[Basie]

I am an anesthesiologist and critical care specialist in Namibia ( one of maybe a dozen ) and my daughter is a first responder in Las Vegas, Nevada. So I have a lot of personal interest as well. I do not sleep at night. When the epidemic started, we all felt that the epidemiologists' predictions and numbers were sound but hopefully overly pessimistic They were not, unfortunately. The figures in Italy followed the predictions quite well. Nobody could or wanted to believe that you will have ten patients needing one ventilator and that things will be hopeless. We are in the beginning of the curve and being a developing country our resources are extremely inadequate and our leaders are having inauguration parties. We are planning for the deluge that according to said epidemiologists will be here in two weeks and since they have been quite correct with first world countries ( including USA) we have reason to believe it will be the same here

Do NOT ignore the threat and looking at numbers as being the same or less than normal influenza is insane. We have 4 private hospitals trying to prepare for 3500 ventilator cases in the capital alone with less than 100 ventilators. Nobody could have foreseen that, but please take the infection control measures very seriously. It will help us on the front lines to manage the patients. Being flooded with not enough resources puts us in places to make decisions that will haunt us for the rest of, our lives

Take care.

[bertwert]

as far as the advice on masks as far as a reminder not to touch your face, I might I recommend a large bandana covering the face ?

it will provide some, but not total protection, and the feel of it on the face should be a constant reminder of what not to do

On the flip side, having something on your face makes you want to readjust it all the time...

[normhead]

Thanks Norm, I'm due to start engineering this next academic year, but we'll see how things progress with the virus* as well... A lot of those who struggled in school built up a much better work habit and studying skills, whereas I wasn't challenged enough to feel the need to. Would start the assignment the night before it's due sort of thing, because I could.

*see, I'm still on topic

My daughter found first year really hard. At one point she said to me, "the only people who get good marks here are geniuses. She was in engineering at Waterloo, and many drop outs from Waterloo get their degrees elsewhere, but still, it's bound to be a shock.

But now she's completed 20 years at Defasco in steel production. The pain of Waterloo has subsided, she and her husband, also an engineer has been glossed over by years of great income. The sad part of that being they never go on vacations I can afford to go with them on.

The reason for her remedial math was, her teachers didn't bother to teach about half of the required curriculum. It wasn't that she couldn't do it. It's that it was never taught. When I was in school it was the opposite, my teachers covered the required content in a little over half a year, and often , since many were M.A.s was specialized instruction in their own areas of expertise. We got to see them teach in the area in which they excelled. People didn't see the value in that, they wanted a standardized curriculum. In my mind it was the end of excellence in the education system. We used to get a half year of insured teachers teaching subject matter they were passionate about.

Ontario students used to have the reputation of being less prepared out of the gate, but much better performing within 6 months. We gave that up to be like everyone else.

Now with the virus, the schools are closed, everyone is being home schooled. I expect great things. The home schooled kids I knew were like the old Ontario. Half a year fulfilling curriculum requirements, the rest pursuing education in areas where they had passion. Of course, you also need enlightened parents for that to work.

[Serkevan]

My daughter found first year really hard. At one point she said to me, "the only people who get good marks here are geniuses. She was in engineering at Waterloo, and many drop outs from Waterloo get their degrees elsewhere, but still, it's bound to be a shock.

But now she's completed 20 years at Defasco in steel production. The pain of Waterloo has subsided, she and her husband, also an engineer has been glossed over by years of great income. The sad part of that being they never go on vacations I can afford to go with them on.

The reason for her remedial math was, her teachers didn't bother to teach about half of the required curriculum. It wasn't that she couldn't do it. It's that it was never taught. When I was in school it was the opposite, my teachers covered the required content in a little over half a year, and often , since many were M.A.s was specialized instruction in their own areas of expertise. We got to see them teach in the area in which they excelled. People didn't see the value in that, they wanted a standardized curriculum. In my mind it was the end of excellence in the education system. We used to get a half year of insured teachers teaching subject matter they were passionate about.

Ontario students used to have the reputation of being less prepared out of the gate, but much better performing within 6 months. We gave that up to be like everyone else.

Now with the virus, the schools are closed, everyone is being home schooled. I expect great things. The home schooled kids I knew were like the old Ontario. Half a year fulfilling curriculum requirements, the rest pursuing education in areas where they had passion. Of course, you also need enlightened parents for that to work.

I also think it's not only about what the curriculum is like, it's also about how it's taught. One of my History teachers, a lovely about-to-retire historian who loved his subject, insisted that, since reality surpasses fiction all the time, the proper way to teach it was explaining it like a soap opera.

Suffice to say that he wasn't really popular with my classmates who were only interested in getting high scores in the Uni entry tests; for me it was the best way to learn I could hope for, because memorizing dates, battle outcomes and treaties was easy but boooooring. Understanding the person, the human behind the historical figure, was the way to really learn how and why things happened.


