Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!
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@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Polygeekery said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Thing is, farmers need mechanics, parts for machines, and consumables in fairly large extents. There is a surprisingly large need for other parts of the industrial beast for farming to keep trucking. Sure, you could do it with massive amounts of manpower as well, but well...
Not on a daily, or even weekly, basis. Farmers are surprisingly self-sufficient over the shorter terms. The farmers I know all keep a fuel tank with several hundred gallons on premises, they keep a small stock of common repair and maintenance items, etc.
Farmers don't like having everything come to a halt over frequently needed and cheap things. They're like me, they don't like going to the store if they don't have to. I bet most of them could probably keep on for a month or so barring any major breakages.
Yeah, and most farmers can fabricobble up new spare parts in a pinch as well, but a month isn't much when growing crops really. And the season in Sweden is about to start. Not that Sweden is in any way self sufficient with regards to food production. I think we cover about 20% of what's needed for the population to not starve.
And there is also the transport, factories and warehouses in the food production, even if the farmers keep shit running (hoping they don't have John Deere machinery) the rest of the chain also need to be working.
And on this topic, I just finished reading a newspaper article in Swedish about how the meat production may crawl to a halt if/when the schools closes, since then the workers will have to stay home and deal with kids instead of working.
Shouldn't cause more than 50% reduction in workforce in and of itself. Unless butchers have a higher than average chance to be either single parents, or married to nurses.
Of course, I assume that it's enough for one of the parents to stay home to take care of the kids.
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@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Polygeekery said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Thing is, farmers need mechanics, parts for machines, and consumables in fairly large extents. There is a surprisingly large need for other parts of the industrial beast for farming to keep trucking. Sure, you could do it with massive amounts of manpower as well, but well...
Not on a daily, or even weekly, basis. Farmers are surprisingly self-sufficient over the shorter terms. The farmers I know all keep a fuel tank with several hundred gallons on premises, they keep a small stock of common repair and maintenance items, etc.
Farmers don't like having everything come to a halt over frequently needed and cheap things. They're like me, they don't like going to the store if they don't have to. I bet most of them could probably keep on for a month or so barring any major breakages.
Yeah, and most farmers can fabricobble up new spare parts in a pinch as well, but a month isn't much when growing crops really. And the season in Sweden is about to start. Not that Sweden is in any way self sufficient with regards to food production. I think we cover about 20% of what's needed for the population to not starve.
And there is also the transport, factories and warehouses in the food production, even if the farmers keep shit running (hoping they don't have John Deere machinery) the rest of the chain also need to be working.
And on this topic, I just finished reading a newspaper article in Swedish about how the meat production may crawl to a halt if/when the schools closes, since then the workers will have to stay home and deal with kids instead of working.
Shouldn't cause more than 50% reduction in workforce in and of itself. Unless butchers have a higher than average chance to be either single parents, or married to nurses.
Of course, I assume that it's enough for one of the parents to stay home to take care of the kids.
And half the meat is imported anyway.
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@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
And on this topic, I just finished reading a newspaper article in Swedish about how the meat production may crawl to a halt if/when the schools closes, since then the workers will have to stay home and deal with kids instead of working.
Honestly, I have little worry for that, if only because it's such an obvious concern that any government should think of it straight away.
Case in point: we've been under lock down in France since the beginning of the week. News website and social media are choke-full of stories of empty toilet paper aisles and what to do at home. But! I haven't seen a single story, not even a hint, that there would ever be an actual shortage of food, or massive disruption to the food chain (apart from people hoarding etc.). And everything I see shows that people who need to get to work to make all this happen, do get to work and make it happen. Not all factories are closed. Food processing industries are not closed. Farmers are not stuck at home.
Of course you'll say that we'll see the problems happening later, not just after a few days, and you're right. But my point is that, contrary to what it may seems from afar, "lock down" is not 100% of population hidden in their cellars. Lock down is restricting at a maximum the social contacts while keeping the country running. Remember all the graphs and models about virus propagation: the goal of isolating people is not to entirely prevent them from catching the virus, ever (which would require a full air-tight lock down), but to reduce the number of contacts to slow down the propagation to make it manageable (and have less cases). This only requires, well, reducing the number of contacts everyone has. "Lock down" is not shooter-in-the-school "lock down".
