News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by m0zg on Saturday May 30, 2020 @08:59PM (#23366276)
CA, NY and NJ were the states that forced their nursing homes to take C19 patients.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200430140410/https://www.nytim...

CA got off easy, relatively speaking. Probably fewer nursing homes. It's amazing how idiotic government officials can be.

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by schoolornot on Sunday May 31, 2020 @12:27AM (#23367182)
NY's governor was going on his brother's TV show making light of the situation and sharing corny jokes as the elderly were dying in nursing homes.

And when people were desperate for relief it was the governor that decided to ban off-label use of drugs for COVID meanwhile his brother sprang back into action fairly quick after becoming infected and taking: https://nypost.com/2020/05/20/chris-cuomo-took-less-safe-ver...

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by IAmEveryone on Sunday May 31, 2020 @01:43AM (#23367481)
And, as we have since learnt, HCQ doesn't help and is actively harmful.

These two brothers are also not the same person, so it's entirely possible for one of them to ban something while the other still wants to use it.

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Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by IAmEveryone on Sunday May 31, 2020 @08:20AM (#23369080)
The science has moved to "evidence-based medicine", i. e. pure empiricism, about 80 years ago?

I know such theories always sound convincing. So did miasmas, and blood-letting, and so on. But that way of thinking just never worked!

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by hcknwscommenter on Sunday May 31, 2020 @02:21AM (#23367644)
You are dangerously misinformed. RNA polymerase requires Zinc. In fact, I believe essentially all polymerases known use Zinc as a core component of their catalytic chemistry.
Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by pdonis on Sunday May 31, 2020 @03:10AM (#23367822)
> You are dangerously misinformed.

No, you are:

https://jvi.asm.org/content/91/21/e00754-17

Paper title: "Zinc Salts Block Hepatitis E Virus Replication by Inhibiting the Activity of Viral RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase"

Published in 2017.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21079686/

Paper title: "Zn(2+) Inhibits Coronavirus and Arterivirus RNA Polymerase Activity in Vitro and Zinc Ionophores Block the Replication of These Viruses in Cell Culture"

Published in 2010.

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by dekhn on Sunday May 31, 2020 @10:56AM (#23369952)
The person you replied to is technically correct: DNA-dependent RNA polymerases are zinc metalloenzymes, have zinc at the active site, and the zinc is required for catalytic functionality.
Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by hcknwscommenter on Sunday May 31, 2020 @02:23AM (#23367649)
"unless the patient has certain heart conditions"

Sorry for the multiple posts, but this is an absurd statement. COVID itself is a heart condition. HCQ for COVID is dangerous.

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by m0zg on Sunday May 31, 2020 @02:41AM (#23367718)
We have learned no such thing. The study WHO is referring to is fake: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/29/covid-19-surgi...

You're being gaslit.

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by rdtsc on Saturday May 30, 2020 @09:51PM (#23366534)
> “Whoever made this decision, whoever did this, I consider this a sentence of death for all the older patients, whoever is in a nursing home,” he said.

Wonder what the justification was. Hindsight 20/20 as they say, but wasn’t it known the age and various conditions that older patients might have are risk factors early on?

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by redis_mlc on Sunday May 31, 2020 @12:53AM (#23367289)
> Hindsight 20/20 as they say

Sorry, but that excuse won't fly for several reasons:

1) We had sars-1 and mers earlier, both corona viruses

2) China was slow in providing info initially, but eventually they did. There's a number of papers to read online. (Same as in sars-1, where world notification was delayed from Nov. 2002 to about Mar. 2003.)

3) The CDC and other agencies are supposed to be on top of pandemics. The White House has a pandemic playbook. These are paid professionals who are supposed to have foresight, not blame hindsight.

(FYI: one of the US disease pros involved said that false alerts essentially neutered pandemic response since 2010 in this country. I empathize with that. All I can suggest is to point out that sars-1 killed thousands, and mers and sars-2 are also coronas.)

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by hcknwscommenter on Sunday May 31, 2020 @02:25AM (#23367665)
"The White House has a pandemic playbook."

The white house HAD a pandemic playbook. They didn't use it.

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by usaar333 on Sunday May 31, 2020 @01:32AM (#23367439)
It's in the article - they were worried about hospitals having insufficient capacity to deal with covid19 patients.

An excellent case study on why overly pessimistic models not only lead to high economic cost, but also a cost in lives.

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by Gibbon1 on Sunday May 31, 2020 @02:53AM (#23367751)
Your comment is an excellent example of hindsight bias.
Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by usaar333 on Sunday May 31, 2020 @03:07AM (#23367805)
NYC/NJ modeling is forgivable.

California's is not. (https://www.mercurynews.com/coronavirus-how-can-the-states-m...)

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by Gibbon1 on Sunday May 31, 2020 @04:00AM (#23368017)
You're bagging on California for being proactive and not ending up like and NYC/NJ.
Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by redis_mlc on Sunday May 31, 2020 @05:13AM (#23368279)
Gibbon1 is correct, the CA numbers have been overly pessimistic for months, evident in that the Santa Clara dashboard has been flat for months and at no point in crisis.

At some point the responsible thing to do is to use a more accurate model, but that's not what's happening.

Newsom plans to run for President, so it's hard to believe anything he says, doubly so with the incorrect stats available.

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by thejynxed on Sunday May 31, 2020 @03:07PM (#23371794)
Newsome will get absolutely dragged about that high-speed rail system from nowhere to nowhere and what really happened to all of that money.
Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by redis_mlc on Sunday May 31, 2020 @07:15PM (#23373875)
Nobody cares about the train directly. Public transit in the US is just to free up more roads for drivers.

