Finally some sense.

I also am not a Trump fan, especially his often very poorly fact-check off the cuff comments and tweets and the CDC's fumble is a perfect example of how clumsy our bureaucracies can be.  But people are losing. their. minds.  And while doctors are hesitant to say this, I will:  the WHO failing to properly contextualize that the 3.4% is the Case Fatality Rate and is not at ALL representative of the actual mortality rate is one of the most astoundingly irresponsible things I've seen an international organization do.  The mortality rate is best represented with the most widespread and thorough testing.  South Korea is our best look at that and the CFR is shaping up to be less than 1% and even then there's the matter of those who are asymptomatic who are not being diagnosed well even there.  But that 3.4% has resulted in widespread comparisons to things like the Spanish Flu.  THE SPANISH FLU!  One of the most deadly viral pandemics in human history!  Even made in passing comparisons of this to that are extraordinarily reckless panic mongering.

People are buying three months - three damn months! - of emergency supplies. Stores are running out of everything from toilet paper to hand sanitizer to bleach to face masks. Whole swaths of the economy in some areas are being frozen.  There's an ever growing concern over health systems being overrun not because people are sick but because everyone with a runny nose is could stampede in at any moment.  And the best part?  Most of these supplies are being snapped up in droves by people who will be least affected by this at the expense of those who need them.  The overwhelming majority of people suffering seriously are older or those with preexisting conditions.  If you are young and healthy, please for the love of all that's holy don't buy a bunch of face masks or twelve boxes of cold medicine or a dozen hand sanitizer bottles. 

And do not - please, please do NOT - rush to the emergency room with the sniffles to demand a Coronavirus test.  All you are doing is A) overwhelming the system, B) taking up resources - time, a test kit, etc - that could be used on proper needs and actual COVID-19 cases, and C) if you DO have it, risking contaminating a whole bunch of people.  If you are that concerned, call in sick, call your health care provider and inform them of your concern and they will walk you through the need for a test.  This is in the US, anyway.  The last thing we need is everyone and their grandmother storming into hospitals and clinics for COVID-19 tests in a wave of mass hysteria.  It will burn through the test kits no matter how many are made, waste doctors' time, massively overburden even the best and most organized hospitals, and and in the event that people with the disease are part of the stampede result in further spread.  

Hysteria and panic will only make every single element of this worse.  And I am so sick of this arms race of sensationalism (THE WALLS ARE CLOSING IN! IT'S AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT! IT'S A HOAX! REMEMBER THE SPANISH FLU?!) that has so consumed main stream corporate media.  Nothing can ever be what it is anymore, everything is the next sensationalist panic-fest.  Now a healthy concern is important, yes.  But when everything is depicted as a massive disaster, it's impossible for people to formulate proportional plans and take proper, reasonable precautions.  

Stage 2: Anger. I've not been following what's going on with the hysteria. I've only heard some toilet paper stories which me and my wife make plenty jokes over. All I'm saying is don't let your supplies run low. I now get water when half the jugs are empty, fill up the car when the tank is half empty instead of waiting until the last moment. Same for non perishables and frozen food. Just keeping a buffer, not planning to survive nuclear winter.

Some things we should have done long ago, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes in the car makes sense all year long. It already came in handy yesterday after a long jog on a muddy trail. I had my sandals on since it was going to be a mud fest anyway, cut my toe on a stick, bleeding etc. Disinfectant wipes to clean the mud and possibly animal feces out the wound before it can get infected. Easy, in reach, no need to dig up the emergency kit.

But yep that's the society we live in, zero or hundred, all or nothing, black or white, measured responses are rare. Everything has to be sensationalized, hence I stopped following the main stream media over a decade ago. And indeed, for others, stay home when you have a fever and cover your cough. That would save a lot of flu victims each year as well. It would save employers valuable time in the long run as well. Sick people are less productive, half the office sniffling with the flu doesn't help anyone.

People are fun.

I was at the train station last night, and this lady is pacing up and down along the tracks....eventually, she walks literally right up behind a guy who's just standing there listening to music, coughs on the back of his neck, and then when he instinctively startled a bit and stepped away, she gives him an outraged look and yells "it's just a cold!"

Then later in the train, there's an elderly couple sitting across the aisle from me, and the guy is telling his wife how Germany should start a registry of all the sick people, everyone they've been in contact with, etc, and stick them all in "special camps."

Good times.

For doctors it is annoying that people call it just a stronger flu while hour after hour more double pneumonia corona cases are announced.

I understand the need of politicians not to cause panic, but at the moment the seriousness of the situation is not clear enough for some and that is worrying especially when hospitals are full looking like this in Italy:

People working is hospitals need better protection as well. RIVM in the Netherlands tested 301 people in Brabant and found that 28 of people working in the 2 hospitals there are already infected. 5 other hospitals were tested and currently they estimate that 4% of the staff has already caught the infection. More people needing care, less people to provide care :/

For now the daily reported number of cases in the Netherlands seems to stabilize but they speculate it is because they stopped testing family members since they are under quarantine already. (giving priority to testing people still on the go)

It looks pretty stable atm in Canada, hopefully it can stay that way. So far here it's all from incoming travelers.

Mostly what i'm doing right now.  Get supplies when half out of them: gas, water, food.  Too bad I don't have a freezer in the garage to stock up on frozen foods.  That's the only thing that I potentially worry about.

Stock market is another thing altogether.  It's been bull for way too long, way over inflated stock market was due for a correction.

I'm sure somewhere on this earth someone is freaking out like this is doomsday.  Sucks to be them.  

Yeah this is something to keep an eye on. The medical specialists that are getting infected probably aren’t really at risk for serious complication themselves, but they’re obviously working with people that are. I think they’re on top of it in time though. They’ve also reported recoveries.

Personally I’m not worried. It’ll be contained in due time, it’s already starting to level out though it could be too soon to tell. Meanwhile out on the street the famous Dutch level-headedness is on full display. Barely anyone seems to care (I mean, obviously we “care”) and life goes on seemingly unaffected, no toilet-paper-out-of-stock shenanigans here lol.

977 new cases in Italy which is a lot lower as the last few days. Let's hope they reached their peak of new daily infections already and slowed down the fast spreading with their extreme measurements.

168 new deaths, though.

With new 881 cases Iran also overtook South Korea. Now we have China, Italy, Iran, and then South Korea.