Here is something to put the Corona Virus into perspective, at least for Americans.

The low end of the World Health Organization's corona virus death projection in the U.S. is more than double the combined U.S. death toll from World War Two plus the Vietnam conflict.

Vietnam. Deaths.:. 58,220
WW-Two Deaths: 416,800
WHO Estimate: 1,000,000 --- 2,000,000

tanstaafl.

Some numbers with some citations are here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/us/coronavirus-deaths-estimate.html (admittedly these are still estimates based on a lot of guesswork).

And, as always, make sure to double check information. Snopes is trying to keep on top of misinformation about coronavirus: https://www.snopes.com/collections/

Let's hope that enough people are able to isolate themselves, so that we don't reach those numbers before a vaccine is available.

By the way, for sites which like to cover their page with popup boxes when you're trying to read the articles, I've been happy with a Chrome plugin called Just Read. Doesn't work for every site, but it works for enough of them to make me happy.

I'm not trying to minimize those numbers and it's terrible, but also remember the US population during WWII was about 40% of what it is now.

This web site provides great charts, so you can see how different countries, or different states in the U.S., are doing relative to one another at containing the virus. A particularly interesting set of charts here are "normalized by population".

Facts of note:
- The U.S. average growth rate is 1.35x per day (!)
- Texas is growing at 1.41x per day, although we're nowhere near as bad as many other states.

Also, it's important to know that any change the states introduce to reduce the growth rate won't show up in these numbers until two weeks later, since that's (supposedly) the incubation period for the virus.

In short, until we get this growth number below 1.0, then we're not going to be able to get the virus under control. And even then, to *keep* it under 1.0, our daily life routines, post-isolation (whenever that happens), will be quite different, at least until we have proven vaccines. And that, unfortunately, is not happening any time soon.

Lastly, an important note: these data represent a lower bound on the actual infection rates. Until testing becomes much more widespread, we won't know the actual infection rate.

http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization

Excellent resource. The curves for China and South Korea are very promising to look at, seeing them go flat after they implemented their measures.

Also, for China & South Korea, you know they've got (relatively) good testing. For many other countries, it's best to treat these data as a lower bound. The real numbers could be much higher, meaning that fitting a straight line and deriving a growth rate might be inaccurate.

These are absolutely a lower bound, especially with regards to the US.

My county public health administrations response to people showing symptoms isn't "come get tested", it's "stay home unless you're sick enough you think you need medical attention."

i.e. stay home, unless it's really bad.

One of the biggest hospital labs in the tri-county area only got supplies to perform testing about 5 days ago. And only enough for 3000 tests, with verbal agreements from vendors to make best efforts to continue supplies.

I am currently at home in the guest bedroom. I've had a cough, fever, headaches, etc since Friday. The clinic I called literally told me "stay home unless you're dying." So I may be one of those uncounted numbers (we had a fellow in the office from France, up through the 17th). Or I could just have inappropriately timed flu. But I don't think so. At least the symptoms have been super mild, so far, and don't seem to have been progressing.

Sounds silly to ask but after so many years in this place... how's everyone doing?

Just checking-in from Rome, Italy.

As you know, we've been in lock-down for a while now.

Wishing you all all the best. This'll be over, sooner or later. Keep your spirits high.

Thanks! I'm in the Washington, DC, area. We've been at home the last couple weeks, barring a couple shopping trips and walking the dog. We're doing OK, just a little stir crazy and anxious as I imagine everyone is.

I've been doing a lot of spring yard work. My wife works for the US Senate - she had nine 15-hour days in a row getting the relief package together (from home, fortunately). My 16yo son is doing the tele-friend thing and his best to stress test our wifi (it's holding up fine, fortunately).

Since we're doing capital cities.. Hey Claudio! All okay here in semi-locked-down Ottawa, Canada. We've been reading the news from Italy regularly, and hoping for the best.

(new)SWMBO and I have been starting tomatos, peppers, etc.. from seed, and wishing for a couple of sunny days so we can open up the greenhouse.

