#i don't have covid at least according to the home tests but like. i still have a cold or something | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nancydrew428 · 2 years

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Why is everyone (both everyday people and governments) treating COVID like it's over? Why did we stop caring? Why are we letting so many people die?

At least in the U.S., we are still having some of the highest cases we've ever had! We have more cases currently than we did in March 2020. And this is probably an underestimation, considering the fact that so many in person testing places have shut down, nothing is really requiring that people get tested anymore, so many people are buying at home tests where they don't have to report the results, many people get asymptomatic COVID, and lots of cities/states have essentially just stopped reporting cases.

On average in the past week, we are having almost 98,000 new cases per day. Thankfully, deaths are down, but that's still about 300 recorded COVID deaths per day in the past 7 days. (this is according to Google by searching "COVID trend US".)

The thing about this is that so many of these cases and deaths would be preventable if governments did anything about it. But instead, governments give into their furthest right constituents + their corporate interests and decide that pretending that everything's fine and letting immunocompromised and otherwise high risk people have to choose between hiding and dying is more important than caring about people's lives and health.

Why is your personal freedom to not wear a mask, to not get vaccinated, to possibly kill yourself, and to likely kill others more important than other people's rights to live?

I'm not saying we have to go back to the way it was when we were strictest with COVID. I know that is not going to happen and people want to get out there and do things. But why are big businesses no longer requiring masks? Why are some governments no longer making it easier/cheaper to get tested for COVID? Why are governments no longer pushing vaccines? Why are we not better funding our hospitals, other healthcare settings, and really anything that will truly help people?

How could we all be so selfish, ignorant, bigoted, hateful, self-centered, corrupt, careless, and perhaps even malicious?

What can I do to help people care or do what's right? What can I do to hold my government accountable? What can I do to protect myself and others?

I'm vaccinated and I'll get any future COVID vaccines that are recommended. I'll keep wearing my mask. I can ask my friends to do the same. I can start carrying around other masks in my car just in case one of my friends forgets theirs. I social distance when possible. I keep up to date with COVID news. What else I can do?

I want to live my life, too. I want to enjoy my 20s and go to concerts and see friends. But I also don't want to give up. I don't want to put myself or others at high risk. I don't want to pretend like COVID is over, like everything's fine, like people aren't getting sick and dying when many of these cases are preventable! COVID is real. It still exists, it's still infecting people, affecting people, killing people. It's here to stay, but there has to be something that can be done. For the U.S. government to decide that the onus is on the individual and to wipe their hands clean from the blood that was once there is despicable and disgusting.

#if you are anti-vax or don't believe covid exists or never wear a mask or feel too defensive to respond in a meaningful way #then please don't respond #block me and leave me alone #i mostly just needed to rant but i do want to do what i can to help others and make the world a better place #but when not enough people/no powerful people or entities are doing this (or being open/loud enough about it)#it feels scary and lonely and hopeless #and i don't like any of those feelings lol #post #covid #covid 19 #not nd #not nd related

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captain-habit · 2 years

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Well the good news is, at least, according to those questionable at-home tests, I don't have an active infection of covid, even though my sister does.

Though one of the same tests said she was negative, despite two positive tests from both Walgreens and CVS so I'm doubting their reliability.

Either way I still feel like a swamp fire so I'm probably going to try to sleep a bunch today.

#ughhhhh

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sugdenlovesdingle · 2 years

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According to the data, cases are still high in the UK but the number of deaths this winter have been no higher than the numbers we'd normally see in pre Covid-19 times, they're the same as the winters when people die of regular flu etc. Over 90% of people in the country have been vaccinated at least once, there's literally nothing left for us to do as a country except get on with our lives.

things are similar over here - as of the 25th they're getting rid of basically all restrictions... but I'm not going anywhere any time soon. Everyone has decided covid is over - social distancing is over, nobody really wore masks in the first place, staying home after a positive test is a suggestion... and people who are at risk of becoming seriously ill (like my mum - even after 3 jabs) are just... shit out of luck. suddenly we don't have to think about the vulnerable people around us anymore. we can go out and get drunk and hook up with a stranger... and potentially catch covid and give it to someone waiting in line in the supermarket - because social distancing and masks are a thing of the past.

