What's new
By:
Filters

Coronavirus

Doubters say "keep the economy rolling, this is not so bad" If we were to follow their advise, the outbreak would be severe and many more people would die

So we take sensible mitigation steps, fewer people die, then doubters say "see, I was right, this was not so bad"

These people are not patriots.
 
LogGrad98 said:
I think it is a foregone conclusion that the flu is deadlier than COVID-19. I think the panic is being driven by 2 things: first, it is a new virus we have no treatment or vaccine for and which can move without symptoms so it is "scary", and second, the flu has been around long enough we just accept the deaths as "part of the plan" (credit to the Joker) and move on.

I think it is pretty clear that the actual cases are likely far higher than the diagnosed cases since we know for a fact it can be asymptomatic or extremely mild in many cases, maybe even the majority of cases. Even a modest 1 to 1 (1 un-diagnosed case to every diagnosed case, which is very reasonable and likely far higher) ratio, puts the death rate comfortably below that of the annual flu.

Once we get a vaccine for it, this will fade into the background. Truthfully I think this is being blown heavily out of proportion and we are needlessly doing severe damage to our economy and the fabric of our society. This is akin to using a chainsaw to extract a sliver in ones finger (slight exaggeration).
Click to expand...
I don't know how you can look at what's happening in New York and Italy and still think this.
 
silesian said:
That is very weird. I work for a Australian company and was talking with my Chair today from Perth. She said Australia was under a Stage 2 shutdown, which avoided a lockdown (for now), and that there was no fixed time frame.
Click to expand...

lockdown shutdown same thing. its for 6 months but could be longer...
 
LogGrad98 said:
I think it is a foregone conclusion that the flu is deadlier than COVID-19. I think the panic is being driven by 2 things: first, it is a new virus we have no treatment or vaccine for and which can move without symptoms so it is "scary", and second, the flu has been around long enough we just accept the deaths as "part of the plan" (credit to the Joker) and move on.

I think it is pretty clear that the actual cases are likely far higher than the diagnosed cases since we know for a fact it can be asymptomatic or extremely mild in many cases, maybe even the majority of cases. Even a modest 1 to 1 (1 un-diagnosed case to every diagnosed case, which is very reasonable and likely far higher) ratio, puts the death rate comfortably below that of the annual flu.

Once we get a vaccine for it, this will fade into the background. Truthfully I think this is being blown heavily out of proportion and we are needlessly doing severe damage to our economy and the fabric of our society. This is akin to using a chainsaw to extract a sliver in ones finger (slight exaggeration).
Click to expand...

We really don’t know what the mortality rate of Covid is at this point. Probably somewhere just below 1% if I had to guess since there are soooooo many people who have it who are asymptomatic and never get tested.

That said, imo, based on how I see things playing out over the next 30-60+ days, this is a really bad take.

As of around 1pm earlier today there had been 809 deaths so far in the U.S. Miniscule compared to annual flu numbers, yes. Except if you look at the rate at which it’s spreading while considering the simultaneous rate at which hospital beds and ventilators become void, **** becomes very scary.

That number I provided, at just an 11% increase day over day means over 200,000 deaths in just 45 days. We’re blowing away 11% right now and just had the single most new cases in one day with over 10,000 new cases nationwide today. That doesn't bode well for weeks from now.

Maybe I’m in the minority here but I don’t think we have this contained or will truly have it contained. Not like how China and South Korea handled ****. We’re an entirely different nation sure, but that’s immaterial to the discussion at hand.

We could end up with a half million deaths in this country if not far more and it wouldn’t surprise me given the direction of the numbers, how it’s taken hold in many states, how it’s starting to in more, how limited our resources are, and how botched and presumably continued to be botched this **** has been from the get go by our CiC.

And those 809 deaths at 1pm is already up to 931 deaths just six hours later. That’s a 15% increase in just six hours. More patients are being tested, many more will need the ventilators but there will soon be no more available. **** could get disastrously ugly very quickly in the next 1-3 weeks and beyond. Especially when you consider how many more cases we're seeing per day. And I think will see because Trump has retardedly handled this in baby steps.
 
