Coronavirus pandemic

[Max Rockatansky]

I'm going to say something you may not like, but to hell with avoiding domestic travel.

With all the panic going on, fares for flights and hotel rates are stupid cheap.  I saw some round-trip flights from BDL to LAX for $250.  I saw a bunch of hotels in Midtown Manhattan going for $150 or less, many below $100.  If you're healthy, I say take a chance and go somewhere.  If you get the virus, you get the virus.

$97 dollars for me to get to Seattle from Fresno if I want to go by month end.  That's almost too irresistible not to take a weekend out Olympic National Park.  I'm looking at hotel prices tonight for a road trip to Boise, I'm not passing up on the opportunity to save a buck and avoid all the crowds.  I'm even considering a snow trip to Yosemite this weekend...why not at this point?

Finally some "Cup is half full"  thinking & not negative.


iPhone

Hell, I'm not above taking advantage of everyone freaking out to do something fun or productive.  My wife and I had almost instant service everywhere we went on Monday, I went into detail up thread. 

[wanderer2575]

Attorney television ad, six months later:  "If you or a loved one zealously overused disnfectant and sanitizers, and contracted cancer, you may be entitled to significant compensation!"

[Tonytone]

Attorney television ad, six months later:  "If you or a loved one zealously overused disnfectant and sanitizers, and contracted cancer, you may be entitled to significant compensation!"

YOOOOOOOO LMFAOOOOOOO


I read that in the voice & everything.


iPhone

[Bruce]

U.S. is suspending all flights to and from Europe for 30 days as part of the response.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/11/coronavirus-trump-suspends-all-travel-from-europe.html

[ftballfan]

U.S. is suspending all flights to and from Europe for 30 days as part of the response.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/11/coronavirus-trump-suspends-all-travel-from-europe.html

A few flights might have to run for the following purposes:
- To get European nationals back to Europe
- To get American nationals back to America

[TravelingBethelite]

https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/1237914587086966791

[Buck87]

^ A member of the Utah Jazz has tested positive for COVID-19, as of right now both the Jazz and Thunder are quarantined in their locker rooms in Oklahoma City. The infected player is not in the arena.

In other sports news, Ohio State and Michigan have both cancelled their spring football games next month

[Scott5114]

This is the scariest thing I've heard in my life.

As opposed to all those near misses that almost started Nuclear War during the waning years of the Cold War?  9/11 was pretty bad, the Oklahoma City Bombing was pretty up there too, and I'm sure that there are others that exceed this virus stuff pretty handily State Side in the past 33 years. 

The OKC bombing was just some random dipshit that blew up a building downtown, though. After he got arrested the day of, the chance of it affecting anyone who wasn't in the area of the blast itself was basically zero.

[ErmineNotyours]

A motel I'm familiar with has been turned into a quarantine facility.  Google Street View (note the upside down Signal Ahead sign, which was fixed as soon as I posted it to the Facebook Sign Error page).

It opened as a Best Western Pony Soldier Inn, complete with the old Best Western crown sign, though it didn't animate.  This was the newest location in a national Best Western guide that I had, and property records indicate it was built in 1978.  More recently it became a Howard Johnson, without any redecoration to make it look like a HoJo's.  Then within the past few years it became an Econolodge.  And if you think a motel can't get any lower than Econolodge, think again.  I went by there two days ago and they had already blacked out the sign.  Google Maps has removed all reference to the place, with not even a "Permanently Closed" designation.

I drove to Canada last week, as soon as a seasonal attraction I was looking forward to opened and the weather was good.  I worried if there might be more attention to traveler's health at the crossing, and just the thought of such scrutiny made my jaw sore.  I passed through the border without incident, and my jaw pain cleared up.

I had heard about toilet paper selling out, but thought stores would recover later that week.  I didn't think to stock up on toilet paper while I was in Canada.  Big mistake.  My store was sold out of the stuff, even the product stocked in the organic section.  So with that in mind, I went to a Puget Consumer Co-op heath food store, and they had toilet paper, in regular and bamboo.  On the way there I stopped at a normally well-kept port-a-potty in a park, and that place's toilet paper was stolen, by breaking off the bar on both dispensers.

I remember getting a free sample bottle of hand sanitizer last year at work in a safety bag passed out at a fire safety meeting, but I'm sure I left that at work.  I raided my medicine cabinet anyway, and found a sample bottle of Purell, expired 2009.  The gel has broken down and it's all liquid, but still a valuable keepsake.

I wouldn't worry about Chinese goods getting here.  Those arrive on container ships bound for LA, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle.  From there the freight is transferred to intermodal transit, either on the road or via rail to head across the continent.

I used to work in a place that took containers from China and split up the inventory to various truck trailers to various Target distribution centers across the country.  You would think the container would allow for instant shipping across the country, but steel containers are heavy, and business like the flexibility of truck transport.  It makes sense to ship the containers to warehouses in the Kent valley between the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, and split items up into light truck trailers for the second hop.  If you remember Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, containers have now allowed sorting work to be done in the suburbs where there is no union presence.

[RobbieL2415]

U.S. is suspending all flights to and from Europe for 30 days as part of the response.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/11/coronavirus-trump-suspends-all-travel-from-europe.html

-Does not affect US citizens and permanent residents
-Does not affect travel from the UK.

Also, how soon before we see restrictions on movement between states?

[bandit957]

Also, how soon before we see restrictions on movement between states?

The right to travel within the country kind of puts the kibosh on that.

[ErmineNotyours]

Also, how soon before we see restrictions on movement between states?

The right to travel within the country kind of puts the kibosh on that.

They had that debate on another thread I followed.  "If we have the right to free assembly, how can the state cancel big events?"  For the same reason you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater.  Besides, the U.S. already has additional border check stations inland from the border, in Texas for instance, where they can stop you even though you're traveling within the country.

[Max Rockatansky]

This is the scariest thing I've heard in my life.

As opposed to all those near misses that almost started Nuclear War during the waning years of the Cold War?  9/11 was pretty bad, the Oklahoma City Bombing was pretty up there too, and I'm sure that there are others that exceed this virus stuff pretty handily State Side in the past 33 years. 

The OKC bombing was just some random dipshit that blew up a building downtown, though. After he got arrested the day of, the chance of it affecting anyone who wasn't in the area of the blast itself was basically zero.

In the physical security world that certainly wasn't the case (which the field I'm in).  The First World Trade Center Bombing was kind of the lead up to major terrorism acts State Side in recent decades that probably should have been a huge red flag.  The OKC Bombing as bad as it was kind of similarly brushed aside as a naive fluke by two weirdo extremists (which they were).  Of course things went way south and escalated up to 9/11 which had infinitely more far reaching impacts on day to day life.  Most people in what I do tend to look at the World Trade Center Bombing and OKC Bombing as massive warning signs that physical security in high profile buildings was really a soft target in the lead up to the turn of the century.

Now what tends to get interesting is looking at the history of mass violence in the United States, it really isn't all that new.  I published a paper back in College on the Bath School Disaster which occurred all the way back in 1927.  Really the point of the paper was that there has always been crazy people out there who were committed enough to follow through on their desires to harm others.  Andrew Kehoe was a complete weirdo and probably would stand out like a sore thumb as someone to be concerned about in modern times. 

With things like the Cold War I think a lot of people don't remember really living under the threat of Nuclear War because it was an everyday thing.  Once something becomes normalized people tend not to be afraid of it as much.  There is a similar phenomenon going on right now where things like Active Shooter incidents are kind of becoming normalized (meaning people aren't surprised when they happened).  When mail bombings were a thing people tended to have a similar level of fear in the general public until they similarly became something that was kind of routine.  Even 9/11 with as much uncertainty it created in it's wake started to become part of everyday life about a year after it happened. 

