State your opinion on COVID-19

On Sat, 28 Mar 2020 21:09:46 -0400, Radey Shouman
wrote:

Ralph Barone writes:

AMuzi wrote:
On 3/28/2020 2:18 PM, Mark J. wrote:
On 3/28/2020 10:09 AM, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/28/2020 11:01 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

As usual, discussions here have devolved into childish name
calling by some, demeaning published facts and data, quick
political jabs, defensive changes of subjet, and "I know
better than anyone" allusions. Things get obscured.

So I'd like to get a direct answer, especially from Tom and
from Andrew.

Tom: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Andrew: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Of course, this is a discussion group. Others are very
welcome to give their opinion too.

BTW, our bike club now has its first member in intensive
care on a ventilator. I consider him a really good friend,
one of the guys who (almost) always came on my night rides.
He's much younger than me and has been a hell of a rider, a
daily commuter, fast and high mileage.


Up to here, yes. Death is not trivial to the fatality
himself, but the numbers haven't supported panic so far.

I will change my opinion when/if the numbers change [...]

Sadly, give it a week or two. Cases are roughly quadrupling
each week in the US [based on CDC reports]. Exponential
growth doesn't catch the public eye when the absolute
numbers are low, but those low numbers don't last long.

We are solidly on track to eclipse the "regular-flu" numbers.

Mark J.


but having known
people who died of pneumonia from influenza, my point was
merely that it's the same death (and an unpleasant one at
that) to fewer people.

see also:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/images/about...nza-burden.png


If influenza were unknown until this year, people would
freak out at forty million infected and 50,000 Americans
dead.

If you want to do something useful and patriotic, do
something about the even larger number of Americans who
die annually by _hospital acquired infection_. That
number is not getting smaller year over year- it's growing.



Another danger is a mental incapacity caused by a political
correctness infestation. From WMAL today:

https://www.wmal.com/news/yes-we-lon...uldnt-anymore/

Headline:
"Yes, we long have referred to disease outbreaks by
geographic places. Here’s why we shouldn’t anymore"

Main argument worthy of a failing grade in a high school
logic class:
"During the 2003 SARS outbreak, media coverage of the
disease led to the stigmatization of Asian communities in
countries such as Canada. It devastated Chinese-owned
businesses, especially those located in Chinatowns."

I looked for SARS on a map. Couldn't find it.

Perhaps in time all this will pass, just as we no longer use
"the French disease".

Or “the Spanish Flu”, named after the one country that had the balls to
admit it existed.

You oversimplify -- Spain was neutral during the Great War, so their
press remained freer than that of combatant nations. "In war, the first
casualty is the truth".

I think that is an over simplification. In war, or perhaps at any
time, there are at least two truths, our's and their's. "Our" news is,
of course, true and honest while "Their" news is, of course, nothing
but lies :-)

(Then there is "that other news" that both Us and Them label as pure
fabrication :-)
--
cheers,

John B.

On Sun, 29 Mar 2020 08:40:50 +0700, John B. wrote:

On Sat, 28 Mar 2020 21:00:31 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 3/28/2020 7:15 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:


We have one friend with whom we shared a six-foot-separated picnic.
She has no symptoms, but she had to take off her mask to eat. Other
friends (we've seen a dozen, max) have been almost as careful, but no
masks.

A dozen since the Ohio "shelter in place" order? Honestly that seems
like a large number to me. Our social life is pretty much all remote
now, aside from two or three chance meetings.

About half of those were on March 17, before the official order, but
even then we were being very careful. At that time, they had said "6
feet minimum" and (I think) "no more than 10 in a group."

Since then, the friends we've seen have all been outdoors, on
well-separated hikes, walks or bike rides. And since then, we've been to
only one grocery, one deli for takeout, and one pharmacy.

BTW, the pharmacy (a block from our house) was closed for several days
for "deep cleaning." Apparently one or two employees tested positive. I
was in there today to get a prescription, and all the old staff had been
temporarily replaced. They're all in self quarantine.

I read about "cleaning" and I understand that virus are not living, in
the sense of other creatures and I have also read that a dead body is
not capable of transmitting a viral disease, but how long does a virus,
or perhaps more accurately a virion, remain viable and able to infect
another creature if it is outside a living body. Or in simple terms if a
virion falls on the floor how long can it lay there and still be capable
of causing a disease?

