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In the UK we have 676 new cases today and deaths have risen 33 to 137.  To put that in context, in January, before any confirmed Covid19 cases, we had an excess mortality of over 2000 compared with January 2019.  That's an excess mortality average of 64 deaths per day in January, compared to the 33 we had today. No one seemed at all troubled by that excess mortality in January. Remember that most of the "Covid19" deaths will be respitory failure and if you examine the patients' lungs, you'll find lost of other opportunistic viruses there. There is no particular reason to label all these deaths as being caused by Covid 19.

I don't even know if there is excess mortality this month - we will have to wait and see.

It's been a very wet winter in the UK, so the dampness, and people getting cold in the damp probably explains the excess mortality in January.

We are now going into a full lockdown creating a lot of anxiety everywhere as people lose jobs, income and become socially isolated. People will die as a result.

"plenty of young and (formerly) healthy people"

Really?  Let's see the evidence. No underlying health conditions, known or hidden?

Many younger people damage their lungs through habitual marijuana smoking: "Smoking marijuana clearly damages the human lung. Research shows that smoking marijuana causes chronic bronchitis and marijuana smoke has been shown to injure the cell linings of the large airways, which could explain why smoking marijuana leads to symptoms such as chronic cough, phlegm production, wheeze and acute bronchitis."

https://www.lung.org/stop-smoking/smoki … ealth.html

However, they might not be aware of the damage they have done.  But something like a new opportunistic virus might exploit their vulnerability in a few cases.

I'm not arguing people, especially those with pre-existing lung conditions, shouldn't take reasonable precautions (washing hands, not going to crowded places etc). But I am arguing we cannot destroy our economies, create huge personal misery, just to save a few people who are likely to die very soon in any case.

I'm coming to the view that we may be in the middle of one of the great mass hysterias of all time.

I base this on the following:

1. This video, which explains in large part how this hysteria may have taken root:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_AyuhbnPOI

Coronaviruses are not new and are always around in patients near death from respitory diseases - forming 5-15% of the virus load.

People don't die from "one" virus but from their inability (normally a result of age) to deal with the range of viruses  infecting their lungs.

2. The extremely low death toll from Covid 19 in China. It has been implicated in 3300 deaths, the equivalent of about 170 in the UK or 850 in the USA. These are tiny numbers and you could probably attribute many of the deaths to other viruses just as well. About 600,000 people die in the UK every year. Even if 600 more died, that would just be a minor blip.

3. In China and South Korea the number of cases seem to levelled off after about a month.

Of course, it remains to be seen if this is indeed the end of the story and whether all countries follow this pattern, but if it is, then this will be one of the remarkable episodes of self-harm ever recorded, nation after nation destroying their economies...for what?

I have been hearing that the Ebola drugs did not work and patients did not stay free of the virus coming back for a second time reinfecting the individual once more. I wonder if any one has thought about using a mist tent with air aerosols that are used to kill the virus such that the person with in the tent to breath the mists which would allow for the chemical to reach within the lung where the virus is doing its damage. Spray the bedding just before you go to sleep so that you are inhaling the fumes all night long.

I was dismissed today along with all other individuals which are over 60 years of age as a means to protect us from getting it. This is an admin leave but its not known as to how long we will be told not to go to work. Tomorrow they will start telling others to go home that have family members that fit into other categories that would be devistating to them if it were brought into the home.

The government still has not passed anything to pay individuals or to grant cash or anyother method to give aid so as to not have more people losing every thing.

For Quaoar re #112

Citizens of the United States have the ridiculous idea they might be able to communicate with the country's leaders.  In practice this does not work, because of the inevitable fact of hierarchy of any system of government.

Despite that obvious reality, citizens here keep trying. 

Thus, I am hopeful that you may be able to influence a decision by the government of Italy to license manufacture of Avigan as soon as possible.

In our case, the process starts with a citizen contacting the offices of the local congressperson (best bet) and the offices of the two state Senators (almost always hopeless).  I'd like to encourage you to give whatever the Italian equivalent process may be a try.  You will surely fail, but please let us know the stages of the failure.  I can only speak for myself (of course) but I will celebrate your tilt against the windmills of Italian bureaucracy!

(th)

For Quaoar re #108 and topic in general

I've been thinking of you and your countrymen as we follow blindly behind you and so many others. 

Here is a ray of hope that might be worth considering for the part of your population not yet infected.  The treatment described was approved for ordinary flu, and it is apparently effective with this new virus if given ** early ** enough. 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/japanese-flu … 20934.html

(th)

And as I explained to you, I was not referring to "illegal" migration. The Chinese labourers pass through airports openly. My claim is that the work conditions are of dubious legality and that will be a contributory factor in the spread of the disease.  They work in gangs, they are not genuine employees.