Last edited:
I swear this is like watching a basketball game with someone and 3min in they are like "The Lakers aren't as good as everyone thinks they are. They only have 8 points. The Jazz average over 100 points per game. Obviously the Jazz are MUCH better but no one is paying attention to them because they're all freaked out over this Laker team that only has 8 points."
 
Woke up this morning with a dry cough and really tired. Hope it’s just some anxiety or a weak cold. I hadn’t been out to public places for almost two weeks other than the grocery store on Friday. Sigh...
 
silesian said:
Moreover, if we get the economy going and we go into a second exponential curve (see 1918), then what? Slow the economy a second time? We need to get this in the rear view mirror and the risks of prematurely pulling the plug are significant. Unless we just say "screw it, what's a few 100 thousand deaths, let's plow forward.
Click to expand...

I get it. Actually a disaster like that could be seen in real here, as a bastard genocide president (can't find much better words to a man doing what he's been doing) gone on the opposite direction of mitigation acts from governors, going as far as airing live on tv on denial of all the risks, actually pushing people to get back to regular life, thus actually encouraging a big amount of people to get out of their quarantines. What could be the start of a slowing down the advance from the virus could possibly getting back on skyrocket because of this action (not that the ones before were any good), if not speed up some of its spreading.
 
Last edited:
My wife had a pretty disturbing story to tell me:

She works part time for the Dept. of Health in Plainfield, NJ. It's a poor/working class town in Central New Jersey. Her usual job is pretty mundane - she works 12 hours a week keeping track of folks who have and haven't gotten licenses for their pets; but with the current situation it's pretty much all hands on deck dealing with the virus. The number of cases in Plainfield have almost quadrupled in the past week. That's not the disturbing part.

Apparently the way it works is a person tests positive for the virus, the medical facility alerts the state and the state alerts the township and the township calls the individual to provide guidance on what they should do. They also ask them where they work and if they've been in contact with other people recently (the quarantine has been going on in NJ for about a week and a half now). Many people are refusing to answer questions, others are just flat-out hanging up the phone. Obviously these people are still functionable enough to go to work and are doing so out of fear of losing their job. Others might have a "questionable" citizenship status and are worried about getting deported.

I don't know how to editorialize this without sounding melodramatic - I see this eventually becoming a disease associated with class/status. Given the present climate I can only imagine how ugly things are going to get.
 
candrew said:
My wife had a pretty disturbing story to tell me:

She works part time for the Dept. of Health in Plainfield, NJ. It's a poor/working class town in Central New Jersey. Her usual job is pretty mundane - she works 12 hours a week keeping track of folks who have and haven't gotten licenses for their pets; but with the current situation it's pretty much all hands on deck dealing with the virus. The number of cases in Plainfield have almost quadrupled in the past week. That's not the disturbing part.

Apparently the way it works is a person tests positive for the virus, the medical facility alerts the state and the state alerts the township and the township calls the individual to provide guidance on what they should do. They also ask them where they work and if they've been in contact with other people recently (the quarantine has been going on in NJ for about a week and a half now). Many people are refusing to answer questions, others are just flat-out hanging up the phone. Obviously these people are still functionable enough to go to work and are doing so out of fear of losing their job. Others might have a "questionable" citizenship status and are worried about getting deported.

I don't know how to editorialize this without sounding melodramatic - I see this eventually becoming a disease associated with class/status. Given the present climate I can only imagine how ugly things are going to get.
Click to expand...

Many from our bilingual dept have gone to Plainfield in the last two years. It wouldn’t surprise me if the latter is widely affected for the reasons you’ve stated.
 
candrew said:
My wife had a pretty disturbing story to tell me:

She works part time for the Dept. of Health in Plainfield, NJ. It's a poor/working class town in Central New Jersey. Her usual job is pretty mundane - she works 12 hours a week keeping track of folks who have and haven't gotten licenses for their pets; but with the current situation it's pretty much all hands on deck dealing with the virus. The number of cases in Plainfield have almost quadrupled in the past week. That's not the disturbing part.

