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again with the double space - I'm sorry - it's not intentional...
The double spacing appears to be a bug in the editor. It happens to me all the time.
The solution is to re-edit the post and remove the extra space.
When you first create a post make sure you preview it. If there is an extra space go back to editing and remove it. When you save the post the extra space should be gone.
No. I just posted this on another thread, but I'll repeat here with clarity.
The number of dead people from CVID19 in Italy has exceeded the number of dead influenza people in the previous 12 months (In italy). It did this in one week, more or less. And there is no change in the rate at the moment, so it will easily exceed the flu - in Italy, at least.
So if you have some reason to think it's not coming to the USA - please share. Otherwise - I really feel your disinformation has at least some chance of making it worse - and zero chance of making it better. Others may disagree with that - but there is no chance for you to argue with that data. It's worse than the flu.
I agree that gloves are not helpful.
But today's data suggests 80% of the spread is from the 20% of people who are carrying the virus without symptoms. Thus - the limited crowds. Again - once the trend line of dead people starts to level off or decline- then I expect public policies will change - if it keeps accelerating - then all bets are off. It's not panic. It's data. Study first. complain later.
The effort now is to slow down the spread so that people don't overwhelm the healthcare system like they did in Italy. The easiest way for us to do that is to limit contact with each other. Unfortunately too many people are unable or unwilling to do that.
Unknowns are:
Is it seasonal? In other words will it taper off naturally as the weather gets warmer.
Even if it is seasonal will it return in the fall?
Will it mutate every year making any vaccines developed this year ineffective next year?
The effort now is to slow down the spread so that people don't overwhelm the healthcare system like they did in Italy. The easiest way for us to do that is to limit contact with each other. Unfortunately too many people are unable or unwilling to do that.
Unknowns are:
Is it seasonal? In other words will it taper off naturally as the weather gets warmer.
Even if it is seasonal will it return in the fall?
Will it mutate every year making any vaccines developed this year ineffective next year?
Although I'm not usually one to buy into "conspiracy theories", I find myself wondering, when it comes to this corona virus. It appears to be spreading too fast, and too far around the globe, to be just another strain of the flu. And some of the areas it's hitting, like the ME, doesn't usually have a very large influx of "outsiders", that would carry it into these areas.
I hate to say it, but I'm beginning to think that something's up......
No. I just posted this on another thread, but I'll repeat here with clarity.
The number of dead people from CVID19 in Italy has exceeded the number of dead influenza people in the previous 12 months (In italy). It did this in one week, more or less. And there is no change in the rate at the moment, so it will easily exceed the flu - in Italy, at least.
So if you have some reason to think it's not coming to the USA - please share. Otherwise - I really feel your disinformation has at least some chance of making it worse - and zero chance of making it better. Others may disagree with that - but there is no chance for you to argue with that data. It's worse than the flu.
I agree that gloves are not helpful.
But today's data suggests 80% of the spread is from the 20% of people who are carrying the virus without symptoms. Thus - the limited crowds. Again - once the trend line of dead people starts to level off or decline- then I expect public policies will change - if it keeps accelerating - then all bets are off. It's not panic. It's data. Study first. complain later.
Have you ever been to Italy? The biggest problem there is they are densely packed in apartment type housing in much of the country. I don't think they could stop the spread there if they handed out hazmat suits to everyone. We have the exact same problem in our large metro areas.
Up until you get above age 60 the death rate is pretty much negligible. Seems pretty typical for a virus outbreak.
This virus is so contagious that it is going to spread and spread quickly. Most people will have it and think they just had a cold and go on about their business. I would be willing to bet that at least 30% of the US population already has it or has already had it and didn't realize. I have no data to back that up but it would not surprise me a bit to find that out if they were to pick an area and do a sample test to see what percentage of the population is carrying the virus without realizing it.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be concerned or shouldn't take the normal precautions. Those in the high risk groups should be very concerned and be smart. However, there is a total overreaction and the rest of us should use common sense. The public is going nuts and panicking and it is insane.
Anyway, in a few weeks people will become bored with this and the news channel ratings will start to decline and they will find something else to talk about. Life will get back to normal and we will move on.
Actually, there was a big, giant whiff that the government didn't do. They didn't implement the protocols that have been in place and used multiple times over the past 25 years. That's why, while South Korea is testing 10,000 people a day, the United States is testing a fraction of that number.
My daughter was in London last week. When this hit the fan Wednesday, I booked her a flight home Friday. When she landed in New York, were there any public health officials there? Anyone at all? Nope. One customs official. And this is true of friends who just flew home from India.
