https://www.nber.org/papers/w27042” Which Retail Outlets Generate the Most Physical Interactions? Avi Goldfarb, Catherine Tucker NBER Working Paper No. 27042Issued in April 2020NBER Program(s):Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship This paper seeks to answer the simple question of what category of retail outlets generates the most physical interactions in the regular course of life. In this way, we aim to bring a marketing perspective to discussions about which businesses may be most risky from the standpoint of spreading contagious disease. We use detailed data from people's mobile devices prior to the implementation of social distancing measures in the United States. With this data, we examine a number of potential indicators of risk of contagion: The absolute number of visits and visitors, how many of the visits are generated by the same people, the median average distance traveled by the visitor to the retailer, and the number of customers from Canada and Mexico. We find that retailers with a single outlet tend to attract relatively few visitors, fewer one-off visitors, and have fewer international customers. For retailers that have multiple stores the patterns are non-linear. Retailers that have such a large number of stores that they are ubiquitous, tend to exhibit fewer visits and visitors and attract customers from a smaller distance. However, retailers that have a large enough footprint to be well known, but not large enough to be ubiquitous tend to attract a large number of visitors who make one-off visits, travel a long distance, and are disproportionately international.” The results suggest that similar to Figure 3, there is a non-linear pattern in terms of how far people travel to visit stores. In general, if a brand is large enough to be relatively ubiquitous and has hundreds of stores, then people are less likely to travel far to visit. Presumably by the time a brand has 5000 outlets it is likely trying to minimize travel time for its potential customers. By contrast brands where there are fewer than 100 outlets (but more than a single outlet) are more likely to attract people to drive a greater distance.” so basically stores that are not nation-wide attract more visitors and more visitors that have traveled a greater distance- more likely to spread COVID
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/health/coronavirus-pandemic-curve-scenarios.html?algo=top_conversion&fellback=false&imp_id=690299916&imp_id=794773655&action=click&module=Most%20Popular&pgtype=Homepage “ This Is the Future of the Pandemic Covid-19 isn’t going away soon. Two recent studies mapped out the possible shapes of its trajectory.
https://t.co/hZ3imucrWu Weird as hell’: the Covid-19 patients who have symptoms for months Researchers keen to work out why some people are suffering from ‘long tail’ form of the virus
Here’s an example of the 9% mentioned above. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/17/us/covid-19-mothers-day-church-exposure/index.html A person who was Covid-19 positive attended a church service and exposed 180 people, officials say
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...y-covid-19-virus-is-so-contagious/5206229002/ ” At the molecular level, it's something we've never seen before, and then look at what it does to the body — the long list of symptoms — we've never seen that before." .. ” A single COVID-19 patient spreads the disease to a median of 5.7 people, making it twice as contagious as the 1918 Spanish flu, according to a report in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.“ .. ” Scientists know some but not all of the reasons the new coronavirus spreads so easily. Freeman points to several factors, including one that distinguishes SARS-CoV-2 from the virus it closely resembles, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). SARS attacks the lower respiratory system, whose job it is to pull in air from the upper respiratory system. SARS-CoV-2, however, attacks the upper respiratory system, the pathway that allows air to travel in and out of the lungs as we breathe. The upper airway is also the system involved when we cough. The upper respiratory system offers a more efficient means of spreading, Freeman said.”
Both Georgia and Florida have opened early, using a spurious drop in cases as support. t.https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/i-m-looking-truth-states-face-criticism-covid-19-data-n1202086 Georgia officialshave apologizedand corrected whatwas describedas a "processing error" thatwrongly showed a downward trendin the number of new daily infections in the state, making it appear as if new infections had dropped every day for two weeks. The error was at least the third in three weeks, theAtlanta Journal-Constitution reported.‘.. According to internal emailsobtained by the Tampa Bay Times, state officials directed a top Florida Department of Health data manager earlier this month to remove data from public view that showed Florida residents had reported coronavirus-associated symptoms before cases were officially announced. The emails showed that the data manager, Rebekah Jones, had complied with the order but said it was the "wrong call." .. ” Jones was taken off her role maintaining the state's coronavirus dashboard one day after that directive. She told alocal CBS affiliatethat she refused to "manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen" Florida. Last week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said Jones was under "active criminal charges" for cyber stalking and cyber sexual harassment. Meanwhile, Florida officials last month stopped releasing the list of coronavirus deaths being compiled by the state's medical examiners, which had at times shown a higher death toll than the total being published by the state. State officials said that list needed to be reviewed as a result of the discrepancy.”” Since that dust up, Arizona State released new data showing infections and hospitalizations in the state could soar this summer.”” one such example,Arizona officials arguedthis month they should not reveal the names of facilities with outbreaks because it could give those nursing homes a stigma and could lead to discrimination against them. The argument was made in response to a lawsuit from Arizona news outlets demanding the state provide information on COVID-19 cases in nursing homes and other data. In Pennsylvania, state officials released such data last week after weeks of delay and in the face of significant pressure.” ”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-areas-where-covid-19-declining-idUSKBN2311VJ GENEVA (Reuters) - Countries where coronavirus infections are declining could still face an “immediate second peak” if they let up too soon on measures to halt the outbreak, the World Health Organization said on Monday. The world is still in the middle of the first wave of the coronavirus outbreak, WHO emergencies head Dr Mike Ryan told an online briefing, noting that while cases are declining in many countries they are still increasing in Central and South America, South Asia and Africa.