I get that people want to get on with their lives but it's pissing me off that suddenly going back to 'normal' is more important than protecting others.

i'm just tired.

#Anonymous

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thatsonemorbidcorvid · 3 years

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Arina and Nina used to only meet once a week - at activities organised for the care home where Nina lived. Now, Arina is applying to become Nina's guardian, giving the 27-year-old hope she might finally be able to leave the institution where she has lived her entire adult life.

For the past few months Nina Torgashova has been able to enjoy an independence that had always been out of reach for her - shopping, cooking and washing her own clothes.

Things that would be every-day life experiences for most 27-year-olds.

But not for Nina, who has always lived in institutions, and moved when she was 18 to what, in Russia, is called a psycho-neurological care home. When the pandemic hit, she was able to savour life outside the home, with a volunteer, Arina Muratova.

Nina recalls the moment she found out she was leaving.

"I never thought anyone would take me. I had thought: "Oh no, I am going to be stuck in the care home."

It was April 2020 and the Covid-19 pandemic forced Moscow into lockdown. As visits to Nina's institution were stopped, charities lobbied for volunteers to be allowed to take responsibility for some of the residents until they could start up again.

Arina, a market research expert who loves nail art and embroidery, offered to look after Nina.

But when the 27-year-old got a taste for the freedom she'd never had, she decided she didn't want to go back.

Her 31-year-old friend was faced with a life-changing decision.

Arina has been involved in voluntary work for a decade - starting with helping children with learning difficulties and their families. She then became involved in adult care, which is when she met Nina through a Russian charity called Life Route. The charity organises trips and classes for the residents of some Russian psycho-neurological care homes (known as PNIs).

Arina started volunteering in PNI 22 - where Nina was living with hundreds of other residents - about four years ago. The care home looks after adults with a wide range of disorders, thought to relate to both cognitive disabilities and mental illness of varying severity.

Arina and Nina got to know each other through the charity Life Route which organises camps for the care home residents

Nina's diagnosis remains confidential to everyone except her care home director. This is usually the case for those residents the state judges are unable to live independently. So neither she nor Arina know why she is in the home, but Arina is surprised that she is.

Although Nina struggles with literacy and maths, Arina says she is very capable.

"She is such a quick learner and is well-adapted in everyday living," she says.

Nina was admitted to a home for disabled children when she was very young, before transferring to the PNI at 18. It is not clear whether she was taken to the children's home by her parents or was forcibly removed from their care.

She says they visited her there once, but she was frightened and hid under the bed.

"They were drunks. I was afraid. They stank of alcohol," she says.

Arina says Nina always stood out during her visits with Life Route, taking an active role in the activities and trips organised by the charity

"Nina was a very active person at her care home," says Arina. "She took part in various creative activities: amateur dramatics, arts and crafts workshops. She took part in sporting competitions, too: she played darts, she played football. Football was something she really missed after leaving the home."

When the lockdown last spring made these visits impossible, Arina suggested Zoom calls with the residents instead. But from the start is was clear this wasn't going to work - the home's internet simply wasn't strong enough. Other charities helping other care homes in Moscow and St Petersburg were facing similar problem

So these charities pressured the authorities to allow some care home residents to be released for the lockdown.

"It was all arranged in a day, and the next day the person was out. I cannot imagine anything like this before the pandemic," says Life Route's director Ivan Rozhansky.

Nevertheless Arina admits she was nervous when she made the initial decision to look after Nina. She was counting on Nina's relative independence, given she needed to work from home.

"There was a certain calculation in taking Nina. I had a lot of work to do, even during the lockdown. I realised I had to live with someone who'd be able to occupy themselves - at least some the time. With Nina it was clear that I'd be able to say: 'Now I have to work for three hours but afterwards we can make lunch together!'"

