Working From Home - Impacts of Coronavirus

[Krusher]

There's nothing to do atm, but I like tearing apart parts for my partsbin. Lots of stuff are being crapped out atm. Fired up my hobby so pull out all the parts!

[EEVblog]

You asked about airlines.
Here is the Monday morning Belfast to Heathrow service.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-52539141
Plane 95% full.

Social distancing will not be viable on planes it seems. Ryan Air for example have said they won't/can't do it.

[paulca]

Ryan air.  LOL.  If Ryan air could tip people into a cargo container and load them all into the hold they would.

You know Leery applied for a taxi license so that him and his wife could drive in the bus lanes in Dublin?

The same company who want to charge you to use the toilet.

I do NOT recommend flying with them, but if you ever have to and you are over 5ft high, get an isle seat, so you have somewhere to put your legs.  I flew a 3 hour flight with RA and ended up with badly bruised knees.

You know the menu/shop card you get on board that lists the food and drink?  Ryan air give you one per row and ask for it back at the end of the flight.  They sell beers at full airline price (Around 8 Euro) but when you get it, it's a miniture 200ml can.

[EEVblog]

"Scott Morrison says it's time to get Australians back to work after coronavirus shutdown"
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/05/scott-morrison-says-its-time-to-get-australians-back-to-work-after-coronavirus-shutdown

Translation: "I'm sick of this crap too, let's get back to work, but make it appear slow because I have a lot of pissed of Karen's on social media who will kick up a stink, so I have to keep them happy."

[SiliconWizard]

Ryan air.  LOL.  If Ryan air could tip people into a cargo container and load them all into the hold they would.

You know Leery applied for a taxi license so that him and his wife could drive in the bus lanes in Dublin?

The same company who want to charge you to use the toilet.

I do NOT recommend flying with them, but if you ever have to and you are over 5ft high, get an isle seat, so you have somewhere to put your legs.  I flew a 3 hour flight with RA and ended up with badly bruised knees.

You know the menu/shop card you get on board that lists the food and drink?  Ryan air give you one per row and ask for it back at the end of the flight.  They sell beers at full airline price (Around 8 Euro) but when you get it, it's a miniture 200ml can.

Ahah yes. Took one Ryanair flight once. It was exactly like this. But sure the price was just incredibly low. Except there wasn't even one luggage allowed with that AFAIR, and I hadn't paid attention, so I had to pay 20 euros extra when I checked in. Ahah.

Didn't they say there were thinking about having passengers flying standing up for short flights?

[Syntax Error]

For the record, many people in my part of Lancashire in the UK, experienced from late November and throughout December, corona virus-like symptoms; cough, fever, breathing problems, loss of taste, etc. This pattern was repeated across the UK, as observed by a Covid symptom tracking app run by a research team from King's College London.

With or without having received a flu jab, those who did see a doctor where told they either just "had a flu virus" or, were given antibiotics to treat a throat or chest infection. Most people just had a "strange" or "troublesome" cold, and got over it. Brexit dominated the UK news agenda then, so a mystery bug would have gained little media attention.

Also at this time, the politicos would have had only the scientific evidence of the day to go on, which was, there is NO pandemic. A prognosis the British Prime Minister came to regret first hand.

As @eevblog points out, there were many international flights from Wuhan and associated cantons, including flights to Manchester, our local airport. btw Manchester, Liverpool and Preston have substantial Chinese resident and student populations.

So was Covid-19 outside of China before any official anouncement by the WHO? It would be a hard sell in my neighbourhood convincing people that Covid-19 was not already circulating in the UK before Christmas 2019.

Now all people want to know is, did I have it? An antibody testing programme would be more effective for easing the lockdown than having to rely on a "really smart" BLE phone app.

[DrG]

"Scott Morrison says it's time to get Australians back to work after coronavirus shutdown"
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/05/scott-morrison-says-its-time-to-get-australians-back-to-work-after-coronavirus-shutdown

Translation: "I'm sick of this crap too, let's get back to work, but make it appear slow because I have a lot of pissed of Karen's on social media who will kick up a stink, so I have to keep them happy."

I had to look that up - A "Karen" is typically used to refer to an entitled mum, who can be a bit irritating with her frequent requests to "talk to the manager." She may also have a giant bob haircut and drive a Volvo. https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/how-to-know-if-you-re-a-karen-and-other-terms-your-kids-have-adopted-20191120-p53cfa.html

Daily New Cases in Australia



Daily New Cases in USA

[paulca]

Interesting video on effects on airlines and air cargo.

[DrG]

New SARS-Cov-2 mutation reported to be more transmissible https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.29.069054v1.full.pdf

Preliminary, not peer-reviewed, not cause for panic.

Now we get to talk about Blue and Orange varieties. Mutations are not unusual and would certainly be expected as a virus circulates around. A biologically significant mutation, however, can be another matter. That is, with some 30,000 base pairs of RNA (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7161481/) nobody is surprised to find some differences as time goes on. In this case, the EARLY report suggests that the difference is biological significant.

