Coronavirus ...
- Thread starter NorthStar
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We live in troubled times.
Therein lies the irony, Al. Had the virus been taken more seriously, from earlier on, Italy might not have had to go to a complete lock down.
It is always easier to judge in hindsight. I know some here in Massachusetts, me included, who have made provisions for a long self quarantine. I was responsible for ending the physical contact hand slapping between each badminton match at my club. People thought I was a bit extreme. It is now the adopted practice there. We touch our racquets and soon we will probably stop playing. I have changed my behavior and travel plans. I just cancelled my trip to Vienna in April to listen to music for five days. This is no hoax.
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And we're still being told that over 90% of Corona deaths are in those 80+s citizens, and even then, mainly in those w preexisting chronic illnesses, esp respiratory.
Look what this year has brought already. Showdown with Iran, CoronaV, slow/negative econ growth in China and Germany even BEFORE the outbreak, Brexit, Harry resigns, Aussie wildfires, Ukranian plane shot down, earthquakes in the Caribbean, Libyan civil war, etc...never a dull moment.
Good for you, Peter. I have made provisions for self quarantine as well, and am now trying to get my company to take certain precautionary measures, which will probably happen.
Big problem there is that they dont have enough respirators for the cases that need them AND for CVD sufferers and car crash victims, etc and this is in the NORTH with good systems. The preemptive strike is to stop the spread going south where they have much worse facilities.
Italy DID take it seriously and early.
It is notable for them that they did and there is good reason...they have the 2nd most aged population after Japan.
OMG! Harry resigns! How will I ever live?! Corona, take me now!
Yes, old people are dying. However, they have been observing quarantine, as our friends have been complaining how boring it is sitting at home.
BTW the grandparents have been dying of the flu too. Flu is bad this year too...high fevers with risk of meningitis!
https://www.thelocal.it/20200123/flu-outbreak-in-italy-half-a-million-people-struck-down-in-a-week
Back in Dec 2019, Milan had really bad air pollution and had to take measures against it. Nobody remembers anymore...
BTW the grandparents have been dying of the flu too. Flu is bad this year too...high fevers with risk of meningitis!
https://www.thelocal.it/20200123/flu-outbreak-in-italy-half-a-million-people-struck-down-in-a-week
Back in Dec 2019, Milan had really bad air pollution and had to take measures against it. Nobody remembers anymore...
https://webcache.googleusercontent....-cities-choke-smog+&cd=11&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ch
Italian air quality measures under fire as cities choke in smog
Claudia Delpero
10 Jan 2020
Environmental campaigners have criticised the emergency measures put in place this week in northern Italian cities following a spike in air pollution.
Turin, home of car giant Fiat, banned cars classified as Euro 5 diesel and below, or registered before 2013. Meanwhile, Milan and a dozen other municipalities in the Po Valley announced similar curbs after the 50µg/m³ limit for particulate matter (PM10) was breached for several days.
But Andrea Minutolo, scientific coordinator for national environmental group Legambiente, said such measures are ineffective.
Minutolo told ENDS that temporary traffic bans, adopted every year, are decided when the situation is already critical but do not solve the problem. “In major northern Italian cities polluting cars should be banned permanently. Only this will lead to a change of mindset and lifestyle,” he said, noting that Italy has one of the highest rates of car use in Europe.
Surrounded by the Alps, which block winds, Turin and Milan regularly feature as the worst cities in western Europe for air pollution. Last year the European Environment Agency put Italy at the top of an EU-wide list for deaths from nitrogen dioxide.
Minutolo said that while Milan introduced a low emission zone and plans a diesel ban from 2025, air pollution problems are also caused by heating, biomass use in the surrounding area and intensive agriculture throughout the Po Valley, where the government has “zero” measures to curb pollution.
This week Ireland became the latest EU country to propose a phase-out of fossil fuel cars, aiming for 2030. The Netherlands, Norway, France, the UK, Sweden and others have announced similar cut-off dates ranging between 2025 and 2040. Italy has no such plans.
