CORONAVIRUS - IS THE CURE WORSE THAN THE VIRUS? - WORK AT HOME

TELEWORKING EXPLAINED

MARCH 2020: CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

"Killing the global economy will cost many more lives than hysterical measures to curb Coronavirus. 19 March 2020." NCH 

UPDATE 31 MARCH 2020

Time Magazine 

The coronavirus has collided with a troubling economic trend. Even before the pandemic, a majority of Americans—59%, according to a 2019 Charles Schwab survey—were living paycheck to paycheck, barely able to keep up. The ability to prepare for an unplanned loss of income was out of the question. Which is why this crisis has hit so many people so hard. Businesses are closing their doors indefinitely, no one knows what’s next, and everyone’s just trying to keep the bills paid and their family fed and healthy as circumstances outside of their control shape the structure of their lives. The result will be economic dislocation for tens of millions of people.

How many days can families survive without income and food, before they turn to crime to feed their children? The medics have to find an alternative to economic shutdown.

UPDATE 25th March 2020 - Saviours of the Human Race?

Warrington lab is charging £125 for a '15 minute coronavirus ...

A  WARRINGTON, UK lab is claiming it can test for coronavirus in as quick as 15 minutes with a four-step home kit. ... AlphaBiolabs, based in Westbrook, says a 'simple finger-prick' can detect whether you have the ... rapid immunoassay-based test can detect the presence of a Covid-19 infection without using ...  https://www.alphabiolabs.co.uk/ 

AlphaBiolabs claim to have offices in Manchester, Preston, Liverpool, London, Leeds and other cities in England. Website says ALL Covid-19 test-kits are pledged to HM Government "At cost price". AlphaBiolabs Ltd - 14 Webster Court Carina Park Warrington Cheshire WA5 8WD 

The above Warrington-Guardian article does give a price for their Covid Tests - of £125. 

At the same Warrington address are: 
Alpha Biolaboratories Ltd 09987941 - NIL assets; £2 of Share Capital.  Directors David Thomas - Sarah Davenport   
Also: 
ALPHA BIOLABORATORIES ANALYTICAL LTD - 09807843 - SAME address & directors. £200,000 of assets. £100 share capital.
ALPHA BIOLABORATORIES CORPORATE LIMITED 09414132 - Inc on 30 January 2015, £58K assets
ALPHA BIOLABORATORIES LEGAL LIMITED 08269816 - Inc 26 Oct 2012 £55K Assets
ALPHA BIOLABORATORIES RETAIL LIMITED 07936081 - Inc 3 Feb 2012 £18K  Asset

UPDATE 24th March 2020

Total		338307	14602	232378
Region	Places reporting cases	Cases	Deaths	Confirmed cases in the last 15 days

https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases

At the bottom of the page is a table detailing all countries as at 23^rd March 2020.

My Calculation: World Population 7.53 billion 7,530,000,000. Deaths to date 14,602 is 0.00019 % or 1.9 deaths per million. Say, 2 deaths per million people.

Global 23 Mar 20
7,530,000,000	Population 7.5B	percent of pop.	Rounded
14,602	deaths	0.00019%	2 persons per million
338,307	cases	0.0045%	45 people per million

While each fatality is personally tragic;

I do not think these numbers of deaths warrant shutting the global economy, which is costing $ trillions.

The cure is worse than the disease. Give the Health Services as many billions as they need and re-open for business. Noel Hodson

Noel Hodson - Director

Tax Reconciliations, Oxford UK,

From Tax-Havens to Safe Havens

Tel +44 1865 (0)760994 Mobile 07713 681216

UPDATE 23 March 2020 - FREE MARKETS.

Los Angeles Times: This is a well-balanced attempt to make sense of the statistics.

“Michael Levitt, a Nobel laureate and Stanford biophysicist, began analyzing the number of COVID-19 cases worldwide in January and correctly calculated that China would get through the worst of its coronavirus outbreak long before many health experts had predicted.”

I (not a medic) believe that the global "cure" is for each person to gain immunity and build anti-bodies. Social-Distancing helps by rationing the numbers being hospitalised.

