Manic of a panic is geopolitical

[Nick]

March 16th Covid-19 modelling from Imperial College London:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imp...16-03-2020.pdf

[kriesel]

Going proactive http://nautil.us/issue/83/intelligen...andemic-coming

[a1call]

You can always count on drug companies to unnecessarily complicate things just to make sure they can turn a profit.
There are tens of thousands of recovered humans with ready to use antibodies in their blood plasma yesterday. Yet:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/17/rege...ly-summer.html

[ATH]

Coronavirus: US volunteers test first vaccine
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51906604

[Dr Sardonicus]

Coronavirus will cause mass insanity.

This is because it is causing many schools to close. Consequently, the kids will be home instead of at school.

Their parents will be driven mad, stark raving mad, I tell you!

[ewmayer]

Regular NC reader/commenter "David", long the go-to guy re. the Yellow Vests protests, gave an update from France this morning:

As of a few minutes ago, France is effectively under house arrest. Everybody with a mobile phone received a message from the government this morning with instructions to stay at home except for a few defined purposes. There was a link to a form which you have to print and fill in each time you want to go out, or write out in manuscript. One hundred thousand police and gendarmes will be deployed to enforce this policy, which in the first instance will last for two weeks.
Macron’s speech last night – the second in less than a week – was not particularly well received. From a technical perspective, I thought it was badly constructed and unconvincing, probably written in a great hurry. For example Macron spoke of a state of “war” seven times, but also said that these measures were unprecedented “in peacetime.” These are the sorts of contradictions that experienced speechwriters pick up, but the Elysée seems to have missed them. There was lots of vacuous rhetoric, but much less direct information. It was left to Castaner, the Interior Minister, to fill in the gaps at a news conference later;
The reason why the speech was broadcast last night is probably that the government realized very quickly that the decision to go ahead with the first round of the municipal elections last week was a mistake, and it was therefore necessary to cancel the second round on Sunday. But a government can’t just say “sorry, we made a mistake”, so other things have to be added as well, probably measures that were going to be announced in a few days anyway. Rather like Johnson, Macron has discovered that this isn’t quite the job he thought he was applying for.

You’ll probably see pictures of the Champs Elysées deserted at midday, but that’s not where the problems are likely to come from. They will come from two sources, possibly echoed in other countries as well. One, the major concern, is the banlieuex, the rough suburbs around Paris and the major cities. There, the population is mainly of immigrant origin, sometimes first generation. Many older people don’t speak French: quite a few, especially the young, are illiterate, many are there illegally, and whole extended families of 8-10 people live crowded together in one apartment. Over the last fifteen years, the State has pretty much given up on these areas: no serious attempt, for example, is made to oblige parents to send their children to school. The social and educational services are overwhelmed, the police are largely absent for fear of provoking conflict and even the emergency services rarely go into some areas for fear of being attacked as representatives of the State. Power at street level is held by drug traffickers and Salafist preachers from the Gulf who are taking over the mosques, and at local level by politicians (often white and some of them allegedly left-wing) who make accommodations with these caids in return for votes. So we’ll see, but let’s just say that there are parts of France, where millions of people live, in which enforcing these edicts is going to be tougher than enforcing them in a chic arrondissement of Paris or Bordeaux. Likewise, there are areas of several cities where there are large groups of illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe, living in tents (if they are lucky) with no running water or sanitation. Most of them are happy if they get to wash their hands once a day. Such encampments may well be ground zero for any sustained outbreak, and it’s not helped by the fact that there are already other relatively rare diseases reported from such areas.

Aside: can one of our French-speaking readers lmk of the proper pluralization of banlieu? I would've expected either banlieus or banlieux.

Relatedly, I've seen online commentary to the effect that the French government is now advising against the use of anti-inflammatory drugs, specifically NSAIDs, notably ibuprofen. Has anyone heard more about this? Many folks, first onset of classic "flu-like symptoms", reach for the ibuprofen. If that is implicated in Covid-19 susceptibility, it's important to know.

[a1call]

Re anti-inflammatory drugs,
See this post and the following 3 posts:

https://forum.cosmoquest.org/showthr...27#post2507327

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Relatedly, I've seen online commentary to the effect that the French government is now advising against the use of anti-inflammatory drugs, specifically NSAIDs, notably ibuprofen. Has anyone heard more about this? Many folks, first onset of classic "flu-like symptoms", reach for the ibuprofen. If that is implicated in Covid-19 susceptibility, it's important to know.

The only identified problem I know of in this regard is called Reye's Syndrome, which is quite rare. It is associated with the use of aspirin specifically, by those with viral infections like flu or chickenpox. I believe there is a warning about it on every bottle of aspirin sold in the US. Aspirin is also rough on the stomach.

Acetaminophen is known to be tough on the liver. There are warnings about taking too much of it on bottles of acetaminophen, and of medications containing it, like Excedrin. I don't know of any virus-related "syndromes" associated with its use.

Ibuprofen can be rough on people in various ways, but I don't know of any virus-related "syndromes" associated with it.

I've heard people claim that reducing a fever is a Bad Idea, but I'm not sure it is.

[kriesel]

Globally tonight:
197126 confirmed cases, 7905 deaths, 80845 recovered
7905/(7905+80845) = 0.0891 = 8.9% CFR
deaths/cases= 7905/197126 = 0.0401 = 4%

US:
6362 cases, 108 deaths, 17 recovered

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashb...23467b48e9ecf6

You know it's serious when Ireland closes its pubs on St. Patrick's Day.
And the hardest-drinking college towns in the US close their bars.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kriesel

You know it's serious when Ireland closes its pubs on St. Patrick's Day.
And the hardest-drinking college towns in the US close their bars.

It isn't just college towns closing the bars. In a bunch of states, all the bars -- and restaurants, too -- are forbidden to serve "sit-down" customers for the next two weeks, by order of their Governors. Take-out and delivery still allowed.

[richs]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Coronavirus will cause mass insanity.

This is because it is causing many schools to close. Consequently, the kids will be home instead of at school.

Their parents will be driven mad, stark raving mad, I tell you!

I'm home schooling my 6-year old first-grade granddaughter. She's learning plenty of math!