Coronavirus: How dangerous a threat?

[tobydawq]

Goosebump alert:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1238526245610164225

View: https://twitter.com/PedroOtamendi/status/1238526245610164225

 

[Unchained]

https://www.newsweek.com/young-unaf...d-you-now-stop-killing-people-opinion-1491797

You have to take a couple of shots of realism and personal history w this. Just guessing that being 20 may have changed significantly since I was there but worrying about your health was not anything I did. Also my experience and my current world view of most " young people " I come in contact with..they eat bowls of invincibility for breakfast..we do have a couple of old guy stand outs..think it makes you look strong and tough and patriotic to not get tested even when you know you were exposed. Nothing says you love your family and country like not being tested for an invisible ultra contagious virus!!!
MotoGP rescheduled until Nov13-15 ,camping folks will honor the current payment receipt or you can apply for a refund.
San Diego schools closing.
VA clinics have sandwich boards and greeters telling of unavailable testing..there is a waiting room to the waiting in LaJolla..fear for the most part driving people to the ER not symptoms.

 

[yaco]

Hong Kong is in the 6th week of an 11 week school closure - Have been informed that schools won't reopen until there are 3 weeks of no infections, which if adopted probably means no school for many months to come. - In saying that the length of the school closure in HK is an overreaction, especially considering how HK have done a good job in containing the virus.

 

[Koronin]

Why not try this:

‘Blood of the immune’: Doctors want to try an antiquated treatment on the coronavirus

"This is an opportunity to do something proactive that can help fight this," a Johns Hopkins doctor said.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Well, if you digest everything the media has to say you come to the inescapable conclusion that we're all going to die and life will never go back to "normal", whatever "normal" is because once enough people have caught it (and they probably already have) then get used to a life of isolation and never going outside (Amazon had better get onto that drone delivery service thing) because social interaction will kill us all. I don't see why we aren't all just travelling to Italy to get it over and done with. I mean, since we're all apparently going to die anyway. It feels like the media has been waiting for this for years. SARS, MERS, H1N1, Swine Flu... they all had the potential to give the media this kind of dream scenario, but they fizzled out. Covid19 has really delivered for them - people are glued to their media sources for the latest.

The mortality rate through age stats from Italy are key here. For the majority of people it will suck - it will really suck - but sensible precautions can and should be taken: that don't entail hoarding and treating it as a zombie apocalypse. It seems that they aren't being taken and probably won't be taken, because the media and 24hour news channels and social media keeping a ticker like it's an Olympic medal count and not rationalising any of these numbers (the increase probably isn't spiking as massively as the numbers suggest but the initial outbreak was likely much more significant than the numbers suggest; it's because large numbers of cases weren't found due to lax testing or issues with testing capability previously) and causing widespread panic that is causing people to act like it's the Plague of Justinian, causing runs on shops and panic buying that - guess what? - results in more people being in one place than ordinarily would have been the case, and those that are blasé about it are getting sick of their lives being meddled with, 24h media saturation, and others panicking far beyond the rational concern level, and are doubling down on their "it really isn't that bad" attitude, like Rudy Gobert, and worsening things.

Unfortunately, rationality is something which is in short supply at times like these, and rationality is something which the media, in ordinary times, looks to suppress, because appealing to an emotional reaction is a far better way of selling stories, so by the time action is necessary people are already into mob mentality. Cherry picking the worst stats to make it feel like 10% of us are going to die and 100% of us are going to be infected is not the way to produce a reasonable and rational response to the crisis, because you know, there's a lot of people who won't read into the basis of those statistics to learn what they actually say about exposure and take a sensible subsequent course of action. Pictures of people in hazmat suits spraying down the streets in the worst affected areas like they did in Kiev in the wake of Chernobyl makes it look like the world is not just in lockdown because you should try to minimise contact and self-isolate if you are unwell, but because people can't be trusted not to be complete morons doesn't help, because those cases are exceptional, and should be treated as such. It's not like the entirety of mainland Europe is spraying down its streets. For most people, life is going on at something close to normal, and containment is the order of the day to prevent the kind of run on the hospitals that we have seen in Italy where the intake of people requiring care exceeds the amount of care available.

