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Do you know any website(s) where I could check how many COVID-19 cases Italy had 10 days ago? Let me explain: We are travelling to the Dominican Republic at the end of this month with transfer in Germany (Frankfurt). At the start of this week, my country (Slovakia) banned all flights to and from Italy. So I would like to check how many cases were there in Italy about 10 days ago, to maybe predict the future cases in Germany (possibility that all flights to Germany will be banned too). At this moment, our travel agency doesn't want to cancel our trip, and neither do we, because we would lose 80% of our money. | virus |
Would I change sodalime after each patient or are the filters enough? | would |
Several counties in California have issued a shelter in place order due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. For example, see a Santa Clara’s order here. The order states that individuals have to shelter in place. However, it lists multiple exceptions. If a police officer or other authority empowered to enforce this law asks you why you are outside, do you have to tell why you are outside or does the officer have to have reasonable suspicion you are in violation of the shelter in place order in order to detain you? This seems to be in violation of the concept that exercising your rights does not give grounds for reasonable suspicion or probable cause. Does an officer need probably cause that you are in violation of the order to arrest you? Or is it assumed that if you do not tell the officer what you are doing outside then your behavior is in violation of the order? | would |
One could fit an exponential in many different ways. This post suggests doing the down-and-dirty lm on the log of the response variable. This SO post suggests using nls which requires a starting estimate. This SO post suggests glm with a gamma/log link function. Here, the illustrious @Glen-b explains some potential differences between approaches. What are the pros/cons and domains of applicability for these different approaches? Do these methods differ in how well or in what way they calculate confidence intervals? Like all the other data scientists at home right now, I'm messing around with Covid 19 data. One thing in particular I noticed is that I can do lm with log, log10, log2 etc., but would have to convert from natural log with glm. library(tidyverse) library(magrittr) #> #> Attaching package: 'magrittr' #> The following object is masked from 'package:purrr': #> #> set_names #> The following object is masked from 'package:tidyr': #> #> extract library(ggplot2) library(gridExtra) #> #> Attaching package: 'gridExtra' #> The following object is masked from 'package:dplyr': #> #> combine library(broom) covid_raw = read.csv( # file=url("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19/master/csse_covid_19_data/csse_covid_19_time_series/time_series_19-covid-Confirmed.csv"), file=url("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19/master/csse_covid_19_data/csse_covid_19_time_series/time_series_19-covid-Deaths.csv"), header=T, stringsAsFactors=F, check.names = T ) covid_world = covid_raw %>% select(starts_with("X")) %>% summarize_all(sum) %>% set_rownames('World') %>% ### Transpose to make countries the columns t() %>% data.frame(stringsAsFactors = F) %>% rownames_to_column("Date") %>% mutate(Date = str_remove(Date, "X") %>% as.Date(format="%m.%d.%y")) %>% mutate_at(vars(-Date), ~as.numeric(.)) covid = covid_raw %>% select(Country.Region, starts_with("X")) %>% group_by(Country.Region) %>% summarize_all(sum) %>% mutate(Country.Region = make.names(Country.Region)) %>% column_to_rownames("Country.Region") %>% ### Transpose to make countries the columns t() %>% data.frame(stringsAsFactors = F) %>% rownames_to_column("Date") %>% mutate(Date = str_remove(Date, "X") %>% as.Date(format="%m.%d.%y")) %>% mutate_at(vars(-Date), ~as.numeric(.)) %>% ### Add In World inner_join(covid_world, by="Date") %>% mutate(days = difftime(Date, min(Date), units="days") %>% as.numeric() ) last_14 = covid %>% select(World, US, days) %>% tail(14) %>% mutate(days = days - min(days)) print(last_14) #> World US days #> 1 3460 14 0 #> 2 3558 17 1 #> 3 3802 21 2 #> 4 3988 22 3 #> 5 4262 28 4 #> 6 4615 36 5 #> 7 4720 40 6 #> 8 5404 47 7 #> 9 5819 54 8 #> 10 6440 63 9 #> 11 7126 85 10 #> 12 7905 108 11 #> 13 8733 118 12 #> 14 9867 200 13 lm(log(World) ~ days, last_14) #> #> Call: #> lm(formula = log(World) ~ days, data = last_14) #> #> Coefficients: #> (Intercept) days #> 8.06128 0.08142 glm(formula = World ~ days, data=last_14, family=gaussian(link='log')) #> #> Call: glm(formula = World ~ days, family = gaussian(link = "log"), #> data = last_14) #> #> Coefficients: #> (Intercept) days #> 8.00911 0.08819 #> #> Degrees of Freedom: 13 Total (i.e. Null); 12 Residual #> Null Deviance: 54450000 #> Residual Deviance: 816200 AIC: 199.4 nls(World ~ exp(a + b*days), last_14, start=list(a=5, b=0.03)) #> Nonlinear regression model #> model: World ~ exp(a + b * days) #> data: last_14 #> a b #> 8.00911 0.08819 #> residual sum-of-squares: 816246 #> #> Number of iterations to convergence: 8 #> Achieved convergence tolerance: 1.25e-06 # models = data.frame( # days = last_14$days, # lm = exp(2.59 + 0.188*last_14$days), # glm = exp(8.009 + 0.088*last_14$days), | would |
I live in Iran and I have bought this Qatar Airways flight from Tehran (Iran) to Vienna for February 29. As far as I know, to this moment the flight is not cancelled for health concerns regarding Coronavirus. Although I don't know of any way to make sure about that. So I might have to go to airport and see what is going on. And I don't want to cancel the flight, since I should be there in Vienna for my job starting March 1. But, in case the flight is not cancelled by the airline, I don't know what is going to happen to me at the airports. Some people say that they might put me in quarantine at Qatar airport or at Vienna airport, maybe for 14 days. Has anyone have any view or experience regarding such conditions? I am kind of panicked and overwhelmed by thoughts and concerns. | virus |
What practical approaches are recommended or possible to minimize covid-19 exposure during child visitation, weekend visit, with the non-custodial parent? Are there medical or legal guidelines on this topic? (I live in Georgia, in the USA.) | virus |
In WHO official website "What can I do to protect myself and prevent the spread of disease?", it doesn't mention that wearing mask an effective measure to protect people. I don't understand why wearing mask is not good way to prevent infection of COVID-19. Is it just because masks are out of stock? | virus |
In forest management, a controlled burn is “used for hazard reduction [to] decrease the likelihood of serious hotter fires” [W]. In backfiring strategy, “firefighters attempt to halt the advance of a wildfire (…) by burning up fuel in its path” [H]. Could the same strategy be used to fight the Coronavirus? E.g. in my native country (Norway), most hotels are now closed. If, for the sake of the argument, we assume that 1) humans become immune after having fallen sick to the virus and 2) people under 25 do not become seriously ill, what is the counterargument to inviting people in the age group 15-25 to mass isolate in said hotels for e.g. 1 month, for the purpose of kickstarting herd immunity? (In the meantime, they would also be off the streets, presumably posing less of a risk to the more vulnerable population, and students would have a chance of colocating.) Article discussing the matter (in Norwegian) hypothesizing that a controlled burn could decrease the death toll in Norway from 60.000 to 2.000 individuals. | virus |
My wife and I are moving out of our current rental in a couple of weeks. Our landlord stated in a text this morning that he can show our house to potential new renters with 24 hours notice, even though we asked him to wait until we have moved out -- my wife has asthma, and we're in the upswing of a global pandemic. We live in Arizona. Are there any state or federal laws, or executive orders, that allow us to keep our landlord out until we've left? | would |
My mom has come to US on a tourist visa and her I-94 expires on the first week of May. Due to the coronavirus, travel restrictions have been imposed in our home country (India). Also we want to avoid the risk of traveling in flights at this time. Is there an easy way to to extend her stay in the US by one or two months? I am aware that we should fill out an I-539 to extend our stay. But in-order to submit the online application it requires a fee of $370. Is filing I-539 the easiest way to extend her stay at this time? If so, is it possible to waive the fee due to the coronavirus situation? After filing I-539 should she wait for an approval to continue her stay? Or is the receipt good enough? Can you please help me with these? Thanks! [Edit 1]: With the current situation of the virus, traveling anywhere sounds like a very risky operation, especially for elders. That is the main reason behind this question. If the US government will allow visitors to overstay until Covid-19 settles down! | would |
Many state governments have declared temporary "shelter in place" statutes due to Covid-19 that restrict unnecessary travel by vehicle. I know this will vary by jurisdiction: but generally, is the suspicion of unnecessary travel sufficient probable cause for a traffic stop and questioning the driver and passengers as to the nature of the travel? Is probable cause not necessary under these temporary "shelter in place" statutes? | would |
Given that a man of 39 years without underlying health condition, is having chest discomfort and tightness, which is more discomfort during evening and night before fall asleep. He don't have cold and cough, nor have fever and he is physically active. My concern is that whether he is fighting with COVID-19 infection. Can COVID-19 be damaging the lung without showing fever? Thank you. | virus |
