Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: alanschu

Wife is feeling ill (cough, aches, runny nose) and she called health service early in the morning. They feel that it's probably not Covid, but have asked us to isolate for 10 days as a precaution.

Primarily only affects her (she still had to go to work, now is not), but will mean we don't do any provision runs (we should be okay though).

quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert

quote:

ORIGINAL: alanschu

Wife is feeling ill (cough, aches, runny nose) and she called health service early in the morning. They feel that it's probably not Covid, but have asked us to isolate for 10 days as a precaution.

Primarily only affects her (she still had to go to work, now is not), but will mean we don't do any provision runs (we should be okay though).

Runny nose is rarely a symptom, but who knows these days for the mild cases. Stay well and hope she feels better soon.

quote:


Symptoms

Fever (44%–98%)
Range may be lower at initial hospital presentation or in the outpatient setting
Cough (46–82%, usually dry)
Shortness of breath at onset (31%)
Myalgia or fatigue (11–44%)
Less common symptoms:
Pharyngitis
Headache
Productive cough
GI symptoms
Have been described as a presenting symptom, and potentially heralding more severe illness.
Hemoptysis

quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert

Runny nose is rarely a symptom, but who knows these days for the mild cases. Stay well and hope she feels better soon.

quote:

Aberdeen, S.D., got the call from headquarters on Tuesday, Jan. 21. He gathered about 20 managers and supervisors into a conference room, where they sat, unworried, less than 6 feet apart. Rehder told them that a new virus was spreading rapidly in China and that 3M was expecting demand for protective gear to jump.

The Aberdeen plant had already ramped up production of respirator masks in response to demand from first responders battling wildfires in Australia and contending with a volcano in the Philippines. Now, Rehder told his charges, Aberdeen would shift to “surge capacity.” Idle machinery installed for precisely this purpose would be activated, and many of the plant’s 650 employees would immediately start working overtime. “We knew it wouldn’t be a two-week blip, it would be longer,” Rehder says. “But I had no idea.”
relates to How 3M Plans to Make More Than a Billion Masks By End of Year
Featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, March 30, 2020. Subscribe now.
Photo illustration: 731; Photographer: Jamie Chung for Bloomberg Businessweek

This is 3M’s moment, one for which the staid, 118-year-old Minnesota manufacturing giant—the maker of Post-its, Scotch tape, touchscreen displays, and scores of other products—has been preparing for almost two decades. Coming out of the SARS epidemic of 2002-03, the company realized it wasn’t fully equipped to handle unexpected explosions of demand in the event of a crisis, or what it calls an “X factor.” It decided to build surge capacity into its respirator factories around the world.

Over the years, with X factors such as the Ebola panic and the H1N1 flu virus generating flash floods of demand, the company kept refining its emergency response. When the world started clamoring for respirator masks to help confront coronavirus, 3M was ready.

People everywhere are scrambling for ventilators, Covid-19 test kits, bleach, and toilet paper. But almost no item is as scarce—and as vital to addressing this medical emergency—as the N95 respirator masks made by 3M, Honeywell, Medicom, and a smattering of other companies. Without respirators, doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel are at increased risk of contracting the affliction they’re treating.

China, where this coronavirus originated, also happens to produce half the world’s respirators. As the outbreak spread, the Chinese government halted mask exports and demanded that all in-country manufacturers, including 3M, crank up production. Shortages swiftly developed as Covid-19 cases appeared in Asia, Europe, and the U.S., forcing health-care workers to reuse old respirators and cobble together ersatz masks from materials bought at craft stores. In America, states are bidding against one another for masks priced as much as 10 times the usual cost of 60¢ to 80¢ apiece.

3M can’t save the day on its own, but it’s promising a remarkably large contribution. The company has in two months doubled global production of N95 masks to about 100 million a month, and it’s planning to invest in new equipment to push annual mask production to 2 billion within 12 months. On March 22, Chief Executive Officer Mike Roman said in a news release that 3M had sent 500,000 respirators to hard-hit Seattle and New York City, and that it was ramping up production of hand sanitizers and disinfectants as well. Two days later, Roman said 3M would work with Ford Motor Co. to produce powered air purifying respirators, waist-mounted devices that blow air into helmets that shield wearers. Honeywell is also increasing N95 production, saying it will hire at least 500 people to expand capacity at a facility in Rhode Island.

quote:

ORIGINAL: witpqs

On your points 1 and 2:

1. The global population is growing at a greatly decelerating rate. It has been found conclusively that as a country's standard of living increases its birth rate decreases. The very large improvements in people's standard's of living around the world has dissolved the specter of global overpopulation as projections show the world's population leveling off far below what is believed to be the planet's carrying capacity.

2. The number of people around the world who live below the poverty line has vastly decreased in recent decades. That is according to the UN. Continuing progress has been evident and not slowed down. The current economic effects of the pandemic obviously are up in the air.

Economic disparity has not been growing exponentially. If you are referring to the presence of billionaires among us, the truth has always been that some humans have more than others. Governments/economies such as communism, etc have always had the very same and merely pretended otherwise, their real characteristic being that they oppress and economically hold down the vast majority of people. They do not limit or eliminate economic disparity, but they do hold down nearly everybody economically. That's not better.

quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert

An encouraging sign that US testing is nearing a million. If the US continues to test at this rate it could be so useful as a large benchmark similar to South Korea early and Germany in the middle of this outbreak.

Canada and Norway are doing a bang up job on testing, as are Australia and Germany of course still.

In all of these countries the positives/1000 are also much less than places like Italy and NY state, and it makes me think they're getting a more accurate picture of how many cases might be in the population.

