Topic: Coronavirus outbreak

@NEStalgia "if only the disease wiped out only the young and spared the old, the world would be a better place..." Even in jest that's just not okay. Stop it. There are foolish old and wise young. This kind of gross generalization is insulting in the extreme. And not only insulting but counter productive and divisive.

If you need some examples, there's a pastor in New Orleans blatantly disregarding orders to limit gatherings and is holding masses with nearly a thousand people. Recklessly endangering all of their lives. I'd consider that just a foolish as the spring breakers who disregarded the quarantine. There was a reported birthday party in I believe Connecticut in a town with no cases, a week later 85 cases were confirmed with nearly everyone at that party being among them.

@JoeDiddley Hey, I'm not one who's good with comfort and words, but....Man, I wish you and your family the best, and that things go as well as they can given the circumstances.

@rjejr Have you tried mindfulness techniques to help take your mind off of things? I find it can help when situations begin to overwhelm me.

Of course, if Animal Crossing is working to do that, then that's just as well.

@JoeDiddley I'm so sorry to hear about your grandfather.

@Heavyarms55 perhaps, but generally the old and infirm aren't glibly and smugly going about the town and the world armed with only "I'm fit, I'll be fine" to defend them, and are mostly wisened by their earlier follies and a better understanding of sensible thought. Not universally but mostly.

Today I watched a kid... Probably late teens, early 20s, coughing. Then spits on the lawn. Maybe mine, maybe my elderly neighbor's. If it weren't for the risk if infection I'd have had that pos drinking his remaining meals from a straw. Its not just the very young. There's the adults who keep going into some of the worst regions... The ones you're reading about... Not for work but for fun. Then act like this whole lockdown is silly and inconvenient.

The old, infirm, at risk seem the be the only ones taking it seriously here. Which is probably why it's now the #1 and will keep getting a lot worse. The ones that deserve it the least are the ones most threatened.

To be blunt I'm inside that big red blob of doom on the maps. When you're looking into the doomed zone from the inside, it's pretty clear to pick out the enemies. But bad as it is, you really don't get the nightmare scenario the economic collapse paints here. Even if everything goes to plan it'll be out of the frying pan and into the Styx.

I do find that birthday party scenario interesting. That infection rate from one person seems exceptionally high. Very exceptionally high. I wonder what else factored in.

@NEStalgia No, the old are just going around taking poison fish tank because their dear leader had a good feeling about a medicine with the same name, or holding church mass because they think Jesus will protect them from recklessly endangering themselves and others. I get that you're scared, I would be in your shoes too. But The people not taking things seriously aren't the young or the old. They are the reckless and stupid and they are drawn from all age groups.

From what the article said, people came to that party from NY, Cali and somewhere else and they think the person carrying the infection coughed in the kitchen. I wish I could find the article again but there's so much going on about the virus it's already buried down below thousands or other articles. Point is, one mistake by one person leads to massive infection. And anyone can make those mistakes.

@Heavyarms55 that implies that the pathogen was transferred by food... Something they have said repeatedly there's no evidence of. It's probably true, but it's yet more blundering at all levels with this. They've had since mid December but only started really observing in the past 4 weeks. I still find it strange that none of the leadership of the Western world thought this was a serious problem until the last few weeks despite all the examples. Either way this disaster is 100% man made. It could have been contained early, but "business as usual"was apparently with risking all business entirely.

Btw us being #1, is that of current active cases, total cumulative cases, or cases per capita? Active makes sense since some places are past peak, cases per capita would be the terrifying figure, and cumulative needs to be considered by population given that were so much bigger in population than most of the other countries outside Asia, and geographically are equivalent to most of Europe combined, smaller than only China of the affected countries. So only the per capita figure matters that much. And even if it's higher, the geographic distance from ny to la makes it like adding Italy uk together.

Edit: not that that matters much in this particular region since it's mostly here.

@NEStalgia Not necessarily by the food, but the plates, forks, or cups? Entirely possible. I've read that the virus can last days on plastic or metal and what are the two things tableware is generally made of? Especially the kind used at a party?

And per capita is a different measure for sure. Obviously Italy which isn't that far behind in numbers, has a much high per capita.

I apologize. I have a certain... dislike of America of late and I let my bias make me presumably more critical of the nation than is actually warranted in this case.

HEY I'M AMERICAN AND THAT'S a completely normal and reasonable opinion.

That was 2 people. You can hardly draw generalisations from just 2 people.

I'm fairly confident that almost no-one else will be stupid enough to think fish tank cleaner is medicine just because it contains one of the same ingredients.

Makes about as much sense as hearing that high-iron foods can be good for you, so you go and start chowing down on a metal bar.

UK's Prime Minister has just tested positive for Coronavirus

@Fritz_ Wow, he's REALLY leaning in to that "herd immunity" strategy, isn't he?

This thing is crazy infectious. I think it's pretty clear we're all going to catch it at some point. I just pray it doesn't kill my mother or my sister, both of who possess multiple risk factors to their disadvantage.