Here is a decent discussion thread https://twitter.com/BillHanage/status/1256422856436613126

Here is still one of the best of those NYT 3-D articles reviewing the proteins and what they are thought to do. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/03/science/coronavirus-genome-bad-news-wrapped-in-protein.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Health

[cdev]

Could it have started in the UK?

For the record, many people in my part of Lancashire in the UK, experienced from late November and throughout December, corona virus-like symptoms; cough, fever, breathing problems, loss of taste, etc. This pattern was repeated across the UK, as observed by a Covid symptom tracking app run by a research team from King's College London.

With or without having received a flu jab, those who did see a doctor where told they either just "had a flu virus" or, were given antibiotics to treat a throat or chest infection. Most people just had a "strange" or "troublesome" cold, and got over it. Brexit dominated the UK news agenda then, so a mystery bug would have gained little media attention.

Also at this time, the politicos would have had only the scientific evidence of the day to go on, which was, there is NO pandemic. A prognosis the British Prime Minister came to regret first hand.

As @eevblog points out, there were many international flights from Wuhan and associated cantons, including flights to Manchester, our local airport. btw Manchester, Liverpool and Preston have substantial Chinese resident and student populations.

So was Covid-19 outside of China before any official anouncement by the WHO? It would be a hard sell in my neighbourhood convincing people that Covid-19 was not already circulating in the UK before Christmas 2019.

Now all people want to know is, did I have it? An antibody testing programme would be more effective for easing the lockdown than having to rely on a "really smart" BLE phone app.

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

The UK as well as the US are situations where the numbers have not fallen much. So IMHO its too early to end it here.

[paulca]

Could it have started in the UK?

That's it though.  Does it matter?  Does it matter if it originated in my Ma's back yard?  Does it even matter if it was someone's fault?  Will that change anything?  Will that make it any better?

[thinkfat]

Over here we're pretty sure the virus was not already in circulation in Germany. As soon as the PCR test was available, it was was deployed through the influenza monitoring network. People with flu-like symptoms were also tested for Sars2. It never showed up.

[maginnovision]

Could it have started in the UK?

That's it though.  Does it matter?  Does it matter if it originated in my Ma's back yard?  Does it even matter if it was someone's fault?  Will that change anything?  Will that make it any better?

Of course it does, don't be ridiculous with your anti-science crap. Do you ever have a project fail and say who cares why or who did what? I hope not! If you don't know what happened or why you have 0 chance of preventing it next time or fixing the cause.

[paulca]

Could it have started in the UK?

That's it though.  Does it matter?  Does it matter if it originated in my Ma's back yard?  Does it even matter if it was someone's fault?  Will that change anything?  Will that make it any better?

Of course it does, don't be ridiculous with your anti-science crap. Do you ever have a project fail and say who cares why or who did what? I hope not! If you don't know what happened or why you have 0 chance of preventing it next time or fixing the cause.

I should have added.  "Right now."  You are totally correct for when the consensus comes together and "history" gets written.

I simple meant will knowing the precious details of who did what, why and when and putting blame will, right now, help anything.  Will it stop people dying?  Will it stop a "second wave"? 

Please do NOT accuse me of anti-science shit.  All I see here are people spitting outliers.  I'm probably guilty too.  This is expected, it's the peer-review vacuum.  Science takes time, but people want answers NOW!  So there is a vacuum of "complete" science and only individual preliminary experiments being published to help other scientists do better ones.

It will be much like war.  History will be written afterwards by the victors.

[Syntax Error]

@DrG thanks for the links. The New York Times article is very informative. The functions of the RNA encoded proteins are reminiscent of a malware rootkit!

@cdev One suggestion, locally we experienced a 'pre-virus', where the coronavirus was not producing dangerous viral loads. Although highly contageous, the necessary mutation or critical infection mass was yet to come. Or it was something else that went extinct in January. WE JUST DON'T KNOW!

@paulca WE JUST DON'T KNOW!

@thinkfat Germany got a handle on the virus from day zero. Today the UK death toll exeeded Spain, Italy and France, placing Britain second to the USA.

@eevblog Siri's real name is Aussie Karen (true/false)?

[PlainName]

I should have added.  "Right now."

Might do. If it was circulating for a couple of months before we thought, the hyperbolic graph of cases would have a somewhere different meaning, wouldn't it? That is, the contagiousness of it is either lower than we think or it's changed since it was first around.

[Nusa]

@thinkfat Germany got a handle on the virus from day zero. Today the UK death toll exeeded Spain, Italy and France, placing Britain second to the USA.

That illustrates how the general public likes to processes numbers, without weighting for population. Probably part of that it feels good say, "Look, we're not as bad as the USA". However, if one looks at deaths per million population, the UK (67 million) death rate is about double the USA (330 million). Then again, if you look at the worst spot inside the USA, the state of New York (20 million) has about triple the death rate of the UK. Similarly, I suspect England has a higher death rate than the other countries in the UK, but I don't have those numbers.

