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Medicine

Northern Italy Quarantines 16 Million People (bbc.com) 154

Italy has placed up to 16 million people under quarantine as it battles to contain the spread of coronavirus. From a report: Anyone living in Lombardy and 14 other central and northern provinces will need special permission to travel. Milan and Venice are both affected. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte also announced the closure of schools, gyms, museums, nightclubs and other venues across the whole country. The measures, the most radical taken outside China, will last until 3 April. Italy has seen the largest number of coronavirus infections in Europe, with the number of confirmed cases jumping by more than 1,200 to 5,883 on Saturday. Among the latest people to test positive is the army's chief of staff. Salvatore Farina said he felt well and was self-isolating.
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Northern Italy Quarantines 16 Million People

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09, 2020 @03:06PM (#59812216)
    Expect this virus to run fast and hot through the US as the virus is already circulating much more widely than anyone suspects, and even if Trump had the balls to lay down marshall law (he doesn't), it is well past the point that it would do any good. Our only hope now is that warmer weather will knock it down like it does the flu - and this is questionable at best. We could be looking at several million fatalities in the next 3 months.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Impossible to impose in the USA - USA has guns and attitude. It won't be effective anywhere else either.

      This virus cannot be stopped at this point - the incubation period is just way too long for this to be contained. Any effort to contain it only prolongs it. If we let it run its course, the whole hysteria may be over in a month. Instead, we need to suffer through it for 6-7 or more months, and it will spread nevertheless.

      Unless you live on a farm and off the grid, you cannot protect yourself because of ou

      • Makes me glad I live on a farm and could live off the grid for months if it became necessary.

        • Doesn't matter in the end. You'll pick it up as soon as you come back into town for tractor service. The sooner we all acquire herd immunity the better, BUT, it's actually best if spread out over a few months to prevent the healthcare system from buckling under a sudden load. So sure, stay on your farm for a while.

      • by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Monday March 09, 2020 @03:37PM (#59812344) Homepage Journal

        anti-science sentiment and a conspiratorial culture will insure that anything contagious will spread through the US and continue to spread over many years.

        We'll be talking again next year when people are refusing their COVID-19 vaccines.

        • "Conspiratorial culture" - Sorry, it's quite healthy to look askance at government rounding people up and forcing them to stay indoors such that only government officials are permitted, by themselves, to go out.

          We have mass murderous oodles of examples in living memory, to say nothing about all of human history.

        • I just railed at one of my neighbors.

          The guy doesn't believe in doing anything about climate change (saying that the science isn't settled), but is now suddenly concerned about catching COVID-19.

        • The situation in US is nowhere near Italy

      • by swillden ( 191260 ) <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Monday March 09, 2020 @04:15PM (#59812536) Journal

        This virus cannot be stopped at this point - the incubation period is just way too long for this to be contained. Any effort to contain it only prolongs it. If we let it run its course, the whole hysteria may be over in a month. Instead, we need to suffer through it for 6-7 or more months, and it will spread nevertheless.

        This is a foolish view.

        It's far, far better to suffer through it for 6-7 or more months than to let it "run its course" in a month. The thing is, the medical infrastructure has limited capacity. If we can limit the propagation enough to keep the rate of serious cases low enough that it's within the capacity of our medical infrastructure, we'll be much, much better off. If we let it run wild enough that our medical infrastructure is overstressed and becomes unable to treat serious cases, the death rate will rise significantly.

        And there are other capacity-limited systems. COVID-19 appears to have a mortality rate of 3-4%. If we assume 3%, and expose the entire US population, that means we'll have about 10 million fatalities. We're talking about a corpses-in-the-street, dump-trucks-full-of-bodies level of a body disposal problem. There's no way the normal funeral industry can remotely hope to deal with that.

        Even if you assume (which I don't) that full exposure is inevitable and unavoidable, stretching it out over as long a period of possible is a damned good thing, because dealing with it all at once is exponentially harder.

        • by swillden ( 191260 ) <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Monday March 09, 2020 @04:24PM (#59812572) Journal

          COVID-19 appears to have a mortality rate of 3-4%. If we assume 3%, and expose the entire US population, that means we'll have about 10 million fatalities.

