skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Maybe we should do a Global 11 Day Quarantine every year. Stop the flu and common colds from spreading too. Time it so it happens before peak flu season.

Or maybe even twice per year, for the northern and southern hemispheres, if they have different flu season schedules. (Edit: Or just do it once per hemisphere, but with restricted travel between hemispheres during the quarantine.)

22 days at home every year... okay, a bit boring, and the economy would take a small hit from that... BUT, there would also be far fewer people taking sick days, and workers would also get more rest and come back more refreshed. It may only be a net loss of a couple days of work, lets say 3 days of work, 1% of Global GDP.

Global GDP grows at about 2-3% per year from what I can see. So a loss of 1% would set us back to the level of late 2019 or New Years' 2020, which was hardly the dark ages.

Not to mention Work From Home policies would adapt so it's likely very little productivity would be lost.
Lockdown resident: i fear our population will get bored off the lockdown, and/or fearful of shops running out of goods (part caused by sick workers, sick transporters, and people taking a risk and going shopping anyway), and by Wednesday there'll be reports of social unrest.
This will be seen by other countries, who will impose more stringent curfews, and a cycle of restrictions will start. When the forces of law and order get sick, then the real fun will begin.
Of three local food shops to me, one just got closed as a workers spouse has been hospitalised. Tomorrow, do i go get whatever food may be left in the other stores, play hide and seek with the police, then perhaps get sick, or let my family go hungry?
"the people who sign this letter are not aware that they're being manipulated by CCP, in the meantime, let me push conspiracy theories".
You’re assuming all deaths caused by Coronavirus are correctly identified as such. Sadly that’s almost guaranteed to not be the case.
You seems to think that people who is against the idea either doesn't understand what herd immunity is, or doesn't understand the plan. We understand both, we just think that the risk analysis is wrong.

Specifically with the GP, his argument is that herd immunity gaining through large percentage of the population being infected in a short amount of time is a bad idea. Normally we got herd immunity via vaccination of the population, since it is much safer than being infected. That's why vaccination was mentioned.
Ask HN: What are your UI pet peeves?
What elements of "modern" UIs drove you nuts, don't work, are stupid or you simply don't like? Also, do you have any suggestions for improvements?
Italy now has the highest number of Covid-19 infections in the world, if you believe that China didn't underreport deaths.
They claim an impossible death rate, given that their hospitals are still accepting almost all serious patients. (This could change in a day or two.)

Their total cases numbers are probably bonkers, and have been from the very start. They were very unlucky with the early spread, with (I guess) lots of asymptomatic cases.

Other Western countries had more time to prepare, and had better knowledge about where the cases were spreading. This will change, unfortunately.
Here is a great breakdown of the curves and the risks[1]. Scroll to the heading "Risk-based model" or go directly to the spreadsheet[2]. Fill in the numbers for your area.

[1] https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop...

[2] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/17YyCmjb2Z2QwMiRR...
That's much more impressive than the machine the CDC approved test was developed for:

http://www.thermofisher.com/order/catalog/product/4406985

(Applied Biosystems 7500 Fast DX Real-Time PCR Instrument with SDS 1.4 software.)

I'll bet the Roche doesn't require a PC running Windows software that still needs manual defragging:

> When to Clean Up and Defragment the Hard Drive

> • At least once every month

> • When a message is displayed by the Windows operating system instructing you to defragment

https://assets.thermofisher.com/TFS-Assets/LSG/manuals/44069...

(Page 47)
Not in brazil. Brazil dosen't make ethanow from corn, but from sugar cane.
For some context, researchers in China went back and reran old flu surveillance samples from Wuhan taken in December and the start of January. According to the WHO joint mission's report, 1 out of the 20 samples from the first week of January and 3 out of the 20 samples from the second week tested positive for Covid-19. China locked down Wuhan on the 23rd. Things were probably already really bad by that point in a way that wasn't reflected in the number of confirmed cases.
The alternative may be an explosion of cases and a complete collapse of the health care system. Because there is a good chance that mild social distancing measures are simply not enough.
There is really no excuse for this happening in Europe. There was ample warning and no, not just from China. The math was very clear by early/mid February.

We have to face the truth that the quality of people we vote for government is not where it needs to be and that science has too long been discredited and ignored.

Some of asia learned from SARS but that's it.

Madrid was hosting marches, political rallies and soccer games with 10.000-100.000 people a week ago because people did not want to make the hard choices needed even as Korea was burning and Italy started to.

Excuses that China is authoritarian do not cut it - this was a huge fail of governance and doing what people are elected to do
> Don't forget-- the numbers we see now are a look at the PAST. The infection incubates silently for a median 5 days. Then symptoms present. Then a week goes by with relatively mild illness. THEN shit gets real.

