Semi-OT: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread V (Read Post 1 & FAQ)

[LKN]

Scary:

“Italy may be a preview, not an outlier.”

“..while some unique aspects have amplified the scale, doctors and health officials say other countries should regard Italy not as an outlier or an example of missteps, but as a harrowing preview of the hardships they might soon have at hand. Other countries could easily follow the pattern in Italy, with the number of deaths soaring weeks after an initial, drastic spike in cases.”
...
“The virus may have been spreading in Italy for longer, and it kills slowly.

The people with the most severe coronavirus cases can remain in intensive-care beds for weeks before dying. That triggers a cascade of problems during a large-scale outbreak, as has been playing out now in northern Italy, where patients have been arriving at hospitals — struggling to breath — only to find that there are no beds or ventilators.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/why-is-coronavirus-so-bad-in-italy/2020/03/23/90d306d0-6c85-11ea-a156-0048b62cdb51_story.html

[zimpy27]

If we completely shut everything down we could probably save some of the 10,000+ people who die annually from the flu. People here are horrified at the thought of 2,000,000 dying from Covid this year and we must shut down the country indefinitely to prevent that, but it's not worth it to shut down the country to save 10,000.

So my question is, what is your number?

If US lifted quarantine completely, I could see 300m getting the virus in a year and I could honestly see 30m people dying if there is no ubiquitous testing or treatments. It's just an absurd idea to let this thing play out at the moment.

[wayoftheroad]

Ppl stop fcukin tripping.
Is it dangerous? Yes
Is it affecting the economy? Yes

But if u isolate and stay in ur godddamm house, then you probably are not going to get it.
If everyone just does that for a while then we just might get through it. So calm the F down

[Meeksology]

Read on Twitter

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Good read. I truly hope it doesn't happen, with this government anything is possible.

That's insane! What rational mind would think that ending social distancing is a good idea???

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[Optimus_Steel]

Read on Twitter

Sad

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These people are our real heroes, putting themselves at risk to save people. Stress and exhaustion must have been huge factors here.

[MagicBagley18]

Ppl stop fcukin tripping.
Is it dangerous? Yes
Is it affecting the economy? Yes

But if u isolate and stay in ur godddamm house, then you probably are not going to get it.
If everyone just does that for a while then we just might get through it. So calm the F down

You make total sense- and there lies the problem. People aren’t isolating and or aren’t staying in their house. If everyone did what u suggested we wouldn’t have an issue- it’s actually to the contrary. People are complaining and asking for quarantines to be lifted

[Richfield]

Are you really that stupid that you don't know a tanked economy will negatively affect all classes? Poor, middle class, rich. Doesn't matter. If the economy goes under we are all screwed.

If anything, it's the rich that can afford for the economy to go on pause for a while since they have savings and don't depend on a pay check.

I'm not saying we should rush anything and risk lives unnecessarily, but your reasoning is terrible.

That's the entire point of a stimulus package. The government can just pay everyone who is not working. No one will starve - it's a purely political problem with a fairly straightforward solution.

It's highly ignorant to assume that the government can simply float the entirety of the American people for an unforeseen amount of time and all will be fine. It can work as a very short term fix, but if it goes on and they simply print money out of the sky to keep the country going, the ultimate result is hyper-inflation and a complete collapse of the American dollar - and in effect the American economy. Long story short: No more "America" as you knew it.

The amount of time is not "unforeseen" completely. There are projections. Numbers and likelihoods for if we all lock down a little tighter (less sickness and death, more costly to the gov't), versus if we lift the restrictions and get back to work sooner (more sickness and death, less costly to gov't).

The notion that they'll simply keep doling out checks for an "unforeseen amount of time" is not a valid choice of words.

It should be obvious to anybody who understands graphs alone that the numbers and rates of people affected tapers after counter-measures are applied, with up to a two week delay. Our numbers are not tapering at a respectable rate for there to be talk about lifting restrictions.

