Wuhan virus 2020

[Skybird]

Two districts had to go back to lockdowns, one of them is bordering my home town to the east.



German chief virologist Chrisian droste says that after the past days' events in meat producing facilities - a huge chicken meat producer now joined the fun now - and on the streets and the generally growing reactance to caution and discipline, he is very pessimistic now regarding what will be in say two months from now on.



I was on another biycle tour today, Münster-Rheine-Nasses Dreieck- Münster, 130 km. Half of it or more was along the Dortmund-Ems-Channel. What I saw there in various places best can be described as "mass happenings". Zero caution. Zero distancing. Nothing.

[Jimbuna]

The latest Covid-19 outbreak in Beijing has led to some swift changes in Chinese eating habits.
So far, 249 people in the capital have tested positive since an individual tested positive on 11 June.
State media believe that the virus was first detected on chopping boards used for imported salmon, and so media are highlighting that there has become widespread nervousness around eating seafood.

In Mexico, 759 people were reported to have died in the 24 hours up to Monday evening, raising the total number of Covid-related deaths to more than 22,500. The worst-affected area is Mexico City, where officials had to postpone plans for a reopening of businesses. Among those who have tested positive for the virus are footballers Rafael Baca and Jonathan Rodríguez, who play for top division club Cruz Azul.

Peru, which has the second-highest number of cases in Latin America after Brazil, had some good news on Monday as it registered its lowest number of new cases in 42 days. The news came as shopping centres in some parts of the country reopened after three months.

Brazil has the second highest number of Covid-related fatalities in the world. Intensive care units are feeling the strain with Amazonas state in the north; Acre in the north-west; Rio Grande do Norte, Pernambuco, Alagoas and Sergipe in the north-east, and Espirito Santo in the east struggling the most.

A judge in Brazil has ordered President Jair Bolsonaro to wear a protective mask when he is in public spaces in the capital, Brasilia, and the surrounding federal district.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Two districts had to go back to lockdowns, one of them is bordering my home town to the east.

Tadaah: Tusch und Kapelle! - I just red that while I was on bicycle tour in the countryside today, my hometown has reintensified the mandatory wearing of masks again.


This wave is completely self-made. Congratulations.

[skidman]

This is what Corona does: You want to be a Monstera

[Jimbuna]

More than 100,000 people have now died in Latin American and the Caribbean as the pandemic accelerates.

Health experts are saying infection rates still haven't peaked in many countries.

Covid-19 has "brought this nation to its knees" said the director of the US CDC
Robert Redfield's comments came as about half of US states are seeing a surge in new cases.

Health official Anthony Fauci warns of a "disturbing surge" in infections, and calls for increased contact tracing.

An outbreak in Germany has sparked fresh lockdowns.

World number one tennis player Novak Djokovic has said he is "so sorry" after testing positive.

Globally there are now 9.2m cases and almost 477,000 deaths.

[Jimbuna]

Talk of a dreaded second wave will dominate the coming weeks and months. The UK will need to be prepared for one.

Economic forecasters believe it will be at least 18 months before Scotland makes up the output lost due to the pandemic.

Austria says waiters will no longer need to wear masks from 1 July. But Chancellor Sebastian Kurz warned people not to throw their masks away, as they would be needed in the future.

Author and poet Michael Rosen, 74, has been discharged from hospital in London, nearly three months after he was first admitted with suspected coronavirus.

Health authorities in Brazil have registered the second-highest daily death toll since the pandemic began.
The health ministry said on Tuesday that 1,374 deaths had been registered in the previous 24 hours.

New Zealand's government has come under fire after it was revealed that most people released early from the compulsory two-week quarantine on arrival were not tested before they were allowed to go.

Police in Nigeria have rescued more than 100 people they say were locked in a rice-processing factory and forced to work throughout a coronavirus lockdown.

Dozens of activists and students gathered peacefully in Bangkok early this morning to commemorate the 88th anniversary of the 1932 Siamese Revolution, which ended nearly 800 years of absolute monarchy, defying a ban on public gatherings amid the coronavirus pandemic.

[Jimbuna]

[Skybird]

Martin Schröder is professor for sociology of economics and work at the Philipps University in Marburg. His research focuses on social inequality and ideas of justice, empirical gender research, capitalism variants and welfare regimes in international comparison, as well as the influence of moral arguments on economic activity.

