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from the maybe-it-is-not-such-a-bad-time-to-be-living-alone-in-someone's-basement dept.
[Editor's note: We had been gathering together COVID-19 stories for eventual release as a round-up story. I lack time at the moment to personally gather all those together with this most recent submission. We will run the next round-up in the next few days. But given the significance of this submission, I wished not to delay it from being immediately released to the community. --martyb]
World Health Organization declares the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic:
The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on Wednesday as the new coronavirus, which was unknown to world health officials just three months ago, has rapidly spread to more than 121,000 people from Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the United States.
“In the past two weeks the number of cases outside China has increased thirteenfold and the number of affected countries has tripled,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva. “In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths and the number of affected countries to climb even higher.”
Tedros said several countries have demonstrated the ability to suppress and control the outbreak, but he scolded other world leaders for failing to act quickly enough or drastically enough to contain the spread.
“We’re deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction,” he said, just before declaring the pandemic. “We have rung the alarm bell loud and clear.”
[Ed. addition follows.]
Also at Ars Technica and cnet.
For those who might not be aware of the distinction, Wikipedia helpfully provides these summaries:
An epidemic (what we have had up to now with COVID-19):
An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί epi "upon or above" and δῆμος demos "people") is the rapid spread of infectious disease to a large number of people in a given population within a short period of time, usually two weeks or less.
[...]An epidemic may be restricted to one location; however, if it spreads to other countries or continents and affects a substantial number of people, it may be termed a pandemic.[1] The declaration of an epidemic usually requires a good understanding of a baseline rate of incidence; epidemics for certain diseases, such as influenza, are defined as reaching some defined increase in incidence above this baseline.[2] A few cases of a very rare disease may be classified as an epidemic, while many cases of a common disease (such as the common cold) would not.
By comparison, a pandemic (which has just now been announced for COVID-19):
A pandemic (from Greek πᾶν pan "all" and δῆμος demos "people") is an epidemic of disease that has spread across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic. Further, flu pandemics generally exclude recurrences of seasonal flu. Throughout history, there have been a number of pandemics, such as smallpox and tuberculosis. One of the most devastating pandemics was the Black Death, which killed an estimated 75–200 million people in the 14th century. The current pandemics are HIV/AIDS and Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).[1][2] Other recent pandemics are the 1918 influenza pandemic (Spanish flu), and the 2009 flu pandemic (H1N1).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Wednesday March 11 2020, @09:54PM (4 children)
On Campus / boarded students earn the University more money.
Not shutting your campus down for the most part and having 3% of your students die due to COVID-19. Not very good PR.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2020, @12:38AM (3 children)
Actually students have a lower fatality rate and is this the message we want to send our students?
No, we should tough things out in the face of adversity.
Work even when we don’t feel like it,
Go the extra mile to get’r done!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2020, @01:12AM (1 child)
While far fewer young people die from the coronavirus, they are still getting infected and can infect others. Illnesses spread very readily at colleges, where students live in close quarters and are in close proximity to each other in classes. College campuses are not isolated from the communities they reside within. If these students are ill, they may well spread the coronavirus to more vulnerable people. You also have a significant amount of faculty and staff, who are older than students and, therefore, are more vulnerable. Universities have a responsibility to their faculty and staff as well as the surrounding communities. Moving classes online is a form of adversity for students and faculty, both of whom have to make significant adaptations. Social distancing is a form of adversity for people who have to make some sacrifices or experience interruptions in their life for the benefit of the community. We should be very concerned about the overburdening of hospitals in Italy and Wuhan increasing death rates. We all have a role in limiting the spread of the coronavirus and by extension the amount of people who end up seriously ill in hospitals. There's a big difference between getting through adversity and taking foolish risks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2020, @03:04AM
"It's game over, man!"
Ripley: "This little girl survived it all alone. Man up, you pathetic Republican!"
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday March 12 2020, @03:25PM
They're not shutting the school down. For past generations shutting the campus down meant shutting the school down. They're doing all online courses for the remainder of the semester or something like that.
A small university with a few hundred people is one thing, but a place like MIT has over 11,000 students.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"