Dr. Gonzo

Wikipedia'd his grandfather. Learned that the Trump family started their real estate empire by running brothels. Thought it was fitting. Also now I think Germany owes the world big time for banishing Freidrich Drumpf for being a draft-dodger, making him remain in America and eventually his grandson would be probably the most powerful man in the world and mismanaging a superpower's response to a global health crisis.

Yeah unless you looked at the total number of confirmed cases and then saw that China's number blows Italy well the fuck out of the water

What's shifted? The rate at which it's spreading? Again, it's probably because China very quickly took more extreme measures to contain the virus (although I think extending the Lunar New Year holiday led to loads of people traveling and spreading the virus) - and because they had to, considering how it's China and Wuhan, a city of 10m +, isn't really considered to be that big of a city. But they've been taking containment of the virus very seriously since the first week of the outbreak reaching international news (shame they didn't take it more seriously in December, when that doctor warned the government & was silenced - RIP guy who tried to warn us about the disease). There's a lot of ways where you could argue Italy's response may have made things worse. Taking people's temperatures when they arrived at airports created a false sense of security, because so many people carried and spread the infection while they weren't showing symptoms. Banning flights from China was a bit weird, because what they should have really been doing is banning people who'd recently been to affected areas like Wuhan - many Chinese people found their way into Italy after the China air travel ban by just changing flights elsewhere in the EU and then ending up in Italy. And Italy didn't have a shared protocol for how to deal with the virus at first - so different areas were doing different things to stop the spread to different regions in Italy. Now the government is stating that a universal protocol needs to be followed. Honestly the worst person I'd want in charge of a health crisis is Trump. The man can't form a fucking coherent sentence, yet I'm supposed to trust he's going to see this crisis through. A close second person I wouldn't want would be Mike Pence based off his handling of AIDS in Indiana (he caused an AIDS epidemic in his home state). I especially worry that it'll clear up as temperatures rise in our hemisphere in late Spring/Summer. And people will forget all about it. And then like the Spanish Flu, there will be a second wave once temperatures start to cool. And that second wave will be much more devastating than the first if it follows the trend of the Spanish flu. But that's just paranoia. Having said that, the paranoia's got me assuming everyone I see is a disease ridden fucker that needs to get the fuck away from me. So wash your hands everyone & don't touch your face.

VW stopped selling Diesels in America

I don't understand why they'd hire Mourinho after a pretty disastrous start to the season, then sack him after he's taken this squad that has looked lost since day one of the season... while he's also dealing with an injury crisis. That would just be an expensive way to waste money and for Spurs to show they can go through two good managers in the period of 1 season if their squad doesn't seem ready or up for the fight of a long difficult season. Don't see the point in that - especially if they're not going to give him time to really transform the squad a bit.

Speaking of cars, my lease is up in a couple of weeks and I've got to get another one or buy this Golf... but I'm gonna be honest, I don't care if it's a bit of a waste of money - I like leasing cars so I get a new car every three years. My last 2 have been VW Golfs. I'd like a GTI, but I really don't see the need to make my monthly payment be much higher just for a car that'll be more fun to drive... when I actually go places that I can actually have fun when I drive. Most of the time now, I'm just driving in traffic in the morning - so no real fun is had. And that makes me think I want something with good mileage & that's comfortable for me to just be sitting in. I also want it to be a hatchback if possible. My wife is less enthusiastic about me getting another hatchback though, but that's because she's American and Americans hate hatchbacks for some reason.

Isn't that what VW were saying? I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as clean diesel, unfortunately. A shame because my Golf TDI was one hell of a car.

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.