It depends on the surface. For sars-Cov2, Cu about 4 hours to plastic for
weeks.
also depends on the mu-flora and wheather if gets consumed '

On Sun, 29 Mar 2020 03:03:38 -0000 (UTC), news18
wrote:

On Sun, 29 Mar 2020 08:40:50 +0700, John B. wrote:

On Sat, 28 Mar 2020 21:00:31 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 3/28/2020 7:15 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:


We have one friend with whom we shared a six-foot-separated picnic.
She has no symptoms, but she had to take off her mask to eat. Other
friends (we've seen a dozen, max) have been almost as careful, but no
masks.

A dozen since the Ohio "shelter in place" order? Honestly that seems
like a large number to me. Our social life is pretty much all remote
now, aside from two or three chance meetings.

About half of those were on March 17, before the official order, but
even then we were being very careful. At that time, they had said "6
feet minimum" and (I think) "no more than 10 in a group."

Since then, the friends we've seen have all been outdoors, on
well-separated hikes, walks or bike rides. And since then, we've been to
only one grocery, one deli for takeout, and one pharmacy.

BTW, the pharmacy (a block from our house) was closed for several days
for "deep cleaning." Apparently one or two employees tested positive. I
was in there today to get a prescription, and all the old staff had been
temporarily replaced. They're all in self quarantine.

I read about "cleaning" and I understand that virus are not living, in
the sense of other creatures and I have also read that a dead body is
not capable of transmitting a viral disease, but how long does a virus,
or perhaps more accurately a virion, remain viable and able to infect
another creature if it is outside a living body. Or in simple terms if a
virion falls on the floor how long can it lay there and still be capable
of causing a disease?

It depends on the surface. For sars-Cov2, Cu about 4 hours to plastic for
weeks.
also depends on the mu-flora and wheather if gets consumed '

Ok, on a plastic surface it is viable for weeks. But what is Cu? and I
did look... and came across 82 definitions, starting with Credit Union
and ending with Coefficient of Utilization.
--
cheers,

John B.

On Sunday, 29 March 2020 00:18:31 UTC-4, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 29 Mar 2020 03:03:38 -0000 (UTC), news18
wrote:

On Sun, 29 Mar 2020 08:40:50 +0700, John B. wrote:

On Sat, 28 Mar 2020 21:00:31 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 3/28/2020 7:15 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:


We have one friend with whom we shared a six-foot-separated picnic.
She has no symptoms, but she had to take off her mask to eat. Other
friends (we've seen a dozen, max) have been almost as careful, but no
masks.

A dozen since the Ohio "shelter in place" order? Honestly that seems
like a large number to me. Our social life is pretty much all remote
now, aside from two or three chance meetings.

About half of those were on March 17, before the official order, but
even then we were being very careful. At that time, they had said "6
feet minimum" and (I think) "no more than 10 in a group."

Since then, the friends we've seen have all been outdoors, on
well-separated hikes, walks or bike rides. And since then, we've been to
only one grocery, one deli for takeout, and one pharmacy.

BTW, the pharmacy (a block from our house) was closed for several days
for "deep cleaning." Apparently one or two employees tested positive. I
was in there today to get a prescription, and all the old staff had been
temporarily replaced. They're all in self quarantine.

I read about "cleaning" and I understand that virus are not living, in
the sense of other creatures and I have also read that a dead body is
not capable of transmitting a viral disease, but how long does a virus,
or perhaps more accurately a virion, remain viable and able to infect
another creature if it is outside a living body. Or in simple terms if a
virion falls on the floor how long can it lay there and still be capable
of causing a disease?

It depends on the surface. For sars-Cov2, Cu about 4 hours to plastic for
weeks.
also depends on the mu-flora and wheather if gets consumed '

Ok, on a plastic surface it is viable for weeks. But what is Cu? and I
did look... and came across 82 definitions, starting with Credit Union
and ending with Coefficient of Utilization.
--
cheers,

John B.

Cu (from Latin: cuprum)is the symbol for copper.

Cheers

On Sat, 28 Mar 2020 22:12:37 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

On Sunday, 29 March 2020 00:18:31 UTC-4, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 29 Mar 2020 03:03:38 -0000 (UTC), news18
wrote:

On Sun, 29 Mar 2020 08:40:50 +0700, John B. wrote:

On Sat, 28 Mar 2020 21:00:31 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 3/28/2020 7:15 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:


We have one friend with whom we shared a six-foot-separated picnic.
She has no symptoms, but she had to take off her mask to eat. Other
friends (we've seen a dozen, max) have been almost as careful, but no
masks.

A dozen since the Ohio "shelter in place" order? Honestly that seems
like a large number to me. Our social life is pretty much all remote
now, aside from two or three chance meetings.

