SmokeyGhost

For what it's worth I understand the county has a death rate of 6.75 per confirmed case. For the USA overall it's 4.77 per confirmed case.

It would be harsh to judge the entire US for the recent upswing in cases. Those states which were badly affected early on (New York, New Jersey, etc) are generally doing really well keeping things under control now. It's other states (California, Texas, Florida) which now have exponential growth in new cases. If only they had somehow known what was going to happen based on the experiences of other people from their own country.

Bother. These are numbers I, and many other, don't like. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=STYLN_coronahub&variant=show&region=header&context=menu And down south of the USA, Latin America is getting hammered. Brazil is awful numbers. Sometimes winners are grinners. Not this time.

Seems a lot are doing some heavy number crunching. This is one group specific to NY. https://gothamist.com/news/coronavirus-statistics-tracking-epidemic-new-york

It's tragic. When you look at the deaths per 1m population World 22.8 USA 137 NY alone is 1,004 Of course I don't know the social demographics of those who are deceased or which specific area or region in which the deaths occurred. so that may have a factor on the numbers - not that it matters to them or their familes. So very sad. I don't give a rats about politicians or their ideology. I'm only interted in what action the authorities are doing to protect the health of their citizens. Difficult though as they need to balance that against the economic issues. I'd hate to be the one having to make the decisions.

There is a train of thought there may not be a vaccine. Fingers crossed this immunologist is wrong. "Professor Ian Frazer, the immunologist who co-invented the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine which prevents cervical cancer, said a coronavirus vaccine was “tricky”. He told news.com.au that although 100 different teams around the world were testing for vaccines, medical scientists did not have a model of how to attack the virus. The professor of medicine at Queensland University, which is testing for its own COVID-19 vaccine, said immunisation against coronavirus was similar to immunising against the common cold. It is tricky, vaccines for upper respiratory tract diseases, because the virus lands on the outside of you, Prof Frazer said. Think of us as a football, with the skin and respiratory tract on the outside of the football and the lungs are where the outside interfaces with the inside. The place where the virus lands is outside us and it tries to infect the cells within us. Our immune system is inside of us. When it lands inside our lungs it tries to infect our cells and succeeds. Our immune system goes to fight the virus and that’s why people get sick. If the immune system turns on too strong it can cause damage to the lungs. The wrong vaccine could make things worse so we have to be very selective about what part of the virus we want to attack. If you immunise someone with a vaccine, it goes inside and makes an immune response within you. What you want is an immune response to migrate out to where the virus lands. There is no vaccine against the common cold.” Prof Frazer said that with flu, the immune response inside a person’s body didn’t occur until the flu virus gets inside them. “We tried to deliver a vaccine to the lungs with the Flu Mist which you snuffed up your nose, delivering the vaccine to the place where you need an immune response, but it didn’t work terribly well,” he said. Coronavirus doesn’t get into you, it stays on the surface cells in your lungs. All these flu viruses get into you, so the body can fight and makes T cells. “This virus doesn’t kill the cells, it makes them sick. At the moment we don’t know how to make a coronavirus vaccine work. That’s why there are 100 vaccines under testing using every conceivable approach. We don’t know if any of them will work. Prof Frazer said a vaccine for the 2003 SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak was never successfully developed and then the virus burnt out. SARS broke out in China and didn’t spread as far, partly because overseas travel by the Chinese population was not as great 17 years ago as it is today. But, Prof Frazer said, it also had diluted potency as it went from host to host. As it passed from animal to the first human and then through the second human, as it passed through every human it got a little less good at infecting people,” he said. The virus attenuated itself; it got less powerful. It may well be the same with this virus. It’s not very effective in making us sick. It may become less effective. We are now mapping it as it goes and changes are occurring in its genetic make-up, small changes. Changes to it in China led to the virus becoming less virulent or sick-making. At the moment it’s not passing through a lot of people in Australia. Prof Frazer said coronavirus was less infectious and not as deadly as MERS, the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome or camel flu which broke out in South Korea in 2015. “MERS was very efficient infecting and making people sick,” he said. One person who went to South Korea from the Middle East infected 170 people and a third of those died. He went through four hospitals before he was diagnosed, but in South Korea they were very effective with contact tracing. MERS is much nastier than coronavirus. Prof Frazer explained the annual vaccines prepared against the winter flu by the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL) were not entirely effective. Each year CSL “takes about a quarter of Australia’s egg supply to make the vaccine,” he said. Prof Frazer explained the annual vaccines prepared against the winter flu by the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL) were not entirely effective. Each year CSL “takes about a quarter of Australia’s egg supply to make the vaccine,” he said. We purify the protein parts of the virus out of the eggs and make the vaccine out of that. But it’s not 100 per cent effective at all … for older people (because) as your immune system gets weaker as you get older. “With measles you are protected against it for life. The vaccine kills any virus that gets into your blood. We don’t have a mode that works against other coronaviruses.” Prof Frazer, who is currently developing vaccines for cancer, is working with a team of medical scientists on a trial for a coronavirus treatment drug. The intervention drug’s purpose is to dampen down the inflammatory response in high-risk coronavirus patients. He said for 99 per cent of people who got coronavirus it was a trivial illness, but that was not the case for those in the vulnerable categories." End of quote Basically, take as much care as you can not to contract Covid-19. It has to be extremely difficult for many due to the impact of unemployment and social restrictions. Still, it would be even more worrying if there was a second or third wave which came through. It happened with the Spanish Flu so I suppose there is no reason not to expect the same with this virus. A portion of the population may not understand. Many in this country don't.

