[Wulfschilde]

Well, now the economy is definitely fucked. I've been looking at the data and figured this would blow over in 4-6 more weeks if no one else did anything stupid and now this. I'm never moving into my serviced apartment, am I?

[BigSteve-3]

No link.

But quarantining 15 million people?

[MadMonk]

16 million give or take a couple thousand

Italy has 6387 cases with 366 deaths so far. Panic is setting in. The cat is out of the bag, Pandora's box has been opened.

[Wulfschilde]

Well, the US market crashed so hard today that they had to hit the "kill switch" and suspend trading for 15 minutes.

I was kind of irritated because I decided this was a good time to make some changes and buy in but I lost at least 1% off the bottom because of that kill switch. Nothing is going perfectly for me during this whole thing

Aside from the Italian thing, the Saudis cut oil prices and initiated a price war. This was taken as bad but in the long run, cheaper oil should only have a stimulating effect on the economy. So in the long run it might be good thing for the markets.

[Ter]

Let's hope the Italians managed to stock up enough canneloni, ravioli, macaroni and assorted pastas to pass the quarantine time comfortably.

[Potemkin]

Let's hope the Italians managed to stock up enough canneloni, ravioli, macaroni and assorted pastas to pass the quarantine time comfortably.

Mama mia!

[Rancid]

cheaper oil should only have a stimulating effect on the economy.

That's not certain.

For example, this will cause the American and Canadian oil industries to shed many jobs. Many companies in the oil industry will go out of business if this price war lasts a while. It will also hurt other oil producers like Venezuela (unless they are subsidized by OPEC, which I don't know if that's a thing).

It depends on how many job loses will be mounted in different countries due to this. If it's not a lot, then I would say you are right. If it is a lot, then this will be the recession trigger. Forget the virus....

[Stormsmith]

Somebody needs to point out to President Trump this is what happens when people do bugger all in spite of the evidence at hand. Cruise ships become prisons, prisons become morgues. If President Trump wants to keep the numbers of deceased down, he's got to stop telling lies and do something.

[BigSteve-3]

Somebody needs to point out to President Trump this is what happens when people do bugger all in spite of the evidence at hand. Cruise ships become prisons, prisons become morgues. If President Trump wants to keep the numbers of deceased down, he's got to stop telling lies and do something.

Italy has about 60 million people. They have 6387 reported cases with 366 deaths. Our population is 5-1/2 times theirs, but the number of deaths in Italy is roughly 16.5 times higher in Italy than here.

Across the board, numbers in the United States are dwarfed by numbers from other countries, including countries with far fewer people.

More people are dying around the world than here, both in terms of actual numbers and percentages, yet everyone seems to think the United States is in the throes of a medical meltdown because of inaction on the part of the President.

We're not.

[Rich]

Yes Italy leads (in cases per head) closely followed by South Korea. Its then Iran, Bahrain China and Switzerland, The US is still way back about 40th just behind Canada, but ahead of Taiwan now. Taiwan have done sterling work in containing it, considering they live right next door to the Communist cess pit.

[Wulfschilde]

Italy has spread it to the entire country now. My monies nooooooo

[ingliz]

has spread... to the entire country

Last night, to restrict movement, Italy extended its coronavirus quarantine to the entire country.

[B0ycey]

Give it a month and the figures will reverse between Europe and Italy. Italy are having an outbreak whereas Europe have slowed it down. But the figures continue to rise so it is only a question of when a outbreak occurs in Europe and not if by which time Italy might be over the hump. I only hope the rest of Europe aren't as foolish as the Italians and take other measures for containment than just shutting down everything.

[Verv]

I predict that the West will have a harder time with this than Korea. Korea has a strong history of wearing face masks, high civil responsibility, voluntarily (and involuntarily) restricting movement, etc.

One of the most American things I saw was a giant Twitter thread of people arguing intensely about what level of "useless" wearing face masks are after a journalist wrote that he was told that his mask would not help him at all while on some airplane.

Don't get me wrong: I think the face masks can be overkill. But the fact of the matter is that when nearly everyone is wearing them all the time even a 5 hour drive away from a hot spot like Daegu, the people who do get infected and run the risk of infecting a dozen other people through dispersing the virus through fluid will have also been wearing those masks, preventing the spread before they knew that they had the virus.

The American (and probably broadly Western) attitude toward this will be to say "I am not sick, why should I wear a mask? It won't help me and I ain't gonna get anyone sick!" all the way up until the night before they decide to call in sick because they are displaying symptoms .

... I also like how the West is full of the hot take that this is no worse than the flu.

