Corona Horse, Corona Rider - Covid #9

[Tijgy]

There will be a Tour of Flanders Lockdown Edition this weekend!

The only times it has been cancelled was during WOI  and this year. 

[JoannaL]

about the pool testing

I read an interview today with a virologist who proposes this:

The biggest problem and the most tragical is always an infection at a retirement home, normally leading to 20 or 30 deaths (I think in Germany we had already 4 or 5 such bitter occasions). As such it makes sense to regularly test everyone who enteres and leaves such a home (carers, but also other personal for cooking and such). This could be done by pool testing everyone every 3 or 4 days. If there is a positiv result, all efforts could be put imidiately into this retirement home, raising chances dramatically for everyone

[BigFatCoward]

31 minutes ago, Tijgy said:

There will be a Tour of Flanders Lockdown Edition this weekend!

The only times it has been cancelled was during WOI  and this year. 

in any race where drafting and team tactics are irrelevant i would always go with Thomas de Gendt. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

14 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Fuck this man SOOOOO much

 

 

I’m surprised anyone inside the Trump White House would admit to Trump getting anything “wrong”.

[Buckwheat]

I was just in a shop. Everything seems well stocked, except for yeast. Apparently everybody bakes their own bread these days. We wanted to have pizza for lunch, but no yeast for us now ... no pizza. Ah well.

[Maithanet]

On 3/28/2020 at 11:15 AM, Maithanet said:

Continuing my series, Here's an update on the number of coronavirus test results by day in the US.

3/23 - 54k

3/24 - 64k

3/25 - 74k

3/26 - 97k

3/27 - 107k

3/28 - 109k

3/29 - 96k

3/30 - 113k

3/31 - 104k

4/1 - 101k

Basically testing in the US has leveled off for the moment at just over 100k per day.  Which is totally not adequate.  Particularly when the number of positive cases continues to go up (17k positive out of 97k tests on 3/26, 26k positive out of 101k tests on 4/1). 

This is so, so bad.

[ljkeane]

11 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

This is so, so bad.

I don't really know anything about how these tests work but presumably there's a limit to how much suitable laboratory capacity there is to run them. I'd guess it's probably not a quick process to expand that capacity either. It wouldn't surprise me if it's down to incompetence on the part of government but we also might just be hitting a hard limit on how much testing can be quickly increased.

[Maithanet]

1 minute ago, ljkeane said:

I don't really know anything about how these tests work but presumably there's a limit to how much suitable laboratory capacity there is to run them. I'd guess it's probably not a quick process to expand that capacity either. It wouldn't surprise me if it's down to incompetence on the part of government but we also might just be hitting a hard limit on how much testing can be quickly increased.

There has been a lot of finger pointing about why testing was so slow to ramp up, blaming everything from lack of chemicals, lack of swabs, lack of testing facilities and lack of personell.  In addition, there's also been talk about new techniques which were supposed to dramatically increase the number of tests.  I remember an article on monday said that there was supposed to be 50k additional tests from the new fast testing technique by this Friday?  We sure aren't seeing that.  

Anyways, I'm sure dramatically ramping up testing is indeed hard.  But it is also incredibly necessary, and the full resources of the richest country on the planet is working on it.  It is very disappointing to see things stagnate for nearly a week.   

[Fragile Bird]

Why is California not testing? San Francisco is bragging that their early stay at home order has stopped the virus in it’s tracks, but I call bs on that. If you aren’t testing, you don’t know.

By not testing, I mean testing at a very low level. Canada, with 37 M people, has tested, iirc, 220,000, and the California, with 40 M, had tested 25k as of a few days ago. The labs in California can’t be overwhelmed right now, can they?

I just checked and basically California has 30 k test results and 57 k in backlog. Once again the story is a shortage of all kinds of testing supplies.

And I just saw an announcement that Detroit has received the first shipment of Abbott’s quick test. People are being trained and testing will start in Detroit on Friday.

[Toth]

2 hours ago, Buckwheat said:

I was just in a shop. Everything seems well stocked, except for yeast. Apparently everybody bakes their own bread these days. We wanted to have pizza for lunch, but no yeast for us now ... no pizza. Ah well.

Next time how about buying frozen pizza margherita and then adding your own toppings? Might not be as fun as making one from scratch, but gives you a similar amount of freedom.

[Rippounet]

5 hours ago, Ran said:

In other Swedish news, the French have been doing us dirty, apparently. Mölnlycke is actually a local company, and their products can be found in pharmacies throughout Sweden (mostly in the form of various kinds of bandages). I did not realize how big they were in the PPE market. In any case, it seems like "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" applies only within the borders of France ATM. (Particularly liked the bit where they finally allowed Mölnlycke to fulfill its shipments to Italy and Spain, and then French media presented it as France itself donating the masks...)

The French are good at being dirty... Or so they tell me...

I did warn upthread that the current French government is desperate to be seen as efficient... It's not just some rumbling of a random radical leftist on the internet, this can have actual implications...