Across the world, the current pandemic, and various government responses to it will impact on parties abilities to perform their obligations under a contract. What are the legal implications of this? | would |
I was reading about a viral list of dubious coronavirus tips on The Verge and reached this tip: “Even if the virus gets into your mouth, drinking water or other liquids will wash them down through your throat and into the stomach. Once there, your stomach acid will kill all the virus,” one tip reads. Loren Rauch, an emergency room doctor in Los Angeles who has a master’s degree in epidemiology, told Mother Jones this advice was “totally bogus.” I asked a friend, who has a PhD. in cell biology, about this and she said that it's true that a virus would be killed by the stomach acid (i.e. due to high acidity, or low pH value, of stomach acid which could easily break the structure of the virus); however, she added that it's NOT true to think that drinking water would wash the virus from your respiratory system (i.e. trachea or lungs) into your stomach, so drinking water regularly does not necessarily help if it's in your respiratory system. I was a bit confused since the doctor referenced in the article considered the whole advice as totally false; on the other hand, my friend thinks at least part of the advice, i.e. the virus being killed by stomach acid, is true. Now, my question is not limited to coronavirus and I am not seeking medical advice or treatment here. I just want to know if my friend is scientifically correct, i.e. whether stomach acid is able to destroy the biological structure of a virus (any virus, and not necessarily coronavirus)? And if so, how does this work biologically? | virus |
The last days (begining of March 2020) active cases of Coronavirus from China dropped in a rate of 1,000-2,000 per day. China is the only country which is being able to reduce the amount of active cases, assuming the information which is coming from China is true. Is there any identified policy China is doing to succesfully reduce Coronavirus cases, the other countries arent using? | virus |
TL;DR What's the relationship between the following? Mutation rates (expressed as "mutations per year" for a virus like e.g. COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2). E.g. this article mentions "The rate looks to be about 24 mutations per year" Actual virion replication error rates in a single host cell, measured as e.g. error rates per released virion from the infected cell, i.e. (# of mutated released virions) per infected cell. Assumptions I would assume that mutations happen at a single virion-cell level because there are differences in e.g. nucleotides in RNA between: the virion infecting a cell (e.g. ACE2 for SARS-CoV-2) the released virions from that same single cell If so, wouldn't one argue that: replication errors (at the nucleotide and thus released virion level) can easily happen, potentially billions of times during the infection of a single host organism there is no "single successful" mutation or RNA variant within a host, rather, we have a distribution of RNAs, many of which could be simultaneously transmitted to another host organism? Further context I quote from e.g. this paper: On a per-site level, DNA viruses typically have mutation rates on the order of 10E-8 to 10E-6 substitutions per nucleotide site per cell infection (s/n/c). RNA viruses, however, have higher mutation rates that range between 10E−6 and 10E−4 s/n/c Again, wouldn't that mean that a single host could 1) easily generate many mutations of the same virus and 2) pass most of those uniquely generated mutations to another host? If so, how come we can simply say "24 mutations (over time) per year"? | virus |
Lombardy, a region of Italy, registered many severe cases of COVID-19 in the last few months. Unfortunately the available data don't allow us to estimate the percentage P of people who contracted the virus in Lombardy (please don't dispute this, but take it as an assumption). Now, suppose we have a medical test that says wether a person contracted the virus or not (EDIT: let's assume that the test always gives the correct answer). How many people should we test to estimate P with sufficiently small error? Data are: 10 million people live in Lombardy. P can be assumed to be at least 4 %. No assumption can be made about the uniform distribution of P, neither geographically, nor by age, gender or whatever. A satisfactory error percent on P would be 25%. A related question is: how could we confirm the estimated error on P once we have the data? For example, could we bootstrap the data? Thanks | virus |
I'm an American Jew, and my American college roommate is an expat who has been living in Qatar for the last few years. He is Catholic. I told him I want to visit him but he has repeatedly warned me that as a Jewish person this might be a risky move for me, due to his perception of Qatar's opinion of Jewish people. Is there any truth to what he is saying? If so, is there anything I can do to still ensure a safe trip? | would |
Is there a way to calculate the riskiest places to be infected by COVID-19? My friends and I are having an argument of whether being in a "high traffic-short contact time" situation (public transport) vs "low traffic-high contact time" situation (e.g. place of worship/seminar) is more risky to be infected. I know it's wise to avoid all of such situations in the practice. But I want to find a way to calculate it even if it requires assigning dummy/guesswork numbers for unknown probability. Where do I begin? | virus |
I plan on traveling to Taiwan soon. Trying to understand the scope of the travel ban. Flights have not been cancelled. | would |
0 Introduction This is my third attempt in tuning a good prediction SIRD model for the COVID-19 outbreak. The model in question is the following: $$\tag{12}\begin{cases} S_{t}&=S_{t-1}-\alpha\frac{S_{t-1}I_{t-1}}{N} \\ I_{t}&=I_{t-1}+\alpha\frac{S_{t-1}I_{t-1}}{N}-\beta I_{t-1}-\gamma I_{t-1} \\ R_{t}&=R_{t-1}+\beta I_{t-1} \\ D_{t}&=D_{t-1}+\gamma I_{t-1} \\ \end{cases} \qquad \text{for} \,\, t=1,2,\dots$$ 0.1 first attempt In my first try I've used for the estimation of the parameters $\alpha, \beta, \gamma$ a very simple strategy by searching the least squares parameters that minimize the quadratic cost of the 1-step prediction along all the observation horizon. The complete dissertation of this problem is here (note: in this thread I will use the same notations that I've used in the cited thread). The estimation problem is very easy to resolve, but leads to a result with very poor performances. 0.2 second attempt As Sextus Empiricus suggests to me, using the 1-step prediction, i.e. $$\tag{13}\hat{y}_t(\theta)=\varphi_t \theta + y_{t-1} \qquad \text{for} \,\, t=0, 1, 2,\dots$$ is not a good idea because, once one has found the parameters, during the simulation phase the model haves to feedback the proper previous predictions. This means, in principle, that the right way to tune the parameters $\theta$ is to minimize some suitable cost function of the prediction errors generated by a "batch" predictor of the form $$\tag{14}\hat{y}_t(\theta)=\hat\varphi(\hat{y}_{t-1}) \theta + \hat{y}_{t-1} \qquad \text{for} \,\, t=0, 1, 2,\dots$$ where $$\tag{15}\hat\varphi(\hat{y}_{t-1}) \triangleq \begin{bmatrix} -\frac{\hat{S}_{t-1}\hat{I}_{t-1}}{N} & 0 & 0 \\ \phantom{-}\frac{\hat{S}_{t-1}\hat{I}_{t-1}}{N} & -\hat{I}_{t-1} & -\hat{I}_{t-1} \\ 0 & \phantom{-}\hat{I}_{t-1} & 0\\ 0 & 0 & \phantom{-}\hat{I}_{t-1} \end{bmatrix} \qquad \text{for} \,\, t=1,2,\dots$$ and $\hat{S}_{t-1}, \hat{I}_{t-1}$ are predictions (and not observed values) generated by the model. As a consequence, the new estimation problem $$\tag{16}\theta_\text{LS}\triangleq \arg\min_{\theta \in \mathbb{R^3}} V_T (\theta)$$ with the same quadratic cost $V_T(\theta)\triangleq \frac{1}{2}\sum _{t=0}^T \|y_t-\hat{y}_t(\theta) \|^2$ is not easy anymore because now the considered model $(14)$ is not linear in his parameter $\theta$. To resolve $(16)$, under the suggestion Sextus Empiricus, I've chosen a numerical approach. More precisely, I've used a simple gradient descent equipped with Armijo's adaptive learning rate / step update, with a simple finite-difference approximation of the gradient. The optimization works pretty well, but from the starting guess $\theta_{\text{LS},0}=0$ converges to a parameter $\theta_{\text{LS},\infty}$ with a non-zero cost that doesn't satisfies me in the final simulation phase. I've tried several different optimizations by using randomly different initializations $\theta_{\text{LS},0}$ (like a MultiStart global optimization policy) with even worse results. 0.3 third attempt I'm quite sure that the optimizer works well, so I believe that to improve the performance of the final simulator it is necessary to increase the expressivity of the model $(12)$. To make a step ahead towards an acceptable solution, under the observations of Sextus Empiricus, now I want make an attempt where I increase the difficult of the estimation problem by relaxing the time-invariance hypothesis of the parameters. Thus, now I consider this more complicated model $$\tag{17}\begin{cases} S_{t}&=S_{t-1}-\alpha_t\frac{S_{t-1}I_{t-1}}{N} \\ I_{t}&=I_{t-1}+\alpha_t\frac{S_{t-1}I_{t-1}}{N}-\beta_t I_{t-1}-\gamma_t I_{t-1} \\ R_{t}&=R_{t-1}+\beta_t I_{t-1} \\ D_{t}&=D_{t-1}+\gamma_t I_{t-1} \\ \end{cases} \qquad \text{for} \,\, t=1,2,\dots$$ The actual "dynamic" estimation problem can be solved by using a Kalman filter. note: as mentioned by Sextus Empiricus, another possible approach to the | virus |
I am a Canadian citizen currently in the United States. After calling CBSA at 1-204-983-3500, they indicated that returning to Canada right now would be considered "non-essential". Does that mean as a Canadian citizen, I would be denied entry to Canada? Wouldn't this be illegal/unconstitutional to deny a Canadian citizen entry to Canada? | would |
Covid-19 has forced a suspension of at least 50% of financial transactions and business activities. Materially, not much has been lost: consumables have been spared, equipment is dormant, maintenance is mostly inexpensive. Why is the health crisis expected to bankrupt many businesses? Is most of the loss speculative? Propery tax + land rental = 20-25% of yearly rent, so a landlord can waive rent for 6 months and still make profit! enough to pay 2 years of tax and maintenance. I naively imagine that using government moratoriums on bank-debt-interest rates and fees, It is possible for companies to organize a state of dormancy and maintenance for an extended period, without incurring significant loss. Can you give a summary of why it is not so simple, and why the losses are a lot worse than a financial and material dormancy? | would |
Application for visas or entry to a country are often contingent on not having been refused entry by any country at any point in the past. How does this affect someone who was refused entry to a country because the country closed its borders shortly before the traveler arrived there (such that the traveler did not know the border was closed)? | would |
This sort of builds up on this and this previous question. Both of them ask about if the President can block the transfer of their office to a successor. In response to the current Coronavirus pandemic, many states are encouraging people to use “social distancing” methods and canceling large public events to prevent the spread of the disease. With large numbers of people using the same voting booths and voting machines, in-person voting seems like it could provide an effective vector for the spread of the disease, and if the pandemic continues to get worse it’s possible to imagine in-person voting being significantly disrupted. In this situation, what would happen if the coronavirus (or another pandemic) significantly disrupted in-person voting for the Presidential election? Would the election be delayed, or are there mechanisms to enforce a change in voting methods? In this kind of hypothetical situation, how would the successor of the U.S. President be (s)elected? | would |
I have booked flight KLM 4303 from Frankfurt to Beijing. All KLM flights to Beijing have been suspended until 15 March 2020. But on my online ticket it says that my flight is operated by China Southern Airlines. Does that mean that the flight will still take place? | would |
I made a non-refundable hotel room booking through hotels.com. The hotel has contacted me to inform me that they will not be open for business during my stay because of the Coronavirus. I know I made the booking under the title "non-refundable", but my understanding is that I am not entitled to a refund only if I am the one to cancel the booking. I assume that, given the fact that the cancellation is not being made at my end and instead my order is not being fulfilled, I am entitled to a refund under EU contract law. Edit: The hotel did not charge me for the booking. My card has been charged by hotels.com. If I cancel the booking through hotels.com's website it says I will not be refunded any money. | would |
My mother is coming from Tehran to Chicago (layover at Istanbul) via Turkish Airlines in mid-April. I saw on the news that Turkey is closing its border with Iran due to Coronavirus. I called Turkish airline number and they said: "there has been no cancellation now but it may change". The representative was very vague. I am wondering does anyone knows about the situation, I am failing to get a straight answer from the airport officials and airline. | would |
On Mar 12 2020, US Federal Reserve injected "$1.5T of liquidity into the markets, rather than that amount of money". On Mar 18, CARES Act came into force and will pay out $2 trillion USD. On Apr 8 the Federal Reserve released minutes from meeting where it took rates to zero because of coronavirus Miller said he expects the Fed balance sheet, currently just shy of $6 trillion, to expand to $10 trillion or more. On Apr 9, the Federal Reserve will print $2.3 trillion USD to buy junk bonds and lend to states in a new wave of stimulus. My questions Why did Congress need the CARES Act? Why didn't it just recommend that the Federal Reserve spend $2T USD, which looks way easier? I know that the Federal Reserve is autonomous and Congress can't order the Federal Reserve to do anything. Similarly, Senate Democrats block $250 billion in small business relief, accuse McConnell of a "political stunt" : politics. Why didn't Congress Members just recommend the Fed spend another $250B,? As you can see from the points above, both sides criticized and haggled before enacting the CARES Act. But the Federal Reserve has spent way more than $2.250T! Isn't this a contradiction? Why haven't Congress Members criticized or haggled the Federal Reserve like Democrats and Republicans are criticizing each other in Congress? Doesn't the CARES Act prove that the Fed isn't spending, or hasn't spent, enough money on the the right people? If the Fed was giving money to the right people, then would the US need the CARES Act? | would |
I have spent some time studying RNA structures. While there is a range of interesting phenomena and functions that certainly deserve understanding from the scientific point of view, I have never encountered a practical use of this knowledge (in terms of disease diagnostics, medications, etc.) Have you? If a practical use of RNA structures is still in the future, what could that be? | would |
This question comes about from another virology question concerning the common cold (Would being infected with every kind of cold virus strain at once be a good immunization or dangerous?). The original edit stated that there are over 200 different viruses which cause the common cold, and after reading the linked Wikipedia article, it said just under the intro panel (the bit with a representation of a virus) what I believed to confirm my initial thought, that it is virus strains not different viruses. Well over 200 virus strains are implicated in causing the common cold, with rhinoviruses being the most common. So I commented the fact and after editing to suit, the author responded with (emphasis mine) @Chris Rogers How do you explain this from wiki?The common cold is a viral infection of the upper respiratory tract. The most commonly implicated virus is a rhinovirus (30–80%), a type of picornavirus with 99 known serotypes.[29][30] Other commonly implicated viruses include human coronavirus (≈ 15%),[31][32] influenza viruses (10–15%),[33] adenoviruses (5%),[33] human respiratory syncytial virus, enteroviruses other than rhinoviruses, human parainfluenza viruses, and metapneumovirus.[34] Frequently more than one virus is present.[35] In total over 200 viral types are associated with colds.[3] I have not been able to find anything online the difference between the two (if there are any). Are the rhinoviruses, enteroviruses, metapneumoviruses etc. involved different strains of the same virus or are they different viruses all together? | virus |
I have read a lot about the outbreak of the coronavirus, I know that in january scientists had already sequenced the viral genome. How was the virus identified prior to the sequencing Given that viruses are not like germs that you can see and distinguish readily in microscope, how could scientists know that there was something new about the new disease and how could they purify the pathogen that cause that disease without knowing what it is and without knowing its genetic code? Where can I find information about procedures that are used to identify new viral pathogens? Given that there is a group of people with suspicious desease, what are the laboratory procedures used to eliminate known pathogens and how you discover that you have a novel virus without knowing its genetic sequence (and without the ability to extract it - as far as I know you can not isolate virus particle with tweezers...). Thank you! | virus |
[Moderator Edit: I'm reopening this question by request from third parties because medical staff around the world are being forced to use masks such as these.] How does a sanding mask compare with a disposable medical mask? I have some on hand. Would that be a reasonable thing to wear to protect myself and family members (corona virus)? Or would it give even less protection than a bandanna or a disposable medical mask? Update: I'm asking about the range of particle and droplet size that the two types of mask keep in/out (according to specs, and disregarding particles that can enter around the edges). I am not asking whether you think someone should or should not wear a mask. | virus |
Why have some governments banned outbound international flights in response to COVID-19? For example, the Philippines initially announced (but later reversed) a ban on outbound flights: Airports in Luzon [large island in Philippines where the capital, Manila, is located] will stop all outbound international flights starting Friday after the government gave a 72-hour window to all those who wish to leave the country after heightened measures were put in place to control the spread of COVID-19. https://www.cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/3/17/Philippines-international-flights-coronavirus-Luzon-quarantine.html The New York Times has an article on travel bans that identifies a few other cases of countries with outbound travel bans, including: Namibia: "suspending inbound and outbound flights from Qatar, Ethiopia and Germany for 30 days" Bolivia: "cessation of all flights to and from Europe" Peru: "The measure means all international flights will be canceled. " I understand the ban of inbound international flights to prevent contaminated individuals from entering the country, but banning outbound flights seems less obvious to me. | would |