Yes, medical experts in China, South Korea, Italy, Japan, Australia, USA, etc. have all quarantined millions & millions & millions of people or cut off the travel of them because of something no worse than the flu.

We need you to go advise the experts that all of this is really unnecessary & they should stop hurting the global economy over something so trivial

[Sivad]

Yes, medical experts in China, South Korea, Italy, Japan, Australia, USA, etc. have all quarantined millions & millions & millions of people or cut off the travel of them because of something no worse than the flu.

I thought it was because it was a novel virus and nobody really knows for sure what it's gonna do. It's also another virus in addition to the flu that might be here to stay so it doesn't have to be "worse" than the flu to be major problem. It could be less serious than seasonal flu and those measures would still be justified.

Even a virus with a lower CFR but a higher R0 could be considered worse and it could also mutate over a few seasons and become much more deadly. There are a lot of reasons why we would go to lengths to contain it.

[Verv]

I thought it was because it was a novel virus and nobody really knows for sure what it's gonna do. It's also another virus in addition to the flu that might be here to stay so it doesn't have to be "worse" than the flu to be major problem. It could be less serious than seasonal flu and those measures would still be justified.

Even a virus with a lower CFR but a higher R0 could be considered worse and it could also mutate over a few seasons and become much more deadly. There are a lot of reasons why we would go to lengths to contain it.

That's an interesting take that i hadn't thought of.

But, ultimately, this virus has a very high fatality rate for the elderly, presumably much higher than normal flues, but I am no expert.

Even after they know what has happened in Korea and China, the Italians are going into major quarantines and are rightfully upset with this. I think it really is quite serious.

One of the issues with this is that people set up this false dichotomy of "OMG this isn't the apocalypse, you're going to be fine!" when I think the reaction has not been that this is the apocalypse, rather, that this is a pandemic that is going to result in significantly more deaths than usual if it gets out of hand.

[snapdragon]

I actually think the UK have it right.


I hope the government doesn't give in to the stupid wankers baying for everything to be shut down for two weeks ( why two weeks? Just what is that supposed to do, other than send small businesses to the wall?)

The utter and complete stupidity of some of my compatriots is just too fucking much.

What with Brexit and now this....

According to the some of the comments I've been reading on the Guardian website ( of all places), asking the over 70s to isolate themselves if at all possible is going to result in gangs of vigilantes beating up any old codger they see walking their dog.

They've completely and totally got the wrong end of the stick. Of course they fucking have.

If there's a right end and wrong end, they will grab the wrong end.

Probably the same people who are buying up all the toilet paper and pasta.

This idea is about protecting a vulnerable group of people. As we all should know, for most of us, the virus will mean, at worse, we'll be feeling quite poorly for a while and then we'll get better.

Most of the people who will die will be elderly with serious underlying health problems.

So, it surely makes sense for people in that age group to stay home as much as they can.

Now will someone please tell me how the people who work in the places that have been closed down in those countries that have done it are going to be able to pay their bills and put food on the table?

Is the government paying their wages? Are they going to keep small businesses afloat?

[fokker]

I actually think the UK have it right.

I disagree. The idea right now isn't to shut down the economy, but to limit spread of the virus. Eastern EU will very soon be applying the same measures like Italy, even though it has much fewer cases (its healthcare systems are less advanced, suffering from years of poor funding) - e.g travel only for selected purposes (work, buy food, help others, get fuel), no cross border travel, wearing surgical masks/n95 respirators in public transport (people were shown how to manufacture primitive ones, those can be disinfected by ironing, commercial ones are not available), schools are closed. Production continues normally, except for businesses that ran out of supplies. Economic damage is still small with these restrictions and it will be evaluated if it brings rate of spread of the virus below 1. If yes, nothing else needs to be done - no need to do any tracing or massive testing (most of those will be negative anyway, only those with symptoms can be tested). The safest place in the EU right now is the eastern EU. In western EU the safest place will be villages where density of population is very low. Some politicians don't realize that the real value of a country are its people - teachers, doctors, scientists etc. and those most experienced ones tend to be the oldest.

I'm young so I'm not worried about myself at all. My work will not be affected.

If the UK continues on its path it will be cut off from all travel for sure.

[QatzelOk]

I am in Valencia, Spain right now, and the city is in lockdown. People are only allowed to leave the house to work, buy supplies, and help others.

The national police were kicking people off the beach today. Will it come to this in North America?

I didn't realize Spain would be an epicentre when I bought my ticket. I hope Montresl (N.A.) isn't the epicenter when I return ( if I ever get out of here).