But Nina's move into the flat the charity had given the pair to live in during lockdown did get off to a slightly rocky start.

"She had very few possessions with her, just a small rucksack. She looked lost. While I was signing papers brought by the care worker, she walked around the flat. She didn't look especially overjoyed, and I had been counting on that.

"When I saw Nina looking so lost, I wondered if this had been a good idea. It's one thing to ask a person in a text if they want to move, but it's quite different to actually move them."

But not long afterwards, Arina shared a selfie with the other volunteers of herself with a grinning Nina, arms raised in joy.

Not only did Nina start shopping for food and cooking for herself, Arina arranged for her to have a maths tutor - important now she was buying things on her own.

"It's not that Nina doesn't understand things. She just never needed maths before," Arina says.

Arina herself began helping Nina with her literacy - she could read and write, but slowly and with difficulty.

"I need to be able to read and write," says Nina. "To be able to cook for myself, to go to work. I do want to have a job.

"I could make and sell friendship bracelets. I asked Arina: 'Do you know anyone who might want one?' She asked her mum, her mum was quite keen. I said: 'I will sort this!' Her mum picked the colours, Arina showed me a photo [of the colours], and I started making it."

Arina says she wanted to make sure she gave Nina responsibility for herself, rather than always taking charge, even if this did not always go to plan.

She cites the example of Nina wanting to learn to draw. Arina found another volunteer who could teach her over Zoom, and explained to Nina that she should make sure she joined the lessons. But after a while she discovered Nina had been missing some sessions.

"I don't want to chase another grown-up and pester them," says Arina. "I felt this was the kind of responsibility Nina could sustain, and we had conflicts around it."

But on another occasion Arina wanted to be more involved in Nina's life than regulations allowed.

Nina had complained of a terrible stomach ache and was admitted to hospital for several days of tests. Arina was not allowed to stay with her because she was not a relative or guardian.

"Pleas, send Nina some reassuring messages," she texted to the volunteer group chat. "Poor thing's terrified, she is having a third blood test and is scared."

Thankfully there was nothing seriously wrong.

As the Moscow lockdown eased in June, the Life Route charity was faced with a challenge.

"It became obvious that those people our foundation took to the assisted living flats for the duration of the quarantine did not want to go back to the PNI," says Ivan Rozhansky, the charity's director.

These institutions have been a focus of concern for some time.

In early 2019, Russia's deputy prime minister Tatiana Golikova ordered an inspection of living conditions in 192 psycho-neurological care homes. A consumer watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, discovered violations of health and safety and other regulations in around 80% of them.

In January of this year Russia's Ministry of Labour introduced a number of structural changes to the provision of care for those in PNIs, including a move to help social workers provide assistance for some people in private homes rather than in state institutions.

"Obviously, all these changes will not be realised immediately on January 1, 2021, but step-by-step the situation will be changing," Golikova said.

Maria Sisneva from the charity Stop PNI says the quality of life in Russian care homes is poor.

"At a PNI you will have 500-1,000 people living in close quarters, but with very different levels of ability, and different backgrounds, different needs. They live in extremely cramped conditions, at best they'd be two to a small room, often in corridors, in spaces similar to military barracks, isolated from the outside world. They barely have any real social experience."

The director of PNI 22, where Nina was living, is clear about the benefits of care homes, however.

"The main advantage of psycho-neurological homes is security," says Anton Kliuchev. "The residents are looked after by professionals, who know exactly how to help and support them, how to talk to them, how to take care of them."

Care homes for people with specialist needs and mental illness exist all over the world. But from the mid-20th Century in the US and some European countries, a process of deinstitutionalisation started, aimed at replacing long-stay closed facilities with care within the community. Yet, in Russia care homes are still the predominant model.

According to Russian government statistics, as of February 2020 there were more than 150,000 people living in PNIs.

Unlike many countries, Russia's assisted living provision is only in its infancy. National charities believe that if this alternative system were more established, many care home residents could leave their institutions.