It is absolutely absurd to suggest that the government couldn't have done anything. Just face the facts. This administration was sluggish, partly because they were more interested in the short term economic headlines than they were in the long-term health of the country. And I say that as a Republican.
The government could have done more earlier. Only a sheep would think otherwise.
But this is not a time to 'hate Trump' or whatever. They did what they felt was best. Each president has strengths, and Trump's is economic prowess. It is what it is.
All that said, I think they've done a pretty good job keeping it check. Much lower death rate than the rest of the world. It also emphasizes that all the things they are trying to do (close borders, rely less on overseas manufacturing) is a VERY GOOD THING.
Have you ever been to Italy? The biggest problem there is they are densely packed in apartment type housing in much of the country. I don't think they could stop the spread there if they handed out hazmat suits to everyone. We have the exact same problem in our large metro areas.
Up until you get above age 60 the death rate is pretty much negligible. Seems pretty typical for a virus outbreak.
This virus is so contagious that it is going to spread and spread quickly. Most people will have it and think they just had a cold and go on about their business. I would be willing to bet that at least 30% of the US population already has it or has already had it and didn't realize. I have no data to back that up but it would not surprise me a bit to find that out if they were to pick an area and do a sample test to see what percentage of the population is carrying the virus without realizing it.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be concerned or shouldn't take the normal precautions. Those in the high risk groups should be very concerned and be smart. However, there is a total overreaction and the rest of us should use common sense. The public is going nuts and panicking and it is insane.
Anyway, in a few weeks people will become bored with this and the news channel ratings will start to decline and they will find something else to talk about. Life will get back to normal and we will move on.
I wish that you were correct, but you are not.
I have followed this from the beginning, and have sourced my information from a wide variety of sources, from M.I.T. to foreign news media. Knowledge is power.
The local PBS station has news broadcasts from DW, the BBC, and NHK. To gain a more global perspective, you might want to sit through a complete news cycle of those as well as the national U.S. networks. You will quickly discover that the number of countries in Europe enforcing lockdowns and closed borders is increasing daily. Russia has closed borders. This is not going away in the U.S.. You have a fantasy based on incomplete information.
China and the southeast Asian countries have a handle on the virus, but only because of strong measures and an extremely compliant and engaged population. Singapore and Hong Kong have incredibly dense populations and minimal cases, even though they were close to the original epicenter. They understand the danger of SARS related virus pandemics and have acted accordingly.
Nations initially took two courses of action. The first group - the above mentioned Asian ones - were aggressive in testing and isolating at all costs. The fruits of their labors is apparent.
The second group of nations took the stance of "This is just another virus that will infect humanity as a whole and can not be eradicated by any reasonable or cost-effective means." The result of that attitude is also readily apparent. That is the attitude that you continue to hold even as it has been abandoned by world leaders.
Now that the leaders of the second group of countries recognizes the cost of the error of inaction, their populations are facing disaster and death as those leaders attempt an about-face and the implementing of techniques similar to those of the first group.
I'll say up front that there are two "hail Mary" passes that might mitigate the virus effects. Those are 1) antivirals that might blunt the progression in worst cases, and 2) a vaccine - one that at best will be too little too late. In the case of a vaccine, there are reasons why it may not even be possible to create a working one that isn't worse in effect than the disease itself. We cannot sit back while people die, hoping that either of these ideas can be developed in time or that they will even work.
To be clear, what we are seeing now with lockdowns are the initial faltering and baby-step attempts to eradicate the virus, as the Asian countries did. However, we are far far deeper in the manure pile of inconsistent and sh*tty guidance, and we cannot expect a quick fix because of that. We do not have an FDR at the helm.
Testing on its own does diddly squat. You could test for any communicable disease and not eradicate it if all you did was test. In the U.S. (compared to South Korea) we didn't even have the testing ability until now, much less the balls to enforce real border restrictions, real quarantines, and mandatory testing. As you point out, we now are not dealing with a single point or area of infection, but a NATIONAL outbreak affecting all fifty states. It will not go away on its own, even if there are mutations.
I agree with you that the percentage of deaths directly caused by the virus has been overblown. South Korea has about the only reliable data set. Based on that, a best case death rate of less than 1% of TOTAL infections seems possible to achieve. The number that represents is still much more than the flu and a sobering figure. However, that isn't the important number in any public response. The more important percentage is that of those who require medical care and critical care to survive. That percentage is many times greater than the death rate, or the rate from any flu - and beyond our medical capacity for care- let alone care of those AND people ill and injured from other diseases or problems.
