Covid-19 News/Updates

Excellent interactive graphics from the NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/22/world/coronavirus-spread.html

That’s one of the most intuitive graphics that I’ve seen. After South Korea got hit extremely hard 17 years ago with the Sars coronavirus, I’ve come to realize how they were so prepared now and testing 20,000 per day from the beginning. It’s easier to pull from stock versus the creation of one. Until now, I’ve never really respected the fact of why I’ve seen a lot of people wearing masks every time I’ve flown through Busan, Narita, or Hong Kong.

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So, hearing through our company (OSV operator) that Thunderhorse had a rig hand medevac’d earlier this week and has tested positive for COVID-19. Our company has decided not to carry passengers with out prior approval by the owners. Not sure how this goes for our crew boats, but it for sure applies to PSVs. It’s not often we carry passengers, but we were recently asked to carry a passenger onboard so he could escort his equipment back to the dock.

For those who can’t get past the paywall:

It’s popular to accuse Americans of being soft, unwilling to sacrifice. But the counterpart to that conventional wisdom — namely, that Americans rise to the occasion — was on full display this week. Instances of individual generosity, humane business decisions and neighborly good deeds abound.

We should not forget that we saw unprecedented actions from governors in California, Illinois and New York to essentially shut down their states, asking people to stay home and businesses to shutter except for essential activities (e.g., keeping hospitals running, food shopping going). Governors instituted the most dramatic and widespread disruption in memory, affecting tens of millions of people. (Other states are also ordering less extensive lockdowns.)

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) announced on Friday afternoon his stay-at-home directive. “I don’t come to this decision easily,” he said. “I fully recognize that in some cases, I am choosing between saving people’s lives and saving people’s livelihoods. But ultimately you can’t have a livelihood if you don’t have your life."

In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) dubbed his order “Matilda’s Law,” a reference to his elderly mother, who is in the category of those most at risk.

Not only did they and other governors act decisively, but people generally cooperated. No riots broke out. No one marched on governors’ mansions with pitchforks. The streets emptied, subways and buses ran practically empty, and those people who could worked as best they could from home, juggling kids and other responsibilities. If people refused to comply, there would be little law enforcement could do to coerce compliance. But coercion was not necessary. Like the famous British World War II poster, Americans did “keep calm and carry on,” albeit with some understandable grumbling.

It is easy to point to miscreants hanging out on the Florida beaches or the toilet paper hoarders, but millions of people stayed put. Businesses told people not to come in. Schools and civic entities closed down. Americans were asked to put their lives on hold at great personal cost and with no end in sight. They responded not only out of a sense of their own well-being but because they understood that their actions could either increase or decrease the number of infected individuals, and in turn the number of fatalities.

I don’t want to jinx us. We should be aware that patience may wear thin and people may bend the rules after weeks or months of social distancing. However, as badly as some politicians have behaved, people as a whole have been good citizens and good neighbors. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an exemplary speech to her countrymen, "We are a community in which every life and every person counts.” It is comforting to know we are as well.

For their remarkable resilience, selflessness and patience, we can say, well done, Americans. For some inspiration and encouragement, take time to watch Merkel’s speech (with subtitles):

If you haven’t heard Chancellor Merkel’s extraordinary speech, here it is. It’s about twelve minutes.

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Merkel is a good leader. I grew up in Germany and a fluent speaker. There are some supply chain issues at the moment over there. My dad has made several trips to the commissary in Grafenwohr for items not available on the economy (Although he makes trips normally for his stammtisch buddies for steaks, turkeys, etc). I’ve been talking with him daily. I worry about him at 75 years old, but all seem to be well where he is at the moment.

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4 posts were split to a new topic: Corona Virus and Superstition

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A maybe interesting report from the CDC about the ill-fated cruise ship ‘Diamond Princess’ at Yokohama, and the transmission of COVID-19 among crew members during quarantine >>>
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6911e2.htm?s_cid=mm6911e2_w#contribAff

Probably shouldn’t read this thread, then.

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Science magazine interview with Dr. Fauci.

@MickAK

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The body language of doctors Fauci and Birx are priceless.

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I noticed the John Hopkins map has been updated to graphically show each case per municipal jurisdiction.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

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13 posts were split to a new topic: Fauci

Mostly per county. NYC may be an exception.

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Five hundred patients in Northern Italian hospitals are now ventilated using Decathlon snorkel masks adapted with 3D printed parts. An example of clever improvisation!

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That looks pretty cool and 3D printers are definitely mega cool. But…they are extremely slow! It’s hard to see how you could manufacture enough of these things using 3D printers.

By running a bunch of them in parallel. I have an acquaintance who runs a small business with five of them.

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Here, some seem not to be concerned, if the Corona virus hits passengers and crews on cruise ships…

However, it was foreseeable that scientists will closely evaluate what happened on these ships; a significant laboratory with thousands of subjects, confined into a well-known space. It is known where all were coming from and going to, and their behavior on board is known to a large extend.

Infections on a merchant ship, with 20 or less crew, are always a special case with no clearly defined scientific learning effect.

Here is a new report from the CDC >>>

This is surprising:

“SARS-CoV-2 RNA was identified on a variety of surfaces in cabins of both symptomatic and asymptomatic infected passengers up to 17 days after cabins were vacated on the Diamond Princess but before disinfection procedures had been conducted (Takuya Yamagishi, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, personal communication, 2020). Although these data cannot be used to determine whether transmission occurred from contaminated surfaces, further study of fomite transmission of SARS-CoV-2 aboard cruise ships is warranted.”

If other research confirms this as dangerous, as it looks at first, our behavior must change, on small tugs or large ferries, and all over the countries’ land side.

Which if I’m reading it aright says that virus had been on those surfaces; but not that it was still in working order seventeen days later.

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As far as i know, the virus consists only of RNA, it is not a living creature.
Further research will show.