About half of those were on March 17, before the official order, but
even then we were being very careful. At that time, they had said "6
feet minimum" and (I think) "no more than 10 in a group."

Since then, the friends we've seen have all been outdoors, on
well-separated hikes, walks or bike rides. And since then, we've been to
only one grocery, one deli for takeout, and one pharmacy.

BTW, the pharmacy (a block from our house) was closed for several days
for "deep cleaning." Apparently one or two employees tested positive. I
was in there today to get a prescription, and all the old staff had been
temporarily replaced. They're all in self quarantine.

I read about "cleaning" and I understand that virus are not living, in
the sense of other creatures and I have also read that a dead body is
not capable of transmitting a viral disease, but how long does a virus,
or perhaps more accurately a virion, remain viable and able to infect
another creature if it is outside a living body. Or in simple terms if a
virion falls on the floor how long can it lay there and still be capable
of causing a disease?

It depends on the surface. For sars-Cov2, Cu about 4 hours to plastic for
weeks.
also depends on the mu-flora and wheather if gets consumed '

Ok, on a plastic surface it is viable for weeks. But what is Cu? and I
did look... and came across 82 definitions, starting with Credit Union
and ending with Coefficient of Utilization.
--
cheers,

John B.

Cu (from Latin: cuprum)is the symbol for copper.

Cheers

Or Christian Union, or Coming Unglued, or
Celeron Unit, or Cardiac Unit, or... :-)

--
cheers,

John B.

On Sun, 29 Mar 2020 13:12:34 +0700, John B. wrote:


It depends on the surface. For sars-Cov2, Cu about 4 hours to plastic
for weeks.
also depends on the mu-flora and wheather if gets consumed '

Ok, on a plastic surface it is viable for weeks. But what is Cu? and I
did look... and came across 82 definitions, starting with Credit Union
and ending with Coefficient of Utilization.
--
cheers,

John B.

Cu (from Latin: cuprum)is the symbol for copper.

Cheers

Or Christian Union, or Coming Unglued, or Celeron Unit, or Cardiac Unit,
or... :-)

Yes, any of those might have it too, but you wouldn't normally define
them as a surface

On 3/28/2020 9:04 PM, jbeattie wrote:

I blew off a ride today to go on a walk with my wife. We saw lots of people and passed some within feet. We stopped at the Safeway and even stopped at a coffee shop in Multnomah Village, although you can't go inside. They were set up at the door -- bought some beans for home espresso. https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1901/...4b285de2_b.jpg There's a second coffee shop in town that was open as well -- but not the Blue Star Donuts (mega-expensive curated donuts) or the collection of other eateries. The weed shop was open, of course.

When I say "Multnomah Village," I feel like I'm with Frank, back in Ohi-oh. It even has a visitor's guide, which is impressive for a wide spot in the road. https://tinyurl.com/vmoofse We usually walk the urban trails rather than the neighborhoods, but the 'hoods are fun now and then.

I suspect that "village," like ours, was once rather separate from the
next closest city, village, etc. but got swallowed by urban expansion.

Regarding "the 'hoods": Our bike ride with a friend the other day was a
bit unusual. We live toward the edge of the urban-suburban complex, so
we head for country roads for most of our recreational rides. But when
our friend showed up the other day, I proposed heading into the suburbs.
We did over 25 miles cruising streets that we almost never explore. I
sought out neighborhoods dating back to the 1920s, some of the areas
first suburbs. Lots of homes with interesting and varied architecture.
(I suspect the first to flee the cities had money to hire architects.)

I also showed off several of the sneaky shortcuts I've discovered over
the years. Many of them were probably originated by kids, giving back
ways out of cul-de-sacs, into parks, through cemeteries, etc. It turned
out to be an interesting ride.

--
- Frank Krygowski

with John B wrote:
On Sat, 28 Mar 2020 09:45:07 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:
On Saturday, 28 March 2020 12:01:47 UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:

As usual, discussions here have devolved into childish name calling
by some, demeaning published facts and data, quick political jabs,
defensive changes of subjet, and "I know better than anyone"
allusions. Things get obscured.
*SKIP*
Thailand has imposed some pretty draconian regulations to fight the
virus and while I'm not sure whether it is a viable calculation their
new cases number is 8% of total cases. The U.S. with apparently fewer
restrictions has a new case total of about 14% of the total cases. At
this rate the U.S. will exceed 200,000 cases in about 4 more days :-(

For kernel's sake, can we start to think in ratios, plz? Let me reframe
this.

X -- grand total cases (not mentioned in the post by "John B"; I'm
not going to figure out at how many it is/was (at time of
posting by "John B"))
x_t -- cases in Thailand (0.08X)
x_u -- cases in USA (0.14X)
p_t -- population in Thailland (694 of 100K people, estimate 2018)
p_u -- population in USA (3087 of 100K people, estimate 2019)

Now, r_t would be ( x_t X / p_t ) or ( 1.15e-4 X ), and r_u would be
( x_u X / p_u ) or ( 4.54e-5 X ).

Now, it looks like USA is going 2.54 better then Thailand. But
important question is -- at what timespan?

plz fill in blanks and/or correct me if I'm wrong.

--
Torvalds' goal for Linux is very simple: World Domination
Stallman's goal for GNU is even simpler: Freedom

On 3/28/2020 6:56 PM, Ralph Barone wrote:
AMuzi wrote:
On 3/28/2020 2:18 PM, Mark J. wrote:
On 3/28/2020 10:09 AM, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/28/2020 11:01 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

As usual, discussions here have devolved into childish name
calling by some, demeaning published facts and data, quick
political jabs, defensive changes of subjet, and "I know
better than anyone" allusions. Things get obscured.

So I'd like to get a direct answer, especially from Tom and
from Andrew.

Tom: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Andrew: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Of course, this is a discussion group. Others are very
welcome to give their opinion too.

BTW, our bike club now has its first member in intensive
care on a ventilator. I consider him a really good friend,
one of the guys who (almost) always came on my night rides.
He's much younger than me and has been a hell of a rider, a
daily commuter, fast and high mileage.


Up to here, yes. Death is not trivial to the fatality
himself, but the numbers haven't supported panic so far.

I will change my opinion when/if the numbers change [...]

Sadly, give it a week or two. Cases are roughly quadrupling
each week in the US [based on CDC reports]. Exponential
growth doesn't catch the public eye when the absolute
numbers are low, but those low numbers don't last long.

We are solidly on track to eclipse the "regular-flu" numbers.

Mark J.


but having known
people who died of pneumonia from influenza, my point was
merely that it's the same death (and an unpleasant one at
that) to fewer people.

see also:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/images/about...nza-burden.png


If influenza were unknown until this year, people would
freak out at forty million infected and 50,000 Americans
dead.

If you want to do something useful and patriotic, do
something about the even larger number of Americans who
die annually by _hospital acquired infection_. That
number is not getting smaller year over year- it's growing.



Another danger is a mental incapacity caused by a political
correctness infestation. From WMAL today:

https://www.wmal.com/news/yes-we-lon...uldnt-anymore/

Headline:
"Yes, we long have referred to disease outbreaks by
geographic places. Here’s why we shouldn’t anymore"

Main argument worthy of a failing grade in a high school
logic class:
"During the 2003 SARS outbreak, media coverage of the
disease led to the stigmatization of Asian communities in
countries such as Canada. It devastated Chinese-owned
businesses, especially those located in Chinatowns."

I looked for SARS on a map. Couldn't find it.

Perhaps in time all this will pass, just as we no longer use
"the French disease".

Or “the Spanish Flu�, named after the one country that had the balls to
admit it existed.


Correct and well publicized.
Wartime censorship applied to the 'civilized world' while
Spain remained neutral with some of the very few free press
organizations. Hence the name.

Why doesn't anyone think 'Marburg' is racist? Same gruesome
death as Ebola.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

news18 wrote:
On Sun, 29 Mar 2020 13:12:34 +0700, John B. wrote:

It depends on the surface. For sars-Cov2, Cu about 4 hours to plastic
for weeks.
also depends on the mu-flora and wheather if gets consumed '

Ok, on a plastic surface it is viable for weeks. But what is Cu? and I
did look... and came across 82 definitions, starting with Credit Union
and ending with Coefficient of Utilization.

Cu (from Latin: cuprum)is the symbol for copper.

Cheers

Or Christian Union, or Coming Unglued, or Celeron Unit, or Cardiac Unit,
or... :-)

Yes, any of those might have it too, but you wouldn't normally define
them as a surface

John, here's an airbus driver's ed test for you:
http://avherald.com/h?article=4d1e782d
You have fourty (40) seconds to find out, without looking at the comments,
which one is the least important data piece among these four,
A. 6.43 miles,
B. 668 ft,
C. 7 nanometers, or
D. 2000 fpm.

(Correct answer earns you one Former Flyer Mile with Thai Air.)