Moderator notice: Please do not ask for medical advice in this forum!
- If you are interested in Crafting, maybe try ordering a craft kit online (something substantial that would take time would be best, like a Latch hook kit
(and crochet hook if you don’t have one), a potholder loom and cotton loops, or cross stitch kit), to work on.
- learn something physical, like an instrument, how to sew or knit, etc
- a lot of museums and zoos and the like are doing virtual tours or free online classes, so keep an eye out for that as well.
- do a giant puzzle
- Join an online bookclub
- Take an online class
While the outbreak started around New Year's Day (12/31), it's picking up steam around the Asia-Pacific region especially since Mainland Chinese people tend to travel a lot.
For reference, the BNO Newsroom twitter has a special feed for any info on the coronavirus:
https://twitter.com/bnodesk?lang=en
The WHO has page about COVID-19 and any other concerns people may have. I suggest peeps go to the Q&A page to check for official details.
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
Edited by nombretomado on Jun 3rd 2020 at 3:21:48 AM
Today's COVID-Specific news
https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2020/07/29/day-1287/
😷 Dept. of “We Have It Totally Under Control.”]] Global: Total confirmed cases: ~16,846,000; deaths: ~663,000
U.S.: Total confirmed cases: ~4,399,000; deaths: ~151,000
Source: Johns Hopkins University
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
More than 150,000 people have died in the United States from the coronavirus – five months after the first reported death in the U.S. – and more than a fifth of the world’s 662,000-plus recorded deaths. Florida, North Carolina, and California set new state records for coronavirus-related deaths reported in a single day on Wednesday. An average of nearly 1,000 virus-related deaths a day have been reported over the past week – worst rate since early June. (New York Times / Washington Post / CNBC / CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/29/health/us-coronavirus-wednesday/index.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/29/gop-rep-louie-gohmert-reportedly-tests-positive-for-covid-19.html
Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter all removed a video shared by Trump that baselessly claims that there is a “cure” for the coronavirus. There is no cure. The video, published by Breitbart, shows a group of people calling themselves “America’s Frontline Doctors” and claiming to be doctors who have worked with COVID-19 patients. One member of the group, who identified herself as Dr. Stella Immanuel, claimed that “You don’t need masks” to prevent the spread of coronavirus because hydroxychloroquine is a “cure.” Immanuel’s other medical claims include doctors using alien DNA in medical treatments, that the government is run by lizard-like “reptilian” aliens, that certain medical issues like endometriosis, cysts, infertility, and impotence are caused by sex with “spirit husbands” and “spirit wives” in a dreamworld. Trump also retweeted tweets defending the use of the drug hydroxychloroquine – including one that accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of having “misled the American public” – despite the FDA saying it was “unlikely to be effective” and carried potential risks. In June, the FDA revoked an emergency use authorization for the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in the treatment of COVID-19, and in a July 1 update, the FDA warned that there were reports of serious heart rhythm problems and other safety issues, including blood and lymph system disorders, kidney injuries, and liver problems and failure. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who served under Trump, added that hydroxychloroquine “definitively” does not work as a coronavirus treatment. Dr. Fauci, meanwhile, said that all the “valid” scientific data shows hydroxychloroquine isn’t effective in treating COVID-19. Twitter also briefly locked Trump Jr.’s account after he tweeted the video and called it a “must watch!!!” (CBS News / NBC News / New York Times / CNBC / Axios / Daily Beast / CBS News)
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/29/politics/stella-immanuel-trump-doctor/index.html
Pence and his staff met with the group of Frontline Doctors after social media sites removed the video for misinformation. Immanuel was not among them members to meet with Pence. (CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/29/politics/mike-pence-doctors-misinformation/index.html
Russian intelligence services have been spreading disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic to American and Western audiences. (New York Times / Associated Press)
Trump falsely claimed that large portions of the U.S. are “corona-free,” despite a federal report that 21 states have outbreaks so severe that they are in the so-called “red zone.” 28 states are in the “yellow zone,” and only one state, Vermont, is in the “green zone.” Trump’s trade adviser, meanwhile, refused to answer what Trump meant when he said the U.S. is “getting towards corona-free” but touted hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for coronavirus even though the FDA has determined that it is “unlikely to be effective.” Peter Navarro, who is not a medical professional, added: “I’m sitting on 63 million doses of hydroxychloroquine at the FEMA stockpile and that would save – that’s enough for 4 million Americans.” Trump also defended sharing a misleading video that claimed hydroxychloroquine is a “cure” for the virus, telling reporters that “from a safety standpoint it’s safe.” (New York Times / Axios / ABC News / New York Times)
Trump abruptly ended a press briefing after being asked about retweeting misinformation and his support for a doctor who downplayed masks, and suggested that alien DNA was used in medical treatments. (CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/28/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-briefing/index.html
Trump criticized governors for moving too slowly to open their states’ economies amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying “we’ll see what happens with them.” (Bloomberg)
An hour before Dr. Anthony Fauci threw the first pitch at the season opener between the New York Yankees and the Washington Nationals, Trump announced that he, too, had been invited to throw out an opening pitch of his own. Trump, however, had not actually been invited by the Yankees and soon after tweeted that “won’t be able to be in New York to throw out the opening pitch.” (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/27/us/politics/trump-yankees-fauci.html
Edited by sgamer82 on Jul 29th 2020 at 6:06:03 AM
For today's Indonesia update, we have 106.336 confirmed (+1.904), 5.058 fatalities (+83) and 64.292 recovered or discharged (+2.154).