As my shares (my vital pension) are now below 50% of the January values: I strongly advocate short-sellers being hung-drawn-and-quartered at Traitors Gate**. I've argued for 20 years that Stock and Commodity Exchanges should not be gambling casinos - they should be reliable investment channels. Best achieved by a global law requiring a 3 months gap between buying and selling ; And delivery of the commodities to the gambler's home - or vice-versa for short-sellers.  

** (Short-Sellers; choose a stock or commodity they think will fall in value, and make a contract to SELL, even though they have none of it. When or if the stock falls, they BUY it at a lower price. So, simply: Sell first, BUY later. The gamble goes wrong if the price increases. The gambler HAS  to buy to complete the contract - at a higher price than the prior sale. Such transactions make sense in market-smoothing of commodities - e.g. for, say, farmers waiting for crops to grow, who need the sales cash to harvest and then deliver the crops.)

Have you tried to sell a house this month?  

As Covid-19 is seen to be waning, the rush to buy back into real assets, as we all crowd into pubs, clubs and theatres - and re-start manufacturing - will be a tsunami. "Buy now to avoid disappointment."

• Nils Pratley observes that, as a result of measures to suppress the pandemic, a global recession is now almost certain (Chancellor’s £330bn package is big – but not big enough given the size of the threat, 18 March). We now know that austerity kills. What will be the cost in terms of human life of the economic downturn? Spending constraints on health and social care since 2010 are linked to an estimated 152,141 additional deaths, according to research published in BMJ Open. Will mortality from the self-inflicted economic downturn exceed the Covid-19 deaths averted?
Dr John Doherty
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

• Health experts are correct in predicting that lives will be saved from death by coronavirus if social interaction is reduced, and that the greater the reduction, the more lives saved (Scientific modelling: Italy’s hospital data changed everything, 17 March). It is comparatively easy to calculate lives lost due to a virus; it will take longer to calculate the effects of a worldwide economic recession caused by the shutdown – the lives lost due to unemployment, despair, homelessness, famine, suicide, neglected non-virus illness, etc. I predict that a future analysis will show that more lives will be lost as a consequence of the current modelling than will be saved; and that it will have disproportionately targeted the health and wellbeing of the poorest and most vulnerable.
Robert Silman
Former senior lecturer, Barts and the Royal London hospitals

18MAR20 - My non-medical opinion is that if “they” (the medical profession) persist in stopping the entire economic machine to “save-lives” from Covid-19, they will cause many more deaths than they save. People suddenly without income, unable to buy food, pay rent, fill up the car etc. etc. – will despair and kill themselves – or over time will simply die of stress. There are already millions facing redundancy or business liquidation. 

In the UK these draconian measures are triggered by less than 100 Covid-19 UK deaths. Insane or what?

“Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.” Euripides.

The most extreme global odds on dying from this virus are 7 to 1,000,000 against. Unless “they” are not telling it all. - Noel

Noel HODSON 

GLOBAL - Latest 4 pm 17th Mar 2020
Infected 190k - Deaths 7.5k (3.8%) - Cured 80k
World percent infections (190k / 7,200,000k) = 0.0026%

It is very silly to panic and shutdown the global economy.
Who is making these decisions? 

The stalled economy will kill many more than Covid-19 will. 

Most OECD countries or regions are advising people to travel as little as possible; to wash our hands; and where possible to work from home. We were among the pioneers from 1986 to 2000 who made Telework or Telecommuting possible and commonplace. We wrote the book on it - and wrote many papers that explained all the practical problems and solutions - from advice to Trade Unions to equipping a home office, to avoiding divorce - and to getting the maximum tax-relief on the costs. 

If you are now planning to start or expand homeworking by wire, using advanced telecoms to get your work done; if you need advice to navigate the red-tape and maximise benefits - contact for Europe, Noel Hodson, noel@noelhodson.com. or for America contact, Gil Gordon, gil@gilgordon.com. 

We have advised some of the largest global employers, incl IBM, World Bank, BT, WHO, EU - and dozens of new-start SME's - and saved them thousands of dollars.   