To that end, we'll likely see a tipping point where even the current virus outbreak will start to normalize in the eyes of the general public.  I don't think we are anywhere near that point right now with what is breaking in the news today.  It will probably start to turn that corner in the upcoming months if things stay static or the spread of the virus starts to slow. 

[bandit957]

They had that debate on another thread I followed.  "If we have the right to free assembly, how can the state cancel big events?"  For the same reason you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater.  Besides, the U.S. already has additional border check stations inland from the border, in Texas for instance, where they can stop you even though you're traveling within the country.

I'd just love to see them try to enforce restrictions on movement between states.

[J N Winkler]

They had that debate on another thread I followed.  "If we have the right to free assembly, how can the state cancel big events?"  For the same reason you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater.  Besides, the U.S. already has additional border check stations inland from the border, in Texas for instance, where they can stop you even though you're traveling within the country.

Border Patrol checkpoints (not just in Texas or the southern border states--they have also been used along the Canadian border) operate under a 100-mile border search exception (US v. Martinez-Fuerte).  There is a related exception that allows sanitary inspections at state borders and is the basis for agricultural inspection in California.

I think the Supreme Court would rule in favor of coronavirus checkpoints at state borders if they were backed by a strong necessity argument and limited to the current emergency.  I am more concerned about the logistics of operating them safely.  They have the potential to create tremendous congestion and, with it, accidents from vehicles running into the backs of queues their drivers don't expect and have not been warned of through signs.  This has been a problem with the Border Patrol's pop-up checkpoints, notably the one they run on I-87 in upstate New York.



As I write now (shortly before 12.30 AM Central time), the US now has 1312 confirmed coronavirus cases, up from 1025 a little over 24 hours ago.

[jeffandnicole]

Also, how soon before we see restrictions on movement between states?

The right to travel within the country kind of puts the kibosh on that.

They had that debate on another thread I followed.  "If we have the right to free assembly, how can the state cancel big events?"  For the same reason you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater.  Besides, the U.S. already has additional border check stations inland from the border, in Texas for instance, where they can stop you even though you're traveling within the country.

I don't believe any state has actually cancelled an event. It's the events themselves that cancelled. The states have urged people not to be in big group settings, but that's no the same as them cancelling an event.

[SSOWorld]

Ohio state government banned any event of size 1000 people or more as have several county governments in California and Washington (state).  SXSW was canceled by the city of Austin

[bing101]

There are now reports saying that Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson has gotten a positive test for COVID-19.


https://variety.com/2020/film/news/tom-hanks-rita-wilson-coronavirus-1203531498/

[GreenLanternCorps]

They had that debate on another thread I followed.  "If we have the right to free assembly, how can the state cancel big events?"  For the same reason you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater.  Besides, the U.S. already has additional border check stations inland from the border, in Texas for instance, where they can stop you even though you're traveling within the country.

I'd just love to see them try to enforce restrictions on movement between states.

Literally impossible.  This came up on another forum awhile back and I counted the crossings between Ohio and Indiana or Michigan on Google Maps as an example.  The are 100 plus land crossings, including multiple examples of State Line Road.  There aren't enough police, Ohio Military Reserve and National Guard in the state to close Ohio's borders once you add Kentucky, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania to that list.

[1995hoo]

Also, how soon before we see restrictions on movement between states?

The right to travel within the country kind of puts the kibosh on that.

They had that debate on another thread I followed.  "If we have the right to free assembly, how can the state cancel big events?"  For the same reason you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater.  Besides, the U.S. already has additional border check stations inland from the border, in Texas for instance, where they can stop you even though you're traveling within the country.

I don't believe any state has actually cancelled an event. It's the events themselves that cancelled. The states have urged people not to be in big group settings, but that's no the same as them cancelling an event.

