Coronavirus pandemic

[US71]

We really shouldn't downplay the spread of COVID-19, which has a much higher fatality rate than the normal flu (around 2%) and seems to spread quite fast. Japan and South Korea have both started their own quarantines to try and contain the spread, Italy has its outbreak, and there's only so much we can learn out of China. Even the "underreported" figures are quite significant, and it's also having an impact on the world economy as more and more man-hours are lost in China.

That being said, the media hype is causing its own problems. Locally, there's been an uptick in anti-Asian racism, including harassment that I have experienced myself on the street.

That racism towards Asians and Asian-Americans (myself included–my mother and her family are from Taichung, Taiwan) really is disgusting when you get down to the nitty-gritty. I keep telling this to my friends that I have talked to on FB and whatnot.

My grandmother was from Guatemala. she put up with a lot of crap when she came to the states.

[kevinb1994]

We really shouldn't downplay the spread of COVID-19, which has a much higher fatality rate than the normal flu (around 2%) and seems to spread quite fast. Japan and South Korea have both started their own quarantines to try and contain the spread, Italy has its outbreak, and there's only so much we can learn out of China. Even the "underreported" figures are quite significant, and it's also having an impact on the world economy as more and more man-hours are lost in China.

That being said, the media hype is causing its own problems. Locally, there's been an uptick in anti-Asian racism, including harassment that I have experienced myself on the street.

That racism towards Asians and Asian-Americans (myself included–my mother and her family are from Taichung, Taiwan) really is disgusting when you get down to the nitty-gritty. I keep telling this to my friends that I have talked to on FB and whatnot.

My grandmother was from Guatemala. she put up with a lot of crap when she came to the states.

I'm sorry to hear that, David. But alas not terribly surprising at the same time.

[bing101]

^^^

I want to say it's either Salono County or Humboldt County. 

Regarding impactful infections on the global scale when was the last truly big one?  I want to say it was the Spanish Flu (ironically which is also what Swine Flu was) but there might be some Mid-20th Century examples that I'm forgetting about.

If you will, epidemiologists being on a constant watch is a important part of it. While not global, local outbreaks do happen, and can be pretty nasty. What we see, IMHO,  is just professional "panic" of those who know how quickly things can go wrong and trying to get them right - something general public doesn't really remember.

I've kind of found that they tend to be the more rational when these outbreaks happen.  Most of the public concern seems to be coming from either media sources or public media officials making declarations or public announcements.  I even had to read an issued statement at work, all it did was get people spun up over nothing.

Just heard on the news that the coronavirus victim is in Solano County.  They are being treated at UC-Davis.  This person has not been outside the USA recently.  How did they get the virus?  Unknown at this time.

Rick

Solano County, CA was expected to get hit by Coronavirus due to Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, CA have been the lead quarantine facility of COVID-19 in the USA. 


https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article240604346.html


https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Coronavirus-patients-Travis-AFB-must-move-15079843.php

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article240688726.html

Well there goes easy lodging at Travis AFB for awhile...   I'll have to ask my Wife's Cousin how things are over there with the quarantine procedures.

I live in the area and we are told to "take precautions" according to the CDC. As far as I know I can easily understand why Solano County was specifically chosen as the lead quarantine area it was to avoid creating a panic in the more prominent tourist areas, or areas where investment groups are most likely to be located or an area where Lobbyists and campaign offices are most likely to be located. If the CDC announced that San Francisco, Los Angeles and Sacramento are quarantine areas the rest of the country would panic right away though.




https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/infographic-cdc-protects-508.pdf

[bing101]

Regarding media sensation with the Coronavirus.  The only place I heard it even discussed in Mexico during two weeks was when I (along with my family) were asked if we had been to China in the last 14 days.  I kind of notice once you get away from the U.S. and to a lesser extent Canada media sensationalism tends to die down fast. 

Interestingly the City of San Francisco declared a state of emergency but I don't think that there has even been a confirmed case of Coronavirus there?  I was telling my wife we should probably go for a visit since that declaration probably will turn off a lot of tourism and drive hotel prices down. 

