Covid-19 pandemic

[Balderdasha]

First case reported in Ireland.

[Nefertiti2]

https://twitter.com/hshaban/status/1233845240739565570?s=20

[Balderdasha]

Now affecting 64 countries and territories.

[Diable Rouge]

https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/1233861643211243524

The man had travelled from northern Italy.

[jwdd27]

There was a much bigger crowd at Costco this morning than usual. I saw signs that they were limiting the number of cases of water that people could buy, which makes me think that some people are stocking up. I guess people think that the virus will mess with the water supply somehow.

Today's sales for my employer are up 15% year on year, which strongly suggests there's some hoarding/panic buying in progress. The state of retail at the moment any positive percentage is a cause for jubilation, so those figures are stunning.

Interesting regional variations, with the regions around London knocking in a pant-shitting 30% growth, South Wales and the West Midlands also a panicky 20-25%, but single, couldn't give a shit digits from Lancashire, the North east and Northern Ireland.

Shit out of luck if you want a face mask or hand sanitiser though.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

It did occur to me that the hand sanitiser industry might not be able to satisfy a sudden 100-fold increase in demand. Re panic buying more generally, having been a regular Ocado customer for some years (sorry Nef, never knew about the Tory donor thing till you posted a few days ago) I got my first ever message from them a few days ago about exceptional demand. And they seem to be out of stock of many lines of tinned fruit.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Wow, it's almost as though people in wealthier regions can afford to stockpile, whereas people from poorer regions can't.

[DCI Harry Batt]

See, this is what I miss by using the ignore poster function. Mind you, didn't Sainsbury bankroll the SDP? And Tesco that awful Tory council leader whose name escapes me?

[ursus arctos]

Thread on Costco

[URL="https://twitter.com/cfhorgan/status/1233781259329048581?s=21"]https://twitter.com/cfhorgan/status/1233781259329048581[/URL]

[Janik]

No-one has told them that by joining a large disparate anonymous crowd in an enclosed space they are putting themselves in absolutely prime conditions for catching and spreading infectious diseases, have they?

[caja-dglh]

WOM will be seriously put out that these people are interfering with his regular Saturday lunch of CostCo samples.

[ursus arctos]

No official statement on this can be made without Mike Pence's approval.

After calling Covid-19 "the Democrats' latest hoax" at his rally last night, the president couldn'teven get the gender of the first US fatality correct.

It isn't exactly an information-rich environment over here.

[caja-dglh]

I do sense that those panic buying in the US are mostly Democrats with a very real fear that we will not know how dangerous Covid-19 really is as a threat. Because it will be downplayed.

Fortunately Wall Street's finest are whacking the President where it hurts him most, though it does look like he will make some money as interest rates are almost certain to go down, to the benefit of the empire he quite clearly - REALLY - is oblivious to the positioning of.

[Fussbudget]

Is Costco the only place that sells water and toilet paper in North America? Why is everyone going there?

[ursus arctos]

A huge number of people here assign no value to their time

[Amor de Cosmos]

Perhaps I'm thick or just plain callous I dunno. I understand this virus is spreading like wildfire and people have tragically died because of it. At the same time the recovery rate, so far, appears to be high, or am I wrong? It just seems to me that everyone's gone rather Chicken Little at the moment.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Have we shared this Atlantic piece here yet?

You’re Likely to Get the Coronavirus

Most cases are not life-threatening, which is also what makes the virus a historic challenge to contain.

[Amor de Cosmos]

An excellent article. Thanks for sharing.

[Nocturnal Submission]

And Tesco that awful Tory council leader whose name escapes me?

Dame Shirley Porter? She was Tesco family, wasn't she?

[DCI Harry Batt]

That's the badger.

[Bruno]

No official statement on this can be made without Mike Pence's approval.

After calling Covid-19 "the Democrats' latest hoax" at his rally last night, the president couldn'teven get the gender of the first US fatality correct.

It isn't exactly an information-rich environment over here.

The pandemic itself could prove quite information-rich if lot of his base end up in the hospital. Trump's instincts are letting him down here I reckon. If there's a recession there will be little appetite for conspiracy theories.

[Nefertiti2]

Good and bad news

https://twitter.com/panxueni/status/1234101642372505601?s=20

this suggests

a) there's a lot more coronavirus about

b) it may not be as dangerous

[San Bernardhinault]

I'm as far from an expert as you could get (Mike Pence excepted), but that's been my working theory for a while. Once you start having increasingly large numbers of cases that don't have obvious vectors to the main outbreak, it has to suggest a more widespread disease.

It also makes me wonder if there have been a load of Covid-19 cases that were undiagnosed because they were indistinguishable from colds

[Bruno]

So Rush Limbaugh might be right!

[Foot of Astaire's]

My mates partner works in a school and having returned home from a holiday in Italy, was asking whether she should isolate herself. The school advised her that advice from the UK govt was folk didnt need to isolate themselves unless they'd stayed in one of 10 towns there. This lady and her family had apparently passed through one of these towns on the train, so she made the decision to isolate herself and the children. Her self employed husband has continued going into work because he won't get paid otherwise.

We're all feckin doomed.