Coronaviral

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Party Zero: How a Soirée in Connecticut Became a ‘Super Spreader’

About 50 people gathered this month for a party in the upscale suburb of Westport, then scattered across the region and the world, taking the coronavirus with them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/coronavirus-westport-connecticut-party-zero.html

About 50 guests gathered on March 5 at a home in the stately suburb of Westport, Conn., to toast the hostess on her 40th birthday and greet old friends, including one visiting from South Africa. They shared reminiscences, a lavish buffet and, unknown to anyone, the coronavirus.

Then they scattered.

The Westport soirée — Party Zero in southwestern Connecticut and beyond — is a story of how, in the Gilded Age of money, social connectedness and air travel, a pandemic has spread at lightning speed. The partygoers — more than half of whom are now infected — left that evening for Johannesburg, New York City and other parts of Connecticut and the United States, all seeding infections on the way.

Westport, a town of 28,000 on the Long Island Sound, did not have a single known case of the coronavirus on the day of the party. It had 85 on Monday, up more than 40-fold in 11 days.

At a news conference on Monday afternoon, Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut said that 415 people in the state were infected, up from 327 on Sunday night. Ten people have died. Westport, with less than 1 percent of the state’s population, now makes up more than one-fifth of its Covid-19 infections, with 85 cases. Fairfield County, where Westport is, has 270 cases, 65 percent of the state’s total.

Governor Lamont pleaded with federal officials for hospital capacity and protective gear. “I urge them: Don’t think in terms of New York, think in terms of the hot spots,” he said. “And that’s New York City, Westchester County — and Fairfield County.”

Science cannot definitively link those escalating numbers to New York, which now accounts for about half of the coronavirus infections in the United States. But the Westport soirée “may be an example of the kind of thing we call a super-spreading event,” said William Hanage, an associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard, especially since some of the partygoers later attended large social events in the New York metropolitan area.

“Some of the early cases in Northern Italy were associated with small towns, and people thought, ‘Oh, it’s just in the small towns.’ But then you suddenly find cases emerging from Milan Fashion Week and spreading internationally,” Dr. Hanage said. “Everywhere you think the virus is, it’s ahead of you."

The visitor from Johannesburg — a 43-year-old businessman, according to a report from South Africa — fell ill on his flight home, spreading the virus not only in the country but possibly to fellow passengers. The party guests attended other gatherings. They went to work at jobs throughout the New York metropolitan area. Their children went to school and day care, soccer games and after-school sports.

 

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you can't make this shite up 

Christian journal claims government has forced the Church to worship ‘the false god of saving lives’

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/christian-journal-claims-government-has-forced-the-church-to-worship-the-false-god-of-saving-lives/

Although a great many governors have made allowances for religious ceremonies to be performed in their coronavirus lockdown orders, many churches, too, have acknowledged in these extraordinary circumstances that their congregants should not be expected to attend public gatherings just for the sake of religious ceremony. Even Pope Francis has suggested Catholics who are at risk should ask God for forgiveness directly rather than go to Confession — a remarkable departure from centuries of Catholic Church doctrine.

But not all those of faith feel this way. In an angry article published in the right-wing Christian Journal First Things, editor R. R. Reno took a different position, suggesting that Christianity does not, in fact, command the faithful to take steps to save lives from COVID-19.

“At the press conference on Friday announcing the New York shutdown, Governor Andrew Cuomo said, ‘I want to be able to say to the people of New York — I did everything we could do. And if everything we do saves just one life, I’ll be happy,'” wrote Reno. “This statement reflects a disastrous sentimentalism. Everything for the sake of physical life? What about justice, beauty, and honor? There are many things more precious than life. And yet we have been whipped into such a frenzy in New York that most family members will forgo visiting sick parents. Clergy won’t visit the sick or console those who mourn. The Eucharist itself is now subordinated to the false god of ‘saving lives.'”

“A number of my friends disagree with me,” wrote Reno. “They support the current measures, insisting that Christians must defend life. But the pro-life cause concerns the battle against killing, not an ill-conceived crusade against human finitude and the dolorous reality of death.”

Indeed, Reno even suggested that fearing the pandemic is a victory for Satan.

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Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team 

Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID19 mortality and healthcare 

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

 

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Coronavirus UK live news: Gove not ruling out tighter lockdown as supermarkets police in-store distancing

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2020/mar/24/uk-coronavirus-live-news-lockdown-boris-johnson-sports-direct-abandons-talk-of-opening-stores-as-gove-clarifies-scope-of-lockdown-rules

[Fulham Broadway 16,923]

Hope everyone stays safe amongst all this constant doom and gloom media

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UK lockdown: what are the new coronavirus restrictions?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/uk-lockdown-what-are-new-coronavirus-restrictions

The updated advice for Britons, including on shopping, taking exercise and travelling to work

Boris Johnson orders UK lockdown to be enforced by police

What do the new restrictions involve?

