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An Over-reaction? Locked

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Tuesday, March 31, 2020 5:53 PM

Those numbers are skewed by Italy,  which was very slow to lockdown. Ditto with models based on data from Italy and NYC. 

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Posted by BaltACD on Tuesday, March 31, 2020 6:42 PM

charlie hebdo
Those numbers are skewed by Italy,  which was very slow to lockdown. Ditto with models based on data from Italy and NYC. 

The world is always skewed.  I don't believe those numbers include anything that is accurate from China either.  One can always say this wasn't counted or that should not have be counted.  It is what it is.

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Tuesday, March 31, 2020 6:43 PM

Balt:  Your source is way behind try this one which has some analysis of number of cases and deaths by 1 million population.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries 

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Posted by BaltACD on Tuesday, March 31, 2020 6:54 PM

blue streak 1
Balt:  Your source is way behind try this one which has some analysis.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries 

Well the disease is happening in REAL TIME.  The counts will change with each new report.

Some people have trouble understanding real time reports that report in real time.  Dealt with any number of them when I was involved with the Chessie System computers.

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Tuesday, March 31, 2020 9:08 PM

Here is an opinion piece from aviation week.  The magazine is usually well informed.  The balance of the article is almost all airlines will be bankrupt by the end of May.  I would suggest anyone of our readers scheduled to fly after the end of May might want to cancel and get their money back or credit card refund.  That might be difficult but persistence may pay off.

These suggestions are because an airline wants to give you  credit for a later trip you might not ever be able to take

https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/airlines-lessors/opinion-covid-19-end-may-most-world-airlines-will-be-bankrupt?utm_rid=CPEN1000000511129&utm_campaign=23610&utm_medium=email&elq2=cab4cf3a2ff3432c9064c8cd10fcb576  

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Posted by Convicted One on Tuesday, March 31, 2020 9:44 PM

Concerning ourselves with the "rights" of the Airlines to operate profitably is what got us to where we now are, isn't it? Slamming the borders shut tight a month ago would have injured their stockholders, but the country as a whole would be far better off now.

Bankruptcy is a part of business.....there will ultimately be survivors. 

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Posted by Euclid on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 7:14 AM

When this virus is finally over, surviving society will be vastly transformed by the  effect of the marketing associated with news and advice associated with the pandemic. A big part of that change will be that distancing becomes a normal caution of daily life.  I can't think of anything that is more in conflict with that goal than riding a jet liner or a cruise ship.  Basically, all forms of public transportation will be highly stigmatized.  The only way this will be overcome is to completely redesign the equipment and marketing to promote the idea that public transportation is 100% sanitary, including the air we breathe. 

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 7:32 AM

Possibly private rooms on sleeping cars will become more popular and even regularly used for daytime travel, even reconfiguring new Acela with rooms.

Airliners and even buses may adopt this stratergy.  Intercity buses might load and unload in areas where  entrance and exit require the appropriate ticket or signal on the magnetic cards, as with Israel RR today, and the bus would be  configured like British slam-door compartment coaches, but each comparment holding only two adults and a child.

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 7:52 AM

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 8:00 AM

Possibly normal-width buses would have two such small compartments side-by-side, one loading on the right and one on the left.  A door between would allow the rare instance of a group of three or four.

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Posted by Deggesty on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 8:53 AM

daveklepper

Possibly normal-width buses would have two such small compartments side-by-side, one loading on the right and one on the left.  A door between would allow the rare instance of a group of three or four.

 

Would each compartment have its own toilet facilities? Of course, my experience with such facilities on buses has not been really pleasant.

Johnny

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 9:04 AM

Rest stops would make far greater sense.

Israel's MDA to treat coronavirus patients with new 'passive vaccine'
This assumes that those who have recovered from the disease have developed special anti-virus proteins or antibodies in their plasma, which could therefore help sick patients cope with the disease.
APRIL 1, 2020 16:00
 
The first patient who recovered from coronavirus donated plasma on Wednesday that will be used to create a “passive vaccine” to treat Israelis who are severely ill with COVID-19, according to Magen David Adom deputy director-general of Blood Services Prof. Eilat Shinar.
This assumes that those who have recovered from the disease have developed special anti-virus proteins or antibodies in their plasma, which could therefore help sick patients cope with the disease.
 