I have cousins who are teachers, they go to their schools some of the days to take care of children of e.g. health worker. Shops are still open (and that includes stuff like DIY stores, so it's not only vital foodstuff), meaning part of the staff goes. The form we have to fill when getting out has, as the first possible reason for going out, (roughly translated) "transport to workplace when home working isn't possible", which covers almost everything you can imagine.
So really, for a few months, I have no worry about food production. It will obviously hurt a lot, but not to the point we'll be really lacking food.
(
Unless your government is that much worse than the French government... 
)
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@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
And there is also the transport, factories and warehouses in the food production, even if the farmers keep shit running (hoping they don't have John Deere machinery) the rest of the chain also need to be working.
Here in the Northern hemisphere we have quite a ways to go before any of that comes in to play. Harvest is a ways off.
I'm not saying it won't or can't have an impact. But I don't think it would have as much if an impact as we think unless this becomes really protracted. Farmers are pretty self sufficient in the short term.
One of the eye opening "makes sense once you hear it" things I learned was from a large tomato farming operation north of our city. Their canning line only runs for a short time every year. Truckloads of tomatoes come in at harvest, get processed and canned in to various products but don't get labeled. They are sorted and marked by pallet. Then when a retailer wants a product the pallets get pulled and labeled on demand.
Some of those cans may get dented, a label misapplied or whatever on the way through and get sold out of their factory store at what is probably cost. Store brand and "premium" brands are all the same stuff. The only difference is the label applied. The only products that actually have any difference to them are the ones labeled organic and even those may have a generic store brand or a premium label and still be the same thing. Exact same product, different label, sometimes with great difference in price.
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@remi said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
( Unless your government is that much worse than the French government... )
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Eurovision Song Contest has been canceled. How will we ever live.
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I haven't seen an actual list anywhere, but I get the impression that most of what is shut down right now is the services and retail industry, either because the service cannot be provided safely or because the customers are staying away.
The only factories that appear to be down are those which depend on parts imported from China (directly or indirectly).In the long term, the services and retail side stands a lot to lose because of behaviour change. Probably not the travel industry - I'm sure people will start travelling again once it's safer and the borders open back up. But for electronics stores, book stores, clothes stores, et cetera, which have already been suffering under the move to online shopping, the corona virus may be the final nail in the coffin. And more so the longer this lasts.
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@remi we've been on lockdown for nine days to two weeks (it depends on how you count, whether you start from the first closures or from the "full" lockdown) and food has never been a concern here in Italy either. I mean, there is some shortage of yeast apparently, but the food chain is working just like they've always done. All the local bakeries, butchers, etc. are open, even the small shops, and the prices are also normal, at least for the staples (milk, bread, pasta, etc.).
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@PleegWat actually I've read some news that Amazon apparently is going to start giving priority to essential goods because they can't keep up. FWIW, a large electronics chain here in Italy is still open because they have been included within the essential services.
Edit: "giving priority" means that they will stop stocking non-essential goods (as determined by them) in their warehouses until 5 April at least, therefore those goods will take probably double the time or so to be delivered.
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@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
And on this topic, I just finished reading a newspaper article in Swedish about how the meat production may crawl to a halt if/when the schools closes, since then the workers will have to stay home and deal with kids instead of working.
That's the part where I have real sympathy for lots of people. With the closing of schools and daycares so many people have no other choice but to stay home.
Our youngest's ECE closed until at least April 13th. Our oldest's school is closed for the same time period. We can handle it. The wife and I both have flexibility and can manage and will continue to earn our incomes. In fact, mine has went way up because of this. But so many others are screwed. Hourly workers who now won't draw a wage and have employers that simply can't afford to pay them while all work has ceased. That part sucks all the way around.