          Actually, given the fact that the medical infrastructure will be completely unable to cope, it would probably be much worse than that.

        • We don't have enough information to predict how this will unravel.
          We don't even know how effective medical care is - is supportive care (Advil) good enough or every case needs to be in the IC on ventilators?

          I think the original point was that the hysteria and quasi-quarantines are shutting down the world economy for extended period of time, which will put more people out of work, cause homelessness, poverty, unrest, suffering and more death, than the virus itself.

          Also, when the objective is to contain the v

          • by swillden ( 191260 ) <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Monday March 09, 2020 @05:50PM (#59812874) Journal

            We don't have enough information to predict how this will unravel.

            True.

            We don't even know how effective medical care is - is supportive care (Advil) good enough or every case needs to be in the IC on ventilators?

            This we actually do know quite a bit about, though there are plenty of unknowns. 80+% of cases won't even require Advil. Some percentage, <10%, >5%, will need intensive care. Something between that percentage and about 2% can survive with intensive care. There's also a group who need serious care, but not intensive... but some of them are likely to be in serious trouble if they don't get some significant level of care... maybe IV fluids, etc.

            I think the original point was that the hysteria and quasi-quarantines are shutting down the world economy for extended period of time, which will put more people out of work, cause homelessness, poverty, unrest, suffering and more death, than the virus itself.

            Perhaps. That's something we definitely do not know.

            Also, when the objective is to contain the virus, medical care cannot be given at scale - right now every single case needs to be put in isolation with strict containment measures. If we didn't care about containment, we could provide a lot more medical care (have beds in the hospital corridors if it comes to that). Not sure which strategy wins at the end.

            Also something we do not know... but one thing we do know is that as long as we can strictly contain and isolate individual cases we can slow the spread. The incubation period is long but it appears that very, very few cases are contagious while asymptomatic, so aggressively quarantining everyone who has symptoms, and ideally testing anyone who is even suspected of coming into contact with someone who has contracted the virus, should be able to significantly slow the disease.

            Indeed, assuming we can believe their numbers, China's quarantines have been largely successful at slowing the spread.

            And, as I pointed out previously, slowing the spread is a very good thing, even if it can't ultimately be contained, as it probably can't. One other point I didn't mention previously is that if we can slow the spread down enough to make it take a year or so, we can probably get a vaccine developed and distributed, which will really stop it. We don't have vaccines for SARS-CoV or MERS-CoV, but it hasn't really been necessary to invest a lot in development. 2019-nCoV/SARS-CoV-2 seems to be quite different.

            (A note on terminology: COVID-19 is the disease, i.e. what happens to you when you get infected. The virus that causes the disease was provisionally named 2019-nCoV, but it appears the final name is SARS-CoV-2, reflecting the fact that this virus is another that causes severe acute respiratory distress. For consistency it seems like we should call the disease SARS-2, but maybe that would be confusing.)

            One thing is certain - COVID-19 is uncontainable due to the long incubation times and the intertwined world economy. It will be with us for ever just like the common flu.

            No, that is wrong. The reason the common flu is with us every year is that it has a structure that allows it to mutate regularly while still being basically the same thing. Coronaviruses don't have that same structure. If you get COVID-19, or if you get immunized against SARS-CoV-2, you'll be safe from it in the future (except in rare cases; reinfection is apparently possible, but very, very uncommon). Now, we may get new coronaviruses in the future -- SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV were also coronaviruses -- but they won't be annual things like the flu. And if we can get some of the stupid wildlife handling practices shut down, they'll happen less often than the once-per-decade or so we're seeing now.

            • by dow ( 7718 )

              This we actually do know quite a bit about, though there are plenty of unknowns. 80+% of cases won't even require Advil. Some percentage, <10%, >5%, will need intensive care. Something between that percentage and about 2% can survive with intensive care. There's also a group who need serious care, but not intensive... but some of them are likely to be in serious trouble if they don't get some significant level of care... maybe IV fluids, etc.