When are we really satisfied? Marburg sociology professor Martin Schröder believes that the influence of the corona crisis on this issue is overestimated. Like so much more, by the way - at least that was shown in the evaluations of a long-term study.

FOCUS Online: Mr. Schröder, you wanted to know what makes people happy and have evaluated enormous amounts of data. How exactly can you imagine that?

Martin Schröder: The basis of my work is the so-called socio-economic panel, for which around 80,000 people have been interviewed in Germany since 1984 as part of annual surveys. At that time it was believed that it was important to keep asking the same people the same questions over and over again in order to get really meaningful results. Example unemployment: Here it is important not to focus only on groups of people who currently have no job. It is at least as exciting to take a look at how the same person is doing as long as he is in the job, when he becomes unemployed, and then again after he has returned to the job. My research work includes both: I do so-called group comparisons and I look at how the living conditions of the same person affect satisfaction over a longer period of time.

FOCUS Online: Have you already gained insights into the corona crisis in your evaluations?

Schröder: Unfortunately, the data are usually only available two years after the survey. But the German Institute for Economic Research, which currently has exclusive access to the data, has already had its first results. The data shows, for example, that concerns about one's own economic situation have largely remained the same. However, concerns about the general economic situation have risen sharply. The bottom line seems to show that general life satisfaction in Germany has not currently declined.

FOCUS Online: This is surprising. People are not more dissatisfied, even though we are experiencing the greatest crisis since the post-war period?

Schröder: Yes, and it can be explained by the fact that your own satisfaction is always compared to the outside world: around me, business goes broke, people get sick, maybe even die - then I don't feel that way in comparison bad. I used to meet my friends maybe five times a week, now we only sit together on weekends and then only when the weather is nice, because it would be too risky inside ... but that's actually not a big drama compared to the horror reports you get in listen to the media.

FOCUS Online: As long as you do not get Corona, you mean?

Schröder: According to the DIW survey, health concerns have absurdly decreased over the past few weeks. According to the motto: My knee hurts from time to time and I also have migraines sometimes, but as long as the virus is gone, everything is fine. In research, we speak of the reference standard. We use this to classify our own life satisfaction. In a way, everything in us seems to be designed to keep it stable. And as I said: Even in the current situation, we seem to be largely able to do this.

FOCUS Online: Has the lockdown less troubled people than predicted?

Schröder: It looks like it, yes. People are very adaptable. It can be seen that satisfaction levels have decreased among those who were depressed or lonely before the crisis. But it would be wrong to say that Corona makes you depressed or lonely overall. It is important to differentiate here. Possibly the said side view comes into play again: The neighbor, the buddies, everyone is sitting in the same boat. With everyone, the contacts are a bit on ice. So why should I complain? We just have to go through this together now - this feeling seems to compensate to some extent for the loss of social contacts.

FOCUS Online: Are social contacts perhaps generally overrated? Are there any findings from the long-term study?

Schröder: In fact, contacts are one of the most important factors for satisfaction. What is overrated is the importance of frequency. Simplified: Whether I meet friends once a month or three times a week, it makes no difference.

FOCUS Online: The main thing I feel fundamentally involved?

Schröder: Right. And here I found something interesting: Even in the years when people felt particularly strongly connected to Germany, the overall satisfaction points were comparatively high. Relevant phases were the turn, for example. But even if - quite banal - things happen that Germany wins in football, this has a positive effect on general satisfaction. AfD voters are happier - whoever wants to do something like this is wrong. That's not the point, not nationalism is the issue. It's a sense of community. Like now with Corona. The virus threatens us. And this threat welds us together as a community.

FOCUS Online: Were there things that particularly surprised you when evaluating the data?

Schröder: No matter how I calculated it: fathers seem to be happier when they work longer. With mothers, on the other hand, there seems to be no connection between life satisfaction and working hours. That amazed me. I was also very surprised by the importance of appearance. After the interviews, those who conducted the interview were asked: How good did the person you asked the questions look like? Those who were considered attractive by others turned out to be clearly more satisfied. Honestly: I personally would have much preferred to have been satisfied with things like a good character. But as a sociologist, I don't want to show the world how I would like it to be. But the way it is.

FOCUS Online: Can a kind of guide to a satisfied life be derived from the test results?