On the subject of Lil' Dude's ECE, we pay tuition on a yearly basis. It isn't a weekly charge. When they closed they said that unless things are drawn out farther there would be no reduction in tuition as they still had most of their expenses to cover and tuition is based on a school year and not per week. That's fine. I managed to find out that most of the teachers were not going to be paid and I caused enough of a fuss that now they will be paid their full salary during the shutdown. I don't mind paying for basically a month of services that we can't use, but at least make the goddamn teachers whole. Fucking hell. Have some common sense.
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@Zecc said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Eurovision Song Contest has been canceled. How will we ever live.
Something, clouds, something something, silver linings.
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@admiral_p said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@PleegWat actually I've read some news that Amazon apparently is going to start giving priority to essential goods because they can't keep up.
They're attempting to hire 100,000 workers to bridge the demand gap and yesterday I noticed that almost nothing I was going to order (all non-essential) was set to arrive before Monday or Tuesday so 1-2 day delivery times for non-essentials basically isn't happening right now. I talked to Amazon customer service and they confirmed as much. They said that if possible it may arrive earlier but essentials get all priority. The guy seemed very apologetic. I told him not to worry about it. No big deal. I'm not going to worry about waiting 4-5 days for filament when some shut-ins are waiting on soap or whatever.
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@admiral_p said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@remi we've been on lockdown for nine days to two weeks (it depends on how you count, whether you start from the first closures or from the "full" lockdown) and food has never been a concern here in Italy either. I mean, there is some shortage of yeast apparently, but the food chain is working just like they've always done. All the local bakeries, butchers, etc. are open, even the small shops, and the prices are also normal, at least for the staples (milk, bread, pasta, etc.).
That doesn't surprise me.
Another thing is that, for some food stuff, there are huge stocks existing (kind of like the tomato thing mentioned by @Polygeekery). Of course they will vary by seasons and many other factors, but every now and then you see a newsreport about those huge warehouses full of apples, or wheat, or butter... Remember also the stories (in the UE in particular, due to the weirdness of agricultural laws/subsidies) about farmers having to throw away milk. All this shows that actually in normal times we have a clear over-production (or potential for it), so the system can probably easily cope with a short- to medium-term fall in production.
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@remi said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
And on this topic, I just finished reading a newspaper article in Swedish about how the meat production may crawl to a halt if/when the schools closes, since then the workers will have to stay home and deal with kids instead of working.
Honestly, I have little worry for that, if only because it's such an obvious concern that any government should think of it straight away.
Case in point: we've been under lock down in France since the beginning of the week. News website and social media are choke-full of stories of empty toilet paper aisles and what to do at home. But! I haven't seen a single story, not even a hint, that there would ever be an actual shortage of food, or massive disruption to the food chain (apart from people hoarding etc.). And everything I see shows that people who need to get to work to make all this happen, do get to work and make it happen. Not all factories are closed. Food processing industries are not closed. Farmers are not stuck at home.
Of course you'll say that we'll see the problems happening later, not just after a few days, and you're right. But my point is that, contrary to what it may seems from afar, "lock down" is not 100% of population hidden in their cellars. Lock down is restricting at a maximum the social contacts while keeping the country running. Remember all the graphs and models about virus propagation: the goal of isolating people is not to entirely prevent them from catching the virus, ever (which would require a full air-tight lock down), but to reduce the number of contacts to slow down the propagation to make it manageable (and have less cases). This only requires, well, reducing the number of contacts everyone has. "Lock down" is not shooter-in-the-school "lock down".
I have cousins who are teachers, they go to their schools some of the days to take care of children of e.g. health worker. Shops are still open (and that includes stuff like DIY stores, so it's not only vital foodstuff), meaning part of the staff goes. The form we have to fill when getting out has, as the first possible reason for going out, (roughly translated) "transport to workplace when home working isn't possible", which covers almost everything you can imagine.
So really, for a few months, I have no worry about food production. It will obviously hurt a lot, but not to the point we'll be really lacking food.
I really don't think that it will be a problem. For one, no matter what the government tells the farmers to do, they will get off their asses and do the necessary work. Government would probably have to use law enforcement or the military to stop farmers from working. I know one that had proper pneumonia but worked anyway, because they couldn't afford not to.