The only good thing I can say about the proposed rail system so far is that both San Jose and SF have "terminals" for it, so it could be built more quickly in the future.

When I was looking at the US fatal accident rate recently (about 37,000/year), what struck me was that it was basically 1 fatality per accident (ie. Americans really do drive sole occupant trips.)

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by throwaway122378 on Sunday May 31, 2020 @01:03AM (#23367332)
We’re talking about Mid March. Mortality by age was well known by then.
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Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by creato on Sunday May 31, 2020 @12:20AM (#23367154)
> But like all the above, this entire ordeal wasn't about a virus, it's about control.

How are any of these things a useful means of control? What do governments gain by people wearing masks?

If anything, historically, governments have disliked people wearing masks because it makes people hard to identify.

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by SpicyLemonZest on Sunday May 31, 2020 @12:29AM (#23367191)
It's not about, like, an Illuminati conspiracy. It's about a general attitude that the general public can't be trusted and the authorities have to make sure they do what's right. The obvious alternative to mandatory lockdowns would be to simply convince the public that it's very dangerous to go outside, but most commentators in the US saw the idea of not using government force as tantamount to giving up.
Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by dragontamer on Sunday May 31, 2020 @12:47AM (#23367261)
> would be to simply convince the public that it's very dangerous to go outside

That theory is being tested in Sweden right now. No government force, just strongly trying to convince residents to socially distance. And now its one of the highest death rates in all of Europe.

The libertarian ideal of people "doing the right thing" simply doesn't work.

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by scottlocklin on Sunday May 31, 2020 @01:05AM (#23367339)
Sweden's doing better on a per-capita basis than the UK, Spain, Italy, Belgium and France; pretty much any way you slice the data, and all of those countries implemented lock downs.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat...

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by dlemire on Sunday May 31, 2020 @11:21AM (#23370099)
Half of the deaths in Sweden are in long-term care homes, and happened to people under the care of the state.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52704836

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by perl4ever on Saturday May 30, 2020 @11:22PM (#23366896)
Whatever mistakes were made, it seems like globally as cases continue to go up, deaths are declining, so it seems like we're learning something.
Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by NotSammyHagar on Saturday May 30, 2020 @11:08PM (#23366832)
You are going to need to provide a citation about the WHO saying masks aren't effective. That doesn't appear to be true. [1]. Web searches couldn't find that.

[1] https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by briefcomment on Saturday May 30, 2020 @11:57PM (#23367058)
Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by JSavageOne on Sunday May 31, 2020 @01:59AM (#23367549)
Straight from their website: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...

> "Does WHO recommend wearing medical masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19?"

> "Currently, there is not enough evidence for or against the use of masks (medical or other) in healthy individuals in the wider community. However, WHO is actively studying the rapidly evolving science on masks and continuously updates its guidance."

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by pcunite on Saturday May 30, 2020 @11:54PM (#23367046)
Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by cashsterling on Sunday May 31, 2020 @01:20AM (#23367395)
WHO is not giving out the best advice these days.

That Fauci statement was from 3/8 before shit really hit the fan in the US and he was trying to preserve supply for healthcare workers. Fauci is wearing a mask now in public.

Cloth face masks are a good idea in indoor public spaces... it is about reducing the load of virus I would expel into a closed space if I am infected and don't know it yet. Also, it reduces the distance particles travel from my mouth when breathing or talking. These two things together reduce the risk for those around me in enclosed spaces. It also provides some moderate reduction in aerosol I inhale. This has been studied and well documented.

We know now that transmission through common surface contact is minimal... not zero, but very low compared to aerosol transmission. The risk of touching your face more is not significant enough to offset the benefit of wearing a mask. I probably touch my face more without a mask on. That being said, it is important that your mask be comfortable so that the need to adjust it is minimal.

I wear a mask at work and wash my hands and mask with warm very dish-soapy water for 20-30 seconds when I get home. I also wash my hands regularly during the day. Soap is very effective at inactivating most all virus; commonly wrecking their surface proteins (that they need intact to get into cells) or even destroying the capsid shell.

FWIW: We are also running ozone generators at night where I work in the high traffic areas to provide a 2-3 log reduction of active surface virus (should any exist). I don't recommend doing this unless you really know what you are doing... exposure to high concentrations of ozone is really bad for you (read, can kill you if exposure is bad enough).

Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by NotSammyHagar on Sunday May 31, 2020 @11:01PM (#23375132)
Yes, I agree, when there was a big shortage of tests and ppe they said reserve ppe for first responders (docs, emt, hosp workers) and tests for really sick. Now we have more information and more medical masks.
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Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by NotSammyHagar on Saturday May 30, 2020 @11:11PM (#23366842)
That forbes article says 42% of deaths are from 0.6% of the population, i.e. really old people. So what, do they not matter to you? Even if you believe that stat, 58% of the deaths are people that matter to even you. Your link has no support for the idea that cv19 is some conspiracy to control people. Why do you think it's because people want to control you via destroying the economy and killing 100s of thousands of americans?
Re:After 100K Covid-19 cases, it’s clearer where Californian... by perl4ever on Saturday May 30, 2020 @11:24PM (#23366911)
About the same number of people globally are dying from COVID daily as from alcohol related causes (~5000) I read.

It just seems weird that nobody would describe (explicitly or implicitly) the elimination of all alcohol related deaths as insignificant.