 EUROPE - NOEL HODSON email to noel@noelhodson.com

http://www.noelhodson.com/SW2000/Take-the-Plunge-NH-CV.pdf 

AMERICA - GIL GORDON

SW2000 Telework-advice and projects for large employers include:

BT Sales, Chiswick; BT Marketing; BT Martlesham Laboratories; BT Services, Bristol; Fujitsu – London; Nat-West Bank, London; Lombard Bank, UK; World Bank, Washington DC; Prudential Insurance; Royal Insurance; Walls-Birds-Eye; HM Customs and Excise, London; Highways Agency, London; Post Office Accounts, UK Midlands; Yorkshire Water; Central Electricity Generating Board, Birmingham UK; Surrey County Council, UK; Grampian Region, Scotland (Aberdeen City); Hewlett Packard, Brussels; Burgher King; Laura Ashley; GUS Catalogues; Southern Electricity; WH Smith; and others. 

SME’s - Small Firms

We have advised many small employers and we have ourselves established two small teleworked virtual companies from start-up, the first from 1983-87 being Morton Hodson & Co Limited which we built to 60 people in 38 home-locations across the UK; the second being Experts UK Limited, currently being established out of an EC project Experts Unlimited, that will telework professional advisers such as tax-experts, legal-experts, health-experts etc. We established a project team of teleworkers and when the company has new capital, we will advise on rolling out across the UK and the EU with hundreds of teleworkers based at local offices and at home. In addition to these two examples we have advised more than fifty SME’s to act as virtual organisations.

Reports, Publications and Presentations

Telework Publications & Interviews:-

Economics of Telework, 1992, BT Labs.Martlesham

Teleworking Explained, with BT, 1993 Wiley & Sons, Chichester & New York

Telework & Employment, 1995 for EC, DGV, Expert Group on Employment

Jobs Work and Employment, Information Society Guidelines, 1996, EC GATChain

Telework Tax Guidelines, 1996 for DIPLOMAT, ACTS, EC

Teleworking, 1996, Institute of Directors UK

Taxing Internet and Telework, 1997, Tax Faculty, Institute of Chartered Accountants

UK Traffic Decongestion 2007 & 2017 from IT and Flexible Work Methods, 1997, UK anon.

The Future of Telework and the Information Society – Chapter for a Bank Dresdner book 1998.

Articles in Telecommuting Review (New Jersey, USA)

Articles in the European Journal of Teleworking, EU

Articles in Home Run magazine, UK

Telework Promotions:-

Teleworking Today - Video for Major Customers, BT 1995

Telework Training Video for managers, BT 1997

Swiss TV Telework Programme, Arbeisort Internet, 1996

Interviews for numerous UK radio stations, newspapers and for The Times Magazine

Noel Hodson has delivered papers in several European countries, including Austria, and in the USA.

Director of ITAC (USA) from January 2000 and Treasurer in 2001.

PERSONAL INDIVIDUAL COSTS & BENEFITS CALCULATOR.
http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/twrk_indv.xls 

SW2000 Teleworking Studies was founded in 1988. It conducted Flexible Working seminars from 1988-992 attended by over 120 HRM and Personnel directors from major UK employers. SW2000 was retained to survey UK employers and telework in 1992 and conducted telework statistical surveys in 1990 and 1991. It published Working Environment News in 1990 and was retained by BT to assist major customers to calculate the Costs and Benefits of Teleworking from 1992-1995. SW2000 led the EC supported project Experts Unlimited which initiated higher telephone tariffs in the UK, now used by over 500 professional advice services. SW2000 co-authored and was Fiscal Issues partner in the EC, DGXIII, ACTS project DIPLOMAT. SW2000 published "Bringing Home the Electronic Baby" 1995, Pauline Hodson, (available via a WEB search). SW2000 specialises in promoting, advising on and creating products for telework and flexible work in the Information Society.

