Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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Well I went outside this morning and decided Spring was finally here. Over the years I have developed a rule for determining the arrival of Spring. It is the first day that outdoor temperatures exceed 70 degrees F. And yesterday that happened. At least I think it happened. When I passed by the thermometer yesterday, it read 69.9 degrees F. And I didn't actually stand by it for a few hours to make sure it cross the threshold but it is a good assumption.

The other rational is that we experience floods during Spring. In the last storm we had a lot of rain, maybe 8 inches or more. This morning I went down to my driveway bridge and looked at a log that washed onto it.



The log was waterlogged and probably weighs 400 pounds. I will probably wait a couple days for things to dry out a little and then move it.

What does this all mean. It means the back of Winter has been broken. Sure we might see a dusting of snow or two but it is essential over. Humidity levels are returning to normal. My indoor humidity gauge is reading 44% RH at the moment. And the other thing that it means is that in my neck of the woods, the coronavirus pandemic is quickly coming to an end. We are naturally moving into the 40% - 60% RH range where viruses are unable to survive and infect people.

I walked around my property cleaning up the mess left by the storm. I heard a large crack and then a massive crash. It was one of the trees damaged by the tornadoes 11 years ago that swept through my property. Many of these trees were not blown completely over. Some were at 45 degree angles to the ground. They eventually die and suddenly fall to the ground. I came across an Unidentified Flying Object. It had scales and a fin. I suspect it was a fish. But it was in the middle of my field. So the first thought was how did it get here. I didn't see any wings. I heard they have flying fish but this did not look like one. I went up and got a tape measure and measured it. Nine inches.



But I surmised that it probably washed up in the flood waters. That is really surprising because I wouldn't think a fish would be the last thing to die from a flood. Now I know there is probably some smart aleck in the crowd that will recommend that I take it home and eat it. Well I ain't dumb. I only eat dead things that come from a can or from my freezer. Who knows this fish might have died from the coronavirus.

I'd say another factor that makes this disease spread faster than your average virus is precisely the fact that the light cases are hard to detect, so people go to work and infect others in perfect ignorance. Most countries do not have enough testing capacity, for various reasons.

Soldiers were being drafted in to help enforce the lockdown in Italy on Friday as officials announced 627 new deaths, the largest single-day toll anywhere in the world since the coronavirus outbreak began.

Desperate scenes have unfolded in the north of the country, particularly the hard-hit Lombardy region where infections first exploded last month, as hospitals struggle to treat thousands of cases.

And Chinese medical experts helping Italy deal with the crisis have said the restrictions imposed in Lombardy are "not strict enough."
The government has now agreed that the military can be used to help enforce the lockdown, the president of the Lombardy region, Attilio Fontana, told a news conference on Friday.

"(The request to use the army) has been accepted... and 114 soldiers will be on the ground throughout Lombardy... it is still too little, but it is positive," Fontana said. "Unfortunately we are not seeing a change of trend in the numbers, which are rising."

The soldiers had until now been deployed in the region to ensure general security in the streets.

More than 4,000 people have now died from the disease in Italy, the country's civil protection agency said Friday -- more than any other nation -- and nearly 6,000 new infections were confirmed in the past day, bringing the total to more than 47,000 cases.
Daniela Confalonieri, an Italian nurse in Milan, the region's capital, said the situation was so dire that the dead were no longer being counted.

"We're working in a state of very high stress and tension," Confalonieri told Reuters. "Unfortunately we can't contain the situation in Lombardy, there's a high level of contagion and we're not even counting the dead any more.

"Look at the news that's coming out of Italy and take note of what the situation really is like. It's unimaginable."

A hospital doctor in Bergamo, another Lombardy city, told CNN it had been hit so hard by the coronavirus that it is now sending patients who need intensive care to other parts of the country.p
"Bergamo is sending ICU patients to other regions because we ran out (of space)," Dr. Stefano Magnone told CNN on Friday, adding that intensive care units in hospitals in nearby Brescia were also full. Brescia is the second-worst affected province, according to the civil protection agency.

A doctor in the Lombardy city of Cremona, Romano Paolucci, told Reuters that he had "seen a lot of dead here" and that medical staff were battling to cope with a lack of equipment, long hours and increasing sickness within their own ranks.

"I would say that we are at the end of our strength," he said. "This is a small hospital and we are taking in a lot of people, I would say the capacity is finished.
"We do not have sufficient resources and especially staff because apart from everything else now the staff are beginning to get sick."

About 70% of those treated at the hospital for Covid-19 are surviving, he added.

The disease has taken the greatest toll on Italy's elderly population. Figures released Thursday by the Health Institute of Italy indicated that 86% of fatalities were among those aged over 70. People aged 60 to 69 made up a further 10% of the deaths.

Paolucci said his hospital was trying to help patients keep in touch with their family by phone, particularly the elderly who were less used to making calls.

Thousands of medical students are being fast-tracked into doctors to help fight the coronavirus


"The greatest problem which is emerging in these days, I would say, is that the patients cannot be visited by their relatives and often die on their own," he said.

Footage from Reuters showed army trucks collecting the bodies of coronavirus victims overnight in Lombardy.

The Prime Minister's office said a taskforce of up to 300 additional volunteer doctors would be sent to the areas of Italy worst affected by the pandemic.

This year's medical school graduates have also been told they can start working as fully qualified doctors immediately, months ahead of schedule, as Italy's authorities grapple with the crisis.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Red Cross vice president, Sun Shuopeng, urged tougher measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

The situation "is similar to what we experienced two months ago in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of Covid-19," he said Thursday at a news conference in Milan.

"In the city of Wuhan after one month since the adoption of the lockdown policy, we see a decreasing trend from the peak of the disease," Sun Shuopeng said. "Here in Milan, the hardest-hit area by Covid-19, there isn't a very strict lockdown: public transportation is still working and people are still moving around, you're still having dinners and parties in the hotels and you're not wearing masks."

"I don't know what everyone is thinking."

He advised Italians to stop all "economic activities and cut the mobility of people," calling on everyone to just stay at home. "We need every citizen to be involved in the fight of Covid-19 and follow this policy."

This. Mild, very mild and asymptomatic cases don't matter on individual suffering level but they matter as hell to spreading pace of the infection.

In a crisis like that, I can see why universal healthcare is important. It's not about health of individuals, it's about health of societes.

It’s in the $2.20s and $2.30s here.

It doesn’t matter, though. I’m not going anywhere for a while.

$2.20 per litre?
That is very high.
Over here in Australia, it is "only" around $1.50, and should be lower.

Now here is "The Bite":
Are you seriously telling me that you only pay $2.20 per gallon?! ! !
Lucky bastardos.

It was 2.69 few weeks ago, it’s gone up 10¢ but apparently other states it’s less then dollar wtf so guess gas places here are just raking in huge profits f**k them

2.20 per gallon. In the us, gas is sold by the gallon, which translates to 3.78 liters.

Same is happening here.
People expect profiteering from the petrol industry.
What can you do? <shrug>

A gallon is a hell of a lot more than a litre.
I think you need to redo the maths.