"Right now the system in Russia is such that if a person is believed to be insufficiently independent by the state, there is nowhere for them to go apart from a PNI, or [for those with physical disabilities] an invalids' home," says Sisneva.

Life Route began to discuss how the assisted living arrangement could be made permanent for the nine people they rehoused during lockdown. The charity rented four apartments, including one for Nina to share with fellow care home residents Sergey and Ivan. Arina moved back to her own apartment, and began instead to spend one night a week at Nina's new accommodation on rotation with other volunteers.

But there was another hurdle.

The PNI can only release their residents' care permanently to Life Route if those people have what is termed "legal capacity" - in other words, the state considers them able to function independently in theory, even if in practice they are in a care home.

Nina does not have legal capacity - all decisions about her life are made for her by the director of her PNI. As Nina is so functionally able, it is not clear why this is, though experts say it can be simply a foible of the system. If, like Nina, someone has arrived from previous care such as a children's home, and has never been properly assessed, their legal status might never be challenged.

So Arina has applied to become Nina's guardian.

"One day it just sort of clicked. And I realised I had to do it."

If her request is granted, Arina will become responsible for every element of Nina's life - financial, practical, emotional and medical. As her guardian the PNI will finally share Nina's diagnosis with her.

The process won't be straightforward, she says, involving extensive financial, physical and psychological check-ups on Arina.

"Emotionally [the decision] wasn't easy either," says Arina. "But once I took Nina out of the care home, she became my responsibility."

This all-consuming obligation might explain why there are so few people who volunteer to become legal guardians in Russia.

While Arina waits to be granted Nina's guardianship, the PNI could demand that Nina - whose state benefits they are currently losing out on - return to them at any time.

Meanwhile, Arina says she is still working out the exact role she plays in Nina's life.

"I can never be Nina's mum. I will never be able to give her the childhood she deserved."

But she accepts that Nina sees her as much more than a friend. Nina expects her presence on all important errands: to the dentist, to get her ears pierced, to get registered at the local GP.

And these new responsibilities have come at a time when life has been tough for Arina in other ways.

"It wasn't just Nina who went through a big emotional change. I went through a lot emotionally, too - during this time my salary was cut; I have had complicated developments in my personal life."

But Arina says all this has brought them closer together.

"Once you have gone through all these experiences [alongside another person], it is hard to backpedal.

"I won't say I'm not anxious about it. I'm incredibly anxious. And there are certain people around me who freak me out even more. They keep asking me. 'Have you thought it through? It's for life!'

"I calm myself down by saying that we have a plan."

That plan is to work towards eventually restoring Nina's full legal capacity.

Nina needs to be deemed independent by the state if she ever wants to live alone or get a job.

Other than Arina, she has one other close relationship - with a man called Sasha, who she met in PNI 22, and who is now in assisted living in a different apartment. Nina regularly meets up with Sasha in the city, and is clearly fond of him. Arina is aware that Nina may want to eventually marry and she would need legal capacity for that too.

So Arina hopes Nina's tutoring will give her the option to be assessed at some point.

"Examiners look closely at a person's reading, writing and counting abilities," Arina has heard.

The process is not publicly available but anecdotal accounts suggest it can include everything from being expected to dance or sing a song, or even know the price of a loaf of bread.

Arina says they won't apply for Nina to take this test until she is as prepared as she can be.

In the meantime, Arina is involved in all the important moments of Nina's life.

"Maybe I'm just the type of person that is not afraid of responsibility. It is an unexpected - but actually a good thing - that has happened to me.

"I love her. There's not much to it. I love her very much."

My Friend from a Care Home is available to watch now on YouTube.

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losbella · 4 years

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news-lisaar · 4 years

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news-ase · 4 years

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swedna · 4 years

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After Covid-19’s emergence in Buenos Aires led to a strict lockdown in March, Juliana Cassataro and her fellow vaccine researchers grew concerned. The U.S., Europe and China had already revved up their quests to obtain shots; how far back in line would Argentina have to wait for supplies?