(March 2000) The Author, Noel Hodson, has 30 years accountancy experience, was an employer and entrepreneur, specialising in long term tax-planning. He has advised more than 5,000 SME's and has been a telework consultant to British Telecom and the European Commission for ten years. He wrote the Economics of Teleworking (BT Labs 1992) and Teleworking Explained (Wiley & Sons 1993) and is known for his seminal work on the Costs & Benefits & Ecological Impact of telework. His WEB Site is Http://www.NoelHodson.com . He is a director of ITAC the International Telework Association and Council in Washington DC. He makes forecasts about the transformations that the Information Society will bring:

Email : noel@noelhodson.com

Tel - UK 09913 681216

Isaac Newton's 21st Century Entanglement

Buy the book here

Get the Kindle e-Book here.

Spot the deliberate physics-student mistake about Light - and send me a note. 

The first ten will get a free print-copy - a signed first-edition. 

Isaac Newton's 21st Century Entanglement

Once Upon A Time, I read weekly issues of New Scientist, monthly editions of Scientific American, dozens of books by particle and astro-physicists, and attended three-years of physics courses “For Continuing Education” at the University of Oxford.  I bought the first ever edition of New Scientist – and still get them weekly, and read them cover to cover; that’s sixty-one years of following the course of popular physics and science; hugely assisted by Jimmy Wale’s Wikipedia.

You might well ask, Why? What have I learned in six decades, about Life, The Universe and Everything. Mostly I’ve learned that we humans have gained knowledge of, say, one-percent, about how things work. There are many more, 99 to 1, questions than we have answers. So, “There’s a way to go before we rest.”

One of the most baffling areas is Quantum-Physics. “Quantum” refers to the fact (we believe it is fact) that every sort of basic stuff, basic energy, the stuff of the universe, exists in neatly defined packages. The particles have a fixed “quantity” of stuff; of energy. As far back as classical Greece, humankind has pestered and fussed and explored to conceive and consider just what is the smallest thing, or things, that make our universe. They also thought in quantum terms – and imagined the smallest unit was the Atom. Two or three thousand years later, Rutherford and others bombarded atoms and studied the debris and found sub-atomic-particles. We think that these minuscule motes, the bricks that build atoms, also exist in neat little packages. It maybe that the very smallest thing is the Quark (rhymes with cork). “Quantum theory” implies that such particles are discontinuous, with abrupt steps, one to the next. They have separate identities and are not “fields” – or indeed are not oceans. The fields and oceans of “pure-energy” are continuous and do not have steps. They are plasma; very hot, melted, merging, swirling clouds of non-matter, with electro-magnetic fields. When these clouds condense, they produce sub-atomic-particles; photons (light) electrons (orbiting in atoms) etc. etc. etc.

I have been mulling over these matters for sixty-one years. You will be pleased to know that I have, uniquely, solved the mystery of Gravity, that sticks stuff together. Read about it in this blog. And I have tracked other mysterious events and processes – presented in these colourful slides. 99.99% of scientists and philosophers will say, with great weight and authority, that I am at best misled, deluded, and, at worst, totally stark raving potty. I leave you judge.

However, one of the threads I have followed is “Entanglement” – and hence this book. Entanglement is respectable science, demonstrated experimentally many times. It says that when a sub-atomic particle splits (usual example being a photon, light, the most plentiful “quantum” in the universe) the two halves reform as nice rounded complete photons – and, at the speed of light, they whizz off in different directions. And, mysteriously, they stay in communication; always and forever. Because they are separating at the speed-of-light, and because Einstein proved that “Nothing Travels Faster Than Light”, these entangled photons cannot communicate with each other. But they do.

Einstein famously dubbed this phenomena “Spooky action at a distance.” He denied that it could be; then came around to believing. Entanglement works! OK?

One of my reality-checks when getting excited by scientific discoveries, is to remind myself that I am also made of the stuff of the universe. For convenience, I say that all objects are made of light, or photons. Basic quantum units. Yours and my brains are made of photons; organised in ways we cannot conceive – to make, forgive the pun, an intelligent organism. If we can “Know Thyself” in sufficient depth and consciousness, we can explore this stuff of the universe of which we are made. We are each a walking reference library of Life, The Universe and Everything. We just need to learn how to read it / read ourselves. And all our bits and pieces are, as my publishers put it “quantumly-entangled”.  