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Unless your government is that much worse than the French government... )I do believe that to be the case, actually. But Sweden has a long history of pragmatism, so when the chips are down, it will end up being whatever necessary gets done.
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@Polygeekery said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
And there is also the transport, factories and warehouses in the food production, even if the farmers keep shit running (hoping they don't have John Deere machinery) the rest of the chain also need to be working.
Here in the Northern hemisphere we have quite a ways to go before any of that comes in to play. Harvest is a ways off.
I'm not saying it won't or can't have an impact. But I don't think it would have as much if an impact as we think unless this becomes really protracted. Farmers are pretty self sufficient in the short term.
One of the eye opening "makes sense once you hear it" things I learned was from a large tomato farming operation north of our city. Their canning line only runs for a short time every year. Truckloads of tomatoes come in at harvest, get processed and canned in to various products but don't get labeled. They are sorted and marked by pallet. Then when a retailer wants a product the pallets get pulled and labeled on demand.
Some of those cans may get dented, a label misapplied or whatever on the way through and get sold out of their factory store at what is probably cost. Store brand and "premium" brands are all the same stuff. The only difference is the label applied. The only products that actually have any difference to them are the ones labeled organic and even those may have a generic store brand or a premium label and still be the same thing. Exact same product, different label, sometimes with great difference in price.
In Sweden it's about time to start sowing this years crops, and if that can't be done the rest of the year is pretty much cancelled for crops. I don't believe it will actually be a problem, because farmers get to work even if they are dying, and they get their machines working through sheer force of will if need be.
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@Zecc said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Eurovision Song Contest has been canceled. How will we ever live.
Holy fucking shit, that is great!
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@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
(
Unless your government is that much worse than the French government... )I do believe that to be the case, actually. But Sweden has a long history of pragmatism, so when the chips are down, it will end up being whatever necessary gets done.
For all we like to bash on governments, I believe that in Western countries they will all manage to handle the immediate, day-to-day effects of the crisis (such as food shortages). Probably in a large part because it relies on civil servants, security forces and pre-drafted emergency plans, and not so much politicians themselves.
The medium to longer term effects on the economy as a whole, on the other hand, is a totally different thing and some of us may be luckier than others, only time will tell. But nobody will starve in the First (and probably also Second) World.
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@Zecc said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Eurovision Song Contest has been canceled. How will we ever live.
:fa_frontpage:The what now?
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@remi said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
All this shows that actually in normal times we have a clear over-production (or potential for it), so the system can probably easily cope with a short- to medium-term fall in production.
Incidentally, this is IMO one of the biggest lesson of the crisis so far:
The progress of the human society in the past century or so is not that we can cure people (in this case, we can't really, or at least not yet). The biggest progress is that we can afford to shut down almost all movement of people, large chunks of the economy... and still have a functioning country.
In the past (and sometimes even now in the Third World), large-scale disruptions caused by... anything, really, had huge ripple effects. It's even been said that a volcanic eruption in Iceland in 1783 was one of the triggers of the French Revolution because the cloud caused a famine because there was no margin in the food production. During WW1 prisoners of war had to be sent to work the fields otherwise France and Germany wouldn't have been able to feed themselves. Even up to the 30's, something like the Dust Bowl could bring part of a country on the brink of starvation. Now? We can shut down some of the largest world economies, and people are complaining about toilet paper, having to take care of their children and the delay in Amazon deliveries.
We may be over-reacting to the whole thing and it certainly exposes some of our weaknesses, but at least it shows the good side of a modern society.
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@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Rhywden said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Why you'd buy fresh bread in bulk I don't quite understand. It goes bad pretty fast, and takes up massive amounts of freezer space for rather small amounts of sustenance. Hard bread sure, but that isn't what people are cleaning out the shelves of.
The real weird part is that flour was completely sold out - but the "ready-made bread baking mixtures" were still all there.
Y'know, the ones where you only have to add water and which keep for several months.
The mixtures are still not commonly used around here. So people go for what they know. (Or learned from home-ec class.)