Scaled seeker
Oh, bother.
No new confirmed cases in Taiwan today.
467 total, 55 domestic, 36 from the fleet, 7 deceased, 441 released.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Nova Scotia recorded an additional death yesterday, a woman in her 60s who died several weeks ago was confirmed to have COVID as a major factor. She was not a resident of a long term care facility.
Edited by Rationalinsanity on Jul 30th 2020 at 8:31:24 AM
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
The first of the Covid vaccinations available to the public will be at the end of the year or the start of next year, probably.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
In the name of being honest
In just days, Vietnam shifts from virus-free paradise to panic.
Now there is a new number that has become an unwelcome marker.
Patient 416, a 57-year-old man in the central city of Danang, tested positive for coronavirus last week after more than three months without a new infection in the Southeast Asian country.
In just over a few days, a total of 47 people linked to Danang have tested positive, signalling the start of a third, untraceable and more concerning wave of infections in a country that had reopened faster than most of the world, confident it had beaten the disease.
The surge has spread to six cities and provinces in six days, including Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and the Central Highlands.
Vietnam’s Prime Minister, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, slammed his fist on the table during a meeting on Wednesday in which he warned that the entire country was now at risk of infection.
“Everyone, including health workers, had let their guard down months before the reintroduction of the virus,” said Truong Huu Khanh, head of the infectious diseases department at the Nhi Dong I Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City.
“People had stopped wearing masks in public and some health workers didn’t pay enough attention to ‘high risk’ cases”.
So successful was its fight against COVID-19 that the post-pandemic “new normal” in Vietnam looked very much like the old one. Bars, restaurants and hotels had reopened with minimal social distancing measures in place. In early July, the number of domestic air passengers even rose by 27% compared to the previous year, according to state media.
But that oasis in a pandemic-stricken world began to disintegrate when Patient 416 went to a local hospital in Danang with a cough and fever. The last person to test positive for an infection in the community was a 16-year-old girl in April.
Patient 416 was initially diagnosed with pneumonia, according to Vietnam’s health ministry, and did not test positive for the coronavirus until July 23. Days earlier, he had visited other hospitals in Danang to help his ailing mother, and attended one party and a wedding.
Vietnam’s outbreak had been under control, thanks to an aggressive contact-tracing system and a centralised quarantine programme, which had kept the coronavirus tally to under 500 cases, with no deaths.
“We acted fast and fiercely back in March but the virus is still breaking out all over the world,” said Khanh.
“We can’t let our guard down. This third wave is the cost for a moment of complacency”.
TESTING PATIENCE
The origin of the outbreak in Danang is unclear.
News of Patient 416’s infection prompted the mass exodus of over 80,000 tourists from the popular resort city. On Thursday, authorities in Hanoi said they would begin the mass testing of 20,000 of those tourists who had returned to the capital, as Vietnam’s human-powered contact tracing system was redeployed.
Some of the latest cases, including Patient 449, an American citizen based in Danang who appears to have developed symptoms in mid-June, indicate the virus had been quietly spreading in the city for several weeks.
It was not clear when Patient 449, who the health ministry said suffered from chronic pneumonia, was tested for the virus, but he was treated for COVID-like symptoms at three different hospitals before testing positive at a fourth hospital in Ho Chi Minh City.
The health ministry stopped publishing testing data in mid-May, when 260,000 tests had been carried out.
On Monday, the ministry said it had completed 430,000 tests since the pandemic began, indicating that testing continued to rise as thousands of returning overseas Vietnamese were quarantined.
It was not clear, however, to what extent COVID-19 testing outside quarantine had continued. Khanh said some outside testing, especially on patients with pneumonia symptoms, had been in effect but on a significantly smaller scale.
Although the two issues have not been officially linked, the government has over recent days made several strongly-worded statements about illegal immigration, indicating that the source of the new infections may have come from overseas.