As for engineering in college, I didn't learn as much "stuff" as I learned how to learn. I was clueless when I set foot on a factory floor for the first time; I knew nothing about the stuff that was going on. Real factories are not tidy nice P&IDs*, equipment is customized and patched on a daily basis and Maintenance, Operations and Engineering are in a less-than-cooperative relationship sometimes. The engineering training was invaluable to be able to absorb the new knowledge and, most importantly, make sense of it .


*My first task included updating the diagrams of the factory. Turned out that there were three different physical versions and a fourth one used for the control system. Neither of them corresponded with reality.

[photoptimist]

As I stated in #755
"You gotta do much more than believe if you want to change things"

---------- Post added 03-29-20 at 12:40 AM ----------


About 24 hours. So lets take a look at your day in say South Korea.
You get tested - The Government requires you to load a detailed tracker on your phone, If you refuse, you are arrested and put in quarantine.
You load the app.

So you do your trips.

So, you get a negative result from your test. The government now has a detailed record of where you were and at what time. Now, if there is someone else who is positive, they (the government) can hunt you down and force you in to quarantine for the incubation period (two weeks) they test you again and if you are clean you can move about - but they still track you.

Or, you come back positive. The government forces you into quarantine and watches you for signs of infection - at least three weeks.
The government goes to Costco, Walmart. They require those businesses to provide the names (off of the accounting systems) of everyone in the store based on the time you checked out/or they use the data off of the tracker app. They go to Bry's and do the same thing, down to the account/name information for the stores sales. Same for the Pizza place. The personnel in the businesses are tested and during the period that the tests are coming back, they are shut down and required to undergo "deep cleaning".

Now, this is not going to happen to this extreme in the US. But since when is a Audio store open when only essential business are supposed to be open?[COLOR="Silver"]

Do people really have a constitutional right to spread infectious diseases?

As for government tracking, that's already happening by using the tracking apps people have already voluntarily bought and downloaded. (see US Officials Use Mobile Ad Location Data to Study How COVID-19 Spreads - Slashdot ) Agreeing to the terms of service on smartphones and many apps means agreeing to be tracked and agreeing to let the trackers share that data with third parties. In a free market, capitalist system the government can buy your location tracking data just like any other organization can.

[Serkevan]

Do people really have a constitutional right to spread infectious diseases?

As for government tracking, that's already happening by using the tracking apps people have already voluntarily bought and downloaded. (see US Officials Use Mobile Ad Location Data to Study How COVID-19 Spreads - Slashdot ) Agreeing to the terms of service on smartphones and many apps means agreeing to be tracked and agreeing to let the trackers share that data with third parties. In a free market, capitalist system the government can buy your location tracking data just like any other organization can.

The government is like Pentax; when Canikony bake in their lens corrections to artificially score better in tests it's fine, when Pentax puts in the accelerator DPR loses their minds
There are some people who can be downright offended at the thought of the government having any kind of basic info on them but then are fine with anyone being able to know their bathroom habits just by looking at their google maps data.

[reeftool]

I live in an area with sketchy cell service so people aren't getting tracked. I suppose if you are concerned, leave your phone at home and pay cash if you go to a store and buy anything.

Cases in our upstate rural area has more than doubled in the last 2 days. The only people who are getting tested are people who are sick enough to show up at an ER or Urgent Care as there are very few tests available. There is some concerns among local doctors that this virus is all over the place, showing up as just a cold in most and people can't be tested unless they are seriously ill. I have had 3 regularly scheduled doctor appointments in the past week. Two visits were cancelled and I talked with the doctors with a Facetime chat. One other required me to wear a heart monitor for 24 hours which I did do. I had to go through extensive screening before I was even allowed in the building.

In all honesty, I'm quite happy not seeing my doctor. I don't want to sit in a waiting room and get exposed to whatever. I'm being treated for moderately high blood pressure. I take my own blood pressure and send the info to my doc and she can decide whether or not to adjust my medication. When this is over, I will not be surprised to this becoming normal practice.

[RoxnDox]

I live in an area with sketchy cell service so people aren't getting tracked. I suppose if you are concerned, leave your phone at home and pay cash if you go to a store and buy anything.

Cases in our upstate rural area has more than doubled in the last 2 days. The only people who are getting tested are people who are sick enough to show up at an ER or Urgent Care as there are very few tests available. There is some concerns among local doctors that this virus is all over the place, showing up as just a cold in most and people can't be tested unless they are seriously ill. I have had 3 regularly scheduled doctor appointments in the past week. Two visits were cancelled and I talked with the doctors with a Facetime chat. One other required me to wear a heart monitor for 24 hours which I did do. I had to go through extensive screening before I was even allowed in the building.

