English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

00:00

Beginning to look like community spread in NYC and in a couple different places in California as well.

We're on the orange curve. Now look left at that same place in the yellow curve to see where we're heading.

Maybe worse, even, to be honest. The Rest-of-World curve isn't going in fits and starts. It's smoother and more dire already that the equivalent portion of the China curve.

Italy and Iran, etc.

That's just the per-day new U.S. cases, not cumulatives.

anongoodnurse

00:26

@tchrist My son and I were just thinking how damned effective the message would be if he ... got sick with coronavirus and needed intensive care on a vent. Not to be hoped for, mind you, but it would be a real kick in the pants.

I saw this and thought of our conversation about how anti-authoritarian Americans are. nypost.com/2020/03/04/…

@tchrist Ooh, really nice link, thanks! I thought they were treating for at least a week-10 days ago with Gilead’s remdesivir in China. There should be some more current info on its effectiveness.

@tchrist Absolutely.

@tchrist An LAX screener tested positive today(?). How will they track down all of his contacts?

Again, we need to learn from China (I don't think it's too late) to adopt more draconian measures. Like that hospital worker that went to an event knowing he had tested positive.

I hope we're both wrong.

tchrist

I do too.

Six weeks later. It's only been six weeks.

anongoodnurse

I never understood the government's refusal to interfere with ... I can't remember right now if he was patient zero in the US, but the stewardess who was HIV positive, the CDC knew it, and he was completely free to continue to have sex with people. For years, until he died.

@tchrist It's like an apocalyptic movie... 28 days later, or 28 weeks later.

Well, it won't be that bad, to be sure, but it will be bad enough.

tchrist

Six weeks ago I couldn't have imagined where we would be now. I can even less imagine how we'll be six weeks from today.

@anongoodnurse I just now saw that. I thought the very same thing.

anongoodnurse

00:43

Gos, I just really hope I'm overreacting. I know it won't be as bad as, say, the Spanish Flu, but how many deaths is an acceptable number for a pandemic? And regardless of what the NIH says, we are in the start-to-middle of a pandemic.

tchrist

We don't really know that it won't be as bad as the Spanish Flu. Remember that as the first wave travelled around the world it mutated into something rather strikingly different, what with a W-curve on age mortalities jumping up and killing 25–35 year-olds not just young and old in its second, much more devastating wave.

@anongoodnurse Yes, we are. You can see this in the exploding numbers all over Europe. And not just there.

Cerberus

I wonder why it exploded in Italy.

Most of the recent outbreaks in other countries are traced back to Italy, I believe.

anongoodnurse

H1N1 mutates differently than coronavirus. Coronavirus tends to mutate to be progressively less virulent.

Cerberus

That's good to know.

anongoodnurse

@Cerberus A lot, yes.

Cerberus

00:47

I also wonder what happens when the virus returns to China, after it has been controlled there but not elsewhere.

tchrist

I wonder if those who've recently had coronavirus colds (20%; the other 80% are from rhinovirus) have any partial immunity to reduce the severity. Or maybe it is simply too different looking to those.

@Cerberus That did start, from Italy. Remember it hasn't gone through and infected everyone possible in China.

So they're still vulnerable. I don't know how they expect the factories to restart.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist The Spanish flu was really... informative, and the way people (young) died was from a cytokine storm. So far, I don't think that's how coronavirus is killing people; it's more just damaging to the lungs, can't get enough O2 into the blood, then organs begin to fail. That's why ventilators are so needed.

tchrist

@anongoodnurse Yes, that's what my understanding is as well.

The young had immune systems that were just too good not to kill them for it.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist I would think they would. There are not a whole lot of viruses (norovirus is a striking exception) that don't induce a good, temporary immunologic response.

Cerberus

@tchrist That could be interesting.

anongoodnurse

00:51

@tchrist Yes.

Cerberus

@tchrist Yes, exactly. So China's current efforts may prove futile in the future, unless they drastically close off the country once it has been brought under control there.

tchrist

I don't buy that little children don't get it because they don't smoke.

Once they start, pandemics don't stop until "everybody gets it", or near enough.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist You know, that reminds me that the first effective treatments for ebola was serum from survivors...

tchrist

@anongoodnurse They've tried that in China. Allegedly to some success. I have no data. I sure hope CDC/NIH/WHO do though.