Also, it's the odd duck between the flour (cheapest) and bread (easiest). If someone has a job, they won't have time to bake anyway. If someone doesn't, the mix is too expensive and probably not as good as just doing it themselves.Plus, there's the old poor people (pensioners are about as poor as students here) that can't get pasta anymore, since that's all sold out. So they go for the flour instead. Because they can't afford the ready mixes.
They're not expensive - one mix costs about 0.50€. For that money you can get 1/4 of a regular bread over here at most.
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@remi said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@remi said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
All this shows that actually in normal times we have a clear over-production (or potential for it), so the system can probably easily cope with a short- to medium-term fall in production.
Incidentally, this is IMO one of the biggest lesson of the crisis so far:
The progress of the human society in the past century or so is not that we can cure people (in this case, we can't really, or at least not yet). The biggest progress is that we can afford to shut down almost all movement of people, large chunks of the economy... and still have a functioning country.
In the past (and sometimes even now in the Third World), large-scale disruptions caused by... anything, really, had huge ripple effects. It's even been said that a volcanic eruption in Iceland in 1783 was one of the triggers of the French Revolution because the cloud caused a famine because there was no margin in the food production. During WW1 prisoners of war had to be sent to work the fields otherwise France and Germany wouldn't have been able to feed themselves. Even up to the 30's, something like the Dust Bowl could bring part of a country on the brink of starvation. Now? We can shut down some of the largest world economies, and people are complaining about toilet paper, having to take care of their children and the delay in Amazon deliveries.
We may be over-reacting to the whole thing and it certainly exposes some of our weaknesses, but at least it shows the good side of a modern society.
In Sweden there is a severe underproduction of food, because the greens had as a hobby to kill off farming in Sweden for two decades. If the shit really hits the fan, we're gonna starve because other countries will keep their produce in their country to keep their own population from starving. Rightly so, as well.
And by shit hits the fan, I mean something like a proper world war, black plague 2.0 or something that really fucks up everything. Like a solar storm that toasts every circuit on that half of the planet.
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@Rhywden said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Rhywden said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Why you'd buy fresh bread in bulk I don't quite understand. It goes bad pretty fast, and takes up massive amounts of freezer space for rather small amounts of sustenance. Hard bread sure, but that isn't what people are cleaning out the shelves of.
The real weird part is that flour was completely sold out - but the "ready-made bread baking mixtures" were still all there.
Y'know, the ones where you only have to add water and which keep for several months.
The mixtures are still not commonly used around here. So people go for what they know. (Or learned from home-ec class.)
Also, it's the odd duck between the flour (cheapest) and bread (easiest). If someone has a job, they won't have time to bake anyway. If someone doesn't, the mix is too expensive and probably not as good as just doing it themselves.Plus, there's the old poor people (pensioners are about as poor as students here) that can't get pasta anymore, since that's all sold out. So they go for the flour instead. Because they can't afford the ready mixes.
They're not expensive - one mix costs about 0.50€. For that money you can get 1/4 of a regular bread over here at most.
It's not expensive if you're not living on the thin margin between minimum rent and minimum pension, further narrowed by medicine expenses and even semi-regular medical expenses.
But that's a local thing for here.
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@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
And by shit hits the fan, I mean something like a proper world war, black plague 2.0 or something that really fucks up everything. Like a solar storm that toasts every circuit on that half of the planet.
Yeah, I don't think we can really handle a huge disruption either. But still, our societies are much more resilient than in the past with regard to basic human needs.
Also you mention the black plague: what made it so horrific is the weakness (compared to now) of societies at the time. Even ignoring the fact that we now have antibiotics to cure it directly, a modern outbreak would be much, much less lethal because of simple things like proper hygiene, not having fleas jumping around passing it to everybody, basic medical care (keeping patients hydrated, fighting fever etc.). It's still a highly dangerous disease (wiki says 70% mortality if untreated!), but I think "black plague 2.0" as in Yersinia Pestis (or some variation) wouldn't really be an issue. In a sense, see Ebola which is about the same thing as the plague, and that hasn't really been the source of a worldwide global disruption.
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@Carnage take it back. No more Epic Sax Guy
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@Zecc said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Eurovision Song Contest has been canceled. How will we ever live.