Regarding impactful infections on the global scale when was the last truly big one?  I want to say it was the Spanish Flu (ironically which is also what Swine Flu was) but there might be some Mid-20th Century examples that I'm forgetting about.

https://fox40.com/news/california-connection/solano-county-declares-emergency-following-possible-community-spread-virus-case/




https://www.dailyrepublic.com/all-dr-news/solano-news/fairfield/solano-county-declares-local-emergency-over-coronavirus/


Apparently Solano County, CA just declared county state of emergency.

[bing101]

https://www.thereporter.com/2020/02/28/second-solano-coronavirus-case-confirmed-third-pending-confirmation/




https://abc7news.com/health/additional-novel-coronavirus-cases-confirmed-in-bay-area-officials-say-/5974170/




Yes this was expected more people in Solano County reported to have coronavirus

[bing101]

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/norcal-health-officials-search-for-others-exposed-to-coronavirus-patient/


https://ktla.com/news/elementary-school-employee-becomes-oregons-1st-novel-coronavirus-case/




https://ktla.com/news/local-news/south-korean-flight-attendant-with-covid-19-who-visited-l-a-posed-no-risk-to-others-health-officials/




San Jose, Oregon and Los Angeles are now reporting Coronavirus scares.

[bing101]

https://q13fox.com/2020/02/28/2-new-presumed-cases-of-coronavirus-in-washington-snohomish-co-high-school-student-and-king-co-woman/


Update there are reports of a Coronavirus scare in the Seattle area and thats under investigation with the CDC.

[Big John]

First US death reported in Washington state.

https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-02-29-20-intl-hnk/index.html

[Scott5114]

I have to wonder how a quarantine/"stay home" mandate like we're seeing in other countries would go over in the US. So many employers here have draconian attendance policies that I think a lot of people would ignore the government and go to work anyway in fear of losing their job. Where I work, you're only allowed 10 unscheduled absences in a rolling year period, no matter the reason. Thus, I fully expect to contract the coronavirus from one of my coworkers should it spread to this part of the country.

[SSOWorld]

I have to wonder how a quarantine/"stay home" mandate like we're seeing in other countries would go over in the US. So many employers here have draconian attendance policies that I think a lot of people would ignore the government and go to work anyway in fear of losing their job. Where I work, you're only allowed 10 unscheduled absences in a rolling year period, no matter the reason. Thus, I fully expect to contract the coronavirus from one of my coworkers should it spread to this part of the country.

FMLA prohibits such draconian policy.

[Max Rockatansky]

I have to wonder how a quarantine/"stay home" mandate like we're seeing in other countries would go over in the US. So many employers here have draconian attendance policies that I think a lot of people would ignore the government and go to work anyway in fear of losing their job. Where I work, you're only allowed 10 unscheduled absences in a rolling year period, no matter the reason. Thus, I fully expect to contract the coronavirus from one of my coworkers should it spread to this part of the country.

FMLA prohibits such draconian policy.

Yes, but it doesn't exactly stop a lot of employers from getting pushy with sick absence policies.  For close to 20 years I've gotten crap almost every single time I've called out maybe 1-3 times a year...and I've been salary for most of it.  You can tie a lot of that mindset back to somehow the American mentality is that more work means better work. 

Case and point, our sick usage policy dropped from 6% to 3% annually recently.  Everyone who exceeds that 3% usage is supposed to either provide doctor's notes or received a "documented"  verbal (which means it's written IMO) warning.  Personally I'm pretty lax with allowing sick usage because with how close my people work in closed offices and vehicles it tends to spread germs fast.  I had to talk one of my investigators into using some of her hundreds of sick hours a couple years back because she had an obvious flu.  I guess she thought I was going to be mad if she called out, I was more upset she came in sick. 

[jeffandnicole]

I have to wonder how a quarantine/"stay home" mandate like we're seeing in other countries would go over in the US. So many employers here have draconian attendance policies that I think a lot of people would ignore the government and go to work anyway in fear of losing their job. Where I work, you're only allowed 10 unscheduled absences in a rolling year period, no matter the reason. Thus, I fully expect to contract the coronavirus from one of my coworkers should it spread to this part of the country.

FMLA prohibits such draconian policy.