“We did not want to stay in our homes,” said Cassataro, a scientist at the National University of San Martin in the nation’s capital. “We wanted to use our knowledge to help in this pandemic.”

Determined to give Latin America its own protection from the fast-spreading virus, Cassataro’s team -- 10 women and two men -- quickly got to work. A government grant of $100,000 in May paid for initial studies, and human trials could start in about six months.

The U.S. and other superpowers have laid claim to billions of Covid vaccine doses that are nearing the finish line. That’s sparked worries that poorer countries will be left behind and shots will be slow to reach many of the world’s 7.8 billion people. Dozens of laboratories, researchers and companies from Thailand to Nigeria are bootstrapping their own work on inoculations.

Groups such as the World Health Organization, the Oslo-based Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance are working to ensure that coverage extends beyond the developed world. But memories of the 2009 swine flu outbreak, when pandemic vaccines barely made their way past the top tier of wealthy countries, persist.

“There’s a fear factor,” said Seth Berkley, Gavi’s chief executive officer.

Developing nations that don't want to wait for superpower's Covid vaccines Following the big drugmakers into the testing arena may be difficult, especially if an approved vaccine is available. But if the work fails to deliver a product to fight this pathogen, it may still give countries a leg up in future outbreaks.

Argentina’s vaccine is among roughly 170 advancing globally, according to the WHO. Airfinity, a U.K.-based analytics firm, has an even higher count -- more than 280 -- including about 50 in lower-income nations such as India, Turkey, Egypt and Kazakhstan.

The urgency is rising throughout the developing world. Argentina’s infections have surpassed 350,000 with the death toll climbing to more than 7,000. Neighboring Brazil has 3.6 million cases, while India’s have breached 3 million. With 600,000 infections, South Africa has become a fertile testing ground for vaccines.

One of the fastest-moving shots outside the wealthy world is in Thailand. Scientists at Chulalongkorn University plan to start human testing as early as September, relying on messenger RNA technology similar to that used by U.S. biotech company Moderna Inc. If successful, the Thai team aims to introduce a vaccine in the country by the second half of 2021.

Leapfrogging them all is Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine that President Vladimir Putin authorised before a conclusive test of its effectiveness and safety. The attention the inoculation has received -- Russian officials have said at least 20 countries are interested in obtaining it -- shows the level of desperation.

Latin America got some relief earlier this month when Argentina and Mexico reached agreements to produce as many as 250 million initial doses of AstraZeneca Plc’s experimental vaccine, an effort backed by billionaire Carlos Slim’s foundation. China has offered to loan Latin American and Caribbean countries $1 billion to purchase shots.

Yet it may take until the end of next year for the first 1 billion vaccine doses to be distributed throughout the world, according to Airfinity. And it’s not clear if the front-runners will gain approval, nor how effective they’ll be in various situations.

Developing nations that don't want to wait for superpower's Covid vaccines The swelling ranks of developers reflect those concerns, said Paul Offit, who runs the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. A range of inoculations may be needed to protect different groups like the elderly, he said.

“I’m sure there’s a component of not wanting to be left out,” he said. “One doesn’t want to have to rely on the largess of other countries to protect their population. But I think the general interest among scientists in this world is that there’s going to be far more than one vaccine that will be in play.”

African countries don’t want to see a rerun of what happened when vaccines against rotavirus were introduced around 2006, according to Nigerian researcher Oladipo Kolawole. Early versions weren’t as effective there as in high-income regions, although subsequent shots have yielded positive results.

With coronavirus infections in Africa surpassing 1.1 million, Kolawole’s firm, Helix Biogen Consult, has begun collaborating with other Nigerian researchers on a vaccine. They plan to start animal tests soon and hope to have an impact beyond their country’s borders.

“We are not concerned about Nigeria alone,” Kolawole said. “We are concerned about Africa and the whole world.”

Many nations also face uncertainty over when doses will be available, how many they will be able to obtain and at what cost, according to Marie-Paule Kieny, a former WHO official who’s now a research director at Inserm, a French health-science institute. The crisis provides an opportunity to develop new technologies, skills and partnerships that could yield economic returns while also helping to respond to future health threats, she said.

