BBC: China pneumonia outbreak: COVID-19 Global Pandemic

[Larry]

3 minutes ago, visionary said:

 

 

He peobably got something from them, in exchange for the mention.  

[Califan007 The Constipated]

 

[@DCGoldPants]

The replies to Brit are amazing. "thank you, Corporations. We don't think you're evil" and "Cuomo is a liar" 

[spjunkies]

 

 

 

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by visionary

[Corcaigh]

Another person lost to COVID-19.

 

John Conway, creator of the Game of Life computer program, is dead.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/14/us/john-conway-death-obit-trnd/index.html

 

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by Corcaigh

[Larry]

There's what I think is a moral principle that I think needs to be explained, here.  Ideally, somebody could explain it to Trump.  Although I'm aware that 

 

1)  It's longer than 5 words.

 

2)  This assumes that he has any interest at all in actually being moral.  

 

Maybe some of his supporters would grasp it.  But my hopes are about equal.  

 

Gonna be a long post.  Feel free to ignore it.  Or pretend Jumbo wrote it.  

 

Background:  I actually read this moral principle back in junior high, in Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers.  It's got some interesting things in it.  (This story pretty much invented powered combat armor - Think an army composed of Iron Man suits.)  In some ways it's a cliche.  (The basic plot is "Kid joins Army, goes to war, becomes a Man.")  But there's a lot of great morality in there, too.  

 

Many of the scenes involve our hero as a senior in high school, taking his class in "History and Moral Philosophy".  (The story explains that this is the only class which all students are required to take to graduate, and the only one required by law to be taught by a Citizen.  In his fictional world, not all adults are citizens.  In fact, very few are.)  

 

Also background:  Heinlen has flat out stated that pretty much every story of his contains a character who was created for the purpose of being Heinlein's mouthpiece, and dispensing the author's opinion.  In this story, there's two - this instructor, and the drill instructor on basic training.  

 

Yes, I first heard this principle in junior high, from a fictional character in a science fiction story.  

 

However, I think it's a valid principle.  One that I think needs to be stated, in these times.  The source may be fiction, but that doesn't mean it's not true.  

 

Now, background dealt with, the principle:  

 

The Universe (the instructor explains) is composed of forces which are always equal and opposite.  Two magnets will attract or repel each other with identical but opposite forces.  So will two objects with electrical changes.  Right now, each of you is being pulled by gravity into your chair with a force of 100 or some number of pounds.  And every one of you is exerting an identical force on the planet Earth.  (The Earth just doesn't react very much to 100 pound forces.)  

 

What, the instructor asks, is the opposing force to power?  

 

He explains that the opposing force to power, is responsibility.  That the two are always equal,  That they cannot be any other way.  That no one can be heald morally responsible for something which they had no power over.  And that it is shear insanity to pretend that anyone has power, without responsibility for that power. 

 

That any attempt to create a system in which power and responsibility are not idential is as doomed to failure as any engineering which ignores conservation of energy.  

Edited April 15, 2020 by Larry

[China]

CHILE COUNTS THOSE WHO DIED OF CORONAVIRUS AS RECOVERED BECAUSE THEY'RE 'NO LONGER CONTAGIOUS,' HEALTH MINISTER SAYS

 

Cases of the novel coronavirus in Chile have climbed past 7,500, including 82 deaths, while over 2,300 have recovered from infection as of Tuesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

 

But coronavirus patients in Chile who have died are being counted among the country's recovered population because they are "no longer contagious," Chile's Health Minister Jaime Mañalich said this week.

 

"We have 898 patients who are no longer contagious, who are not a source of contagion for others and we include them as recovered. These are the people who have completed 14 days of diagnosis or who unfortunately have passed away," Mañalich announced at a press conference.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

18 minutes ago, Larry said:

 

 

Now, background dealt with, the principal:  

 

The Universe (the instructor explains) is composed of forces which are always equal and opposite.  Two magnets will attract or repel each other with identical but opposite forces.  So will two objects with electrical changes.  Right now, each of you is being pulled by gravity into your chair with a force of 100 or some number of pounds.  And every one of you is exerting an identical force on the planet Earth.  (The Earth just doesn't react very much to 100 pound forces.)  

 

What, the instructor asks, is the opposing force to power?  

 

He explains that the opposing force to power, is responsibility.  That the two are always equal,  That they cannot be any other way.  That no one can be heald morally responsible for something which they had no power over.  And that it is shear insanity to pretend that anyone has power, without responsibility for that power. 

 

That any attempt to create a system in which power and responsibility are not idential is as doomed to failure as any engineering which ignores conservation of energy.  

 

If you're going for morality from fiction, you could've shortened this by going with the Spiderman moral:  "With great power comes great responsibility."

Edited April 15, 2020 by China

[twa]

might be a translation issue there in chile

.

[Larry]

11 minutes ago, China said:

CHILE COUNTS THOSE WHO DIED OF CORONAVIRUS AS RECOVERED BECAUSE THEY'RE 'NO LONGER CONTAGIOUS,' HEALTH MINISTER SAYS

 

Trump should try that.  

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

[China]

Well, if they have to resort to feeding animals to each other, they might generate some money by doing it live, pay-per-view, so people can watch some lions on the hunt or whatnot.

 

Coronavirus: German zoo may have to feed animals to each other

 

Zoos that should have been crowded in the sunny Easter holidays are now hard-up and asking for donations, as the coronavirus lockdown bites.

 

A zoo director in northern Germany has even admitted that some animals might soon have to be fed to others, if the zoo is to survive.

 

"We've listed the animals we'll have to slaughter first," Neumünster Zoo's Verena Kaspari told Die Welt.

 

Berlin Zoo has infant panda twins, but their fans can only watch them online.

 

The zoo's spokeswoman Philine Hachmeister told DPA news agency "the panda twins are adorably sweet".

 

"Constantly we're thinking 'the visitors should be watching them live'. We don't want the little pandas to be grown up by the time we finally reopen."

Ms Kaspari at Neumünster Zoo said killing some animals so that others could live would be a last resort, and "unpleasant", but even that would not solve the financial problem.

The seals and penguins needed big quantities of fresh fish daily, she pointed out.

 

"If it comes to it, I'll have to euthanise animals, rather than let them starve," she said.

 

"At the worst, we would have to feed some of the animals to others."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[visionary]

 

[visionary]

 

[Mr. Sinister]

43 minutes ago, Larry said:

There's what I think is a moral principle that I think needs to be explained, here.  Ideally, somebody could explain it to Trump.....

 

Uncle Ben said the same thing... In far fewer words. 

 

*Edit, damn, China beat me to it 😑

Edited April 15, 2020 by Mr. Sinister

[China]

I believe SD and Iowa and about to experience issues regarding rural hospitals described below:

 

A Doctor’s Warning From the Rural South

 

Life in the rural South is tied closely to nature. Live here long enough and you can tell that a storm is rising by the way the leaves roll in the wind. A strange silence can precede bad weather, as the birds shelter on the ground and the air pressure changes throughout the house. In my part of rural South Carolina, we are experiencing a new kind of silence: a kind of breath-holding, sky-watching, prayer-whispering pause as we wait for COVID-19 to arrive in earnest. My county has 15 official cases so far.

 

I see the news reports and shudder. If the virus has crushed New York City despite its remarkable influence and resources, how will people here fare? A city with so many physicians, nurses, hospital beds, and ventilators is nearly depleted. What hope is there for rural southern hospitals, which have enough problems already?        

