COVID-19 pandemic
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Older people would rather die than let Covid-19 harm US economy" – Texas official Lieutenant governor Dan Patrick 24/3/20[1] "But maybe another – and much more beneficial – ideological virus will spread and hopefully infect us: the virus of thinking about an alternate society, a society beyond nation-state, a society that actualizes itself in the forms of global solidarity and cooperation."--Slavoj Žižek The global impact of COVID-19 has been profound, and the public health threat it represents is the most serious seen in a respiratory virus since the 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic. Here we present the results of epidemiological modelling which has informed policymaking in the UK and other countries in recent weeks. In the absence of a COVID-19 vaccine, we assess the potential role of a number of public health measures – so-called non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) – aimed at reducing contact rates in the population and thereby reducing transmission of the virus. [...] The major challenge of suppression is that this type of intensive intervention package – or something equivalently effective at reducing transmission – will need to be maintained until a vaccine becomes available (potentially 18 months or more) – given that we predict that transmission will quickly rebound if interventions are relaxed. We show that intermittent social distancing – triggered by trends in disease surveillance – may allow interventions to be relaxed temporarily in relative short time windows, but measures will need to be reintroduced if or when case numbers rebound. Last, while experience in China and now South Korea show that suppression is possible in the short term, it remains to be seen whether it is possible long-term, and whether the social and economic costs of the interventions adopted thus far can be reduced."--Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID19 mortality and healthcare demand (2020) by Neil Ferguson et al. |
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A new coronavirus, designated 2019-nCoV, was identified in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, after people developed pneumonia without a clear cause and for which existing vaccines or treatments were not effective.
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Reactions
Basic income
- "To get through coronavirus lockdown, we need basic income" --by Neil Howard & Sarath Davala
Meat industry
The meat industry stays optimistic: "Global meat industry reacts to coronavirus pandemic ... Association national livestock chairman Brendan Golden said there was a “major onus ..."--16-Mar-2020 at 17:43
PETA is more pessimistic:
- "Public health experts believe COVID-19 originated at a “wet market” in China, where vendors sell both live and dead animals for human consumption. COVID-19 is similar to the outbreaks of SARS and MERS: All three spread from animals to humans.
- “Approximately 75 percent of recently emerging infectious diseases affecting people began as diseases in animals.”--U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- In addition to serving as breeding grounds for viruses, the crowded, filthy conditions on farms allow bacteria to spread quickly. Farmers feed animals on today’s farms a regimen of antibiotics to try to minimize sickness or to promote unnatural growth. Did you know that animals on farms consume more antibiotics every year than humans do?
Winners and losers in the coronavirus pandemic
- Economic winners: Tinder, digital learning, food delivery, takeaway, digital world
- Economic losers: brick and mortar
Ideologically, communism wins, capitalism loses.
Most deadly pandemics
- 300,000,000+ - Smallpox (20th Century alone)
- 300,000,000+ - Bubonic Plague: Black Death - 1300's-1720's; Plague of Justinian - 540-590; Third Pandemic - 1850's-1950's (same disease)
- 20,000,000 - 100,000,000 - Spanish Flu (worldwide, 1918 - 1919)
- 10,000,000 - 100,000,000 - deaths from diseases in Europe (millions) and the Americas (tens of millions) from diseases exchanged between continents after 1492
- 25,000,000 - AIDS (deaths worldwide, 1981 - present)
- 10,000,000 - Bubonic Plague (China, 1892 - 1896)
- 5,000,000 - Antonine Plague (Roman Empire 165 - 180)
- 4,000,000 - Asian Flu pandemic (worldwide, 1957)
- 1,000,000 - Hong Kong Flu pandemic (worldwide, 1968)
- 130,000 - North American smallpox epidemic (1775 - 1782)
- 60,000 - Great Plague of London (1665)
- 775 - Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) (Mostly East Asia, few cases in Europe, Canada and United States, 2002-2003)
- 677 - West Nile Virus outbreak (North America, 1999 - 2004)
- 86 - H5N1 strain of bird flu (started in Asia) (late 2003-present)
See also
- Corona mixtape
- Coronavirus disease 2019
- Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
- Cross-species transmission
- Herd immunity
- Super-spreader
- List of epidemics
- Pandemics
- Virgin soil epidemic
- Wildlife trafficking and emerging zoonotic diseases
- Wuhan Institute of Virology
- Superbugs
- Wet market
- Car-Free Days
- Ski resort Ischgl in Austria was a hotspot
- Socio-economic impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak
- Impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on sports
- Impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on education
- Financial impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic
