Welp, in my little slice of Philly suburbia the governor shut down schools and "gathering places" in Montgomery county, and the stadiums in Philly has stopped sporting events at the FU center until at least the end of the month. That's about it though.

Meanwhile all the fucking crazy older women are wiping out supermarkets, particulary toilet paper for some reason...

The origin of the bog roll thing is a complete litany of sheep following sheep.

Some weeks back Hong Kong considered sealing its border with mainland China. Didn't actually do it, just considered it. Hong Kong gets all its toilet paper from China, so Hong Kong people started stocking up just in case. Perfectly sensible from their POV.

Then people in Australia, which also gets at least some of its bog roll from China started doing the same, and then, according to some sources, someone in Australia staged a punch up in a loo roll aisle in a supermarket. Note staged - whole thing was a hoax, trying to boost a YouTube channel or something. Which promptly went viral.

At which point a tide of copycats descended on the supermarkets here in the UK, where we actually manufacture all our toiler paper in UK factories, and stripped them completely bare of bog roll, and started also panic buying hand sanitiser and random other stuff, causing supply chain mayhem.

And now it appears it's spread to the US too. Assuming this is the pandemic that ends humanity, future alien archeologists are going to wonder just why mankind, in our final generation, turned to the fervent worship of small cardboard tubes, as the intervening centuries will erase the paper but may leave some trace of the centrepieces. As we all know, anything an archeologist can't explain invariably gets classed as "ritual object".

Meanwhile, in a house near you, right now...

Thats hilarious about the toilet paper. So theres no reason to hoard it lol

Right!? Like I have Crohn's I tend to use a lot more than the average bear you see in the Charmin commercials, and I'm flabbergasted!

People are dumb...

I love how South Korea can test hundreds of thousands, yet the US is scrambling to test 1000. So glad there are enough test kits for our precious athletes and celebrities.

Don't worry, folks. Aid is on its way...

Dude, I don't know what you're talking about...we've had AIDS for 50 years now and they haven't helped at all...

I know, right? I think aids are great. I think everybody should have aids!

It's made up.

Looks like the Commander in chief might have come down with the corona.
At his age, that's a worry.

To use his own words.
"Ah Fu*ck!"

What is?

I was in the checkout line yesterday with 30 boxes of cake mix and 10 pie crusts, and the cashier didn't blink. "Good for you for stocking up on the essentials!"

Yup, last week the Dolt said it was a Democratic hoax, told people to go to work, and told old people to go on cruises. This week he calls it a national emergency, the market has collapsed, and the entire world is shutting down. All made up lol!

Clowns are great for entertainment but terrible in an actual crisis. I think I'm going to buy some silver toothpaste from Alex Jones

Not quite right here. The rumour that went round through WhatsApp and social media here in Hong Kong was that due to virus over the border in China that factories had shut down production of toilet paper. So people went crazy panic buying. The supermarkets had to come out and explain that much of their toilet paper doesn't actually come from China and that there were no supply problems. After a few days the panic buying stopped and now the supermarkets are overstocked here and it is all on special offer.

Laughter is the best medicine. Don't be depressed and alienated. Life is too short.

Welp... all the schools are shut down now and a bunch of businesses including my Planet Fitness. I'm pretty bummed. On the flip side, work said take everything home and don't come in until further notice.

::Cracks open a Corona Extra and watches the world burn::

Also, an interesting read. Never played WoW.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incident

All Sport and loads of TV productions in the western world have been shut down. This could be for another 18 months. Thats when they will have a cure and vaccine for it... So it will be blind luck if it goes before then.

This is the projected path for the UK with and without the measures we are adopting - or the one our PM used in his speech the other day anyway.

I get that it might change but can anyone fathom the time increments on this graphic for definite for me please? It's not really clear and I'm trying to work out whether to expect to cancel my (huge!) 40th birthday plans in June or not. I'm thinking I probably will tbh but the graphic is driving me mad without clear notation

worldometers

This is an informative link connecting all countries info on the coronavirus.

I dunno, but both of those seem to say "Fuck your entire summer" I guess a lot of people will see what the last almost ten years of my life looked like...

Hello everybody,

let me give you an update from a region that is already very affected and is sorrunded by corona hotspots. I live in Austria, part of my family lives only a few kilometers away from most affected regions in Italy. Some of you may have already read about the situation in Lombardy (region in norhtern italy) but if you haven't, do it ... https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/italy-s-ground-zero-corona-hit-us-like-a-tsunami-a-04c60857-416f-413b-8372-9d1d7f46707d . So you have a better idea what an uncontrolled spread of the disease means for a highly developed public health system. One should know that the region is one of the richest in Europe.

I am no alarmist and I have no interest in stirring any fears or panic, but I also don't want to be cynic and downplay something that might have really severe consequnces.

So here's the situation in Austria as of now:
We are a population of roughly 9 million people - so you can put everthing in perspective. So in size roughly between Georgia and Michigan.

We are part of the EU, so up till recently people could travel freely between member states - just like they still do now in the US. Austria - much like Switzerland, France and Northern Italy - has a lot of travel during winter as the ski season is in full flow. So naturally people from all over Europe mix in ski-resorts, bars etc. One hotspot e.g. was a bar in the ski-resort in Ischgl where over 100 ski tourists from denmark got infected from one barkeeper who tested positive at the beginning of march.

In the meantime ski-season has been closed practically all over Austria, Hotels are being emptied and several communities are already quarantined.