So, this is the underlying logic of how Isaac Newton and his young friend, Archie Wilkins, meet, discourse and flow through space-time. Throw in a little Richard Feynman time-independent occurrences (also respectable QED science) – and we have a pretty decent Time-Machine. It is of course impossible and sadly ungovernable  and non-directional – but the elements are there. Rome wasn’t built in a day.   

Noel HODSON - Author

ARCTIC TEMPERATURE HITS 38C - 100F - PANDEMIC & PANIC

MOVE TO HIGHER GROUND!

JUNE 2020  Capital Weather Gang

Hottest Arctic temperature record probably set with 100-degree reading in Siberia - Washington Post

Record-shattering reading continues Siberia’s hot streak, foreshadows more heat elsewhere

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/06/21/arctic-temperature-record-siberia/

MARCH 2020

89 scientists from 50 prestigious organisations analysed 26 ice surveys. They conclude that "Ice caps melting six times faster than in 1990's."  IPCC March 2020.

AMAZON   

THE WISDOM OF ALICE WHITAKER. - Doom, doom, doom - and a glimmer of hope.

This gripping novel tracks Polar Meltdown, which causes Sea-Level-Rise, and the resulting Glacier-Flu, which is a global pandemic of the same type as evolved from H1N1 as Covid-19 or Coronavirus. The novel is far more dramatic than today's nasty, yet limited reality.

But it spells out what is terrifyingly possible if we, The Human Race, neglect to tackle these events. We must limit Global-Warming, or the sea-level will rise and swamp our coastal-margins - home to 5 billion people; and we must rapidly develop anti-flu vaccines. 

Bill Gates is now (March 2020) putting $100 million into testing thousands of molecules, currently used in other medicines, that could discover a fast route to a cure for Coronavirus. 

The whole world must act as one, to neutralise this invisible virus - and must continue to act as one to limit sea-level-rise. Both these deadly threats have no political or geographic boundaries. Regardless of our colour, creed, credit-rating, age, or location, we are all vulnerable. THE WISDOM OF ALICE WHITAKER, Alice, who is the prescient heroine of this tale, tells of eighty-percent of us dying. Alice and her brother find ways to survive the natural disasters, but Alice is hunted down and killed by the reactionary forces, who want to rebuild the world as it was. They want to re-create the systems that brought disaster and almost brought the human-race to extinction. 

Will Alice succeed to rescue sanity out of madness? We sincerely hope so. 

Do listen - Wash your hands - And insist on Green Energy. 

Links to Amazon Books - coming 6 March 2020.

CORONAVIRUS KILLS: Really worth watching and distributing – Noel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hks6Nq7g6P4

******

No self-professed, credible blogger on economics, politics and science can avoid commenting on the Coronavirus, Covid-19; which is an evolved type of influenza. It is of the H1N1 family (Avian Flu - Swine Flu  - etc) that circulates among animals and humans. It kills by causing pneumonia; it drowns our lungs from the inside. 

From the virus's emergence in China in the last quarter of 2019, and its so far tiny impact on the human population, of which it infects just 0.005% (5 persons in every 100,000) and dispatches to Heaven a mere 0.0007% (7 of us in every million), Coronavirus has a long way to go and to grow if it wants to be a significant epidemic or pandemic. Common Winter-Flu kills tens of thousands every year. 

https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/coronavirus-a-timeline-of-how-the-deadly-outbreak-evolved/

So what's the fuss? Coronavirus is a new-flu (pnuemonic /lung) variant and is unknown. Will it become a major threat to the human race? Will it rival the greatest pandemic of modern times, Spanish Flu? 

SPANISH FLU:  ‘The largest ever pandemic in recorded history, when it is thought that up to fifty million people may have died, was caused by Spanish Flu’ in 1918/19 just as World War One was ending; so called because at first only Spain – which was a neutral country – reported the virus. In May 1918, in Spain, in that one month, eight million people caught the virus.’

‘Medical researchers now believe that this most notorious of all viruses originated in birds – in fact in the pigeons kept in the trenches for both food and for message carrying, then moved to chickens, ducks, geese and pigs, kept close to the war front in cramped pens to feed the troops, and then into the stabled horses, at the time still used in warfare, and onto cattle and into the human population. The cold and wet winter of 1918 and 1919 was a major contributory factor, as was the worldwide movement of troops – Britons, French, Germans, Russians, Americans, Australians, Canadians, Ghurkhas, other Indian regiments, Africans; and people from many other Commonwealth countries.’

