2020.03.12
Official Numbers:
- Johns Hopkins dashboard is down again, and I am unable to report the numbers
WHO
Asia
- Citizenlab did a study documenting how china censors coronavirus content on their social media sites
US:
- [Warning: HIGHLY SPECULATIVE CONSPIRACY THEORIZING, JUDGE ACCORDINGLY] Is Trump infected? Watch his speech again last night and focus on the following timestamps: 2:31, 4:36, 5:51, 7:55
- Coronavirus Clown World: apparently some school districts in WA are not permitted to use disinfectants, because of rules requiring environmentally friendly cleaners
- CDC says some flu deaths were posthumously identified as Coronavirus. I don’t know why this seems like a scandal or a big deal, as it would be foolish to think this wasn’t the case
- Did not watch this, I’m not gonna sit through it Neil DeGrasse Tyson on Colbert’s current show. If the commentary I saw is correct, he’s castigating the public for “not listening to scientists”. God this makes me mad. For most of February the WORLD FUCKING HEALTH ORGANIZATION was running a disinformation campaign telling everyone that this was no big deal and everything is fine. The CDC said this. That’s not politicians (or at least it’s not supposed to be). It’s scientists. When this started, I contacted every medical professional I know to ask, them, off the record, what to do. Every single one gave me “it’s just the flu, bro”. The scientists and medical workers are just as responsible as the politicians and leaders for the current public complacency and lack of preparedness, and to say otherwise is the absolute pinnacle of smug bougie arrogance
- Ohio Health Dept. Director says 1% of Ohioans likely infected. This number seems unbelievably high to me, because of what it would imply: that Ohio hospitals are either already 10x overflowing, or will be in a week. That WA/CA/NY are already at 5 or 10%. If her statement is true, then I would dramatically lower my estimate of the danger of this disease.
- Anecdote: The panic buying has reached my city in force. Across the country, lots of grocery stores are getting emptied very fast. One contact on Discord, who owns(?) a store of some sort, said it’s “worse than Black Friday”. If this keeps up, I expect looting to start, somewhere in the US, in a week or two. Stay safe everyone
Science/Medical
- Facebook post from a Seattle-area doctor. I don’t know what to make of this but a lot of that sounds very alarming.
- A writeup of current knowledge of the virus. OneDrive, Pastebin. I cannot vouch for the reliability of this post. I don’t even remember where I found it (probably reddit), it was just in one of my tabs at the end of the day.
Markets
- We’re fucked. The Dow has fallen a hair under 28% in the past 30 days. The market is chaotic and unstable right now and I’m not going to draw and strong long term conclusions from it, but I think we’re seeing the consequences of everyone realizing how fucked our supply chains are.