I have not seen articles or information on how governments - behind the scenes or in public - reflect and set up analytics and systematic information collection to prepare for the spread of a new viral pandemic. What sources can show more information about what politicians think about preparing for future pandemics right now? | virus |
I keep finding sites that list or map countries WITH Coronavirus. I'd like the inverse - a list of currently covid-19 free countries to travel to WITHOUT the virus. | virus |
I know that the WHO came up with the COVID-19 name, but I see big publisher (Springer) also using "SARS-CoV-2" seemingly to refer to the same thing. To be more technically correct, they say the latter refers to the virus, rather than the disease: SARS-CoV-2 is a new virus responsible for an outbreak of respiratory illness known as COVID-19. Anyway, who came up with the "SARS-CoV-2" name? | virus |
Coronavirus death rates are higher for people in the range of 80+ (14,8%) and 70-79 years old (3,6%). However, there are countries, specially in Africa, where life expectancies are in the 50-60 and 60-70 years old range. Some people (like Bill Gates) warned about possible catastrophes if the virus massively reachs Africa. Could it happen than the lower life expectancy of those countries prevents more people from dying? Is people who lives 60 years old in countries with lower life expectancy, expected to have the mortality rates for Coronavirus of the people of the same age in countries with higher life expectancy, or a person of 60 years old in countries like those is in a physical state of an older person in a more developed country and as such have a higher mortality rate? | virus |
Everyone knows (and passionately hates) the runny nose, coughing, sneezing, aching/sore joints, and the drowsiness associated with the cold. But these symptoms are just the body trying to get rid of the rhinovirus. What does the cold actually do to you, and what would happen if the body did not fight it? Would you just die? | virus |
I have a scaffolding license with my neighbours which permits me to scaffold in their garden for an agreed period for an agreed price. The issue is that my construction work has stopped due to the UK lockdown and I would like my license to be paused. I don't have a force majeure clause in the contract and I don't want to keep paying the neighbours whilst no work is going on. What should I do? | would |
We cannot take photos of protons because they are not at least the size of the wavelength that registers into visible light. I see photos of Coronavirus in the news everywhere where there is a clear distinctive gray ball with red petal shown in such great details. How is that photo taken? Is that just an artistic impression or a real photo? | virus |
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization initially opposed countries instituting travel or trade restrictions. Why did they oppose these policies at that time? Is there any evidence that non-medical considerations such as political pressure played a role in the World Health Organization's decision? | virus |
I am a professor at uni, and I have been experiencing a number of unreasonable requests from students on these days, some of them arguing that they need a special treatment due to the current Covid-19 situation, such as students asking for: additional exam papers with full solutions (there are already three past exam papers with solutions available). a list of the exact topics that will be examined in each of the exam exercises (this is, if the exam contains five questions, then I should provide the corresponding five topics). providing the exact structure of the exam, such as one question about definitions, two questions about chapter 1 of the lecture notes, one question about chapter 2, ... labeling slides and clearly specifying if they cover a topic that will appear in the exam or not (not just if it contains examinable material, but if the exam contains a question about the topic in the corresponding slide). I want to reply to these requests indicating that they are just asking for too much (I may as well send them the exam with full solutions), and to teach them that the point of the exam is not to regurgitate memorized solutions (i.e., life does not work like that). What is some advice on potential ways of replying and covering both aims: being polite, but also educating them about how unreasonable/entitled those requests are? | would |
My 5-year-old son started developing a dry cough yesterday (yay...). He has trouble remembering to cover his mouth when he coughs, despite our reminding him every time he does it, and despite in the past during extended illnesses him finally catching on after our repeating reminders. Given the possibility of COVID-19 being the cough source, we want to extra make sure the cause of his cough is spread as little through the house as possible. Is there a way to quickly and effectively get him in the habit of covering his mouth the moment he feels a cough or sneeze coming on? | virus |
Nowadays we are hearing Angela Merkel with a specialist and a doctor in United States claiming Covid-19 could infect betweeen 50-70% of the population. According to this CDC FAQ flu infects between 3% to 15% of people each year. So I was wondering if recently we got any disease with such large contagious rate as claimed by Merkel, and yesterday in argentine television a doctor said they made a research in Argentina and they got to the conclusion that back in 2009 Influenza A H1N1 infected 60% of the argentine population but many of them didnt develop symptoms. Is this possible? Is it possible that H1N1 infected 60% of the population back in 2009 in a country? Is there any other data which could back this up? | virus |
In light of the Covid-19 crisis, my country's banks have seen their shares' prices drop. Last week, the banks announced that they will doing a share buyback, and this week, the prices of the shares have increased... Is there any reason why the banks are buying their own shares at a crisis like this? | would |
How do bats survive their own coronaviruses (without showing any symptoms)? Or, more generically, how can viruses keep reproducing inside healthy carriers without inducing any pathogenic effect? Are coronaviruses able to replicate themselves without harming bats, or maybe these viruses are just latent like herpesviruses in humans? Related question: Why are bats the source of dangerous coronavirus pandemics? | virus |
I have booked a ticket for future travel but now see the price has come down considerably. Should I cancel because of coronavirus and rebook with voucher? | would |
Let there be a sample of 10,000 people. 100 of them have a fever. You test them for COVID19 and they all come out positive. 5 of them die, 9 of them end up in intensive care. The estimated mortality is 5%, and estimated intensive care rate is 9%. What about the 9,900 asymptomatic people who did no get tested? Scenario A: All 9,900 asymptomatic people would test negative for COVID19. Scenario B: All 9,900 asymptomatic people would test positive for COVID19 because of a combination of high rate of asymptomatic carriers and high false positive rate. End result: Scenario A: true mortality rate is 5% and true intensive care rate is 9%. Scenario B: true mortality rate is 0.05% and true intensive care rate is 0.09%. the numbers are fictitious, but the point is simple - we can't estimate mortality without knowing the prevalence Question: Where are we right now between scenario A and scenario B? Or put another way, are there any ongoing studies/reports which take into account this factor? | virus |
I'd like to know the Japanese name or tag of a type of video that used to be popular on Nico Nico Douga on 2007-2010 (maybe there are still some people making these videos but I can't find them anymore). In these videos the creator would take a character from an anime and then put a phrase/scene from that character for each hiragana/kana syllable. For example for Kagami from Lucky star (this is the video I remember): あ(a) - Anta no tame janai. え(e) - Eeeeto. い(i) - Imi ga wakaranai. I remember that there were many videos for many characters and anime but many of them were deleted and I can't find the videos I had favorited. | would |
I'm trying to analyse if the fatality rate from my country (A third world country) vary significantly from the world's fatality rate. So I'd basically have two samples, labeled (Philippines) and (World excluding the Philippines) then i can compute the fatality rate for the 2 groups. Does Mcnemar's test apply here for me to check if fatality rate in the Philippines is higher, or do you have any suggestions? Thanks | would |
I am looking for some urgent advice with how to proceed. My wife is constantly emotionally and physically abusive to both my 3 and 5-year-old. She belittles both, plays favorites, talks about her impending death, threatens them with all manner of scary stories and regularly slaps then on the head or back with an open palm. I am convinced she has a personality disorder including OCD and NPD (I suggested therapy and was told to f-off). She has been drunk while they are in her care on many occasions as well. She is currently a stay-at-home mum, however, we have had a maid since the eldest was born who bathed and fed them, and now I work from home and do most of the cleaning etc.. She is simply a person who wants to continue her life undisturbed by kids, she still has her Friday night (though they can be a midweek one as well) blow-outs, coming home blind drunk and vomiting like clockwork. I am scared to leave her with the kids as she is extremely lax when it comes to safety. We live on the 38th floor and she has left the balcony door open many times, and now she is not bothered about closing the baby gate and letting the boys run free in the kitchen. Her latest act has been to go clubbing and drinking in pubs during this coronavirus outbreak without taking any precautions and coming home completely wasted. (BTW we live in Hong Kong). I am writing this from a coffee shop as I have been forced out by her gal pals who are over for drinks. I have endured this for 18 yrs now. I want to get advice on how I can proceed? Do I simply rock up at the CPA and tell them the situation? Why would they believe me? How to prove this? I would give her everything as long as I can care for the boys. | would |
I shall be traveling to the US from India on 10th June this year for an internship, accompanied by my family. I booked a round-trip Delta flight recently; it has a ~2 hr layover at Paris Charles de Gaulle. I'm deliberating on whether to cancel my tickets and choose some other route. Currently, there seem to 334 COVID-19 cases in Île-de-France (source: Wikipedia) but that does not appear to be a considerable percentage considering the ~12 million population in the region. I'm looking for some advice here, preferably from someone who has visited Charles de Gaulle recently or is well aware of the situation there. Obviously no one can accurately predict what the situation will be in June, but perhaps one can extrapolate a few things from the current scenario. | virus |
Wikipedia lets us know that: A Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) is a formal declaration by the World Health Organization (WHO) of "an extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response", formulated when a situation arises that is "serious, sudden, unusual or unexpected", which "carries implications for public health beyond the affected state's national border" and "may require immediate international action". Under the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR), states have a legal duty to respond promptly to a PHEIC. [...] On 30 January 2020, the WHO declared the outbreak of COVID-19, centered on Wuhan in central China, a PHEIC. [...] It's unclear to me from that if a WHO PHEIC declaration (and thus the obligations following from that) are limited to an area or country that the WHO decides "to PHEIC" or is a PHEIC declaration on some concern, e.g. this-or-that-disease "is PHEIC'd" automatically entails that all IHR member countries have to respond similarly, e.g. report [all] cases of that disease. So what's the (geographical) scope of a PHEIC? Does the WHO have the latitude to "customize it"? | virus |
We are adopting a new (rescue) cat next weekend. The rescue that we are getting him from recommends a 7-10 day isolation period before we introduce him to our current cats to make sure that he isn't ill and doesn't transmit any illnesses to our other cats. What illnesses and/or illness symptoms should I be on the lookout for? Part of the recommended integration period also recommends taking bedding that smells like him and putting it where our other cats can smell it and vice versa (so they can smell each other before meeting). Should I wait to do this until after the isolation period, or a certain number of days through the isolation period to make sure that he doesn't have a skin disease? Finally (out of curiosity), I have medical records on our new cat for the past month (his second worming is tomorrow, he's had FeL/FIV testing, etc). If this was a stray cat off the street, would the isolation period be longer/different? | would |
I am a British national with a British passport who has a contract to begin work in Germany in August ,and a partner (not married) who is a German national living there. I have a chance also to register my residency at her address with the local town "council". With her meeting me at the airport, with proof of her address/passport, do you think I will be allowed to enter the country at the moment? I know there is a list of things you need to have and prove to enter, but will my list be enough? Apart from the brand new residency registration, I won't have anything else as a proof of address. Thank you in advance for your help | would |
I collected the latest data on the coronavirus from Johns Hopkins University as shown and fitted different curves to this data to model the relationship between the number of confirmed patients $P$ who are/were infected as function of time $T$ taking 20-Jan-20 as day 1. As opposed to applying the standard SIR and SEIR I tried out simple curve fitting to see the general trend. The curve fitting software I used has well known models form different branches of science as well as we could build our own custom models which I did as shown in the image below. The score against the name of a model gives how well a model fits this data. The higher the score, the better the fit and the maximum possible score is 1000. Although we have data only for 18 days (as of 7-Feb 2 AM GMT) one model always kept appearing at top as the best fit and this was the vapor pressure model. After checking for various boundary conditions, I rejected many of models but I could not find any immediately reason to reject the vapor pressure model. Similarly when I modeled the number of reported deaths against time, the vapor pressure model once again gave the best fit which for which I could not find any obvious reasons to reject. So I did some research on the vapor pressure model. Basic concept of vapor pressure Because the molecules of a liquid $L$ are in constant motion and possess kinetic energies, at any moment some fraction of them has enough energy to escape from the surface of the liquid to enter the gas phase. This process, called evaporation, generates a vapor pressure $P_L$ above the liquid. Molecules in the gas phase can collide with the liquid surface and reenter the liquid via condensation. Eventually, a steady state is reached in which the number of molecules evaporating and condensing per unit time is the same, and the system is in a state of dynamic equilibrium. Under these conditions, a liquid exhibits a characteristic equilibrium vapor pressure that depends only on the temperature $T_L$. Volatile liquids are liquids with high vapor pressures, which tend to evaporate readily from an open container; nonvolatile liquids have low vapor pressures. When the vapor pressure equals the external pressure, bubbles of vapor form within the liquid, and it boils. We can express the nonlinear relationship between vapor pressure and temperature as an almost linear relationship using the Antoine equation. $$ P_L = exp\Big(a + \frac{b}{T_L} + c\log T_L\Big) $$ Next I did some research what is known about how the coronavirus spreads and if it is related to liquids. Here is what I found. How coronavirus spreads: When an infected person coughs or sneezes, they shed droplets of saliva, mucus, or other bodily fluids. If any of those droplets fall on you—or if you touch them and then, say, touch your face—you can become infected as well. Hospital for communicable diseases define exposure as being within six feet of an infected person for 10 minutes or longer. Time and | virus |
I would like to know if it is likely that the United States government may have to reduce Social Security payments for the remainder of this year to help fund economic stimulus packages to help bail out small businesses and big companies like Boeing. Or are Social Security payments guaranteed not to go down unless Congress introduces a new bill to do so and then has to vote on this bill and then send it to the President for signing in order to enact this SS payment reduction? | would |
I am trying to forecast aggregated daily COVID cases in Europe. These are present day numbers in Italy. temp <- c(0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0, 2, 2 , 2 , 2 , 2 , 2 , 2 , 3 , 3 , 3, 3, 3 , 3 , 3 , 3 , 3 , 3, 3 , 3 , 3 , 3, 20 , 62 , 155 , 229 , 322 , 453 ,655 , 888, 1128 , 1694,2036 , 2502 ,3089 , 3858, 4636 , 5883 , 7375, 9172, 10149, 12462,12462) My problem is that all the models underestimates the exponential growth patterns as this one with exponential smoothing. (if I try to predict using data until 4636 value, the different models estimates 8-9,0000 when the real number was 12,462). I have tried transformations, different models etc. library(data.table) library(tidyverse) library(forecast) library(lubridate) COVfirst <- min(which(temp > 0))+22 #starts 22 day in january temp2 <- ts(temp, start = c(2020, 22), frequency = 365.25) temp2 %>% autoplot test <- ets(temp2, allow.multiplicative.trend =TRUE) test %>% forecast(., h = 14) %>% autoplot() ts_Italy_confirmed <- temp2 forecast_italy_Confirmed <- test %>% forecast(., h = 14) I a little confounded by this, because the development until present day is actually pretty straight forward (exponential). I don't like fitting a exponential regression model as this will not catch up when the exponential part of the epidemic stops. (I think) | would |