              I believe the people needing intensive care required ventilators to help them breath, and those needing serious care required masks with high levels of oxygen to make up for reduced lung efficiency. The sensation is somewhat like drowning for those needing these levels of care.

              Most people with the mild symptoms will recover in around 2 weeks. People requiring a hospital visit tend to take 3-6 weeks to get over it.

              So, if you know the capacity of the hospitals, the number of ventilators and breathing sets, yo

              • by dow ( 7718 )

                I did the number for my country. Assuming there is a ventilator or oxygen for every bed, and the beds aren't already full, at 10% daily infection increase we have 65 days to go. At 15% infection rate we have 45 days. Sadly almost 90% of the beds are already occupied. This cuts us down to 41 days and 28 days at 10% and 15% daily infection increases.

                • I did the number for my country. Assuming there is a ventilator or oxygen for every bed, and the beds aren't already full, at 10% daily infection increase we have 65 days to go. At 15% infection rate we have 45 days. Sadly almost 90% of the beds are already occupied. This cuts us down to 41 days and 28 days at 10% and 15% daily infection increases.

                  Yes, it's pretty clear that with such a large exponent in the growth rate, no system is going to be able to cope for long. Hence the need for action to reduce the growth rate. China appears to have achieved negative growth in active cases, but with draconian policies which it's unlikely any western democracy can implement. If some less-draconian-yet-achievable measures can reduce the expansion to well below 10%, maybe 2%, and if a substantial amount is invested in building out capacity -- maybe by conver

          • by Wycliffe ( 116160 ) on Monday March 09, 2020 @09:19PM (#59813408) Homepage

            We don't even know how effective medical care is - is supportive care (Advil) good enough or every case needs to be in the IC on ventilators?

            Advil is a terrible idea. What do you think fevers are for? Your body produces fevers to help fight off an infection. Advil is basically preventing your body from doing its job. As people are dying from reduced lung capacity something like mucinex *might* be acceptable but if you are trying to treat this at home you are better off just toughing it out unless it gets bad enough that you need supplemental oxygen.

        • Burial and cremation of ten million dispersed, mostly elder deaths is not difficult. Most funeral homes aren't boxing or burning bodies 24/7 and ten million over time can be dealt with. If necessary one backhoe driver can bury hundreds in a day. (The US Army practiced digging such a burial trench while I was stationed in West Germany. It triggered some locals but it was necessary training in case of NBC warfare.)
          Most of the dead will be old and only of sentimental value, no longer contributing members of s

        • The latest South Korea data shows a mortality rate there of 0.6%, because they're testing everyone left and right. So far the U.S. is only testing those who are seriously ill and/or known to be at risk, so of course the rate is higher. We won't know the real denominator until testing is far more widespread, which won't be for months.

        • It is a scary sickness but the mortality rate of 3% is not for the entire population exposed. It is only for those who get sick enough to be put in a hospital or tested, from everything I've read. Teens and younger almost never get really sick from it so it seems, so even if you just eliminate them, that cuts the numbers in half.

          https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea... [sfgate.com]

          "Dr. John Swartzberg, a professor of infectious disease at UC Berkeley, said the rate will likely drop. "I think the mortality rate will be much les

      • Yeah, because spreading the load on the medical infrastructure over 7 months is in no way better than overloading it all in one month and having way more people die due to lack of doctor time, equipment, medicines, beds, etc.

        Think before you post.

    • by hey! ( 33014 ) on Monday March 09, 2020 @03:25PM (#59812290) Homepage Journal

      It won't have the balls to do this until it takes balls not to do it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Martial law. Marshall law is when you have to turn it up to 11.

    • It is more about demographics than politics.

      The US is way too diverse and spread out to do this. Also the American Culture is very rebellious/stubborn towards these type of actions. Why do you think there are so many people who need to be rescued from huracanes? Because they will stay in their home no matter what people say. Attempts to move them out or contain them in will meet with a lot of resistance.
      Other countries and cultures have a smaller population and tighter cities that makes managing such ins

    • Oh really (Score:3, Informative)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 )

      Expect this virus to run fast and hot through the US as the virus is already circulating much more widely than anyone suspects

      Expect the virus to die off rapidly as spring comes in and temperatures rise across the U.S. - just as would be the case for other forms of flu. Apparently you didn't realize Covid is a form of flu.

      even if Trump had the balls to lay down marshall law

      Since you also don't understand civics it seems, that would be up to states and cities.