“When people are exposed to any disease, they develop antibodies,” Shinar explained. 
Passive immunization is when you get those pre-formed antibodies. An active vaccine, in contrast, is when you are injected with a dead or weakened version of a virus that tricks your immune system into thinking that you’ve had the disease and your immune system creates antibodies to protect you. 
In the first phase, plasma will be frozen and then delivered to hospitals across the country for patients to be treated by transfusion, Shinar said. In the second phase, the goal is to collect enough plasma to prepare antibody (immunoglobulin) concentrate with which patients will be treated later. 
Shinar said the Health Ministry is currently in discussion with two companies that can create the immunoglobulin and is writing a protocol for who can receive this treatment. 
MDA has been collecting plasma for more than 30 years and thousands of volunteers donate blood this way every day. Plasma with antibodies has previously been used in the treatment of patients with SARS during the outbreak in 2002. In addition, Israel offered a similar treatment to patients with West Nile fever. 
Last week, Shinar said, the FDA approved a similar protocol in the US. Earlier this week, the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article about plasma being used to treat five COVID-19 patients in China, which said the treatment “very much helped in their recovery,” Shinar said. 
Before being able to donate plasma, a patient must wait 14 days from the time he or she was confirmed negative for coronavirus via two separate swab tests - hence the reason the first plasma was donated on April 1. Shinar said that there should be another batch of donors available after Passover, those who were infected over the Purim holiday.
 
 
MDA will invite the potential donors to its Pheresis Unit at MDA’s Blood Services Center at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer. Though, Shinar said if there are enough donors from a particular city, MDA could set up a center there. Donors can also offer to donate on their own by calling 03-530-0445.
 
Plasma can be given as much as twice a month.
 
MDA director-general Eli Bin said his organization is at the forefront of the fight against coronavirus in Israel and he hopes that with this new treatment and others being tested in Israel and around the world, “We all hope that together we will overcome this challenge.”
 
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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 9:12 AM

Over 100 countries ask South Korea for coronavirus testing help

South Korea has received requests from 121 countries for help with coronavirus testing, a foreign ministry official said on Wednesday, as authorities around the world come under intense pressure to curb the spread of the disease.South Korea's massive testing campaign, backed by intensive contact tracing, has been credited with helping slow the spread of coronavirus in the country, which once had the second largest outbreak after China."We're getting so many requests from various countries as we have built experience from the early outbreak. The number, which is now 121 countries, is rising by the day," the official said asking not be named citing diplomatic sensitivity.South Korea has set up a task force to determine how it can offer assistance, either with exports of kits or other humanitarian aid, the ministry official said.The official did not name the countries but South Korean test kit makers have contracts to supply U.S. states and countries including Italy.

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Posted by Euclid on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 9:38 AM

I think the problem with public transportation goes beyond just the need for distancing from other people.  The problem is in the uncertainty of touched surfaces and airborne virus particles.  It is more a matter of trust than the actual physical details of santization.  Do you trust people to do a good job of surface sanitization?  I don't. 

I used to trust that hotel rooms were clean because I trusted the people who do the cleaning.  But now we live in a different era where I do not trust hotel staff at all.  The entire hotel experience feels like dealing with a con game.  If they don't clean surfaces, there is no way in the world that anyone can prove that.  So of course they don't clean surfaces. 

So the new way of travel will be not to travel.  We are leaving the service economy and entering the brave new, "Stay home economy." 

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Posted by PJS1 on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 9:44 AM

Euclid
 When this virus is finally over, surviving society will be vastly transformed.....................  Basically, all forms of public transportation will be highly stigmatized.  The only way this will be overcome is to completely redesign the equipment...........

And the money for these transformations would come from where?
 
Except for those families suffering a COVID-19 death, which even under the worst-case scenario probably will be less than 1% of the population, most people will have moved on within 12 to 18 months of the end of the crisis.  As was true following the Civil War, Johnston Flood, Galveston Hurricane, WWII loses, etc., most people will put COVID-19 behind them. 
 
People will travel for business and pleasure.  There may be fewer short haul flights and more trips by car.  There may be fewer international flights, at least initially.  Some short corridors may see improved passenger rail and/or bus service.  Cruise ships will again be popular. 
 
Hopefully the nation will stop the blame game, which benefits no one, and act to help mitigate the impacts of future pandemics. 