Does the COVID-19 Metro Manila curfew from 2020-03-15 to 2020-04-14 (8pm to 5am) prevent travelers from going to the airport (Ninoy Aquino International Airport, MNL) during the curfew hours? Here are the unhelpful webpages I found so far: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1241807/curfew-hours-for-metro-manila-lockdown-malls-establishments-to-be-shuttered/amp: Going out to buy food is considered an essential purpose, Garcia said. Garcia said they are also mulling to recommend bars, establishments and other related entertainment shops to shut down during the 30-day quarantine which runs from March 15 to April 14. https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/metro/729647/metro-manila-to-have-curfew-from-8-p-m-5-a-m-beginning-march-15/story/?amp: In press conference, MMDA General Manager Jojo Garcia announced on Saturday that all the mayors in Metro Manila agreed to issue a resolution to impose a curfew from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m., starting March 15 until April 14. Garcia, however, clarified that those covered by the curfew are non-essential activities such as “‘yung mga gumigimik lang, kung saan-saan nagpupunta, nakikibarkada, nakiki-party. Lahat ‘yan bawal na muna.” MNL's airport phone number +63 02 877 1109 is useless (sounds like an automated ad? I don't get it.). I have crossposted the question at: https://qr.ae/pNnPXl https://redd.it/fifm2z | would |
Recently there are a lot of datapoints regarding COVID-19 related deaths. However I am looking to see how big the impact of non-diagnosed patients is. Therefore I want to evaluate the deaths (corrected for reported virus deaths) and see how these compare to the same period in recent years. I understand it is best practice to avoid asking for specific data sets here, so I will keep my question as generic as possible and ask for leniency: Does anyone know how to find (or search for) recent mortality statistics? Ideally this would be "per day per country up to today", but even "a total for February in a continent or city would already be insightful". What have I tried so far: Searching recent mortality, this only results in virus related statistics Searching for several countries or WHO, this did not result in anything for this year | virus |
Can my ESTA waiver visitor from Japan extend her stay here with us until it is safe to return to Japan? | would |
In response to the current pandemic, the government of Canada recently said to: Avoid all non-essential travel outside of Canada Other governments have made similar statements restricting travel. So, if one is to avoid non-essential travel: What essential travel is allowed? Below are some examples that came to mind but what are exactly determines if travel is in fact essential? Things that come to mind: Journalists going to where they want to investigate for a report. Going to help isolated family members Business meetings and factory visits, whether to establish policy or oversee measures that related to the COVID-19 or other task related to production. Is any proper documentation needed to show that travel is essential? Or do we expect gate and border agents to evaluate on the spot based on your word? | would |
I am currently teaching a basic R programming course with about 80 students. Under normal circumstances, a core course assessment component is a programming exam, which is done in the computer lab using the lab computers. I will arrange for the Internet to be cut off, and we will have exam invigilators who are patrolling the exam venue to detect or dissuade students from cheating. At the end of the exam, the Internet is restored, and students submit an R script (basically programming code) using the course learning management system. This semester, due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the university where I work has replaced all on-campus teaching activities with online teaching for the entire semester! With regards to teaching, the faculty have been asked to teach our classes online using Zoom, which gives students the freedom to take classes wherever they like. With regards to exams, the faculty have been asked to administer their course exams online, with students completing the exams online from home. (What??!!) I am very concerned about students taking exams online from home, because I am worried that some or many of the students may use this as an opportunity to cheat on the exam — whether it is collaborating with their classmates, or even asking another student to take the exam in their place. My questions: Is there any way to detect if students are cheating (e.g., sharing answers), when students are doing an online quiz or exam at home? Is there a way to dissuade students from cheating? Response to comments: How much help do you have for these 80 students? I do have one PhD student who is a grader. She is supposed to spend about 6 hours a week to help with the course. | would |
In CNN's video Scientist says Coronavirus vaccine could be ready by 2021 after about 00:25 'Robin Shattock, the Head of Mucosal Infection and Immunity at Imperial College London' says: We were able to access the sequence that was published by Chinese scientists and made globally available, which was a tremendous thing to do. And we went from that sequence to identifying part of the sequence that encodes for the surface proteins of the virus. And we’re using that sequence to manufacture our vaccine. We’re using a particular approach where we make a synthetic vaccine based on RNA, so essentially it’s essentially genetic code, we package that in essentially a lipid droplet, and use that to inject in a muscle; it expresses that protein, and the body recognizes that as foreign and it makes protective antibodies. I'm assuming that this is mRNA and so once it reaches the cytoplasm of the vaccine recipients muscle cells it will be expressed and somehow returned to the cells' membrane where it will be recognized as foreign by passing lymphocytes. Questions: Is this basically correct as far as it goes? If so, what causes the lipid droplet to fuse with muscle (or other) cells in the first place? | virus |
With covid19 continues to spread, this might affect the universities in the next semesters as the number of students might drop and many universities are offering cheap online degrees compared with the expensive traditional degrees. Who can lose a job due to covid19 in academia? Instructors with annual contracts, postdocs, adjunct-faculty, pre-tenure faculty, tenure faculty, or even all and many could universities shut down. Universities Issue Hiring Freezes in Response to COVID-19 Some offers were withdrawn and one case of layoffs- see comments | virus |
Romania has virtually the worst public health system in EU and there is no surprise that it is far from being prepared for tackling the coronavirus infection. On major issue is that corruption (e.g. among hospital managers) has led to hospitals to not have the minimum equipment (masks, gloves) not even for a week or two. In this context lots of medical workers got infected and quite a lot decided to quit. The government wants to tackle this issue by either withdrawing their right to practice medicine or expanding their notice period. Since Romania already has a significant medical staff deficit, the second option is more likely. Currently the law mentions a 20 working days period notice (~ 1 month), but the government is considering 60 working days (~ 3 months). Based on some epidemic spreading simulations this will cover the worst period of the epidemics. This means de facto forcing the medical staff to face the infection without proper equipment. Working without proper equipment means a much higher chance of getting infected, infecting colleagues and patients. There was a lot of debate over this issue and I am wondering if such measures are compatible with EU laws or the emergency sate can simply override some EU laws that have priority over national laws. Question: Can an EU country government force its medical doctors work with SARS-CoV2 infected patients without the proper equipment? Note: Some equipment was indeed received very recently, a few weeks after the first coronavirus case was officially confirmed in Romania. | virus |
I've divorced not that long ago and now, being a Germany resident I need to change my tax status - for that I need to change my family status first (I'm living with my son from first marriage). I've written letters to KVR but they all left unanswered so far, so I'm asking here: Is there any way to register new family status without visiting KVR? Not only it's time consuming and recently it's very hard to get online appointment but it's just that it's last thing I want to do now - to visit a very crowded place in the middle of COVID-19 outbreak. | would |
UK government promises to pay 80% of wages for people unemployed due to coronavirus. I am not economist, so I am probably missing something, but shouldn’t paying wages to unemployed due to coronavirus result in inflation due to decreased products and services created by economy? Is that just a mechanism to redistribute wealth? | would |
What can we do with those people who still decided to travel (for skiing, example) and causing huge problems after they return, even though they know the fact that corona virus (or anything new in the future) is deadly and already spreading around the world? -- Update: According to Phillip, I want to point out a specific country like Finland, with Finnish law, for Finnish people who traveled to Italy. -- Update 2: I asked this question because I think in this way: If you're drunk and going to drive, and because of your irresponsible action could lead to the danger for some (one, two, maybe ten people), so you will be punished, even when you have not made a scratch to anybody. But then why do there are people who would do something which leads to the danger of thousands of people, free to walk away? Of course, we can exclude people who do not know, and people who have important things to do. | would |
In the Queen's address to the Commonwealth on the Corona Virus, she says at 1:15: "The pride in who we are is not a part of our past. It defines our present and our future." What does the Queen mean by this? Is she saying that Britain does not have a past it can be proud of? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2klmuggOElE&feature=youtu.be&t=115 | would |