Good books about pandemics Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It Gina Kolata The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All TimePaperback – January 31, 2006 by John Kelly (Author) Kim Stanly Robinson, author of the Mars series and other Sci Fi classics, wrote “Years of Rice and Salt”, alternative fiction in a world where the Black Death killed 99% of the population.
Coronavirus measures Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, the Dutch government has announced various measures for businesses as a result of the coronavirus. We are continually assessing the impact of these measures on our services for entrepreneurs. We will keep you informed via our website. Read more about the impact on our services https://english.rvo.nl/coronavirus/covid-19-doing-business-united-states-america
Follow CNN’s live coverage Tracking Covid-19 cases in the USSince January, novel coronavirus has spread to nearly every state and territoryBy Sergio Hernandez, Sean O’Key, Amanda Watts, Byron Manley and Henrik Pettersson, CNNLast updated: May 26, 2020 at 6:45 a.m. ET 1001K5K Cases1,662,768 Deaths98,223 Last updated: May 26, 2020 at 6:45 a.m. ET https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-us-maps-and-cases/
The World Is Still Far From Herd Immunity for Coronavirus By Nadja Popovich and Margot Sanger-KatzMay 28, 2020The coronavirus still has a long way to go. That’s the message from a crop of new studies across the world that are trying to quantify how many people have been infected. Official case counts often substantially underestimate the number of coronavirus infections. But even in results from a new set of studies that test the population more broadly to estimate everyone who has been infected, the percentage of people who have been infected so far is still in the single digits. The numbers are a fraction of the threshold known as herd immunity, at which the virus can no longer spread widely. The precise herd immunity threshold for the novel coronavirus is not yet clear; but several experts said they believed it would be higher than 60 percent. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage Herd immunity estimate At least 60% of population New York City19.9% have antibodies May 2 London17.5% have antibodies May 21 Madrid11.3% have antibodies May 13 Wuhan (returning workers)10% have antibodies April 20 Boston9.9% have antibodies May 15 Stockholm7.3% have antibodies May 20 Barcelona7.1% have antibodies May 13
There is a hour long video here on “mapping the pandemic” http://scienceandentertainmentexchange.org/blog-category/events/ there are also lots of other talks live on Zoom.
that found flu virus in microscopic droplets that were small enough to remain floating in the air for an hour or more. Another study suggested that the seasonality of flu was associated with humidity. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/...linsey-marr.html?referringSource=articleShare The Scientist, the Air and the Virus Most of us had never heard of aerosol science before the pandemic. Then Virginia Tech’s Linsey Marr showed up and became our tour guide to the invisible world of airborne particles . https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2010.0686 Concentrations and size distributions of airborne influenza A viruses measured indoors at a health centre, a day-care centre and on aeroplanes
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/...ml?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage Starbucks Barista Gets $65,000 in Donations After Customer’s Mask Complaint
The Council of the European Union has kept restrictions on travel from the U.S. in place even as it lifts them for 15 other countries including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and China starting tomorrow, July 1.
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles...2jqmyGXQgiBUtnypWU2uE-Wpjx9q9sEw2t6lvpl48Puqs A MESSAGE FROM YOUR UNIVERSITY’S VICE PRESIDENT FOR MAGICAL THINKING by JULIANA GRAY Dear University Community, Since we first announced our plans to reopen this fall (a far too early decision given the lack of reliable data about the likely prevalence of COVID-19 in the fall, but done out of necessity to beat the June 1st National College Decision Day deadline), many students, parents, faculty, and staff have asked us how we plan to ensure that we reopen safely. Our strategy is outlined below, but the short answer is this: Our university will proceed as if everything will be okay because we really, really want it to be.
Trump is pushing to re-open schools so that things look normal before the election and parents can go to work. It is unsafe, COVID infections are increasing.
This is a free Zoom talk on COVID vaccine progress by experts in the field. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-vaccine-when-where-and-for-whom-tickets-113026748046 it’s free but requires a reservation
COVID-19 patients in Texas hospitals benefit from lessons New York doctors shared Despite a larger population, Texas deaths from coronavirus are seven times lower than those who have died from the virus in New York.
I wonder how many will be infected by the end of this year, it is still October and there are 39 million already infected with more than 1 million deaths. This is really hard to believe.