Though I couldn’t care less about whether it’s cancelled or not, I do find it strange. It’s mostly a televised thing — sure, there’s an audience actually there for the event, but it can just as easily be done without. That just leaves the people behind the scenes, and though that would be a gathering of more than a hundred people (which are currently forbidden in the country it’s to be held in), I’m sure it would be possible to find a sensible way to handle things.
Or, you know, it could go back to what the name says it’s supposed to be: a song contest rather than a performance contest. Just play the songs via a Eurovision broadcast and have people vote like usual, without any of the theatre that surrounds the thing nowadays.
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An interesting comparison to make is a time-comparison of the number of cases in different regions (countries). Something like the graph in this article (in French) between France and Italy, where the timelines are shifted to try and align growth curves (horizontal axis is "number of day since outbreak"):
The article links (below the picture) to a github repo with raw data, so we can make more plots. But I do enough data analysis to know that the devil is in the details and it may be a bit harder than just plotting stuff (to properly align it etc.). Also
and I'm supposed to do actual work...Nonetheless, I like this comparison as it shows where a country is likely to be in a few days, and whether one country is doing better than another (then we can try and find out why) (on that graph France would seem to be doing marginally better than Italy? maybe...?). For a more
-ey perspective, it also allows seeing how some countries are being moronic (or not) by not reacting now on the basis that "we have only a few cases, all is well, we're not going to end up like our neighbours, don't worry."
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@admiral_p said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
FWIW, a large electronics chain here in Italy is still open because they have been included within the essential services.
In B•••••m, hairdressers are apparently an essential service, as they’re on the list of businesses allowed to stay open.
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@remi said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
And by shit hits the fan, I mean something like a proper world war, black plague 2.0 or something that really fucks up everything. Like a solar storm that toasts every circuit on that half of the planet.
Yeah, I don't think we can really handle a huge disruption either. But still, our societies are much more resilient than in the past with regard to basic human needs.
Also you mention the black plague: what made it so horrific is the weakness (compared to now) of societies at the time. Even ignoring the fact that we now have antibiotics to cure it directly, a modern outbreak would be much, much less lethal because of simple things like proper hygiene, not having fleas jumping around passing it to everybody, basic medical care (keeping patients hydrated, fighting fever etc.). It's still a highly dangerous disease (wiki says 70% mortality if untreated!), but I think "black plague 2.0" as in Yersinia Pestis (or some variation) wouldn't really be an issue. In a sense, see Ebola which is about the same thing as the plague, and that hasn't really been the source of a worldwide global disruption.
Yeah, with the exception of a bacteria that is resistant to all antibiotics we have. We've had a long respite from bacterial diseases due to antibiotics, but if we lose that edge, bacterial diseases will come marching back in all their glory. But I was rather referring to the mortality rate rather than the actual bacteria responsible.
Hopefully, it won't happen and we as a species manage to find new tools before it gets to be a real problem.Anywhoo, that is the backdrop to why I'm calling corona rather toothless as far as pandemics go.
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@remi said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
An interesting comparison to make is a time-comparison of the number of cases in different regions (countries). Something like the graph in this article (in French) between France and Italy, where the timelines are shifted to try and align growth curves (horizontal axis is "number of day since outbreak"):
The article links (below the picture) to a github repo with raw data, so we can make more plots. But I do enough data analysis to know that the devil is in the details and it may be a bit harder than just plotting stuff (to properly align it etc.). Also
and I'm supposed to do actual work...Nonetheless, I like this comparison as it shows where a country is likely to be in a few days, and whether one country is doing better than another (then we can try and find out why) (on that graph France would seem to be doing marginally better than Italy? maybe...?). For a more
-ey perspective, it also allows seeing how some countries are being moronic (or not) by not reacting now on the basis that "we have only a few cases, all is well, we're not going to end up like our neighbours, don't worry."That is kindof the difference between exponential growth and not, future will show if France actually pulled it off, but one can hope.
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@Carnage Like I said, even without antibiotics we have many, many more tools to contain a disease nowadays. Plus, like the current crisis shows, we can afford to shut down entire countries without starving people to death (and while maintaining health infrastructure and so on).