@NEStalgia The mistake you're making, is taking these percentages as totals, or so it seems, but again: the 16% death rate on that site I linked to, is ONLY relevant to the worldwide number of people that have now been recorded as recovered, so it's not a 16% total worldwide death toll, but a 16% of the total amount of people that HAVE been sick, and have gone through the entire process and are now either cured or diseased. The numbers will vary over the coming months, because like I also mentioned, that 16% is not a final number, and the number of infected in the States and in countries like India is still expected to rise by quite an amount.

On a side note: I compared the local numbers from our news coverage with the numbers for my current country of residence reported on that web site and guess what? They're the exact same numbers, so there...

I could imagine that if I'd look up the numbers for various other European countries that they would also add up/be correct, so that should already tell you enough. WHO and the other organizations may in essence not be evil corporations, but I can definitely imagine them juggling numbers and sticking to certain media protocols to contain massive outbreaks of panic and such. And maybe not all that strange either, seeing as people have already started hoarding like idiots, based on the info we've gotten so far. Just imagine what the general public would do when we really knew all that they know.

So yeah, good as their initial intentions may be, their modus operandi might not be all that transparent and I'll only ever trust governments and large corporations as far as I can throw them. Which isn't very far...

Oh, and as for those numbers that @Heavyarms55 was talking about: yup, you guys are now number one where it concerns fastest rising number of infected. That's also what was reported in the news here yesterday, in that news item about New York, which also mentioned various other places in the US.

@Heavyarms55 One thing that amazed me from the "inside" is that not all of the US is even in this house arrest mode. I'm not sure if that's nice or stupid, but I'd heard from someone out in a more "rustic" state and they actually had no idea this whole Arkham City existence was even going on here. It's mostly live as usual with some more restrictions and precautions there. Here' it's basically like Italy but without military armed with automatics marching around the streets (thus why so many people can still ignore it.)

One thing that infuriates me, though, is that they didn't figure out a way to shut down interstate travel. Yeah, they can't seal off the back roads, but sealing off the major highways with checkpoints early on (and grounding every last airplane - they did it for 9/11) would have spared a TON of this nightmare. New Yorkers should not have been leaving NY. The city should have been on true quarantine with military enforcement if necessary. Neither should LA-ans have. Interstate travel should have ground to a halt for non-commercial/supply chain purposes. Certainly Italy didn't let everyone come and go as they pleased around Europe... The fact that I, as a complete nobody without any credentials in these fields that can sit here and think of the obvious while all the experts struggle to find their own rear end with two hands and a map is terrifying.

Well an anti-american bias is understandable for many reasons, and with this in general. Clearly they blew it, catastrophically. Here in the East, until a week before we went into lockdown this disease didn't even exist. We'd heard of it as a China thing in December. We heard of bits and pieces here and there. We knew CA/WA were affected, but it made sense with all the Asia travel there. It otherwise didn't exist. Then suddenly one week you heard a few people mention it, mostly making jokes about people over-stockpiling canned goods in case of a disaster that's not going to happen. Losers. Then the next week everything was shut down.

To tell you how sudden it was, the Friday before was totally normal. TP was on sale. I bought one, considered another because it was a good price, but decided not to. Debated going out and buying more on Saturday for the sale when I thought I needed something for dinner I ended up finding anyway. Shelves were 100% full. Shopping was 100% normal. By Monday the shelves were bare and all business was closed. Nobody even considered any serious problem existed anywhere before that. It was literally in one day everything fell apart and went form "some Asia/CA problem" to "we're doomed, empty the shelves!" Apparently infected cases worried nobody. One person was announced dead and the entire quarter of the country panicked and emptied every store around. I guess that Sunday must have been the run?

That's indeed a colossal failure in leadership, though not just American leadership. Where was WHO? It's clear none of them had any idea what they were even dealing with. They just took their guidance from China until mid-Jan, but what were they doing from Jan-Mar? It's clear they still didn't know what they were looking at until the past 2 weeks. They got so used to "non issue" diseases they overhype in general they just assumed this was that. They're still sending mixed messages about if it is or isn't.

I have a former friend, seemed like a reasonable guy , that inexplicably went into politics....is a current sitting state level congress member in another state. He's on the far, far, far, left (which is weird because he was never political or politically leftist before he was running for office...) For some reason I got on his political mailing list despite being far, far away from his state, because he had my email, and the absurd, ridiculous things I see come through normally are baffling and unnerving, but it's also clarifying for me just how much of the information we're getting about the disease is also political party posturing and drawing "mindshare" toward one party or another. This is the 21st century. Even plauges can be politicized for your own gain. So it also makes it hard to cut through the noise. Which warning is because we're in immediate danger, and which warning is a particular politician or party trying to look like they're "doing something to save the people!"

You have the ones saying everyone's going to get it, you have the one's saying "we'd rather overreact and go overboard to be safe", you have the ones as Jax mentioned that already have the wheels churning for how to use this as an opportunity to push more government control, and push more wealth to the top through overwhelming mandates and legislation at a vulnerable public, not a problem - an opportunity! And then you have the faction that's talking about the economic disaster - and instead of comparing the real prognosis for the virus spread and impact against the harm that's going to do (which, make no mistake, is also a medical crisis of a different angle) everyone shouts the message down because it's associated, now, with particular politicians or parties they don't like.

