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How many will die of Covid19 in the 2020s directly and indirectly

Less than 10,000
10 (14.7%)
10,000-100,000
9 (13.2%)
100,000-1,000,000
9 (13.2%)
One to ten million
13 (19.1%)
Ten to a hundred million
14 (20.6%)
Hundred million to one billion
9 (13.2%)
Over a billion
4 (5.9%)

Total Members Voted: 59

Voting closed: March 03, 2020, 12:39:52 AM

Author Topic: COVID-19  (Read 1691717 times)

Rodius

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3000 on: March 18, 2020, 09:19:41 AM »
Referring to last post.

This reminds me of a friend who needed meds to stay sane.
When he took the meds, he felt mostly good. Then he decided he was okay and stopped the meds only to revert to falling off the edge of sanity.
So he went back on the meds only to repeat the process.
Sadly, the end result was tragic for him.

I can see the same thing happening with Covid.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2020, 10:48:05 AM by Rodius »

nanning

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3001 on: March 18, 2020, 09:59:43 AM »
‘There is a policy of surrender’: doctor on UK’s Covid-19 failures

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/17/there-is-a-policy-of-surrender-doctor-on-uks-covid-19-failures
  by Sarah Boseley Health editor


Mark Gallagher, a consultant cardiologist, is at home with a temperature of 38 and is pretty certain he has Covid-19. But the NHS will not test him for it. Instead, he has paid for a test kit from a private UK clinic and a colleague in China is sending him another.

Gallagher has been in and out of his London hospital every day for the last 28 in a row. In the past couple of weeks he saw maybe 70 people in outpatients, he said.

He cannot understand why the NHS will not test him or other healthcare workers who are put at risk by their work and risk infecting other vulnerable patients in turn, as well as their families. “The policy is that I don’t need to be tested and even the people who have been in contact with me aren’t going to be tested,” he said.


Last week, a woman of 79 was admitted to his care for an elective, non-urgent procedure. She was then diagnosed with Covid-19, which, he says, “she almost certainly acquired on our wards”. She was put on a ventilator but died on Monday night.

“I’m sure she will go down as an elderly patient with underlying conditions, but she should have lived to 90,” he said. “Approximately 50 nurses dealt with her and many doctors. None has been tested. All are still at work.”
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
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bluice

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3002 on: March 18, 2020, 10:05:16 AM »
Venetian canals turned clear and swans have returned thanks to less pollution during the crisis. Amidst the horror of a pandemic we get to see a glimpse how a different world would look like.

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/venice-clean-coronavirus

Sam

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3003 on: March 18, 2020, 10:21:19 AM »
Twitter thread >> https://mobile.twitter.com/jeremycyoung/status/1239975682643357696

Quote
We can now read the Imperial College report on COVID-19 that led to the extreme measures we've seen in the US this week. Read it; it's terrifying. I'll offer a summary in this thread; please correct me if I've gotten it wrong.

The Imperial College team plugged infection and death rates from China/Korea/Italy into epidemic modeling software and ran a simulation: what happens if the US does absolutely nothing -- if we treat COVID-19 like the flu, go about our business, and let the virus take its course?

Here's what would happen: 80% of Americans would get the disease. 0.9% of them would die. Between 4 and 8 percent of all Americans over the age of 70 would die. 2.2 million Americans would die from the virus itself.

It gets worse. People with severe COVID-19 need to be put on ventilators. 50% of those on ventilators still die, but the other 50% live. But in an unmitigated epidemic, the need for ventilators would be 30 times the number available in the US. Nearly 100% of these patients die.

So the actual death toll from the virus would be closer to 4 million Americans -- in a span of 3 months. 8-15% of all Americans over 70 would die.

How many is 4 million people? It's more Americans than have died all at once from anything, ever. It's the population of Los Angeles. It's 4 times the number of Americans who died in the Civil War...on both sides combined. It's two-thirds as many people as died in the Holocaust.

Americans make up 4.4% of the world's population. If we extrapolate these numbers to the rest of the world (warning: MOE is high here), this gives us 90 million deaths globally from COVID-19, in 3-6 months. 15 Holocausts. 1.5 times as many people as died in all of World War II.

Now, of course countries won't stand by and do nothing. So the Imperial College team ran the numbers again, this time assuming a "mitigation" strategy: all symptomatic cases in the US in isolation. Families of those cases quarantined. All Americans over 70 social distancing.

This mitigation strategy is what you've seen a lot of people talking about when they say we should "flatten the curve": try to slow the spread of the disease to the people most likely to die from it, to avoid overwhelming hospitals.

And it does flatten the curve -- but not nearly enough. The death rate from the disease is cut in half, but it still kills 1.1 million Americans all by itself. The peak need for ventilators falls by two-thirds, but it still exceeds the number of ventilators in the US by 8 times.

That leaves the actual death toll in the US at right around 2 million deaths. The population of Houston. Two Civil Wars. One-third of the Holocaust. Globally, 45 million people die: 7.5 Holocausts, 3/4 of World War II. That's what happens if we rely on mitigation & common sense.

Finally, the Imperial College team ran the numbers again, assuming a "suppression" strategy: isolate symptomatic cases, quarantine their family members, social distancing for the whole population, all public gatherings/most workplaces shut down, schools and universities close.