To dispute your claims, I offer you this  (from a report on Modern Slavery):

I think you're in denial. China's a big place. Not all Chinese tourists would be likely to have the virus. Hong Kong even now has a tiny number of deaths (6 I think).

However, a lot of the Chinese gang workers in Northern Italy came from the Wuhan region. They will by definition be mostly relatively young and would be able to work through any illness, because that would be what was expected of them under the gang system. There will have been hundreds of these "super-spreaders" in Northern Italy, working in crowded factories, on farms, in construction and so on. That is why you have had some an explosive outbreak in my view but only in Northern Italy, not Rome, despite it being a hot spot for tourism.

Restaraunts and bars are being ordered closed and while food stores are open they are quickly running out of many items in the histeria along with those trying to make a buck by buying up items for later resale with price gouging for those that are dispair for the items.

one stop all states for information on the corona virus

Guys, does it matter? The virus is out.

Hi Quaoar,

A dystopic SF novel?  A good description.  Just like 9-11 was a badly scripted disaster movie, this is a badly scripted SF novel using that tired old plague theme! lol

Your pain is felt here. We have not yet entered lockdown in the UK but are watching developments on mainland Europe with gathering unease.

Is your media mentioning that the real reason for Italy being hit so bad is that you have so many Chinese migrant workers in the country, especially in North Italy, and that many of them came from the Wuhan district?  I have seen the number given as about 100,000.  Their status seems unclear and they work under the corrupt gang system.  These facts are definitely being hidden in the UK media.

It was my understanding from the various Musk presentations that the Starship tank design featured a set of "header tanks" nested within the main tanks.  The main tanks would be essentially emptied by the launch burn or the Earth orbit departure burn.  The much smaller volume inside the "header tanks" would be the landing burn allowance.  There was no other propellant volume stored.

Doing this means the main tank wall need not be insulated for long term cryogenic storage,  since the propellant need be stored only for a few hours (waiting to launch mostly).  The outer main tank wall then does not have cold liquid in contact with it during the hot exposure of atmospheric entry.  It does provide a solar shading effect that lowers evaporation rates from the insulated header tanks nested inside,  which enhances storage life of the landing burn propellant.

OK,  now the outer main tank wall (and the wall of the cargo and pressurized living spaces) must resist high angle-of-attack airloads during entry.  Order of magnitude,  the pressure that must be resisted by the curved surfaces is the vehicle weight times max gees divided by the exposed area.  It has to resist those airload pressures while equilibriated hot enough for re-radiation to balance peak entry heating. 

300 series stainless steels have ultimate tensile strengths in the neighborhood of only 5 ksi when soaked out to 1200 F.  Hotter is far weaker.  So about 1000-1200 F is all you can allow.  301 and 304L are going to form oxide scaling at 1200 F,  316L and 347 do not until about 1600 F.  But all have about the same tensile strength,  and it "falls off a cliff" hotter than 1200 F. 

You have to coat or treat the surface to be dark if you expect to radiationally cool the structure.  By that,  I mean the emissivity (same as absorbtivity) must be high (above 0.80) at the wavelengths band associated with a material temperature in the 1000-1200 F range.  This re-radiational heat flow is a large number at high emissivity,  large enough that this method of cooling is much to be preferred over any other method. 

What messes this up is plasma radiation from the boundary layer adjacent to the material.  Once radiational heating is dominant above 10 km/s entry speeds,  then the plasma layer gets more and more opaque to the thermal radiation coming from the skin.  That opacity effectively "cuts off" the radiation cooling mode.

And THAT is why entry returning from the moon (10.9 km/s) or from deep space (12-17 km/s) is SO much more challenging than entry from low Earth orbit (8 km/s). Or from low Mars orbit (3.6 km/s).

You DO NOT want the "shiny metal space ship" for returning from Earth orbit.  You want a dark or black surface,  and you probably need a heat shield on your windward side.  It'll last longer if its dark,  because the heat input rate causing ablation will be lower. 

Coming back from the moon or deep space,  you do want the shiny metal skin to reflect plasma radiation away,  but you have to cool it!  And that's very heavy and energy-consumptive.  Or else cover it with a whitish heat shield,  like we did Apollo.

NO ONE is immune to these physics.  They simply "are".  Truth lies in the numbers,  not the tweets,  and not the press releases.

GW