Rio Grande Valley, CFI,CFII

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Posted by Convicted One on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 9:49 AM

Euclid
The only way this will be overcome is to completely redesign the equipment and marketing to promote the idea that public transportation is 100% sanitary, including the air we breathe. 

Perhaps this raised awareness and the need to accomodate heightened sensitivities will ultimately be Boeing's salvation?

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Posted by Overmod on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 10:02 AM

For comparison, in the United States donors can give 'platelets' (part of the chain that produces clotting in wound healing) every 2 weeks.  Presumably effective pheresis of immunoglobulins could be conducted on a similar basis, once the necessary experimentation is done.  

I still have vague misgivings about the safety of this method of conferring 'immunity'.

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Posted by Convicted One on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 10:12 AM

Euclid
So the new way of travel will be not to travel.  We are leaving the service economy and entering the brave new, "Stay home economy." 

Hey, if this thing takes some of the wind out of the sails of the hucksters trying to promote HSR, it will be seen as a good thing in my book. Wonder how California is thinking about their little experiment right about now?

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 10:24 AM
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Posted by Euclid on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 11:17 AM

PJS1
 
Euclid
 When this virus is finally over, surviving society will be vastly transformed.....................  Basically, all forms of public transportation will be highly stigmatized.  The only way this will be overcome is to completely redesign the equipment...........

 

 
Except for those families suffering a COVID-19 death, which even under the worst-case scenario probably will be less than 1% of the population, most people will have moved on within 12 to 18 months. 
 

It is not just the people who have caught the virus that are going to transform.  It also includes those who worry they will catch it, and that is nearly everybody.  I think the panic will die down eventually, but in the meantime, I think the panic will rise.

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Posted by Convicted One on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 11:52 AM

Euclid
It is not just the people who have caught the virus that are going to transform.  It also includes those who worry they will catch it, and that is nearly everybody.  I think the panic will die down eventually, but in the meantime, I think the panic will rise.

There are other effects that I suspect will be lasting.  There will be vacant buildings standing testimony to the businesses that did not survive this downturn...who knows how long that might persist?

Locally I've seen two Subway franchises close down where their furniture inside is completely gone, despite the note on the door claiming the closing to be due to the pandemic. Likely the current malaise just accelerated a decision that had already been made, but that too is just speculation.

I liked his comparison to hurricanes and floods. It reminded me of driving along the Mississippi gulf coast in the mid 1980s. You'd see mile after mile of bustling development, and then just a segment that was absolutely barren except for a cropping of weeds.  Asking the locals why,..  I was simply told "Camille"......which had come through 15 years earlier.

Calamities can have lasting effects despite the best of optimisim.

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 11:58 AM

Another face-mask URL:

https://m.box.com/shared_item/https%3A%2F%2Fstanfordmedicine.box.com%2Fv%2Fcovid19-PPE-1-1

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Posted by BaltACD on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 12:00 PM

Convicted One
 
Euclid
So the new way of travel will be not to travel.  We are leaving the service economy and entering the brave new, "Stay home economy."  

Hey, if this thing takes some of the wind out of the sails of the hucksters trying to promote HSR, it will be seen as a good thing in my book. Wonder how California is thinking about their little experiment right about now?

And then we will all cluster around the local politicians castle as serfs serving their master.............

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Posted by Miningman on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 12:00 PM

There will be permanent changes in business, transportation and society as a whole.

Movie theatres may be done for. They should be done for anyway,  Maybe Drive In's  make a huge comeback.  That works.

Cruise Ships are finito. Every time someone coughs all hell will break loose. They are prisons. You got to be nuts to ever take a cruise ship again, ever. 

Euclid pointed out a bigger problem and he is correct--- public transportation, especially subways. Maybe the beginning of the end of large cities. Complete redesign. Trains like Amtrak could go to high platform individual compartments. Why not? 

Education will be transformative too. 

All of this will be demanded by the public going forward from here on. 

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Posted by York1 on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 12:07 PM

A big change for me and my wife has been talked about.

We have vowed never to be caught like we were this time.

We got used to going to the grocery store every other day, sometime two or three times a day.

Now, once we are past this mess, we are going to try to keep at least a month's supply of most things.

York1 John       

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Posted by Convicted One on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 12:09 PM

Miningman
Trains like Amtrak could go to high platform individual compartments. Why not? 