Suppression works! The death rate in the US peaks 3 weeks from now at a few thousand deaths, then goes down. We hit but don't exceed the number of available ventilators. The nightmarish death tolls from the rest of the study disappear.

But here's the catch: if we EVER relax suppression before a vaccine is administered to the entire population, COVID-19 comes right back and kills millions of Americans in a few months, the same as before.

After the 1st suppression period ends in July, we could probably lift restrictions for a month, followed by 2 more months of suppression, in a repeating pattern without triggering an outbreak or overwhelming the ventilator supply. Staggering breaks by city could do a bit better.

But we simply cannot EVER allow the virus to spread throughout the entire population in the way other viruses do, because it is just too deadly. If lots of people we know end up getting COVID-19, it means millions of Americans are dying. It simply can't be allowed to happen.

How quickly will a vaccine be here? Last week three separate research teams announced they had developed vaccines. Yesterday, one of them (with FDA approval) injected its vaccine into a live person, without waiting for animal testing.  That's an extreme measure, but necessary.

Now, though, they have to monitor the test subject for 14 months to make sure the vaccine is safe. This part can't be rushed: if you're going to inoculate all humans, you have to make absolutely sure the vaccine itself won't kill them.  It probably won't, but you have to be sure.

Assuming the vaccine is safe and effective, it will still take several months to produce enough to inoculate the global population. For this reason, the Imperial College team estimated it will be about 18 months until the vaccine is available.

During those 18 months, things are going to be very difficult and very scary. Our economy and society will be disrupted in profound ways. And if suppression actually works, it will feel like we're doing all this for nothing, because infection and death rates will remain low.

It's easy to get people to come together in common sacrifice in the middle of a war. It's very hard to get them to do so in a pandemic that looks invisible precisely because suppression methods are working. But that's exactly what we're going to have to do. /end

There are a couple of serious problems here.

First, the model these "experts" use is based on a 6.5 day generation time and an R0 of 2.4. That then results in a mean daily growth rate of exp(ln(2.4)/6.5) = 1.144x/day

The observed actual growth rate of the unconstrained virus in populations all over the world is 1.33-1.37x/day.

Using the frequently observed value of 1.355 and their 6.5 day generation time yields an R0 of 1.355^6.5 = 7.2. !!!!!!

If they find the modeling results terrifying with their parameters, what do you call it with the real parameters? Terrifying raised to the screaming with hair on fire power?

Everything that follows from their model is invalid as a result.

Second, to get from a 1.33-1.37x/day growth to a 1.144x/day growth requires doing everything China, South Korea and others did. It requires shutting down the economy.

So what they propose actually means shutting down the economy for a month or two, then easing off for a month, cycle and repeat. That is economic suicide.

Third, this plan because it fails so badly in the modeling will utterly fail to prevent the hospitals from saturating. That drives the death rate to over 10% of those hospitalized.

Fourth, they repeat the presumption that the IFR is <1%. This is unproven. Many wish it to be true. It is not proven. At the very least, assuming it to be true and basing policy on it is a gamble with both the lives of the citizenry (literally) and of the nation. If they are even a little wrong, that's all she wrote. That is insane. 

Fifth, this plan assures that everyone in the nation will ultimately catch the virus at least once. So all of the vulnerable over 55 population will contract the virus, and the maximum lethality is assured.

So what we have then in sum is a plan that wrecks the economy repeatedly for more than a year, that destroys society, that kills and maims the maximum percentage of the population, and devastates the entire medical system, while also bankrupting everyone individually, every corporate entity, and the country.

Yeah, that's a plan. Well, it is if your plan is utter and complete disastrous failure that crushes your country into a fourth world wreck.

And this is the "flatten the curve" plan. 

An alternate to this was the "let's throw up our hands and let the virus have its way with us" plan.

That plan would also maximize deaths and maimings. The one advantage is that it would do it in one shot. That too would bankrupt everyone and utterly destroy the healthcare systems. But, it would only do that once, rather than repeatedly over a year or two as the "flattening the curve" plan does. Arguably, that is a better choice.

Vastly better is to do as the Chinese did. Institute massive draconian controls. Quarantine everyone for two months. Test the hell out of the population. And use aggressive contact tracing. Build surge capacity instantly for hospitals. And do it all three weeks ago.  Yeah, well, that isn't entirely possible anymore.

Also vastly better is to do as the South Koreans did.

Much better is to do as the Japanese and Indonesians are doing. That's not as good as China or South Korea. But compared to what the West is doing, it is genius.

For God sakes don't do what the Europeans and Americans are doing. They were and remain entirely clueless, and hell bent on killing and maiming as many people as possible, while also destroying civil society, and the entire financial basis of society.

Precisely when did idiotocracy and kakistocracy become the dominant form of Western government, and the Forest Gump's of society become the world's modeling experts?

I would also note that just as with AGW the "experts" have been woefully horribly fatally far behind the real conditions.

And ... additionally I should note that by getting the growth rate so horribly horribly wrong, combined with a near total lack of testing that the growth of the number infected will take the leaders by surprise as it did in Italy. And seemingly out of nowhere the hospitals will be in full collapse. So when the "flattening the curve" plan fails, it will fail spectacularly with huge body counts and mass graves. Welcome to a sort of replay of the US Flu of 1917-1918 (generally mislabeled as the "Spanish" Flu).

In going back and listening to the story of that last great pandemic I suppose the one heartening thing is that this bug is tame by comparison. That one clearly had an R0 far greater than measles, a generation time of about 2 days or less, and a lethality of over 20%. It makes SARS2 seem quaint and polite by comparison. But due to the stupidity of our leadership, the greater interconnectedness of the world, and just-in-time everything, this virus will do every bit as much damage. And with 7.5 billion people alive today, the death toll will no doubt exceed that of the last great pandemic of 1918.

And oh joy, "flattening the curve" will bring added pressure and time to bear for the virus to mutate into something even more terrible, and to adapt to birds so that it becomes an annual affair.

Sam
« Last Edit: March 18, 2020, 10:55:08 AM by Sam »

Archimid

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3004 on: March 18, 2020, 10:53:52 AM »
First they tell us it is nothing, so we let in and mix thoroughly in the population, then they give us a BS Plan for 18 months of death. The solution is right in front of us, but they choose BS.

I will say it. This is not stupidity. This is Malice and this is treason. This is Boris and trump culminating plans started years ago with Russia and Saudi Arabia. Plans to forgive themselves about climate change and to make sure they are dictators over a burning world.

We will lose life and freedom to exert that global change.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

blumenkraft

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3005 on: March 18, 2020, 11:01:08 AM »
Sam, here is an anecdote from my hometown.

The Mandelblütenfest is a very popular spring gathering. The local authorities banned it this year. Guess what happened. Thousands of people met at the location and celebrated.

Are you right the Chinese approach is the correct one? Of course!

Can it be done with western morons electing a reality TV host as their president? Good luck with that.

What you write is reasonable and objective. But, allow me to say, it's not at all pragmatic.

wili

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3006 on: March 18, 2020, 11:17:15 AM »
Well, descriptions from the front lines certainly make it seem as if the government in Britain (and probably US) are trying to do everything they can to make this thing spread as fast as possible in medical facilities:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/17/there-is-a-policy-of-surrender-doctor-on-uks-covid-19-failures


‘There is a policy of surrender’: doctor on UK’s Covid-19 failures

Consultant Mark Gallagher can’t understand why the NHS is not testing its staff for coronavirus


Quote
Mark Gallagher, a consultant cardiologist, is at home with a temperature of 38 and is pretty certain he has Covid-19. But the NHS will not test him for it. Instead, he has paid for a test kit from a private UK clinic and a colleague in China is sending him another.

Gallagher has been in and out of his London hospital every day for the last 28 in a row. In the past couple of weeks he saw maybe 70 people in outpatients, he said.

He cannot understand why the NHS will not test him or other healthcare workers who are put at risk by their work and risk infecting other vulnerable patients in turn, as well as their families. “The policy is that I don’t need to be tested and even the people who have been in contact with me aren’t going to be tested,” he said.

“They are abandoning the basic principles for dealing with an epidemic, which are to test whenever possible, trace contacts and contain. Almost all individual physicians I know feel that what they are doing is wrong.”

Last week, a woman of 79 was admitted to his care for an elective, non-urgent procedure. She was then diagnosed with Covid-19, which, he says, “she almost certainly acquired on our wards”. She was put on a ventilator but died on Monday night.

“I’m sure she will go down as an elderly patient with underlying conditions, but she should have lived to 90,” he said. “Approximately 50 nurses dealt with her and many doctors. None has been tested. All are still at work.”...
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Sam

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3007 on: March 18, 2020, 11:20:38 AM »
What you write is reasonable and objective. But, allow me to say, it's not at all pragmatic.

Sadly true. I plead guilty.

I spent a life and career living in the -real- world. No where along the line through the decades of my life did I realize we actually live in the "real" world - no relation to the one based on physical reality, physics, chemistry, biology and the like.

Sam

blumenkraft

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3008 on: March 18, 2020, 11:36:35 AM »
the NHS is not testing its staff for coronavirus

Wow, that is fucked up beyond all recognition. Prof. Dr. Drosten especially said testing medical personal on a daily basis is imperative for this exact reason.

World leaders who don't follow the experts on a given topic need to be guillotined. Do that three times and every other world leader will fall in line. This is what i call pragmatic!

OrganicSu

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3009 on: March 18, 2020, 11:40:53 AM »
Today, to help solve AGW, who is doing the better job? China or USA?
USA.
Why?
Today, China, with few deaths is ready and able to re-engage BAU.
Today, USA is ensuring significant deaths, consumerist society will shut and stay largely shut down for much longer.

blumenkraft

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3010 on: March 18, 2020, 11:46:56 AM »
OrganicSu, you tackle climate change by transforming the world into zero-emission economies. Renewable energy comes to mind.

You don't solve climate change by hoping for a pandemic to be rampant. Even if this virus kills millions, there will still be billions emitting CO2.

And as Bernard keeps pointing out, there are way more new people born every day than this virus will possibly kill.

Pmt111500

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3011 on: March 18, 2020, 11:49:19 AM »
the NHS is not testing its staff for coronavirus

Wow, that is fucked up beyond all recognition.


Yep, FUBAR coming to England, would seriously consider setting a minor fracture at home instead of going to hospital, I'm not in the worst of the risk groups though, so I wouldn't get tested anyway.

Boris better get ready to ask military if they have healthy personnel and enough napalm for decent burials.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2020, 12:02:26 PM by Pmt111500 »

gerontocrat

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3012 on: March 18, 2020, 11:53:07 AM »
This article suggests that Covid-19 is likely not to be the last threat to humanity, and that humanity is the real threat to itself through its impact on habitats and life on earth

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/18/tip-of-the-iceberg-is-our-destruction-of-nature-responsible-for-covid-19-aoe

'Tip of the iceberg': is our destruction of nature responsible for Covid-19?
Quote
...a number of researchers today think that it is actually humanity’s destruction of biodiversity that creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases such as Covid-19, the viral disease that emerged in China in December 2019, to arise – with profound health and economic impacts in rich and poor countries alike. In fact, a new discipline, planetary health, is emerging that focuses on the increasingly visible connections between the wellbeing of humans, other living things and entire ecosystems.

....Research suggests that outbreaks of animal-borne and other infectious diseases such as Ebola, Sars, bird flu and now Covid-19, caused by a novel coronavirus, are on the rise. Pathogens are crossing from animals to humans, and many are able to spread quickly to new places. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that three-quarters of new or emerging diseases that infect humans originate in animals.

...Kate Jones, chair of ecology and biodiversity at UCL, calls emerging animal-borne infectious diseases an “increasing and very significant threat to global health, security and economies”.

In 2008, Jones and a team of researchers identified 335 diseases that emerged between 1960 and 2004, at least 60% of which came from animals.

Increasingly, says Jones, these zoonotic diseases are linked to environmental change and human behaviour. The disruption of pristine forests driven by logging, mining, road building through remote places, rapid urbanisation and population growth is bringing people into closer contact with animal species they may never have been near before, she says.
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Archimid

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3013 on: March 18, 2020, 11:58:06 AM »
the NHS is not testing its staff for coronavirus

Wow, that is fucked up beyond all recognition. Prof. Dr. Drosten especially said testing medical personal on a daily basis is imperative for this exact reason.

World leaders who don't follow the experts on a given topic need to be guillotined. Do that three times and every other world leader will fall in line. This is what i call pragmatic!

Nah, its on purpose. If you want this to mix in as quickly as possible, you let your healthcare personnel become infected and then not test them. That way you can use them as the delivery method to eliminate the inferm, elder and otherwise predisposed for this virus.

Best case scenario, they convinced themselves this was the best way because they are terrified.

Worst case scenario, the culmination of the Trump/Brexit/Russia/SA conspiracy.
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silkman

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3014 on: March 18, 2020, 12:30:51 PM »
Here’s some very close to home anecdotal evidence of how the current UK strategy is playing out on the ground.

One of my nine year old granddaughter’s classmates went skiing with her family over half term in Northern Italy though not near the Covid-19 hotspots.

On return she developed mild symptoms of an upper respiratory infection, went back to school for a day and was subsequently withdrawn by her parents - her mother is a doctor.

Since then a number of the poorly child’s classmates have suffered from similar symptoms. As of yesterday a total of 8 were absent from school plus a teacher whose daughter is in the affected class. This morning the teacher of the affected class reported sick.

This outbreak commenced very shortly after completion of a 14 day period from when the family flew back from Italy but the folk involved are understandably very nervous.

The medically qualified mother requested that Coronavirus tests should be carried out but this was denied because the 14 day period had elapsed which is unbelievable given the potential of this cluster to spread. The test anyway would have taken up to 4 days to complete.

We’re told that our current strategy should be science led. In this case, the science clearly indicates that virus shedding beyond 14 days is rare but it has been observed.

My fingers are firmly crossed that this is simply a standard school-related infection but if that should prove not to be the case then we will shortly be facing a major outbreak of coronavirus in a small semi-rural village where the school is at the heart of the community.

This situation illustrates exactly why the WHO’s mantra is Test, test, test. In the U.K. we currently have absolutely no idea how many people are self isolating with symptoms (or not!), having first established new disease clusters in just this way.

We really are getting this very, very wrong on testing and we’ll pay a high price for our failure to follow the WHO advice.

Keep safe all!

Paddy

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3015 on: March 18, 2020, 12:33:11 PM »
There's been mutterings on the interwebs about maybe repurposing some small animal ventilators (usually used by vets for managing cats and dogs, but able to cover a respiratory cycle quite adequate for humans, as some dogs are human sized) to manage Covid19 patients.  Not sure where they'll find the staff to manage these - perhaps they'll hire vets and vet nurses for this as well? 

Neven

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3016 on: March 18, 2020, 12:41:39 PM »
Fighting COVID-19 the way Europe is doing, doesn't make sense from a neoclassical economic cost-benefit analysis perspective. Air pollution, tobacco, unhealthy food, AGW, etc, shorten average human lifespans more than a pandemic, possibly much more, given that this pandemic mostly affects old people, and not even all of them. Not much is being done about those other issues, or at least, slowly enough to not hurt or be beneficial to the economy.

But now suddenly there is talk of keeping lockdown in place for two years? Doesn't make sense whatsoever*. Is this because of the panic and the hype? Or is there something else going on?


* I'm all for it, just looking at how beneficial this crisis is for cleaning up the air, to give one example. I'm saying that it doesn't make sense given current dominant economic thinking (economy must always grow, at all costs, into eternity).
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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3017 on: March 18, 2020, 12:51:14 PM »
Just heard from my daughter in The Netherlands. They just got their unemployment, so are feeling much less nervous. Actually, their doing better than they have in a while--he is no longer having anxiety cramps every morning about work, she is getting good sleep for the first time in a while--lots of dog walking, gardening, cooking and creative work: She's learning to forge knives and work with electric lighting.

She said that this seems to be the general attitude: Thank heavens (or thank COVID19), I can finally have the time to garden, or do my art, or read that book...instead of having to stress about work all the time.

That attitude may change as the body count starts rising, but it seems better than the deep angst and dread that seems to be settling over my usually rather laid back neighborhood
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3018 on: March 18, 2020, 12:52:46 PM »
Neven, the New York Times "went there" a couple of days ago:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/coronavirus-hype-overreaction-social-distancing.html

As an America desperate to stem the coronavirus outbreak put in place sweeping restrictions last week on every facet of public life, the University of Wyoming economist Linda Thunstrom asked what felt like a taboo question: “Are we overreacting?’’

It helped that Dr. Thunstrom was in her kitchen, drinking coffee with her husband, Jason Shogren, a fellow economist who studies how much Americans are willing to pay to reduce risk of threats like terrorism, food-borne illness and climate change.

Calculating the economic costs of curtailing social interaction compared with the lives saved, he agreed, might yield a useful metric for policymakers. The U.S. government routinely performs such analyses when assessing new regulations, with the “statistical value of life” currently pegged by one government agency at about $9 million.

Still, Dr. Thunstrom asked, “Do we even want to look at that? Is it too callous?”

vox_mundi

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3019 on: March 18, 2020, 12:56:11 PM »


The global number of cases of confirmed #coronavirus cases has reached 200,000

https://mobile.twitter.com/LexyTopping/status/1240239038029799427
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Neven

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3020 on: March 18, 2020, 01:02:12 PM »
Still, Dr. Thunstrom asked, “Do we even want to look at that? Is it too callous?”

Of course it's callous, but that's just what neoclassical economic thinking is. What I wonder about, is why they're not as consistent as they are with everything else. Are they really going to shut down everything for months on end, just to save old people with underlying medical issues? If they are, something else is going on, IMO.
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Richard Rathbone

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3021 on: March 18, 2020, 01:15:58 PM »
the NHS is not testing its staff for coronavirus

Wow, that is fucked up beyond all recognition. Prof. Dr. Drosten especially said testing medical personal on a daily basis is imperative for this exact reason.

World leaders who don't follow the experts on a given topic need to be guillotined. Do that three times and every other world leader will fall in line. This is what i call pragmatic!

The UK ran out of testing capacity. It was relatively high in January, but it wasn't expanded fast enough and is currently overwhelmed. The CMO doesn't expect to be in a position to test staff before next week. A consequence of complacency about the extent to which it was being spread by those under 40 years old with little or no symptoms. Thats led to a whole series of decisions being taken too late to be effective.

I find Jeremy Hunt (regularly interviewed on BBC2 Newsnight) is the politician providing the most insight into where and why the UK is failing. He was the Health Minister for a long time but isn't in the government at the moment and is prepared to be rather more open about where the cracks are and which butts need kicking than the ones that are currently in the hot seats.


Richard Rathbone

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3022 on: March 18, 2020, 01:22:04 PM »
Still, Dr. Thunstrom asked, “Do we even want to look at that? Is it too callous?”

Of course it's callous, but that's just what neoclassical economic thinking is. What I wonder about, is why they're not as consistent as they are with everything else. Are they really going to shut down everything for months on end, just to save old people with underlying medical issues? If they are, something else is going on, IMO.

They need headless chicken time. Then they need preparation time to work out what to do after the shut downs are lifted and build the capacity to do it.

Archimid

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3023 on: March 18, 2020, 01:34:46 PM »
Quote
The UK ran out of testing capacity

The WHO has tests. China has tests. The UK does not want to test because of politics. They just put up a show to give the government apologists a chance to save face while the bug gets as mixed in the population as possible. Their plan is the same now as it was in the beginning. To let this burn through while trying to save face and pretending there was no other choice.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3024 on: March 18, 2020, 01:35:15 PM »
I have abstained from lab originated virus posts on this thread (read one just today). Twice I have offered to revoke my 5% probability estimate in regards to this in PM conversations with members, but they could not document their assertions.
Today I read in Nature Medicine a study proving covid-19 is natural.
I hereby amend my estimate of lab origin to zero.

silkman

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3025 on: March 18, 2020, 01:45:07 PM »
Fighting COVID-19 the way Europe is doing, doesn't make sense from a neoclassical economic cost-benefit analysis perspective. Air pollution, tobacco, unhealthy food, AGW, etc, shorten average human lifespans more than a pandemic, possibly much more, given that this pandemic mostly affects old people, and not even all of them.

