Topic: Coronavirus outbreak

@JaxonH Please get well soon!

Of course it's making it's move. It was never in the shadows, it was just downplayed for economics. It never ended, and then the idiot orthodoxy decided to encourage mass gatherings and between that and public resistance to sanity they just decided to pretend it's all over and hope for the best. We went back to March without limits. This result was obvious and we've been saying that here all along while society wants to plug along and McGoo through it. And it's people like you who didn't take risks and respected the problem that always has to pay for others selfishness

After this brings us back to and past peak well have to go back to lockdown until 2021 at the earliest and watch any business smaller than best buy vanish. But let's open theme parks and theaters and airlines! 3 weeks of business is worth 4 months of lockdown!

I hear italy is doing quite well now.... People there didn't make a display of pride out of maximizing risk.

I'm guessing if you got symptoms around the time your coworker was diagnosed you didn't actually get it from him. You probably both got it earlier from someone else in common (possibly someone asymptomatic). It might be more rampant in there than you realize yet...

@JaxonH Get well champ. But if the worst happens, I want you to remember that I've always admired you... and would take great care of your game collection 😜

I just want to point out how, because of a "surge" of about one hundred cases in a day, Tokyo is putting stricter rules back in place. But in the US, politicians and media figures are still claiming it's a non-issue or that people shouldn't have to wear masks... It's like such a stark contrast. While I don't for a second believe the numbers in Japan are as low as have been reported/confirmed, If Japan had double its confirmed number, that would be a single day in the US right now.

@JaxonH Dude, are you holding up alright? You got it? Are you asymptomatic?

Had to take a week off from work because a co-worker test positive. Thankfully, my test results came back negative.

@gcunit
😂

@Heavyarms55
Idk. I posted a timeline of my symptoms above somewhere to NES. I could notice symptoms but it hasn’t been that bad. Really, it’s been mild so far. I woke up this morning feeling better, almost normal I’d say, except the slight runny nose and ever so slight feeling of being off. I’m starting to wonder if by the grace of God I just got one of those super mild cases that doesn’t really manifest much. But I don’t want to jump the gun because when I’m reading accounts from others this is how a lot of them start out too. A lot of them say it started out really mild to the point they just brushed it off as nothing, like, they thought they were imagining things. But by day 8 things start getting worse. So I don’t want to start running victory laps yet. Barely 48 hrs have passed since first symptoms were noticed.

@NEStalgia
The timeline is more: he likely contracted it last week Monday/Tuesday, got tested that Saturday due to symptoms, I had come in contact with him all last week Wed, Thur and Fri, and started having first slight symptoms the following Monday night falling asleep. I don’t leave the lab and we’re always wearing masks, so it’s unlikely it was from someone else. He has it and 5 days after I was around him, symptoms show up. And because I’m his supervisor I had to help him use the optical comparator to make some measurements and show him how to do some other things because he’s still relatively new. I suspect that’s when it happened. But who knows.

@JaxonH That does seem likely, although in both cases the development of symptoms is well ahead of average. Not unheard of at all, but definitely accelerated. Who knows what if anything that means beyond the alignment of Phobos and Pluto.

Scary though how easy it is to spread yet most of the country treats it as a non-issue entirely now. Wishing it gone is as good as the real thing. Hopefully you're getting off easy, but I agree, it's much to early to write it off..... Wouldn't be unheard of though.

@HeavyArms55 And in the US people are becoming hostile AGAINST people wearing masks. Showing aggression and intentionally "invading their space" etc. I'm not even sure it's right/left political now. It's those that wish diseases don't exist and therefore they don't versus anyone else. Anyone reminding them it's not just back to normal is their enemy that must be brought to conformity of ignoring it! Plus an odd militaristic view, like one post in an NL coment thread the other day quoting T.R. about freedom over safety and "I'm doing my duty" etc. Doing your duty by becoming sars-cov2's b***h and breeding with it? (Sorry Jax, you now have that image in your head.... ) You don't kill a disease by showing solidarity and facing off against it despite the danger, you kill it by retreating and starving it of reproductive partners....by keeping humans hosting it from other humans. How is this at all difficult to understand? Do they think virus babies are delivered by storks?

