Orwell warned about many things... including malleable facts...

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

One thing that bothers me about all this corona virus data is the lack of local recovery numbers.

I'm going to guess that the recovery data is only starting to be reported at the county level (and not by every county, yet).  There are always reporting delays, just like the CDC's lag time in capturing death certificate data.  The good news is that this kind of detailed county-level reporting is starting to happen.

Because there's so much debate... and the debates can get so kinetic... it was nice to come across this reminder, courtesy of XKCD, that there really is a lot of consensus out there:

That's a good link, which I have passed on to friends and business colleagues... it adds a little gravitas to the washing of hands, when attached to a source like that.

New Zealand is stepping out of lockdown, and we can in theory now hug our nearest and dearest outside the lockdown bubble. It's interesting to note how quickly people adopted the social distancing thing. There's a kind of furtiveness about, almost as if people are constantly reminding themselves how big a distance is two metres?

The annual budget was announced in Parliament today.
Here as elsewhere, it is clear that there is a fairly long road of recovery ahead.
The sums being bandied about make the eyes widen a bit, good job the previous gummint had a bit put by in the piggy bank. That's all but gone in the Recovery Budget, which equates to around $10,000 for every soul in the country.

Our children's children will repay this debt.
More and more the realisation is beginning to dawn, that this is not something that is "over".
It is the start of a different way of life.
  

I owed myself more money

than I could ever pay

so I chopped off my arms and legs and sold them

in the hopes that I could make myself whole again.

Edited May 14, 20206 yr by sightseer

And in other news, Santiago Chile, a densely-populated metropolis of ~7 million dependent on packed subways, busses, and taxis not unlike NYC, and the last place I called home before I retired and moved to Colorado, is locking down its entire capital region beginning tomorrow after a massive exponential spike emerged this week...2660 new cases in one day yesterday.  That's 42% of the entire nation going into quarantine.  Given the violent unrest that's been erupting there sporadically since last October, that's going to be an interesting one to watch, and not just from the perspective of epidemiology.  I honestly don't know how they're gonna keep the lid on things there for very long at all.

What's potentially ominous is that Chile has seen relatively low non-exponential growth until now--but being in the southern hemisphere, "Winter is Coming (tm)".  This may be an unhappy indicator for the potential of seasonal acceleration, particularly in dense urban environments.

Given that the New York City metro area has had ~300K confirmed cases in a population of 18.8 million (~1.6% known incidence), there's still plenty of room left for an explosive resurgence if theories about seasonal spread prove valid.  I think if I lived anywhere near New Yawk or any other metropolitan ant colony I'd already be getting started packing my things for a pre-autumn move.  The City That Never Sleeps might become better known as The City That Never Stops Coughing.

Many years ago I was a member of a religious community and stationed in Newark, NJ. While there I did a few years stint in Palisades Park, NJ, as well as Florham Park, NJ.

I am so glad that I was able to move from the area, but having wound up in NW Indiana just a very short distance from Chicago doesn't appear to have been such a wise decision after all. It's sort of like a frying pan versus the fire conundrum. At least it's not quite as bad as the NJ/NY area though!  

 

5 hours ago, w6kd said:

And in other news, Santiago Chile, a densely-populated metropolis of ~7 million dependent on packed subways, busses, and taxis not unlike NYC, and the last place I called home before I retired and moved to Colorado, is locking down its entire capital region beginning tomorrow after a massive exponential spike emerged this week...2660 new cases in one day yesterday.  That's 42% of the entire nation going into quarantine.  Given the violent unrest that's been erupting there sporadically since last October, that's going to be an interesting one to watch, and not just from the perspective of epidemiology.  I honestly don't know how they're gonna keep the lid on things there for very long at all.

What's potentially ominous is that Chile has seen relatively low non-exponential growth until now--but being in the southern hemisphere, "Winter is Coming (tm)".  This may be an unhappy indicator for the potential of seasonal acceleration, particularly in dense urban environments.

Given that the New York City metro area has had ~300K confirmed cases in a population of 18.8 million (~1.6% known incidence), there's still plenty of room left for an explosive resurgence if theories about seasonal spread prove valid.  I think if I lived anywhere near New Yawk or any other metropolitan ant colony I'd already be getting started packing my things for a pre-autumn move.  The City That Never Sleeps might become better known as The City That Never Stops Coughing.

Chileans are awesome people we are lucky so many come to New Zealand for schools, I have made a few friends over the years. Hopefully they do a short and hard lockdown which is the most effective, too many countries are doing long and soft. All you really need is 20 days but you have to close everything (except grocery stores) and stay home, and most important no takeout food. after 20 days you can ease restrictions. otherwise it is months of soft lockdown which has now proven to be a waste of time. If anyone can do that Chile has it in them to make that happen

Edited May 14, 20206 yr by Matthew Kane

We have another trip scheduled with a couple we've traveled the world with. Fly from Florida to London, a 10-day Mediterranean cruise, a month in Italy, and a trans-Atlantic cruise back to Florida. We're scheduled to leave in mid-October. Given what's going on, what do you think the odds are that we can pull this off?

Edited May 14, 20206 yr by W2DR
kant spel

6 hours ago, W2DR said:

We're scheduled to leave in mid-October. Given what's going on, what do you think the odds are that we can pull this off?