Cerberus

@anongoodnurse Wasn't it also that the Spanish Flu broke out at the worst possible moment, during the most devastating war humanity had ever known, with an infinite number of wounded and starving people living together with poor hygiene?

anongoodnurse

00:54

@tchrist I wasn't aware of tat. I'll ave to do some searching.

tchrist

@Cerberus Well, the West wouldn't do the lock-down quarantines at first because they feared that closing the factories would harm the war effort.

anongoodnurse

@Cerberus Yes, that's true, but once it got away from the war zones, it struck te well and young of all classes.

Cerberus

@tchrist That, too. But also the many millions of soldiers.

In poor conditions.

tchrist

Yes, but they did tend to all get it in the first wave.

anongoodnurse

@Cerberus In close quarters is more the problem, I think (but I'm not sure)

tchrist

00:56

If not, then the second wave may have killed them. I believe if you had it in one wave and survived, you didn't get it again.

Cerberus

We don't have so many weak people now.

And much better healthcare.

At least in the West, but also in large parts of Asia.

tchrist

history.com/news/spanish-flu-second-wave-resurgence

Cerberus

One does wonder whether the making of a vaccine could not be sped up a bit, disregarding some safe-guards.

tchrist

@Cerberus It will more in Africa than anywhere else, but other places will be hard hit, including places in Asia.

@Cerberus Not really. Lots of reasons. The government would have to assume the risk.

anongoodnurse

"In the United States alone, 195,000 Americans died from the Spanish flu in just the month of October." Can you imagine that today?

tchrist

00:59

It would be like the world ending. Everything would stop. And panic.

anongoodnurse

@Cerberus Tey're working on that pretty furiously rigt now.

Cerberus

@tchrist The only lucky circumstance for Africa is that it is a lot more isolated. Much less flying and other travelling.

@anongoodnurse Yeah, but it is said to take a year and a half.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist - That article is good, and a good idea of the different way H1N1 mutates.

@tchrist Thhere's already panic enough. And it will get worse every few days from here on in.

tchrist

> The swine flu program was not a public health success. The vaccine was successfully manufactured, distributed, and administered to over 45 million people in a relatively short period of time—a considerable administrative and logistical achievement. However, the virus did not reappear the following winter, for reasons that no one understands. Furthermore, it appeared that 1 out of 100,000 of the recipients developed Guillain-Barré syndrome (the most recent study reports a rate of 1 per 200,000)8, an unexpected and unique occurrence of unknown etiology. As a result of the publicity about si…

anongoodnurse

@Cerberus It won't take that long, I guarantee you.

tchrist

01:02

> The special liability provisions of the swine flu statute, which very well might have faded into history, proved to be important.

You can't rush a vaccine.

The manufacturers will never do it. There would have to be a law passed that the government would assume all risk.

This is pubmed-level technical: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK216813

anongoodnurse

@tchrist Tat's an excellent point, and ow sometimes the vaccine, if not well tested, can do some significant arm. Today, though, Guillian-Barre is so well known and easily recognized as to be very low mortality.

tchrist

Somewhere I recently read something for the masses that synopsizes the issues blocking any too-rapid vaccine deployment. I'll try to find that again.

anongoodnurse

i to @Mitch. It's been a while. ow are you?

@tchrist Tanks, I'd like to read that.

tchrist

Oh, it was the Times: nytimes.com/2020/03/02/opinion/contributors/…

> For several months, four drug firms — Merck’s Sharp & Dohme, Merrell, Wyeth, and Parke-Davis — refused to sell to the government the 100 million doses they had manufactured until they got full liability indemnity and a guaranteed profit.

> The federal government feared the consequences of delaying the inoculations for a pathogen that was a close variant of the one responsible for history’s most deadly pandemic in 1918. It finally assumed full responsibility in case the vaccine caused any injuries or deaths. It also authorized the drug firms to earn a “reasonable profit.”

anongoodnurse

@tchrist A, ok, I read that. I have a feeling you read all the same news sites I do, plus more. But I read te medical literature, and disbelieve some of wat I read in the online news sources.

tchrist

01:07

> While the four pharmaceutical companies got millions, the Department of Justice ultimately had to assign 10 attorneys to defend full time more than 4,000 legal claims for damages from Guillain-Barré, a rare but serious disorder in which the immune system assaults healthy nerve cells. Taxpayer-funded settlements and judgments eventually topped $100 million.

@anongoodnurse Yes, if it isn't medical literature, it's just the funhouse echoes of anything real.

> The chilling effect of that tsunami of litigation inhibited the federal government from underwriting any mass immunizations in subsequent decades. There was no national program in 2009 when a novel influenza-A virus became a pandemic and infected an estimated 60 million Americans and killed 12,469.

@Cerberus So that's why it can't be rushed.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist If - if - people start dropping like flies, again, we'll have to adopt extreme measures. Laws pertaining to vaccines will need to be suspended to save lives.

tchrist

I know.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist But I just can't see tat appening in the US.

tchrist

CDC has to have contingency plans for those disaster paths.

The military has to have plans.

anongoodnurse

It's such a... disaster.

tchrist

01:09

Because that's what these people do.

Cerberus

@tchrist But 0.1 billion is peanuts.

And you can always change the law.

Perhaps China will develop a quick vaccine.

tchrist

But I'm sure that Congress hasn't heard them, and I know this Administration no longer has anyone who could even understand them.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist The CDC was absolutely worthless during the first and worst Ebola outbreak. Pardon my language but it was unf*****gbelieveable.

tchrist

Sigh.

Cerberus

Or basically any company that isn't under American law.

tchrist

01:11

@Cerberus American law is not the problem!!!

You might harm people.

That's the problem.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist Unfortunately, you're right. We ave a president who so disbelieves in science that e appointed Pence of all people to head te response.

Cerberus

@tchrist But that may be necessary, if scientists and doctors have concluded that it's worth the risk.

tchrist

@anongoodnurse Well, how else is he going to get rid of him? Pence is the only cabinet member he can't fire.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist lol!

You're even more cynical tan I realized! I'll ave to tell tat one to my son. :D

tchrist

I'm an embittered old man. It started when they stole the election from Gore, and it's only gotten far worse. No good will come to us.

We have, as a nation, lost our way. This is our decline.

We forgot how to be a people.

anongoodnurse

01:15

@tchrist I ave not been easily alarmed, but I tink wit global warming, we humans will struggle a lot in the coming generations.

It's not only the US, but the US, I agree, as lost its way, badly.

Very badly.

tchrist

We're killing everything. We're bacteria in a petri dish consuming all resources until we die of our own wastes. It's our nature. We are self-destructive, and we're taking the rest of the biome with us.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist People are by nature selfis and short sighted. Those who are different are shouted down and now bullied.

tchrist

I've lived most of my life knowing of the 1918 pandemic, and expecting it.

anongoodnurse

Well, one of my kids as too. And is looking forward to it. Tis child is not a... very empathetic child/adult.

tchrist

I've never looked forward to so many I hold dear being cut down and dying a terrible death like a bolt from the blue, perhaps myself included.

But I've expected it to come.

anongoodnurse

01:19

@tchrist - I've always kind of taken my cues from Racel Carson, wo believed in te good and greatness in mankind.

tchrist

This will be the most devastating thing shy of a world war that almost anyone in this country who doesn't remember WW2 will experience.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist Well, I have to say, this is the first time in my life that I think I might die from a circulating virus, and I've been alive for a long time.

tchrist

@anongoodnurse That name is hard for me to hear.

My mother almost worships that book.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist Carson? Why?

O, I'm sorry. But, but, se was right.

tchrist

Because she was right, and it has come to us now. The birds and the butterflies of my youth are gone, never to return while Man holds dominion over the Earth.

anongoodnurse

01:22

The Great Lakes were dying (I think it was Huron or Erie that was effectively dead?) and this has been reversed.

tchrist

Nobody listened. It's here.

Yes.

That is true.

anongoodnurse

Carson was an optimist looking at disaster. And se was right.

tchrist

But the songbirds. The Monarchs. There are more Monarchs back in Wisconsin than there are here, but you go forever without seeing one. Tiger Swallowtails are more common now!! We've destroyed their wintering lands.

anongoodnurse

This, too, this virus, will do its damage and leave us scarred, but climate change will not be so forgiving.

tchrist

No fields are full of butterflies now. And they used to be. They are silent. Dead.

Stilled.

anongoodnurse

01:24

@tchrist I garden a lot. For about 6-7 years I didn't see a single monarch, where they were as plentiful as can be before.

tchrist

Exactly.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist Well, Skippers are still abundant.

tchrist

How about a red-headed woodpecker, when did you last see one of those?

anongoodnurse

I also went a few years withoiut seeing a honeybee.

@tchrist Um, maybe 10 years ago?

