NBA season suspended

[bleedspeed]

If we hold on like this for 6 months we will still have people getting it. It is just trying to slow it down enough to prepare and flatten the infection curve. So if we go back to normal in say 6 weeks we should have done a good job with that. Currently, 3100 people have been tested in Minnesota. 89 have been tested positive. We are only testing people at risk and with symptoms and of that 2.8% of the people that are sick have it. The other 97.2% have something that is just as bad to warrant the test in the first place.

The most important thing will be people's habits. It is not the most contagious virus. The Jazz are a good example. Two out of 20-30 people on the Utah Jazz team/staff that share planes/buses/lockerrooms together got it. That is around 10% Of them they have basically minor symptoms. My friend's wife doesn't have it after sharing the same house under quarantine and bed before that. We can't test people fast enough no matter how many tests we can do. If we could test a million people a day it would take nearly 310 days to test the whole US. Masks are more important than testing in my opinion. Treat for it is typical to stay home rest and fluids. If you are at risk keep avoid people.

Masks reduce spread by not letting it get airborne. This should be a priority one in my opinion.

[bleedspeed]

Anyone else worried that in about 9 months from now we will have a huge spike in births? The Corona Kids. We won't have enough diapers or formula.

[Coolbreeze44]

I find it fascinating how many people are asymptomatic with this thing. It's impossible to know how many people have it because a majority just don't feel sick. I feel a little vulnerable because my wife is a manager at a high traffic local grocery store chain. My office only has about 10 people in it, but I actually feel more secure there than at home.

One thing I believe is that the time interval to a vaccine is going to be shorter than most think. There is too much attention on it, and too much urgency to not see these timelines moved up.

[Monster]

Anyone else worried that in about 9 months from now we will have a huge spike in births? The Corona Kids. We won't have enough diapers or formula.

One of my friends said they will be called the "Coronials".

[bleedspeed]

COVID-19 Clinical Trial Launches at University of Minnesota
https://med.umn.edu/news-events/covid-19-clinical-trial-launches-university-minnesota

[bleedspeed]

Anyone else worried that in about 9 months from now we will have a huge spike in births? The Corona Kids. We won't have enough diapers or formula.

One of my friends said they will be called the "Coronials".

It will be crazy. We have basically the largest generation in their peak birthing years forced to be together. We need to start planning for new schools now.

[Monster]

Anyone else worried that in about 9 months from now we will have a huge spike in births? The Corona Kids. We won't have enough diapers or formula.

One of my friends said they will be called the "Coronials".

It will be crazy. We have basically the largest generation in their peak birthing years forced to be together. We need to start planning for new schools now.

In about 14 years we will be overrun with Quaranteens. Hey gotta have some way to make up for the drop in population right?!?

[SameOldNudityDrew]

Here in Germany, basically all schools and businesses have been officially shut down (doing home office) for the last week, although many started a week or two before that independently.

My wife and I have both been working from home for a couple weeks, and our kids have been home now for a week. It's a bit tough to homeschool them while also teaching my own students remotely (I'm a teacher in an English-language school). We upped their TV quota! We live just down the street from my wife's parents, and they usually go hang out with "Oma" and "Opa," (who spoil them like any grandparents) several times a week, but they don't get to do that anymore. That's been a bit hard.

They shut down most land borders for nonessential commuters (not commerce) a week ago. For many Germans, it has felt like a return to Cold War-era Europe, since they've been able to drive from country to country without even border checks here for decades, like driving from Minnesota to Wisconsin.

About that time they also shut down most flight to, from, or within the EU. On clear days, you can usually see lots of airplanes flying into and out of Frankfurt from where we live, but they are noticeably more rare these days.

As everywhere, the virus is already here, so these measures are really just to slow its spread. I live in a village of about 700 people on the edge of a big forest, and in the next village over (just 2 km away) they have diagnosed cases. One is the neighbor of our friends. In the middle-sized city nearby (about 70,000 people), they have more cases. And there are plenty of cases in Frankfurt, the biggest city near us.

Other countries have instituted much more complete shutdowns. Italy was first obviously. Then Austria, Spain, and now France. People are basically not allowed to leave their homes in those countries right now unless it's essential. I just heard California took this step too, and I bet New York is next. We're effectively there in Germany now, although they're not handing out fines to people on the streets like in those other countries (culturally, Germans follow rules much more strictly than the French, Spanish or Italians).