Neven, you’re absolutely right of course. You could look at this as nature wreaking it’s revenge on the baby boomers for their massive contribution to the destruction of the environment and we’d thoroughly deserve it.

But it’s not my future as a 74 year old that particularly concerns me - I’m going to take sensible measures to keep on keeping on with a lifestyle that’s pretty low key and will do what I can to see my family does the same.

It’s certainly a positive to think that the cruise industry will probably not survive this crisis though I’ve no desire to see the folk out there at sea suffer. And it’s fantastic to stand in my back garden look at the sky and see few if any vapour trails.

But I don’t think it’s going to help if civil society starts to break down and the way things are headed in the UK I can certainly envisage the army on the streets if we carry on down the current path.

If at the end of the day we can get to the other side of this event my hope is that the dangers of our massively over engineered and interconnected society will be clear for all to see and pressure might then grow in support of creating a future that isn’t dependent on continued, totally unsustainable economic growth.

In retrospect, the youth of the world may look back on coronavirus as the trigger that moved us away from the current unsustainable model. If that were to be the outcome then the early death of a few million baby boomers would be totally justified but I for one don’t intend to go gentle into that long dark night.....

Sigmetnow

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3026 on: March 18, 2020, 01:59:43 PM »
Coronavirus can persist in air for hours and on surfaces for days: study
Quote
(Reuters) - 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.

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.

In terms of half-life, the research team found that it takes about 66 minutes for half the virus particles to lose function if they are in an aerosol droplet.

That means that after another hour and six minutes, three quarters of the virus particles will be essentially inactivated but 25% will still be viable.

On cardboard, the half-life was about three and a half hours, but the researchers said there was a lot of variability in those results “so we advise caution” interpreting that number.

The shortest survival time was on copper, where half the virus became inactivated within 46 minutes.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-study-idUSKBN2143QP
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

blumenkraft

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3027 on: March 18, 2020, 02:02:55 PM »
I hereby amend my estimate of lab origin to zero.

Glad you came around, mate! :)

dnem

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3028 on: March 18, 2020, 02:21:31 PM »
Sam: In your opinion, will a resurgence of coronavirus occur in China and South Korea?

Archimid

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3029 on: March 18, 2020, 02:37:00 PM »
Quote
Coronavirus can persist in air for hours and on surfaces for days: study

Masks are an indispensable tool to fight this.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

vox_mundi

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3030 on: March 18, 2020, 02:44:52 PM »
..."I believe that we all underestimated the virus at the beginning, because we are not experts," EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen told a broadcast of Bild Live.  "All these measures that seemed drastic or draconian 14 days or three weeks ago  — now we've understood that it needs to be this way."

https://m.dw.com/en/coronavirus-latest-belgium-begins-nationwide-lockdown/a-52813432

------------------------------

Iran Study: 3.5 Million Iranians Could Die If Government Guidelines Are Not Followed
https://mobile.twitter.com/SuneEngel/status/1239947669709127682

Sune Engel Rasmussen, Middle East corespondent for the Wall Street Journal and formerly of this parish, has tweeted the results of a study from Iran’s Sharif University, which reveal:

- If Iranians cooperate with government guidelines now, 12,000 are likely to die.

- If they cooperate in a limited way, 110,000 are likely to die.

- If there is no cooperation the outbreak is likely to peak in June and cause 3.5 million deaths.

---------------------------

Pakistan PM: 'Cannot Afford' to Shut Down Cities
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/pakistan-pm-afford-shut-cities-coronavirus-200318065532802.html

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has called upon his countrymen "not to panic" amid a spike in coronavirus cases in the country, warning that the spread of COVID-19 was inevitable and that Pakistan could not afford the economic cost of shutting down its cities.

--------------------------

Lothar Wieler, president of Germany's Robert Koch Institute (RKI), warned that Germany could have 10 million COVID-19 cases in a few months if the containment measures ordered by the government are not followed.

"The epidemic is taking an exponential course," Wieler said in Berlin on Wednesday, adding that people need to avoid social contact as the virus is mainly spread person-to-person.

According to the RKI, there are currently 8,200 COVID-19 cases in Germany, which is a rise of 1,000 cases in 24 hours. At least 12 people have died in Germany from a COVID-19 infection.

https://m.dw.com/en/coronavirus-latest-belgium-begins-nationwide-lockdown/a-52813432

---------------------------

Lead Coronavirus Scientist has Symptoms of Covid-19

Prof Neil Ferguson from Imperial College London, one of the lead authors on a paper that predicted about 250,000 people could die if the UK did not switch tactics, has said he has symptoms of Covid-19.

https://mobile.twitter.com/neil_ferguson/status/1240171876695117824

-------------------------------

Coronavirus cases in France increase by 1,097 in 24 hours
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/mar/18/coronavirus-live-news-updates-outbreak-us-states-uk-australia-europe-eu-self-isolation-lockdown-latest-update

The number of coronavirus cases has risen in France to 7,730, which is 1,097 more than the previous 24 hours, writes my colleague Kim Willsher.