FMLA has nothing to do with staying home to *prevent* getting sick, and many jobs have reasons to show up in the office, even occasionally.

But, even if you could stay home, most people would find dozens of reasons to go out: Grocery shopping would be one majorly cited reason. I often think that when people are told to stay home, it's almost like they take that as a challenge, and would find any reason to go out!

[bing101]

Here is a Press Conference from Washington State.

[bing101]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/coronavirus-outbreak-bigger-latest-updates-200228232914773.html



205 people in Iran and 1000 in Italy are reported to have COVID-19.

[nexus73]

I have to wonder how a quarantine/"stay home" mandate like we're seeing in other countries would go over in the US. So many employers here have draconian attendance policies that I think a lot of people would ignore the government and go to work anyway in fear of losing their job. Where I work, you're only allowed 10 unscheduled absences in a rolling year period, no matter the reason. Thus, I fully expect to contract the coronavirus from one of my coworkers should it spread to this part of the country.

FMLA prohibits such draconian policy.

Yes, but it doesn’t exactly stop a lot of employers from getting pushy with sick absence policies.  For close to 20 years I’ve gotten crap almost every single time I’ve called out maybe 1-3 times a year...and I’ve been salary for most of it.  You can tie a lot of that mindset back to somehow the American mentality is that more work means better work. 

Case and point, our sick usage policy dropped from 6% to 3% annually recently.  Everyone who exceeds that 3% usage is supposed to either provide doctor’s notes or received a “documented” verbal (which means it’s written IMO) warning.  Personally I’m pretty lax with allowing sick usage because with how close my people work in closed offices and vehicles it tends to spread germs fast.  I had to talk one of my investigators into using some of her hundreds of sick hours a couple years back because she had an obvious flu.  I guess she thought I was going to be mad if she called out, I was more upset she came in sick. 

Good on you!  When my father owned a gas station in the mid 60's, he got a bad cold but kept right on working.  He wound up with double pneumonia and down for a month.  Sometimes the individual pushes themselves too hard instead of the management, although in this case, my father was the top, bottom and middle guy...LOL!  Luckily we had many extended family members around so the gas station stayed open until he recovered.  My father's only vacations were not really vacations.  They came due to illness or surgery. 

May you stay safe during this pandemic Max.

Rick

[bing101]

https://www.khon2.com/top-stories/hawaii-tests-first-possible-covid-19-case-lawmakers-plan-for-economic-impact/

Update there is a reported COVID-19 case reported in Hawaii.  Note preliminary tests show COVID-19 negative for now.

[Max Rockatansky]

I have to wonder how a quarantine/"stay home" mandate like we're seeing in other countries would go over in the US. So many employers here have draconian attendance policies that I think a lot of people would ignore the government and go to work anyway in fear of losing their job. Where I work, you're only allowed 10 unscheduled absences in a rolling year period, no matter the reason. Thus, I fully expect to contract the coronavirus from one of my coworkers should it spread to this part of the country.

FMLA prohibits such draconian policy.

Yes, but it doesn't exactly stop a lot of employers from getting pushy with sick absence policies.  For close to 20 years I've gotten crap almost every single time I've called out maybe 1-3 times a year...and I've been salary for most of it.  You can tie a lot of that mindset back to somehow the American mentality is that more work means better work. 

Case and point, our sick usage policy dropped from 6% to 3% annually recently.  Everyone who exceeds that 3% usage is supposed to either provide doctor's notes or received a "documented"  verbal (which means it's written IMO) warning.  Personally I'm pretty lax with allowing sick usage because with how close my people work in closed offices and vehicles it tends to spread germs fast.  I had to talk one of my investigators into using some of her hundreds of sick hours a couple years back because she had an obvious flu.  I guess she thought I was going to be mad if she called out, I was more upset she came in sick. 

Good on you!  When my father owned a gas station in the mid 60's, he got a bad cold but kept right on working.  He wound up with double pneumonia and down for a month.  Sometimes the individual pushes themselves too hard instead of the management, although in this case, my father was the top, bottom and middle guy...LOL!  Luckily we had many extended family members around so the gas station stayed open until he recovered.  My father's only vacations were not really vacations.  They came due to illness or surgery. 