I know that the archaic capitalistic health system in the US means that there's also a run on insurance to be had and there's almost a competitive environment as people jockey for positions of strength and priority should they need help, and the number of people who are without health insurance, or at least without adequate health insurance, helps extend the sense of panic. I understand the closing things off until April stuff with sports, but then I don't see what's wrong with taking stock and then making a call then. If this is still an issue, as it probably will be, then continue the restrictions. But we're seeing people cancelling events in June or July! That's like, 3-4 months away! There's plenty of suggestion that the virus will have the same seasonal impact as a lot of viruses in the same family - and some suggestion that it won't. Either way, you would expect us to know more in a couple of months' time in order to take a more rational, educated decision rather than a heart-over-head instant reaction in the wake of other events, which are much more directly impacted.

 

[gregrowlerson]

"I mean, since we're all apparently going to die anyway."

Which we are anyway. From the virus, or not. The mass hysteria and restrictions would make more sense if say, we had an average life span of 1,000 years; in which case dying at 80 would be robbing us of a very serious amount of life (this isn't to say that the life of the elderly is worthless, but as a comparison, the death of a baby can be generally agreed to be more tragic, because of the potential amount of life ahead of them that has now been taken away). At some point in time the question of quantity of life vs. quality of life has to be raised. If significant restrictions do enable us to get on top of CV within say, six months, then perhaps such restrictions to 'living' are worth it. If however, in twelve months time the virus is still around and people are or have caught it anyway, then what was the point? We negatively impacted some humans of a part of their prime period of existence (as a casual example, athletes that have trained for 20 years for the Tokyo Olympics; though if it can be held in 2021 this is not so bad), all for the sake of the benefit of human health. Which hypocritically we do not exercise the same restrictions of freedom in regards to other activities that can reduce our life expectancy (such as alcohol, cigarettes, excessive meat consumption, driving of motor vehicles, etc).

Technically none of us should ever leave the house. Except of course to buy toilet paper.

 

[tobydawq]

"I mean, since we're all apparently going to die anyway."

Which we are anyway. From the virus, or not. The mass hysteria and restrictions would make more sense if say, we had an average life span of 1,000 years; in which case dying at 80 would be robbing us of a very serious amount of life (this isn't to say that the life of the elderly is worthless, but as a comparison, the death of a baby can be generally agreed to be more tragic, because of the potential amount of life ahead of them that has now been taken away). At some point in time the question of quantity of life vs. quality of life has to be raised. If significant restrictions do enable us to get on top of CV within say, six months, then perhaps such restrictions to 'living' are worth it. If however, in twelve months time the virus is still around and people are or have caught it anyway, then what was the point? We negatively impacted some humans of a part of their prime period of existence (as a casual example, athletes that have trained for 20 years for the Tokyo Olympics; though if it can be held in 2021 this is not so bad), all for the sake of the benefit of human health. Which hypocritically we do not exercise the same restrictions of freedom in regards to other activities that can reduce our life expectancy (such as alcohol, cigarettes, excessive meat consumption, driving of motor vehicles, etc).

Technically none of us should ever leave the house. Except of course to buy toilet paper.

Buying toilet paper and not food makes no sense.

I mean, why would you need to poop if you don't eat?!?

 

[gregrowlerson]

Buying toilet paper and not food makes no sense.

Why would you need to poop if you don't eat?!?

I was attempting to be sarcastic. I thought it would be more effective without a smilie lol

 

[tobydawq]

I was attempting to be sarcastic. I thought it would be more effective without a smilie lol

So was I

It was funnier in my head than it came out, though.

 

[aphronesis]

Well, if you digest everything the media has to say you come to the inescapable conclusion that we're all going to die and life will never go back to "normal", whatever "normal" is because once enough people have caught it (and they probably already have) then get used to a life of isolation and never going outside (Amazon had better get onto that drone delivery service thing) because social interaction will kill us all. I don't see why we aren't all just travelling to Italy to get it over and done with. I mean, since we're all apparently going to die anyway. It feels like the media has been waiting for this for years. SARS, MERS, H1N1, Swine Flu... they all had the potential to give the media this kind of dream scenario, but they fizzled out. Covid19 has really delivered for them - people are glued to their media sources for the latest.