I'm not saying we've beaten anything that nature throws at us, but that we're in a much, much better position that in the Middles Ages to handle that.
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@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
That is kindof the difference between exponential growth and not,
I think it's still exponential, but maybe with a slightly smaller exponent. Which would already be a good thing.
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@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Zecc said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Eurovision Song Contest has been canceled. How will we ever live.
:fa_frontpage:The what now?Related:
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@Gurth said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@admiral_p said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
FWIW, a large electronics chain here in Italy is still open because they have been included within the essential services.
In B•••••m, hairdressers are apparently an essential service, as they’re on the list of businesses allowed to stay open.
Related:
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@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Rhywden said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Rhywden said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Why you'd buy fresh bread in bulk I don't quite understand. It goes bad pretty fast, and takes up massive amounts of freezer space for rather small amounts of sustenance. Hard bread sure, but that isn't what people are cleaning out the shelves of.
The real weird part is that flour was completely sold out - but the "ready-made bread baking mixtures" were still all there.
Y'know, the ones where you only have to add water and which keep for several months.
The mixtures are still not commonly used around here. So people go for what they know. (Or learned from home-ec class.)
Also, it's the odd duck between the flour (cheapest) and bread (easiest). If someone has a job, they won't have time to bake anyway. If someone doesn't, the mix is too expensive and probably not as good as just doing it themselves.Plus, there's the old poor people (pensioners are about as poor as students here) that can't get pasta anymore, since that's all sold out. So they go for the flour instead. Because they can't afford the ready mixes.
They're not expensive - one mix costs about 0.50€. For that money you can get 1/4 of a regular bread over here at most.
It's not expensive if you're not living on the thin margin between minimum rent and minimum pension, further narrowed by medicine expenses and even semi-regular medical expenses.
But that's a local thing for here.
It's less expensive, period. 50 cents for a whole bread? You're forgetting that flour only gets you half-way to a complete bread.
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@Rhywden said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Rhywden said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Rhywden said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Carnage said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Why you'd buy fresh bread in bulk I don't quite understand. It goes bad pretty fast, and takes up massive amounts of freezer space for rather small amounts of sustenance. Hard bread sure, but that isn't what people are cleaning out the shelves of.
The real weird part is that flour was completely sold out - but the "ready-made bread baking mixtures" were still all there.
Y'know, the ones where you only have to add water and which keep for several months.
The mixtures are still not commonly used around here. So people go for what they know. (Or learned from home-ec class.)
Also, it's the odd duck between the flour (cheapest) and bread (easiest). If someone has a job, they won't have time to bake anyway. If someone doesn't, the mix is too expensive and probably not as good as just doing it themselves.Plus, there's the old poor people (pensioners are about as poor as students here) that can't get pasta anymore, since that's all sold out. So they go for the flour instead. Because they can't afford the ready mixes.
They're not expensive - one mix costs about 0.50€. For that money you can get 1/4 of a regular bread over here at most.
It's not expensive if you're not living on the thin margin between minimum rent and minimum pension, further narrowed by medicine expenses and even semi-regular medical expenses.
But that's a local thing for here.
It's less expensive, period. 50 cents for a whole bread? You're forgetting that flour only gets you half-way to a complete bread.
You could make hardtack without nothing but flour and water (and a pinch of salt is nice). Should be quite a lot of "bread" for a bag of flour.
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@Rhywden said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
It's less expensive, period. 50 cents for a whole bread? You're forgetting that flour only gets you half-way to a complete bread.
Less expensive, yes. I don't argue that. I'm just saying that there's still a price gap to the cheapest option, which is baking from flours.
Bread, in its most simple form, consists of flour, yeast and salt (and water if
). And if you have the time and a bit of skill, you can replace the yeast with a home-grown bacterial culture.
One bag of flour is 1,65e for 2kg (first shop catalogue googled). Recipe for baguettes (first google hit: https://www.kotikokki.net/reseptit/nayta/19586/Patongit/ ) calls for 5dl of flour for 3(?) baguettes, equaling about 300g? So the cost of flour per baguette (of unknown size) is around 0,08e. The tablespoon of salt is not that expensive either.