A lot of us here in Germany go skiing in Austria in February (schools traditionally have a "ski week" break at that time, and workers get a lot more vacation time, so parents usually take that week off too), and so do a lot of Italians, so they think that may be part of what has spread it here.

To prevent hoarding, stores have put limits on the number of certain items you can buy (sanitizer, toilet paper), which has helped. A running joke here is that German stores are running out of toilet paper, and French stores are running out of red wine and condoms.

It turns out they don't have as many testing kits as they initially thought they'd need, so we can't test as frequently as in South Korea, for example. That means the virus has certainly spread much wider than the number of diagnosed cases indicate. That's partly why we went to lockdown--they knew there were lots of cases that were undiagnosed either because they were asymptomatic or just looked like typical colds. I came down sick last Tuesday evening, and am still recuperating a bit, but I feel a lot better. I never had a fever or knew I had contact with anyone who was infected, so I didn't get tested but have basically just acted as if I were positive, avoiding all contact. I was skiing in Austria, and I teach a lot of international students, and Frankfurt (where I teach) is very international, so I could have actually picked it up. It was probably just a bad cold, but who knows? Better safe than sorry.

The death rate here has been relatively (and thankfully) low so far. Part of that may be that these quarantine measures have limited the number of cases, but part of it is probably that the health care system here is more robust than in Italy, France, Spain (or the U.S.). There are more hospital beds available per capita. The population generally is healthier too (lower rates of smoking and respiratory disease, lower obesity rates). That matters because fewer people need medical care in general, so the healthcare system has been able to absorb the increased caseload. In Italy, doctors and hospitals have basically been having to triage care, turning down people for treatment, cancelling operations, etc. People are dying not just from this virus, but because the health care system is so strained they can't handle other stuff as well, cardiovascular disease, etc. Germany is better poised to deal with that when it hits. It also helps that everybody has pretty good health insurance here (basically no co-pays or deductibles--we do pay higher tax rates for it, though, obviously), so people unhesitatingly get health care more quickly for stuff that in other countries, people might hesitate to pay for. That helps explain why Germans have lower rates of preventable chronic conditions and are generally healthier. So there's hope the health care system here is going to be better off than in other countries. Having lived in both the U.S. and Germany, I have to say I'd be more worried about whether the U.S. healthcare system is ready to handle a crisis, and the lower rates of testing there and slower response suggest the crisis there could get worse than it is here.

Unemployment insurance is also more robust here, so that is expected to mitigate the economic impact somewhat as people are starting to lose their jobs. I don't know anybody here who has lost their job yet (though I wonder about the custodial, culinary, and support staff at my school), but my friend's mother, who lives in Ireland, is a dental receptionist and was just let go.

Oh, and one last difference: I've had the time to sit down and write a long-ass post like this one on the thread after basically being on hiatus for the past season. And I have been liberated from thinking about what an awful team we continue to have year-in, year-out, continuing once again this year. I've been a Wolves fan for 20 years, and was posting on the ESPN board regularly as far back as 2002-3. But I think I might finally be at the point when I start to let go. I've had flirtations with other teams in the past but I couldn't imagine latching on to any other one. Now though, I feel even more inclined to embrace the fragmentation of the league and just enjoy different teams and players as I like. It doesn't ruin the game for me. I don't feel as invested in any one team's wins and losses as I have with the Wolves, but I do feel like I enjoy much more variety, and I get to focus more on the basketball itself rather than thinking so much about all the front-office stuff that has held us back for years. When this is all over, and basketball comes back, I'm going to appreciate this game, this league, all these players and personalities, and especially the teams with good chemistry and work ethic, even more than before.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Thanks for the update Drew. Good stuff. Germany is a country that has its act together. But as you mention, a lot of what works has as much to do with decades or centuries-long cultural characteristics as it does governance model. Rule following as a cultural trait is enormously beneficial in a situation like this! May be not so much if you are trying to invent the next ground breaking technology....

The U.S. is a sprawling, diverse country that places individual freedoms above all else. It also has a fairly decentralized governance structure, which reflects this diversity. What works in California, for example, may not work for North Dakota. While this is normally a feature and not a bug, it probably is not ideal when fighting a pandemic.Hopefully we'll start bending the curve here, but so far we're still seeing escalating rates of new cases.

[TAFKASP]

Anyone else worried that in about 9 months from now we will have a huge spike in births? The Corona Kids. We won't have enough diapers or formula.

They can just wrap them is some of that TP they hoarded and Mommy has formula on tap. No worries!