@NEStalgia
I don’t think there’s that many people acting that way. Media have a habit of cherry picking the needle in the haystack and then showing it all over national TV to make you think that’s how it is all over.

Obviously you can find people out there who believe just about anything, but I would caution against believing everything shown on TV is “the norm”. I think the biggest issue is complacency and thinking the worst is over, thinking it won’t happen to you. That’s common. I haven’t seen anyone hostile against people wearing masks. I’m sure somewhere in some pocket of the internet or country you’ll find people like that, but I wouldn’t get all worked up over that as if they represent anything more than a small anomaly. There are people that believe we should have the right to go back to work, but that’s not the same thing as being hostile to people wearing masks.

@JaxonH Nah, that's not the media. The media's the one encouraging that behavior to exist. Unfortunately that's what I see and anecdotally hear from real-world people. Maybe not in your neck of the woods (and yet you still ended up with it) - but here in the northeast where the worst started, the general attitude was that the problem would be fixed in 2-4 weeks and then it would be back to normal. We don't do patient here. "Fix it now, I'll spend more money, tell me when it's done and it better be today, I'm booked tomorrow!" And when it wasn't done in that time, people just wanted to assume it was back to normal and started ignoring the lockdowns even while they were in place. Once that amount of people hit critical mass that's when they just started re-opening everything too early....not doing so would have required martial law just to keep compliance. Businesses wanted to open. The market wanted to open. The public wanted to open. No use fighting everyone. The public, not the officials, decided safety was overrated and the risk was worth it. The officials just went along with it and said "ok" rather than rolling out the national guard to force people home at the end of a 30mm.

You're right on complacency....but the complacency started 2.5 months ago up here and then became aggressively defiant complacency 2 months ago.

Heck, I've yet to see a single person wearing a mask, anywhere, in my admittedly limited travels, except where required to enter a structure. And I've heard parties and gatherings going on often in the area even during the real lockdowns. The public has not been taking it seriously, really, from the start. Or at least a sufficient portion of the public to build a real disaster. And this is solid "blue" territory. So it's not just "oh those Trump people." It's the public....at least regionally. In one of the densest regions. A lot of that no doubt stems from heavily mixed messages from agenda-driven media on all "sides."

Again, Europe was only preceding us by maybe a month, and look at their trajectory versus ours. That's more than policy...that's public behavior affecting that.

@NEStalgia I think you're overestimating the will of the people over here. If they hadn't enforced the lock down, much of Europe would be in a similar situation as the US is now. Ironically, Sweden was the only (or one of the few) European country with no official lock down, and look where they are now (image below). Leaving it up to the people is just a perfect recipe for disaster. Because individuals ultimately are selfish. And that makes perfectly sense from a biological perspective. A lock down is something you need to enforce, otherwise it won't succeed. It doesn't work if only a fraction of the population takes measures. It's something that needs to happen for long enough, all across the country. A half-baked lock down is pointless.

I do think that it was more difficult in the US, because individual states could decide what to do, and there were no national measures implemented AFAIK. I don't even know if that's possible in the US. So that's definitely a hurdle. If only some states go in lock down, it won't make a difference. Of course, it also didn't help that there wasn't enough funding to keep the small business supported throughout a long-term lock down. And I hope they start looking at that, because it ever happens again, they can be better prepared. Here in the Netherlands, small businesses were supported, and I don't think too many went under. At least, anecdotally speaking, I haven't seen any of the bars of restaurants I frequently visit gone under because of the lock down. And we had a two months of lock down (it wasn't even a proper lock down, but it was enough apparently). Starting yesterday things have opened up a lot more, gatheringw of up to 250 people are allowed. Masks are still mandatory in public transport, and the 1.5 metre distance is still encouraged, as is working from home. But restaurants and bars are back open since last month.

Source: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019-...

