- Joined
- Jan 26, 2019
This has been proven false. The original passage have it named completely different and originating in Russia
Wuhan Coronavirus: Megathread - Got too big
- Thread starter JosephStalin
- Start date
- Status
This has been proven false. The original passage have it named completely different and originating in Russia
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2019
The Danish ministry of foreign relations has declared that all non essential travel to afflicted countries are to cease with immediate effect
Danish Only:
um.dk
Danish Only:
Udenrigsministeriet
Med rejsevejledninger, nyheder og information om udenrigspolitik, Eksportrådet, Danida, hjælp i udlandet
Barnard
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2019
Poland has five confirmed cases now, all in western cities (edit: one is actually in the north, I misheard the name. Not that it matters anyway). People travelling to and from Italy, Germany and the UK, all said to be in good condition. Meanwhile the first guy, a 66 years old man, was interviewed (from a safe distance of course), he's feeling fine and recovering swiftly. So far, so good.
Last edited:
MrBlueSocks
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2019
The UK is doing drive-thru screening ? Hadn't read this, but I'm not caught up with the thread yet.
Friend of ours came back from Malaysia a week or so back , developed a cough shortly after and her husband had a fever.
Phoned 111 (non-emergency number). They phoned back the next day , directing her to a drive thru screening at a local health centre (not a big hospital) .
Results came back 72 hours later all clear.
I 'm guessing this is for high-risk situations, I can't believe everyone with the sniffles gets this. Nice to hear there's a system in place though.
Right, I'm off out to a gig. Going to jump around with a few thousand other sweaty people and drink beer from dirty glasses. Fuck you Chinese Flu.
Friend of ours came back from Malaysia a week or so back , developed a cough shortly after and her husband had a fever.
Phoned 111 (non-emergency number). They phoned back the next day , directing her to a drive thru screening at a local health centre (not a big hospital) .
Results came back 72 hours later all clear.
I 'm guessing this is for high-risk situations, I can't believe everyone with the sniffles gets this. Nice to hear there's a system in place though.
Right, I'm off out to a gig. Going to jump around with a few thousand other sweaty people and drink beer from dirty glasses. Fuck you Chinese Flu.
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2017
but even without Social Distancing, looking at the Petri dishes that have been the Plague Ship Luxury Cruises of the Damned, we see a high, but not total spread, mostly minor symptoms, a few very serious, and a small number of deaths, in some, but not all elderly with pre-existing conditions. Of the 83 year old American couple from the Diamond Princess, stuck in Japan. He had it and was hospitalized. She may or may not have had it. Was quarantined, then released after testing cleantwo or three times. And now is seemingly fully recovered, and just waiting on his final tests to be cleared to leave.
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2019
You will never have a Requiem Mass in the Latin Rite with Gregorian chanting. Sucks to be you.
Starving Autist
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2020
Sweden now has 101 confirmed cases but no deaths (yet), half of them in Stockholm. I've seen some signs when I went into town that encourage you to go get tested if you've been in one of the heavily affected countries recently but that's about it.
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2019
Wasn't that book image proven to be fake? People fall for the dumbest shit.
ETA Late as @remiem posted it above but that image was posted over and over again on /pol/ back in January and February and was debunked almost immediately.
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2019
Funny how that works, huh? The only people wearing masks in NYC are OTB Chinese mainlanders. Remember how they all started buying up masks when this shit first hit (allegedly to send to relatives back home)? Remember how Chinese authorities made everyone wear masks? All those videos of people being curb stomped for not wearing them? But now the US Surgeon General is telling folks not to buy masks and that they do not work, and it's not like it fucking matters because WE don't have any anyway!
- Joined
- Oct 9, 2019
Honestly masks are NOT that efficient at stopping it. So this is not the surgeon general lying (though he definitely could explain himself better) this is the chinks being dunces. (Except for the ones on risk groups I guess. Even then they'd be better off avoiding contact altogether instead of wearing masks) and the most hilarious shit is by wearing a blatant identifier like that which is also seen as, in a way, a sign of them taking advantage. Well... many britbongs will be joining dots, and actual discrimination will likely and justifiably rise. So good job pollution goblins, your idiocy and treatchery just branded you for generations to come. You deserve it, wholeheartedly. I just hope people are clever enough to leave non-chink asians out of it but we all know they won't.
formershroomeryuser
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2019
DewsLit
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2019
Inside the cruise ship that became a coronavirus breeding ground
As contagion swept through the Diamond Princess, its crew were obliged to keep working. Here, they recall the climate of confusion, chaos and fear
www.theguardian.com
Christian Santos* remembers staying awake at night, anxiously listening to the sound of his colleague coughing. They were sleeping below deck, in one of the small rooms shared by workers on board the stricken Diamond Princess cruise ship.
