N6_in_the_village

The worst weather is when the high is near 100 day after day and also the air is filled with smoke from distant but massive forest fires, so you feel crappy after walking outside for even 10 or 15 minutes. We're fortunate that never happens around here.

So you're giving advice that you BELIEVE will help people stay healthy. But the advice that you BELIEVE will help people stay healthy is NOT MEANT FOR 2Big, because ???

I haven't seen that movie, but your report is very surprising, because no other science fiction / fantasy / comic-book universe movies have major "plot holes" like that.

This is how the world ends, not with a bang but a ... package of 24 jumbo = 96 regular rolls of toilet paper.

Per the panic buying, I've seen comments from people who live in Florida or other hurricane-prone areas like "Welcome to the hurricane zone. Just don't drink all the beer you stocked up on in the first three days (do as I say, not as I do)".

Oh something else important - keep in mind that "Total Cases" doesn't mean the total number of coronavirus cases that actually exist (in the world or a given country), it means the total number of cases CONFIRMED BY TESTING. So the testing rate, or number of tests per million people, is important, because when the infection rate is high but the testing rate is low, it is likely that many cases are missed. As of March 9-10, some countries with HIGHER testing rates were: Bahrain, 4910 per million South Korea, 4099 Hong Kong, 2134 Italy, 1005 Some countries with LOWER testing rates were: Japan, 76 Netherlands, 35 United States, 26 Vietnam, 24 Turkey, 10 https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/covid-19-testing/

And the following site seems to have the most up-to-date coronavirus statistics for the world and all countries. Very readable formats, too. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

ECDC: COVID-19 not containable, set to overwhelm hospitals Filed Under: COVID-19 Lisa Schnirring | News Editor | CIDRAP News | Mar 12, 2020 In a stark and urgent COVID-19 risk assessment update today, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said that, in a few weeks or even days, other countries in the region may face huge surges that mirror those of China and Italy. It advised countries to quickly shift to mitigation strategies to protect vulnerable people and prevent overwhelmed hospitals. Reports of dire conditions in hospitals in Italy's hot spots have been circulating on social media for the past few weeks and are now appearing in medical journal and media reports. The ECDC acknowledges that high numbers of patients needing ventilation have exceeded intensive care unit (ICU) capacity in some healthcare facilities in northern Italy. Life-and-death decisions in Italy's inundated hospitals In a Lancet report today, two authors from Italy said the percentage of COVID-19 patients needing ICU treatment has ranged from 9% to 11% and that ICUs will be at maximum capacity if that trend continues for 1 more week. They predicted that Italy will need 4,000 more ICU beds over the next month, a challenge given that the country has about 5,200 ICU beds. In the hard-hit Lombardy region, healthcare workers have been working around the clock. About 350 (20%) have been infected, and some have died, according to the report. Italy's government is considering hiring 20,000 more medical workers and providing 5,000 more ventilators. Unless the measures are implemented in the next few days, they wrote, otherwise-avoidable deaths will occur. "Intensive care specialists are already considering denying life-saving care to the sickest and giving priority to those patients most likely to survive when deciding who to provide ventilation to," they wrote. "In the near future, they will have no choice. They will have to follow the same rules that health-care workers are left with in conflict and disaster zones." Countries on track for Hubei scenarios, ECDC warns In its assessment today, the ECDC said the risk of severe disease is moderate for the general population but high for older people and those with underlying medical conditions. Increased community transmission may exceed health system capacities in the coming weeks, it said, and countries should act now to step up hospital infection control and surge capacity. The ECDC said estimates for hospital care suggest that most European countries could reach Hubei province scenarios by the end of March, with all countries reaching that point by mid-April. The group urged member countries to implement social distancing measures such as cancelling mass gatherings and cordoning off hotspots early to slow outbreaks and give health systems more time to prepare for an influx of patients. The ECDC also recommended that countries designate COVID-19 facilities to minimize the transmission to other patients and conserve personal protective equipment (PPE) and identify facilities for managing those with milder symptoms. When resources are stretched or limited, the ECDC said countries should take rational approaches to conserve testing, contact tracing, PPE use, and hospitalization for high-yield situations. Italy's health ministry today reported 2,651 new cases and 189 more deaths, raising its respective totals to 15,113 cases and 1,016 deaths. Spain's total today rose to 3,126 cases, with the addition of 782 more today. France's total rising to 2,876, with the addition of 595 more. The United Kingdom reported 134 new cases, boosting its total to 590. Several European countries announced more steps to curb the spread of the virus. For example, Slovakia declared a state of emergency and shut schools and major airports, and the Netherlands banned events of more than 100 people and urged citizens to work from home, if possible. [http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/03/ecdc-covid-19-not-containable-set-overwhelm-hospitals]