What chemical product should I use to disinfect surfaces that may get in contact with the food? (wooden table where I knead bread/pasta and etc) With this COVID-19 frenzy it's impossible to find alcohol (what I usually use for cleaning) so my wife bough a bunch of Clorox desinfecting wipes. I was wondering if it's safe to use it | virus |
I am trying to travel to Austria from Brussels by train, and have conflicting information on the status of cancellations due to Covid-19. According to Eurail, "all rail services from Germany to Austria are cancelled until further notice" https://www.eurail.com/en/help/travel-disruptions/coronavirus-update Yet, Deutsche Bahn and the 'trainline.eu' both allow me to book high-speed ICE trains across the border, just not the Nightjet trains. There are notices saying that there are delays/reduced services expected at the border, but it is not impossible to book like it is for other trains. My questions: does this mean that it is still possible to take the high-speed ICE trains? if not, is there any other way that it is permitted to travel over the German border to Austria (e.g. by bus, coach or taxi)? Unfortunately driving is not an option. | would |
NZ, Aus and other countries are now requiring people to self-isolate for 14 days to ensure they don't have Covid-19. There can be some rather strict ramifications if you fail to adhere to this. What I wondered after seeing a question on FB (disclaimer: I run the beatthatflight facebook page) - how does one self isolate as a backpacker/traveller who is planning on staying in hostel dorms?? | virus |
The way countries and people fighting COVID-19 these days is by quarantine so no one get infected and stop spreading the virus. This method slow down the spread of the virus We know that COVID-19 is easily transmitted virus, it can be transmitted by beath, touch, etc. in the other hand HIV is more serious and have been for more 40 years and can be trasmitted sexually or blood transfusion.. HIV can be controlled easier. Why HIV wasn't stopped using the quarantine method to stop it from the begining ? and why not trying to contaminate the virus now and stop it by using same methods used for COVID-19? | virus |
Authors and readers can discuss about the writing of authors including ideas, experience design, hypothesis etc., like what people discuss at stackoverflow, rather than authors only get feedbacks until publishing the paper after all work done. I am wondering if there is any website for researchers around the world to discuss about their research. (Thanks for Buffy.) I know researchgate but it seems not for the purpose. Thank you. | would |
A great many top US physics PhD programs have canceled their open houses with no plan to reschedule. Some are intended on running "virtual open houses." Other's are just sending links to information that could be found on the internet regarding their program. Is the April 15th requirement of a decision regarding accepting grad school offers of admission still ethical? Is it reasonable to propose that April 15th be moved a month or two later? A STEM PhD could take anywhere from 4-7 years in the US. That is a non-trivial amount of your life. | would |
So tonight at bedtime, my child was wanting someone to stay with them (until they fell asleep). We have had a busy few days so maybe they were just wanting some quality time. However I am a little concerned that they may be feeling unsettled. Given COVID-19 we have been encouraging them to wash their hands more often and properly, and to make sure they catch their cough in their elbow. Explaining that people can get sick if (we all) don't do that. This made them think they were sick. So tonight I wanted to ask if they were feeling ok. But I didn't want to give them any leading prompts, in case I projected that worry onto them. I tried asking why they wanted mummy or daddy to stay next to them and they answered 'Because I want you to stay next to me'. Hmmm a tautology. Technically true but not very useful. Are there any techniques which are useful to tease out if and why a child may be unsettled, without suggesting something that is not there they then may absorb and think they should be worried about? | would |
I am a junior at a large state university. Lately, as you all have probably heard, the coronavirus is spreading like a wildfire and we all should be scared. My instructor is from China, and my school is also filled with Asian students. How do I ask for excused absences so that I can stay at home for the lectures so that I won't get the virus from my instructor or my Asian classmates? Do I contact the chair of the department that's offering the course or the dean of the school? Would it be better if I ask to switch to an online class instead (it's already after the add/drop period) Some suggestion would be helpful. | would |
I'm researching options strategies and I started paper trading a $SPY options. Here's my strategy: Set up a strangle 5% above and below the market price expiring a month from the day of trade. 12 contracts total. On Feb 20th, I looked at the cost of that setup: Actual price of the stock ($SPY) = $336.40 Sell a Call 5% above the market (SPY200320C00355000) = $0.13 x 100 x 12 = + $156.00 Sell a Put 5% below the market (SPY200320P00319000) = $1.42 x 100 x 12 = + $1,704.00 So on Feb 20th, I would have received $1,860.00 for selling those options. A month later, the idea is that one of those options would be worthless and the other one cheaper than the price paid (of course this was not the case with the current market/Covid-19) On Mar 20th, I would have to pay back Current price of the stock ($SPY) = $244.41 SPY200320C00355000 is now worth $0.01 = $12 SPY200320P00319000 is now worth $77.10 = $92,520.00 leaving me with a total of $ -90,660.00 Although it is clear that this strategy backfired given the current situation, I would like to understand if my calculations are right. More specifically, do I have to consider the fact that for every point that an index option goes beyond the strike, I will have to pay/earn $100? If this is the case, I would have to pay an additional 9,200 per contract (?), or $110,400 Since starting, I learned that an Iron Condor is much more secure than a Strangle and I'm planning to paper trade that strategy for a while. | would |
I booked an easyJet flight from London to Zurich several months ago. I also have an annual Coverwise travel insurance policy. I am a Swiss citizen but resident in the UK. I was scheduled to return back on the 23rd of March but easyJet has cancelled that flight. I am able to get a refund or change my flight date on easyJet but the next available date is not clear and looks like it will be after the 23rd. Is there any compensation for the extra expenses of hotels (not yet booked) and subsistence for the extra days in Switzerland from either the airline or the travel insurance? | would |
I did asked before , but apparently providing a link to a science report of harmless for humans (both skin and eyes) far-UV light was not enough to make people understand the significance of the solution to the raging COVID-19. So this link (please read a bit of it): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21058-w Says that the UV light of wavelength 222 nanometers (the photons bounces off the skin and the eyes) is absolutely harmless and do not make neither skin cancer or cataract. So this light is deadly for viruses and is not commercially available to anyone like ordinary humans (perhaps only some labs got it but sure cannot by on amazon or ebay or so). So if you wish to protect people you ideally need something to kill the virus in mid-air exactly as this lamp does. Cite: "By contrast, we have previously shown that far-UVC light (207–222 nm) efficiently inactivates bacteria without harm to exposed mammalian skin." - this line is at the beginning of the link above. So my idea is to help ordinary people that have some DIY experience to make a lamp and disinfect the clothes and themself like skin and face and face mask and so. So a guy good in chemistry of similar that ca help with his knowledge and experience to help the people and get rid of the virus. The research I did in the internet says that the UV has ability to kill virus in 10 seconds. So having a lamp emitting harmless 222nm UV light instead the cancer deadly 254nm UV germicidal lamps will be able to protect from the diseases. The question is how to make it. so I suppose you can type a good way to do it and save the half of the western world population (the old people like your grandma and grandpa)? (Nobody needs glass (or quartz) blowing of a lamp. Neither skills beyond the ordinary DIY - well it might be a need of experienced DIY-er.) | virus |
Would symptoms differ from eating virus contaminated food versus breathing in virus? Would symptoms be a good indicator where the virus is located? The COVID-19 causes respiratory symptoms and I guess that is because people are breathing in virus droplets in their lungs. But if you would swallow COVID-19 contaminated food and avoid breathing in the virus would that cause other symptoms like stomach pain or diarrhea? | virus |
A number of countries are using test kits for detecting new cases of nCoV (2019-Coronavirus) and apparently China is running low. What exactly is in a nCoV "Test Kit" — How does it work? (Surely they also differ, so in which way do they differ?) | virus |
There has been a lot of talk about online teaching in relation to covid-19 and campus shutdowns. This question isn't about that though: my question is about what ways online examinations should be treated in counterpoint to written examinations. I'm going to be transferring my course's written examination into an online environment. This examination involved 2 hours of students, with a pen and paper, answering questions both short and long in a typical examination environemnt. An online exam however cannot be policed. Demanding it be anything other than open book is unrealistic. What methods can be deployed such that it is a genuine test of students' knowledge and capabilities? | would |