“I think it’s most likely a reintroduction of the virus from elsewhere, sometime in the last two months, but how, when, or where remain entirely speculative at present,” said Guy Thwaites, director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Ho Chi Minh City.
“What is happening now in Vietnam was almost inevitable. It is almost impossible to isolate an entire country from a global pandemic,” said Thwaites
“Cases will occur”.
Just goes to show how quickly new waves can get out of control.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Media coronavirus coverage relatively good, says study . AKA coverage was mostly factual and neutral and did not degenerate into alternative facts and nonsense.
Professional Forum Ninja
Herman Cain has died due to COVID-19.
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
Fixed.
Edited by tclittle on Jul 30th 2020 at 12:16:02 PM
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
Lost in Space
Well, there goes the administration's Black Best Friend. No, I'm not sorry.
Edited by Fighteer on Jul 30th 2020 at 12:30:52 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Wait, no, Ben Carson is still around (I think?). Herman Cain was not part of the administration, so I don't know where that headline came from.
Lost in Space
Whoops. Still not sorry, though.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Professional Forum Ninja
My bad. For some reason, I ended up mixing the two.
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
Herman Cain has died due to COVID-19.
He died as he lived, in idiotic servility to Trump.
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn
In the name of being honest
Great Atlantic article on the mechanics of airborne transmission and why ventilation will be key to managing it as we move forward.
Goku Black
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Dying to own the "libs".
Anka Aquila
The Darwin awards are going to need to make an special edition for this year.
Instead of focusing on relatives that divide us, we should find the absolutes that tie us.
Redmess
I don't really understand why my country seems to have such a different stance on masks from everyone else. The tenor seems to be that masks are not as effective as social distancing, and that masks can even lead to less distancing and more infections.
And this is not coming from the fringe. It comes from the mainstream news (NOS, which is public television), and from the RIVM, our health institute.
Optimism is a duty.
How is the Netherlands doing Covid-wise?
I think that's quite right that social distancing (i.e. not leaving the house) is safer than going out wearing a mask, and there probably is something in the idea that the availability of masks makes people less likely to distance.
But being outside and wearing a mask is relatively safe, AFAIK, as long as you are distancing yourself from others. And the concerns you raise are not a reason not to wear a mask if you are outside/in public.
Also, this is anecdotal, but I know that countries in East Asia have a pretty longstanding tradition of public mask-wearing, and my impression is that they are doing better than most other places right now.
Edited by Hodor2 on Jul 30th 2020 at 3:00:33 AM
It's a noble lie.
A few months back the Swiss government claimed that masks were ineffective, because there were concerns that if citizens were to employ them en masse there wouldn't be any left for medical staff.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
That effectively seems to have been the rationale for the US stance early on, as well. The message when mask orders started going out was to cover your mouth and nose, but NOT to use the N95 masks meant for healthcare workers.
In the name of being honest
Well, back when the pandemic began, the dominant messaging from health bodies was that the virus travelled in large droplets that dropped to the ground soon after leaving the carrier's respiratory tract. Since then, we've found out that most of the transmission is driven by bits of respiratory fluids that evaporate into fine aerosols that could travel through the air.
A cloth mask won't necessarily protect you from the smallest aerosols (it'll still help), but it will stop the droplets coming out of your respiratory tract from aerosolising and becoming airborne. As this study from April found out, things like air conditioning could blow the aerosols carrying the virus all over you from a fair distance away. So by all indications, masks are a lot more useful than arbitrary proximity limits, and we'll need to do more going forward by adjusting our ventilation systems if possible and focusing prevention measures on likely superspreaders (e.g. people singing or making a speech at an event).
Edited by eagleoftheninth on Jul 30th 2020 at 1:08:17 AM
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)
It's a noble lie.
A few months back the Swiss government claimed that masks were ineffective, because there were concerns that if citizens were to employ them en masse there wouldn't be any left for medical staff.
The same thing happened in the US, I think that's a pretty dangerous position to take. Public trust is absolutely crucial when it comes to fighting disease, lying about mask efficacy just risks a rather understandable backlash.
Edit: Darn ![[nja]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/user_ninja_2074.png "[nja]"){kind=small}
s! :D
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 30th 2020 at 1:11:46 AM
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn
Redmess
Oh yes, that was another reason, I think: there simply aren't enough masks to provide everyone with them.
There seems to be an uptick in cases, but not a particularly extreme one, it seems to be in line with surrounding countries having upticks as well as far as I can tell.
Optimism is a duty.
The fact the virus got to Xijiang by moves so obvious like moving labourers by the thousands indicates that the People's Republic of China has the same issue of USA of Minorities getting hit the hardest...Up to Eleven
<insert M84's signature>
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn