Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Eviscero]

Hey, I definitely understand the sentiment, but maybe read a bit before going nuclear.

The funeral in question was on 2/29. The first case of COVID-19 wasn't reported in the state until 3/2. Gathering restrictions weren't put in place until 3/23.

So no, these people were not "morons".

Fair enough, but literally two days ago I drove by a congregation of 50+ huddled together in a cemetery for a funeral, five blocks from my house. I live in south FL... People are still doing this shit.

[Deja Thoris]

Seems to be slowing in Italy, but 20k new cases a day in USA...

There's a scene in the beginning of Breaking Bad when Walter White talks to that guy in the ambulance and says something like "I don't have the greatest insurance, can you just drop me off at the street?" I remember I had to explain it to my guys because our healthcare works differently.

So, I'm asking an ignorant foreigner question to those Americans who actually know: how true to the reality was that scene? And, how many real Americans won't be able to afford treatment for Covid-19? Do you think it will be free / cheap?

I'm not American but I can tell you without Government support, if you don't have insurance it will be prohibitively expensive. Also, because the USA has poor / no sick leave provisions and few employee rights (you're fired!) people would have been erring on the side of going to work if they felt a bit under the weather because they gotta put food on the table and don't want to be replaced.

Clearly that will (should) have changed over the past couple of weeks as the gravity of the situation becomes clear.

Also, think of the millions of people (dreamers / migrants) who will fear trying to get treatment through official channels because of the Racist in Chiefs policies.

[shadowmouse]

I am in favor of science. Astrophysicists are practically a symbol for brilliance. There are, however, times when the idea of common sense vs. the Ivory Tower is hard to hand wave away: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/30/a...scn/index.html

[breadisfunny]

Seems to be slowing in Italy, but 20k new cases a day in USA...

There's a scene in the beginning of Breaking Bad when Walter White talks to that guy in the ambulance and says something like "I don't have the greatest insurance, can you just drop me off at the street?" I remember I had to explain it to my guys because our healthcare works differently.

So, I'm asking an ignorant foreigner question to those Americans who actually know: how true to the reality was that scene? And, how many real Americans won't be able to afford treatment for Covid-19? Do you think it will be free / cheap?

thats pretty close to how healthcare works here in the u.s.

[EnclosedOne]

Seems to be slowing in Italy, but 20k new cases a day in USA...

There's a scene in the beginning of Breaking Bad when Walter White talks to that guy in the ambulance and says something like "I don't have the greatest insurance, can you just drop me off at the street?" I remember I had to explain it to my guys because our healthcare works differently.

So, I'm asking an ignorant foreigner question to those Americans who actually know: how true to the reality was that scene? And, how many real Americans won't be able to afford treatment for Covid-19? Do you think it will be free / cheap?

thankfully I've never had to be taken anywhere in an ambulance and I hope that never happens but yes, they are a couple thousand dollars and I'm honestly not sure if insurance even covers them anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't. A teen in L.A. just recently died of covid because he didn't have insurance and they turned him away so yeah, if they'll do that to a teen they'll definitely do that to an adult too

[Puupi]

thankfully I've never had to be taken anywhere in an ambulance and I hope that never happens but yes, they are a couple thousand dollars and I'm honestly not sure if insurance even covers them anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't. A teen in L.A. just recently died of covid because he didn't have insurance and they turned him away so yeah, if they'll do that to a teen they'll definitely do that to an adult too

Land of the free, home of the brave, grave of the sick.

[EnclosedOne]

Land of the free, home of the brave, grave of the sick.

well here is something that actually happened. my hubby's uncle was diagnosed with skin cancer a few years back and i don't know if he had insurance or not but it eventually came down to them being able to pay for treatment or pay their mortgage so they wound up living in their travel trailer at the back end of the family property for several years until just recently they were able to buy a new home so even with insurance if it doesn't want to cover the problem you're having you're still up shit creek with no paddle

[Granyala]

thankfully I've never had to be taken anywhere in an ambulance and I hope that never happens but yes, they are a couple thousand dollars and I'm honestly not sure if insurance even covers them anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't. A teen in L.A. just recently died of covid because he didn't have insurance and they turned him away so yeah, if they'll do that to a teen they'll definitely do that to an adult too

What a disgusting country. This is ridiculous.

[breadisfunny]

What a disgusting country. This is ridiculous.

welcome to the united states healthcare system. enjoy your stay.

[PhaelixWW]

Fair enough, but literally two days ago I drove by a congregation of 50+ huddled together in a cemetery for a funeral, five blocks from my house. I live in south FL... People are still doing this shit.

Yes, and anyone doing it now is rightfully called a moron. Carry on.

[Forogil]

Some good and some bad news.

There are now additional evidence that the number of infected that die is about 1%:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...243-7/fulltext
The split it into case fatality rate (those that actually develop the infection so much that it is a case) at 1.38% and an infection fatality rate of 0.66% (including all infected).

And there indications that the numbers are incorrect in N. Italy; specifically that there are four times as many dead as officially reported (in some regions).
https://www.corriere.it/politica/20_...cdbe1130.shtml
There might be other explanations - but it seems bad.

- - - Updated - - -

lol no new cases in china and only 3k deaths.

Where are you getting the information that China has no new cases, as the official reports have a number of cases currently - including some local transmission?

[Yunru]

I bought a bread-maker back around new years, so I've been making bread. But yeast is just as hard to find as flour is.

Got any Raisins? You can make your own. Just put them in a jar with 750 Ml water (1 L jar) and put a lid on it (air needs to go out) and be sure you add some sugar to speed up the process. Put your Jar somewhere where is not cold and stir once a day. After a few days your raisins should float and it should smell like vine.
Once its done, filter it and add 1 cup of flour and water to feed the yeast so it grows.

[Acidbaron]

Correlation between universal BCG vaccination policy and reduced morbidity and mortality for COVID-19

Some interesting stuff here https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....24.20042937v1

Sadly not going to convince anti-vaxxers. They are immune and only prone to conspiracy theories and crackpot "medicine".

- - - Updated - - -

Land of the free, home of the brave, grave of the sick.

Should be used in an political add, maybe it will motivate them to have more solidarity with their fellow countrymen. Doubt it will though.

Some rather eat their tenth hamburger in a row risking a stomach ache than giving it away to someone starving.

- - - Updated - - -

Another short informative video;

[MCMLXXXII]

If you thought we couldn't be struck harder, some "famous" Dutch people decided to record a Corona song.
The agony!

[Puupi]

The number of new cases has halved in Finland in a couple of days. Quarantine measures are starting to show their effect.

[Draco-Onis]

Yes, and anyone doing it now is rightfully called a moron. Carry on.

In most of the country this is still a blue state especially NY problem even though the virus is in all 50 states. Most states are still not in lock down and life goes on for them as usual that's not going into the hoax narrative that still hasn't died down.

[Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang]

Yeast is extremely rare, yes. A co-worker of mine said he went to four stores looking for it. I had a nice stockpile of all that sort of stuff from the days before everyone went crazy.

Not like a hoarding level stockpile, just like 12 packets of yeast. Enough to make bread 6 times, which will be fine.

While we still have some yeast left, my wife is now making sourdough bread using a homemade starter.

- - - Updated - - -

@Stelio Kontos You might look at seeing if you can get a small mill for making your own flour at home, if you can get grain. If I recall, my father got into that a while back. Look into it now though, remember what happened with bidets. As they became an alternative to TP, the prices went up and they got harder to get.

For yeast, consider sour dough.

Ditto on sourdough.

On flour making, some (pricey) kitchen robots are powerful enough for that. It can be interesting for the coeliac/gluten free particularly, as one of our friends makes her own gluten-free flour with cheap rice and the likes (substitutes are pricey...). For reference I am talking about the Thermomix from german manufacturer Vorwerk (while there are many competitors, they might not all have a motor powerful enough).

[markos82]

Yeast is extremely rare, yes. A co-worker of mine said he went to four stores looking for it. I had a nice stockpile of all that sort of stuff from the days before everyone went crazy.

Not like a hoarding level stockpile, just like 12 packets of yeast. Enough to make bread 6 times, which will be fine.

We didn't had yeast as well here, 3 days ago it started to be delivered to the stores. There is a limit you can buy ( in one store) so I bought 2 packages. In my country I don't see shortage of anything so far, that includes toilet paper and flour..

[Katie N]

https://e.nhipcaudautu.vn/news/vietn...ril-1-3334001/

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc ordered a nationwide isolation for 15 days, beginning Wednesday to fight against coronavirus spreading, which has been announced as national pandemic, the government said in a statement.

In the latest Directive Numbered 16, the Vietnamese government chief called residents to stay at home when total infections have risen to 204 as of Tuesday afternoon.

The order which is among urgent measures the government has adopted to combat COVID-19 pandemic demands for isolations between family and family, village and village, province and province to limit the spread of the virus.

Workers at workshops, plants should ensure a safe distance, wearing masks, disinfecting usually, according to regulations.

The number if infected cases in Vietnam has been increasing rapidly in recent days. There is a high risk of infection in the community. The government predicts that the pandemic will spread rapidly on a large scale, threatening lives of citizen and country’s economy.

No public gathering more than two

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc suggests citizen to stay at home and only go out for necessity situation only, including buying food, medicine, emergency, working at factories, business and service establishments.

The government of Vietnam requests no public gathering more than two people. People must keep distance of at least two meters from each other and inform the authorities of their health status and perform measures to protect their families' and their own health.

Business leaders would be responsible for deploying disease prevention measures at their own businesses to keep their employees healthy, statement said.

[Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang]

Yeah, I been thinking about that. Grinding grain.

Also, is it just the Anglosphere who's had to deal with the assholes panic-buying everything? I've only heard stories from the US, Australia, Canada, and the UK about idiots buying way more items than they need.

No real panic here in Switzerland, there was quite the surge in shopping on the eve partial lock-down was announced, and the following week staff had to frantically restock displays in the shops. But yeast is scarce and there is very little flour left in stores, especially of the fancy ones, as lots and lots of people are now making homemade bread and pizzas. You can still find TP if you look a bit, but its usually the expensive ones that are left.

What might make a difference is that people here live in small apartments or small houses, so space is such a premium that current generations hardly follows the official recommendation of having a weeks worth emergency supply ready, compared to my grandparent's who had 6 months cold war reserves, so hardly anybody would have the room for toilet paper walls of freezers full of meats.
On another hand shops are supposed to have at least 4 months of supply available, although people stockpiling has certainly made a dent on that. We also have lots and lots of shops from big to small, and some people (including myself) started making reserves several weeks in advance so when we shop we mostly need fresh produce and meats, and for those there's no issue so far.