Chinese Wuhan Virus

[Yazata]

They announced this afternoon that six San Francisco Bay Area counties, including the one I live in, will be under near lock-down conditions starting midnight tonight. We are "ordered" to remain in our homes 24 hours a day, except to get food or medical care. This applies to some seven million people.

https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/bay-ar...ay-at-home

This afternoon the streets were crowded early as everyone rushed to the supermarket and pharmacy. Later in the evening streets were oddly empty. Many stores are already closed. All of them (with a few exceptions) will be history tomorrow.

California has become Wuhan.

[Secular Sanity]

They announced this afternoon that six San Francisco Bay Area counties, including the one I live in, will be under near lock-down conditions starting midnight tonight. We are "ordered" to remain in our homes 24 hours a day, except to get food or medical care. This applies to some seven million people.

https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/bay-ar...ay-at-home

This afternoon the streets were crowded early as everyone rushed to the supermarket and pharmacy. Later in the evening streets were oddly empty. Many stores are already closed. All of them (with a few exceptions) will be history tomorrow.

California has become Wuhan.

Wow! Thanks for the heads up! I’m fully stocked. I bought lots food and a food saver, electrolyte drinks, cough medicine, and thanks to C C...Tylenol.

I was feeling much better, so I decided to clean my garage. Might as well get some work done, right? My oldest son is storing all his machine shop equipment here until his shop is completed. I purchased three furniture dollies and moved about 50 20-foot sticks of 2x6 steel. It was probably the heaviest things I’ve ever lifted before. Those squats I’ve been doing really paid off but I can barely move today.

A strange thing happened yesterday, though. I ran up north to look at a dump trailer that I want buy. There was this guy that I always see walking and there was a vicious hailstorm. I thought it was going to break my car window. I’ve never given anyone a ride before but since the weather was so bad and my husband was with me, I couldn’t resist. I asked him to turn around and pick him up. He seemed nice enough. We dropped him off at the nearest town, but this morning, my husband received an email from him stating that he left his cell phone in our car. I was thinking, how in the hell did he find out who we were? Obviously, he used the locating service on his phone to track us down. Hopefully, he’s not a Ted Bundy in the making. My husband’s motto is no good dead goes unpunished. So, of course, I had to hear about it all morning long. He’s going to return it to him for me, thank god, but I think he’s getting fed up with my urges to help. My motto is…anything that crosses my path.

I haven’t seen any fighting going on here. We’ve dealt with fires, power outages and recently, lots of earthquakes. My older son lives up north and they had a 5.9. He said, it was the scariest one that he’s ever felt. I think Californians are getting used to dealing with natural disasters. It’s those apocalyptic believing southerns that we have to watch out for.

[Zinjanthropos]

I have to admit I'm worried for my daughter in British Columbia. Her husband's job takes him to the USA so when he got back couple days ago, he had to go into self imposed quarantine for 14 days. He's holed up in a basement apartment his parents own. To make matters worse my daughter is at home with their 2 year old but is also 6 weeks from giving birth. Not sure what situation will be like in 6 weeks but hope it's good enough for her to go to hospital because she has a caesarian scheduled. I know she had the procedure when first child born and I'm worried that birth complications and no elective surgery might pose a big problem, especially if doctors say natural birth only. Can any mothers out there tell me whether a caesarian is elective surgery?

[Secular Sanity]

I have to admit I'm worried for my daughter in British Columbia. Her husband's job takes him to the USA so when he got back couple days ago, he had to go into self imposed quarantine for 14 days. He's holed up in a basement apartment his parents own. To make matters worse my daughter is at home with their 2 year old but is also 6 weeks from giving birth. Not sure what situation will be like in 6 weeks but hope it's good enough for her to go to hospital because she has a caesarian scheduled.  I know she had the procedure when first child born and I'm worried that birth complications and no elective surgery might pose a big problem, especially if doctors say natural birth only. Can any mothers out there tell me whether a caesarian is elective surgery?

Some are and some aren’t. She should know. I don’t really understand why anyone would choose to have to one, though. The recovery is more difficult.

Here’s a little something.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/223...nd-babies/

Hope all goes well. Best of luck!

[Zinjanthropos]

I have to admit I'm worried for my daughter in British Columbia. Her husband's job takes him to the USA so when he got back couple days ago, he had to go into self imposed quarantine for 14 days. He's holed up in a basement apartment his parents own. To make matters worse my daughter is at home with their 2 year old but is also 6 weeks from giving birth. Not sure what situation will be like in 6 weeks but hope it's good enough for her to go to hospital because she has a caesarian scheduled.  I know she had the procedure when first child born and I'm worried that birth complications and no elective surgery might pose a big problem, especially if doctors say natural birth only. Can any mothers out there tell me whether a caesarian is elective surgery?

Some are and some aren’t. She should know. I don’t really understand why anyone would choose to have to one, though. The recovery is more difficult.

Here’s a little something.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/223...nd-babies/

Hope all goes well. Best of luck!

Thanks for the info. I'm sure she's checking the internet too. It was arranged by her OBGYN because of serious complications with first one. I'm sure hospitals have mother & child's best interests at heart.

[confused2]

I've had an idea.
The general plan seems to be to keep everyone locked up.
Alternative.
While the numbers are relatively small.
Young fit and unattached are invited to coronavirus parties where they are deliberately infected.
14 days (maybe a bit more) later you have a group who are immune and no longer carrying the virus.
They would (also) be volunteering to do all kinds of things (maybe for good money).
Controlled herd immunity.
Kinda beats sitting at home waiting for a vaccine to arrive.
I'd do it.

[C C]

New coronavirus can persist in air for hours and on surfaces for days: study
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health...QP?rpc=401&

EXCERPT: The highly contagious novel coronavirus that has exploded into a global pandemic can remain viable and infectious in droplets in the air for hours and on surfaces up to days, according to a new study that should offer guidance to help people avoid contracting the respiratory illness called COVID-19.

Scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, attempted to mimic the virus deposited from an infected person onto everyday surfaces in a household or hospital setting, such as through coughing or touching objects.

[...] The tests show that when the virus is carried by the droplets released when someone coughs or sneezes, it remains viable, or able to still infect people, in aerosols for at least three hours. On plastic and stainless steel, viable virus could be detected after three days. On cardboard, the virus was not viable after 24 hours. On copper, it took 4 hours for the virus to become inactivated. [...] The shortest survival time was on copper, where half the virus became inactivated within 46 minutes. (MORE - details)

RELATED (Medical Xpress): New coronavirus stable for hours on surfaces: study

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Partially old topic, reiterated again for this thread.

Sensible to avoid ibuprofen for coronavirus, says top adviser
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/clinical/cli...71.article

RELEASE (UK): The Government's chief scientific adviser has said people would be 'sensible' to take paracetamol rather than ibuprofen for coronavirus (Covid-19). This comes as some scientists had warned that ibuprofen may worsen the symptoms of respiratory illness, referring to a study published in the BMJ in 2013.

Giving evidence to the House of Commons health and social care committee today, Sir Patrick Vallance said 'it may or not be right, I don’t know, but the sensible thing to do at the moment would be to say “well, don’t take them, take something else, paracetamol or something'.

He also addressed concerns that had been raised about anti-hypertensive drugs, but did not advise against them. Sir Patrick said: 'There are theoretical reasons around ace inhibitors, which are quite interesting. But I don’t see strong compelling data yet to know whether that’s real or not and that’s being looked at.'

The Council on Hypertension of the European Society of Cardiology has said that GPs should continue treatment with ACE inhibitors and ARBs. Last week, France’s health minister Olivier Véran, who is a qualified doctor, tweeted that anti-inflammatory medicines including ibuprofen and cortisone 'could be a factor in aggravating the [Covid-19] infection'.

Sir Patrick's comments about taking paracetamol comes as GPs have told Pulse they are struggling with demand for prescriptions from patients who are unable to source paracetamol and Calpol in the shops due to panic buying. Pulse has asked NHS England for their advice to GPs on the matter.

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Blue Origin pressing on with rocket and engine development as industry copes with coronavirus
https://spacenews.com/blue-origin-pressi...ronavirus/

INTRO: As the coronavirus outbreak continues to shake up every sector of the U.S. economy, including the space industry, Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith says the company so far has been able to continue on with the development of its space vehicles and engines.

The response to this crisis is fast moving and shifts from day to day [...] The company is headquartered in Kent, Washington, near one of the epicenters of the coronavirus outbreak. Blue Origin weeks ago stood up a task force to lead response efforts. “We meet with our task force every day,” Smith said. “It’s a changing environment, and we make adjustments and continue to operate,” he said. “We’re just trying to respond to the changing environment.”