In December 2018, Elzbieta Bienkowska, then EU transport commissioner, told the Danish parliament that a complete ban of the marketing, import or registration of new petrol and diesel cars in a member state would not be compatible with EU law.
Since then, however, Denmark, supported by Luxembourg, Ireland, the Netherlands, Latvia, Portugal, Slovenia and Sweden, proposed a Europe-wide transition to a zero-emission passenger fleet, considering it necessary in order to achieve climate neutrality by 2050.
“A ban on fossil-fuelled cars is now on the EU agenda, following an informal debate by environment ministers that showed significant support for the idea,” a spokesperson for Ireland’s environment ministry told ENDS.
“It will be necessary to engage with the EU Commission as we frame the provision for Ireland’s Climate Bill to ensure that it will be compatible with evolving EU legal frameworks,” she added.
news@endseurope.com
Follow-up: World air quality map, Italian environment agency report on air pollution, report by Fondazione per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile comparing Italy’s air pollution with Europe’s, Eurostat data on motorization rates, Denmark’s proposal.
Italian air quality measures under fire as cities choke in smog
Claudia Delpero
10 Jan 2020
Environmental campaigners have criticised the emergency measures put in place this week in northern Italian cities following a spike in air pollution.
Turin, home of car giant Fiat, banned cars classified as Euro 5 diesel and below, or registered before 2013. Meanwhile, Milan and a dozen other municipalities in the Po Valley announced similar curbs after the 50µg/m³ limit for particulate matter (PM10) was breached for several days.
But Andrea Minutolo, scientific coordinator for national environmental group Legambiente, said such measures are ineffective.
Minutolo told ENDS that temporary traffic bans, adopted every year, are decided when the situation is already critical but do not solve the problem. “In major northern Italian cities polluting cars should be banned permanently. Only this will lead to a change of mindset and lifestyle,” he said, noting that Italy has one of the highest rates of car use in Europe.
Surrounded by the Alps, which block winds, Turin and Milan regularly feature as the worst cities in western Europe for air pollution. Last year the European Environment Agency put Italy at the top of an EU-wide list for deaths from nitrogen dioxide.
Minutolo said that while Milan introduced a low emission zone and plans a diesel ban from 2025, air pollution problems are also caused by heating, biomass use in the surrounding area and intensive agriculture throughout the Po Valley, where the government has “zero” measures to curb pollution.
This week Ireland became the latest EU country to propose a phase-out of fossil fuel cars, aiming for 2030. The Netherlands, Norway, France, the UK, Sweden and others have announced similar cut-off dates ranging between 2025 and 2040. Italy has no such plans.
In December 2018, Elzbieta Bienkowska, then EU transport commissioner, told the Danish parliament that a complete ban of the marketing, import or registration of new petrol and diesel cars in a member state would not be compatible with EU law.
Since then, however, Denmark, supported by Luxembourg, Ireland, the Netherlands, Latvia, Portugal, Slovenia and Sweden, proposed a Europe-wide transition to a zero-emission passenger fleet, considering it necessary in order to achieve climate neutrality by 2050.
“A ban on fossil-fuelled cars is now on the EU agenda, following an informal debate by environment ministers that showed significant support for the idea,” a spokesperson for Ireland’s environment ministry told ENDS.
“It will be necessary to engage with the EU Commission as we frame the provision for Ireland’s Climate Bill to ensure that it will be compatible with evolving EU legal frameworks,” she added.
news@endseurope.com
Follow-up: World air quality map, Italian environment agency report on air pollution, report by Fondazione per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile comparing Italy’s air pollution with Europe’s, Eurostat data on motorization rates, Denmark’s proposal.
