Seattle is the epicenter for this virus in North America right now. It's kinda scary. They must have been the first in the country to come in contact with it going undetected for months. Why else is it so bad there?

Epicenter probably just moved south. Cruise ship holding off San Francisco has now confirmed 21 covid-19 cases. Ship will dock at an undisclosed location (presumably in Bay Area) where patients will be removed and other passengers screened and then probably some kind of quarantine. I think there are over 3500 passengers and crew on board. What a nightmare!

SXSW has been cancelled which is crazy. Likely due to international nature of event and liability issues.

So far at least two conventions have been cancelled in Chicago.

A CPS Special Needs Assistant was just diagnosed in Chicago. She went to work sick.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coron...ihm-story.html

The ship is sailing south “along the California coast” to a non-commercial port. I know of only two possible non-commercial ports capable of docking a large cruise ship. The most likely is Naval Base San Diego. Long Beach Naval Shipyard could have before its closure in 1997 but I’m not sure of its condition now.

San Diego makes a lot of sense: It’s the home of one of the largest Naval Hospitals as well as other military bases including Camp Pendleton where infected but not too sick people could be quarantined.

This is terrible. Besides going to work sick, she was a passenger on the Grand Princess over two weeks ago. That's the same ship currently sitting with 3500 passengers and crew off the coast of California that has 21 confirmed new cases on board. It probably means a similar boatload of infected passengers disembarked 11 days ago and scattered all over the country.

Not crazy at all and entirely predictable. Just about all upcoming conventions and trade shows in San Francisco have been cancelled and I expect that to happen everywhere. Next will be pro sports games played without fans in empty stadia.

A server at my favorite Tex Mex restaurant was noticeably sick yesterday. As he waited on me, he kept touching his mouth and nose, and as he worked, he coughed a lot. I asked him why he didn't stay home, and he said he had to make a living. There are likely millions in this country in the same position. But I believe it will soon be the case where customers won't patronize any such businesses. The manager/owner wasn't present but I left a message. Haven't heard back.

As someone else said here, at my age I can't afford to be around people who have respiratory illnesses.

Most likely the infections on the ship occurred on the last voyage to Mazatlan, Manzanilla and Puerto Vallarta. Of the 21 positives aboard so far (testing isn’t complete), I believe 19 were crew members which makes sense since the crew but not most of the passengers were the same on the last trip as on the current one which was to have been to Hawaii.

This not only means what you said—that a bunch of infected passengers got off and spread around the country, but it means there’s a source of infection in Mexico that no one’s talking about.

I posted earlier about the fact that as of Monday Mexico had done less than 100 tests countrywide. It is known to have 6 infected people. But likely there are foci of infection all over that country nobody knows about.

Mexican? See above.

Well, just found out my alma mater Johns Hopkins played today’s intercollegiate basketball game in an empty arena. The pros are definitely next.

This from the linked Wapo article below: "The situation with the Grand Princess is particularly fraught because authorities are also racing to track down passengers who took an earlier voyage on the ship last month to Mexico. A 71-year-old man from that trip later died in California from covid-19."

The Chicago woman is now the second known patient from that earlier Grand Princess voyage.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...b81_story.html

So far the NY Auto Show is still on, but I fear they will cancel it. The Javits Center has taken measures to sanitize or improve the general hygiene of the facility, but we shall see.

Possible exposure over in Brooklyn at the Brooklyn AG office. In the days coming, we'll probally see more cases.

Deblasio ordered mandatory testing for public workers. So teachers for example.

The tourism industry is huge in this city, and with the warmer weather on its way, its really going to curtail this years tourism numbers and economic output.

THANK GOD!

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranc...JhMVpqa0U2WCJ9

Saw my first sold-out displays of hand sanitizer today when I went to the grocery store. As for me, I'm trying to buy a little extra this and that here and there, in addition to whatever I need for what I'm making for dinner tonight. Today, for instance, I picked up two packs of chicken breasts when I only needed one, plus a couple of pounds of ground beef that I didn't need immediately. Stocking up slowly and calmly...

Meanwhile, at the hospital where my husband is doing my clinicals, they took the batteries out of half of the hand sanitizer dispensers because they can't find refills.

Read a good article the other day about why the US may be hit particularly hard due to the lack of paid sick leave and preponderance of gig workers (Canada isn't much better in this regard either). Between the choices of losing their jobs or potentially risk transmitting the virus to others, most people will probably choose the latter.



Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/a...=pocket-newtab

Just heard an interesting program on a French radio about "Typhoid Mary", a cook that used to work for wealthy families in NYC in the early 1900s.

She carried the typhus virus but was unaffected by the disease. Whenever she prepared food that was uncooked, she would pass on the disease and 3 people died and 50 plus were ill from it. She was quarantined and ordered by court to find other employment but continued her "vocation". A judge finally ruled on forcible confinement for the rest of her life, 26 years. Ouch.

A local hotel industry exec who posts on the Austin forum reports that his hotel and most other local hotels are contemplating layoffs and severe cost cutting measures. The SXSW cancellation left a huge hole that pretty much wipes March off the books for local hotels and downtown entertainment and food establishments. Supposedly there have been multiple convention and business meeting cancellations scheduled for later in the spring and summer. Austin built several thousand additional hotel rooms downtown (with more in the pipeline) over the past three or four years. Convention and tourism is probably now our second largest employment sector. I guess the same story will play out in place after place over the next several months.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE- Took a drive down South Congress and through downtown this afternoon. I was surprised and pleased to see the sidewalks filled with pedestrians and the local businesses doing brisk business. It is a slightly chilly but sunny afternoon here in Austin. The bars and restaurants with sidewalk service were all looking busy. Obviously there are still a lot of visitors in town for the weekend. It would be nice to see activity of this sort remain somewhat normal in the days and weeks ahead.

I don't have quantifiable data, but I've gone to my local grocery store (Studio City area of Los Angeles) every morning for the past three days and it seems quieter than normal. Especially this morning, being that it's Saturday. Inventory of everything but hand sanitizer has been great, until this morning when the Clorox wipes-types of products was low. Tons of toilet paper, even some on sale. Whereas my local Costco has been out of TP and sterilizing wipes for a week. Oh, gas has dropped about $.20 per gallon in the past three weeks.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Vf...=w1283-h962-no

Only saw two people wearing masks... fortunately there weren't very many old people there (with one notable exception...)