And the "shit gets real" part only occurs 20% of the time, give or take - which means the virus might spread quite a bit while showing symptoms no more severe than a common cold. That also introduces some further unpredictable lag between any social distancing behaviors being introduced and their effects on the actual numbers.
The combined actions of individuals counts. You alone don't mean much (but if you happen to be the one who needs ICU care it matters to you), but when you and a million others avoid going out for anything other than groceries (washing hands well after that trip) there are many less opportunities for this to spread.

Obviously there are a lot of people required to get groceries to you, but if you are not in medicine or groceries stay home. That is a large supply chain but sti tiny and even those people are not going to other functions which reduces risk
21m. Not billion yet
We elect governments to protect us from our own fight-or-flight response which is not a good thing in modern society
I was addressing the dubious choice of sources delivered with arrogance and condescension. Couldn't care less about how many airplanes did Serbia take down.
A lot. It can potentially wipe out the non young generation.
Based on the article the VP said Sunday, but he is not sure.
Where do they claim to be best in class? I don't seem to see that anywhere.
I wish people were lying, that implies that officials know the reality and are hiding it. That is too optimistic I’m afraid.
Maybe not. You want a society to develop herd immunity for a flu-like disease during warmer weather months. Since they failed to contain it, the disease is just going to show up in China again but this time from sick people traveling to China. The worst case scenario is lockdown during warmer months and then having it flare up again in winter months.

That said, we could just apply medical quarantine procedures used for animals to humans. Get a lab test 48 hours prior to international travel and have an additional test performed upon landing at the destination. The first test minimizes the likelihood of someone with viral shedding traveling and the lab test upon landing let’s you get the person and isolate them immediately before they’ve shed virally.
A vaccine may never be available. There are plenty of viruses for which we have been unable to develop an effective vaccine that doesn't kill more people than it saves.
Hospital ICU units are not overwhelmed which puts a limit to total infections. (unless this is now less deadly I guess, an unlike win though)
Scenario: Your parents get it from somebody who is acting irresponsibility, who in turn got it (in)directly from you.

Does it really matter that it's "somebody else's fault"?
It's an explicit part of the UK's strategy, it's been pointed out throughout this thread.

Also, why would that be less viable than locking down all of society the way for example Italy has done?
This sounds like the "bargaining" stage, in the 5 stages:

denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

(Acceptance being a China style lockdown of course...)
It's OK to be scared. You're not alone in that. It can be helpful to have someone to talk to. Even as we're trying to keep our physical distance, know that it's OK to reach out for help. And it's also OK to step away from the news for a beat if it's causing you anxiety.

I work at one of the New York hospitals mentioned in this article. Yes, I'm scared too. [Opinions not that of my employer, etc.] But we're all still showing up every day to take care of our patients, and we'll keep doing so until we can't--and then we have backup lined up. There will be hard days, but those will be in the privacy of the hospital, away from prying eyes. New York will pull through.
WindTerm 0.93 – A free high performance SSH/Telnet/Serial/Shell terminal
Using max possible days in month gives ~21 million
js:

[...Array(31).keys()]

.map(num => Math.pow(2,num))

.reduce((total,num) => total + num)

/ 100

$21,474,836.47

or since the sum is equal to the next sequential (2 to power of n+1) minus 1 cent => 2^31 - 1 = $21,474,836.47
thanks, that was helpful
Bushmeat gave us Ebola as well. Deer hunting might give us CWD soon (we observed transmission to human-model mice already) and that one is basically disinfectable only by using high heat and pressure together.
Fortunately, it will only require space for 1125899906842623 pads.
Yes, exactly. I said 14 days but again, that's the median. The US is flying blind right now.

We're using a cracked, dirty camera lens to film a small fraction of the tip of a rapidly growing iceberg.... And the photo processing time is two weeks.
There's a large population of Americans that have conservative views, and vigorously fight against perceived encroachment on their liberties. However, these people are not stupid, despite how they're painted in the media.

I suspect if we called up a militia leader from the back woods of Michigan or Kentucky, even they would consent to very temporary quarantines. Even if it meant US army troops patrolling their residential areas.

In fact, I suspect more conservative people would even be more in favor of stricter lockdowns, on average. While progressives are now following the advice of the medical establishment, the initial instinct is to not do things that "sound conservative" like shutting down borders and so on.

(Similarly, while many conservatives would agree with the idea of quarantines, they would remain very cautious of any unnecessary restrictions on their liberties, watchful of the government taking advantage of the situation to pass laws the conservatives oppose. If for example, the military patrols said they wanted to knock on every door and collect all the guns, their support would rapidly reverse itself.)