In all honesty, I'm quite happy not seeing my doctor. I don't want to sit in a waiting room and get exposed to whatever. I'm being treated for moderately high blood pressure. I take my own blood pressure and send the info to my doc and she can decide whether or not to adjust my medication. When this is over, I will not be surprised to this becoming normal practice.

Telemedicine is going to get a big boost from the pandemic. My wife’s primary care clinic and most of their nationwide system is being trained, equipped, and required to start doing virtual visits (like it or not). Although this, along with the demand from new telework and gotta-keep-in-touch folks has made it damn near impossible to find new webcams... Half the computers at her clinic are sporting personal gear now.

[aslyfox]

. . . In all honesty, I'm quite happy not seeing my doctor. I don't want to sit in a waiting room and get exposed to whatever. I'm being treated for moderately high blood pressure. I. . . .

last week I went in for a regularly injection of medicine ( roughly every 10 days ) and also I had a visit with a Nurse PA to get on new type II diabetes medicine

each time, before I entered the main building, I had my temperature taken and had to answer a questionnaire

If I had a temperature of 100 0 F [ 37.8 0 C ] or more or answered the questionnaire in a certain manner I would not have gained entry

my local pharmacy offers delivery or if you want to pick up yourself, drive through service only

you can no longer gain access to the inside space

[brewmaster15]

Something for those GenX people here(sorry millenials and boomers)... you may find some well needed humor in this article...
It Took a Global Pandemic, But Generation X is Finally Getting Love | PaperCity Magazine
AL

[Racer X 69]

The Government requires you to load a detailed tracker on your phone, If you refuse, you are arrested and put in quarantine.
You load the app.

So you do your trips.

An app?

On my phone?




Not gonna happen.

Guess I'll get arrested.

But since when is a Audio store open when only essential business are supposed to be open?

They sell more than car and home audio. Furniture and appliances too. I dunno why they were open. Didn't ask. Just happy they were open, and I was able to support a local business.

A business that has been in operation since the early 1950's, for three generations.


I suppose the appliance side of the business is what gives them a pass to be open. My oldest grandson is working for Judd & Black, a regional appliance business, and they are open for regular hours.

[Parallax]

An app?

On my phone?

May I suggest a bit of an upgrade?

[reeftool]

Telemedicine is going to get a big boost from the pandemic. My wife’s primary care clinic and most of their nationwide system is being trained, equipped, and required to start doing virtual visits (like it or not). Although this, along with the demand from new telework and gotta-keep-in-touch folks has made it damn near impossible to find new webcams... Half the computers at her clinic are sporting personal gear now.

The home use gizmos available today give an enormous amount of health information. My blood pressure cuff, made by Withings, is connected to my smart phone. I can open the app and every blood pressure reading is right in front of me. Since I work out a lot, I have a Garmin fitness watch which besides tracking my activity, also has a 24 hour a day heart rate tracker. The next generation of watches will have EKG and blood oxygen monitors. Some are offering this already as beta features. If there is one issue with this that I see, most of these devices can't share information. The Withings health app shows my steps every day that are recorded on my phone but not on my watch since Garmin is a competitor. The Apple Health app shows a lot but you have to hunt for it.

My desktop computer, a Mac Mini, doesn't have a webcam although I could get one. But I do have an iPhone and iPad Pro which is capable of video chats. My doctor sent me some charts and a blood pressure log chart during our meeting which downloaded flawlessly into my files folder which I immediately sent to my printer. There are a lot of privacy concerns about how this information gets used and who has access to it.

[MarkJerling]

Lovely data here which shows some genetic markers of the virus spread: auspice

[savoche]

I am an anesthesiologist and critical care specialist in Namibia ( one of maybe a dozen ) and my daughter is a first responder in Las Vegas, Nevada. So I have a lot of personal interest as well. I do not sleep at night. When the epidemic started, we all felt that the epidemiologists' predictions and numbers were sound but hopefully overly pessimistic They were not, unfortunately. The figures in Italy followed the predictions quite well. Nobody could or wanted to believe that you will have ten patients needing one ventilator and that things will be hopeless. We are in the beginning of the curve and being a developing country our resources are extremely inadequate and our leaders are having inauguration parties. We are planning for the deluge that according to said epidemiologists will be here in two weeks and since they have been quite correct with first world countries ( including USA) we have reason to believe it will be the same here

Do NOT ignore the threat and looking at numbers as being the same or less than normal influenza is insane. We have 4 private hospitals trying to prepare for 3500 ventilator cases in the capital alone with less than 100 ventilators. Nobody could have foreseen that, but please take the infection control measures very seriously. It will help us on the front lines to manage the patients. Being flooded with not enough resources puts us in places to make decisions that will haunt us for the rest of, our lives

Take care.

And Namibia is in better shape than a lot of other countries in Africa. Is there a glimmer of hope in having a younger population, at least?

The thought of what's about to hit you makes my heart sink.