Even tough travel is highly restricted and most employees are teleworking, Smith said Blue Origin plans to continue to conduct test flights of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle that last flew in December. The company has said the goal is to start flying people to the edge of space as early as 2020... (MORE)

[C C]

Inside the model that may be making US, UK rethink coronavirus control
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/...s-control/

EXCERPT: . . . COVID-19 Response Team at Imperial College London released a report that describes its efforts to create a model of how various control efforts could alter the trajectory of the coronavirus pandemic in the US and UK. The report is being published by a World Health Organization publication, but it had been provided to the governments of these countries, where it is reportedly influencing their responses.

The report paints a grim picture of millions of deaths in the two countries if nothing is done, as infections greatly outstrip the capacity of their hospital systems to handle patients. But it does find that aggressive steps can hold off the virus until an effective vaccine can be developed, although those will mean shutting down many aspects of society for over a year.

Before this induces panic, however, it's important to emphasize that these outcomes are based on a model that, because of the incomplete information we currently possess, is imperfect and has to rely on a number of assumptions. We'll go over all of these limitations before going into detail on the conclusions the Imperial College team derived from the model.

[...] Bad things, if nothing's done. In the UK, the epidemic peaks in mid-May and reaches levels that are far beyond what the country's critical-care infrastructure can handle, resulting in about 22 deaths per day for every 100,000 people. That works out to about 14,000 people dying a day for a couple of weeks, with half a million total deaths. In the United States, a younger and more diffuse population means the peak comes a bit later and doesn't rise as high per capita, but the larger population means that over 2 million people end up dead.... (MORE - details)

[Secular Sanity]

I've had an idea.
The general plan seems to be to keep everyone locked up.
Alternative.
While the numbers are relatively small.
Young fit and unattached are invited to coronavirus parties where they are deliberately infected.
14 days (maybe a bit more) later you have a group who are immune and no longer carrying the virus.
They would (also) be volunteering to do all kinds of things (maybe for good money).
Controlled herd immunity.
Kinda beats sitting at home waiting for a vaccine to arrive.
I'd do it.

Yazata and perhaps C C would know more about this than me. Maybe they could correct or add something to my understanding of the situation.

But no, I don’t think that would be a great idea because it’s a single-stranded positive-sense RNA virus, meaning that it’s more dangerous because unlike DNA viruses, it mutates rapidly. DNA viruses use our enzymes (DNA polymerases) to make copies with less mutations, but RNA lack proofreading abilities, which means that when they replicate, they make a lot of mistakes (mutations). Some mutations can be detrimental to the virus itself but the beneficial ones probably outweigh the deleterious mutations. 

As you know, they can compromise the host’s immune response in several different ways, e.g., HIV. The Spanish flu altered the immune response of the "young healthy hosts" by triggering a cytokine storm. They can gain longevity, become more lethal over time, enhance infectivity and become drug resistant.

If there is adaptive value in mutation rates, we’re its environment. Do we really want to give it the opportunity to evolve through transmission? I don't think so.

We were ordered to shelter in place today. I'm going to watch that Frontier series on Netflix...just for the eye candy.

[Yazata]

I have to admit I'm worried for my daughter in British Columbia. Her husband's job takes him to the USA so when he got back couple days ago, he had to go into self imposed quarantine for 14 days.

Canada's requiring that from all arrivals from the US, or just for people in certain high-risk groups? I guess that it doesn't matter any more, since I heard today that the US and Canada are temporarily closing the border to all but "essential" travel. (Don't know what that includes.)

He's holed up in a basement apartment his parents own.

Did he visit Seattle or something? Something like 3 1/2 million people live there and only a tiny fraction are infected. So his odds are very good and I trust that he and your daughter are ok.

To make matters worse my daughter is at home with their 2 year old but is also 6 weeks from giving birth.

Not sure what situation will be like in 6 weeks but hope it's good enough for her to go to hospital because she has a caesarian scheduled.  I know she had the procedure when first child born and I'm worried that birth complications and no elective surgery might pose a big problem, especially if doctors say natural birth only. Can any mothers out there tell me whether a caesarian is elective surgery?

I'm not a mother, even though lots of people call me that.

But I'd say that is something that she really needs to discuss with her doctor.

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"Shelter-in-place" orders (Lockdown-lite) appear to be the hip new thing in much of California. They have spread from the San Francisco bay area up through the north bay counties from Marin up through Sonoma and Mendocino, with Lake expected to join them. To the south, Santa Cruz, Benito and Monterey have been added. To the south of that San Luis Obispo has a shelter-in-place order. To the east, they tell me that Sacramento is rolling out another shelter-in-place order.

But as one moves into more culturally distinct 'SoCal' (southern California), Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angles counties aren't ordering it. Pretty much all of them have banned large gatherings.