Apparently the way it works is a person tests positive for the virus, the medical facility alerts the state and the state alerts the township and the township calls the individual to provide guidance on what they should do. They also ask them where they work and if they've been in contact with other people recently (the quarantine has been going on in NJ for about a week and a half now). Many people are refusing to answer questions, others are just flat-out hanging up the phone. Obviously these people are still functionable enough to go to work and are doing so out of fear of losing their job. Others might have a "questionable" citizenship status and are worried about getting deported.

I don't know how to editorialize this without sounding melodramatic - I see this eventually becoming a disease associated with class/status. Given the present climate I can only imagine how ugly things are going to get.
Click to expand...
I mean, look at how many symptomless celebrities and sports stars have gotten tests while sick people are finding it impossible in many places. I saw an article the other day about the wealthy contacting ventilator manufacturers to purchase one for themselves "just in case." They're fleeing big cities and headed for their vacation homes in small towns to try to escape the virus, upsetting yearlong residents.

This, just like any other disease, will have an impact on the wealthy on a far different scale than the rest of us.
 
silesian said:
COVID 19 transmits at a higher rate, there is no vaccine, and it is (very likely) more lethal, and it will overwhelm our medical capabilities if not mitigated.

Influenza does none of that.

Panic is stupid

So are the "flu is worse" analogies.
Click to expand...
What is the evidence that COVID-19 is more lethal? Flu kills more people in wider age groups. Even the most conservatives estimates from experts on actual infection rates puts flu, with vaccines, at about twice as deadly. The evidence just isn't there to support that assertion.
 
Zombie said:
I don't know how you can look at what's happening in New York and Italy and still think this.
Click to expand...
How can I think anything but? Looking at what is happening in New York it's only worse if you assume that every single case is exactly the number that is being diagnosed. Not a single expert believes that. Most believe that the actual rate of infection is minimum double, with some estimates in factors of 10 greater than actually reported cases. On that scale, even without a vaccine, it's half as deadly as the flu at it's worst, and that's with vaccines for the flu.
 
On a different but equally ominous note - my brother is an elevator inspector for the city of New York. Unfortunately he's still out in the field doing inspections.

He's being told "off-the-record" to skip or delay inspections in the Hasidic Jewish areas of Brooklyn - for some reason the virus is ripping through the Orthodox Jewish community. The first outbreak in the NY area was in a synagogue in Westchester County (close to where Donovan lives)
 
Gameface said:
I swear this is like watching a basketball game with someone and 3min in they are like "The Lakers aren't as good as everyone thinks they are. They only have 8 points. The Jazz average over 100 points per game. Obviously the Jazz are MUCH better but no one is paying attention to them because they're all freaked out over this Laker team that only has 8 points."
Click to expand...
No it's the other way around. It's that hey this Lakers team is behind by 20 with 20 seconds left, but hey 10 seconds ago they were behind by 24 and 10 seconds before they they were behind 26, so they are doubling their scoring every 5 seconds, they will win this thing by 20 in the next 20 seconds, ignoring the obvious that there is a ticking clock, that there are efforts to stop them.

In China they have basically reversed the spread curve. And that's with the efforts of only one government and one scientific community working on it. The way everyone is talking everyone will be dead by next Wednesday so we won't have anyone alive to finish the vaccine or improved treatment, and also ignoring the true rates of both infection and mortality.

I have no doubt this will get worse before it gets better, but I do not believe it will surpass the flu in mortality before it is brought under control.

I'm not saying we don't need to take the precautions we are now. I'm not saying I don't think it's serious. I'm saying all these armchair calculations showing it escalating to world-destroying levels are exaggerated at best and feed a needlessly panicky populace.

And that will only make things worse.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top