He had spent the previous two weeks serving guests who were confined to their rooms, and watching the miserable failure of disease-control measures on the vessel. Now he knew the coronavirus, which had already transmitted to hundreds of people onboard, had almost certainly entered his own cabin.
He tried to move rooms, but was told this wasn’t possible. “Every time he coughed I was afraid,” recalls Santos, who, like many workers interviewed, asked to speak under a pseudonym. The next morning his colleague was taken to hospital for treatment.
Santos has since tested negative, but as he and other crew remain in quarantine, a separate cruise ship is now being held off the coast of San Francisco after it was linked to a coronavirus death in California. A further 21 people onboard are reporting possible symptoms. It is not known if guests will be allowed to disembark.
It is clear, said Santos, that passengers and crew from the Diamond Princess should have been evacuated far earlier from the ship, which became a breeding ground for the virus after it was stopped from sailing by the Japanese government. Crew, he added, should not have continued serving, cooking and cleaning while a quarantine was supposed to be underway.
“We were abused,” said Santos. “Can you imagine? The situation was alarming but they kept us working.” He fears he could still develop the virus, and worries about losing work because of the crisis.
Concerns were first raised about the ship when a former passenger who disembarked in Hong Kong tested positive for the virus on 1 February. Three days later, Japanese authorities stopped the ship from sailing. On 5 February, tighter controls were introduced and the 2,600 guests on board were told not to leave their rooms.
But these measures, which some have speculated were imposed days too late, only applied to passengers. Crew continued to eat in a large mess hall, share bathroom facilities and go to guests’ rooms. Some departments received protective equipment later than others. Santos says he did not receive a mask until a week after the ship had been stopped.
At the time, Kentaro Iwata of Kobe University Hospital, an infectious disease specialist who visited the ship during the quarantine, described the procedures onboard as “completely inadequate”. In a scathing video posted online, he said he had worked during Ebola and Sars outbreaks and had never worried about getting infected but, after visiting the Diamond Princess, he was afraid of catching coronavirus.
Crew members described scenes of confusion and chaos, in which there was little separation between the healthy and the sick. “As a crew you don’t even know who is positive – you’re dealing with them and you’re going around the ship, eating in the mess together,” said another staff member, James Reyes, who worked in housekeeping.
“We are the one giving [isolated crew members] everything they need and sorting out their dirty dishes. Then one day you will notice those isolated cabins going empty because they [have tested] positive. Imagine the cross contamination.”
Six passengers have died as a result of the virus.
Princess Cruises said in a statement that Japan’s ministry of health was the lead authority “defining and executing the testing and quarantine protocols for all guests and crew”, and that the ship was legally obliged to follow the country’s public health and medical instructions.
Japan’s ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement that Japan “presented a criteria of behaviour” to limit infection along with equipment, but that “the responsibility for ensuring that the ship can be operated in a manner that provides a safe environment for passengers and crew rests with the ship operator”.
Reyes isn’t sure who is to blame. He is now in quarantine with Santos, back in the Philippines, home to almost half of the Diamond Princess’s crew. The country is a major source of ship workers globally and depends heavily on remittances. Though most Filipinos are employed through land-based jobs, 330,859 people were at sea as of the end of 2018. Cruise ship work, thanks to its higher pay and the job’s glamorous reputation, is highly sought after.
This can leave employees reluctant to speak out when they are being unfairly treated, said Professor Helen Sampson of the seafarers international research centre at Cardiff University. “Most workers are employed on temporary contracts and are fearful of losing their jobs, making them extremely vulnerable to abuse of many kinds.”
The majority of crew members interviewed said they did not want to give their full name because they feared repercussions from Princess Cruises, or from their recruitment agency, the Magsaysay Maritime Corporation (MMC). Some crew and their relatives said they had been discouraged from sharing information about the outbreak by posting online or talking to the media. Princess Cruises said it had not stopped staff from using social media. MMC did not respond to a request for comment.
Joanna Concepcion, chairperson of Migrante International, a Manila-based group that supported affected crew members, said employees wanted to stop working but felt they had no choice. “It was almost as if they were forced to pick between their health and safety, and their economic livelihood,” she said.
Messages given to crew onboard varied. In one department, crew were told in a group meeting that if they did not wish to work they must come forward and write down their names, so that their details could then be provided to human resources – an announcement perceived by some staff present to be a threat. Elsewhere, staff said they were not informed of any option not to work, and instead found their hours increasing as they were tasked with delivering food and other treats to passengers who had been confined to their rooms. Crew were also given treats and vitamins.
“If we [had stood down] nobody would deliver food, and [passengers] would not be able to eat,” said one worker, who asked to be referred to by their initials, RCDG. Many guests were old and had underlying health conditions, making them more vulnerable to the virus, RCDG added.
Photographs shared online show a flood of thank-you letters written by the ship’s guests. Some passengers were frustrated by the quarantine, but most were extremely grateful to the crew, workers said.
“We sacrificed our health for the benefit of others. Now that the crisis is over, we feel this feeling of pride in ourself, and in what we did,” RCDG said, adding that the captain and department heads were supportive.
Others argue this isn’t a sacrifice crew members should have been asked to make. Relatives fear that Filipinos, who pride themselves on being hardworking, felt obliged to go above and beyond what should have been expected. “It’s no longer their job. It’s not part of their contract,” said the girlfriend of one man who worked onboard and later tested positive and remains in Japan.
There is often a culture of soldiering on among crews, added Sampson. The ships provide a unique environment in which diseases can spread, and there has long been concern about the need to minimise the risk of outbreaks. “On all cruise vessels most crew, other than the very senior ranks, share cabins which are small and which are very unhelpful in regard to infection control,” said Sampson.
Across the cruise sector, staff can be more vulnerable to illnesses – shift patterns can prevent employees from visiting the onboard doctors, and some feel obliged to carry on, especially if they are worried about being sent home. This, in turn, also puts guests at greater risk.
The lack of agreement over who had ultimate responsibility for staff members on Diamond Princess – the various companies or the Japan or Philippines government – shows how “completely under-considered” such matters are, added Sampson.
“Perhaps if anything positive eventually emerges from this global health crisis, it might be that cruise operators review crew working and living conditions, and upgrade these to provide for better physical and mental health, and welfare,” she said.
A port worker runs in front of the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Photograph: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images
More immediately, cruise operators have cancelled and rescheduled trips, and introduced tighter health screening and staff training in an attempt to reassure passengers. The virus has wreaked havoc across the global tourism sector, with the overall economic cost yet to be seen.
Workers fear they will incur a loss of income. In 2018, seafarer remittances totalled $6.1bn (£4.7bn). Princess Cruises said staff members have been offered two months’ leave, and will be contracted to another ship.
Elsie Lavado, whose husband is among those in quarantine in the Philippines, says she just wants her family back together. During the height of the outbreak, she locked herself in her son’s bedroom, praying for the return of her husband and all other people onboard. “The life of my husband is more important than money,” she said.
* Names of workers have been changed.
He had spent the previous two weeks serving guests who were confined to their rooms, and watching the miserable failure of disease-control measures on the vessel. Now he knew the coronavirus, which had already transmitted to hundreds of people onboard, had almost certainly entered his own cabin.
He tried to move rooms, but was told this wasn’t possible. “Every time he coughed I was afraid,” recalls Santos, who, like many workers interviewed, asked to speak under a pseudonym. The next morning his colleague was taken to hospital for treatment.
Santos has since tested negative, but as he and other crew remain in quarantine, a separate cruise ship is now being held off the coast of San Francisco after it was linked to a coronavirus death in California. A further 21 people onboard are reporting possible symptoms. It is not known if guests will be allowed to disembark.
It is clear, said Santos, that passengers and crew from the Diamond Princess should have been evacuated far earlier from the ship, which became a breeding ground for the virus after it was stopped from sailing by the Japanese government. Crew, he added, should not have continued serving, cooking and cleaning while a quarantine was supposed to be underway.
“We were abused,” said Santos. “Can you imagine? The situation was alarming but they kept us working.” He fears he could still develop the virus, and worries about losing work because of the crisis.
Concerns were first raised about the ship when a former passenger who disembarked in Hong Kong tested positive for the virus on 1 February. Three days later, Japanese authorities stopped the ship from sailing. On 5 February, tighter controls were introduced and the 2,600 guests on board were told not to leave their rooms.
But these measures, which some have speculated were imposed days too late, only applied to passengers. Crew continued to eat in a large mess hall, share bathroom facilities and go to guests’ rooms. Some departments received protective equipment later than others. Santos says he did not receive a mask until a week after the ship had been stopped.
