extintor

Really sorry to hear that and best of luck to you. Agree it isn't anything against GB at all. We are all just trying to make it through this.

One of the biggest differences I've found, as it relates to Giant Bomb intake at least, is that working from home every day, combined with a general fear of job loss due to economic decline has pushed me into spending many more hours per day working and those that I do spend not working, doing practical home improvement tasks. I'm not watching Giant Bomb streams or listening to podcasts (no commute). I miss the pre-pandemic life structure I had... one that had 'dead time' to be filled by passive entertainment.

more air horn please

@jacknapes: everybody appreciates the work she's doing!

@sethmode: we’ll have a chance to provide our collective feedback on his leadership throughout this crisis soon.

@shindig: It has to lockdown. The practical outcomes of the math make it necessary from a resource management and an ethical point of view. The US will follow over the coming days. The alternative would be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dead. Here's the science behind the decision making happening right now.

I will not deceive people about my very pro steatopygic leanings

:D

I used to work in Infectious Disease Epidemiology research in the UK and in our hyper-connected modern world there's been worry that something of this magnitude could emerge for a long time now. In many ways I think the UK is likely to be quite well prepared for the disaster management side of things, and the rational contain, delay, mitigate, research approach they've adopted is the result of many years of pandemic and bio-attack preparation. I live and work in the US (Houston) these days and I'm a little less confident in the apparatus of government here. That might simply be because I know less about how those branches of government work in the US.

Overall the biggest test will emerge in the coming weeks as decisions are made that will have massive economic and public health repercussions. It has already begun with the cancellation and closing of large events. Imagine the economic devastation that would come about if all schools were mandatorily closed for a couple of months and parents were forced into childcare obligations. Never mind the inevitable losses of jobs that will accompany the downturn in demand for service-related industries as people stay home more and stop travelling around.

One point that I think is essential in framing thought about the virus is that the numbers we see today are a measurement of the number of infections that took place 15 to 20 days ago. Correspondingly we will only know when things are getting better once we see a run of more than 20 days with number of new cases declining day after day. We are a long way from that point so calibrate your expectations about how long this disruption will be going on accordingly.

I'm a British ex-pat here so all my politics news bandwidth is taken up with the (unusually compelling) Brexit/UK election at the moment.

Everyone knows by now what they think about Trump and I think most people are just waiting on the next election to express it. To a large extent I think new developments/facts/criminal accusations etc aren't going to impact public opinion about him.