The data is linear. Logarithmic indicates the infection and death rates are still upwards.

Exponential. One infects three, those three infect another three each. After the 10th iteration it's 59,000. Can get worse especially in areas where there is poverty and overcrowding whch can happen with inner urban areas or refugee camps. Apply a mortality rate of possibly 3% but that isn't known exactly. Also wait for possible second wave which occurred with the Spanish flu although hopefully some lessons from that are still remembered by other than health researchers. Ain't good. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

The era of the introvert has arrived. Many have been waiting years for this.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ Appears to be getting even worse. Now over 10,000 deaths in Italy and close to 6,000 in Spain. Take extreme care pps. This may probably last for months. From quick talks I have had even though a mammoth effort is being put into to develop a vaccine and amazing progress has been made in two months, the expectation is it will take around 18 months for one to be available. That time frame is still astounding when you consider it can take years.

It's the numbers. One person infect three. In turn those three infect three others each. After the 10th iteration it is 59,000 infected. Either let it rip or this modeling can apply. https://www.smh.com.au/national/8-in-10-australians-need-to-stay-home-to-flatten-the-curve-new-modelling-20200325-p54dsu.html Depends on individuals adhering to it, or made to do so, as well as the Governments approach. Best of luck you may need it.

Some stats for your country. Nah, it's nothing serious, cough, cough. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

You may wish to try: https://www.redcross.org.au/ Oops, forgot. If you want to listen to some news then probably stream Australian Broadcasting Commission: ABC South Eastern NSW and ABC Gippsland For maps https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-information/fires-near-me http://emergency.vic.gov.au/respond/

I don't come to this or any other forums much any longer but I was curious on whether Digger was impacted by the fire. So glad to learn you and yours are safe. Very sorry to learn you lost a lot but happy your actual home is OK. Going to be tough with re-starting again. It has been awful as in effect the entire eastern seaboard of Australia from the Queensland border down and through to Victoria is ablaze. Three firefighters have died as have people who got trapped tying to defend their homes or couldn't get out in time. My area has been covered by smoke haze for about three weeks from fires down the coast. It's nothing compared with the hell those on the fire ground are going through. Especially bad here last night with visibility down to less than 100 meters and it stings the eyes if you're nutty enough to go outside. Most seem to stay indoors to try and avoid the smoke but it can be difficult to sleep at night if you like windows open. It hits people in different ways even though they are not in direct danger. A good neighbour across the road from me said she wakes at night with worry. But then both she and her husband are scientists so I guess they have an appreciation of things to a greater degree than me. Having been through the 2003 fires which hit Canberra, I am now very, very wary and have my skedaddle kit packed. Not many places to go however, so it'll be to a local sports ground which is open and pretty much away from trees not that it will help much. Canberra doesn't have many exits points as they all go into and through bush which is the potential danger. Other neighbours seem relaxed. That or they are drunk. Anyways, good to know your OK Dig. Take care.

What I've concluded form all of this is there ain't no consistency. Same applies here. Federal income tax, local State tax on homes (called rates and currently assessed on unimproved value of the land the house sits on,) stamp duty on purchase, if investor there is land tax, absentee tax, you name it tax - I don't and never have invested in residential or commercial property as there are way too many hassles . Equivalent of VAT (called Goods and Services Tax) on most but not all goods at 10%. Capital Gains Tax on sale of investments - 50% discount if held for mot than 12 months but included in your income and taxed at marginal rate. So frigging confusing I try and keep all my financial matters as simple as possible.