No offense meant to either side. I don't strongly identify with either of these labels. Just my honest opinion based on my personal observations.

(Also, I'm aware that particular conservatives and particular liberals may have expressed opposite views to those above, but I'm talking about my perception of the group average, not particular high profile examples. Also, particular individuals may take unusual stances due to personal business or financial interests.)
What makes it specific to academia? Can't it be used as a general purpose search?
The CDC effectively dictated who could be tested and what test would be used. But those tests were faulty and now there are supply chain issues with the new tests. That was the point when they gave up and admitted failure. "Mitigation" and "flattening the curve" are admissions of failure. The only hope now is that summer blunts the spread, which is possible but by no means guaranteed.
The post-mortem (for want of a better term) on this will be pretty bad for some people in leadership positions. Assuming they survive. Very precious time was squandered with half-assed measures and uninformed decisions.
America Is a Sham
What the letter means is that if your country is not there yet, you might be DAYS away from widespread panic and total lock down.

I gotta say this but I don't think we should put forward the position that total lockdown is an irrational position. Total lockdown seems fully rational, not a product of mere panic at all. Total lockdown worked in Wuhan. Absolute and complete isolation inherently results in exponential decline in the fashion that exposure result in exponential growh. It's a drag but it doesn't seem as much of a drag as millions of dead people.

And that is the bizarre thing I'm saying and hearing in the US - "Uh, just let it infect everyone" - "you know that promises to the largest loss of life on US soil ever" - "well, try to slow it down a bit". Jeesh.
Wow that's a borderline religious faith in the market. People are humans and some are not able to drop $80 in a bottle of freaking Purrel, which they need to protect themselves as much as to prevent spreading their germs.

This is a public health issue, counting on market liquidity and total inflation to fix it probably isn't the right approach.
It also doesn't consider that many of the infected are asymptomatic, so they won't be "revealed" within the 11 day period.
Indeed, the reality is probably that they have no clue so there is nothing to hide. And that's a lot scarier.
We understand mute buttons. :)

And there shouldn't be a lot of typing involved unless I'm in a 1:1 pair debugging/troubleshooting session, and even then it's not exactly reaching 100 wpm.

I can't say I've been bothered much by background noise, that's actually more often an issue in the office. In the following weeks there will probably be more of it due to kids being home, but we have no choice here.
Sure, you may call it anything else but don't call it actual progress.
I could see how someone could get the impression he said it was coming Sunday evening but watching the interview from start to finish it's clear that wasn't a direct response to the question like some people thought it was. Edit: Re-reading the transcript it looks like they only announced the announcement of plans for Sunday?

>> Mike Pence: For Americans looking on, by this Sunday evening, we'll be able to give specific guidance on when the website will be available

If anything it was the FDA approval of Roche's automated testing ability that was going to happen by Sunday, which was announced today (Saturday) with a 24 hour window [1], and is only one piece of the puzzle. We don't even have a brand name or domain for the "Google site" yet. The only domain he mentioned http://coronavirus.gov directs to a CDC content site, so it will probably just be via Verily, which only announced a limited SF roll-out so far.

The closest thing he gave to a direct response to the website question was a paper was being released after the press conference which outlines their plans. Not sure on the status of that. The Reuters article was last updated 17hrs ago yesterday so it might just be highlighting the press interview, not the paper.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22575661
thanks, especially like the start/stop times item. that's a problem for me.
Is there a way to rotate the original image after uploading? The image I tried originally uploaded sideways so it made doing the mask more difficult. I edited the photo on my phone to rotate it and resubmit it. (my phone didn't show me the photo needed to be adjusted until after I uploaded it)
"Flattening the Curve" is a deadly delusion

https://medium.com/@joschabach/flattening-the-curve-is-a-dea...

"Flatten the curve" scenario requires r0 to between 1.0 and a small number above 1.0, like 1.1. In other words, it's not happening, you either contain the virus or let it explode.
> Some will still have an ok quality of life, but many people won't. They'll be fired, or their companies will have gone bankrupt, they'll have no money, no food.. Then what?

The point isn't to actually shut down the entire economy.

The point is that when you are talking loss numbers in the trillions, interventions that cost hundreds of billions or even "smaller numbers of trillions" to avert the big losses make economic sense; helicopter dropping a trillion dollars to allow people besides tech workers to self-isolate and socially distance themselves for a few months could be cheap, in the long run.
This is the interesting case where anecdote really does become data. If there are truly only 1,600 confirmed cases then hearing a few stories from a friend of a friend that they know people are sick should still be very unlikely.

The fact that many people here and around the web are sharing stories of sick friends is are a set of anecdotes that would be nearly impossible if the reported numbers were correct.

