h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"When we look at comparable countries, the variation is extremely large. At one end we have the world's most successful country, Taiwan, with 0.3 deaths per 1 million and at the other end a number of states in the United States where there are more than 1,000 dead per million.
Worst of all is the situation in New Jersey and the state of New York with over 1,600 deaths per 1 million population. So the mortality rate has been more than 5,000 times as high as in Taiwan, despite the fact that the United States had about three extra months to prepare for the epidemic. "
Take Søndergård Kristensen, professor emeritus, DK

A question about clarification: is that per million of the general population, or per one million people infected by Covid-19?

Per million of the general population

A comic strip for this thread from Pearls Before Swine:

http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2020/07/05?ct=v&cti=2082951

Some comic strips seem quarantines anyway. They rarely venture far from their usual settings.

Good one, Baron! Thanks for sharing!

Technically, a quarantine against Covid-19 should last 14 days or so. Billions of people have been all but quarantined for more than 3 and a half months. That's too long!

Not that I have a solution.

True. Quarante is 14 in French. But I wouldn't count on that.

I haven't been in quarantine at all. But my bar was shut for weeks

That is sad!

Advantage: compulsory masks is great for those of us with permafrowns or RBF*


*Resting Bitch Face

Trump could use one for his RMF*



*=Resting Moron Face

Quarantine is based on the word quarante, which means 14 in French. It usually refers to 14 days, but in this sad world it could end up referring to 14 months, as that could be the amount of time it takes to get an effective vaccine.

I beg to differ. I am told - and believe - the word comes from Italian quarantena, meaning "forty days".
This makes sense since it was first used in Venice during the Black Death epidemic in the 14th and15th-century:
40 days was the period that ships had to stay isolated before passengers and crew could go ashore during the plague

I've realized that the French quarante means forty. This throws a monkey wrench into my understanding of what's happening.

There's also a Biblical element. Forty days and forty nights (the rain around Noah's ark).

What is the world coming to?

I can't answer that, but:

To summarize:

What we know now (and we still know far from everything) is that Covid-19 is about as contagious as a common flu, but 6 to 10 times more deadly: 0.6 to 1 percent of all infected people are thought to die from Covid-19 against only about 0.1 of influenza.

There is no reason to compare Covid-19 with flu any further. Because Covid-19 is by no means like the flu.

Covid-19 has so far infected 14 million world citizens and cost over 600,000 lives. Officially. Professionals estimate that the actual number of infected is probably 5-10 times higher.

A large study from King's College in London, England, among over 8,000 previously positive covid-infected people, has shown that about 1 in 10 patients suffer from late effects from the disease to varying degrees. Many are affected for several months after the actual course of the disease is over.

For example, kidney specialists have found that patients with covid-19 who came on dialysis because their kidneys were damaged by the virus attack had blood that was so thick that it clotted in the filter of the dialysis machine. This had not been experienced before.
Compared to other diseases, coronavirus affects the blood completely differently, so it coagulates, ie thickens, hardens and sends clots or small blood clots around the whole organism.
The doctors had to throw the filter out completely.

- This is far from over. At no time in the corona pandemic have so many world citizens been infected daily as right now. This may very well be a match with 12-15 rounds, says Jens Lundgren, professor of infectious diseases at the University of Copenhagen, chief physician at the country's largest and most important hospital and research leader for the European part of the global study of Remdesivir, which as the first remedy showed effect in severely ill covid patients.

However, there is reason for optimism: - I am absolutely certain that science will provide the solution to the global covid challenge. But it may well take time, says professor Lundgren.

One very troubling aspect of this virus, SARS CoV-2, is that it is not simply a respiratory disease, it's also a vascular disease and can cause damage to every organ.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/blood-vessel-attack-could-trigger-coronavirus-fatal-second-phase

Can we blame the bats?

We can.
Not that it would change anything.
But we can.

We can also blame the rest of the Universe for that matter

Temporal difficulties would impede any progress we might make if we tried to sue the universe.