May you stay safe during this pandemic Max.

Rick

Ironically my Dad has something similar go on with some normally minor bug but kept working.  He ended up getting so sick that I was diagnosed with cardio myopathy and had to get a pace maker installed.  I usually tell people that story when I end up talking to someone who is way too big on "work ethic"  and "long hours."    

Funny you bring up the notion of pandemic.  While the numbers certainly make it clear that in China and parts of Asia that there is a pandemic, I don't think we are anywhere close State Side to having a legitimate case for that.  I guess by the most exacting definition this would be a "true pandemic"  given it has reached pretty much every continent.  But it's hard to really in an uproar with not even a hundred known cases state side.  We were actually talking even going to the Bay Area next weekend to show our Niece Golden Gate Park. 

[Max Rockatansky]

About 13 years ago one of my employees left on vacation to Denver.  I come to find out the day after that he was pulled off the plane and taken to the hospital.  Apparently he actually contracted Spinal Meningitis and was in serious condition. A couple days later the guy in the office next to us ended up getting diagnosed with Spinal Meningitis and I had to make a report to the CDC.  All I did after that was disinfect the office a couple times.  People kept asking me if I was scared that I would get sick too, I figured what the point in worrying?  Ultimately I was find and my employee recovered after losing 60 pounds in the hospital. 

After 9/11 I was working a Loss Prevention job at a Target store.  One of the employees brings a weird letter to me that had a white powdery substance leaking out of it.  We had to call the Sheriffs Office and a large part of the store was quarantined for a couple days due to concerns over Anthrax.  Ultimately the letter turned out to contain sugar but again I kept getting non-stop questions if I was worried about getting sick. 

I guess after stuff like that at least for me it's hard to get all worried about something like the Coronavirus or pretty much anything I listed upthread.  Really you could get killed driving to work or even doing something mundane like walking the dog.  I just don't see a point in all these inane articles treating this whole Coronavirus thing State side like it's the end of the world.   But then again what would people complain about if there wasn't something on their news feed?

[bing101]

Now Orange County, CA is reporting a COVID-19 scare and thats under investigation.

[Max Rockatansky]

Now Orange County, CA is reporting a COVID-19 scare and thats under investigation.

See is this actually news until someone actually confirms something?...I say, not so much. 

Now I'm convinced that if the Zombie Apocalypse started to break out it probably wouldn't spread because everyone would panic thinking that they were turning into a zombie.  Would have endless numbers of "zombie scare in Insert county"  stories but almost no actual confirmed cases of Zombification. 

[bing101]

Now Orange County, CA is reporting a COVID-19 scare and thats under investigation.

See is this actually news until someone actually confirms something?...I say, not so much. 

Now I'm convinced that if the Zombie Apocalypse started to break out it probably wouldn't spread because everyone would panic thinking that they were turning into a zombie.  Would have endless numbers of "zombie scare in Insert county"  stories but almost no actual confirmed cases of Zombification.

I swear sometimes if I didn't choose to major in Biology I would easily fall into conspiracy theories coming from Alex Jones.

Try listening to Microbe.tv I started to listen to these shows and they are podcast shows meant for Virologists. They do a better job explaining viruses. 

http://www.microbe.tv/twievo/twievo-52/

http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-584/

http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-582/

http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-586/

http://www.microbe.tv/twim/twim-212/

http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-585/

[Max Rockatansky]

Now Orange County, CA is reporting a COVID-19 scare and thats under investigation.

See is this actually news until someone actually confirms something?...I say, not so much. 

Now I'm convinced that if the Zombie Apocalypse started to break out it probably wouldn't spread because everyone would panic thinking that they were turning into a zombie.  Would have endless numbers of "zombie scare in Insert county"  stories but almost no actual confirmed cases of Zombification.

I swear sometimes if I didn't choose to major in Biology I would easily fall into conspiracy theories coming from Alex Jones and Del Bigtree.

The conspiracy brigade said the same thing about Bird Flu, SARS, and other recent big name diseases. 

[bing101]

Now Orange County, CA is reporting a COVID-19 scare and thats under investigation.

