COVID-19

[pcallahan]

I commented in random posts, but I think COVID-19 is an appropriate Sandbox topic of interest to everyone around the world. I know some people on this website are in China, where it sounds like they have things under control. Not so much in the US, but at least it's starting to be taken seriously.

I am in the SF Bay Area, soon to be under order to "shelter in place." https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/16/ ... r-in-place It's a strange way to look at it, as if the virus is lurking everywhere outside my house, but there are reasonable exemptions for outdoor activity as long as you maintain social distancing. It's about time that policies were put in place. People have been engaging in bizarre hoarding behavior (bulk toilet paper purchases) but not really doing so in a way that protects them from spreading the virus.

I have found this site useful in visualizing the current spread and comparing countries. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries The US is still on an exponential trajectory and we're probably undercounting due to a lack of testing. At this rate, I estimate something like 33% increase per day, or 10x the number of cases every 8 days. Anyone want to check my math?

I have been following news in Italy. I would like to think it won't be as bad here, but I have absolutely no evidence to persuade me of this. It could be much worse due to our fractured healthcare delivery system.

Curious about anyone else's experience.

[Saka]

I am in the province of Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Thankfully, as I know, there is only 1 known case in the province, a 3 year old child.

However, measures are being taken. Most schools have temporarily switched to online learning for 2 weeks and they are also being sterilized.

Various events are also being cancelled, social distancing and self-isolation is very much encouraged. Handshakes have been replaced by a "Namaste"-gesture-style greeting. Masks are more common.



I don't know the current condition in other parts of Indonesia, but I imagine the measures taken are similar.

[Hunting]

A lot of death appeared in Guangzhou, I feel nervous.

[JP21]

This is terrifyingly terribly happy news! I'm in Subic, Zambales, Philippines and I know how to kill the virus. I need to time travel to the future and get the vaccine. That's too hard.
There's only a hundred of cases in here and most in Manila.
Now I know! I need to stay inside here at my house. JK that's what I've been doing for more than a year (unless school)
yeah i dont belong in this thread but that coronavirus, i will destroy it in my head just to be satisfied

[GUYTU6J]

A lot of death appeared in Guangzhou, I feel nervous.

Really? According to 丁香园, there's only one.
Frankly I don't understand why you'd feel that nervous, if you rarely go out and protect yourself well.
As for me, I'm taking online courses in Guangxi. Our major steps include scanning QR codes upon arriving&leaving public places as well as taking temperatues. It's well-controlled here and I don't worry too much.

[Hunting]

A lot of death appeared in Guangzhou, I feel nervous.

Really? According to 丁香园, there's only one.
Frankly I don't understand why you'd feel that nervous, if you rarely go out and protect yourself well.
As for me, I'm taking online courses in Guangxi. Our major steps include scanning QR codes upon arriving&leaving public places as well as taking temperatues. It's well-controlled here and I don't worry too much.

My 信息来源 probably has a probelm - for a while It says 4 death everyday.

[pcallahan]

A lot of death appeared in Guangzhou, I feel nervous.

Really? According to 丁香园, there's only one.
Frankly I don't understand why you'd feel that nervous, if you rarely go out and protect yourself well.
As for me, I'm taking online courses in Guangxi. Our major steps include scanning QR codes upon arriving&leaving public places as well as taking temperatues. It's well-controlled here and I don't worry too much.

My 信息来源 probably has a probelm - for a while It says 4 death everyday.

If https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... try/china/ is accurate, China has reduced growth from exponential to something like linear and is closing active cases. The US is only just starting to take it seriously. Assuming there are exposures that won't show symptoms for a week or more, I think 100,000 cases is a very optimistic estimate for the number of cases in the US. We're around where China was on January 27 in number of cases, and we are not taking anything like the measures in place at that time in China. I am very worried.

[Rhombic]

As several of you might know, I live in Spain. The current lockdown is a pain but I am extremely glad our government has been brave enough to take such rational measures. From what I can tell, the enforcement is being pretty good so far... likely to last for 4-5 weeks (>2 times the contagious stage of the virus).
Anyway, bored, trying to do exercise at home, working from home, reading... you get it.

I was intending on working on CGoL again but I don't know where I could get started. It's been a while, unfortunately.
Anyway, best wishes to everyone.