      What the state department DID do which is rather

      • Expect the virus to die off rapidly as spring comes in and temperatures rise across the U.S.

        This is a hypothesis based on the behavior of flu, but no experiments have proven [cdc.gov] it. Ignoring the issue and gambling it will go away with summer is dangerous and irresponsible - so, FWIW, I wouldn't be surprised if the Trump administration does just that.

        Apparently you didn't realize Covid is a form of flu.

        It may have some similar symptoms, but it's not [hopkinsmedicine.org] flu. COVID-19 is not only a different species, it isn't even in the same order as the various flu viruses.

        That's a lot of misinformation in a single line of text; please check your sources better (or at all).

      • Furthermore early on Trump blocked all air travel from China, which is why the U.S. has had way fewer cases and deaths than Italy which did no such thing

        Blocking some borders bought us some time. We squandered it. It's irrelevant now.

      • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Expect the virus to die off rapidly as spring comes in and temperatures rise across the U.S. - just as would be the case for other forms of flu. Apparently you didn't realize Covid is a form of flu.

        People still get the cold and flu in the summer. There hasn't been any evidence that being cold makes you more vulnerable to either. The current theory for why more people get sick in the winter is simply more people in enclosed spaces means more chances to infect one another. Whereas in the summer, more people w

        • I've heard the close quarters thing, but these studies going back since 2007 keep saying it is literally something about cold dry air. The 2017 one says cold air messes with your mucus in your nose, such that the viruses have a better chance of getting through it to your living cells.

          Cold weather, colds, flus:

          https://www.medicalnewstoday.c... [medicalnewstoday.com]

          https://www.webmd.com/cold-and... [webmd.com]

          "But cold air cools the nasal passage and slows down mucus clearance. Viruses can now stick around for longer, trying to dig through th

    • It's not clear that this is necessary or if it works, so the balls are immaterial.

      We don't have the test kits to test enough people to understand how widespread it is. Worse, we're testing only sick people, so we're potentially missing all of the carriers. With something like a 14 day incubation period, it's simply not feasible to go back and quarantine everyone someone infected came into contact with, and all of the people that they've come in contact with, and all of those people that they came into conta

    • If any level of government tried to enact a quarantine of a city, county, etc., people would shoot their way out. That's why it won't be tried.

    • "Expect this virus to run fast and hot through the US "

      Good.

      Then we'll finally come to our f#&%!ng senses and realize that we're panicking over a glorified cold, one that thus far does far less service to the Grim Reaper than the common flu.

      Crunch the damn numbers. Look at the stats. It kills the very old and the immune compromised. Everyone else, it's a chest cold. Even children, who are normally very vulnerable to these things, aren't dying in even flu-like numbers. Average people that get it have sai

      • Liar. The one Chinese doctor who had warned about this coronavirus died of it. He was just 33. Also far more people than you think are immunocompromised. People with diabetes, athletes, people who do heavy physical work, people who have to take cortisone pills or shots, all of them are immunocompromised as well.

    • Martial law, not marshal law. Marshals always enforce the law. Martial law means the military on the streets.

      But otherwise you are right. The Corona horses have left the barn. The only thing that might have stopped it is shutting down commercial air travel when the existence of the virus was first confirmed. And that would have caused the same economic disruption we are seeing now.

      So, no way to win this. 1/6 of the over 80 population is going to die. The best you can hope for is to bog down the virus enough

    • How do you walk with that stupid brain of yours?

      And who are your 3 idiot buddies that upvoted your imbeciling nonsensical post to the stratosphere?

  • They must really be trying to stick it to Trump!
  • On the one hand we have people who are paying no attention or completely minimizing this out of some bizarre political ideology.

    On the other hand, we have people shitting their pants or hungrily rubbing their hands together thinking "it's finally happening, some excitement in my dull life, OMG my prepping has finally paid off whoohoo!!!".