Especially if you can persuade people to pay a little extra for the added safety.

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Posted by Overmod on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 1:15 PM

Miningman
Trains like Amtrak could go to high platform individual compartments. Why not? 

Real good initial reason: there are nowhere near enough high platforms nationwide to make this sensible.  You'd need stepboxes (or fold-out stairs or footboards) for every single side door everywhere there wasn't a high platform ... and you need the high platform the whole length of the train (or section of cars) so equipped, not just at one or two doors as the 'corridor' equivalent would provide.

The far better approach -- outside the NEC and a few current stations -- is to design the side-door stock as inherently low-floor and provide the necessary very low platforms for this adjacent to, or perhaps co-located with, stations that have the high platforms.  There are the usual advantages with lower center of gravity, higher speed, easier pendulum tilt, etc. as well as vastly lower cost of 'reasonable accommodation' for people requiring it under the ADA.  

You can then address the next critical question: the very large number of doors and door motors, and space inside pockets, involved in such designs.  Theoretically you could make these with 'slam door' equivalent, or folding doors a la bus/streetcar, but these are not practical for even PRIIA speed with safety and reasonable (negative-pressure) space conditioning with individual-unit isolation.  Let's hear your solution to this.

More fun with the disinfection that may be uniformly required -- the modern, augmented equivalent of the little paper seat covers in pay toilets.  Perhaps dispensers for surface wipes, built-in hand sanitizers with very large reservoirs, misting devices for surface viral denaturation.  Not difficult, not particularly expensive, lots of fun convincing current Amtrak personnel to stock and wipe regularly!

I won't go into the bathroom requirements, but they aren't fun.  Reading between the lines, though, Amtrak personnel won't have to worry any more about 'certain cohorts' trashing the bathrooms!

Presumably there can be some sort of mobile food service that runs down the platform at stops, like the 'gamins' in Europe in the '20s, offering various kinds of service.  Worked then, probably works both 'self-contained' (from one of the Viewliner bags appropriately fitted with lifts) or 'local option' (think Uber Eats using a cart instead of a car).  And gets rid of the whole diner issue, without that troublesome need for accounting for all the expense, and without involving shame in cutting expensively-contracted-for amenities...

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Posted by zugmann on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 1:46 PM

Miningman
All of this will be demanded by the public going forward from here on. 

Most of the public I see wants stuff to return to more normal.  theaters and schools included. 

 

 

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 2:02 PM

zugmann

 

 
Miningman
All of this will be demanded by the public going forward from here on. 

 

Most of the public I see wants stuff to return to more normal.  theaters and schools included. 

 

 

 

I have to go with Zug on this one.

Now this is strictly my opinion, I'm not a sage and certainly no genius, but I am a student of history, and once this is all over and done with I think we'll see the economy come roaring back as it did in the post-WW2 era.

The paralell?  Not exact, but during WW2 everyone who wanted a job could get a job.  But at the same time people making money had few things to spend it on, considering rationing and the lack of consumer goods.  

A post-war depression was predicted but it never happened.  Once American manufacturing switched from wartime to consumer goods all that money burning holes in peoples pockets came out and got spent.  Cars, refrigerators, new radios, new homes, you name it.  There was an economic boom that lasted (more or less) for 20 years.  

I suspect that once the "shelter-in-place" and lockdown orders due to this current crisis are lifted we'll see something similar to the post-war spending spree, at least among those with money to spend.  It won't happen overnight of course, the post-war boom didn't happen overnight.  But it did happen.

Just an opinion.  Again, I'm not infallable.  But I am a believer in the old saying "The more things change, the more they stay the same."  And of course, human nature never changes.

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Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Wednesday, April 1, 2020 2:08 PM

York1

A big change for me and my wife has been talked about.

We have vowed never to be caught like we were this time.

We got used to going to the grocery store every other day, sometime two or three times a day.

Now, once we are past this mess, we are going to try to keep at least a month's supply of most things.

 

Well everybody had life style ideas before this, and many will change theirs after this.

But, I don't know where you live, or how close the grocery store is, but my wife would never want to go to the store every other day, which is about 10 minutes away for us.

We were pretty well stocked, we have not even had to think about buying many things yet, like toilet paper.........

Sheldon

    

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