Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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Log-linear charts comparing comparing countries' number of cases starting with the day of their 100th reported case, and number of deaths starting with the day of their 10th reported case:

In my situation while it could kill me, the rest of the household has a 98% chance of it being mild. So in the house I am mainly in my room. But when someone comes into my room or I'm in other parts of the house we all have masks on. And still maintain distace. And there is lots of Lysol spraying etc. With all the precautions being taken I certainly do not expect to catch it. I am practically a "bubble boy".

Surely the virus is allergic to skunks. Mebbe holding a pet one while shopping would help enforce social distancing!

Well, we could have followed South Korea's example, which is a democratic country (not authoritarian, like some here have claimed). South Korea never implemented a lockdown. The key to South Korea's success was aggressive testing--including of young people--and aggressive contact-tracing, and quarantining those affected. That is definitely something to learn from here. We could have avoided having to do the shelter-in-place thing here had we done this early enough....
Of course, being able to do this means probably investing for the long term in public health measures, even where you don't see short-term results. And in today's neoliberal environment in the West, that is a difficult proposition to sell.

The mortality rate, when all is said and done, will probably be less than the stated figures when all is said and done. Many mild cases are not being tested.

https://www.indiatoday.in/fact-check/story/fact-check-no-putin-has-not-unleashed-lions-on-russian-streets-to-enforce-corona-lockdown-1658566-2020-03-23

No, Putin has not unleashed lions on Russian streets to enforce Corona lockdown

Of course not... he used bears, duh.

That won’t work,they love bears.They will all come outside to pet and feed them.

New York’s once-thriving restaurant scene is fast becoming a graveyard.

Less than a week after being ordered to close all dining room service and focus solely on takeout, eateries are pulling the plug on that business, too. Takeout and delivery orders in the face of crescendoing coronavirus contamination fears just aren’t pulling in enough dough to keep the lights on. Plus, it’s not safe, restaurateurs say.

Cristina Castaneda on Saturday shuttered her last two remaining restaurants, including Mexican restaurant El Mitote and Mediterranean eatery Ella Social, after deciding she couldn’t continue to sell food without endangering her and her staff’s health.

“I worked there all day and just couldn’t find a safe way to continue operating,” she said late Saturday. “We are going home.”

The economics also weren’t working, Castaneda said. “We are really left with nothing, and I’m talking nothing: Two bank accounts went to zero within one week after the last payroll.”

New York’s restaurant industry has been suffering for months as fear of the coronavirus has sent people scurrying for cover. Any hope of a quick recovery was squashed last week when Gov. Andrew Cuomo banned all sit-down dining in an effort to stanch the spread of the virus, which threatens to overwhelm city hospitals as the number of cases skyrockets.

But takeout isn’t the panacea some people thought it would be. And it’s been especially tough for restaurants that previously relied on people sitting down at a table to eat. Takeout business for this bunch was generally less than 10 percent of overall sales in healthy times, industry sources said.

“We are losing money to do it, because we still have to pay basics like rent and electricity, but we are open so I can pay people something,” explained Jeremy Wladis, president of the Restaurant Group, which owns Good Enough to Eat, Harvest Kitchen and Brad’s Burgers & BBQ.

n offering only takeout, Wladis had to lay off around 75 people and shift to operating with a skeleton crew of 15 to 20 part-timers on rotating shifts — and he said he still can’t make ends meet.

He launched a GoFundMe page for laid-off staff and raised more than $7,000 the first day, including from regulars NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and his wife, Maggie. “Friends and family have just poured money into my team — to all the employees who aren’t even eligible for government assistance,” Wladis said.

Reopening, restaurateurs said, will require extraordinary relief from the government, insurance companies and landlords. “I don’t see a way unless there are some bailouts,” Castaneda said. “My landlords have been very supportive to me in the past, but I don’t know in today’s circumstances what will be possible for them either.”