I suspect by this coming weekend the US will feel very different. I wouldn't be surprised at all if a major update to official numbers came and completely changed the current state of where things are.
Consider donating to the pub, the money you'd have spent :-)
In https://medium.com/@joschabach/flattening-the-curve-is-a-dea... the estimation is that the number of ventilators is only a 2% of the total of the population that will need them. So the curved need to be flattened even more. (I don't know if that is really the limiting factor of the attention.)

The numbers of the days in the x axis follow a strange pattern. What about using the multiples of 5 or 7?

If I change the number of "Random People Met Daily" to 1, the peak of the curve is outside the range of the graph. I guess the scale should be configurable.

The number in the "Close Circle Size" is used to simulate small clusters, or each day it is used to pick someone at random from the population? (Does each sim has it's "family"?)
No, the argument was pretty clear: we're at this point because the majority has been tolerating -- and even defending -- similar behavior for a long time; therefore, we should stop tolerating this kind of behavior in general, not just for this special case under these special circumstances.

And the argument is correct. You cannot keep teaching people unlimited greed and profiteering is okay because "it's free market" and then expect them to behave ethically. You have to change what is acceptable and tolerated. The current situation is an excellent starting point, but we shouldn't stop here.
What about the 1700 engineers bit?
What I find strange is all of the people who don't like working from home trying to talk everyone out of it, including the people who do want to work from home. Look at all of the comments on HN with people claiming that it doesn't work generally, rather than just for them specifically. I don't understand the mentality — "it doesn't work for me, therefore I'm going to actively work to make sure you have to come into the office too."
He was brought in to sign a confession/apology on the 3rd before things were out of control.

He is/was also a member of the CCP.
Also, you can pick up an old computer from a thrift store or craigslist for really cheap -- much cheaper than a pi.
That's fair enough, it's something that's worked well for me and I find it handy for giving visibility into smaller things that I might not email/im about and would get lost in the mix.
No leader wants to take drastic action for their nation when the number of deaths they can point to for justification is smaller than the number of deaths for the seasonal flu. If they save lives and prevent the disease from spreading, it looks like they over-reacted and unnecessarily tanked the economy.
Interesting way of managing risk. Curious - Does this rule of thumb have a name?
That deck of cards thing looks awesome. Probably good to use even if you are in the same physical room!
Silicon Valley’s two-tiered system for white-collar workers is under pressure
She was fleeing a potentially life-threatening virus in a scary situation in order to be with her family.

I hate to put this harshly but... She may well be fleeing with a life threatening virus that will kill her family. This has happened already, even documented, in China.

We can't look to our own comfort at this point. All my family visits are postponed and my food is mostly stocked up.

And it's a hard situation where we won't all make the best choices but still want to pressure everyone to make the appropriate choices.
Have you not been reading the news in the US and Europe the last few years? This is exactly what was to be expected from the current set of government leaders. Respect for expertise and rationality are considered disqualifying qualities in a politician nowadays.
Lesspass – open-source stateless password manager
...or that he's incompetent to the point of not being able to receive, process and relay information with any degree of reliability. Pick your poison I guess.
> One could say “we don’t want more price discrimination.” But that is a choice to prefer shortages over price increases.

Except we're not really limited to only two options. Rationing might be an unpopular option, but it works just fine.
All the kids get it, infect their parents, and off it goes.

I expected immunity once you'd had it, but have heard of re-infection occurring (not from official sources).
> could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world.

I don't understand this logic. Because China made a mess at the beginning of the pandemic, so we shouldn't copy the model they employed at later stage that is proven to be working?

Or because China is an authoritarian state, so everything it does is bad and nothing we can learn from them? Well China has been copying and learning from any countries for a while now and that's what makes it stronger by day. Just keep blaming China and do nothing. That will surely make China less powerful and less influential.

You know what's scary? All major democracies failed to manage the pandemic while China becomes the most powerful country after all this.
>These elder people are old enough anyway, and the death rate for young is just 0.2%

The numbers we're seeing from The Netherlands, Italy and France show that over half the people in the ICU are between 30 - 60 years old. I'm not convinced the 0,2 % is accurate anymore.
The USA is going to be in terrible shape very soon, just look at this as of tonight: https://twitter.com/davidenrich/status/1239004689338970113
Bushmeat gives Ebola over-and-over again. It has crossed the species barrier many times already.

And let's not forget about diseases like these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopat...

Even though they do not involve viruses they are still part of a similar kind of interplay between species.
A community you may find helpful:

https://www.reddit.com/r/coronavirus_support/
>> prolonged fast

That can potentially kill a person with T2 through diabetic ketoacidosis(DKA). Please be careful if you refer this to someone else.