    Like most things, the truth is somewhere in the middle. It's definitely a big deal, at the very least for the impact it will have on the global economy for years to come. T

    • On the one hand we have people who are paying no attention or completely minimizing this out of some bizarre political ideology.

      On the other hand, we have people shitting their pants or hungrily rubbing their hands together thinking "it's finally happening, some excitement in my dull life, OMG my prepping has finally paid off whoohoo!!!".

      Like most things, the truth is somewhere in the middle. It's definitely a big deal, at the very least for the impact it will have on the global economy for years to come. The likely bad case is it's worse than H1N1 in the US, and significantly worse in other countries. We are still a long way from that.

      But we certainly aren't living in a post-apocalyptic hellscape and nor will we be over this. My biggest hope is this opens our eyes. We need to drop a shit-ton of money on bio-science, a moonshot type effort to get this shit under control. We should have the technology to identify, sequence, and test for this sort of thing in days and have a fully distributed vaccine in weeks. We are of course nowhere near there but with a Manhattan Project/Moonshot type effort and a lot of money we could be in a decade.

      Because if this current shit scares you, imagine something just a little more spreadable, with a bit longer of an incubation period, and which killed even 10% of victims across all age groups. _That_ would be some end of times shit that would set our standard of living way back, we would be better off spending $5 trillion just in the US on research over the next decade for even a 5% chance of that happening over the next 50 years.

      In my county, 10 confirmed regular flu deaths, so far 0 Coronavirus cases reported so far.

      You should always have some extra food around (a week or two's worth of canned food and maybe some nice ramen) especially since it's still winter in the Northern Hemisphere for a bit longer. I've been snowbound a few times, where there was no travel allowed, and no stores were open.

      I wonder how much the "leading" pharmaceutical companies spend on this type of research, and how quickly they could respond in the case of

      • Agreed. I have some extra canned food on hand, a small amount of extra TP (I didn't build a fucking fort out of it), etc... "Prepping" like that doesn't actually cost much of anything, you eat through the canned ravioli or whatever and rotate new cans in. You will always use TP so no problem having a forward looking supply.

        That sort of shit is fine, but buying up masks by the dozen, hand sanitizer by the gross, and having a dedicated TP storage room because it's end of times is retarded. People holing up in

      • In my county, 10 confirmed regular flu deaths, so far 0 Coronavirus cases reported so far.

        I doubt it. Are you somewhere in Africa? Because those are some of the few countries that don't already have reported coronavirus cases. And frankly, given the state of the health care systems in a lot of Africa, I wouldn't take a lack of identified cases as something to cheer about.

        • In my county, 10 confirmed regular flu deaths, so far 0 Coronavirus cases reported so far.

          I doubt it. Are you somewhere in Africa? Because those are some of the few countries that don't already have reported coronavirus cases. And frankly, given the state of the health care systems in a lot of Africa, I wouldn't take a lack of identified cases as something to cheer about.

          County, not Country. Duh.

      • We have a 25 lb sack of rice and a 25 lb sack of lentils (to various stages of depletion) kept on hand because we eat rice and lentils. In addition, we usually have 5+ cans of beans, 5+ cans of chicken, 5+ cans of tuna, 5+ cans of root vegetables, and 3+ lbs of pasta on hand. This is over a month of food by itself. It is mind-boggling to me the people that run out of food - or buy extra food in preparation. Get some rice, beans, and canned goods forgodssake.

        The rice/lentils alone are $30 of food for 1 m

    • by spun ( 1352 )

      The US, with it's piss-poor coverage and the highest cost of health care in the world, will be a shit-show compared to the rest of the world. The idea that we can handle this better than the rest of the world is simply ludicrous, especially with a narcissistic fool and a science denying bible thumper running the show here.

      You know what would work better than throwing money at high tech bio science? Basic health care, and following CDC guidelines without trying to politicize them to make a narcissist look be

      • Want to bet? We will be fine, despite Trump. And no, that will not work - this is a preview of what could happen. This pandemic may actually be our savior if it wakes people up to what _could_ happen. No amount of hand-washing or cheap healthcare would save us from something considerably worse than this.

        My worry level is a 4/10 specifically on this, but it gets me to a 9/10 knowing how much worse a future pandemic could actually be if this shit is scaring people this badly.

        • by spun ( 1352 )

          I assume you have some credentials in virology or epidemiology? Otherwise, why would your opinions about this issue be of any value to anyone? We can all pull guesses out of our asses. What makes your guesses special?

          Me, I'll listen to actual experts, thanks just the same.

          • Pretty lazy, that's not even a full fledged appeal to authority. Go talk to an epidemiologist and ask them if "whelp, we'll just wash our hands and follow the CDC" will prevent decimation of the population in the case of a very nasty virus.

            The other day my neighbor told me I was stupid for having candles by my curtains and plugging 10 things into my 20 year old surge suppressor that sparks all the time. Said my whole house could burn down and my family could die. I asked that asshole if he was a fireman or

            • by spun ( 1352 )

              What a long winded way of saying "I have no special knowledge regarding this virus. "

              • Your reading comprehension is poor and your points-based "Oh SNAP you go girl" Elizabeth Warren twitter style of substanceless argument doesn't get you any points either. The only statement I've made about this virus is that it probably won't be as bad as you and your ilk hope it to be. My general point was "it could be much much worse" which you seem to take exception to, a statement so obviously true on its face that your attempts to deflect and put _me_ on the defensive are laughable.

                So please, provide r

            • Go talk to an epidemiologist and ask them if "whelp, we'll just wash our hands and follow the CDC" will prevent decimation of the population in the case of a very nasty virus.

              No credible source is suggesting that the virus has a 10+% mortality rate let alone a 100% infectivity rate.

  • What is this? What kind of fear is this?

    I am very curious what happens if refugees make a raid on Italy now. Or whaif Putin attacks west when those idiots shuts down to entire EU.

    There was one more idiotic than our government, and I finally saw it.

    • I am very curious what happens if refugees make a raid on Italy now.

      The exact same thing that happens every other time it happened. You seem to be mistaking a province based quarantine with ... honestly I don't know what is going on in your mind, but I'm sure it's amazing. LSD perhaps?

    • What if refugees make a raid? Quit gaming for a bit, listen to my advice.
  • by kbahey ( 102895 ) on Monday March 09, 2020 @03:37PM (#59812342) Homepage

    Canada just had its first death, and it is in a nursing home, just like Kirkland in the USA.

    One anomaly that I notice, e.g from this Johns Hopkins data [arcgis.com], is that Italy has a higher mortality rate than any other highly affected country.

    As I type this, it is 463 deaths out of 9,172 cases = 5.04%.

    China is 3.8%, and Iran is at 3.3%, so they are close.
    But both are neither open or transparent enough to trust that numbers reflect what is actually reported at hospitals.

    South Kora is reporting 0.7%. Way lower than China and Iran. France is at 1.57%.

    One possible reason is that Italy has the 2nd oldest population in the world after Japan. That is just a guess at this point.

    Still, I would love to have an explanation ...

    • I think South Korea is testing the hell out of everyone, so they are catching a lot more of the "mild" cases, which drives up the number in the denominator.
    • It could be a cultural thing, maybe people in Italy don't go to the doctor unless they are really ill.
    • by pesho ( 843750 )
      This is anomaly of the number of people being tested. You detect the death cases with high efficiency, but we are not testing most people with mild symptoms. These numbers reflect to a large degree what fraction of the population you are testing [worldometers.info] for the virus. We will not know the true mortality rate fore few month to a year. To do this we need a test that detect antibodies to corona-virus in the blood, that will allow us to determine how many people were infected. I am guessing a year from know we will hav
    • by sebax ( 6675478 ) on Monday March 09, 2020 @04:30PM (#59812592)
      Many of the deaths here in Italy are of elder people often with other pathologies. There's a debate here if those people died "because" of covid-19 or "with" covid-19. Anyway situation here is dramatic; in many zones (near Milan particularly) there are not enough intensive care units in hospitals so doctors may have to choose who to save and who to let die. Our PM Giuseppe Conte (best known in US as "Giuseppi") Is about to talk to the country in few minutes and announce "drastic measures" to combat covid-19.
    • I read somewhere (sorry, forgot where) that since this mostly affects the respiratory system, that the higher smoking rate in China might be a complicating factor. I wonder if that might apply to Italy and Iran as well.