@NEStalgia I don't intend to get political, but in your repeated assertions that it's the public's lack of restraint that has put the US in its current position, you completely omitted the fact that the POTUS tried to brush off the whole thing for days/weeks. I don't know how much attention the American public actually pays Trump, but in a situation like this a lot of people are going to follow the lead of the authorities, and it is absolutely no surprise that the US public acts like it's no big deal when the POTUS completely misreads the situation and quite blatantly has tried to prioritise the economy and the American bravado to support his election chances.

America's apparent ****-up is HIS ****-up.

@Octane Very true. And here I was furious at state level leadership that basically made lockdown a "strong recommendation" and not only permitted interstate travel in and out, but more or less encouraged it. THey didn't enforce it overall. A few states did, but it was the exception, not the rule.

Anything is possible, legally, but to have political backing it needs public backing, and nother other than "I just want to go do all my plans" had any backing, either on a business level or an entertainment level. The public truly never accepted their lives had to change at all, which is the root of the problem. And the political leaders didn't have the will to look bad and actually enforce it against the public's will. And it didn't help having a president goading on all who would resist. And I should clarify (for the billionth time but it's always essential) that before this I wasn't anti-current-preseident. I agreed in some places, disagreed in some, was generally neutral-positive despite the hate and hysteria. But this sure pivoted that opinion into the gutter through pure reckless deconstructionism.

The states never should have been allowed to decide themselves and a federal requirement should have been made. Italy warned us of that very early. We didn't listen. That would have been possible. States could have chosen to close their borders once declaring states of emergency. Very few did. And even fewer of the ones that did chose to enforce it. Restaurants and bars and gatherings of up to 500+ outdoors are allowed here now. Same as there. Except 20% of the population brings COVID to the room here resulting in 100% within months if they down shut it all back to full lockdown again soon (I can envision that will be essential. They're trying to squeeze the summer travel business money out.)

"Schools opening in Fall" is ridiculous. I can't see how that actually occurs at all. That's basically like using crop dusters to spray every city and town with c19.

@gcunit I agree, definitely, and mentioned that in my comment to Octane above as well (and have mentioned it before.) That plays into past conversation with it being along party lines. Early on Republican/Trump supporters followed his lead of "it's a hoax" and ignoring it. Democrats/anti-trump people were embracing "safety." They never listened to him anyway, and we're so polarized and split, politically and culturally here, if you back him, EVERYTHING he says is 100% right. And if you are against him, EVERYTHING he says is 100% wrong. So imagine the result for COVID with an environment like that? The idea that he's right on some things but wrong on COVID....or the idea that he's wrong on most things but right on COVID would never occur to most of the population. He's either always wrong or always right - never anything else.

He definitely hurt the situation (and again I say that as a neutral-positive opinion prior to COVID, not the strong anti-crowd or pro-crowd either way) heavily, but he's not solely to blame by any stretch. The public mindset is....and in a way proved that he DOES always have a pulse on the nation even if just what popular underlying thinking is to win favor. Much of that early thing was show. Once protests broke loose, it became clear that leaders of all parties and levels prioritized economy above safety and sensibility, and also that the public prioritized economy and recreation above saftey and sensibility.

Ultimately what we found out is once you strip away the pro/anti-Trump theatrics.......most of the country and most of the country's leaders, regardless of political affiliation, ultimately DO agree with his COVID stance: It's a hoax, go make money, show no fear! That crosses the aisle...it's the overall sentiment even to those that loathe him and won't admit that.

I think in that sense a lot of criticism that we "have" Trump is misdirected. A more accurate view may be that we are Trump and he accurately represents the thinking of the country after all. I'm starting to wonder if most of the strong rejection of him from one half is more that they don't like being made to look into the mirror and seeing what it shows them and deny that it's really their reflection....much like COVID.

@NEStalgia
we're so polarized and split, politically and culturally here, if you back him, EVERYTHING he says is 100% right. And if you are against him, EVERYTHING he says is 100% wrong

This is so on point. Everyone has this “hate and attack everything he says and does” (which is being led full force by the media) or “love and defend everything he says and does”. Very few critically think for themselves anymore without being led astray by propaganda machines whose sole purpose is to demonize or defend. Instead of fairly and objectively commending things done right, and rationally criticizing what’s not. It’s become like sports teams, or console fanboyism even. Guess that’s just human nature since we see it in everything.