Big question? Are we actually up to this. As a species? For my entire life I have believed so, I have hoped so. But perhaps we have stressed ourselves as a species and the whole of the very planet that gave us life into some kind of dark reckoning. Our crazy global behaviour is so clearly and evidently coming back to haunt us. We have created the circumstances of a potential great species failure. We are travelling on the very rim of just so many planetary boundaries. We have stressed the environment and our species to the point where extinction in many ways imminently threatens us in a seeming range of ways.
A friend asked me today if I felt that if human activity threatened all the rest of the planet whether we should then consider allowing ourselves to pass into history and consider sacrificing the hominid line to protect the rest of life on this planet. Such a question! Is our species indeed so special? Are we the summation of evolution or perhaps even just another dead end of development. Are we the very next in a line of many dinosaurs?
I love humanity but perhaps we just don’t have it in us to succeed. I do wish we did. We live in a time when perhaps we will actually discover our true worth as a species or we will simply fail and fade into the horizon in some short, sad blip of an evolutionary radar that may just pass and leave us behind.
Something great should become of this planet. Something needs to become great in us. The heavens are watching. The earth is watching. But we clearly have to stop just watching ourselves and need to now be doing and resolving to become something more equitable and bearable and truly viable. How many signs do we need that what we are doing just isn’t viable any more?
This is clearly a time for phenomenal and fundamental change. I hope we are actually up to it. Every hope that I have is that we are truly a deserving part of the earth’s future. I do believe that the next 50 to 100 years are make or break for us. Perhaps we shall see.
A friend asked me today if I felt that if human activity threatened all the rest of the planet whether we should then consider allowing ourselves to pass into history and consider sacrificing the hominid line to protect the rest of life on this planet. Such a question! Is our species indeed so special? Are we the summation of evolution or perhaps even just another dead end of development. Are we the very next in a line of many dinosaurs?
I love humanity but perhaps we just don’t have it in us to succeed. I do wish we did. We live in a time when perhaps we will actually discover our true worth as a species or we will simply fail and fade into the horizon in some short, sad blip of an evolutionary radar that may just pass and leave us behind.
Something great should become of this planet. Something needs to become great in us. The heavens are watching. The earth is watching. But we clearly have to stop just watching ourselves and need to now be doing and resolving to become something more equitable and bearable and truly viable. How many signs do we need that what we are doing just isn’t viable any more?
This is clearly a time for phenomenal and fundamental change. I hope we are actually up to it. Every hope that I have is that we are truly a deserving part of the earth’s future. I do believe that the next 50 to 100 years are make or break for us. Perhaps we shall see.
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Wisnon, do you think the US or Japan should follow Italy's lead and shut down all travel and quarantine the population? Or are the conditions sufficiently different given the different demographics? What would you advise the US do?
No disrespect Graham, but why aren't these posts stamped NO POLITICS! THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING!...as many of mine are? Because yr post is highly political.
Because if I was to reply frankly to you, I know exactly all the PMs I'll get from Ron and Steve.
And I'm not attacking yr freedom to express yr opinion.
Different situation. US scale of territory and travel patterns are different and it will get warm in half the country soon.
You need to learn from others and adapt to local conditions.
Air travel is big in the US...so airline sanitation needs to step up. Public service announcements need to be stepped up and the garbage info in the media needs to be monitored and curtailed. Who here recalls the garbage about how CIPRO was needed as an antibiotic against weaponized Anthrax back in 2001? Turns out that Cipro was $5 a pill and the cheap stuff was 50c a pill. Bayer made Cipro and their stock skyrocketed. Turns out that CIPRO was on of the few antibiotics USELESS against Anthrax and the cheap stuff all worked well. Did CNN stop pushing Cipro or correct their original "facts". Did Bayer act responsibly and tell people that Cipro was NOT indicated for Anthrax? I only found out 3 years later and recall hearing a man pull a firearm in an attempt to secure the last box in a store.
Just the facts people! Biological science, not political science is what we need to imnplement sensible and useful measure. My 2 cents.
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