Coronavirus Thread V: A Shot in the Arm (READ OP)

[Nobel Hobos 2]

Highly unlikely

Indeed it is, still it'd be better to prepare for a highly unlikely disastrous event than just assume it won't happen and destroy what little left you have to prepare for it with.

This line of "a disaster won't happen here, so why don't we just step down our emergency preparedness measures" thinking is exactly how Coronavirus became such a mess, the pandemic spread of something like smallpox would make you wish we just had Coronavirus to worry about.

Yeah, well I'd like the samples they're retaining to be somewhere really secure. Perhaps a bank vault.

[Post War America]

Indeed it is, still it'd be better to prepare for a highly unlikely disastrous event than just assume it won't happen and destroy what little left you have to prepare for it with.

This line of "a disaster won't happen here, so why don't we just step down our emergency preparedness measures" thinking is exactly how Coronavirus became such a mess, the pandemic spread of something like smallpox would make you wish we just had Coronavirus to worry about.

Yellowstone could erupt tomorrow too. It would be the end of the world as we know it. Corona would be nothing if that happened.

We likely have no plan for that either.

I mean, we might actually. It just might involve abandoning most of middle America to its fate. Like seriously the DoD has multiple plans put in place for a zombie apocalypse. Having smallpox samples in contained labs is probably easier to prepare for than the zombie apocalypse.

[Post War America]

Indeed it is, still it'd be better to prepare for a highly unlikely disastrous event than just assume it won't happen and destroy what little left you have to prepare for it with.

This line of "a disaster won't happen here, so why don't we just step down our emergency preparedness measures" thinking is exactly how Coronavirus became such a mess, the pandemic spread of something like smallpox would make you wish we just had Coronavirus to worry about.

Yeah, well I'd like the samples they're retaining to be somewhere really secure. Perhaps a bank vault.

They are in highly ranked disease research centers, kept under the best possible guard that viruses could be. A bank vault would likely be a step down... unless it were a bank vault with viral containment procedures, inside the facility.

[San Lumen]

Indeed it is, still it'd be better to prepare for a highly unlikely disastrous event than just assume it won't happen and destroy what little left you have to prepare for it with.

This line of "a disaster won't happen here, so why don't we just step down our emergency preparedness measures" thinking is exactly how Coronavirus became such a mess, the pandemic spread of something like smallpox would make you wish we just had Coronavirus to worry about.

Yeah, well I'd like the samples they're retaining to be somewhere really secure. Perhaps a bank vault.

An old article but worth reading: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/ ... -order-dna

Scientists in a Canadian lab a few years ago were able to recreate smallpox using mail order DNA. Someone with little scientific knowledge could recreate the disease and release it in the middle of major city.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

Indeed it is, still it'd be better to prepare for a highly unlikely disastrous event than just assume it won't happen and destroy what little left you have to prepare for it with.

This line of "a disaster won't happen here, so why don't we just step down our emergency preparedness measures" thinking is exactly how Coronavirus became such a mess, the pandemic spread of something like smallpox would make you wish we just had Coronavirus to worry about.

Yellowstone could erupt tomorrow too. It would be the end of the world as we know it. Corona would be nothing if that happened.

We likely have no plan for that either.

I do. Drill bores, inject water and release steam. Cools the magma you see, also gets geothermal power.

---

Might cause an eruption!

[Post War America]

Yeah, well I'd like the samples they're retaining to be somewhere really secure. Perhaps a bank vault.

An old article but worth reading: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/ ... -order-dna

Scientists in a Canadian lab a few years ago were able to recreate smallpox using mail order DNA. Someone with little scientific knowledge could recreate the disease and release it in the middle of major city.

Which is why the samples aren't being destroyed.

[San Lumen]

Yellowstone could erupt tomorrow too. It would be the end of the world as we know it. Corona would be nothing if that happened.

We likely have no plan for that either.

I do. Drill bores, inject water and release steam. Cools the magma you see, also gets geothermal power.

---

Might cause an eruption!

It would definitely cause an eruption. The chamber is under so much pressure than even drilling a pin sized hole the entire chamber would try to come out through it.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

Yeah, well I'd like the samples they're retaining to be somewhere really secure. Perhaps a bank vault.

They are in highly ranked disease research centers, kept under the best possible guard that viruses could be. A bank vault would likely be a step down... unless it were a bank vault with viral containment procedures, inside the facility.

Bank vaults are protected against bad guys with guns and explosives.
Banks have put quite a bit of time and money into making them hard to break into.