But I don't live in my woods anymore.

Cerberus

We have lots of parakeets here now.

tchrist

01:25

Or a meadowlark? Meadowlarks I have, and flickers, but out east they've waned beyond all belief.

Cerberus

Very new.

anongoodnurse

I ad to sell 'the homestead'.

tchrist

That's a shame.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist Well, we are in thhe midst of a die-off, that's certain.

And it's a terrible thing.

tchrist

There are cabbage butterflies and sulphurs, a few skippers. Now and then a fritillary or painted lady. But it's almost all gone.

Hairstreaks are hard to come by even.

anongoodnurse

01:27

There was so much beauty.

tchrist

And you know what else? Those names are lost to our children. They would have no idea what we're talking about.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist I see them all the time still, thank God, because I think they are beautiful.

tchrist

Mourning cloaks.

Mourning indeed.

I saw a buckeye last summer again for the first time in decades. I was stunned.

It made me cry.

Surprised by joy.

They don't care about things they have no names for.

anongoodnurse

I see: Swallowtails (a lot), cabbages/sulfurs, frits, Painted Ladies, even those funny oblong-winged black and white ones (can't remember te name right now)

tchrist

So they don't notice the devastation, the annihilation.

@anongoodnurse Zebras?

anongoodnurse

01:30

@tchrist My kids do. They were forced to garden with me and becone naturalists of sorts. :)

tchrist

I saw a couple viceroys last summer, and a queen.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist Tank you, yes.

tchrist

> "In Wildness is the preservation of the World."

anongoodnurse

I used to ave a butterfly garden at te old ouse. It was beautiful (ave you ever seen a hummingbird moth, btw? I'm sure you ave). I delighted in it, until I noticed the cats would ang out in it and eat the butterflies!

tchrist

I do see more swallowtails now, the tigers, than I did as a child. I don't know why.

anongoodnurse

01:32

I ripped it out after tat.

tchrist

@anongoodnurse I have posted photos I've taken of them here.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist Survival of the least affected? Monsanto asn't got a product that affects pawpaws?

tchrist

My cat Lorin brings home hummingbird moths. Alive. Somehow. Releases them into the house.

anongoodnurse

Here in suburbia, I garden for bees and butterflies.

@tchrist OMG! What a cat!!!

tchrist

Aug 8 '15 at 0:09, by tchrist

Two nights ago Lorin somehow managed to capture and bring in, climbing through the basement cat door, a perfectly living white-lined sphinx moth. These are large and warm-blooded, acting like hummingbirds. It was flying around my kitchen. I released it.

anongoodnurse

01:34

I'd forgotten about your beautiful cats. Are tey bot well?

tchrist

They are.

anongoodnurse

Tat's good to know.

tchrist

Jun 13 '14 at 3:43, by medica

@tchrist omg... am I allowed to say how jealous I am? You have kittens capturing moths? Sphinx moths. aww...

anongoodnurse

Yes, I used to do a lot of nature photography as well, though never at the level you achieved.

@tchrist See? Some things never change. :)

tchrist

I wish my cats would stop bringing me home baby rattlesnakes. Alive.

anongoodnurse

01:38

My neighbors don't like my clover lawn. It sticks out like a sore thumb. I love it. And te Queen anne's lace, te yarrow, te goldenrod, the plants tat feed.

@tchrist OMG!

Sorry, but tat's pretty amusing.

tchrist

That's a garter snake.

anongoodnurse

I ave a beautiful and very large garden. I love it. But many of the neighbors think I'm growing too many weeds. lol.

@tchrist I love your cats! Tey're kinda like children...

I don't have cats anymore. That's sad.

tchrist

Could you?

anongoodnurse

Have cats?

tchrist

Yes.

anongoodnurse

01:42

Yes, but I'm at a stage where I need to know wo will love my animals when I'm gone.

tchrist

I understand.

anongoodnurse

The last puppy I had, none of my kids would agree to take (a most beautiful Belgian Tervuren). I loved him with all my eart, but my kids did not, lol.

He died without te dilemma of outliving me.

Cerberus

Aww.

> Uitgebreid testen op mogelijke besmettingen brengt het sterfte cijfer omlaag blijkt ook uit de recente ontwikkelingen in Zuid-Korea, een land dat heeft ingezet op massaal testen van de bevolking. De CFR voor Covid-19 komt daar uit op 0,6 procent.