In brief: an Italian-style lockdown to force people to stay at home beyond a small range of very limited circumstances. Under the terms explained by Boris Johnson in his TV address, people will be allowed to leave home only for the following reasons:

shopping for necessities, as infrequently as possible;

one form of exercise a day, such as running or cycling, alone or with household members;

for medical or care needs, for example to help a vulnerable person;

travelling to and from work, but only if you cannot work from home.

Meeting friends, shopping for anything beyond essentials, and gathering in crowds are now banned.

 

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[Fulham Broadway 16,923]

The rich have all fucked off to their second homes draining resources in those areas now

[Fulham Broadway 16,923]

Where is the response from big business, are Apple and Microsoft and their billionaire friends using their huge tax free Cayman Islands funds to buy and equip hospitals and health services or are they laying off staff, demanding handouts from the government and hiding on their private islands? Hope Yanks remember this and vote accordingly.

[NikkiCFC 8,058]

 

[NikkiCFC 8,058]

 

If this Coronavirus crises is any indication of how would countries act in some global war in the future Europe is huge disappointment. Asian countries did much better job.

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Jonathan Pie: LOCKDOWN

 

[NikkiCFC 8,058]

 

[chippy 342]

36 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Where is the response from big business, are Apple and Microsoft and their billionaire friends using their huge tax free Cayman Islands funds to buy and equip hospitals and health services or are they laying off staff, demanding handouts from the government and hiding on their private islands? Hope Yanks remember this and vote accordingly.

Pelosi and her fucking identity cnuts wing of the Dems are blocking a gigantic 2 trillion dollar package to help business and workers.  50% to workers and 50% to business - you know, the very people who create the jobs and the wealth for a country to thrive. 

So yes, the people will remember this come election time and give the Dems the same kind of kicking Corbyn and his cronies got.

Over here we had David Lammy being interviewed about the virus and turned it into an opportunity to plug his fucking book and politics.

Playing politics at a time like this should never be forgiven and to be fair most are not.

 

 

[Fulham Broadway 16,923]

9 minutes ago, chippy said:

Playing politics at a time like this should never be forgiven and to be fair most are not.

Unfortunately politics affects everything

[Fulham Broadway 16,923]

Trump wants to open up the US 'for business'

Meanwhile the WHO says the US is predicted to be the epicentre of the virus with unprecedented deaths. Interesting to see what the response would be if one of his relatives are dying on a ventilator

[Vesper 29,022]

3 hours ago, chippy said:

Pelosi and her fucking identity cnuts wing of the Dems are blocking a gigantic 2 trillion dollar package to help business and workers.  50% to workers and 50% to business - you know, the very people who create the jobs and the wealth for a country to thrive. 

So yes, the people will remember this come election time and give the Dems the same kind of kicking Corbyn and his cronies got.

Over here we had David Lammy being interviewed about the virus and turned it into an opportunity to plug his fucking book and politics.

Playing politics at a time like this should never be forgiven and to be fair most are not.

 

 

what a fucking pile of tosh!!!

Mitch McConnell and the Senate Rethugs tried to ramrod in a giant 500 billion USD slush fund (with the promise of trillions more to come) with basically no oversight (100% under Trump puppet Mnuchin at Treasury's oversight, a man who ripped off consumers for tens of million back in the 2007-2010 financial crisis via his OneWest bank's mortgage/foreclosure scams), no rules, so that the giant corporations could have done anything with the billions they would suck off the tit of government (all the while screaming about socialism!!! if the average person gets a pisspot 1200 cheque, that will cover fuckall for most) including stock buybacks, like Boeing (for just one example) did, to the tune of billions, and now they scream for another bailout

you are delusional in your shilling for a RW death regime/cult

you need to put down the MAGA/Fux News crack pipe m8

one month ago today btw

 

[Vesper 29,022]

3 hours ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Unfortunately politics affects everything

not everyone who rants about so-called 'identity politics' is a racist cunt, but all racists cunts whinge on about so-called 'identity politics'

'identity politics' is often a slag-off directed at any action that aims at us people of colour getting any sort of aid to make up for centuries of the boot of systemic racism slammed on our fucking throats

it also is aimed by RW twats to try and crush us LGBTQ folk and us women in our fight for equality

this shit REALLY enrages me

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Coronavirus: Italy records 743 deaths on its second deadliest day

US has third-highest number of confirmed cases globally behind China and Italy as WHO warns it could be next epicentre.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/uk-closes-warns-pandemic-accelerating-live-updates-200323234651419.html