I agree that the ready-made mixture is cheap. But starting from flour is still cheaper. And the kind of people who don't go for ready baked bread around here care very much about the difference in cost. And the rest don't have time to bake either way.
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All the better to keep warm with?https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/688810056602484757/689864221013573672/Smaug.jpg
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@admiral_p
But even ebola doesn't have a 100% mortality rate. It's also less contagious.
And it is worked on ... Janssens made a vaccine that Congo promptly refused to field in the latest outbreak.
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@Luhmann I never said that it isn't worked on. But less money is invested into it. Look, it's easy. The First World is ready to pay for an illness that affects it. The Third World isn't. Just look at malaria, an illness that today is still cured basically with the same (not very effective) drugs that were used a century ago. It's easier to fight malaria with land reclamation than with drugs. If the US or Europe had large land areas that could not be reclaimed for some reason there would be more of an incentive. It's basic common sense (and a political conclusion) and I don't see why you're fighting against it.
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Just walked my daughter to "school" in her brother's room.
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@admiral_p Around here it is unlikely any additional land reclamation would get past the necessary environment impact checks.
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@Gurth said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Just play the songs via a Eurovision broadcast
Just give everyone YouTube links and let them work it out.
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@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
But starting from flour is still cheaper.
Of course it is. The mixes are made mainly from flour and the people making them need some profit margin.
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@dkf said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
But starting from flour is still cheaper.
Of course it is. The mixes are made mainly from flour and the people making them need some profit margin.
Funny thing I saw in Latvia while I was there: 2l of bottled water was more expensive than 2l of (cheap) beer. Which uses way more than 2l of water. Never quite figured that out.
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@PleegWat said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Around here it is unlikely any additional land reclamation would get past the necessary environment impact checks.
If it was being done as an antimalarial measure, the EI checks would be balanced against health impact, and people tend to consistently pick the latter over the former…
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Never quite figured that out.
Actual cost of water is much less. Bottled water has a very high markup. Beer for some reason doesn't (there; that varies from place to place).
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@dkf said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Never quite figured that out.
Actual cost of water is much less. Bottled water has a very high markup. Beer for some reason doesn't (there; that varies from place to place).
Might have to do with volumes and distribution networks. If the tapwater is safe, then bottled water has less of a market, so lower volumes, leading to increased unit price.
Similarly, barring patents or other obstacles, I expect the ready bread-mix to get cheaper than flour if it ever passes flour in popularity. But, you know, plain flour is pretty universal, so...
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@remi said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
An interesting comparison to make is a time-comparison of the number of cases in different regions (countries). Something like the graph in this article (in French) between France and Italy, where the timelines are shifted to try and align growth curves (horizontal axis is "number of day since outbreak"):
Another article on the same site (in French again) with the same data for many countries, from the same source (log vertical scale):
There's Japan and South Korea who seem to be doing reasonably well, then the US isn't doing too bad (but on par with Iran, although their numbers are maybe a bit more doubtful than other? -- remember that the graph is relative to whatever has been chosen as "first day" (10 deaths), so the curves can effectively be shifted horizontally without any difference, and by doing that US and Iran are almost identical), and the rest is... well not much difference between all of them, and not doing very well.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Funny thing I saw in Latvia while I was there: 2l of bottled water was more expensive than 2l of (cheap) beer. Which uses way more than 2l of water. Never quite figured that out.
What's there not to figure? Filtered tapwater is more expensive than the swill from cleaning the brewery pots. You have to clean them anyway, from time to time. Waste not
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@dkf said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@PleegWat said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Around here it is unlikely any additional land reclamation would get past the necessary environment impact checks.
If it was being done as an antimalarial measure, the EI checks would be balanced against health impact, and people tend to consistently pick the latter over the former…
Here, historically, it's been to mitigate flood risks. It's occasionally said that the Zuiderzee works would not have been possible under the current environment impact check regime, but if sea levels rise by a few metres I can see us diking the Waddenzee, and partially draining it to pay for the project.