@Ralizah The numbers I keep hearing are that 100% will get it. 70% in the first wave, and the remaining 30% in future waves, however I don't know exactly where those numbers came from and if they are an official estimate of any sort or if it was from some interview or if it's internet wisdom. The fact that officials keep repeating it means nothing as they repeat what sounds useful, not necessarily what's accurate.

Thanks everyone for their kind comments. My Grandad held on yesterday but he’s at peace now.

My mother was also admitted for tests due to breathing complications last night, so she couldn’t be with him at the end.

@ThanosReXXX 16% of a disease that's expected to infect 100% of the population means 16% of the entire population gone, or thereabouts if that number holds or doesn't. Again, if that is a REALISTIC way to use that data, which we can not verify (again, how many cases are NOT documented and will not be documented? Probably the majority of them - which might be the basis for not using that number), then you're looking at 1.2 billion gone. No disease, war, or disaster has ever wiped out 1.2 billion. But that's because the world has never had 8 billion people. The really sad thing that really speaks to how overpopulated the world is: Do you know what the world will look like if 1.2 billion people die? 2011. It rolls back the population a mere 9 years. As a group (not missing individuals you know) you won't even notice they're gone. As a raw number it sounds tremendously awful. As a cold calculation it's barely significant. In a sense the disease is the least of our worries. After it, even if we assume 1.2 billion dead, we're going to head into the second great depression in an era of automation and human uselessness and within a few years be right back at the same population level (since it's the old, non-reproductive part of the population this disproportionately affects) and then a much larger population after that, ripe for the next plague, which will almost assuredly have greater than 16% rates in a world far less able to deal with it.

@JoeDiddley Christ. Hang in there, buddy. I'm so sorry you have to go through this.

@NEStalgia It'll be virtually impossible to avoid long-term if only because of the huge number of mild and asymptomatic cases.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-cas...

https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus-mass-testing-experiment-...

The only way to erase this from a community is by testing EVERYONE, and then quarantining them. That's it. EVERYONE has to be tested, because at least half of the people who have it aren't even going to know they're carriers.

But that's not going to happen worldwide. Certainly not in the States.

The good news, at least, is that if we had a full picture of the disease's spread, that mortality rate would like plummet to 1% or so. Figure the official numbers are off by more than double. So that'd probably be more than a million cases worldwide.

@Heavyarms55 I'm not offended. Clearly, there have been parts of the US population that didn't take the virus threat seriously. It's definitely disappointing. And now potentially deadly. I won't say more, because this is a game site. I am very jealous of Japan's cultural sense of respect & responsibility - it's amazing.

@JoeDiddley Hopefully it was at least a peaceful end?

@Ralizah That's interesting, and does concur with other things I've heard prior. That's what's so weird about this disease and why it's so successful. It can either be massively dangerous, or it can be a complete non-issue, better than the average cold, and we don't know if that difference is purely random in infection or if there are guiding factors. For all we know all of us here could already "have it" and will never sneeze once from it.

Here's an interesting question that I'm not clear on from that article: Do the asymptomatic cases eventually burn out the disease by immunity like symptomatic recoveries, or do they remain carriers permanently? The former implies "novel" isn't very "novel" and some humans DO indeed have a partial immunity/resistance to it - at least insofar as not developing a full autoimmune reaction and still being able to reject it. The latter implies a nasty scenario that human virus aerosols will exist indefinitely and nothing will stop it's permanent presence.

Mass testing, I can't see it happening anywhere in its current form. As long as it's a very invasive procedure it requires special care and a lot of problem carrying out. If they could develop a simple test...a saliva test or the like somehow I could see the ability to carry out nearly-universal testing becoming possible. Since it's present in saliva, of course, that shouldn't be impossible to develop. The problem is somehow stabilizing reagents in a dry from - and getting enough of them...there's a shortage of reagent. Right now it's a nasty mess of a swab shoved through the nose practically into the brain and a half dozen spins on a centrifuge. No way that hap pens universally.

@Woomy_NNYes There's still a ridiculous amount of population not taking it seriously. It's surreal. I knew these folks were arrogant, obnoxious, and self-entitled, but I never thought it went as far as a genuine belief in their own invincibility even in the face of direct danger. No wonder they think they're better than everyone else....they've already deified themselves!

@NEStalgia So little is known about this disease right now. We're not even sure if "recovered" people are entirely developing an immunity to it or not. There has been data suggesting it infiltrates the nervous system
( https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/26/82158295... ; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32104915), that it hits people with certain blood types harder than others (including mine... yayy....), and deleted Chinese reports that it could damage male fertility.

But yeah, there's a non-minimal possibility that any of us who are basically feeling fine could have it. Nobody seems to know why symptoms and severity differ like they do.

It's... a total mess.

I caught this on NHK World yesterday. Computer models illustrate how micro droplets from a cough linger in the air. I pasted the video so it will play right at the computer modeling illustrations. It's pretty informative. I couldn't find the english audio version on youtube, but the closed captions are in english.