The overall number of known cases still sounds low (as of yesterday roughly 500) but if you have a look at the curve of infections you can see it's exponential growth of about 40% per day. That means a doubling time of roughly below 2 days. (I attached the number of infections in Austria). So the expectation is - without doing anything) that by the end of march that number would be over 100.000 (!!!!!) cases in Austria alone. That's not alarmist, that's simple math.




So what is Austria doing:
Since a week all public events over a certain size have been cancelled.
Universities have been closed and provide onine courses

In addition: Since two days the whole (!!!) country is preparing for lockdown. What does lockdown mean?

> Companies try to have people work from home where possible.
> Schools for children above 14 will be closed at least till Easter
> Schools for younger children & Kindergardens/daycare will provide service but only for chidlren of parents that work in areas that are necessary for basic public services (health, transport, police etc. ...)
> Everybody is asked to reduce social contacts to a minimum
> all shops except grocery stores and those that are essential for public life to keep working will be closed as of monday
> several communites have been quarantined and basically cut off from the rest of Austria

How do I feel as a citizen?
> I get constant easy to understand , realistic, and accurate information from my government (no mixed messages) via TV-pressers, websites. Most of private media (newspapers, TV etc.) multiply official information
> the whole health system was high on alert before the first case was detected, so it took a long time from the first case to be more of them
> testing is available when necessary, since end of february there is a nation wide hotline everybody knows and can call whenever you suspect to be infected.
> the city of Vienna (2 Mio people) hast started to install backup beds on the site of the vienna city fair to have backup facilities available in case needed
> travel to neighbouring countries has been widely restricted by now.
> we know as closely as possible how many infections there are, people still can be isolated
> nobody has any additional cost for being tested / treated ... just like with every other sickness -> so I am not afraid people don't seek help and remain under the radar

So overall I have the feeling we take the right measures. Drastic but right. The aim of everything we did so far is to prevent the health care system from being overwhelmed and people die simply because they cannot be treated. The idea is to slow the infection rate.
Have those measures been enacted early enough? The next few days will show, I'll keep you updated.
How long will this last? We don't know, there are too many factors playing into all of this.

Sry this post has gotten longer then intended. If i thas been helpful to anybody I am happy. If not just ignore it. If you have questions feel fre to ask.

I write because I am concerned about what's going on overseas. Si probably spreading the word helps a bit to assess what's ahead. Flying blind is not a good option.

The most comprhensive read so far for me:
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

I agree that it is not overreacting to deal with facts and I applaud all the countries like yours who are taking this seriously. Here in America, we gave up dealing in facts for dealing in lies and propaganda.

While other countries consolidate their efforts on the medical front and test as many people as possible, control crowds and shut down anything over a few hundred people, we only test those with severe symptoms and pretend it's no big deal. Even our fearless leader, who has been directly exposed three times and indirectly exposed 4 times that we KNOW of, holds press conferences on the virus while refusing to be tested, shakes hands, and touches his face and microphones.

While other countries are tackling the severe, long term blows to their economies with comprehensive and drastic fiscal and monetary policies, we argue about a nonsensical payroll tax break that has no hope of being enacted for 6 months to a year.

America will be hit harder than any other country because of our ignorance, arrogance, and denial of facts, and our leadership, who already blames China and the Democrats for a virus, will continue to fiddle while Rome burns.

When you hire clowns, expect a clown show. We are in for a train wreck of massive proportions on every front. Many people will suffer and die for political points. I fear for my country and my fellow countrymen more than I fear for my own health.

Madeline

The Coronavirus threat is a serious one. One of the Doctor's I know from Louisiana has had patients that were at Mardi Gras, just coming down with it two weeks later. It hits hard and for those at high risk (older people and people with respiratory problems). Once it takes hold of you, they have to put you on a ventilator. Hospitals only have so many ventilators and only so many rooms available. On Thursday Louisiana had only 15 confirmed cases. This morning, they are up to 52. Who knows how many from Mardi Gras are infected and went back to their hometowns. We'll see how many are confirmed on Monday.

I believe this is real.

I fixed that for you...

When I saw SPY up yesterday I bought more 3/20 put options and got screwed by the end of day rip. We'll see how monday opens. Hoping for another black monday.

I know, liquidation is the game now. Even gold dropped more in one week than it has since '08, everybody's taking cash out. Our government needs to put a comprehensive policy of both fiscal and monetary stimulus in place like all the others are to inject liquidity into the market or all we will get is the continual drop in all safe havens and trillions being pulled out. I need gold to go up or I'm screwed.

But hey, look at the bright side... our guy wears 5 inch shoulder pads and looks directly into solar eclipses... his machismo will see us through lol!

m

Funny and mostly correct but we didn't test Tom Hanks, he and his wife were tested in Australia, one of those countries taking it seriously and testing everyone so they can monitor, fight and isolate this fast spreading virus.

Haven't you seen The Monsters are Due on Maple Street? It's a social experiment. Ever hear the phrase Worrying yourself to death?

However we did take half the testing kits for Oklahoma to test our precious athletes.

I stock the shelves over night at a grocery store. Holy fucking shit...I've been doing this 13 years, and it's NEVER been this bad. Last night was the biggest load we've ever had, and that was NOTHING compared to what it's going to be like Monday night after having no load come in today...I don't get the toilet paper thing at all. It must have been terrifying for the day crew, because they stocked that, I imagine them slowly peeking out the backroom door, seeing nobody, and rushing to the paper aisle to start stocking and then BAM they're completely ambushed...I guess every morning there's a ton of people waiting to get in the store, and they all rush to the paper aisle to find it empty...ridiculousness.