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Some good news in the budget today:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-51840247

What benefits were announced for the self-employed who get coronavirus or have to self-isolate? Simone Tyler
People who are not eligible for sick pay, particularly the self-employed, will be able to claim Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) from day one of "illness" rather than day eight.

Good, no verification sick pay period, ESA will be available for self-isolators even if they end up being clear of the virus. This is at the lower rate of ESA, so its only £73.10 a week, but its a good start.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It's officially a pandemic? That's bad; I've never beaten that game.

Take the medic and dispatcher in your team. Cure one plague early and use the dispatcher to make sure you reach every last cube of that colour and make it extinct. You need to do this rapidly. Now 25% of infection cards are blanks. This will give you the edge to win.
Also build at least three hospitals early to act as transport nexii.


COVID-19 has been a pandemic for about three weeks by most reckonings. Once there were major hotspots in travel hubs outside China it was evident the virus had proliferated globally.

Gah. My academic conference at the end of month just got rescheduled. I'd booked leave and everything...

Silver lining though; now I don't have to write that paper for another four months!

Denmark's shutting down most non-essential stuff, and Sweden's banned public meetings above a certain size as well as loosening the rules for claiming sick days, making it less costly to stay home while ill. We've also had our first death, an elderly man who was already being treated for unrelated illnesses near Stockholm.

Welp, No Travel between Europe and the US for 30 days.

I've got a trip to Prague at the end of April...like 45 days away, hopefully that will still be doable

EDIT: Given that it's already out in the wild, including the city I live in, this seems...extremely counterproductive.

Well at least its showing how utterly ill-equipped we are to deal with any kind of fast spreading pathogens... Resident evil makes so much effin sense now.

Meanwhile this is everyone's workplace:

"What shall we do boss? Jimmy got taken away in an ambulance sick and stuff.."

"Mmm... wait and see.. Everybody!! Get back to work no reason to panic.. I.. I mean WE have targets to fulfil for next months mangers brief"

We literly had a guy today get taken home coz he was really unwell.. Nobody is telling anyone anything and its a case of "wait and see.." & "Ohh don't worry its probably not corona"

I mean corona is either a problem or it isint.

If its a problem than we do what needs to be done and enforce full on quarantine etc. And we try and save people..

If its not a problem then why bother with this entire pantomime?

So it seems like its a problem, but nothing is truly being done.. The true face of the zeitgeist is showing its ugly head. Humans are resource, get to work and who cares if you die because economy... Maybe finally more people will get it and some change will happen.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Welp, No Travel between Europe and the US for 30 days.

I've got a trip to Prague at the end of April...like 45 days away, hopefully that will still be doable

EDIT: Given that it's already out in the wild, including the city I live in, this seems...extremely counterproductive.

Yep. There are too many known cases (let alone unknown ones) here already, working from major population centers on both coasts. The glaring exception to the travel ban (the UK) also makes it pointless, given they also have known cases, and the US just sent a planeload of potentially infected people back to the UK from the Crown Princess cruise.

The sheer fuzziness of it also baffles me. If someone goes from Spain to Gibraltar to London to the US, is that allowed, or blocked? EU residents that cross at the Channel, and fly out of London?

 Orlanth wrote:

COVID-19 has been a pandemic for about three weeks by most reckonings. Once there were major hotspots in travel hubs outside China it was evident the virus had proliferated globally.

Yep. WHO waffling about it has been infuriating. The fact that the WHO chief is reprimanding governments about 'alarming levels of inaction' in the same speech he's trying to justify his rationale in not declaring it a pandemic before today (despite any objective criteria) is just self-serving twaddle. He specifically encouraged inaction in the early days when action mattered most.


At the same time, I really want to know where Angela Merkel got her numbers for '70% of Germany could catch the disease'

 Argive wrote:

So it seems like its a problem, but nothing is truly being done.. The true face of the zeitgeist is showing its ugly head. Humans are resource, get to work and who cares if you die because economy... Maybe finally more people will get it and some change will happen.

There are too many closures, shutdowns and cancelled public gatherings for me to take this seriously. There have been several mistakes, but the global reaction is showing the opposite face to me. Health and prevention are more important than going to the work/school location. Inconvenience is better than going out for a beer or going to the latest business conference.

 Orlanth wrote:


Take the medic and dispatcher in your team. Cure one plague early and use the dispatcher to make sure you reach every last cube of that colour and make it extinct. You need to do this rapidly. Now 25% of infection cards are blanks. This will give you the edge to win.
Also build at least three hospitals early to act as transport nexii.