This being said, the story is not exceptional. A comparable thing happened with masks and equipment destined to Italy being seized in the Czech Republic. And Americans recently bought a cargo of Chinese masks destined to France (and already paid for) on the tarmac (by offering three times the price).
It's kind of funny that both France and the US engaged in this kind of sorry practice at the worst moment.
Or could that mean that, perhaps, the governments of these countries are the most desperate to hide their incompetence? Trump and Macron look different, but they share a lot of things when it comes to ideology...

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Ugh, I saw an article a few days speculating that transmission can occur from simply talking or breathing, and now CNN has a breaking article that last night top doctors and scientists have told the WH as such. Why does this always have to keep getting worse? If this is true, literally every damn surface in your house, work or at the grocery store is exposed for days each time a person goes near anything.

[rotting sea cow]

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Ugh, I saw an article a few days speculating that transmission can occur from simply talking or breathing, and now CNN has a breaking article that last night top doctors and scientists have told the WH as such. Why does this always have to keep getting worse? If this is true, literally every damn surface in your house, work or at the grocery store is exposed for days each time a person goes near anything.

WHO few days ago.

Virus is NOT airbone

[Filippa Eilhart]

there is a facebook post going around in Poland about how countries which vaccinate against tuberculosis have lower levels of infections and deaths than those who don’t. A apparently there are clinical trials on this now in Germany, the Netherlands and Australia.

[Zorral]

7 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

WHO few days ago.

Virus is NOT airbone

But it does go in the air via the droplets of sneezing and coughing -- and when full out using the respiratory system, as in singing and running.

 

[Cridefea]

1 hour ago, Toth said:

Next time how about buying frozen pizza margherita and then adding your own toppings? Might not be as fun as making one from scratch, but gives you a similar amount of freedom.

 Toth........ this is blasphemy..... 

[polishgenius]

21 minutes ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

there is a facebook post going around in Poland about how countries which vaccinate against tuberculosis have lower levels of infections and deaths than those who don’t. A apparently there are clinical trials on this now in Germany, the Netherlands and Australia.

 

I haven't seen this and hope it's true and something they can work on, but there was also a facebook post going around in Poland about how drinking tea kills Covid-19 so I'm not gonna put too much stock in that until I see it from a credible news source tbqh.

[Mudguard]

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Ugh, I saw an article a few days speculating that transmission can occur from simply talking or breathing, and now CNN has a breaking article that last night top doctors and scientists have told the WH as such. Why does this always have to keep getting worse? If this is true, literally every damn surface in your house, work or at the grocery store is exposed for days each time a person goes near anything.

I've been saying this for weeks.  Then combine that with the large numbers of people that are sick don't even know it, currently estimated between 25 and 50 percent of all cases.  Infectious droplets are going everywhere, and everyone is still going to the grocery stores.  I don't know what else is needed to convince people that DIY facial coverings are needed until there are enough surgical masks for everyone.  The guy who sent the letter to the White House is the former dean for the Harvard School of Public Health, and he told CNN:

Quote

Fineberg told CNN that he will wear start wearing a mask when he goes to the grocery store.

"I'm not going to wear a surgical mask, because clinicians need those," said Fineberg, former dean of the Harvard School of Public Health. "But I have a nice western-style bandana I might wear. Or I have a balaclava. I have some pretty nice options."

I hate agreeing with Trump on anything, but when he said that people should wear scarfs around their face, he finally said something that made sense.  People, please cover your mouth and nose when you go out, especially if you are going to somewhere crowded, like public transportation or the grocery store.

[Fragile Bird]

27 minutes ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

there is a facebook post going around in Poland about how countries which vaccinate against tuberculosis have lower levels of infections and deaths than those who don’t. A apparently there are clinical trials on this now in Germany, the Netherlands and Australia.

I see that the vaccine has not been routinely given in western nations for 40 or 50 years. I think I was vaccinated as a child, but it only lasts for 20 years.

In Canada we now use the BCG vaccine, but not as a standard vaccine. Native populations are the most susceptible group in Canada, as are foreign-born populations. Presumably the latter get exposed when they go home? There isn't enough detail about what foreign population in the articles I see.

Australia and the Netherlands are in Phase 3 testing for use in Covid-19.

I also see on Wikipedia that the BCG vaccine is a standard treatment used against bladder cancer. In 2011 the world supply of vaccine was threatened because a Sanofi Pasteur plant in Toronto was in bad, shockingly bad, sanitary condition and vaccines were compromised. Mould, rusted wiring, and even nesting birds. (I have been in a number of facilities where birds fly around, including manufacturing plants, large grocery stores and big box stores). The plant was shut for two years for cleaning and updating, but that caused shortages since the plant supplied a large percentage of world supply.

I also see that, while much of the intial work was done in France, a major pioneer was a doctor at a sanitorium for native people in Saskatchewan.

[Toth]

11 minutes ago, Cridefea said:

 Toth........ this is blasphemy..... 

Ah, I should have seen that one coming. XD

But what else are you supposed to do? And I noticed recently that people for some reason haven't hoarded frozen food yet.