Seeing people seething and foaming out of the mouth in hatred toward him and witnessing a constant onslaught of slander by the media, My natural response is... empathy, actually. It makes me, despite him not being my pick, actually want to support him, but it feels like it’s not so much as a vote for him but as a vote against the hatred and the slander. I don’t like everything about him and I think he says some ridiculous things off the cuff that are cringe. I think he’s a self-driven populist who’s incredibly insecure and has a desire to be loved (which... not trying to bash him, I think some of that is good qualities too, self-driven is why he has succeeded so much in his endeavors, and being a populist means keeping the public’s will front and center) but, it is what it is. It’s not the end of the world if he has some flaws. He was definitely wrong to hand waive the virus right away. Without question. On the flipside, he soon after stopped air travel and everyone then started writing articles about how he’s “taking it too far”. He mentions being optimistic about hydroxychloroquine and they slam him with ridicule. Then it turns out it’s actually working so... ya. This is why people are tired of the media. No matter what the guy does it’s always wrong. When he’s wrong he’s wrong and when he’s right, he’s still wrong. And that becomes kind of like the boy who cried wolf, which is unfortunate, because then the real criticisms get dismissed, and supporters then go overboard by the exact opposite- believing he can do no wrong. Everything is the right call. Never question or think for yourself... I just wish people would stop buying into this divisiveness. If people actually stopped and talked to people on the “other side” I think they would find they have far more in common than not. I just want to see people be decent to each other and have real conversations. That’s becoming more rare by the day.

@JaxonH God bless, I hope things stay mild. Stay safe dude. Sorry, I wish there were something better I could think to say.

@Heavyarms55
Thanks 😊

Honestly I feel great today. Aside from a brief episode of wanting to cough, I’d say I feel normal. The fatigue and general feeling of ickiness over the last couple days was gone this morning when I woke up. This whole thing has been incredibly mild. Like, I can detect symptoms, over half on the list, but they’ve all been so mild and temporary, come-and-go. It’s crazy. I did jump on it immediately with zinc lozenges. And prayed fervently. Maybe already being a mild case, plus that on top of it, really diminished its impact.

Up through yesterday I was stricken with fear every time a symptom crept up. Now I’m starting to feel relief, like this thing is barely grazing me.

@JaxonH I had a whole reply typed up, stopped to get done work done, and my edit box was empty....sigh.

Anyway, I agree 100% with all points and feel similarly. That was a great summary. It didn't really start with this last administration. That mindset has been growing (been manufactured?) For at least the past 20 years, and that's if you exclude the Soviet meddling in the 40s through 60s. But it's reached a crystallization now of pure religious level sectarianism based... Not even in shared ideology..... Just shared hate of whomever is pointed at all "the other guys". In this case though, I do think he has been made the permanent bogeymen specifically because he isn't part of their little bought and sold cult of the ruling elite that has a plan for how the world will work (a bit like the HRE).. He's a loose cannon which is a threat to them they want to be rid of..... But it's a double edged sword with some reality. With covid that lose cannon thinking became a crisis.

But as you pointed out, what end is really up can be hard to tell. He blocked flights from China in January... Best move in the world . He was lambasted... It must be wrong... Not out dear, dear friends in china! He should have blocked all international flight... But they'd never have let him anyway. We'd not be here if that happened. Then, weeks or months to late he finally blocked Europe and at you say, they inexplicably blasted him. And now we know that's where we got it from primarily. If every smart step is offensive and every stupid step is ridiculed, what other option is there but bald defiance, i suppose?

Still...F-... Can we give a G+? for the handling of this.

I just wanted to step in and say that if I could upvote posts on the forums, these would get points (as well as some later points I'm neglecting to quote) I personally try to get my news from multiple angles (as few if any sources are fully unbiased) and do try to fact check.

Anyway, @JaxonH COVID or not, I hope you get to feeling better soon!