Dr. Gonzo

China imposed loads of restrictions relatively quickly. It was on the 31st of January when I got that notice from my work about the 5 restrictions the Chinese government put in place to prevent the spread of the virus: (restriction of "free travel" in big cities and certain regions; extending the Lunar New Year Holiday; forbidding more than 40 people at offices, factories, and warehouses; employees facing health inspection upon arrival to work; public transportation restrictions). That's just 8 days after this thread was started. Granted, Wuhan's a massive city compared to many cities in Europe so it's understandable China would take a drastic response - imagine if this disease had started in London (I think Wuhan's got more people than London); we'd expect a drastic response as well. I've heard from a someone who works at a company that's a client of ours that I met last year on my trip to Beijing, Harbin, Tianjin... he works in a regional office in Zhengzhou (in central China) that reports to the Beijing office I went to. Someone in his community (which I think when he says that, he means the tower he lives in - but I'm not sure) tested positive for coronavirus. In Zhengzhou they've imposed pretty severe restrictions on buildings where someone has tested positive for coronavirus. Since early February, his community (which again, I think means his building - but I'm not 100%, I'm not sure if there's just a mistranslation or not... but it sounds like he's talking about his building). Each family living in the building gets 1 pass for leaving their home between the hours of 11AM-3PM. So they can buy things, like food and shite like that. So his wife and his daughter, for over a month, haven't left the house in over a month. He told me he's lucky, because he lives on the first floor so he has a fairly large patio/balcony and that's how his wife and his kid get to experience going outdoors. He says there's other people in his building that other than the people with the pass to leave the house haven't left their homes or experienced fresh air for over a month. He's not been to his office since he's been put in this lockdown, but it seems like most people in China right now are working from home (granted, I know there's about 5 people in Beijing that still work from the office). But I know Beijing isn't undergoing the same sorts of restrictions that we're seeing in other parts of China. China's an authoritarian country, so it can easily impose restrictions like this without getting too much push back from the general public. Whereas in Europe, I think it's harder to tell people not to do certain things without expecting them to just completely ignore what they've been asked. But really really harsh restrictions like that are probably fairly effective at stopping the spread of the virus. I've seen Italy's done that now, but I do question whether or not us Europeans can stomach the same kind of restrictions China would impose.

Of course the Saudis bring petrol prices down while my car is in for repairs so I can't go fill up with the low prices today. Bastards.

Basically what happened in Wuhan.

I can’t see that happening but that would be great.

I think the lack of a handshake thing is really more just for "public awareness" that there's a very contagious disease spreading. It might seem unnecessary, but I've always been surprised at how many people really are oblivious to a lot of current events. Obviously, in a contact sport there's going to be a lot more chances to spread the virus among players than just shaking hands before the match. I think sooner we're more likely to see players playing in empty stadiums.

I imagine most countries it’s showed up in are under reporting tbh. Iran’s got big issues with an incompetent government & has a hard time getting access to testing kits. The US has competence issues with the head of state directly contradicting the CDC and WHO. And I don’t know enough about South Korea to comment, but I’d suspect that the long incubation period means there’s a lot of people infected that don’t know they should be tested. And I assume that’s probably the case everywhere, which means the actual number of cases everywhere is likely higher than the reported number of cases everywhere.

Ahh... fuck

Wow, that’s fucked up

First confirmed case in San Diego county. Fuck.

They're similar illnesses caused by different viruses. Both cause fever, coughing, body aches, fatigue, and sometimes vomitting and diarrhea. Both can be mild, severe, and even fatal. And both can result in pneumonia. Similarly, both can be spread person to person, through droplets in the air from coughing, sneezing, talking, spitting, all of that shite. And both can spread by an infected person days before symptoms appear (maybe weeks in terms of COVID-19 - we don't really know yet). I think the biggest differences between flu viruses and coronaviruses (because COVID-19 is just 1 coronavirus, other coronaviruses include SARS & MERS) is it's a different family of diseases. And as far as we know, COVID-19 - our "novel 2019 coronavirus" is caused by the strain of virus going around. With the flu we know it's caused by several different types and strains of the influenza virus. The other biggest difference is the higher mortality rate we're seeing from this coronavirus than we see from most strains of the flu. And of course, that because it's a new virus we don't have people who are immune to it & there's no vaccine currently.

I think people are expecting to be quarantined for a while, or to self-quarantine and not leave their house for a while. So they've taken all the bog rolls in San Diego and fucked off back to their houses for "stockpiling" - the selfish bastards. Personally, I think they're mental and a bunch of twats and I hope I don't run out of toilet paper anytime soon because of these selfish fuckfaces. It's also got me a bit worried about what else might become scarce. One of my cats has medically prescribed food... so if more people start this stockpiling mentality, I worry that he won't be able to get the food he needs to stay alive. I should probably order some now just to be safe.

Judging by how when I went to the supermarket yesterday and literally all the toilet paper had been sold out... I think some people have already reached that point

Yeah and something ridiculous like 50 confirmed cases in a few days

Tbh, I don't have a clue. I'm actually a bit nervous about them traveling back with the panic of this virus not really calming down because it just keeps spreading - I imagine airports are epicenters of infections right now. And I don't know when I'll be heading back to the UK, I had planned to go back in May actually but I never bought the tickets. And right now I'm a bit scared of traveling around other people - as just this morning we've been given a notice at work that all business trips we had scheduled are suspended until further notice. Which is pretty big news as a lot of us, myself included, go on several business trips a year.

It's definitely a slow burner, but I'm enjoying it a lot. Looking forward to playing more of these once they come out on gamepass.

California's declared a state of emergency after the first coronavirus death in the state and the virus has appeared in 12 different counties infecting over 50 people. They're now trying to locate anyone who was on the Grand Princess cruise ship to see if they've got the virus.

Man I love my parents, it’s shit having great days like today and knowing at the end of the week they’ll be back home and I’ll be back to being a world away from them.

I tried to get into it last year with a few friends who applied some pretty heavy peer pressure onto me... but sorry mate, just couldn't get into it at all.

That's understandable. I think some promising news is there have been no deaths of anyone younger than 9 with the disease (so far).

SARS and MERS have ridiculously high mortality rates though - so you'd think if they thought it was either of those, they'd be pretty fucking panicked.

Sadly, a lot of people in the Middle East think this is how diseases spread; that the germs occupy one body and if you pass it onto other people the germs are no longer in your body. Which is pretty mental and doesn't explain things like "flu season" or "the plague."

I'd rather be dead than willingly watch baseball tbh.

If it happens, I'm 100% killing myself.

Yeah, I noticed the graphics looked a bit dated - but that doesn't mean a whole lot to me. I still enjoy playing some really old games with really shit (well by modern day standards) graphics. I've heard enough good things about the game to give it a fair shake and be patient with it being a slow burner. It may turn out to not be for me, but I think it'll be pretty good.

Got stuck in Shadow Tactics, don't feel like looking up what I need to do. Seems like the difficulty has just ramped up tremendously and the tactics they teach you in the earlier levels don't really apply - so I'm gonna fuck that one off until I'm ready to come back to it with a different state of mind. Gonna start Yakuza 0 tonight.