[Important] Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Bosco]

For more information please follow these offical links to CDC and WHO and their recommendations and guidelines and/ or check your local administrative agencies for advice.

CDC - Centers for Desease Control and Prevention, USA
Self protection
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2Findex.html

General info
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/prevention.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Fabout%2Fprevention.html

WHO - World Health Organization
Self protection
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public

General info
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019

It it strongly advised that you heed the following basic rules to lower the risk of getting infected:

• Wash hands thoroughly and frequently (up to 20 sec, all fingers including thumbs), especially after cleaning your nose
• Avoid touching your mouth/ eyes/ ears
• Maintain distance to other persons (ca. 2 meters/ 6 feet)
• Sneeze into the crooks of your arm
• If you feel you might have symptoms, stay at home and contact your doctor

And please, check the validity  of any information disseminated via social networks and consult genuine/ official websites such as above first and foremost. Beware of scammers who try to take advantage of the current crisis and make sure you don't click any suspicious links.


Original post by Bosco:

Figured this is now important enough and impacting all of us on a global scale where it deserves its own thread. Best of health to all of you and your families.

The Pills Wont Help You Now

[Bosco]

Just bizarre stuff.

NBA is currently suspending the season while Rudy Gobert is preliminarily diagnosed with Corona.

NCAA Basketball Tournament is on the brink of being cancelled in full.

Tom Hanks announcing he is infected while in Australia.

h1n1 (Swine Flu) seemed to be the more deadly disease 11 years ago and never made this much noise or interference (from what I remember).

A lot of this is probably just a bunch of noise. But it's just amazing how the world might and already has changed from this

[Conn6orsuper117]

Tom Hanks announcing he is infected while in Australia.

as a fan of toy story, Forrest Gump, and many more, mega prayers for Tom. I will not rest peacefully until tom hanks is safe and sound!

my sister at college got a flu and me & my family called daily to make sure it wasnt the coronavirus. thank god she's feeling well now.

[whirlygirl]

I'm glad to see this thread. I wanted to check in and see how you all were doing, ❤️  Stay safe out there (and in there) my friends.

[Ben_j]

h1n1 (Swine Flu) seemed to be the more deadly disease 11 years ago and never made this much noise or interference (from what I remember).

The mortality rate of the 2009 swine flu was much much lower. The coronavirus mortality rate is not extremely high either but the real danger is if it spreads out of control, the hospitals would be overwhelmed and wouldn't be able to handle everyone, which would raise the mortality rate of the virus, and of other stuff too, since they would not be able to handle people with other problems.

[Conn6orsuper117]

my coworker at work just got a voice message from the school district in our city about canceling all major school events for 30 days. Bookfairs, Sports events, Music Concerts, ETC.

[Wolkenkrabber]

Been watching this guy on Youtube. A doctor from Carlisle in Northern England offering daily updates and thoughts on the the whole thing, not just the UK. I get the feeling he may be retired or semi-retired.
I'm interested to hear the opinion of an independent medical scientist, as it may be more honest than the official lines trotted out by politicians or govt departments. Although he is nontheless an individual offering his opinions...

[Bosco]

^thanks for that.

The whole story about Italy prioritizing patients is really discouraging and basically bringing what Ben_j said to fruition. 

[inchemwetrust]

i just hope the cases of this virus drop significantly soon. Economically, major companies are already getting hit the hardest, but can they sustain themselves in the long term and avoid a recession? Hold tight USA.

And the Corona virus testing here is not existent!  If I meet the criteria of symptoms for COVID-19, the doctor is gonna be like 'tough shit!take some aspirin and walk it off'. Australia seems to have gotten their shit together and tested Tom Hanks and his wife. Other countries are way ahead of us, but that's why the testing is vital because it tells clinicians the extent of the spreaded virus in a city or county.

Fun fact: I have about 7 rolls of TP left! Any of you guys hoarding in sanitizer, water frenzy?
I stopped at three stores today and got nothing.

Personally, I really hope the Bros dont lose any gigs because of all this crap.

[ThePumisher]

It's all Obamas fault!

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgekbd/trump-is-now-blaming-obama-for-the-lack-of-coronavirus-testing

[GLAKO-FAHN]

¯\_( ͠ ° ͟ʖ °͠ )_/¯

[Ben_j]

In France, in just 3 days they closed all schools, forbid events with more than 100 people, then ultimately closed restaurants, bars, cinemas and any location that draws crowd and are not essential. My company asked us to work from home, and my gf will probably be staying at home for a while too, since her company cancelled most flights (she's a flight attendant)... Thank god we have Netflix!

[Bosco]

I live in a suburb of Chicago, but they've closed schools here for the next two weeks and presumably longer until this situation is a bit clearer. My sister who's a grade school teacher says they'll be converting to online lessons.

As for Chicago, they have encouraged public places and events to limit their crowds to 250 or less. This has nearly squashed all concerts and major events in full for the next few months. That being said, it's been documented throughout the day today that St. Patricks Day weekend is in full swing here in Chicago. Pubs in bar-crawl friendly neighborhoods have seen long lines out the door all day, ready to get shit-faced and swap spit.