“It’s always better when you have a problem to try to do something to resolve it yourself, not to stay there with empty hands,” she said.

Still, developing-nation researchers face a number of hurdles. The odds of success are lower in countries without existing vaccine industries, according to Kieny. While countries are keen to build up scant domestic manufacturing capacity, it’s a costly and complex business, and difficult to compete with larger producers, Gavi’s Berkley said.

Cassataro and her colleagues are developing a “subunit” vaccine that delivers harmless fragments of the virus -- rather than the whole pathogen -- to stimulate immunity. They’re considering two approaches, including one that could be delivered orally, and more funds would be needed to pay for human testing, she said.

The goal is to achieve “technological sovereignty” so Argentina won’t have to watch from afar as others vaccinate their way out of the pandemic.

“Waiting is very frustrating,” she said.

#Covid-19

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whenallisquiet · 4 years

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From a crisis statistician in my London Business School WhatsApp:

Christoforos Anagnostopoulos, Lecturer at Imperial College

The next two months will be critical. We will remember them for the rest of our lives. I would like to offer a few pieces of information, under the burden of my professional capacity as a statistician who is working in crisis modelling and simulation, and the additional burden of the dearth of data that we have for this new virus.

Our best current estimate of the mortality rate of Covid-19 is around 1%, with a range of 0.5%-2% (source in the first comment). This differs from the so-called snapshot CFR which is obtained by dividing the number of deaths by the number of confirmed cases, and which varies in the range of 2%-5% or more per region. The snapshot CFR is factually accurate, but not very predictive, so let's run with 1% as a median expectation. This is still at least 20 times worse than the flu. The belief that "the flu kills more people every year" will soon be proven wrong. The related belief that "maybe most of us have caught it already and didn't realise" is also unlikely to be proven right: the virus is indeed mild in about 80% of cases, but, conservatively, for every 95 mild cases, at least 5 additional severe cases would have been admitted to hospital, and hence tested, and hence become known. Although we are extremely uncertain about the absolute number of mild cases, we have good evidence that the majority of the population has not yet fallen ill, and, as a result, the worse is yet to come. The virus is probably twice more contagious than the flu, and almost certainly contagious before symptoms appear.

So the facts, such as they are, indicate that COVID-19 is worse than the flu, more contagious than the flu, and already widespread, but nowhere near widespread enough that we have seen the worse of it. The situation in Europe (and elsewhere) is about to get worse, much worse, and fast. The only thing we can control is how fast. This is why, I reiterate, the next two months are critical. We are still within the window of opportunity of slowing the virus down - we can no longer stop it, but we can slow it down. A lot. This is known as the "flattening of the curve": the effort to delay the peak of the outbreak, and reduce its height by spreading it over a longer period of time, so that the number of critically ill patients remain within the capacity of the national health system. The only lever we can pull right now to achieve this is behavioural change: better hygiene, and social distancing, which I elaborate upon below. Before I do, let me drive home why this is worth doing, as it is common to argue "why bother? Why sustain the economic cost? Since we're all going to get this anyway and the majority of cases are mild?".

Here is why. According to a recent count, we have about 5K ICU beds in the UK. For every death it is sensible to expect about 3 to 5 critically ill patients that require an ICU bed for about 4 weeks. Let's go with the lower bound of 3. If the case fatality ratio is correct at about 1%, and if 10% of the population gets this virus within the same 4-week period, we will require 180K ICU beds. We have 5K. That's more than 30 times higher than the available capacity. If critically ill patients have to stay at home, without mechanical ventilation, they will succumb to the disease at greater numbers. The mortality will increase. The contagiousness will increase as loved ones will have to try and take care of critically ill patients at home. The social trauma will increase as patients die in their homes.