The mortality rate through age stats from Italy are key here. For the majority of people it will suck - it will really suck - but sensible precautions can and should be taken: that don't entail hoarding and treating it as a zombie apocalypse. It seems that they aren't being taken and probably won't be taken, because the media and 24hour news channels and social media keeping a ticker like it's an Olympic medal count and not rationalising any of these numbers (the increase probably isn't spiking as massively as the numbers suggest but the initial outbreak was likely much more significant than the numbers suggest; it's because large numbers of cases weren't found due to lax testing or issues with testing capability previously) and causing widespread panic that is causing people to act like it's the Plague of Justinian, causing runs on shops and panic buying that - guess what? - results in more people being in one place than ordinarily would have been the case, and those that are blasé about it are getting sick of their lives being meddled with, 24h media saturation, and others panicking far beyond the rational concern level, and are doubling down on their "it really isn't that bad" attitude, like Rudy Gobert, and worsening things.

Unfortunately, rationality is something which is in short supply at times like these, and rationality is something which the media, in ordinary times, looks to suppress, because appealing to an emotional reaction is a far better way of selling stories, so by the time action is necessary people are already into mob mentality.

Well, the upshot of all that is that in addition to a crisis borne of and disruptive to globalized existence, it’s a breakdown and crisis of the governance of life. Because that has increasingly been made into a private definition and responsibility with no real agreed upon fundamentals of life and living. Nor of death which is increasingly effaced from public life. The media is obviously complicit in this as it has long sacrificed measured balance of living and death for an ongoing deferment of life based on consumption. Hence the vacuum of ignorance that’s appearing now with leaders being equal consumers of medias perpetual present. This tendency afflicts almost everyone to varying degrees and means that functional information and helpful speculation are in short supply because suddenly “life” is visibly threatened and the consumption model doesn’t do well with selective realism as it wants to appear to appease everyone.

 

[movingtarget]

So far it seems that children are not as susceptible to the virus but of course adults with asthmatic children etc would be obviously worried.

 

[Red Rick]

Well, if you digest everything the media has to say you come to the inescapable conclusion that we're all going to die and life will never go back to "normal", whatever "normal" is because once enough people have caught it (and they probably already have) then get used to a life of isolation and never going outside (Amazon had better get onto that drone delivery service thing) because social interaction will kill us all. I don't see why we aren't all just travelling to Italy to get it over and done with. I mean, since we're all apparently going to die anyway. It feels like the media has been waiting for this for years. SARS, MERS, H1N1, Swine Flu... they all had the potential to give the media this kind of dream scenario, but they fizzled out. Covid19 has really delivered for them - people are glued to their media sources for the latest.

The mortality rate through age stats from Italy are key here. For the majority of people it will suck - it will really suck - but sensible precautions can and should be taken: that don't entail hoarding and treating it as a zombie apocalypse. It seems that they aren't being taken and probably won't be taken, because the media and 24hour news channels and social media keeping a ticker like it's an Olympic medal count and not rationalising any of these numbers (the increase probably isn't spiking as massively as the numbers suggest but the initial outbreak was likely much more significant than the numbers suggest; it's because large numbers of cases weren't found due to lax testing or issues with testing capability previously) and causing widespread panic that is causing people to act like it's the Plague of Justinian, causing runs on shops and panic buying that - guess what? - results in more people being in one place than ordinarily would have been the case, and those that are blasé about it are getting sick of their lives being meddled with, 24h media saturation, and others panicking far beyond the rational concern level, and are doubling down on their "it really isn't that bad" attitude, like Rudy Gobert, and worsening things.

Unfortunately, rationality is something which is in short supply at times like these, and rationality is something which the media, in ordinary times, looks to suppress, because appealing to an emotional reaction is a far better way of selling stories, so by the time action is necessary people are already into mob mentality. Cherry picking the worst stats to make it feel like 10% of us are going to die and 100% of us are going to be infected is not the way to produce a reasonable and rational response to the crisis, because you know, there's a lot of people who won't read into the basis of those statistics to learn what they actually say about exposure and take a sensible subsequent course of action. Pictures of people in hazmat suits spraying down the streets in the worst affected areas like they did in Kiev in the wake of Chernobyl makes it look like the world is not just in lockdown because you should try to minimise contact and self-isolate if you are unwell, but because people can't be trusted not to be complete morons doesn't help, because those cases are exceptional, and should be treated as such. It's not like the entirety of mainland Europe is spraying down its streets. For most people, life is going on at something close to normal, and containment is the order of the day to prevent the kind of run on the hospitals that we have seen in Italy where the intake of people requiring care exceeds the amount of care available.