Disagree.

Don't tunnel vision on wiping out a single color. If you start the game with enough cards of one color that has moderate to low presence, cool, go for it. (The medic is top tier whether you want to play out that strategy or not). Dispatcher doesn't really bring the bang for buck until you have three or more players.


and telling someone to build 3+ hospitals early while also completely eliminating an entire color early is just pie in the sky thinking. Especially when you haven't even brought up the Operations Expert.

Tom Hanks has contracted coronavirus in Australia.

 Argive wrote:
So it seems like its a problem, but nothing is truly being done.. The true face of the zeitgeist is showing its ugly head. Humans are resource, get to work and who cares if you die because economy... Maybe finally more people will get it and some change will happen.

I mean, you say this, but my social media is DROWNING in hate messages from people who are pissed the feth off because they can't go to work (most of them work in the service industry) and don't know how they're going to pay their bills, live their lives etc.

It's one of those situations where as a company you are 100% damned if you damned if you don't. Tell everyone to keep coming to work? You're the bad guy cause you're contributing to the virus' spread. Tell everyone to stay home? You're the bad guy because something like 80% of people live paycheck to paycheck and don't have a month's worth of savings to wait for all this to blow over.

Roberts84 wrote:
Tom Hanks has contracted coronavirus in Australia.

Ah, so the disease will be defeated shortly.

At the same time, I really want to know where Angela Merkel got her numbers for '70% of Germany could catch the disease'

The German national health science service worked it out, apparently.

it's getting rough here in Kent



we're doing our best to stay strong.

Interesting for European countries to be on the recieving end of this stuff (travel bans and so on). Usually we are the ones doing that to others.

I understand sentiments, but personally I do promote inner strength and good for an entire organism, not individual cells within that organism. This is why I think like I do.

Coronavirus for a healthy, strong organism might not be even week long of sick leave. There are cases where body can just shrug it off with mild or no symptoms at all and this mortality rate is for everyone involved which means that infection is dangerous for underslept, undernourished individuals with weak immune systems and is just free holidays people who exercise and are healthy. Some people can spread it even without knowing, others do spread it in order to share their misery upon others. I had read cases where people went out of their way to specifically infect as many people as possible. There is already preparation for panic as people buyed out various medical supplies and malls had stacked their inventories with dry food like rice, because people are already preparing for it. We have 1 registered case of coronavirus in Lithuania, person had failed to infect anyone else before she was isolated. Though, I imagine if this virus would begin spreading freely in Lithuania, our government will issue shutdown of a nation. At least my company is very concerned about it and there is no doubt that I'm threatened to have several weeks of home work which equals holidays for me. Oh, what I'm going to do? With computer, internet, tons of books and various models in need of assembling and painting?

People are right to worry about infirm, old and already sick. I'm not worried about my own grandmother, because she is already isolated in her own house. If worse comes, people will merely isolate themselves out in their homes with various dry foods. Economic shutdown for few weeks is the worst that we will have to endure. It is similar situation now and in Italy.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

At the same time, I really want to know where Angela Merkel got her numbers for '70% of Germany could catch the disease'

The German national health science service worked it out, apparently.

She probably got it from an episode of Teletubbies.

She got it from the Robert Koch Institute, which is the public health institute for Germany. I would presume it is based on risk modelling, which is important for logistical planning and all similar institutes such as the CDC in America would do similar modelling.
The number she actually said was 60-70% of Germans. This would not be unusual for a highly contagious disease for which there is no vaccine.

But yeah, continue to hate on Merkel for whatever reason. Says more about ye than her.

To be fair several (independent) European health bodies have been talking about 60-80% potential infections, though also making clear that's a worst case and they'd expect it to be lower.

I guess they're probably all watching the same kids channel?

Teletubbies is one of the UK's most successful exports.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 Argive wrote:
So it seems like its a problem, but nothing is truly being done.. The true face of the zeitgeist is showing its ugly head. Humans are resource, get to work and who cares if you die because economy... Maybe finally more people will get it and some change will happen.

I mean, you say this, but my social media is DROWNING in hate messages from people who are pissed the feth off because they can't go to work (most of them work in the service industry) and don't know how they're going to pay their bills, live their lives etc.

It's one of those situations where as a company you are 100% damned if you damned if you don't. Tell everyone to keep coming to work? You're the bad guy cause you're contributing to the virus' spread. Tell everyone to stay home? You're the bad guy because something like 80% of people live paycheck to paycheck and don't have a month's worth of savings to wait for all this to blow over.