It is hence clear that delaying this virus is now a public service. And delaying this virus is hard, but simple: try your best not to get it. You can achieve this by extreme measures of personal hygiene and moderate measures of social distancing:

- Wash your hands thoroughly. As if you've just chopped chilli peppers and you're about to remove your contact lenses. Use liquid soap or alcohol-based solution. Do it 10 times a day.

- Treat every surface as possibly infected, and your phone as a Petri dish. If possible, keep it somewhere safe with your keys and wallet and do not use it indoors, or near your bed.

- By default, cancel everything. Reduce all non-essential travel, all non-essential social interaction. Spend time with your kids indoors. Work from home if you can. Or be outdoors, keeping at least six feet between your family and other people.

- Do not shake hands. Avoid meetings in closed spaces if you can.

- But keep working, if you can. Sustain your economic contribution both demand-side and supply-side as much as you can, without exposing yourself physically. Don't watch TV and check your Facebook feed every five minutes. Stay safe, keep working.

- There is little and contested evidence that masks help a healthy individual, but it is certain they help when used by medical professionals, and when worn by people that are ill. Leave masks for those that need them.

- The elderly are particularly at risk, which is not common across all viruses. The best thing you can do for your elderly neighbours and relatives is to help them stay indoors (shop for them), but avoid seeing them in person if you can.

And remember this: democracies deal with emergencies by relying on personal responsibility and voluntary behavioural change. Take this responsibility seriously. And demonstrate leadership. It is a common misconception that leadership lies with government only. This is not true. Leadership is everywhere. Every employer, every manager, every teacher, every public servant, every parent is a leader. Everyone who makes decisions on behalf of other people is a leader. Every handshake is a decision. If you're young and healthy and fall ill, you'll most likely be OK. But the best way to protect the groups at risk, like the elderly and those with chronic conditions, is not to catch the virus yourself. Deny it the opportunity to use your body as a vector. Fight it.

The above sounds alarming, and it's meant to be. But it is not a call to panic. Panic is not only unhelpful, it is also unwarranted. Do not empty the supermarkets. We should not be anticipating shortages in staple products, so do not entertain that self-fulfilling expectation. The CDC advice is sensible: stockpile enough food in case you have to self-quarantine for two weeks. Do it responsibly: just shop twice as much in every visit, and in about a week you'll be ready. There is no reason to panic. It is very unlikely that the supply chain will collapse as a result of this virus. Its mortality is high, but not that high, and it tends to spare the demographic that is most crucial for a nation to function: adults between 20 and 40, who are the majority of our policemen, our soldiers, our firemen, our logistics employees, our doctors and our nurses. Even if we all catch this virus, the absolutely vast majority of those of us that need to keep on working for the nation to avoid collapse will survive it. This does not detract from the tragic effect this would have on the populations at-risk. But it is a cynical albeit rational reason not to panic, and not to fear collapse.

So be very pessimistic in the short-run. But be unwaveringly optimistic for the long-term. A vaccine is extremely unlikely to reach us in the next 12 months, but it is almost certain to do so in 18-24 months - the technology is well understood, well underway and there are no fundamental stumbling blocks. Meanwhile, anti-virals (which is the equivalent of antibiotics, but for viruses) will reach us far earlier; with some luck, they might be available within 2020. When they arrive, they will likely have a big impact on mortality and severity. And take solace in the fact that the virus spares children under 9 (0 deaths so far). There is some justice even in this tragedy. There is also the hope, and some weak evidence, that the virus might prove to be seasonal, like the flu, in which case the summer's arrival will give us an interlude to lick our wounds, and allow the health system and the scientific community to prepare for the coming winter.

Science has come together in an unprecedented manner to combat this epidemic. I have been watching this evolve from the very first week, and recall my heart sinking when, in early February, it was observed that the virus is contagious before symptoms appear, that telltale characteristic of pandemic-strength viruses. But I have also been deeply touched by record after record being broken by scientists all around the world. Humanity has fought much nastier bugs than this, and won, every time. We will win this time, too. Share on social media, inform your friends, protect the groups at-risk, stay at home, keep working.

Friday 13 March 2020

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