COVID-19 Coronavirus Thread

[Dashmellow]

It's now come to light that a second US Senator sold off millions of dollars in stock market holdings immediately after attending a private closed door briefing from senior Trump administration officials on the novel coronavirus outbreak.

"Senator. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) reported the first sale of stock jointly owned by her and her husband on Jan. 24, the very day that her committee, the Senate Health Committee, hosted a private, all-senators briefing from administration officials, including the CDC director and Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on the coronavirus."

"It was the first of 29 stock transactions that Loeffler and her husband made through mid-February, all but two of which were sales. One of Loeffler’s two purchases was stock worth between $100,000 and $250,000 in Citrix, a technology company that offers teleworking software." "Loeffler assumed office on Jan. 6 after having been appointed to the seat vacated by retiring Sen. Johnny Isakson." Senator Loeffler happens to be married to the chairman and CEO of the New York Stock Exchange.

There are some unconfirmed rumors that other government officials at ALL levels (and their families) have engaged in securities liquidations beginning in late January.

Sen. Kelly Loeffler Dumped Millions in Stock After Coronavirus Briefing

Something Sure Seems Fishy About These Senators and Their Stocks

 

[kamkar]

Seem like the last 24 hours have been really bad in Italy, 793 deaths

 

[kamkar]

traffic on Danish motorways are down 45 - 62 %

 

[Dashmellow]

Absolutely fascinating US map of unusual high temperatures from a network of smart thermometers. One inference is that the entitled kids currently throwing caution to the wind, partying on the beaches in Florida for spring break are going to be bringing the COVID-19 virus home.

US Health Weather Map - https://healthweather.us/



Kinsa Health Inc., provider of the Health Weather Map is a very interesting company: Kinsa Health Inc.

Be sure to read the Atypical Illness FAQ. https://content.kinsahealth.com/en-us/atypical-illness-faq

 

[kamkar]

Nice how some municipalities here have 0 cases of Corona.

 

[Dashmellow]

I've been a fan of Ed Yong's writing for years. He's the science writer for The Atlantic and the author of "I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life" which I read about a year ago.

The Atlantic featured a really interesting article yesterday by Yong, "Why the Coronavirus Has Been So Successful" (What we know so far) It's a fascinating, worthwhile read.

His March 16th article The U.K.’s Coronavirus ‘Herd Immunity’ Debacle "The country is not aiming for 60 percent of the populace to get COVID-19, but you’d be forgiven for thinking so based on how badly the actual plan has been explained." is also worth your time.

 

[Dashmellow]

Open-source project spins up 3D-printed ventilator validation prototype in just one week

 

[Paul Schmehl]

Gee, I thought the US wasn't doing testing.

 

[kamkar]

A few hospitals have stopped testing hospital personnel, not really cuz they wanted to, but there is a low level of the testing material, more ordered at Roche.

 

[kamkar]

In the good news a new Species of birds have been named after the Dane that discovered them, its a small land living bird in south America, that can barely fly.

The Latin name will be Scytalopus krabbei

Related to the virus.
The Danish police have sent out a bulk SMS to all Danes phones yesterday,,,,,, i did not get that, maybe due to my phone having been "modified" So Danish authorities and men wearing shades in side a black Bunker in Maryland USA cant bend my freedom over a banister and rape it.

 

[Matt_V939]

Study on widespread use of masks

Modeling the Effectiveness of Respiratory Protective Devices in Reducing Influenza Outbreak - PubMed

Outbreaks of influenza represent an important health concern worldwide. In many cases, vaccines are only partially successful in reducing the infection rate, and respiratory protective devices (RPDs) are used as a complementary countermeasure. In devising a protection strategy against influenza...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Speed of spread in USA (better say due to testing which were not done before)

Confirmed Coronavirus Cases Are Growing Faster In The United States Than Any Other Country In The World

As coronavirus (COVID-19) spreads across the globe, each country hopes that it has the ability to slow its growth in their own country.

www.forbes.com

 

[flank]

Speed of spread in USA (better say due to testing which were not done before)

Confirmed Coronavirus Cases Are Growing Faster In The United States Than Any Other Country In The World

As coronavirus (COVID-19) spreads across the globe, each country hopes that it has the ability to slow its growth in their own country.

www.forbes.com

That chart is not up to date anymore. We've doubled that amount now 26,892. We're trying to catch up to China 81,054*

*If you believe China.