Scientists I expect mostly rely on security by obscurity. There will be a vial with WARNING: Smallpox inside a locked drawer of a locked vault (tho not a real hardass vault like a bank has) but the real smallpox will be marked "WARNING: Unknown pathogen D62" in a locked drawer labelled Pending Secure Destruction.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

I do. Drill bores, inject water and release steam. Cools the magma you see, also gets geothermal power.

---

Might cause an eruption!

It would definitely cause an eruption. The chamber is under so much pressure than even drilling a pin sized hole the entire chamber would try to come out through it.

Why do you hate geothermal? Volcanoes are natural.

[Region of Dwipantara]

So advisors to the UK government are saying those who've contracted the virus and recovered should be exempt from any quarantine rules in order to allow the economy to open up. It'd be an ok idea if we didn't live in a world where hordes of people would rush out to get infected so they can gain exemption.

Basically it's punishing people for being responsible.

Yes I have no doubt that it'd lead to a rise in Coronavirus parties, similar to the Chickenpox party. Someone hasn't thought this through.

So... government-sponsored natural selection?

I do. Drill bores, inject water and release steam. Cools the magma you see, also gets geothermal power.

---

Might cause an eruption!

It would definitely cause an eruption. The chamber is under so much pressure than even drilling a pin sized hole the entire chamber would try to come out through it.

Not according to NASA.

Instead Nasa have conceived a very different plan. They believe the most viable solution could be to drill up to 10km down into the supervolcano, and pump down water at high pressure. The circulating water would return at a temperature of around 350C (662F), thus slowly day by day extracting heat from the volcano. And while such a project would come at an estimated cost of around $3.46bn (£2.69bn), it comes with an enticing catch which could convince politicians to make the investment.

“Yellowstone currently leaks around 6GW in heat,” Wilcox says. “Through drilling in this way, it could be used to create a geothermal plant, which generates electric power at extremely competitive prices of around $0.10/kWh. You would have to give the geothermal companies incentives to drill somewhat deeper and use hotter water than they usually would, but you would pay back your initial investment, and get electricity which can power the surrounding area for a period of potentially tens of thousands of years.

And the long-term benefit is that you prevent a future supervolcano eruption which would devastate humanity.”

...But drilling into a supervolcano does not come without certain risks. Namely triggering the eruption you’re intending to prevent.

...Instead, the idea is to drill in from the supervolcano from the lower sides, starting outside the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park, and extracting the heat from the underside of the magma chamber. “This way you’re preventing the heat coming up from below from ever reaching the top of the chamber which is where the real threat arises,” Wilcox says.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2017 ... GwASA%253D

Anyways, that was off topic.

[San Lumen]

So advisors to the UK government are saying those who've contracted the virus and recovered should be exempt from any quarantine rules in order to allow the economy to open up. It'd be an ok idea if we didn't live in a world where hordes of people would rush out to get infected so they can gain exemption.

Basically it's punishing people for being responsible.

Yes I have no doubt that it'd lead to a rise in Coronavirus parties, similar to the Chickenpox party. Someone hasn't thought this through.

Like we didnt think through the coming eviction, hunger and education crisis?

[Nobel Hobos 2]

An old article but worth reading: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/how-canadian-researchers-built-poxvirus-100000-using-mail-order-dna

Scientists in a Canadian lab a few years ago were able to recreate smallpox using mail order DNA. Someone with little scientific knowledge could recreate the disease and release it in the middle of major city.

Which is why the samples aren't being destroyed.

Why again?

The samples are useful for recreating the smallpox vaccine. Which we already have. But why would someone with the expertise and money to create smallpox (and the bad intent to let it loose) recreate the exact strain that we already have a vaccine for? The samples of old smallpox aren't going to be any use. The good scientists will be starting from day one of having samples of the new smallpox-like bioweapon.

Already the biologists around the world have done amazingly to get new candidate vaccines into testing so fast. I heard the previously, the fastest vaccine development was 4 years for Mumps. I'll say that again, mumps. Great word. Anyway, that doesn't include flu vaccine which only has to be tweaked a bit as the viruses evolve.

But in the future, I expect it will get quicker and quicker. Sequence the virus, crunch some numbers and come up with the protein that kills or deactivates it, design a vaccine that provokes the immune system to produce that protein. Then manufacture that vaccine out of standard parts at enormous speed. From detection to cure will be a few weeks, then a few days. If this sounds implausible, it's only because the incredibly tiny things are still a frontier for us. We will master them all, as we have mastered the macro world, by the skilled use of machines.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

It would definitely cause an eruption. The chamber is under so much pressure than even drilling a pin sized hole the entire chamber would try to come out through it.