Our medical capacity is based upon cost cutting and throttling by insurance companies. Rural hospitals have been shutting down, not expanding. Our attitudes are killing us as is. I don't care that the administration decided to use an inflated death percentage, because frankly we have a lot of stupid people in this country who are used to overstatement and numbed to reality, and need such exaggeration to react.
China isolated Wuhan. Chances of us as a country isolating a city such as Chicago or Miami with blockades were and are nil. That failure to act alone will kill many of our countrymen. Had we had the pandemic team in place in this country, and had they been listened to, we would be sitting pretty compared to Europe and the rest of the world. We were penny-wise and pound foolish, but that is behind us. America WAS great, in ways we didn't recognize or honor. So be it. We have to deal with the cards as now dealt.
Because we did not act quickly and decisively, almost all parts of our economic structure are now impacted. Companies are going bankrupt and will continue to do so, making any recovery efforts even more difficult. This is now an official cluster-f*** as the bubble of globalization, unrestricted travel, and profits at all costs has burst.
We have about a month to be where France is now. What is worse is that without incredibly strong and decisive actions, there is no end in sight. If the virus is allowed to survive in the country, it will recur in waves on a continuing basis. M.I.T. has already modeled it.
If we do not want a complete dystopian future, decisive action will need to start at local levels and filter upwards, with the caveat that such actions may not currently be legally possible, as it will at times be counter to the free trade clauses of the Constitution.
Families need to self-isolate to protect the vulnerable within them. Everyone can do that if they have the will. That is the easy part. The benefits are obvious and overwhelming. Communities and businesses need to self-isolate to protect community members / employees. Small close-knit towns can have an easier time of that. Even cities need to self-isolate as much as possible and eradicate pockets of infection within them. That gets much more difficult, as does isolation on a state by state level.
Tourism is dead for the immediate future. That is flat-out fact, no matter what your beliefs. It is also a MAJOR part of the economy. States like Alabama might see impacts on the coast and the Golf Trail, but those pale in comparison to how it will affect Vermont, which has nearly no industry. How long tourism remains dead depends upon how completely people understand and comply with rules during this time. Literally - if EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the U.S. isolated, and those who had contracted the virus in the first 30 days and recovered were the only ones to care for and have contact with the infected in the second 30 days, and every single person was tested at two week intervals and properly treated, the virus could be COMPLETELY gone in this country within 60 to 90 days. That will not happen.
It MAY be possible to mitigate the spread and begin containing pockets of the virus if enough of the public is aware and the resources/money/people are dedicated to isolating and helping the infected. It will take time though, and during that time many people will get sick and die.
On a personal level, it is a matter of life and death to get away from the all or nothing, works or doesn't work mindset. I'll give a single example to get you started:
Masks DO work and gloves DO work, otherwise health care workers wouldn't use them. To say otherwise is idiotic. Say that you are an asymptomatic spreader of the virus - you haven't yet had the full disease, or you just happen to be a carrier. You go to the store without a mask and sneeze on the produce. You have 1000 droplets in that sneeze that could infect, now spread all over the lettuce. Oops, you may have just killed somebody's grandma in a month's time and infected a whole family in the process. Now consider if you wore a mask and sneezed. Only 30 droplets might escape to land on the produce. Grandma now has a fighting chance of not dying. It isn't perfect, but it helps.
With infectious diseases, herd immunity works because the RATE of infection is slowed. When an infected person cannot infect more than one other person, and may not even infect one, the disease dies down or out completely. The concept behind social distancing and sanitation is ALSO to reduce the infection potential of an infected person. If you have the disease and wear gloves and a mask, you are unlikely to infect 2.3 or more people, and much more likely to infect no one.
If I told you that if everyone wore masks and gloves in social settings and tried to social isolate for two months that there was a chance of beating the disease, would you do it? If I said that even if a quarter of the population didn't do so, there would still be a chance of beating back the disease, would you do it to be part of the responsible majority?
This is all academic to me and I bring it up only because I am really good at systems analysis and designing error handling routines, and that skill translates to the situation. People will do as they will. My hope is that the choices they make are well informed and generally responsible.
China and the southeast Asian countries have a handle on the virus
That's a load of crap. I guess it's making people feel better, but if you believe it, there's nothing I can do for you. I don't care where your news comes from.
That's a load of crap. I guess it's making people feel better, but if you believe it, there's nothing I can do for you. I don't care where your news comes from.
There is nothing I want you to do for me. I'm well aware of the spin that gets put on various news sources, and the state news from China is just as suspect as that from Michael Moore or Rush. There are other ways of verifying news, and science and physics exist independently of most opinions.
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