The case fatality rate is 0.6% in South Korea.

That is quite a bit better than 3.4%.

In the early days of the epidemic in Wuhan, it was 17%+.

tchrist

WHO said 3.4% yesterday.

Cerberus

So says my newspaper.

@tchrist That is probably world-wide, time-wide.

anongoodnurse

01:46

One of my Border Collies died, and Max was the new puppy. I had him for two love-filled years. But hhe needed a lot of surgeries (even as a puppy, he had pyloric stenosis), and e cost me a fortune, which I gladly spent, as he was the best dog I's ever had. BUT IT COUNDN'T KEEP ON.

Sorry for the caps, accident.

Cerberus

So this 3.4% versus 0.6% may point to under-registration of infections in China, and to better healthcare in Korea. Probably both.

anongoodnurse

Now I ave to worry about my kids liking my dogs...

Cerberus

But 0.6% may be closer to what we should expect, in countries with good healthcare.

@anongoodnurse I'm sorry to hear it. Losing a pet is terrible.

anongoodnurse

Speaking of which, one of my kids just called, and will be by soon. So, adios and wash your ansa often!

Cerberus

Bai!

By the way, I was thinking about the diagram that was posted (here?), showing which areas of one's hands are washed most thoroughly by the average person; it would seem that it's not such a huge deal if you don't watch e.g. the back of your hand well, as long as that part never touched anything?

tchrist

01:51

They call it
puppy love.

Cerberus

So happy together.

tchrist

Carpenters.

Sorry, she'll get the ref. Old song.

turtles?

God that's like 1967. I know a newer cover.

Well, maybe.

Maybe I remember that one. It was very popular.

Happy Together - Turtles

►

Yeah, that's the tune I know. Golly.

I understand my grandfather now.

Every little phrase would bring a song to his mind.

Once you've lived long enough.

> Imagine me and you I do
I think about you day and night
It's only right
To think about the girl you love
And hold her tight
So happy together

If I should call you up invest a dime
And you say you belong to me
And ease my mind
Imagine how the world could be
So very fine
So happy together

I can see me lovin' nobody but you
For all my life
When you're with me baby the skies'll be blue
For all my life

Me and you and you and me
No matter how they toss the dice
It had to be
The only one for me is you

"So happy together" of course brought that to mind, from lo these five decades ago and counting.

Cerberus

Ah, that song I know.

tchrist

It's a good song.

Many other double-digit gains from all over Europe today besides just those.

Robusto

@tchrist That's Paul Anka.

Paul Anka - Puppy Love

►

tchrist

02:05

Right.

A different time.

I can remember songs from fifty years ago and I can't remember the code I wrote two years ago.

Robusto

Tell me about it.

I've said before I've gone looking for an answer to a coding question and then found the answer written by me on SO.

True story.

tchrist

You are not alone.

Quick, look behind you!

Robusto

Heh.

I don't comment code anymore because it's quicker to figure out the code than it is to understand what I was talking about in the comments.

tchrist

I'm beginning to feel that way about docs.

What's the use?

Robusto

Yes.

And while we're on the subject, the biggest time waster is setting up your test server, because nothing ever works like the docs say it should. "WTF? I can only find V. 2.12 but everybody is using 1.93! Which is no longer available?"

And that is true for every goddamn component in the system.

BTW ... if COVID-19 was a plague on the order of the mid-14th century Black Death, 100 million Americans would be saying adios. And 2.3 billion people worldwide.

Cerberus

02:26

Turns out I've been "practicing social distancing" for years without even realizing it was a thing!

Robusto

@Cerberus Yeah. Most people I see outside my house are riding bikes in the wind, like me.

Robusto

02:42

The population density for the state I live in now is 6.62 per square kilometer. Where you live it's like 13,500.

Robusto

02:58

@tchrist: Forgot to tell you, I was at a Mexican restaurant the other night and the menu had translations from Spanish to English. Guess how someone translated "Coca Cola"?

Did you say "cocaine tail"? If so, you get the prize.

tchrist

Of course.

@Robusto I've tried to impress upon him the magnitude of that disparity before. I don't know that he has a gut feel for it.

Robusto

Yeah, how could he?

tchrist

@Robusto We may still lose millions, you do realize.

Robusto

I guess it's possible.

Perhaps even inevitable.

If not from this, then from something else.

tchrist

If two billion earthlings catch this, what's the toll? If 200 million Americans catch this, what's the toll?