If the slope is the derivative of the graph (cases or deaths vs time), it's about how that derivative is behaving. Right now it's NOT GOOD.

Tapering would mean the second derivative is negative. We're not even THERE yet overall, and in most places, locally. We're still at where we're seeing increases in the rates, as testing shines a light, the second derivative is still positive every time you hear there were more deaths today than the day before. We want that to be NEGATIVE, over and over, for days and weeks at a time (at least) to be sure of progress in this fight.

After some progress with the second derivative, the third derivative will probably stay positive, but maybe we can have a DAY OR TWO where that is negative too? We are nowhere close.

We are losing a war right now and one way we know to fight it is everybody stay still. You're inviting the enemy into our homes for an unspecified amount of money. You don't know how much, just that it's more than what you have now. And you're not acknowledging that even more will get infected and die if we do that.

Nobody has presented any numbers to show that the US economy will be destroyed if we continue to fight the corona virus for a few more weeks at least. If somebody's numbers really show that, then its a paper tiger in the first place. That's because the truth is it isn't, and they didn't, we can afford this if our economy is as strong as has been touted.

The government is responsible for our national security. I don't think anybody disagrees with that. You don't think everything we've build up to now isn't strong enough for everybody to take two weeks off? Most bosses in our economy take more than two weeks off every single year. But as a nation we can't "afford it" during a global pandemic? Have any politicians showed us those figures? Or do they just speak of vague impending doom?

Bull, you've been duped, scared into marching people into death. What a shame.

[Meeksology]

Wasn't sure at first from just reading the tweet (and don't want to touch the politics of it either) but yeah it sounds as bad in audio as the tweet reads.

Read on Twitter

?s=20

That's nice, this guy cares about his trading of goods for money more than his life.

Not everyone is the same, most people only work so they can live a life.

You're not really living a life though if you're cooped up inside away from all human contact for months on end. When you're in your 80s would you call this a quality life worth living having nothing to do but hear media talk about the death and destruction around when you can't leave your room/home? I understand both sides frankly, my grandpa at 86 is the same way where he'd rather have the freedom to live his life, watch sports that are all canceled instead of spending many of these months in isolation and fear.

I feel bad for the elderly that are put in that situation, but I'm sure most of them would rather go on living the rest of their lives indoors if it means their children and grandchildren will go on living.

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[Hook_Em]

If we completely shut everything down we could probably save some of the 10,000+ people who die annually from the flu. People here are horrified at the thought of 2,000,000 dying from Covid this year and we must shut down the country indefinitely to prevent that, but it's not worth it to shut down the country to save 10,000.

So my question is, what is your number?

Much more than that die from the flu. The 10,000 number you’re referencing is near the number of drunk driving related deaths on America on average. One person dies every 50 minutes in an alcohol related incident. So regardless what you think of COVID-19 shutting down bars and restaurants is a good thing and really puts a lot into perspective when you look at national crisis.

[LKN]

If we completely shut everything down we could probably save some of the 10,000+ people who die annually from the flu. People here are horrified at the thought of 2,000,000 dying from Covid this year and we must shut down the country indefinitely to prevent that, but it's not worth it to shut down the country to save 10,000.

So my question is, what is your number?

Much more than that die from the flu. The 10,000 number you’re referencing is near the number of drunk driving related deaths on America on average. One person dies every 50 minutes in an alcohol related incident. So regardless what you think of COVID-19 shutting down bars and restaurants is a good thing and really puts a lot into perspective when you look at national crisis.

The flu doesn't overwhelm hospital/ICU capacity and cause a huge spike in all-cause mortality. Italy has seen a 20-30% increase in it's overall death rate due to COVID-19. These idiotic comparisons to the flu are embarrassing and need to stop.

[Fairview4Life]

RealGM's favorite fallacy.