The governor of Ohio more or less ordered sports events to be played without fans because he announced he was going to issue an executive order banning spectators from games in Ohio. I'm not sure whether he followed through on that after the NCAA and the Blue Jackets announced plans to play behind closed doors.

I strongly suspect–this is a guess–that sports team owners are trying to hold out until the states or the leagues "force" them to cancel games because I expect they probably have insurance that applies in the case of involuntary cancellations due to pandemics or other catastrophic events. Thus, they don't want to cancel on their own and be denied coverage. Just a guess, but it wouldn't surprise me at all.

[ozarkman417]

Wyoming now has the Coronavirus. The victim got it via domestic travel.

https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/post/first-covid-19-case-reported-wyoming#stream/0

SM-G965U

[kalvado]

Wyoming now has the Coronavirus. The victim got it via domestic travel.

https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/post/first-covid-19-case-reported-wyoming#stream/0

SM-G965U

If the data I am looking at is up to date, ID, AL, ME, WV, AK and PR are still in the clear.

[hotdogPi]

State correlations between percentage infected and:

Minimum wage (current): 0.51
Price per gallon of gas (outdated by over a year, but the general trend holds): 0.38
Clinton % 2016: 0.34
Obama % 2012: 0.30
Population density: 0.23; 0.08 if excluding DC
% of population living in cities 100K+: 0.23
Asian %: 0.13
Cost of living: 0.11
Sales tax %: 0.08
Year of admission into union: 0.08
2010 population: 0.04 (keep in mind that this is measuring percentage infected, not number infected)
1950 population, 1980 population: 0.03
African-American %: -0.01
Number of total Interstates: -0.02
Number of ZIP code 100 blocks: -0.03
1900 population: -0.04
Native American/Alaska Native %: -0.04
Land area: -0.08; -0.05 if excluding Alaska
White %: -0.08
Number of 2dis: -0.13
Maximum speed limit: -0.17

Population figures are from the 2010 Census.

[NWI_Irish96]

State correlations between percentage infected and:

Minimum wage (current): 0.51
Price per gallon of gas (outdated by over a year, but the general trend holds): 0.38
Clinton % 2016: 0.34
Obama % 2012: 0.30
Population density: 0.23; 0.08 if excluding DC
% of population living in cities 100K+: 0.23
Asian %: 0.13
Cost of living: 0.11
Sales tax %: 0.08
Year of admission into union: 0.08
2010 population: 0.04 (keep in mind that this is measuring percentage infected, not number infected)
1950 population, 1980 population: 0.03
African-American %: -0.01
Number of total Interstates: -0.02
Number of ZIP code 100 blocks: -0.03
1900 population: -0.04
Native American/Alaska Native %: -0.04
Land area: -0.08; -0.05 if excluding Alaska
White %: -0.08
Number of 2dis: -0.13
Maximum speed limit: -0.17

Population figures are from the 2010 Census.

This is a lot of different ways of saying that higher density populations are affected more, or at least not affected less.

[kalvado]

State correlations between percentage infected and:

Minimum wage (current): 0.51
Price per gallon of gas (outdated by over a year, but the general trend holds): 0.38
Clinton % 2016: 0.34
Obama % 2012: 0.30
Population density: 0.23; 0.08 if excluding DC
% of population living in cities 100K+: 0.23
Asian %: 0.13
Cost of living: 0.11
Sales tax %: 0.08
Year of admission into union: 0.08
2010 population: 0.04 (keep in mind that this is measuring percentage infected, not number infected)
1950 population, 1980 population: 0.03
African-American %: -0.01
Number of total Interstates: -0.02
Number of ZIP code 100 blocks: -0.03
1900 population: -0.04
Native American/Alaska Native %: -0.04
Land area: -0.08; -0.05 if excluding Alaska
White %: -0.08
Number of 2dis: -0.13
Maximum speed limit: -0.17

Population figures are from the 2010 Census.

Bravo!