Keep well everyone!

At the moment, I and my family are OK.

We've set up a small decontamination station in the yard next to the door into the kitchen. Nothing (people, packages, etc.) goes through that door without being sanitized.

My frustration isn't about being voluntarily confined. I am frustrated because despite all my Henny Penny the Sky is Falling rants of doom and destruction, so many people are still not taking this seriously.

Being in the high risk category (75 years, recent pneumonia) I take this a bit more personally than some. I gave up responding to one lady with rose-colored glasses who castigated me (on another website) for spreading fear and uncertainty ("You're not being helpful!") when I posted WHO numbers, current infection rates, the observed mortality rate, and the magic of exponential growth.

The irony is, my post on that website was only peripherally concerned with Covid-19. A year from now we're going to look back on these recent weeks as the Good Old Days when our biggest concern was dying from some damn virus. The economic apocalypse is at hand. Deutsche Bank will likely be the first domino, and then...

The sky really is falling.

But that's a topic for another time. Nobody will listen anyway,I know how Cassandra must have felt. At least nearly all of my assets are in tangible, useful things.

tanstaafl.

Better than most. I think I'm probably the person in my family who is best suited to an extended stay at home. I have tons of projects to do around the house, my funds can probably last through the quarantine, and I don't get stir crazy very easily. It's the rest of my family that I worry about, since we have two small kids with boundless energy. Fortunately they're not really begging to go out and do the things we usually do, but I just wish I had a better way to entertain them. Again, we're more fortunate than most, with a yard and a play set. But they've been doing that on every sunny day we have, so it's bound to lose its luster soon.

My wife and I have also been dealing with horrible allergies that have turned into eye/nasal infections. That's been a blast! And it's great to have coughing fits and worry that you have a deadly virus that might kill you or a loved one. So far, we're ok, but it goes without saying that things really suck right now.

Doing fine in Houston. Normally I go on bike rides with a group of 10-20 people. Now it's just me and one friend, keeping our distance.

We’re both fine here in Essex. Confined to the house except for food shopping and one bit of exercise a day, like the rest of the UK.

We’re desperately missing our kayaking/canoeing though, especially me. I broke my ankle last November, so I was bed bound for months. I was just starting to get out and about again when the virus arrived.

Still virus free in our household here in Columbus, OH (state capital of Ohio...does that count?). For side income, we run an AirBnB in our basement that used to be occupied about 25 days a month. We've lost literally every reservation from March 10 or so through the end of May so far, except one traveling nurse who has shifts at the hospital not far from our house. That said, I work for a State agency that is fully funded by the Feds, and our funding is already intact for this fiscal year. So my primary job is safe so far, and I can work from home. I can't imagine what it's like for AirBnB hosts that depend on properties for their primary income. My son with cerebral palsy has a bit of elevated risk because he can't cough efficiently, so we're trying to go out as little as possible. However, we're realizing that we're absolute rubbish at shopping for a couple weeks at a time and remembering everything to make complete meals. This is leading to some strange meal combinations.

Doing fine here in London. I've been working from home for the last 6.5 years, so that part's not bothering me. Having the wife (working from home) and kids (school's closed) in the house will take some getting used to.

We're fortunate to have a relatively large garden (for London) and a park nearby, so we can at least get the kids some exercise. My personal trainer's started offering sessions over Facetime, and Jen's Kempo class is doing twice-weekly sessions over Zoom, so at least we're getting exercise. I've also been out on my bicycle once last week and will probably do that again. Oddly, the roads are quieter than the canal towpath (Grand Union from Park Royal to Paddington Basin) that I would normally use.

What's bothering me is the indefinable sense of difference. I'm used to being indoors all day, but the idea that I can't go out as easily just sits awkwardly. Needing to actually plan lunches, because I can't just nip out for a sandwich, for example.