You think someone treated 350 caronavirus patients with that drug cocktail, cured them all, and wrote a letter to Hannity with the results for him to read on air? What fallacy would you call that? Because that one is my new favorite.

[zimpy27]

Read on Twitter

Causation or correlation? Many obese people are diabetic or hypertensive.

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Hilariously bad analysis.

Average age of study was 64.
The proportion of people with a BMI above 25 (overweight or obese) is 74% for that age group in the UK.
In this study, they found 72% of those in ICU had a BMI above 25 (overweight or obese)

i.e. being overweight has no effect on this virus taking you to the ICU.

Only thing you can take away is that the morbidly obese (those with BMI over 40) seem to be twice as common in ICU because of virus than in public meaning that high obesity is likely an issue because of breathing issues that come along with it.

[LKN]

Wow - there are actually are real christians out there. Amazing story

Read on Twitter

?s=20

[OkcSinceSGA]

Wow - there are actually are real christians out there. Amazing story

Read on Twitter

?s=20

Priests are unfortunately for the most part in their 60s, 70s and 80s. Not many young priests and Catholicism seems to be slowing down with the scandles in the last couple decades. On top of that they are seeking out the sick to pray for them, often without protection. Recipe for disaster. Still terribly sad. RIP.

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[Richfield]

If we completely shut everything down we could probably save some of the 10,000+ people who die annually from the flu. People here are horrified at the thought of 2,000,000 dying from Covid this year and we must shut down the country indefinitely to prevent that, but it's not worth it to shut down the country to save 10,000.

So my question is, what is your number?

Much more than that die from the flu. The 10,000 number you’re referencing is near the number of drunk driving related deaths on America on average. One person dies every 50 minutes in an alcohol related incident. So regardless what you think of COVID-19 shutting down bars and restaurants is a good thing and really puts a lot into perspective when you look at national crisis.

The flu doesn't overwhelm hospital/ICU capacity and cause a huge spike in all-cause mortality. Italy has seen a 20-30% increase in it's overall death rate due to COVID-19. These idiotic comparisons to the flu are embarrassing and need to stop.

Also gotta believe that if we had a chance to meet flu for the very first time in the present century, with technology, science, and communication we have today, we might approach even the flu differently than before it was decided/figured out that it was a reoccurring virus that isn't really going anywhere (too late).

As of today, we still have people that have never gotten COVID-19. I'm not clear on why going back to work and accepting it spreading being around longer is good for anybody's economy (long term) or anybody's grandkids.

It's a terribly short-sited argument, to not fight this thing with everything we've got.

Anybody have the last 10 years or 100 years of data on what the recurring flu has cost America? That's a number nobody wants to crunch. But it's only a fraction of what this thing could cost over the next 10 or 100 years to our economy if we simply let it run free as much as we do the flu.

So much hypocricy and short-sightedness. I guess I need to log out again.

[Ainosterhaspie]

Much more than that die from the flu. The 10,000 number you’re referencing is near the number of drunk driving related deaths on America on average. One person dies every 50 minutes in an alcohol related incident. So regardless what you think of COVID-19 shutting down bars and restaurants is a good thing and really puts a lot into perspective when you look at national crisis.

The flu doesn't overwhelm hospital/ICU capacity and cause a huge spike in all-cause mortality. Italy has seen a 20-30% increase in it's overall death rate due to COVID-19. These idiotic comparisons to the flu are embarrassing and need to stop.

Also gotta believe that if we had a chance to meet flu for the very first time in the present century, with technology, science, and communication we have today, we might approach even the flu differently than before it was decided/figured out that it was a reoccurring virus that isn't really going anywhere (too late).

As of today, we still have people that have never gotten COVID-19. I'm not clear on why going back to work and accepting it spreading being around longer is good for anybody's economy (long term) or anybody's grandkids.

It's a terribly short-sited argument, to not fight this thing with everything we've got.