Ok, what about 5 billion earthlings?

Robusto

03:07

Well, they are saying from 40 to 70%. 70% is ~5 billion.

tchrist

Africa may be decimated. Literally.

I wonder how long before we know whether that future will be ours to reckon with.

I need a double future there.

Robusto

But only 80,000 cases in China so far? That's like 8 cases in 133,000. Almost like a rounding error.

tchrist

Dragon King wins.

Robusto

@tchrist And I think the only reasonable answer right now would be: "We'll fall off that bridge when we come to it."

tchrist

@Robusto NB: so far

Robusto

03:11

True.

And China will almost certainly under-report.

tchrist

They seem to have stanched the gushing arterial.

Robusto

At least in the press.

See, now, this is the problem with the lies politicians tell.

Politicians and governments.

tchrist

But are we ready to impose martial law as they have effectively done? Can anything less than that work? I'm looking at you Seattle. Every moment counts.

Robusto

Well, this could be a great tool for would-be dictators. Trailing your opponent in an election? Nationwide quarantine! Nobody goes to the polls!

tchrist

Seattle is nearly exactly 60 days behind Wuhan. But everything else us the same.

Robusto

03:14

You know who I mean.

tchrist

I cannot begin to start to imagine that far out from now. The exponent is too great.

Robusto

Well, given who he is, can there be any doubt he would try something like that?

tchrist

How many people attend the two national party conventions again? Seriously?

Robusto

Dunno.

But both Biden and Sanders are in that high-risk 70-79 age group ...

tchrist

I don't know that Bedlam will even wait that long.

Pence will be safe.

Robusto

03:18

Maybe not. But it's good to know Trump has passed the buck to Pence, right? And we can count on all of that worthy's thoughts and prayers from here on out.

Jinx, I guess.

tchrist

God will protect him.

Robusto

Of course.

What did the markets do today? I haven't looked.

tchrist

Oh I wouldn't be surprised if Pence caught it out there visiting the cluster and brought it home to his boss unwittingly.

OPEC is freaking out about demand shock.

China isn't putting all that oil into the atmosphere for them, so they are angry.

Crude is down like 24%.

And still we but play the game of thrones while the viral apocalypse bears down on us.

Robusto

Gas is under $2/gal. here now.

tchrist

I paid 2.13 yesterday

Robusto

03:24

You can pay that much at a Shell station. The Dutch are such gougers.

tchrist

Dutch treat.

Robusto

That's a sketch a friend did of one of our cats.

Pretty good likeness.

Such enormous ears. Cats have better hearing than dogs, IIRC.

Well, off to bed. No ride tomorrow, but I have fence-mending to accomplish. Ciao for now.

Cerberus

@Robusto That's good!

I recognise the thin tail.

tchrist

@Robusto Yes, can you imagine corona coming to the Senate?

This is not a disease that is kind to the agèd. Then again, few are.

And... we have another stricken princess.

> Twenty-one people on the cruise ship Grand Princess, bound for San Francisco from Hawaii, have reported possible coronavirus symptoms. Two people who travelled on the ship recently have tested positive; one has died.

Let's see whether California does a less idiotic job than Japan did.

Cerberus

03:41

Do they have the capacity to quarantine all those people?

tchrist

You have to get them off the ship and isolated.

Leave them there, and they die.

It's not a question of whether they have the capacity. They have to find it.

They need to be sent to the military quarantines they've been using.

Probably.

I don't know their capacities. I know that ours hasn't had anyone yet.

theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/04/…

They're not letting them dock, just hovering.

Cerberus

@tchrist Yeah, I read about that.

It would seem an illusion to think that you could keep all the people on the ship and quarantine the ones that have the disease.

Of course they will infect others.

tchrist

> In total the state and the CDC are working to track down about 2,500 people throughout the state who disembarked from the ship and could be at risk.

And those are the ones who already got away.

Cerberus

And then you'll have to wait until those have survived (or not). But then you have newly infected. Etc. until they have all been infected and live or die.

tchrist

And have dispersed into the community.

Cerberus

03:50

@tchrist This is an earlier ship?

tchrist

No, same craft, different leg.

Cerberus

Oh, so they think the same ship has had infected people on board during two voyages?

tchrist

They know it has.

Cerberus

Was the second batch infected because they were on the ship, or on land during the voyage?

I.e. was it because the ship itself and/or the crew weren't properly disinfected between voyages?

tchrist

They don't know. There were some holdovers.