Not according to NASA.

NASA have a podium of being able to suggest all manner of outrageous and dangerous things, safe in the knowledge that policy makers will ignore them.

"Preventing a massive natural disaster? I bet this is just NASA bending our ear about climate change ... again!"

Seriously, if I were President, I would call for 3 independent enquiries into this idea. One of them would be NASA. Each of them would get 50 billion dollars and two years to research it.

[San Lumen]

Not according to NASA.

NASA have a podium of being able to suggest all manner of outrageous and dangerous things, safe in the knowledge that policy makers will ignore them.

"Preventing a massive natural disaster? I bet this is just NASA bending our ear about climate change ... again!"

Seriously, if I were President, I would call for 3 independent enquiries into this idea. One of them would be NASA. Each of them would get 50 billion dollars and two years to research it.

that 50 billion dollars could be better spend elsewhere

[Nobel Hobos 2]

NASA have a podium of being able to suggest all manner of outrageous and dangerous things, safe in the knowledge that policy makers will ignore them.

"Preventing a massive natural disaster? I bet this is just NASA bending our ear about climate change ... again!"

Seriously, if I were President, I would call for 3 independent enquiries into this idea. One of them would be NASA. Each of them would get 50 billion dollars and two years to research it.

that 50 billion dollars could be better spend elsewhere

You said yourself that it would change life as we know it, if the Yellowstone Caldera blows.

It would be a massive climate event which would screw everyone everywhere. Not just America.

Though a disclaimer: the North and South hemispheres are not that well connected atmospherically. South America and Australia wouldn't be as much affected. Seeing you all starve would be distressing, but the irony of the driest inhabited continent becoming the world's bread-basket would give me some satisfaction. Bags of wheat being distributed off the back of lorries, with "G'day from Straya" printed on them ...

If $150 billion is too much for your poor taxpayers, perhaps you could call out for international donations? It's in everyone's interest that Yellowstone doesn't go up, and that includes any half-baked attempts to cool it down. It's a big deal. You want to get it right first time.

[San Lumen]

that 50 billion dollars could be better spend elsewhere

You said yourself that it would change life as we know it, if the Yellowstone Caldera blows.

It would be a massive climate event which would screw everyone everywhere. Not just America.

Though a disclaimer: the North and South hemispheres are not that well connected atmospherically. South America and Australia wouldn't be as much affected. Seeing you all starve would be distressing, but the irony of the driest inhabited continent becoming the world's bread-basket would give me some satisfaction. Bags of wheat being distributed off the back of lorries, with "G'day from Straya" printed on them ...

If $150 billion is too much for your poor taxpayers, perhaps you could call out for international donations? It's in everyone's interest that Yellowstone doesn't go up, and that includes any half-baked attempts to cool it down. It's a big deal. You want to get it right first time.

I don't think humans should be interfering with natural processes.

[The New California Republic]

I don't think humans should be interfering with natural processes.

...something that we do all the time. Our existence depends on it.

[Elevanos]

Ironic you shoudl say that, since America has tested tens of millions of people, much higher than the people tested in the nations with the same rate of testing per thousand on this website https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing .

I don't know what point you think that supports, but it doesn't.

It supports that America has tested far more people than any other nation, including India, which has a population of, oh, nearly four times the United States, yet has tested on a significantly lower rate than the United States population-wise, but if the https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/ ... untry=~IND is finding that about 10-20% of tests are coming back positive in India, and America has about a 5-10% testing positive chance, and there are still unconfirmed cases in America, then there could be tens of thousands of unknown India cases, and even more countries might have unconfirmed cases numbering quite high.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

that 50 billion dollars could be better spend elsewhere

You said yourself that it would change life as we know it, if the Yellowstone Caldera blows.

It would be a massive climate event which would screw everyone everywhere. Not just America.

Though a disclaimer: the North and South hemispheres are not that well connected atmospherically. South America and Australia wouldn't be as much affected. Seeing you all starve would be distressing, but the irony of the driest inhabited continent becoming the world's bread-basket would give me some satisfaction. Bags of wheat being distributed off the back of lorries, with "G'day from Straya" printed on them ...

If $150 billion is too much for your poor taxpayers, perhaps you could call out for international donations? It's in everyone's interest that Yellowstone doesn't go up, and that includes any half-baked attempts to cool it down. It's a big deal. You want to get it right first time.

If Yellowstone goes we go back to the Stone Age basically. Society worldwide would collapse from the climate effects.