‘The virus returned, though not nearly so lethally, in the winter of 1957, when seventy-thousand died in the United States…’ 

‘…and in 1968 when thirty-four-thousand Americans lost their lives.’  

Few extrapolated the 1957 and 1968 statistics to mean that globally about seven-million died of the virus in 1957 and another three and a half million died in 1968.

*******

Spanish Flu killed the largest number, but other pandemics were many times more lethal. The many visitations of The Black Death killed about 2/3rds of the world; and changed the feudal system forever. European Measles and our Sexually Transmitted Diseases killed 80% of South Americans. Thank you for visiting us, Christopher Columbus; do come again. 

Pandemics are dangerous and deadly.  Coronavirus containment is not working - the virus is breaking out all over. The most authoritative health institutions and medical scientist around the globe have only one remedy to stop the spread, "Sneeze into Tissues & Wash Your Hands." I find that advice to the populous very welcome - and it will reduce many common diseases caused by dirty habits. The human race must learn to wipe its own bottom and clean up its mess. 

Hand washing might reduce HORIZONTAL (person to person) infections, but if Prof. Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickramasinghe and John Watkins are right, most of the infections are VERTICAL (from the upper-atmosphere); which explains why the virus manifests rapidly in diverse countries simultaneously. 

Viruses from Space:

Yesterday, I re-read Prof Fred Hoyle’s et al, 1978 book “Viruses from Space” i.e. from the upper atmosphere. Hoyle is world-famous for naming the Big-Bang theory. It argues and demonstrates that “acute-respiratory-tract-infections” e.g. flu’, coronavirus etc. and other epidemics are mostly caused by Vertical (falling from the sky) as opposed to Horizontal (person-to-person) transmission of viruses and thus pandemics.

In 1978, Hoyle’s team wrote “…especially regions lying downwind of the Himalayas, particularly China  and SE Asia.   …..making China the quickest and worst affected region of the Earth.” The book scientifically, statistically and credibly predicts that more viruses (some beneficial – most nasty) are swept by weather, topography, geography and the seasons to land in China, partly due to the Himalayas – and thus start pandemics.

The authors also show that earlier virus outbreaks occurred just south of the Alps, in northern Italy. Italy is now experiencing a coronavirus outbreak.

A chapter shows how viruses that fall onto deserts, where they are relatively inert, can be swept-up by sandstorms, to infect distant lands. This would apply to last week’s sandstorm from the Sahara to Tenerife.

Hoyle’s study questions the received and majority medical-science wisdom of 1978, and thus of now, “…once a false belief becomes established it is very difficult to get it out, essentially because the system invents supposed facts in order to support it.”

The puzzling global patterns of coronavirus outbreaks seem to be intelligently addressed and explained by Prof. Hoyle and his colleagues. It does not negate the urgent need to limit person-to-person transmission.  

TREATMENT - It seems that nations, even America, must provide good quality health-care to all citizens, regardless of class, colour, creed or credit rating. They might all follow Britain and create free National Health Services. The US has about 40 million impoverished souls without Health Insurance. That number of corpses left in the gutters outside hospitals will certainly cause more, and varied, pandemics - and a major pollution problem. 

ECONOMICS - What coronavirus will not do is crash the world economy. A mass pandemic will change economic drivers and necessities, but the task of surviving, curing and carrying on will immediately create new industries and activities. Pandemics won't destroy the electronic revolution and mass communications. Probably the reverse. In 1992, Gil Gordon (New Jersey) and I (London UK) wrote Teleworking Explained - how to utilise home-offices and work by wire. Teleworking /Telecommuting is now being recommended to help curb the pandemic. That, and the Wuhan-Kiss, i.e. greetings from 3 yards apart. The smart money will sell out of the affected industries (Travel? Crowd Activities?) and buy into the replacement industries (Amazon shopping? Genetic medicine? Telework?). For every business-model that goes down - 3 will spring up. There are 7 billion people to service. A new gold rush! Who will be first?  And we all still have to eat. 

