[FOSDEM] Coronavirus

[Jasper Nuyens]

Thank you Daniel,

I have been following the various outbreaks of this virus,
epidemiology and clinical features closely over the past weeks.
Probably too much instead of focusing on improving FreedomEV; "Free
software for electric vehicles".

But I think this movie sums things up and should be watched by people
who are misguided by mass media 'its like the flu'-reports.
Downplaying the risks associated with this outbreak will only
contribute to panic as people will lose their trust in the media and
government: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JfKwiolUX8

On the other hand, there is also positive news coming from China
(Google Translate copy/paste probably needed):
https://news.163.com/20/0219/17/F5P0QH3E00018AOR.html

This latest medical report has not been propagated to news channels
yet (or health specialists here) and it shows a few interesting
things:
1) Only 1% to 0,1% of the AIDS patients get infected - probably
because they take the anti-viral medicine on a regular basis (this is
given to COVID19 patients typically only long after onset), probably
the earlier this is given, the better. One might consider providing
this to a community to prevent the spread - although there are
possible side effects (and I'm not a doctor).
2) Side remark: The number of cases in Wuhan of the general population
must be much higher than 5% to notice this difference - meaning more
than 1 million infected people now.
3) Oral/throat swabs are negative with 'recovered' people while their
anal swabs are still positive. This is very important to prevent
disease spreading by cases dismissed from the hospital. Toilet
disinfection seems imperial too.
4) The positive treatment results of experimental Remdesivir are so
spectacular that it is probably no longer ethical to give 1/3th of the
patients placebo instead in the clinical trial. Hopefully Gilead
Sciences and the Chinese clone Radixivir have already been started to
ramp of volume production to a worldwide scale. This is super great
news as it means less people will need Intensive Care (and if that's
full, this equals to less death).

I'm always an optimist, and prefer to look at hopeful information. The
mass media distortion of the actual facts doesn't really help to
prevent panic; I  believe that only if one provides correct
information such a panic can be avoided and trust can be maintained.
If this crisis is handled properly; and with that I also mean that all
countries including Iran should have access to Remdesivir and other
medication - in contradiction with the US Export Restrictions - we
might still be able to prevent hundreds of millions of deaths, we are
all into this together.

There is also some fabricated anti-chinese fake news circulating on
Twitter - next to the fake Chinese government news - and that doesn't
help to get the complete picture about the situation in Wuhan and what
might come to the rest of the world. But it is certain that many
countries where local spread is detected now, are completely
unprepared, and that this will first get worse before it gets better.

Oh, and I try to limit digital exposure to the virus news to 1,5 hour
to stay mentally sane ;-)

Good health! And free beer next year ;)
Jasper
-- 
Jasper Nuyens
Managing Director, Linux Belgium
http://www.linuxbe.com
Phone: +32 (0)2 747 47 01
Fax: +32 (0)2 747 47 10
GSM: +32 (0)478 978967


On Thu, Feb 20, 2020 at 2:59 PM Daniel Pocock <daniel at pocock.pro> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 20/02/2020 11:56, Jasper Nuyens wrote:
> > Dear all,
> >
> > 20 days have passed since Fosdem 2020, and nobody has reported to be
> > hospitalised with a double pneumonia or as a confirmed COVID19
> > carrier. Because of this, I think we can be relieved that FOSDEM was
>
> Given the fact that so many people work remotely, we often never know
> what is happening in the health or other parts of their life.  From time
> to time a community publishes an obituary for somebody but there have
> been (non-Coronavirus) cases where people passed away and it wasn't
> noticed for some time.  Debian recently discovered[1] having over 101
> developers with missing keys, nobody knows what has happened to some of
> these people.  This is one of those challenging aspects of relationships
> in remote online communities.
>
> > early enough to have missed the pandemic spread of this virus and
> > nobody got infected at this celebration of Freedom.
> >
> > I tend to say that one is either too early or is too late to take
> > preventive measures, luckily it turned out to be too early. I'm so
> > happy to have been wrong!
> >
> > As such, I want to apologise for spreading fear about the greatest
> > OpenSource and Free Software event in the world. It seems that I owe
> > you a beer - and I will provide that plentiful (as in free) at FOSDEM
> > 2021!
>
> Nobody thinks this was about spreading fear.  I had the impression you
> raised the issue out of concern for the community and those we would
> have come into contact with post-FOSDEM.
>
> Incidentally, on the very same days it was discussed on the FOSDEM list,
> the British super-spreader passed[2] through Geneva airport for the
> second time.  A number of other people he infected in France also passed
> through the airport as they returned to the UK and Spain.  Had I
> traveled to Brussels that week, my path may well have crossed theirs as
> Geneva is the closest airport from my home in Lausanne.  So I appreciate
> your warning about this.
>
> Regards,
>
> Daniel
>
>
> 1. https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2019/12/msg00218.html
> 2.
> https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10928686/coronavirus-businessman-super-spreader-easyjet/
>
>
> --
> Debian Developer
> https://danielpocock.com
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