But before you judge the ignorant drunkards above, I also plan to be going back to the rejoin the 70mm film festival that I had previously been participating, tomorrow. They're capping attendance at 250 people inside of a 700 person theatre but enforcing heightened sanitizing measures along with encouraging patrons to practice "social distancing" in their spacious theatre.



Edit: I approve of the sticky and the added info Csar! Great job, Thanks!

[sandelic]

Same here, in Croatia.
Starting tomorrow, all schools and universities are closed, all lectures are online or over dedicated national television channels, mandatory 1 meter social interactions (when in lines, for example) and we have about 30 confirmed cases of coronavirus here (most of them, practically all, imported from Italy).
In most supermarkets, there are no flour or cooking oil atm, to name just a few examples.
World has gone insane, it was not this bad during war, ffs.
EDIT: 40+ cases confirmed, as of tonight, no wonder people are getting panicky, this is all starting to look like some bad disaster movie

[Csar]

@Bosco, thanks for your approval and thanks to you for bringing up the topic in the first place! Really important!

@Sandelic. Same here. Schools are not yet fully closed as of tomorrow but the compulsory attendance is suspended. Teachers and nursery school teachers are to be present Monday. I think university is closing down, though, offering similar opportunities like online tutoring. Not sure how they're going to handle the (final) exams for uni, college and highschool students. Last time I heard about it, they sought to go through with them considering special health protection meassures.

As for supermarkets this last Saturday, we also noticed the shortage of some groceries and hygiene related products later in the afternoon that day. Especially toilet paper, handkerchiefs, butter, crumbled cheese, tomatoes and processed bread were sold out or nearly sold out. At least it wasn't crowded at all, shoppers were normal and calm as usual and we didn't witness any panic buyers ourselves.

[Wolkenkrabber]

In most supermarkets, there are no flour or cooking oil atm, to name just a few examples.
World has gone insane, it was not this bad during war, ffs.

I thought people in your part of the world would be a bit more sanguine about this panic buying stuff. I assumed it was just us sofites in places that haven't had major upheaval/war in a long time who were acting like a bunch of lemmings.
Also, here you can order groceries online and get them delivered. It's starting to annoy me now when I need one standard 4-pack of loo roll, and there's none...
Someone mentioned in the live section about Mexico & festivals. Ironically it seems Mexico is considering closing its boarders to stop Americans entering. I hope they tell Trump to hurry up and finish the f**king wall!

Having said all that, the news from Italy today is really bad. Toilet roll fortresses won't protect us from this. I see some scientists say they're making progress. I really hope so.

[Csar]

And I just read an article in a German newspaper that the bestest president of all time, in all universes and dimensions is trying to get his tiny hands on a German vaccine manufacturer to obtain exclusive access to such a vaccine apparently currently under development.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/15/trump-offers-large-sums-for-exclusive-access-to-coronavirus-vaccine

These times are truely bizarre.

[whirlygirl]

Lots of food and paper product hoarding in Orange County, California.

We live with my 80 year old mom. We are keeping her at home, and using common sense when the hubs and I go and return home (hand washing and sanitizing the door knobs and things that touched a lot). This whole thing is surreal and everyone seems on the edge of panic. It is like we are waiting for the tide to come in now, and see what happens.

[sandelic]

I thought people in your part of the world would be a bit more sanguine about this panic buying stuff. I assumed it was just us sofites in places that haven't had major upheaval/war in a long time who were acting like a bunch of lemmings.

I would guess people are still remembering lack of stuff during the war and react like this.
It's a strange thing. Then there was no stuff to buy and people where much calmer about it.
Now they stack unnecessary amount of stuff just to feel safe, I guess.
Funny thing is, as much as people claim they are worried about this virus, cafe bars and shopping malls are stacked with people, where you can't enforce 1m rule. It's crazy.

[Bosco]

I'm headed for a complicated situation this week. My Uncle just passed away over the weekend and funeral is set for Thursday. He turned 89 on Saturday and died on his birthday. It was unfortunate cause he was a really important figure within my family, but an absolute blessing because of his laundry list of health problems. It's an understatement when I say it was amazing he had made it this far. He didn't die from COVID-19 (or at least that I'm aware of), it was just finally his time.

An unexpected issue that arose, is the funeral on Thursday could potentially include several senior aged relatives. Some which live in California, and one that lives in Florida, so that means air travel (to Illinois). My Aunt (now widowed) is a sharp lady and I would assume she told everyone out of state to stay home. But each of these people out of state had a close relationship with my Uncle at one time.

More importantly though, nobody knows if they are incubating the virus or not. It's been expressed you can have Corona and show no symptoms while being a vessel for said virus. Every single one of these senior members of my family have had a bout with some type of health issue within the last 5 years. Nowhere near as bad as my Uncle who just passed, but notable nonetheless.

So yeah, that is the potential catastrophe I'm headed for this week. And I feel just horrible for my cousins and Aunt that are stuck in this predicament.