I shouldn't complain though. None of us are ill; we don't know anyone close who's ill. We do have a couple of at-risk friends and relatives (asthma, immunosuppressed, age, etc.), but they're all physically OK right now. One friend is an ICU nurse, so she's obviously at high-risk, but the last time we spoke, she was coping.

Welp, my state (Virginia) just issued a stay at home order, with potential misdemeanor charges for violating it. Only allowed to leave the house for medical or grocery needs. Not sure what that means for my house wiring jobs, which I was still taking because I can try to be the only one on site.

I can't complain because everyone we know is healthy. The primary bummer we have is that we had booked a trip for the kids' first trip to Disney World at the beginning of May. We also made the mistake of telling them about it (before this virus stuff hit), and now every time they watch a Disney movie my 2 year old daughter gets all excited about how they're going to see the castle. Ugh.

So great to hear from people here.
I guess I want to tell you how things are here, then, in Rome, as I asked, but I have not told.

Situation is so unreal because of the horrible news we hear on TV every day, and... we're all OK. I don't happen to know directly anyone who was directly hit by Covid19, which is supposedly quite something in the country that was hit first and hardest in Eu. But still...
Certainly Rome does not have many cases overall, and it is quite far from the places in the country that were hit worst.

I live in the metropolitan area of Rome. Rome is a city of 5 Million people, quite large physically, and plagued with quite bad traffic, in general. For years I've been telling my wife that it'd be a really amazing city if it only had 1/3 of its average traffic, and less pollution, and noise.
Fate loves irony.

Rome is quiet. Feels strange to even type and read it back.
It feels as if it is covered by a blanket of eerie beauty. I live in a mostly residential area in the north of the city, and my street is mostly desert, with the notable exception of delivery trucks. UPS, DHL, BRT, Poste, seem to be the only signs that a civilization is actually still operating, under that blanket of silence.

My wife and I both work from home. She had done it in the past, for years, so she's OK. I never did that in my life, and it is weird. We're lucky that our apartment is relatively big. And, we have a balcony. We step out, look around at the desert city. People sometimes waive their hands at you from their balconies and windows, which is nice.

We managed to buy food on-line, mostly, but we had to go to the local supermarket three times, because in one case our grocery could be delivered only after 3 weeks (!) since the order was placed.

And the birds. I never heard so many birds chirping and singing in the city, and I live near a fairly large city park. Nature does seem to slowly take over the city, and it would be beautiful if we did not know the reason for that.

I suppose the idea a lot of the world has of Italy, these days, is much worse than it actually is for most people, that is the many lucky ones like us who are not in the most heavily hit parts of the country.

I too have a small "decontamination" area in my apt. entrance. We try to clean and sanitize anything that makes it into our home, for what it is worth.

Our spirits are high, all considered. I suppose we appreciate how lucky we are, even though I think we both still feel the all situation is so unreal, so fiction-like. Maybe, by the time we fully realize and integrate what is happening, we may start to slowly go back to normal. I hope.

Funny thing, I have a group of college friends I used to meet, back in the day - 20 years ago, more or less -, for great LAN parties. Two of them were even Empeg owners!

We loved StarCraft.

It's 5 of us, and we live in 5 different parts of the country, all of us doing different jobs.

We kept in touch though the years, and we've had a Telegram chat for few years now. Following one of our trips on memory lane, in these Covid19 days, joking about the college times, we decided we should play StarCraft again, while confined, in the name of the old days.

And so we did. Three times! We laughed a lot. We eventually spent the $10 needed to upgrade to the remastered version of StarCraft 1, just to enjoy modern better monitors and graphics. And it was good to realize we never really fully grew up.
Don't tell them, they positively think they're responsible adults, haha.

AZ goes into shelter at home today (Tuesday) at 5pm. Not sure it will do much good, since the list of essential businesses include things like spas, nail salons, golf courses, etc. That order will stay in effect until 30 APR.