 

[kamkar]

Times like this and i feel like i need a don't like button.
Then again most of us probably don't like bad news.
My Nephews USA tour this summer have also been cancelled, and i think that's for the best, even if it fizz out soon the states will probably not be at their best in a few months.
With the larger amount of time Danes are home, it seem like spousal abuse / domestic violence have skyrocketed.

On the other hand the war over the drug market seem to be doing fine, day before yesterday there was shooting into some apartments, and yesterday some guy not from Denmark ( probably Sweden ) got shot up bad.
Man how nice it would be if corona could take those damn parasites first.

 

[flank]

Poor kid. No one knows the date that things will return to normal-ish.

I hate air travel in general. But if I have to go on planes in the future, I'm wearing a mask. Screw what anyone thinks You never see anyone with them in the past except for sick people. My last plane trip 1 year ago, I caught the flu.

 

[Nigel]

I hate air travel in general. But if I have to go on planes in the future, I'm wearing a mask. Screw what anyone thinks You never see anyone with them in the past except for sick people. My last plane trip 1 year ago, I caught the flu.

There was some data on that, apparently no known cases of coronavirus transmission on aeroplanes. Flu is a different matter, that is tiny compared to coronavirus and will float around in the air being recycled in the ventilation system for plenty of time to infect people, while coronavirus will drop to the floor and die fairly rapidly in the dry air. It is well known that flu spreads on aeroplanes.

 

[Nigel]

A map that matches the distribution of death rate pretty well, and puts Germany near the Nordic countries, drawn long before covid-19:

Spoiler: Key

A genetic difference does seem more likely as the main cause of different death rates than pollution, although there are probably many causes of the difference. Obviously hair colour isn't recognised by the virus, but many genetic differences will have traveled with hair colour.

The part of northern Italy in the same colour as Germany currently has a death rate of 3.5 compared to Lombardy next door in dark with 12.1. Same happens in northern Spain, the lighter colour is well below the country average. North west France, with Normandy and Brittany also match with very low rates, but not the eastern light bit, they seem to have missed out on the protection gene. Finland, with the lightest colour on the map has a higher detected infection rate than UK, but is on just 1 death - probably a foreigner!

 

[Matt_V939]

Uhmm, check this out instead.

Deaths from pneumonia in EU regions

In 2016, 131 450 people in the European Union (EU) died from pneumonia. Pneumonia was responsible for almost 3% of all deaths in 2016. The standardised death rate (three-year average) from pneumonia stood at 26 deaths per 100 000 EU inhabitants in 2016, whilst with at least 60 deaths per 100 000...

ec.europa.eu

EDIT: This one too

Influenza season summaries

In the Influenza season summaries you find the ECDC main outputs during the influenza season as well as an Infographic showing a summary of the season.

www.ecdc.europa.eu

 

[Nigel]

I don't see any match in those maps with the current situation? OK, Italy is red in the second one, but the rest doesn't match.

 

[Matt_V939]

I don't see any match in those maps with the current situation? OK, Italy is red in the second one, but the rest doesn't match.

EXACTLY. When they do not match...

 

[Nigel]

EXACTLY. When they do not match...

Sorry, but I am not understanding!

You appear to have shown that whatever gene is protecting people of Danish and Finnish ancestry from coronavirus, does not protect them from flu. Which is interesting. Another interesting point is that cold viruses such as coronaviruses tend to live in cooler places, they die out in the summer and in warmer climates, so it might be reasonable to expect northern europeans to have better protection. Unfortunately for the southern Europeans without protection, this coronavirus seems to be adapted to live in bats, and due to being flying animals, bats tend to get rather warmer than most mammals, so maybe covid-19 is designed for southern europe and will not do so well in the north, or down in Africa, the fastest spread certainly seems to be in Italy's climate.