    • South Kora is reporting 0.7%.

      Korea has its shit together. Getting tested is as easy as ordering a happy meal at a McDonalds drive thru.

      The United States on the other hand can soon expect to see its hospitals overwhelmed just like Iran, Wuhan and Italy while members of the Trump administration paean their leader.

      --
      I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship.

  • WTI CRUDE 30.84 -10.44 -25.29%
    BRENT CRUDE 34.32 -10.95 -24.19%

    For Iran and Venezuela this is like getting kicked when you are already down.

    • Come to Canada, where up until a few days ago a lot of Albertans wanted to secede from Canada or join the US. Of course, all those wannabe North-of-40 Cowboy types are watching the shale oil industry in the US get pancaked and realizing "Oh, maybe there's a global price crisis going on, and being a sovereign state or an American state doesn't magically mean oil prices magically leap into the sky."

      A whole lot of people in petro-jurisdictions are now waking up to discover the price of their black gold is reli

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        North of 40?

      • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

        People still do. A 14% unemployment rate, a government that pisses in your face, and can't even enforce injunctions against protesters illegally holding up freight will do that.

      • by dryeo ( 100693 )

        I'm sure Alberta will respond by further cutting taxes and royalties and then bitch how broke they are. Ah, just read Kenney's plans, more tax incentives and subsidizing oil production with what sounds like negative oil royalties.

    • Not as bad as say, here in Canada. Iran and Venezuela can still produce for less than those costs. It is the places with high production costs that will be kicked.

      But, as much as this is bad for the overall economy here, it's great for consumers looking to buy a new pickup or SUV. Cheap oil is not all bad.

    • Iran and Venezuela can do fine with cheap oil prices. The economic crises in those countries is due to America's shameless open economic warfare involving methods like financial strangulation and harassing other countries over the world that want to trade with the former with sanctions.

  • 16M = 60M ? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sebax ( 6675478 ) on Monday March 09, 2020 @03:58PM (#59812462)
    Just now Italian TV Channel La7 has given the news that Italian Government is about to extend quarantine to the whole Country.
  • This site provides a useful breakdown of the numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths by country, plus a clickable map.
    The quarantined ocean liners are listed as well, and the list ends with the totals:

    - "Outbreak map of novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV"
    - https://coronavirus.zone/ [coronavirus.zone]

    I've been checking a handful of entries against the data released by individual countries, and from my limited cross-checking the site is tracking the official data well. It seems to be getting updated many times a day to reflect

  • by hey! ( 33014 ) on Monday March 09, 2020 @04:57PM (#59812698) Homepage Journal

    16 million is more people than live in the entire Los Angeles - Anaheim metropolitan area. This is like closing all schools and public venues Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Iowa and then not allowing anyone to go there or leave.

    It's just mind-boggling, but it's nothing compared to China, where 780 *million* people are under travel restrictions, and 60 million people in Hubei alone confined to their houses. The thing is the Chinese measures seem to be working to slow transmission. The big question is when can they let up, and what will happen then?

  • The Federal government does not have the power to protect the many at the expense of the few.

    • The internment of Americans of Japanese descent during WW2 was categorically unconstitutional but the Court system led by the Supreme Court, is known to give the Government some leeway during great emergencies by crawling the process to a standstill.
  • By now, all these quarantines are going to be nearly useless. The virus is now out of the bag in the world's biggest countries. Despite the unprecedented measures, the number of infected and the geography are rising, not falling. We should just treat it as another season of flu or common cold and move on with our lives.

    • by spth ( 5126797 )

      No, they are not useless.

      The point is to slow the spread of the virus, not stop it.

      A substantial fraction of the infected requires hospitalization if we want to keep the high survival rates we are currently seeing.

      Thus there is a huge advantage in delaying the spread of the virus, so a given number of beds can be used to treat a larger fraction of the infected over time.

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