 

The struggles of rural southern hospitals—and their patients—manifest themselves every single day. Since finishing my emergency-medicine residency in 1993, I have spent my career in smaller community hospitals, including critical-access hospitals, which serve rural areas and receive federal aid. Typically, these hospitals have about 25 inpatient beds and are located at least 35 miles—15 miles in mountainous areas, which take longer to drive through—from larger facilities. They exist to serve people who would otherwise be too far from medical care. America has 1,350 such hospitals, but many have closed because of economic pressures associated with low patient volume, the lack of highly reimbursed procedures, and an uninsured, or underinsured, patient base. 

 

Rural hospitals operate on the very edge of disaster. Two years ago, when I was working in a small community hospital in the Midlands of South Carolina, the region was suffering from a difficult influenza and pneumonia season. Both infections are particularly dangerous to the many people in the region who have chronic lung problems, heart disease, and diabetes, the same preexisting conditions that can make COVID-19 so devastating. Some of the patients needed to be transferred to specialists in a nearby town. And yet, the larger facility we usually referred to had already filled every inpatient bed, and every intensive-care bed. Worse, more than 70 patients were being held in that facility’s emergency department, all waiting to be admitted. Other regional hospitals reported much the same.      

 

Many hospital emergency departments across the country periodically face this scenario, and it results in a catch-22. Physicians recognize that their small hospitals may not have the resources or experience to care for very sick patients. They even fear malpractice litigation for failing to transfer. But there is literally no room on the receiving side. So sick people are held in already busy emergency departments in small towns. And every bed they take means one less available for the next emergency.

 

Although “surge capacity”—that is, the ability to respond to a large influx of patients or even a few very sick or injured people—is limited everywhere, it’s especially threadbare in hospitals like mine, where one physician sometimes covers the entire facility for 24 hours.  

 

Citizens in the rural South deserve the same quality of care that urban citizens do. The government needs to see rural hospitals not as financial problems to be solved, but rather as strategic assets—a string of small medical facilities, like forts across a frontier. And they have to be funded, stocked, and staffed (or have staff credentialed and ready to come in as needed). Right now, too few hospital beds and ventilators are on hand, even in the best of times, and staffing is difficult because of the challenge of recruiting physicians to rural areas. But coming to a smaller hospital is not a step down. The difference a doctor can make in a town like mine is life-changing for patients. Besides, robust small and critical-access hospitals are important for visitors too. Just consider: A 2008 study found that up to 55 percent of urban residents planned to leave cities for rural areas in time of disaster.      

    

If COVID-19 strikes rural America with the fury it has unleashed in more populous places, many more lives will be lost, especially if the resources are already committed elsewhere. If this happens, rural southerners will do what they always have done in times of trial: Band together, do their best, and try to survive. Then bury the dead in family plots, weep, and carry on.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

Looks like a bad day regarding deaths..

[Cooked Crack]

 

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by visionary

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

[twa]

 

[Bacon]

****ing awful day for deaths in the US and a big increase worldwide.

 

Cases though...even as we get further from the weekend, the flattening trend continues in the US and worldwide. US numbers:

 

Friday - 33,752
Saturday - 30,003
Sunday - 27,741
Monday - 26,641
Tuesday - 26,945

 

Italy was in a similar situation at the end of last month...people dying in droves while the curve slowly flattened. It's too early to conclusively say that daily cases have peaked, but if we can stay at this pace for the whole week, it would be a good sign.

 

Sadly, we're going to see really high death totals for weeks. It takes that long for lower case totals to impact death totals in any meaningful way. Even in Italy, where they have flattened the curve, their daily deaths have only dropped like 40% from the peak. Cases are down 60%. However, that's only over the last three weeks. It seems like forever, but if we're on a similar track to Italy, we could be seeing half the numbers we are now by this time next month. 

 

If the numbers are being pushed down artificially by testing slowdowns, the current numbers would at least suggest a plateau rather than an increase. 

Edited April 15, 2020 by Bacon

[PCS]

 

[StillUnknown]

1 hour ago, visionary said:

 

 

not an ounce of dignity or decency in him

 

he is not worth the air he breathes. i would say more, but i'll just check out