See is this actually news until someone actually confirms something?...I say, not so much. 

Now I'm convinced that if the Zombie Apocalypse started to break out it probably wouldn't spread because everyone would panic thinking that they were turning into a zombie.  Would have endless numbers of "zombie scare in Insert county"  stories but almost no actual confirmed cases of Zombification.

I swear sometimes if I didn't choose to major in Biology I would easily fall into conspiracy theories coming from Alex Jones and Del Bigtree.

The conspiracy brigade said the same thing about Bird Flu, SARS, and other recent big name diseases.

Yes and I have to deal with the fact that the largest conspiracy theory of CoronaVirus scares in the USA is coming from Solano County, CA Yes I live at the epicenter of this scare. All we are doing here is live our lives as normal and that we will get hit the hardest first before the rest of the United States does because we have the quarantine operations at Travis Air Force Base. Do all we can do is calm down and be careful. and Yes its harder to do if you are not in Sacramento or Bay Area given that some states may not even have protocols for COVID-19 like California and Solano County does with surrounding counties in California watching carefully.

[nexus73]

I have to wonder how a quarantine/"stay home" mandate like we're seeing in other countries would go over in the US. So many employers here have draconian attendance policies that I think a lot of people would ignore the government and go to work anyway in fear of losing their job. Where I work, you're only allowed 10 unscheduled absences in a rolling year period, no matter the reason. Thus, I fully expect to contract the coronavirus from one of my coworkers should it spread to this part of the country.

FMLA prohibits such draconian policy.

Yes, but it doesn’t exactly stop a lot of employers from getting pushy with sick absence policies.  For close to 20 years I’ve gotten crap almost every single time I’ve called out maybe 1-3 times a year...and I’ve been salary for most of it.  You can tie a lot of that mindset back to somehow the American mentality is that more work means better work. 

Case and point, our sick usage policy dropped from 6% to 3% annually recently.  Everyone who exceeds that 3% usage is supposed to either provide doctor’s notes or received a “documented” verbal (which means it’s written IMO) warning.  Personally I’m pretty lax with allowing sick usage because with how close my people work in closed offices and vehicles it tends to spread germs fast.  I had to talk one of my investigators into using some of her hundreds of sick hours a couple years back because she had an obvious flu.  I guess she thought I was going to be mad if she called out, I was more upset she came in sick. 

Good on you!  When my father owned a gas station in the mid 60's, he got a bad cold but kept right on working.  He wound up with double pneumonia and down for a month.  Sometimes the individual pushes themselves too hard instead of the management, although in this case, my father was the top, bottom and middle guy...LOL!  Luckily we had many extended family members around so the gas station stayed open until he recovered.  My father's only vacations were not really vacations.  They came due to illness or surgery. 

May you stay safe during this pandemic Max.

Rick

Ironically my Dad has something similar go on with some normally minor bug but kept working.  He ended up getting so sick that I was diagnosed with cardio myopathy and had to get a pace maker installed.  I usually tell people that story when I end up talking to someone who is way too big on “work ethic” and “long hours.”   

Funny you bring up the notion of pandemic.  While the numbers certainly make it clear that in China and parts of Asia that there is a pandemic, I don’t think we are anywhere close State Side to having a legitimate case for that.  I guess by the most exacting definition this would be a “true pandemic” given it has reached pretty much every continent.  But it’s hard to really in an uproar with not even a hundred known cases state side.  We were actually talking even going to the Bay Area next weekend to show our Niece Golden Gate Park. 

The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 killed my maternal grandmother's mother when the family was living in Oakland.  That led to the father and daughter moving to rural Clark County in Washington (outside of Vancouver) where they lived on a stump farm.  Had there been no pandemic, the way the family I was born into was formed would have never happened.  Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like had I been raised in the SF Bay Area instead of Oregon's Bay Area (Coos Bay/North Bend). 

Rick

[Max Rockatansky]

The Spanish Flu largely is thought to have killed at least twice as many people than they direct results of combat in World War I.  If I recall correctly the Military Encampments are largely theorized to have been where the Spanish Flu initially took hold.  Suffice to say 1910s were epically bad on a global scale pretty much across the board.