I know that the archaic capitalistic health system in the US means that there's also a run on insurance to be had and there's almost a competitive environment as people jockey for positions of strength and priority should they need help, and the number of people who are without health insurance, or at least without adequate health insurance, helps extend the sense of panic. I understand the closing things off until April stuff with sports, but then I don't see what's wrong with taking stock and then making a call then. If this is still an issue, as it probably will be, then continue the restrictions. But we're seeing people cancelling events in June or July! That's like, 3-4 months away! There's plenty of suggestion that the virus will have the same seasonal impact as a lot of viruses in the same family - and some suggestion that it won't. Either way, you would expect us to know more in a couple of months' time in order to take a more rational, educated decision rather than a heart-over-head instant reaction in the wake of other events, which are much more directly impacted.

The main problem I see is that the spread is gonna be highly dependent on the behavior of the public, and with exponential spread being a real possibility, small differences in behavior and R0 can in time lead to thousands of lives of difference - maybe much more if things get really bad.

Epidemics don't reach their peak in the first 3 weeks. Italy right now is not the worst case scenario.

 

[Unchained]

This is probably the most profound teaching moment in the US since WWII. 1st lesson ..the idea of personal or political contraction is absurd and utterly impossible. I got mine fend for yourself self doesn't work when something is airborne. So the haves and have nots are unintentionally mixed through the health care system. The haves go to the doctor and spread the virus,slower. The have nots go to work,out of necessity, spread the virus,and have multiple barriers from getting medical care and staying home when sick.
many major school districts provide 1,2 and even 3 meals a day and that food will be needed and threatened regardless of the students health status.
The U.S. Government in some of it's initial reaction was to identify that hourly workers would be taking risks to preserve themselves through their income,or die from losing it.
I won't know until tomorrow afternoon what changes the US- Mexico border crossing will mean to me.
I am hopeful that I will not have to make the choice between staying in San Diego to work and leaving my loved ones,including my dogs and cats in Baja. If the choice is necessary I will try and fortify my workplace by over working for a few days and return home to eat and watch TV.
The number of confirmed cases in Mexico grows bigger daily and I can see the US response in my hypothesis about virus containment.
At Wal-Mart and Costco yesterday there was abnormally high volumes, here in N.Baja..
If there is a light side to this there are dozens of humorous things about virus-toilet paper association..and also multiple funny spins using Corona Beer as the jokes pivot.

 

[Koronin]

The panic buying is insane. Had to go to the drug store to pick up a prescription for my husband (he has an auto immune disease). The drug store is on a corner with groceries across two of the streets from it. Both grocery stores were packed. I've never seen parking lots that packed except when a hurricane is ready to hit. Apparently now everyone knows what it's like to attempt to buy groceries in the 24 hours or so before a hurricane is going to hit.

 

[RedheadDane]

Yeah, especially the things people are buying. I heard a story from Denmark about someone buying 40 packages of yeast, like... whut?
And then there's the toilet paper…

But also the fact that here it happened literally right after the Prime Minister told people to not gather in large crowds, and - btw - it's not going to be a food shortage.

 

[Koronin]

Yeah, especially the things people are buying. I heard a story from Denmark about someone buying 40 packages of yeast, like... whut?
And then there's the toilet paper…

But also the fact that here it happened literally right after the Prime Minister told people to not gather in large crowds, and - btw - it's not going to be a food shortage.

No kidding. This isn't like hurricane Florence either were many of us at the coast actually were cut off from the rest of the country due to flooding and food and gas trucks literally couldn't get in for about a week.

Oh it gets even better in the US with the toilet paper thing as that's one product that is has a rate of around 90% made in the US the rest is imported from either Canada or Mexico. We aren't going to run out of it.

40 packages of yeast? I agree, what the...?????

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Yes... and that's an atmosphere that's just as dangerous as a fricking sporting event. Hundreds of people all in close proximity, surrounding food that somebody else is going to panic buy. Like I say, in most of Europe, most people are going about their daily lives, doing their usual daily things, subject to a few precautions. Many - but by no means all - people are being asked to work from home, or at least companies are looking to minimise their on-site workforces, large organised gatherings are being minimised, and border checks are being conducted (which is a novelty for most Europeans, at least in recent times). Life can - and should be able to - go on much the same as before, subject to reasonable precautions. However, since we're all glued to media which is telling us the sky is falling and sending us a 24-hour stream of the worst images from the worst affected areas along with some nicely vague or misleading information (some of which is wilful misrepresentation, some of which is due to paucity of, or inadequacies in, information - as I mentioned, the rise in number of cases almost certainly hasn't leapt up from a tiny amount to a "huge" amount (which again people can't seem to rationalise as a number relative to the entire population of an area), but has probably increased more steadily, but as we come to better understand the disease and test for it accordingly, we're discovering it more.