I've been working from home since 11 MAR. It isn't a big deal for me, I've worked from home a couple days a week for years. As late as Friday the 13th, work was telling people they were monitoring the situation. By Monday they were telling everybody that could work remote to work remote, if you could but don't have the equipment, get it from IT and work remote. The only people on site at any of the facilities are there because they can't do their job from home (manufacturing, classified, facilities, etc).

One of my friends that moved to Rome a while ago sent a text talking about their situation. They were told that they would have to start using PTO to cover days their plant is closed, and to prepare for as much as a 50% reduction in pay for up to 18 months.

Interesting times, for sure. Maybe now I'll get around to rewiring my front room's entertainment setup.

Trying reeeeeeally hard to not be cynical about that little exception that seems to be the case in most places. I get that you're not near other people most of the time, but you're touching a lot of the same stuff and requiring staff to be there. I hate this so much.

Spas don't make sense, but barber shops would. My kids needed haircuts before this all started, and now they're looking quite shaggy!


I think we're until June 10th here. That's nuts. *edit* (I don't mean nuts as in "we shouldn't be doing that" I mean it in the sense of "holy crap what is this world we're living in?") */edit*

No one needs a haircut.

(says the man who has been cutting his own hair at home for 20 years)

I knew I should've gotten a Flowbie.

I've already warned my wife that I'm looking at Wahl hair clippers...

I'm just outside of Boston living on a former Army military installation, so we're fortunate to have a a lot of space for walks and the streets are safe for our two kids to explore on their bikes. My 12yr old is coping just fine, she has a school issued iPad and is very self motivated, so she is keeping herself busy - and also getting a D&D campaign going with some school mates. My 9yr old isn't handling the change in routine at all well, but in the big picture is coping just fine. He'd be much happier if we left him alone to Minecraft.
My wife is a stay at home mom, and has stepped up her game to insure we all stay somewhat sane. I'm fortunate that I can do my job from home, and have a quiet space to do it from - the 9yr old needs to bounce out energy a lot (noise cancelling headphones also help). I'm fortunate to have an understanding boss and team mates, I suppose it helps that we're all in the same boat, some with kids some without, but all in some sort of lockdown.

At some point this will come to en end, but I fear the economic hangover that is coming and it's ripple effects down the road.

Lol, true. It's more that I worry for the stylists and their lost income. I've been going to the same lady for almost 30 years, and frankly I'm only going to her until she retires at which point I'll just buzz my own hair

But my kids need a little more expert help. They don't sit for us, but she has a calming presence for them and they tend to listen to other people more than their parents

On the same general topic, I'm getting really fed up with the "Will covid 19 kill the X industry ?" headlines.

Replace X with an industry that will be required/wanted by society again after this is all over.

No, it won't kill the restaurant industry, oil industry etc

Lots of current players in those markets will go out of business. But restaurants open and go bust all the time, people will fill the gaps. And the oil will still be in the ground and people will still want to burn it, if in less vast amounts to start with.

It's hard to really wrap our heads around the macroeconomic impacts of this, especially in countries like the U.S. with no meaningful social safety net. A substantial fraction of people in the U.S. live literally paycheck-to-paycheck and have no ability to absorb unpaid leave.

So, yeah, some businesses might fail, but their employees are the real damage.

Right.
No "industry" will be killed by Covid19, for sure.

On a case-by-case basis, some companies may be. The longer the shut-down, the more may die.

It's going to be harsh for some (always too many) people, of course.

Rather than the lock-down, it is uncertainty that will cause most damage, I think. If, ideally, we knew when/how we'll resume business as usual, proper planning would be so much easier. But we do not know.

Just now Gov't in Italy stated that lock-down has been extended from April 3rd to April 13th. And, they'll move from there depending on how pandemic is going.

Let's just hope for the best.

I figure lock down here is until at least August, maybe longer.

I suppose it pretty much has to continue until either half the population gets/recovers/dies from the virus, or until a vaccine is widely deployed.

I am hoping mid-May here.

August is going to be really tough.

On the other hand, "lock-down" means different things in different countries, at different times into the crisis.