[Pilipinas and Malaya]

...the point being?

He said that lockdowns decreased cases. In actuality, during the lock down they increased by thousands of times. Not all of the cases were from early surges pre-national shutdown.

So you’re going to ignore effective lockdowns in places outside of the US? There is also the notable difference of how officials handle each lockdown.

[Elevanos]

If you look at the map I was referring to in the link, you would find America was doing as much testing as Russia, Canada, and Australia. That means the rate of testing is the same, and the cases are higher for us because of tens of millions of people being tested, not a few hundred thousand.

Nope. Your cases are proportionally higher too.

In several nations the cases are proportionally higher than the United States. On https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl= ... id=US%3Aen, with only a couple scrolls, Chile, Qatar, Oman, Panama, Kuwait, and several more have way higher cases per million. And even though Kuwait and Qatar are very small and densely populated, I'm not surprised they have so many cases, but with nations that can be a little more spread out with their populations (Oman, Chile, and what not), the situations are pretty bad. And in the states with higher cases, Illinois, New York, Florida, they are the most populated states, and California (rarely reported on) is leading in cases, but Arizona is the highest proportionally in the top 10. And by the way, I'm not saying that the United States is doing great, since it's clear it's really damn bad. I think I'm going to leave this thread soon, too, since it isn't doing much for the situation.

[Elevanos]

He said that lockdowns decreased cases. In actuality, during the lock down they increased by thousands of times. Not all of the cases were from early surges pre-national shutdown.

So you’re going to ignore effective lockdowns in places outside of the US? There is also the notable difference of how officials handle each lockdown.

Like which nations?

[Nobel Hobos 2]

You said yourself that it would change life as we know it, if the Yellowstone Caldera blows.

It would be a massive climate event which would screw everyone everywhere. Not just America.

Though a disclaimer: the North and South hemispheres are not that well connected atmospherically. South America and Australia wouldn't be as much affected. Seeing you all starve would be distressing, but the irony of the driest inhabited continent becoming the world's bread-basket would give me some satisfaction. Bags of wheat being distributed off the back of lorries, with "G'day from Straya" printed on them ...

If $150 billion is too much for your poor taxpayers, perhaps you could call out for international donations? It's in everyone's interest that Yellowstone doesn't go up, and that includes any half-baked attempts to cool it down. It's a big deal. You want to get it right first time.

I don't think humans should be interfering with natural processes.

We've interfered pretty hard with the plants and animals. And you and I are interfering with natural processes just by using electricity.

On the other hand, the states most affected would be Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Colorado and Utah. We're talking several feet of volcanic ash all over. Haha. The Northern hemisphere, and perhaps both hemispheres, would suffer a significant reduction in sunlight. Meaning crops usually grown there would fail (though a science-based global strategy could mitigate that). No biggy.

Boreholes don't need to go all the way to the magma body. Cooling down the rock containing it would have a positive effect, while of course generating some electricity from the heat extracted. How much would you be prepared for government to spend investigating the options?

[San Lumen]

I don't think humans should be interfering with natural processes.

We've interfered pretty hard with the plants and animals. And you and I are interfering with natural processes just by using electricity.

On the other hand, the states most affected would be Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Colorado and Utah. We're talking several feet of volcanic ash all over. Haha. The Northern hemisphere, and perhaps both hemispheres, would suffer a significant reduction in sunlight. Meaning crops usually grown there would fail (though a science-based global strategy could mitigate that). No biggy.

Boreholes don't need to go all the way to the magma body. Cooling down the rock containing it would have a positive effect, while of course generating some electricity from the heat extracted. How much would you be prepared for government to spend investigating the options?

This is way off topic. It would be an interesting discussion for its own thread through. Such as should humans try to prevent natural disaster?

[Nobel Hobos 2]

I don't know what point you think that supports, but it doesn't.

It supports that America has tested far more people than any other nation, including India, which has a population of, oh, nearly four times the United States, yet has tested on a significantly lower rate than the United States population-wise, but if the https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/ ... untry=~IND is finding that about 10-20% of tests are coming back positive in India, and America has about a 5-10% testing positive chance, and there are still unconfirmed cases in America, then there could be tens of thousands of unknown India cases, and even more countries might have unconfirmed cases numbering quite high.

You chose India because it has performed fewer tests while having a larger population. But then you went on to talk about rates of positive tests. And btw, India? You're boasting that the US is better than India?

Compare numbers with numbers, and rates with rates. The imputation that the US has performed the most tests per capita is wrong.