The other thing with panic buying is that... person A buys up all the toilet roll and cleaning products. Person B therefore is unable to buy them. Person B is therefore unable to follow hygiene instructions due to lack of supplies. Person B then contracts Covid19. Person A then comes into contact with Person B and gets Covid19 anyway, whereas if they hadn't been such a media whore and believed the sky was falling, and bought a sufficient amount for the two to four weeks period recommended (two weeks for self-isolation, four weeks for the current Italian lockdown) rather than panic buying enough toilet paper to service a small town, person B could have also bought some, maintained the required level of hygiene, avoided contracting Covid19 and neither of them would have it.

And also as I said, the more people panic, the more 'panic fatigue' will set in. Lots of people are going to get this, but if sensible precautions are taken, the vast majority of them are going to be okay. People with underlying health conditions and the aged need to be especially careful, and other people need to be especially careful around them. Self-isolation. Basic hygienic practices. Don't be Rudy Gobert. And yes, lots of us are going to be exposed to this. Many of us probably already have been. The point is to slow the spread to enable everybody that needs medical care - which will be a minority of cases but will still be significant - can get it without the hospitals being swamped by a deluge of cases at once, like they have been in Italy.

 

[RedheadDane]

40 packages of yeast? I agree, what the...?????

Dunno if they're going to just... eat it raw! Which, I think, could cause some intestinal trouble, which probably could lead to a need of toilet paper. But I... rather hope not!

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Yeast makes bread and yeast makes beer.

Someone at my office saw somebody buying 360 rolls of toilet paper. Even if you're under a 3 month lockdown, that's 3 entire rolls a day.

 

[sir fly]

Yeast makes bread and yeast makes beer.

Someone at my office saw somebody buying 360 rolls of toilet paper. Even if you're under a 3 month lockdown, that's 3 entire rolls a day.

4
Some a$$holes...

 

[jmdirt]

More about me:

I decided a week ago not to go to the Y because the dumbbells/kettlebells/barbells are questionable in the best of times (how many times have you seen someone sneeze into their hand only to grab a belle for their next set). This decision has been made easier by the good weather that we were having because I was able to be on the trails every day.

My wife and I almost always shop on Friday evening because the store is empty...not last night, it was a zoo with empty shelves and coolers. We were able to get most of our usual stuff. The pasta isle was not only empty, but there was pasta all over the shelves and floor like there had been a frenzy or something. One lady had an entire cart full of those huge tubes of ground beef...I hope she has a big freezer. It was certainly strange how hurried people were. OK, you're filling three carts full of stuff, but there's no need to vibrate and talk fast.

I did buy an extra six pack of my favorite beer!

I agree with those who have pointed out that packing into stores isn't what we should be doing (in hind sight, I should have looked at how full the parking lot was and just gone back home).

LS- its the sheeple syndrome in hyperdrive.

EDIT: don't get me wrong, I think that this is serious sh*t, but I prefer to look to the best case scenario (without being naive) not the Apocalypse scenario.

 

[RedheadDane]

Yeast makes bread and yeast makes beer.

I suppose if you've decided this is a good time to become an alcoholic…

Some a$$holes...

Some a$$holes definitely seem to be a bit... overactive…

 

[Nirvana]

From Monday Spain will be in lockdown with people allowed to go out only if they have to go to work or buy food and medicines, basically the same it's happening here but probably too late just like here. And again the error to announce it before actually enforcing...

 

[Unchained]

I suppose if you've decided this is a good time to become an alcoholic…



Some a$$holes definitely seem to be a bit... overactive…

Also is often a key component to pizza dough..so eating a calzone or pizza during the zombie apocalypse makes sense

 

[Koronin]

It seems the planet has gone insane. Stores will get more deliveries this week. Don't know about other countries, but here grocery stores get regular deliveries twice per week plus vendors bring bread, chips, and soda.