Wikipedia Sucks!

Because Holland is also hit a corona a cloud is hanging over this big international event at the moment.
(Dutch link)
https://www.ad.nl/show/corona-treft-son ... oogle.com/

The situation in Holland is disturbing because holidaymakers from Italy have taken the virus home and till now there are 87 (5 March) patients, and in Germany 534, half of it close to the Dutch border in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Switzerland has cancelled all big events and it wouldn't surprise me if the Eurovision Song Contest will be canceled to.

Corona panic

The number in the small country Holland raised to 188 infected tested people, but properly/likely more people are ill.
According to Marc Bonten, doctor-microbioloog of the UMC Utrecht it might be the start of a epidemic because of 29 people it is not clear how the where infected.
A older, but health man has died, but minister Bruins has warned for more victims.

A worrying situation and in the European country's around us the situation is also worrying. Special because it is getting clear our health system can't handle a major outbreak is told to us. And a medicine still far away is.

So I am afraid the Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam is not the only thing to worry about, or better one of the last things to worry about at the moment.

Complete Lombardy now locked, and I expect the same will happend here the coming weeks.
In in our area are now every day more cases, it is coming real closely by now.

No, newspapers are not writing of Song Contest worries anymore, o no.............
(for the simple minds below IQ 157+++i am not writing my vision, but what was and is in the news in Holland.)

There is some good news in the bad news of the last days.

"Er zijn circa dertig patiënten opgenomen in het ziekenhuis'', bevestigt RIVM-woordvoerder Harald Wychgel. ,,Dat komt overeen met 8 à 10 procent van de 265 positief geteste patiënten. Dat is relatief laag, vergeleken met China.''"

Till now 30 people of the 265 tested persons are hospitalised. But likely much more people are ill, and not tested. And in the coming day's weeks the number for sure will rise!.
It is too early to draw any conclusion, but a lower rate of hospitalised people means a lower lower death rate and lower pressure on the health system. And that should be good news.

changing title....if you're going to talk about COVID, please put it in the title.

(DAMN the bastards who write PHPBB. It's existed for 20-odd years and they STILL have no function to change a topic title. You have to split everything to a new topic title, and ignore the idiotic "topic does not exist" error messages.)

You managed it, Eric! I changed it a bit further. COVID: Dark clouds over Europa.

It is of course strange how quick the news is changing.
First the worries where about the Eurovision Contest, what is of course not just a TV show but a big international event, and now the headline is: enorme stijging dodental Lombardije, Enormous rise in Lombardy death toll.

https://www.ad.nl/dossier-coronavirus/l ... ~a66a9787/
(Dutch, but the map with infections in Holland is interesting.)

There is of course some sensation in this headline, in Vento, Lombardy are living 16 million inhabiters, but the frighting fakt is this virus is specific dangerous for relative health older people. There is the high dead toll, in that group.
And there are worry's about the medical capacity, 10 hospital employees infected in Breda hospital.

It's now getting serious stuff, my friends.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/busi ... today.html

This will hit us all, not only the people who are ill or will get ill.

It's a real world crisis.

I continue to think the most bizarre thing about this is the toilet paper hoarding

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/10/ ... panic-buy/

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronav ... ary-2020-3

Especially given that toilet paper is not a necessity, especially if water is available. When I changed my babies' diapers, did I wipe them clean with toilet paper? No. Disgusting, my opinion. I washed them. Americans have weird toilet habits. Visit a Muslim in the U.S., you know they are actually practicing at least part of the religion if they have a watering can next to the toilet. (or, if wealthy, they have a bidet).

And the Chinese don't even use diapers. As an adoptive parent, one learns about stuff like this. My Ethiopian daughter came from a place where it was four hours' walk by donkey trail from the nearest muddy road. I'm quite sure, no toilet paper.

My god, how do they survive?

I first realized this about Americans reading Kerouac, who pointed out that even the President of the United States had shit on his butt. Though I suspect he didn't really know that.

Madness.

First of all the virus appears to be dangerous for older people with health issues, the pensioners. The structure of a country will not crash. Most of the healthy and younger people have hardly health problems, with exceptions.
The supply of grocery articles within toilet paper is NOT in danger.

The only danger there is too many people with multiply health issues get ill, what will cause problems in the medical care.
But it is general no killer virus, most people who are infected only have a cold and just stay home.
The economic damage is a other matter.
I expect here the coming weeks the same messenger as in Italia, but there is no panic, people just stay at home.
The most hit regio in Holland is now Brabant, there is a advices to stay inside the house as much as posible and have as little as posible social interaction. And don't shake hands.
Older people often stay at home. But is cold and rainy outside so in general they do that normally also.