[bubblegum]

I live in Surrey, in Canada. My neighbourhood has a few confirmed cases and two schools are due for thorough disinfection. My mom's immediate family lives in Guangzhou, same as Hunting apparently. My cousins live in Vancouver, that is, my cousin, his wife and their two children, one 3yo and one a bit over 10 days. As far as I am aware, all the other members of my family live in Wuhan. Ouch.

I intend on resuming CGOL when this is behind me, maybe trying apgsearch.

[gameoflifemaniac]

I live in Poland where there are over 200 confirmed cases. Luckily there are no confirmed cases in our neighborhood, but all schools are closed and yet we still have to study and do homework in our semi-quarantines :/

Also, my uncle returned from England and we can't even see him although he 2 km from us because he's in a quarantine

[pcallahan]

I live in Poland where there are over 200 confirmed cases. Luckily there are no confirmed cases in our neighborhood, but all schools are closed and yet we still have to study and do homework in our semi-quarantines :/

Also, my uncle returned from England and we can't even see him although he 2 km from us because he's in a quarantine

This is more like the plague than anything I ever imagined living through. Granted, I am not surrounded by death, and I do hope to keep it that way.

[EvinZL]

I'm in Massachusetts where Biogen had a huge meeting and now all schools and playgrounds and dine-ins are closed

[pcallahan]

I'm in Massachusetts where Biogen had a huge meeting and now all schools and playgrounds and dine-ins are closed

We didn't have any big incident in Santa Clara county, but we're about the same. Schools closed and only take-out. "Shelter in place", advised only to go shopping for necessities. There are no restrictions on being outside and keeping social distance, so parks aren't closed. I guess a playground might be since it would be possible to spread the virus through shared surface contact.

[yujh]

Now,where I live people are all wondering outside! Schools are going to open(???)Crazy.(I live in S_ _ _ n_ _ _ i)

[Saka]

5 cases in my province now, with one somewhat near to me

Now,where I live people are all wondering outside! Schools are going to open(???)Crazy.(I live in S_ _ _ n_ _ _ i)

Shanghai? Shanwei?

[yujh]

5 cases in my province now, with one somewhat near to me

Now,where I live people are all wondering outside! Schools are going to open(???)Crazy.(I live in S_ _ _ n_ _ _ i)

Shanghai? Shanwei?

Shanghai.

[Moosey]

5 cases in my province now, with one somewhat near to me

Now,where I live people are all wondering outside! Schools are going to open(???)Crazy.(I live in S_ _ _ n_ _ _ i)

Shanghai? Shanwei?

Shanghai.

That has too many blanks
it should be S _ _ n _ _ _ i

[yujh]

5 cases in my province now, with one somewhat near to me

Shanghai? Shanwei?

Shanghai.

That has too many blanks
it should be S _ _ n _ _ _ i

Oh yeah I haven’t noticed it.(It’s just a mistake that no one cares about.

[pcallahan]

Ping!

No real update here. Just "chillaxing in place" in Santa Clara county, California, as I have been trying (unsuccessfully) to rebrand the lockdown policy. I am glad I can work from home, but it's not like I have any spare cycles to work on CGOL either. Just barely enough focus to get my work done, and then it is back to staring aghast at exponential growth charts.

Hope everyone else is coping in the pandemic.

[rowett]

Hope everyone else is coping in the pandemic.

All good here so far! Day 1 of the UK lockdown. Fortunately I can work from home so plenty to keep me busy

[Hunting]

School is coming soon...

[yujh]

Actually not here in Sh.
The new cases are increasing every day.
It’s very a sad thing.

[pcallahan]

Though I don't quite believe it, total cases in the US seem to be on a linear, not exponential growth path over the last few days: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

New York is also taking the brunt of it now. There could be all kinds of artifacts skewing the data, but maybe the lockdowns are helping.

[otismo]

What if it is an intelligent virus ?

Every iteration implementing what it learned in the previous one...

[pcallahan]

A random thought that might have been better for US Pi Day:

"The SARS-CoV-2 genome ... is an RNA molecule of about 30,000 bases containing 15 genes".

The world record for memorizing digits of pi is 67890. Others have memorized 30000 or more digits. The bases A, U, C, and G are as easy to memorize as digits 0-9. In fact, you could compress them further by pairing them up, since there are 4, not 10 and encode the sequence as 15000 hexadecimal digits 0-9,a-f. Neither sequence has much of a pattern. In fact, I would bet there are a lot more repeats in the viral sequence.

So it is well within human ability to memorize the entire RNA sequence of this virus that is throwing the world into chaos right now. Not a useful thing to do, but just weird to think about.