DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... COVID-19: The World Killer

And each needs a attendant to oversee your scanning and packing.

Crazy, right?

My Wallyworld here in the STL was the same, with one exception. Absolutely no TP except for three lonely 18 packs of the over-priced, top-of-the-line Charmin in the fancy packaging (if you can afford to pay that much to poop, you want everyone in line to know it). At least people are drawing the line somewhere lol.

Doesn’t water come out of the faucet in the sink?

NOT TOM HANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was making light of it all bro. I'm not afraid of the packages. lol

As long as the water systems are up and running, then yeah, not an issue. If the water plant gets hit hard with an outbreak, are we 100% sure it'll be running for the foreseeable future?

Plus, water bottles are cheap right now and if this all settles back down, I have a few hundred bottles of water for use with something else.

Stocking up on water and food isn't the same as stocking up on TP and porn. If the poo hits the fan, water and food are key.

McLaren withdraws from Australian Grand Prix after crew member tests positive for virus

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/pu...rand-prix-after

Damn man, not Motorsports too!!!

Haha! I wasn't sure, there are some crazy conspiracy theories out there. People are worried that the corona is living in their bubble wrap!

Haas had some sick crew members too, so I'd expect a full cancellation within the hours.

I just had a GE repairman show up to fix our cooktop. He did his work, said we should be in separate rooms and I sprayed everything down after he left. Not sure if he was more scared of me than I was of him.

Japan said cancelling the Olympics is impossible.

I dunno about ‘impossible’.

My wife's work is making her work from home for at least the next two weeks.

Blast the techno in the house non stop.

Here's an interesting article from 2015 about an engineered corona virus.

nature.com

Engineered bat virus stirs debate over risky research
Lab-made coronavirus related to SARS can infect human cells.

Declan Butler
12 November 2015

An experiment that created a hybrid version of a bat coronavirus — one related to the virus that causes SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) — has triggered renewed debate over whether engineering lab variants of viruses with possible pandemic potential is worth the risks.

In an article published in Nature Medicine1 on 9 November, scientists investigated a virus called SHC014, which is found in horseshoe bats in China. The researchers created a chimaeric virus, made up of a surface protein of SHC014 and the backbone of a SARS virus that had been adapted to grow in mice and to mimic human disease. The chimaera infected human airway cells — proving that the surface protein of SHC014 has the necessary structure to bind to a key receptor on the cells and to infect them. It also caused disease in mice, but did not kill them.

Although almost all coronaviruses isolated from bats have not been able to bind to the key human receptor, SHC014 is not the first that can do so. In 2013, researchers reported this ability for the first time in a different coronavirus isolated from the same bat population2.


The findings reinforce suspicions that bat coronaviruses capable of directly infecting humans (rather than first needing to evolve in an intermediate animal host) may be more common than previously thought, the researchers say.

But other virologists question whether the information gleaned from the experiment justifies the potential risk. Although the extent of any risk is difficult to assess, Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, points out that the researchers have created a novel virus that “grows remarkably well” in human cells. “If the virus escaped, nobody could predict the trajectory,” he says.

Creation of a chimaera
The argument is essentially a rerun of the debate over whether to allow lab research that increases the virulence, ease of spread or host range of dangerous pathogens — what is known as ‘gain-of-function’ research. In October 2014, the US government imposed a moratorium on federal funding of such research on the viruses that cause SARS, influenza and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome, a deadly disease caused by a virus that sporadically jumps from camels to people).

The latest study was already under way before the US moratorium began, and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) allowed it to proceed while it was under review by the agency, says Ralph Baric, an infectious-disease researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a co-author of the study. The NIH eventually concluded that the work was not so risky as to fall under the moratorium, he says.

But Wain-Hobson disapproves of the study because, he says, it provides little benefit, and reveals little about the risk that the wild SHC014 virus in bats poses to humans.

Other experiments in the study show that the virus in wild bats would need to evolve to pose any threat to humans — a change that may never happen, although it cannot be ruled out. Baric and his team reconstructed the wild virus from its genome sequence and found that it grew poorly in human cell cultures and caused no significant disease in mice.