My bets include Tesla, Vestas Wind, Orsted and all the emerging green energy products. I think Oil, Gas and Coal are in their end-game. Spot the winners. 

PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL ADVICE: 

                                          COVID-19 ADVICE
A note from Dr. James Robb:

"Dear Colleagues, as some of you may recall, when I was a professor of pathology at the University of California San Diego, I was one of the first molecular virologists in the world to work on coronaviruses (the 1970s). I was the first to demonstrate the number of genes the virus contained. Since then, I have kept up with the coronavirus field and its multiple clinical transfers into the human population (e.g., SARS, MERS), from different animal sources.
The current projections for its expansion in the US are only probable, due to continued insufficient worldwide data, but it is most likely to be widespread in the US by mid to late March and April.
Here is what I have done and the precautions that I take and will take. These are the same precautions I currently use during our influenza seasons, except for the mask and gloves:
1) NO HANDSHAKING! Use a fist bump, slight bow, elbow bump, etc.
2) Use ONLY your knuckle to touch [public] light switches. elevator buttons, etc.. Lift the gasoline dispenser with a paper towel or use a disposable glove.
3) Open doors with your closed fist or hip - do not grasp the handle with your hand, unless there is no other way to open the door. Especially important on bathroom and post office/commercial doors.
4) Use disinfectant wipes at the stores when they are available, including wiping the handle and child seat in grocery carts.
5) Wash your hands with soap for 10-20 seconds and/or use a greater than 60% alcohol-based hand sanitizer whenever you return home from ANY activity that involves locations where other people have been.
6) Keep a bottle of sanitizer available at each of your home's entrances. AND in your car for use after getting gas or touching other contaminated objects when you can't immediately wash your hands.
7) If possible, cough or sneeze into a disposable tissue and discard. Use your elbow only if you have to. The clothing on your elbow will contain infectious virus that can be passed on for up to a week or more!
What I have stocked in preparation for the pandemic spread to the US:

1)    Latex or nitrile latex disposable gloves for use when going shopping, using the gasoline pump, and all other outside activity when you come in contact with contaminated areas.

2)    Note: This virus is spread in large droplets by coughing and sneezing. This means that the air will not infect you! BUT all the surfaces where these droplets land are infectious for about a week on average - everything that is associated with infected people will be contaminated and potentially infectious. The virus is on surfaces and you will not be infected unless your unprotected face is directly coughed or sneezed upon. This virus only has cell receptors for lung cells (it only infects your lungs) The only way for the virus to infect you is through your nose or mouth via your hands or an infected cough or sneeze onto or into your nose or mouth.
2) Stock up now with disposable surgical masks and use them to prevent you from touching your nose and/or mouth (We touch our nose/mouth 90X/day without knowing it!). This is the only way this virus can infect you - it is lung-specific. The mask will not prevent the virus in a direct sneeze from getting into your nose or mouth - it is only to keep you from touching your nose or mouth.
3) Stock up now with hand sanitizers and latex/nitrile gloves (get the appropriate sizes for your family). The hand sanitizers must be alcohol-based and greater than 60% alcohol to be effective.
4) Stock up now with zinc lozenges. These lozenges have been proven to be effective in blocking coronavirus (and most other viruses) from multiplying in your throat and nasopharynx. Use as directed several times each day when you begin to feel ANY "cold-like" symptoms beginning. It is best to lie down and let the lozenge dissolve in the back of your throat and nasopharynx. Cold-Eeze lozenges is one brand available, but there are other brands available.

I, as many others do, hope that this pandemic will be reasonably contained, BUT I personally do not think it will be. Humans have never seen this snake-associated virus before and have no internal defense against it. Tremendous worldwide efforts are being made to understand the molecular and clinical virology of this virus. Unbelievable molecular knowledge about the genomics, structure, and virulence of this virus has already been achieved. BUT, there will be NO drugs or vaccines available this year to protect us or limit the infection within us. Only symptomatic support is available.
I hope these personal thoughts will be helpful during this potentially catastrophic pandemic. You are welcome to share this email. Good luck to all of us!"