UK has statutory sick pay, so we have more of a safety net than you guys do. Government has just said it will fully reimburse small businesses (<250 employees) for the cost of providing 14 days sick pay per employee for this. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-for-employees-employers-and-businesses

Switzerland has closed off 9 smaller border checkpoints to italy (highly rare)
Ticino is in emergency state.
Federal government plans on mobilizing the medicinial parts of the army.
Homeoffice it is for everyone possible.

gak gone down.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Welp, No Travel between Europe and the US for 30 days.

I've got a trip to Prague at the end of April...like 45 days away, hopefully that will still be doable

EDIT: Given that it's already out in the wild, including the city I live in, this seems...extremely counterproductive.

US citizens and green card holders are not affected ATM if I understand correctly.

On my end my school here in Cairo initially said online only starting next week, then people threw fits so we're at alternate days, 1 day online, 1 day in class.

So worst of both worlds.

 Da Boss wrote:
She got it from the Robert Koch Institute, which is the public health institute for Germany. I would presume it is based on risk modelling, which is important for logistical planning and all similar institutes such as the CDC in America would do similar modelling.
The number she actually said was 60-70% of Germans. This would not be unusual for a highly contagious disease for which there is no vaccine.

But yeah, continue to hate on Merkel for whatever reason. Says more about ye than her.

She is terrible though.. come on.


I hope it doesnt affect warhammer fest in may. I've spent about 6 months painting my GD entries.

I haven’t slept right all week. Guess I’m a gonna then.

2 more confirmed cases in Lithuania. Possible secondary infections as people went to party after getting back from Italy from what I had heard. Nation is closing down its mass events, cinemas, theaters. Schools and kindergarten are also closing down across the nation. I'm just afraid that I have to leave my city for whole week and during this time I will be stuck in my parents house during nation wide quarantine.

 Ernestas wrote:
I'm just afraid that I have to leave my city for whole week and during this time I will be stuck in my parents house during nation wide quarantine.

Is that really a big deal? A week is not long.

I hope that this virus could politely wait for one full week and strike at the end of the month in my country. This way I could make use of my time in most entertaining and efficient fashion and I won't lose any holidays for it. I will only get more paid vacation. Otherwise I will be slightly annoyed by this outbreak.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Welp, No Travel between Europe and the US for 30 days.

I've got a trip to Prague at the end of April...like 45 days away, hopefully that will still be doable

EDIT: Given that it's already out in the wild, including the city I live in, this seems...extremely counterproductive.

Especially when you block free sickleave emergency bill and before banned use of flu testing that was ongoing to track corona.

Not surprising. Us is very unsuited to deal with this. China got off lightly compared to how us will be in the end.

Then again this ban isn't about virus itself. It's just convenient excuse

 Vaktathi wrote:
Welp, No Travel between Europe and the US for 30 days.

I've got a trip to Prague at the end of April...like 45 days away, hopefully that will still be doable

EDIT: Given that it's already out in the wild, including the city I live in, this seems...extremely counterproductive.

Really, really bad headline from the BBC. It's Schengen only and it doesn't apply to citizens or permanent residents of the US. On the other hand, I understand it's actually indefinite, not limited to 30 days.

 Ernestas wrote:
I hope that this virus could politely wait for one full week and strike at the end of the month in my country. This way I could make use of my time in most entertaining and efficient fashion and I won't lose any holidays for it. I will only get more paid vacation. Otherwise I will be slightly annoyed by this outbreak.

Not sure if serious?

The company I last worked for (UK owned, global reach) has instituted a 30 day travel ban.

The company I currently work for has left it up to us.

I'm cancelling my trip next week to the Seattle area due to several issues - not the least of which is the potential for politically based shenanigans between President Trump (R) and Washington State Governor Inslee (D), who have already been sparring back and forth of the handling of this outbreak...

Meanwhile, the NBA has suspended its season after a player on the Utah Jazz has been confirmed to have COVID-19.

NHL and possibly MLB are expected to follow along soon too...

Apparently Trump was vague (as usual) and the travel ban is more about foreign nationals and not average joes. We're still trying to get the full story here at work.

I wish the owner of my company wasn't so old and old fashioned.. we're only allowed to work from home if the government mandates it. So even though all of our jobs can be done from anywhere in the world with an internet connection, we still have to drive into the office every day.

Personally virus or not I think everyone who can work remotely should work remotely, like forever. If anything just to cut down on traffic and smog. But that's another rant for another thread.