USA banned all flights from EU. My BF already flew Athens-Zurich-Miami, and he returns at the end of March (within the 30 days Corona virus ban), again via Zurich. Is he is going to be affected by USA's ban, with the data we have as of 12 of March? | would |
Is this normal? I've got about 10 quail meats and some of them have these spots. Are these safe to cook and eat? Is it possible that they had a disease or were infected? I'm scared of Coronavirus, and chickens and quails can carry influenza and Coronavirus is a type of influenza, so could this be related? I've googled a lot but I can't find anything on it: "Quail red OR black OR dark spot on meat" etc. My question is not a duplicate of: red spots on the chicken | virus |
Subsequent to the Democrats blocking the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in the US Senate on Sunday, March 22nd, in a 47-47 vote that was split along party lines, Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats released their own counter-proposal titled the Take Responsibility for Workers and Families Act. Given that the Democrat bill ...would prevent corporations from using taxpayer money for stock buybacks, boost unemployment insurance, strengthen the child and earned income tax credits and inject nearly $40 billion into schools and universities to stabilize funding. And also ...directs billions of dollars in grant funding for states to carry out this year's election through the Election Assistance Commission. https://www.npr.org/2020/03/23/820155258/read-house-democrats-release-3rd-coronavirus-response-bill what were the Republican objections to the counter-proposal? | would |
There has been a question here about the job approval rating of Trump in this Covid-19 pandemic. (Slight increase.) I wonder how the governor and mayor of US most affected US state & city, that is NYC (and NY state) are doing in the opinion polls lately. | would |
Most countries seem to allow dog walking during anti-COVID-19 measures preventing the spread of the coronavirus. However, there's at least South Africa where even dog walking is disallowed. The extent to which it's disallowed is a bit unclear, but the wording from the news suggest that dog owners are supposed to not get out of their houses unless they "really want to": Dog lovers in South Africa have been ordered not to take their beloved pets for a walk for three weeks, Police Minister Bheki Cele said at a news conference. “We had discussions and agreed that there shall be no walking of dogs,” Cele said. “If you really want to walk your dog, do it around your house – it ends there.” (source) Currently there's only South Africa with a limitation like this, but nothing stops other countries from applying the same restrictions if the spread of COVID-19 can't be stopped. How are owners supposed to take care of their dog's toilet needs if dog walking is disallowed? Is there some sensible way, or are they supposed to wait for dogs to make a mess and then clean up? (I'd probably rely on the "really want to" case myself, but it seems to be considered an exception by those imposing the restriction.) | would |
From KnowYourMeme: (spoilers) On the day before the airing of the final episode of School Days in Japan, a 16 year old girl killed her father with an axe in Kyoto. Due to an extremely similar scene present in the episode and to avoid relation to the axe murder, TV Kanagawa replaced it with a half hour of unrelated scenery with “Air on a G String” playing in the background. Among the shock and rage expressed among fans, a 4chan user commented “Nice Boat”, referring to the Norwegian ferry shown in the replacement footage. Immediately the phrase became a meme, however is far more popular in Japan than in English speaking countries. The part with the boat is easily viewable on Youtube and other sites, but I haven't been able to find the full episode. Is the episode bundled together with any merchandise or available legally online to stream/download? | would |
I noticed that a lot of countries introducing quarantines and other measures to fight COVID-19 also included a ban on people gathering. I am wondering, how can it be enforced? When a government wants to stop people protests and similar actions the ban can be easily enforced, because protesters must put themselves in evidence otherwise their protest would have no purpose. But in the case of an epidemic the ban should prevent also people gathering in a discreet manner in a backstreet or a public garden. No country, not even the authoritarian ones have enough policemen to monitor every single corner. Furthermore if people violate the ban and refuse to pay the fine, what are they going to do? Put them in a crowded prison? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose? Last detail if there are limits in the way a ban can be enforced. How effective can a ban be at preventing public gatherings? Edit: I would like to point out something that none of the answers considers. When a government gives an order, or issues a prohibition, then they have to enforce it, it is also a strong commitment for the state itself. This means devoting a large portion of the police force to it while they could have been employed for other tasks. Furthermore the stronger the prohibition the higher the chance that some people may eventually challenge it and lead to confrontations with the police forces. Had there been just a ban on public events plus a recommendation to people not to gather in big number, without such a strong commitment, what would have been the difference in effectiveness and pressure put on the police force and other state resources? | virus |
The background is the outbreak of the coronavirus in China. Many infected people have been isolated to prevent the spread of the virus. However, medical resources are highly deficient in serious regions, leaving many patients untreated (or badly treated). Under this circumstance, is it just to isolate them? | virus |
Prior to the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic I was under the impression that viruses fall into two categories: Diseases from which you recover and afterwards become fully immune. When reinfected with a mutated version of the virus, you do get sick again, but it's a milder form. (common cold, influenza) Diseases which are impossible to recover from (HIV, HPV), so you don't really gain immunity Are there diseases which fall into a third bucket: you do recover, but can be reinfected immediately with the same strain? Note that I'm not asking about whether or not this is possible with COVID-19 - this question is purely about other diseases that we know of. | virus |
I keep hearing people are recovering from COVID-19 virus. Is there any chance that same person can become infected with COVID-19 for a second time? | virus |
If you watch just the first episodes, it is a ordinary Mahou Shoujo for tween girls anime... But the plot thickens into something too heavy for young girls to digest (imo) soon enough. The whole dismemberment and viewing themselves as living sacrifices for their god, not to mention the sisterly guilt trip. With that in mind, where does it fall? | would |
I’m designing an experiment which requires I measure final and initial lead concentrations for the determination of aqueous lead uptake by different mediums. Because lead concentrations would be measured on the ppm scale, I’d need to use a spectrophotometer to measure light absorbance by the water samplings. I could then use Beer Lambert’s Law to determine concentration. With recent protocols surrounding COVID-19, it’s been difficult to contact an institution. I was wondering if there was any way I could measure light absorbance of my samples at home. Is there some other apparatus I could look into using (or perhaps even purchase)? All the best! | would |
Are there any clauses in a insurance contract that allows an insurer to not pay claims if too many people die from Covid virus? Is there a risk that insurance customers will be left out to dry? | virus |
Before the vaccine for German measles was available, girls were encouraged to expose themselves to a friend or acquaintance who had the disease, to acquire immunity, so that they would not end up contracting the illness later on during a pregnancy. Following on from that logic, would it make sense for a person over 60 (of generally good health and a non-smoker) to purposely contract COVID some time this summer, so as to have immunity next winter? (Obviously, if the person did that, they would strictly quarantine themselves.) I've understood that social distancing practices are partly designed to smear out infections, so they don't all hit a community suddenly like a tsunami. So, that leads me to think that it would be beneficial for society to have new cases occur in a staggered way. | virus |
Has the World Health Organisation (WHO) or any government anywhere conducted random tests for COVID-19? It is announced today that in Britain they are going to step up the testing from 1,500 people per day to 10,000. Will any of these be from a random cohort? It would seem to me that one random batch of say 5,000 people would tell us a lot about the extent of infection in the community, and hence the relative dangers of getting the disease. If the results of an election can be accurately predicted from a random opinion poll survey of 1000 people, then it would seem that we could learn a lot about the virus from random testing - in different parts of the country - and something well worth doing! | virus |