hollywood6964 wrote:I was pretty much done with this on this site. And you or anyone else can dismiss my thoughts, I really don't care and it really doesn't matter, but you wrote a novel n we usually agree on suns related issues so i read a lot of what you wrote in a minute n can get the jist. I'll expound. (By the way I had been sick, and I did cough, it was just the reaction that was absurd, ppl r sheep. For all I know I had it, very well could have been, n how many others do or did, n aren't getting tested for it, which would add to the numbers of not threatening cases? Likely too many to count. I'm sure this is like the flu, just highly contagious because it's new n ppl don't have antibodies built up to fight it, n no flu shot to counter it, so just going by that, there Will be more deaths because more ppl will have it n the old n in poor health don't have a flu shot, so they will be at higher risk of problems, those are the ones to worry about. But let's not act like its the outbreak movie, n ppls eyes r going to start bleeding n dying in a matter of hours.)
I get what you're saying, it's not like I have turned off my mind n haven't looked at what their purported #s are, n possibly the affect this all could cause. I just don't buy into the mass hysteria. Put it this way, the absurdity of the way ppl r acting doesn't match up to what this actually is.
Anytime a mass flu goes around, ppl who are vulnerable die from it. It's just what it is. The only way this will be worse is that there's no flu shot, so ppl who are susceptible, who would normally get a flu shot to counter it, cannot. This is where there will be a bit of a % hike in deaths. Like my 94 year old gramdma, this is the only person in thinking about that I know.
I'm assuming saying I'm "young" is some sort of shot towards my stance, masqueraded in a point of predetermined health status.......I'm 37, been around a bit, and believe it or not I do read and watch videos, this is why I have my stance. And when I'm right, it won't be because I had my head in the sand, and was just coincidentally, mindlessly right (I can already see that being the thought process here from all of the grand intellectuals, it's a nice, if predictable fallback), it'll be because of experience and my own sensibilities. Now if I'm wrong, and that doesn't mean someone had to die from it, because die from the flu or pneumonia everyday, but if it's really worth me boarding my doors up for because the %s are so high, then I'll say I was wrong. Absolutely. But let's not pretend I could say the same the other way around. Not with the goofs on a message board haha.
There is no dig, there is no shot and there is no shade thrown your way. Maybe I'm not the best communicator but I'm doing my absolute best to explain why this is more serious to the best of my knowledge and with utmost respect to you and anyone else reading.
I'll give you some points on common ground.
1. Nobody is in favor of this massive panic and hoarding that we're seeing in many places. Nobody wants to see that, it certainly hurts the elderly who are often slower to get to grocery stores because they may need a carer or family member to take them there and they generally only have access to supplies that's on the store shelves unlike some of the younger folk who will have access to online shopping. So I totally agree that media driven panic is not a good thing.
Mass hysteria is a bad thing and while we may disagree on the level of severity of this virus, we can both agree that the mass hysteria generated by the media is unhelpful. However, it is more dangerous for mass ignorance to be trumpeted from other news outlets. Telling people to go about business as usual is dangerous because that is how this will continue to spread and spread further than it could had to put in measures to curb it. Unfortunately, there isn't really a single source of information that most people can trust in because the news media nowadays is so divided into left and right and those in power don't seem to have grasped the enormity of the situation.
Countries who have dealt with this situation extremely well (and the data backs it up), like Taiwan, like Japan and like Singapore all put politics aside, were sticking to the facts in their communication, were providing regular and transparent information to the masses and most important of all, put the virus at the front and center of the issue; not economics and corporate hurt feelings.
2. I agree that this is far from outbreaks in movies where "ppls eyes r going to start bleeding n dying in a matter of hours". It's certainly not like that. But not a single news outlet has described it as such that I've come across. Even the most extreme of descriptions of how the symptoms is brought on, it's like the very worst flu and possible shortness of breath. So I don't know if that's just the vibe you personally got but I really don't believe any news outlet has described it in the way you have.
Also I don't think anyone, even the most outspoken self-isolation proponents in the media are for boarding people up inside their homes like we saw in China. Self-isolation for a couple of weeks to spread the load on hospitals is really what's been advocated for. So again, it's not that people will just drop dead because they have the disease, on the contrary, most people will be able to fight it off like a very bad flu. The problem is those who need medical care and can't get it because hospital ICU's and beds are already at beyond capacity. That's when people's grandmothers, parents with diabetes, possibly people our age (I'm not much younger than yourself) with asthma for example that will be hurt the most from this.