Schröder: In the sense of: Follow these three rules and then will it work with happiness? It is not that simple and there is nothing that is further from me than wanting to tell people how to live. You can't say: people, go out often, meet, party, then you're happy. That would be dubious. One can only say that social contact is important in itself. Exactly how this social contact is structured, whether you are married, have a large circle of friends or rather a few handpicked candidates, does not seem to matter. The only thing that we find really clear in terms of satisfaction was that little sleep goes hand in hand with fewer satisfaction points. Adequate sleep is something I now pay more attention to than I used to.

FOCUS Online: Do children make you happy?

Schröder: That was also absolutely surprising for me. In fact, I couldn't find any connection between children and my own satisfaction. Parents are no more unhappy than childless people. Again: Social contact is crucial. Whether it's the grandparents we spend time with, sons or daughters or good friends, that's secondary.

FOCUS Online: There were also surprising things when it came to leisure, wasn't it?

Schröder: Yes. Simplified: When we go to the theater, it seems more important to us to meet other people than to see an interesting play. Sport, art, going to concerts or clubs seems to make us happy above all, in so far as we meet other people.

FOCUS Online: But is not that a contradiction? On the one hand, social contacts are important and the real driving force behind many things. On the other hand, we seem to put up with the loss of social coexistence in the Corona crisis quite well. How does that fit together?

Schröder: This is where my work becomes exciting. Finally, I look at dozens of aspects, everyone has a certain influence and only all together explain satisfaction. For example, we know that people often evaluate events quite differently a few years later. For us Germans, 9/11 has not, as has been announced many times, become the epoch break. My personal assessment is that the predicted effects of the corona crisis will be dramatized and sometimes even exaggerated by the media. It's a general pattern that we think what's happening right now is totally important. In a few years we may say: Back then we just couldn't meet our friends for a while. It wasn't great, but we got on. I would go even further. I can well imagine that at some point we will come to a point where we say: the whole thing also had its good points.

FOCUS Online: To what extent will we be able to gain something positive from the corona crisis in the long term?

Schröder: As I said, satisfaction is not just about how life is de facto. But also how life is relative to the demands. It used to be normal to be able to meet your friends at any time. Then after a certain major stretch it became something special. It was special again to hug his friends again, to meet them carefree, without any ulterior motives. Maybe a bit like the first time you bite an apple after fasting. Will we value friendship differently in the future? I personally can imagine that. And in due course the evaluation of the long-term panel will surely provide us with some exciting insights.

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

The IMF says economic activity in 2020 is likely to decline by almost 5% - almost double the April prediction.

The UK economy may contract by 10% - but Italy, France and Spain will be worse off.

Globally there are now 9.2 million cases and almost 477,000 deaths.

More than 100,000 people have now died in Latin America.

Health experts are saying infection rates still have not peaked in many countries.

About half of US states are seeing a surge in new cases.

[Jimbuna]

A further 51 people have died in hospital in England after testing positive for coronavirus, or where Covid-19 was the direct or underlying cause, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 28,435, NHS England said.
Patients were aged between 48 and 96 years old and all had known underlying health conditions.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is expected to announce a further relaxation of the coronavirus rules in the Netherlands later today.

The pilots of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight that crashed last month, killing 97 people, were distracted by a conversation about Covid-19, a minister has said.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had lowered its global growth forecast for this year and next in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Here are some of the predictions:

UK: -10.2% this year; +6.3% in 2021
US: -8% this year; +4.8% in 2021
Italy and Spain: -12.8% each this year; +6.3% in 2021
Russia: -6.6% this year; +4.1% in 2021
China: +1% this year; +8.2% in 2021
India: -4.5% this year; +6% in 2021
Brazil: -9.1% this year; +3.6% in 2021

Russia is celebrating its biggest public holiday, Victory Day, with a military parade in Moscow that was meant to be held on 9 May.

Eurostar staff furloughed during the lockdown are helping London schools with online French lessons.

[Bilge_Rat]

Shocking, positively shocking!

Three in 10 Americans have broken quarantine to have sex, according to new research.

https://nypost.com/2020/06/23/shocki...-a-booty-call/

[Catfish]

Well as long as you keep your 1.5 m distance.. since Trump we all know how huuuuge US d!cks are

[Onkel Neal]

Things are headed in the wrong direction in the Lone Star State.

https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-upda...upancy-growth/



I'm all for keeping the state open and businesses running in most cases but ALSO wearing masks and using distancing as much as possible, and avoiding unnecessary meetings and gatherings. Texas are acting like this virus was blown out of proportion, it's all behind us.

[Jimbuna]