Give it time, however. A large chunk of the USA is farther back on the curve then Europe, so the numbers are going to change in the coming months. Especially in those states that never shut down or are choosing to reopen for economic or political reasons.

[langwadt]

Interesting video on effects on airlines and air cargo.

on similar note, ..

https://youtu.be/qlofy7ar2w8

[Nauris]

Interesting video on effects on airlines and air cargo.

That was BIG boost for the train freight to/from China. Even China Post finally switched 'Air Mail' into 'Train Mail'. 2000 tons of delayed e-commerce packets are coming!

[cdev]

Scary article about India's "reopening", infections there are already starting to climb up again, and India has precious little public health infrastructure even during the best of times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/06/world/asia/india-coronavirus-lockdown-infections.html

[cdev]

It's supposedly mutating now. According to this Los Alamos preprint.


Spike mutation pipeline reveals the emergence of a more
transmissible form of SARS-CoV-2

Korber B 1 , Fischer WM 1 , Gnanakaran S 1 , Yoon H 1 , Theiler J 1 , Abfalterer W 1 , Foley
B 1 , Giorgi EE 1 , Bhattacharya T 1 , Parker MD 3 , Partridge DG 4 , Evans CM 4 , Freeman
TM 3 , de Silva TI 4,5 , on behalf of the Sheffield COVID-19 Genomics Group # ,
LaBranche CC 2 , and Montefiori DC 2


https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.29.069054

[GlennSprigg]

"Scott Morrison says it's time to get Australians back to work after coronavirus shutdown"
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/05/scott-morrison-says-its-time-to-get-australians-back-to-work-after-coronavirus-shutdown

Translation: "I'm sick of this crap too, let's get back to work, but make it appear slow because I have a lot of pissed of Karen's on social media who will kick up a stink, so I have to keep them happy."

As long as we keep YOU happy Dave, and maintain your HIGHness & lack of responsibility...

[Syntax Error]

It's supposedly mutating now. According to this Los Alamos preprint.
...

That's a very interesting set of graphs with some important conclusions. They show why Germany was able to supress the outbreak so effectively, because it was not facing the same R0 value as Italy. And then why Germany experienced a second more deadly peak. Also, why the UK and New York State have been so badly hit. I would be interested to see the curves for Belgium, as they've the worse per capita death rate. Australia is also fighting the 'weaker' strain, so reducing the lock down would make sense, but. Japan is an illustration of why our guard should not be dropped just to suit the news cycle. This outbreak is far too nuanced to fit into a sound bite.

[DrG]

It's supposedly mutating now. According to this Los Alamos preprint.
...

That's a very interesting set of graphs with some important conclusions. They show why Germany was able to supress the outbreak so effectively, because it was not facing the same R0 value as Italy. And then why Germany experienced a second more deadly peak. Also, why the UK and New York State have been so badly hit. I would be interested to see the curves for Belgium, as they've the worse per capita death rate. Australia is also fighting the 'weaker' strain, so reducing the lock down would make sense, but. Japan is an illustration of why our guard should not be dropped just to suit the news cycle. This outbreak is far too nuanced to fit into a sound bite.

I don't believe that those are safe assumptions at all (different R0 values) at this point.

When I posted the link to that study, https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/working-from-home-impacts-of-coronavirus/msg3051026/#msg3051026
I tried to make the point that mutations are to be expected. Even I am aware of several documented mutations and I think it is a safe bet that there are more.

The issue is whether this mutation is biologically significant. The author's argued that this one (the mutated SARS-Cov-2) made the virus more transmissible. The data for that contention are distinctly underwhelming. At this point, many do not agree with their conclusion in that regard. In my original post, I linked a thread that explicitly discussed that point.

That it is a valid "mutation" is not at issue.

Non-biologically significant mutations can still prove to be valuable for tracking the virus.

[thinkfat]

It's supposedly mutating now. According to this Los Alamos preprint.
...

That's a very interesting set of graphs with some important conclusions. They show why Germany was able to supress the outbreak so effectively, because it was not facing the same R0 value as Italy. And then why Germany experienced a second more deadly peak. Also, why the UK and New York State have been so badly hit. I would be interested to see the curves for Belgium, as they've the worse per capita death rate. Australia is also fighting the 'weaker' strain, so reducing the lock down would make sense, but. Japan is an illustration of why our guard should not be dropped just to suit the news cycle. This outbreak is far too nuanced to fit into a sound bite.

There was no second wave in Germany. We had one tiny initial group that was easily contained, and then we imported a lot of virus from Ischgl. That explains the high infection count in Bavaria. It spread in the western areas through carnival and through the clubs in the big cities, like Berlin. Other regions are hardly affected at all. My city has no more than 210 total cases. The whole Corona thing is a very regional event over here. We have some hotspots, but by and large it wasn't a big problem.

In fact it was so little a problem that people are now protesting the restrictions. Many don't understand that, had we done nothing, we'd be mourning many more deaths by now.