At the time, Kentaro Iwata of Kobe University Hospital, an infectious disease specialist who visited the ship during the quarantine, described the procedures onboard as “completely inadequate”. In a scathing video posted online, he said he had worked during Ebola and Sars outbreaks and had never worried about getting infected but, after visiting the Diamond Princess, he was afraid of catching coronavirus.
Crew members described scenes of confusion and chaos, in which there was little separation between the healthy and the sick. “As a crew you don’t even know who is positive – you’re dealing with them and you’re going around the ship, eating in the mess together,” said another staff member, James Reyes, who worked in housekeeping.
“We are the one giving [isolated crew members] everything they need and sorting out their dirty dishes. Then one day you will notice those isolated cabins going empty because they [have tested] positive. Imagine the cross contamination.”
Six passengers have died as a result of the virus.
Princess Cruises said in a statement that Japan’s ministry of health was the lead authority “defining and executing the testing and quarantine protocols for all guests and crew”, and that the ship was legally obliged to follow the country’s public health and medical instructions.
Japan’s ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement that Japan “presented a criteria of behaviour” to limit infection along with equipment, but that “the responsibility for ensuring that the ship can be operated in a manner that provides a safe environment for passengers and crew rests with the ship operator”.
Reyes isn’t sure who is to blame. He is now in quarantine with Santos, back in the Philippines, home to almost half of the Diamond Princess’s crew. The country is a major source of ship workers globally and depends heavily on remittances. Though most Filipinos are employed through land-based jobs, 330,859 people were at sea as of the end of 2018. Cruise ship work, thanks to its higher pay and the job’s glamorous reputation, is highly sought after.
This can leave employees reluctant to speak out when they are being unfairly treated, said Professor Helen Sampson of the seafarers international research centre at Cardiff University. “Most workers are employed on temporary contracts and are fearful of losing their jobs, making them extremely vulnerable to abuse of many kinds.”
The majority of crew members interviewed said they did not want to give their full name because they feared repercussions from Princess Cruises, or from their recruitment agency, the Magsaysay Maritime Corporation (MMC). Some crew and their relatives said they had been discouraged from sharing information about the outbreak by posting online or talking to the media. Princess Cruises said it had not stopped staff from using social media. MMC did not respond to a request for comment.
Joanna Concepcion, chairperson of Migrante International, a Manila-based group that supported affected crew members, said employees wanted to stop working but felt they had no choice. “It was almost as if they were forced to pick between their health and safety, and their economic livelihood,” she said.
Messages given to crew onboard varied. In one department, crew were told in a group meeting that if they did not wish to work they must come forward and write down their names, so that their details could then be provided to human resources – an announcement perceived by some staff present to be a threat. Elsewhere, staff said they were not informed of any option not to work, and instead found their hours increasing as they were tasked with delivering food and other treats to passengers who had been confined to their rooms. Crew were also given treats and vitamins.
“If we [had stood down] nobody would deliver food, and [passengers] would not be able to eat,” said one worker, who asked to be referred to by their initials, RCDG. Many guests were old and had underlying health conditions, making them more vulnerable to the virus, RCDG added.
Photographs shared online show a flood of thank-you letters written by the ship’s guests. Some passengers were frustrated by the quarantine, but most were extremely grateful to the crew, workers said.
“We sacrificed our health for the benefit of others. Now that the crisis is over, we feel this feeling of pride in ourself, and in what we did,” RCDG said, adding that the captain and department heads were supportive.
Others argue this isn’t a sacrifice crew members should have been asked to make. Relatives fear that Filipinos, who pride themselves on being hardworking, felt obliged to go above and beyond what should have been expected. “It’s no longer their job. It’s not part of their contract,” said the girlfriend of one man who worked onboard and later tested positive and remains in Japan.
There is often a culture of soldiering on among crews, added Sampson. The ships provide a unique environment in which diseases can spread, and there has long been concern about the need to minimise the risk of outbreaks. “On all cruise vessels most crew, other than the very senior ranks, share cabins which are small and which are very unhelpful in regard to infection control,” said Sampson.
Across the cruise sector, staff can be more vulnerable to illnesses – shift patterns can prevent employees from visiting the onboard doctors, and some feel obliged to carry on, especially if they are worried about being sent home. This, in turn, also puts guests at greater risk.
The lack of agreement over who had ultimate responsibility for staff members on Diamond Princess – the various companies or the Japan or Philippines government – shows how “completely under-considered” such matters are, added Sampson.
“Perhaps if anything positive eventually emerges from this global health crisis, it might be that cruise operators review crew working and living conditions, and upgrade these to provide for better physical and mental health, and welfare,” she said.
