a bit as it goes through its generations (that is, mutates). Over time these small changes develop into different strains of the virus--like different branches of a single human family--all still the same basic thing, but having identifiable differences that allow scientists to track them--for instance, to say that the outbreak in Place A was caused by a traveller who brought it from Place B and not from Places X, Y or Z. So that's useful, if you're tracking "how did this happen."
The thing is, the little mutations are usually not enough to cause an actual change in the experience of the sickness--or at least not this quickly. Over time they add up, and by the year whatsit we may well have a descendant virus that is much milder (bugs tend to get milder over time, as they adapt better to their host--there's not much use in making your host so sick he/she can't go out and be infectious everywhere!). Nevertheless, we aren't likely to have enough changes between now and, say, next year, to make the experience of being sick much different.
What that means in terms of immunity is that once you've caught one strain, you're probably safe from them all--at least until your immunity wears off. And we really don't know yet how long the immunity lasts. There probably IS an immunity, in spite of reports of people being infected twice, because there usually is, isn't there? It's basically what the immune system does for a living, is creating more-or-less permanent immunities. Otherwise we'd all be forever getting colds all our lives on a monthly basis (like young children) instead of getting down to one or two in a long while (as older adults). Because, of course, by that time we've met most of the most common cold viruses.
As for those who catch COVID-19 twice, there could be a ton of explanations:
a) a temporary immune problem, like the miscarriage (so sorry) mentioned above;
b) a permanent immune problem or quirk of an individual's system that leaves him/her unable to build immunity, unlike normal people;
c) a mistake in testing, either the first or final time (false positives/negatives);
d) when the person appeared to have become reinfected, it was actually a resurgence of the original infection which had never fully cleared, but had died down enough (temporarily) to not register on whatever measure they were using to say "you're cured."
tl/dr version: We probably don't need to worry about catching it twice, at least until a year or so has gone by, and possibly for even longer--at which point, please God, we'll have a vaccine.
Boogie, dear, give me a break. You are usually optimistic--please use it here. We are not under any greater strain than anybody else, IMHO, though that's setting a low bar, as the whole world is strained. We have every reason to count our blessings when it comes to $, infrastructure, staffing and technology--God help the poorer nations of the world!
We do have the grievous misfortune of suffering under a complete lack of responsible leadership from Trump--but then, y'all have the Mad Mophead, I understand, and then there are creatures such as Bolsonaro loose in the world...
You say that "Everything is still being done in such an individualistic way that the very concept of ‘society’ doesn’t seem to be grasped." Let's re-cast that. Washington has flat out failed. Very well, that sucks, but that is not our last resort. In fact, we had already been in the habit, most Americans of any governmental/supervisory responsibility at all, of NOT looking to Washington for sage advice. Three years of chaos teaches you to consider your other options.
That's why it looks individualistic to you--we have 50-some governors all pulling their other options out of their back pockets and attempting to lean on local, inter-state, and inter-national relationships that do NOT go through Washington, because duh. Yes, it looks freaking uncoordinated, but that doesn't mean it's ineffective or useless. It's just multiple. Governors and health departments and mayors and (fill in the blank) are busy learning from one another and filching each others' ideas, as well as bypassing Trump and hitting up national resources like the CDC on their own.
So yeah, we're in a bad spot. But America is not about to dissolve. We are a strongly patriotic country, in spite of recent, ah, misfortunes, and like most human beings, we will find a way of rising to the challenge. It just won't look coordinated. But looks are not important at this point.
Australian media is recording a slight flattening. We will see if it lasts.
I dearly hope we all help poorer and harder hit countries through this. Germany is showing the way by airlifting patients from France.
https://tinyurl.com/yxyq6mqc
Thx for the info.
"8 strains of the coronavirus are circling the globe. Here's what clues they're giving scientists." (USA Today, via Yahoo)
Astrophysicist gets magnets stuck up nose while inventing coronavirus device
"Choir practice turns fatal. Airborne coronavirus strongly suspected (LA Times, via Yahoo)"
It's about a choir in Washington state. Long article (mostly the actual events), but good.
I had wondered if it might be airborne. To my layperson mind, that seemed likely: even with air travel, I wouldn't think direct contact would move the virus so quickly and so far.
(Not that I can see many people flying anywhere in the near future...)
In a plane everybody is breathing the same air; it's a great way to spread germs.
This must be Merkle's doing? I can't imagine any other country behaving like this in the current climate. I'm deeply impressed.
There were four people coughing at the departure gate.
Pilots have their own air system, better than that of the passengers (they spend day in day out in it). My son is a pilot for EasyJet. They have grounded all their planes today. He’s now on unpaid leave for three months.
Luckily he recently bought a beat up old VW camper van so he’ll have a project to keep him busy for the duration. He’s also volunteering locally to help the old people in his area with shopping etc.
I think it depends what you mean by airborne. When a person with Covid-19 coughs or sneezes, they exhale droplets which can be inhaled by other people if they are in the close vicinity. It doesn't surprise me that a choir would be a place for the virus to spread quickly. Singing is an excellent way of expelling all your lung contents, and this is incidentally a very strong argument for closing churches IMO.
OTOH, it doesn't look like Covid-19 nebulises, in the same way as a virus like measles, for example. In other words it doesn't hang in the air for any significant length of time. Instead the infected droplets settle on surfaces and then go on to infect others when they touch those surfaces and then touch their face. That's why the best defence we have is thorough handwashing.
Lately I've been so grateful for the ship and all it's super smart people like LC. While other unfortunates are having to wade through all the mess at Google news for information, I just come to this thread every morning.
A million thanks to all of you! -- even Croesos who will probably pick apart this post showing me where I'm wrong.
Frau Merkel's compassionate action in allowing so many refugees into Germany a few years ago (you know, those Horrid Foreign People Not Like Us, so unbeloved of our 'government') is reaping its reward.
I can't locate the link just now, but it seems that many of those refugees, taken in by Germany, are healthcare professionals of various kinds, and are now ready and willing to pitch in to help the country that helped them.
A lesson here, surely, for the English xenophobes?
Instead, this virus has increased xenophobia and racism
German xenophobia was, and is, a frightening force. The same applies to other countries, of course, but not perhaps with quite such a hideous and menacing past...
Apparently they have identified 8 strains of SARS-CoV-2, and it's mutating significantly slower than many other viruses. So that's good news, for what it is.
(On masks, I gather that they're better at preventing infected people from filling their airspace with a big cloud of virus than they are at preventing mask-wearers from catching it.)
There are 10 labs of which it's one we're told that work with WHO but USA is reported to be out of that group. Which makes me wonder about the profit motive and intellectual property. Which, if happens would be scandalous.
Is this what you're thinking of?
Apparently people who are resourceful enough to escape a war zone are talented and motivated. Who knew?
My guess is the reaction will be something along the lines of "immigrant doctors take jobs from Germans".
Hopefully the fact that these three heros tragically taken from their families too soon were all muslims and born outside the UK (or of parents born outside the UK) should put an end to the evil nonsense of xenophobia and islamophobia. I fear that it will take more than doctors heroically putting their lives in danger to help everyone to knock some sense into many of the bigoted idiots.