“The only impact of this work is the creation, in a lab, of a new, non-natural risk,” agrees Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist and biodefence expert at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. Both Ebright and Wain-Hobson are long-standing critics of gain-of-function research.

In their paper, the study authors also concede that funders may think twice about allowing such experiments in the future. "Scientific review panels may deem similar studies building chimeric viruses based on circulating strains too risky to pursue," they write, adding that discussion is needed as to "whether these types of chimeric virus studies warrant further investigation versus the inherent risks involved”.

Useful research
But Baric and others say the research did have benefits. The study findings “move this virus from a candidate emerging pathogen to a clear and present danger”, says Peter Daszak, who co-authored the 2013 paper. Daszak is president of the EcoHealth Alliance, an international network of scientists, headquartered in New York City, that samples viruses from animals and people in emerging-diseases hotspots across the globe.

Studies testing hybrid viruses in human cell culture and animal models are limited in what they can say about the threat posed by a wild virus, Daszak agrees. But he argues that they can help indicate which pathogens should be prioritized for further research attention.

Without the experiments, says Baric, the SHC014 virus would still be seen as not a threat. Previously, scientists had believed, on the basis of molecular modelling and other studies, that it should not be able to infect human cells. The latest work shows that the virus has already overcome critical barriers, such as being able to latch onto human receptors and efficiently infect human airway cells, he says. “I don't think you can ignore that.” He plans to do further studies with the virus in non-human primates, which may yield data more relevant to humans.

Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2015.18787

j/c...

I just want drive-thru margaritas.

Well, we'll see if healthy NBA stars can fight this off.

I'd rather die. I'm a blues and classic rock fan. I like some (very limited) rap, pop, country, and bluegrass. BUT I despise techno.

This will be very interesting. I want to know exactly how sick normally healthy individuals get from this.

Jimmy Buffett, is that you?

Techno/house-beat can certainly be annoying but there’s some amazing funky electronic/DJ based music out there I bet you’d dig. But that’s for a different thread.

With the high end medical care they have you're not going to get quality info.

Not the times to making statements like that.

Rudy needs to get his ass whooped.

Smh.

j/c:

I think the NCAA conference tournaments should be cancelled and the NCAA Tournament needs to be postponed.

I also think MLB should cancel spring training games and contemplate delaying the start of the season.

Same thing for other sports such as the NHL.

We need to be proactive, not reactive. Leaders need to lead.

As we're seeing with the NBA, if one player gets it, plays in a few games/hangs around the locker room, it's going to spread.

bruh... I just had this mental gif of you doing Boom Floss to techno. Now I can't unsee it.

It is going to be interesting to see if players on teams who have recently played Utah get the virus. They played Toronto the other night. They've played Boston, NY, Cleveland, Detroit, and 2 other teams in the past week.

One other thing.........the NBA, who pays their athletes millions of dollars have suspended the season, but the NCAA, who doesn't pay the players, continues to play games.

Despicable!

It will likely fall right in line with the statistics we have on it already. Most - over 80% of symptomatic patients - will have a "mild" case. Mind you, "mild" means everything and anything not requiring hospitalization. Roughly 18.5% will be hospitalized. 4.7% will go to ICU.

Yes, the deaths are predominantly in older people and folks with certain conditions, but there is very little out there suggesting that the same is applied to hospitalization rates. It is my understanding, especially after watching a couple of the Joe Rogan videos and such, that the severe illness hits just about anyone. Perhaps still influenced by age, but age doesn't inherently prevent it.

j/c...

I think this ends up getting cancelled...

j/c...

Eve is going to be heated!...

Good move by MLS.

And I hope people recognize on the difference between suspending and canceling.

j/c;

Princess and Viking Cruise lines have cancelled all cruises until May

New York (CNN Business)Princess Cruises will halt global operations of its 18 cruise ships for two months, after two of its ships carried passengers who were diagnosed with the coronavirus.

The move came after another cruise ship operator, Viking, announced it would also suspend all ocean and river cruises until May 1. Viking has 16 ocean-going ships and more than 70 vessels overall.

Well just announced this second on BTN games are cancelled

j/c...

j/c:

Glad to see NCAA conferences doing the right thing. Now, suspend the NCAA tournament. They can play it later.

"Is this real life?"