Mark Amadei, an investor in Manhattan’s Cafeteria and Empire Diner, worries the pandemic will change the landscape of New York forever. “Cafeteria never shut down during 9/11, or the Lehman collapse, and got a car-size generator to stay open after Hurricane Sandy,” he recalled. “This situation is apocalyptic for the restaurant business. How sad would the city be if the only places that survived were chains? It makes me depressed to even think about it.”

Call it a faint silver lining, but it is true that diners are finding it easier to get a taste of dishes from restaurants that used to be hard to get into, like Nick & Toni’s in East Hampton.

The popular Mediterranean eatery is now open for takeout — and the lines out the door are kaput. On Saturday night, for example, there was just a trickle of customers coming in to pick up their orders.

“It’s hard to know if they’ll be able to keep it up if it continues this way,” said a customer, who did not want to be named.

Mark Smith, a co-owner of the famed 32-year-old eatery, said the takeout experiment is going “nicely,” but admitted they are doing it in part to help their staffers.

“It helps us keep some of our employees working and to get some revenue coming in,” he said. “We’re getting regular orders, like four entrees, what you would normally order — not 20 chickens.

“We were told to close our restaurants in 12 hours. I don’t know too many businesses or industries who have been told that right now,” Smith added. “We are just trying to get our sea legs.”

It’s going to be a tough spring for people who used to work at restaurants.

After abruptly losing their jobs because of the coronavirus crisis, former waitstaff and kitchen workers at thousands of closed eateries citywide face a dismal job market, spotty health coverage and uncertain hopes for government handouts.

“My biggest concern is for the people making $15 an hour after the final paychecks come in,” said Brian Flodmand, chief executive of Great Dane, which operates the upscale Danish eatery Agern in Grand Central Terminal as well as the Great Northern Food Hall there.

For those scrambling for a fresh source of income, among the few places hiring are grocery stores, or warehouses operated by Amazon, which have been getting slammed with orders from holed-up customers nationwide.

In the meantime, the only safety net for many is unemployment insurance. While the ranks seeking the government benefit soared by 70,000 a week ago, Goldman Sachs projects that last week’s jobless claims will come in at a staggering 2.25 million.

Last week, Congress passed a coronavirus bill that expands unemployment insurance and food stamps. It also calls for companies with fewer than 500 employees to give two weeks of paid leave under certain conditions.

The bill also beefs up Medicaid funding. Last week, President Trump loosened requirements for signing up for government health insurance.

Still, for many restaurant workers in New York, not much is changing when it comes to health coverage. That’s despite US laws that require companies with 50 workers or more to offer health insurance.

“For many restaurant workers, the cost of health insurance when it’s provided is prohibitive, and small restaurants don’t provide health insurance,” said labor attorney Louis Pechman, who runs a Web site for restaurant workers called Waiterpay.com.

Most restaurant workers who do have health benefits will lose them by the end of next month. Then will have to apply for coverage via pricey COBRA plans — or forego it entirely.

As many as 40 percent of all New Yorkers won’t be able to afford their rent after having been laid off due to the coronavirus, according to a new study.

The report, by real estate website PropertyNest, found that 38.9 percent of all New Yorkers do not have enough saved to pay a single month’s rent if they lose their jobs or their paychecks are put on hold.

Only a quarter of all New Yorkers have six months’ rent squirreled away, while just 14 percent have one month’s rent saved. The hardest hit will be women and younger adults, aged 18 to 24, the study found.

“The data shows a clear gap between the haves and have nots,” said Ruth Shin, founder of PropertyNest, which commissioned the survey of 2,048 people. “More than one-third of all New York City residents won’t be able to pay rent, and this will rise to more than half of all residents if we are in this situation for months to come.”

People who can’t pay their rent won’t be homeless anytime soon, however. On Friday, Gov. Cuomo announced a 90-day moratorium on evictions for both residential and commercial properties.

Landlords say they are bracing for tough times ahead.

“People will fall behind in rent and owners will have to carry larger arrears. Eventually people will pay their rent and make ends meet. This is not a forever problem but it is certainly a huge short term and mid-term problem,” one landlord told The Post.

particularly in using "we should all be more worried about the flu."