Anybody have the last 10 years or 100 years of data on what the recurring flu has cost America? That's a number nobody wants to crunch. But it's only a fraction of what this thing could cost over the next 10 or 100 years to our economy if we simply let it run free as much as we do the flu.

So much hypocricy and short-sightedness. I guess I need to log out again.

There are a few of you here who seem incapable of listening to ohers in good faith, or allowing yourself to be challenged to think. There is probably no point in explaining further as it's becoming increasingly clear that some of you will just assume I am saying what you want me to be saying rather than attempting to listen. But I'll try nonetheless.

The point I want to make is that there is a threshold where life goes on as usual and no one bats an eye. We do not shut down the country to save the 10,000+ who dies of the flu annually. (And 10,000 is a very low number, the real number is almost always greater sometimes significantly so.) We could do more to save these people, but we don't. We weight the benefits and costs of doing so and determine their lives aren't worth saving.

The number I keep seeing being suggested as a plausible really bad number of deaths from this thing is 2,000,000. We are ok with 10,000 dying anually and take no action in terms of shutting down the economy to prevent that, but absolutely must shut it down to avoid losing 2M.

Now Trump and others are talking about ending the shut down at some point and there has been an aggressive response here saying that is a terrible idea. What I want to know is what is the tipping point between the 10,000 dead where we go on without a thought for the dying and the 2M where things must grind to a halt. Surely there is a point between these numbers where we can say the losses are acceptable and return to something resembling normal life especially if it's a new normal more where we work harder to avoid close contact.

And before you jump on me for being uncaring by talking about acceptable losses, please remember that there are acceptable flu losses every year, not as I see it but as I've he country and world treats it, by not acting more aggressively to spread the fear. And yes I understand that the hospitalization rates are part of the problem, and that this is much worse than the flu. Don't be intellectually lazy and dismiss my question as just coming from a flu bro.

If you can't think about and describe what losses are too big and what losses or acceptable, or under which conditions it's ok to loosen restrictions, you have no business criticizing people who are trying to figure out that difficult question.

[JrueTheFuture]

Read on Twitter

This is really stressing me out. I work at an Amazon and the 'sanitation guidelines' are a complete joke. We have people still not covering their cough or sneeze.. people still chatting it up literally inches from each other. I live with my mom who already has a chronic lung issue and has been dismissed indefinitely from her work because of it. I missed most of last week and with this whole thing popping up, I really question if it's worth it going back to work. I value the safety of me and my family over anything.

Oh and the whole Amazon is only shipping "essentials" is complete bull. Just last week I saw **** like Legos, video games, and other stuff being shipped still.

[jason bourne]

CDC dropped the ball on the testing. The US should've gone with the WHO recommendation and the test kit developed by Germany.

Damnit.

https://apnews.com/c335958b1f8f6a37b19b421bc7759722

[thelead]

Read on Twitter

This is really stressing me out. I work at an Amazon and the 'sanitation guidelines' are a complete joke. We have people still not covering their cough or sneeze.. people still chatting it up literally inches from each other. I live with my mom who already has a chronic lung issue and has been dismissed indefinitely from her work because of it. I missed most of last week and with this whole thing popping up, I really question if it's worth it going back to work. I value the safety of me and my family over anything.

Oh and the whole Amazon is only shipping "essentials" is complete bull. Just last week I saw **** like Legos, video games, and other stuff being shipped still.

To a parent with kids quarantined in a house, legos and video games are essential

[EvanZ]

Now Trump and others are talking about ending the shut down at some point and there has been an aggressive response here saying that is a terrible idea. What I want to know is what is the tipping point between the 10,000 dead where we go on without a thought for the dying and the 2M where things must grind to a halt. Surely there is a point between these numbers where we can say the losses are acceptable and return to something resembling normal life especially if it's a new normal more where we work harder to avoid close contact.

This is a false dilemma. There is no "tipping point" because we don't want to wait long enough to find out how bad it could get.