“There have been 175 deaths, an increase of 27 in a day. Jérôme Salomon, director of the French health authority, said 7% of those infected were under 70 years old. Of the sick, 699 are in intensive care, but 5,000 patients have recovered or are being treated at home. There are 2,575 patients still in hospital, but more than 600 people have been successfully treated and allowed to go home in the last 24 hours alone.

In the south of France, the influx of Parisians trying to escape to second homes has led to anger in certain places.

----------------------------

Spanish health authorities said Wednesday the number of COVID-19 infections in the country rose by 2,500 cases in 24 hours to over 13,700. The current number of fatalities is at nearly 600. Spain has been under a lockdown since the beginning of the week

https://m.dw.com/en/coronavirus-latest-belgium-begins-nationwide-lockdown/a-52813432

----------------------------

'Hospital clusters' of cases break out in South Korea
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-51939591/page/3

BBC's Seoul correspondent Laura Bicker reports, health officials are now worried about a small clusters of infections that have broken out.

At least 74 people from a hospital in Daegu that specialises in elderly care have been infected, while there have also been confirmed cases at a hospital south of Seoul.

This includes the head of that clinic, who has been in meetings with the country's Vice Health Minister - who will now be placed in isolation and tested.

-------------------------------

No Evidence Ibuprofen Worsens COVID-19: EU Drugs Agency
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/europe-closes-borders-curb-coronavirus-spread-live-updates-200318000201088.html

The European Union's healthcare regulator said there currently is no evidence which links anti-inflammatory medicines such as ibuprofen with the worsening of COVID-19.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said it was monitoring the situation and said patients and healthcare professionals should consider all treatment options including paracetamol and anti-inflammatory drugs to treat fever or pain in patients with COVID-19.

-------------------------------

UK Supermarket Rations Products
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-51939591/page/2

More on those plans by a big British supermarket - J Sainsbury - to ration products and prioritise the elderly and vulnerable after widespread reports of empty shelves.

Sainsbury's says it has listened to feedback from customers and its staff and will introduce limits on the number of products people can buy.

There will be a three-item limit overall, but a two-item limit for those products in most demand - in line with some other UK supermarkets.

It has also decided to introduce special opening hours for the elderly and vulnerable, and prioritise them through its online shopping service.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3031 on: March 18, 2020, 02:46:31 PM »
Coronavirus Deaths in Iran Lead to Mass Burial Pits, Changing the Way Families Mourn
https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-deaths-iran-lead-mass-120046381.html

New protocols for burying the dead have been issued by the Ministry of Health. Within 24 hours, workers wearing protective gear are to cover and deliver bodies to cemeteries. The dead are not to be washed and only a few family members are allowed to attend the funeral and should stand far away from the grave.

... When Maryam Rahmati learned last week that her mother died from a supposed heart attack in Gonbad Kavus city, she was confused after learning from officials that the family wouldn't be allowed to bury the body. Since the death certificate stated her mother had passed away because of a heart attack, they had no reason to believe that the cause of death was in fact coronavirus.

So Rahmati’s family struck a deal with the municipality: Authorities would give the body back and allow the family to bury it themselves in exchange for about $2,150.

Such negotiations are often reached in a nation enduring sanctions from abroad and repression at home. The family, unaware of the deception folded into the bargain, agreed.

Rahmati’s aunt cleansed her mother's body with the help of two cemetery body washers. None wore masks or gloves. After they placed the body in the ground, Rahmati’s brother jumped in and hugged his mother one last time. More than 50 mourners who attended the funeral watched from above.

Now, Rahmati's family may face greater tragedy. Her four aunts have tested positive for the virus; her father is currently hospitalized and her husband is also infected and self-quarantining at home in Tehran.

“I insisted that all family members go and take lung CT scans,” she said. “They falsified my mother’s death certificate to hide the real numbers and now they caused the virus to spread."

Meysam Behroom, a political science student studying in Qom, said his friend and fellow classmate died from the coronavirus. He said his friend’s son contracted the virus and died soon afterward.

Both were laid to rest in Baqi Cemetery. ... The images of the burial site are etched in his mind. Graves were dug deep; they looked like pits and trenches. The cemetery was dusted in lime, rows and rows of it. Some graves had the names of the deceased written on paper, others cardboard, a testament to the suddenness of a novel virus that has swept the world.

Then there are plots of land with no names.

“I think it was a mass grave,” Behroom said.

"In my last visit before my friend's funeral, half of the cemetery was empty land and the graves were spaced but now it's completely dug up,” he said.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Archimid

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3032 on: March 18, 2020, 03:01:14 PM »
Quote
'Hospital clusters' of cases break out in South Korea

Whelp.

This will happen. This just means that test/trace/isolate must efforts must be redoubled. HIre tracers. We don't have to quarantine the whole world if we know who is potentially infected.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Pmt111500

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3033 on: March 18, 2020, 03:04:59 PM »
Now it's serious in Europe. Eurovision Song Contest 2020 has been cancelled. ( poor attempt at being humorous ).

blumenkraft

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3034 on: March 18, 2020, 03:41:58 PM »
Finally some good news, Pmt!