If a second wave moves across the globe in the Fall I would say the odds are not good. Unlikely a vaccine or therapeutic will be widely available by October. There is a chance the world will have a reasonable containment of the virus (if a second wave doesn't develop) which could possibly be safe enough to travel, but at this point things do not look that promising. And of course this is just my opinion. Sounds like a great trip, but if they offer a refund I would take it.

Martin  

Edited May 15, 20206 yr by MartinRex007

3 hours ago, W2DR said:

We have another trip scheduled with a couple we've traveled the world with. Fly from Florida to London, a 10-day Mediterranean cruise, a month in Italy, and a trans-Atlantic cruise back to Florida. We're scheduled to leave in mid-October. Given what's going on, what do you think the odds are that we can pull this off?

I'm trying to decide if you're yanking our chains here.  Let me get this straight...you plan...just 20 weeks from now...to take an international airline flight, board a cruise ship stopping (theoretically) at ports all along the Med for 10 days, spend a month exploring one of the hardest-hit countries in Europe, then take another international cruise back to the US?  What could possibly go wrong??

It sounds like an old joke about the National Lampoon dream vacation:  Roman Polanski babysits your kids, Thurman Munson flies you to the port in his Citation, where you will board the Exxon Valdez for a 10-day Alaskan cruise, including dinner and complimentary drinks on the bridge with Capt Hazelwood.  Following your cruise, it's off to California where you get to spend a few days playing poker and smoking cigars with OJ Simpson while Scott Peterson takes your wife fishing.  😱

Honestly, if the flight isn't cancelled, the cruises ships are still running, or the EU even allows intercontinental tourist entries by that point it'd be a miracle.  For the entire itinerary to go off as planned would take seven consecutive miracles.  Like I posted above, if the suspected seasonal acceleration looks to be materializing, the EU will right then be grappling with how to deal with a second wave, still gunshy from the crippling second and third-order consequences experienced from their reaction to the first one.  There'd be a big chance you could get stuck in the middle of all that.  And if you were to catch the Red Plague anywhere along the way, how would the ensuing potentially life-threatening health care crisis play out (and PAY out) while in a foreign country?  The upside...you might get a GREAT deal on the cruise...30 days for the price of ten as the ship roams the seas looking for a port where its passengers aren't persona non grata!

If this is a serious question, my serious answer, one old ham to another, is that I'd get my money back--now.

1 hour ago, w6kd said:

For the entire itinerary to go off as planned would take seven consecutive miracles.

There's also the issue of whether there will even be a cruise line, and possibly airline, by then.

Although if one wants a cruise ship, there are a few just floating around with little to do right now.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33338/satellite-images-show-armadas-of-vacant-cruise-ships-huddling-together-out-at-sea

I would be getting my money back too and look at re-booking for a year from then. Personally, I was supposed to be getting on a plane to Europe myself tomorrow, but that isn't happening. Will try to visit my friend in Eastern Europe next year, though even that might be pushing it. Going to spending this summer much closer to home.

What if this thing lasts a year, two years, three years?  Social habits will have been unalterably changed.  It will be a different world than what most of us have grown up and lived in.  Of course it will be the norm for our great grandkids who will not have the memories of what used to be.

What will replace rock concerts?  What will replace professional, or even college sports?  What will replace Disneyland?  What will replace air travel?  What will replace eating out at our favorite restaurants where waiters and waitresses take our orders and deliver our meals?  What will happen to church services?  What will happen to the movie industry which depends on box office at the movie theatres to show profits before releasing movies to television?  What will happen to education?  What will happen to kids playing soccer in the park?  Will couples have to be tested before they start dating?  How will they even meet each other to begin with?  How will we meet new friends?  I could go on and on.  Meet the brave new world of face masks, social distancing and fear that the person standing too close to you has the new 'leperosy'.

And I haven't even mentioned jobs, the workplace, small businesses or the economy.

Consider this.  One of hardest hit areas of the country has been the Navajo Nation that straddles New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah.  As if Thursday they have 2757 confirmed cases and 88 deaths out of population of 365,890.  That means 0.8% of the population afflicted and 0.02% of the population died from it.

Or take another one of the hardest hit areas, Queens county in New York.  33,606 cases and 2605 deaths out of a population of 2.3 million.  That means 1.46% of the population contracted the virus and 0.1% died from it.

Or Italy, often considered a worse case scenario.  223,096 cases and 31,386 deaths.  Out of a population of 60.63 million that means 0.4% caught the virus and 0.05% died.

Now some of these numbers are not the latest and as I was looking them up I got differing numbers.  But I think these are good samples for the point I am trying to make.

I saw one headline that said the United States passed Italy for the number of cases.  Well, that seems reasonable to me considering Italy has a population of just over 60 million and the US has a population of 350 million, almost six times greater.  That's media hype.  As much of this coronavirus thing is.  Media hype egged on by government agencies playing their agenda games.

So I ask this question.  Is unalterably changing our society and economy worth the restrictions?  Will the new norm be better or worse than the old norm?

Answering these questions in the negative makes one sound cold and uncaring.  It's a question battlefield commanders must make routinely.  So, do we sacrifice the lives and/or well being of a small fraction of society to salvage what we have left before it's too late to turn back or do we continue to force restrictions no matter how long it takes or what it does to our societal norms and economies?

Noel

 

Edited May 15, 20206 yr by birdguy

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

What if this thing lasts a year, two years, three years?  

It won't

Global population Will gradually go back to normal lives, except for those who have health vulnerabilities.

In the meantime, a medicine Will be developed.

Edited May 15, 20206 yr by mp15
Typo