A port worker runs in front of the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Photograph: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images
More immediately, cruise operators have cancelled and rescheduled trips, and introduced tighter health screening and staff training in an attempt to reassure passengers. The virus has wreaked havoc across the global tourism sector, with the overall economic cost yet to be seen.
Workers fear they will incur a loss of income. In 2018, seafarer remittances totalled $6.1bn (£4.7bn). Princess Cruises said staff members have been offered two months’ leave, and will be contracted to another ship.
Elsie Lavado, whose husband is among those in quarantine in the Philippines, says she just wants her family back together. During the height of the outbreak, she locked herself in her son’s bedroom, praying for the return of her husband and all other people onboard. “The life of my husband is more important than money,” she said.
* Names of workers have been changed.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2019
As I understand it masks are pretty useful at stopping the spread, but only if everybody wears one. They don't really stop you from getting infected, but they do stop already infected people from spreading it.
Home Again
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2019
You're treating the cruise ship as a negative case but it was a microcosm of a best case governmental response. Early detection, full lock-down, frequent testing, and doting medical care. A one month complete shut down. Few countries are willing or capable of meeting those standards.
MrJokerRager
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2019
With this coronavirus slowly spreading in the United States, the predictit and electionbettingodds are lowering Trump's odds.
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2018
N95s are pretty effective if they're worn correctly. The problem is that the average person isn't going to wear them correctly, and it actually increases infection risk if you grab your N95 on the front to remove it and then rub your face afterwards because those things are uncomfortable.
I imagine most people in this thread would be capable of using them fine, but you really have to consider your average idiot on the street when you're giving people public health advice.
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2019
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2019
Ah ha. I didn't check but now I see that there's a confirmed case in Vegas as of about 12-18 hours ago and then the Canadian this morning had come from Vegas.
If they didn't cross paths that means it's already circulating there.
If they didn't cross paths that means it's already circulating there.
- Joined
- Oct 9, 2019
Thing is, this is partially true in that if you know suspect you're a carrier and are going to thehospital you should wear it on the way there. But not for everyday life. For everyday life you should be self isolating.
Now, you might say but what about asymptomatic carriers. Well, those are likely to carry it on their hands too, so the mask would only give an advantage in crowds, which should be avoided anyway due to hand carrying. So, the benefit is minimal for everyday use. All it's done is brand china. When people think china now, they'll think of a two faced, mask wearing, authoritarian, plague ridden, streetshitting, polluting scalper. That's their legacy. And I say they've earned it.
- Joined
- May 3, 2019
Coronavirus: Starbucks bans reusable cups over outbreak fears
Customers with their own mugs will still get a 25p discount, but their drinks will be served in paper cups, says the coffee chain.
news.sky.com
Customers with their own mugs will still get a 25p discount, but their drinks will be served in paper cups, says the coffee chain.
The firm says it is 'pausing' the use of personal cups 'out an abundance of caution'
Starbucks has temporarily banned the use of reusable personal cups in its UK stores in the face of the coronavirus outbreak.
The coffee chain said customers bringing in their own mugs would still get a 25p discount, but their drinks will be served in paper cups, as a precaution against the spread of infection.
The 5p charge for disposable cups is also to be suspended.
Drinks will be served in paper cups as a precaution against the spread of infection
Branches are also to step up the cleaning of in-store crockery such as ceramic mugs and plates.
Latest figures show there have been 116 cases of COVID-19 in the UK, which has more than doubled in the last 48 hours.
This is out of nearly 18,000 people tested.
One woman in her 70s with underlying health conditions has died after catching coronavirus.
Starbucks' vice president of retail for Europe, Robert Lynch, said: "Out an abundance of caution, we are pausing the use of personal cups or tumblers in our stores across the UK.
"However, we will continue to honour our 25p discount for anyone who brings in a personal cup.
"As a result, we are suspending our 5p... charges for paper cups as well, given this decision prevents customers from opting for reusables.
"In addition, we are introducing increased cleaning measures for stores as well as for all 'for here' ware (ceramic mugs, plates, etc.)"
Starbucks stores in the US have already taken similar measures.
Other UK coffee stores have said they have "no plans" to change their own policies on reusable cups.
A spokesman for Costa Coffee said: "We have no plans to stop allowing the use of reusable cups in our stores, but like all retailers we are monitoring the situation closely and are following government advice and guidance."
Greggs also confirmed there would be no changes in its own policy, and that customers bringing their own cups would still receive a 20p discount on drinks.
Pret a Manger did not comment.
- Status