Just BTW, I've started to follow the twitter account of Nassim Nicholas Taleb (author of The Black Swan) for coronavirus news/opinion/advice. https://twitter.com/nntaleb Oh and this is a headline I expect will be remembered: "Coronavirus conference gets canceled because of coronavirus" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-10/coronavirus-conference-gets-canceled-because-of-coronavirus

Sorry, that number 15 million fatalities is totally wrong, way too high. The estimates I found for deaths from the 2009/2010 H1N1 epidemic are 150,000 to 600,000 worldwide and 9,000 to 18,000 in the United States. And about 10 % to 20 % of the entire world population of 6.8 billion caught the H1N1 flu. Since 0.68 billion to 1.36 billion people had the illness, and 150,000 to 600,000 died from it, the fatality rate was 0.01% to 0.09 % (or between 1 in 10,000 and 9 in 10,000). The fatality rate of COVID-19 is currently estimated to be 2 %, which is obviously a lot higher. However, the 2009/2010 pandemic had one unusual / scary feature (compared to typical flu epidemics) - it killed young people a lot more. About 80% of fatalities were under 65 years old, while for typical flu only 20% of the fatalities are under 65. People with high risk from COVID-19 are described as "older adults" (over 60), or with existing chronic medical conditions including heart disease, lung disease, and diabetes. Smokers are also at high risk.

WARNING: when I click on any of the onebackpage dot com links I get a malware warning "Norton blocked an attack by: Malicious Site: Malicious Domain Request". I advise STAY AWAY FROM ONEBACKPAGE DOT COM.

That the ratio of deaths to infections confirmed by testing. Testing is very incomplete so the true rate may be lower. But even if the rate is "only" 2%, that's 20 times worse than a flu epidemic, which is really bad (flu kills a lot of people). Also, some other pre-existing illnesses greatly increase the risk of death. I found the following: Death rate from COVID-19, depending on pre-existing condition: + cardiovascular disease: 10.5 % + diabetes: 7.3 % + chronic respiratory (lung) disease: 6.3 % + high blood pressure: 6.0 % + cancer: 5.6 % no pre-existing serious illness: 0.9 % https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/

I question some of the above. Death rates from most flu varieties are 0.1 % (1 in 1000) and that hasn't changed in a long time. Also (unfortunately for older people) the death rate from flu, and also from COVID-19, increases rapidly with age above 60. There was one flu epidemic that was much deadlier - the "Spanish flu" of 1918-1919. That had one especially scary aspect - the death rate among young and middle-aged adults was as high as among the elderly. That virus had a mutation that caused it to provoke an extreme over-reaction of the immune system in many people (look up "cytokine storm") and the immune over-reaction itself was the cause of death. Fortunately that behavior hasn't been seen again in any viral epidemic since then. I've read that the worldwide number of deaths from the Spanish flu isn't known because the record-keeping was so poor. Estimates are "from 17 million to 100 million". Yikes! That's partly because it occurred at the end of World War I when many governments and nations were on the verge of collapse. The reason Spanish flu is called Spanish flu is also interesting. It definitely didn't start in Spain. But most European nations were under wartime censorship and their governments simply suppressed news of the epidemic and deaths. In 1918 Spain was not in the war, and had a relatively free press. When the flu reached Spain from France in November 1918, newspapers there were allowed to carry articles about it.

Wow it isn't warmer and drier in Colorado lately and there's no chance temperatures will reach the mid 60s by the first week in March

I've seen the term "community spread", and that basically means: When someone catches the virus from someone else (not specifically identified) in their local community. In other words, not from travel to a known "hot spot", and not from contact with a specifically identified person.

SARS: total of 8,000 cases and 800 deaths over entire course of the epidemic (high mortality rate, but didn't spread much). COVID-19: total of 87,000 cases total (mostly in China), 2,979 deaths (mostly in China), and 7,155 cases outside China, SO FAR. COVID-19 looks like the more serious problem from information we have to date. One thing that may actually make COVID-19 worse than SARS - as an epidemic - is that the large majority of people with the illness show only mild symptoms. But they are "carriers" who then spread the virus to others.

Diff'rent Strokes

We should get back to doing end of year / winter solstice holidays like the Romans did it: SATURNALIA From history.com:

So Hal Freedman doesn't even have an act, but Hamlet has five acts. Seems kind of unfair!

Her current profile lists her age as 21, and her first review is from September 2012. In other words, no problemo!

That's because of me running the ice maker in my refrigerator. Sorry about all the ice, folks.

The dinosaurs had a meteoric end, and never saw an Ice Age (timeline). Although your fantasy Earth could have a different timeline.

It's just awful how every. single. day. has been colder than the day before. EVERY DAY for the last ten years in a row. OH. NOES!!!!!!!!!!!! Soon we will all be blocks of ice. Then we will be able to try very few positions when we hobby.

The pictures are HERE (as written in the first sentence of this topic) and they are accurate pictures of SOMEONE, so where's the problem (But maybe the girl should perform instant plastic surgery on herself, if needed to better match the pictures)