(still a poor attempt at being humorous, but a little more true! ;) )

blumenkraft

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3035 on: March 18, 2020, 04:14:18 PM »
Quote
48 Stunden. Herausforderungen der Bundesregierung und aus der Gesellschaft. Du und theoretisch 80 Millionen andere. Die Covid-19 Krise. Vielfältige Lösungen.

German government organizing a hackathon to fight the virus. If you have a cool idea regarding data analysis, 3D-printing, or anything else, here you go >> https://wirvsvirushackathon.org

colding

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3036 on: March 18, 2020, 04:18:57 PM »
Still, Dr. Thunstrom asked, “Do we even want to look at that? Is it too callous?”

Of course it's callous, but that's just what neoclassical economic thinking is. What I wonder about, is why they're not as consistent as they are with everything else. Are they really going to shut down everything for months on end, just to save old people with underlying medical issues? If they are, something else is going on, IMO.

I think that having a very public breakdown of medical services is not going to win any elections. Acting like they (the politicians) do now, is not because they are concerned about loss of life. In a typical year 1000 dies in DK of the flu, 13000 due to tobacco and about 4000 of various mental issues. No, this is about not loosing the next election.

That is the least nefarious reason I can think of.

Archimid

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3037 on: March 18, 2020, 04:25:24 PM »
I wouldn't be surprised if they are timing it to peak during elections.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Richard Rathbone

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3038 on: March 18, 2020, 04:26:25 PM »
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-51939591

Quote
Today’s session of Prime Minister’s Questions has come to an end, in a Commons chamber less busy than usual after party managers asked most MPs to stay away. Here’s what happened:

PM Boris Johnson said the UK government would be taking further action "imminently" on schools
He also said testing for coronavirus in the UK would be moving to 25,000 people a day
Labour called for the government to increase the rate of statutory sick pay and do more to help renters. The SNP called for an "emergency universal income scheme"
Mr Johnson declined to put a "timescale" on when new social distancing advice announced on Monday will be eased

Statement about schools due at 1700. (Should have happened on Monday, but a week of headless chicken time following Monday's U-turn is to be expected. Monday's U-turn requires school and university closures for the duration.)

25k per day isn't enough at the current state of the UK epidemic, it ought to have been 25k per day a week ago and moving to 100k per day now. The UK just doesn't have the infrastructure capability to gear up fast enough and consequently testing led suppression hasn't been possible since sometime around the beginning of February. Its going to take the months of social distancing measures that Boris won't commit to yet, to knock it back to a stage where those 25k per day tests can be deployed to try to keep it suppressed rather than rebounding in a way that forces them to be reintroduced a month after they've been relaxed.

 

Archimid

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3039 on: March 18, 2020, 04:39:35 PM »
Just stop everything than can possibly be stopped.

Wait 14 days. Maybe 21 to be safe.  This will reduce new infections to a minimum and reveal most positives. The positives remain quarantined until the resolution of the disease.
 
If most human interaction actually stopped, that will serve as a reset. Then after the quarantine time is over we have a lot fewer patients and a lot more testing capacity.

First thing is to regain control.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

blumenkraft

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3040 on: March 18, 2020, 05:10:49 PM »
I wouldn't be surprised if they are timing it to peak during elections.

Wow, the donald admin is able to time the peak of the virus now. I can't believe you just said that.

Archimid, this man can barely formulate a coherent sentence and his goons are no magicians either. This is a virus, you can't time it like that.

And if you can draw any conclusion about this administration than that they are unable to do anything meaningful.

blumenkraft

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3041 on: March 18, 2020, 05:19:56 PM »
The first city in Germany now has a curfew in place. More to follow i guess.

Finally!

blumenkraft

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3042 on: March 18, 2020, 05:31:19 PM »

Pmt111500

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3043 on: March 18, 2020, 05:34:38 PM »
More bad attempts at humor : maybe this year we'll get the ultimate reality-tv, a show called "The amazing top model survivor race", the contestants start as Apprentices and slowly progress to Idols through Jeopardy.

harpy

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3044 on: March 18, 2020, 05:41:17 PM »
I can confirm based on my observation:  Trump struggles to formulate coherent sentences.  Trump makes G.W. Bush sound like a PhD Harvard Professor in communications.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2020, 05:50:50 PM by harpy »

harpy

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3045 on: March 18, 2020, 05:43:42 PM »
Remember the "Good old days" when we could buy hydrogen peroxide and isopropyl alcohol?

Liquor stores are closed, so the next best option, ethanol above 60% is unavailable.

I felt partly insane purchasing $150 worth of high proof alcohol the other week.  Turns out, I was just ahead of the curve.

blumenkraft

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3046 on: March 18, 2020, 05:47:59 PM »
How Fox News has shifted its coronavirus rhetoric


Aluminium

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3047 on: March 18, 2020, 06:05:52 PM »
Equinox was cancelled.

Every year astronomers celebrate it in my university.

Archimid

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3048 on: March 18, 2020, 06:12:37 PM »
I have no doubt that Trump does not understand how it works, but he has people that can do this for him. It can most certainly be done.

I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

blumenkraft

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #3049 on: March 18, 2020, 06:21:32 PM »
Who, Archimid? Name names, please.