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy




If this disease does not go away in a few months we may have a ping-pong transmission as people move around for jobs or safety. If more people had savings they could fall back on, they could stay in place longer. It's the reduction of the middle class that bothered me more than the existence of billionaires. Read again RFalvo's post about Italy having very rich people and poor people and not much in between. The implications mean great social instability is looming.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Last week, a Brit university revised expected mortality in the UK to 20k, down from something like 500k in earlier projections. No way Germany is going to let the UK kick its butt.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Anyone feeling lonely...

quote:

They were ready to roll whenever disaster struck California: three 200-bed mobile hospitals that could be deployed to the scene of a crisis on flatbed trucks and provide advanced medical care to the injured and sick within 72 hours.

Each hospital would be the size of a football field, with a surgery ward, intensive care unit and X-ray equipment. Medical response teams would also have access to a massive stockpile of emergency supplies: 50 million N95 respirators, 2,400 portable ventilators and kits to set up 21,000 additional patient beds wherever they were needed.

In 2006, citing the threat of avian flu, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the state would invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a powerful set of medical weapons to deploy in the case of large-scale emergencies and natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires and pandemics.

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

quote:

ORIGINAL: witpqs

On your points 1 and 2:

1. The global population is growing at a greatly decelerating rate. It has been found conclusively that as a country's standard of living increases its birth rate decreases. The very large improvements in people's standard's of living around the world has dissolved the specter of global overpopulation as projections show the world's population leveling off far below what is believed to be the planet's carrying capacity.

2. The number of people around the world who live below the poverty line has vastly decreased in recent decades. That is according to the UN. Continuing progress has been evident and not slowed down. The current economic effects of the pandemic obviously are up in the air.

Economic disparity has not been growing exponentially. If you are referring to the presence of billionaires among us, the truth has always been that some humans have more than others. Governments/economies such as communism, etc have always had the very same and merely pretended otherwise, their real characteristic being that they oppress and economically hold down the vast majority of people. They do not limit or eliminate economic disparity, but they do hold down nearly everybody economically. That's not better.

What I see happening (and did not explain well) is that the food (and potable water) supply is under pressure from population and climate change. The recent migrant crises in various parts of the world are either because there is not enough food for the poor or because conflicts (over control of land, and hence food) have driven people off their lands. They are not going to go away because the economic system does not have a reliable system for dealing with them. The pandemic merely amplifies the problems.
So the one clear consequence is that starving people will not sit quietly when told to stay where they are and starve/die of disease, etc. To a certain extent that will occur with refugees within our countries who will move to what they perceive is a safer area. We saw that with New Yorkers fleeing the city to Long Island and upstate towns when they realized the virus was going to spread rapidly.

If this disease does not go away in a few months we may have a ping-pong transmission as people move around for jobs or safety. If more people had savings they could fall back on, they could stay in place longer. It's the reduction of the middle class that bothered me more than the existence of billionaires. Read again RFalvo's post about Italy having very rich people and poor people and not much in between. The implications mean great social instability is looming.

quote:

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Hey, does anybody think that this could have helped now? Especially if the inventory of the masks would be used on a Last In, First Out basis in regards to using the masks before they due date is up? Those used being replaced by fresh ones?

California once had mobile hospitals and a ventilator stockpile. But it dismantled them

quote:

They were ready to roll whenever disaster struck California: three 200-bed mobile hospitals that could be deployed to the scene of a crisis on flatbed trucks and provide advanced medical care to the injured and sick within 72 hours.

Each hospital would be the size of a football field, with a surgery ward, intensive care unit and X-ray equipment. Medical response teams would also have access to a massive stockpile of emergency supplies: 50 million N95 respirators, 2,400 portable ventilators and kits to set up 21,000 additional patient beds wherever they were needed.

In 2006, citing the threat of avian flu, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the state would invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a powerful set of medical weapons to deploy in the case of large-scale emergencies and natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires and pandemics.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-27/coronavirus-california-mobile-hospitals-ventilators

quote:

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Last week, a Brit university revised expected mortality in the UK to 20k, down from something like 500k in earlier projections. No way Germany is going to let the UK kick its butt.

[inserts tongue firmly in cheek]

Why not? The Brits have kicked Germany's butt consistently over the past 106 years.

quote:

https://www.foxnews.com/world/wuhan-residents-say-coronavirus-figures-released-by-china-dont-add-up

quote:

Another online estimate is based on the cremation capacity of funeral homes in Wuhan, which runs 84 furnaces with a capacity over a 24-hour period of 1,560 urns. That estimate puts the number of estimated deaths in Wuhan at 46,800.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

What's a Chinese urn?

About 4200 a week and they still aren't done handing them out. Each crematorium in Wuhan typically does about 200 cremations a day and they had to bus in workers to run the things 24 hrs a day during the worst of it...that's maybe 600-1000 a day in Wuhan alone.

One crematorium received a shipment 5000 empty urns in one day. That is a year's worth of usage delivered in one day.

I call bullshit and so do quite a few posters in Wuhan.

quote:

https://www.foxnews.com/world/wuhan-residents-say-coronavirus-figures-released-by-china-dont-add-up

Hmmm.....

quote:

Another online estimate is based on the cremation capacity of funeral homes in Wuhan, which runs 84 furnaces with a capacity over a 24-hour period of 1,560 urns. That estimate puts the number of estimated deaths in Wuhan at 46,800.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Olorin

quote:

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Last week, a Brit university revised expected mortality in the UK to 20k, down from something like 500k in earlier projections. No way Germany is going to let the UK kick its butt.

[inserts tongue firmly in cheek]

Why not? The Brits have kicked Germany's butt consistently over the past 106 years.

Ahem... a small detail: the Brits were allied with... The World.

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805