> A cruise ship linked to the first death from coronavirus in California is being held off the coast of San Francisco, with 21 people on board reporting possible symptoms.

The 71-year-old man who died on Wednesday was one of three individuals who tested positive for coronavirus after traveling on a roundtrip Grand Princess cruise from San Francisco to Mexico last month.

After the ship docked in San Francisco on 21 February, thousands more passengers boarded and thousands disembarked. The vessel then began a roundtrip voyage to Hawaii.

Maybe Nevada needs to build a wall!

Cerberus

03:59

Ugh.

Tracking down 2500 people.

tchrist

And then you have to be prepared to track down all of their contacts if any of them get sick in the next few weeks.

Which, of course, some will, for whatever the illness.

Cerberus

Yeah.

(Can't you track down each person's contacts only if he should test positive?)

(Now this is an example of why 'singular' they impoverishes the language. You can no longer use the contrast between plural and singular to disambiguate references.)

tchrist

@Cerberus Trust me, I know how hard it is not to introduce problems in this arena.

And yes, they can.

Cerberus

Heh.

I think the test takes six hours or so?

tchrist

That I do not know. The CDC test isn't the WHO test, and now many other entities have their own, too. I don't know whether they all exercise the same mechanism.

But everything still has to go to the CDC even once it's tested positive locally.

Those ones are presumed positive cases until the CDC runs their test on that sample.

We don't have anything close to what you can do with the flu. It's a 20-minute in-office test that any medical assistant can run.

Cerberus

04:15

Here, each person's stuff is sent to two academic hospitals for testing.

> “Het transport van het staal naar Leuven niet meegerekend, kent u 4 à 5 uur later de uitslag.” Is die negatief, dan stopt de procedure. Wijst de analyse uit dat u waarschijnlijk met corona bent besmet, volgt een tweede definitieve test, die opnieuw zo’n 4 à 5 uur in beslag neemt.

Belgium.

Mitch

@anongoodnurse 'ello! 'ello! 'ello! Are we playing cockney now?

tchrist

@Cerberus My brain sees 4 à 5 and wants to read everything there in French. This does not work out so well.

It's a smart tactic.

Cerberus

Hehe.

It is indeed the French word which we use.

CowperKettle

10:16

> Devices should withstand the temperature and air humidity exposure during transportation and storage under the conditions specified in this Standard

Will the reader undestand the meaning if I repalce in this Standard with herein?

Matt E. Эллен

11:28

@CowperKettle I would keep it as "in this standard", to be on the safe side

CowperKettle

12:11

> Protective equipment that prevents heated surfaces from being touched should only be removed with a tool.

Which word can I use if "equipment" can be of any kind from a simple guardrail to some complicated contraption?

Maybe just "safeguards"?

CowperKettle

13:11

> The procedure of batch forming is specified in standards and specifications for specific \ certain types of devices.

Are the two meanings synonymous?

I'm a proofreader at a translation agency, and I routinely change "certain" to specific, but maybe either can be used?

Cerberus

@Robusto Good!

@tchrist Lose 1/10th of its population?

Robusto

13:41

@KannE: Thanks for your edit on my Pollyanna question. For some reason my spelling didn't trigger the usual sense of alarm in me. Maybe I've just seen too many instances of polysaccharide or polyaminobenzoic and the like. Anyway, good on ya.

Robusto

16:03

@CowperKettle I would leave it as certain in that case, with the following note: "certain" gives the "types" an aura of being unspecified in the case where you don't wish to enumerate those types. Note that you still could enumerate them, but the word specific is almost an announcement that you will in fact list them, and right away.

Færd

specific is more certain

Robusto

@CowperKettle If you use "safeguards" you don't need to call them "protective"; that meaning is built right in.

@Færd Well, the meanings of certain are different. In Cowperkettle's instance it is really just another way of saying some: e.g., "An indefinite but limited number; some"

Færd

@Robusto True. Just tried a pun.

Robusto

It can also be used like a dog-whistle, to alert people to a fact without mentioning them by name: "Certain people in this chat will know exactly what I am talking about."

Mitch

16:37

@Robusto That's me!

Or wait... I don't get it that's not me!

Robusto

@Mitch You give a good impression of someone who was dog-whistled.

Cerberus

Or cow-belled.

Mitch

17:06

@Cerberus no need to get personal

Cerberus

But in a good way!

Mitch