Topic: Coronavirus outbreak

The army here to help

@status-204 I dunno, your point seemed to be that naming viruses after their place of origin is standard practice, when two of your three examples don’t follow this pattern.

The misnaming of the ‘Spanish flu’ only provides a historical precedent for the sorts of silly squabbles that can arise when you insist on using nation-based nomenclature. Because no one wants their entire country associated with a pandemic-inducing virus, especially if it originated in a corner of the country nowhere near you. People are bound to recoil from being implicated in the naming of a virus, and compelled push the responsibility onto somewhere else, which is how the ‘Spanish flu’ ended up being mislabelled as such in the first place. History lost to propaganda and we can already see this process in action again.

Furthermore, the only example you cited which does follow the pattern of accurately stating its point of origin (MERS) doesn’t name a country but the entire region of the Middle East, which is less likely to get tied up with nationalism because the Middle East is not a nation.

If this virus goes down in history as the ‘Wuhan virus’, I don’t think it’ll be the worst thing in the world. It’s at least specific enough to be somewhat useful. But calling it the ‘Chinese virus’ is unhelpful because, A) it implicates not only the entire nation of China but potentially also all people of Chinese decent, and B) it’s not the first and won’t be the last virus from China so fails the basic naming test of being able uniquely identifiable.

I’m not defending China in this, obviously. It is a totalitarian surveillance state whose government is responsible for more indefensible actions than we’ll probably ever know. But bad nomenclature is bad nomenclature, and if gone unchecked can enter into the history books just as the ‘Spanish’ flu did over 100 years ago.

Hanta Virus
Lyme disease
West Nile Virus
Zika
swine flu

Doesn’t matter. Shouldn’t matter. Disease is disease.

Leave the naming conventions to epidemiology, I say.

I hope no one else gets the coronavirus. As one of the unlucky people to have actually had the coronavirus I can tell you it sucks. I can tell how some people may think their going to die. I spent 7 days with a fever ranging from 101 to 103 fahrenheit. I also had cold sweats constantly and could barely breathe do to stuff in my lungs and had body aches(felt like my whole body was bruised). I must say the scariest thing was not being able to breath. After 7 days I spent another 3 days with a mild fever and coughing up the nastiest looking black & brown film from my lungs. Long story short i wouldn't wish the coronavirus on my worst enemy and hope everyone stays healthy.

@1UP_MARIO Wild. Thanks for the army convoy photo. Also, the leaves are budding there, so I'm jealous. You're a few weeks ahead of southeast pennsylvania, US

They’re gonna shoot the heck out of that virus.

@Eel Certainly seems a tad more extreme than standard flu shots.

Doing things the AMURICAN way!

Okay I check the global numbers yesterday and I checked again today and it jumped by like 20k. I'd like to hope this means testing is more widespread - not that the virus is still somehow spreading faster.

A couple days ago I was wondering if it would hit 200k by Friday or Saturday but that ship has sailed.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

@Heavyarms55 The huge jump in numbers in places like New York (confirmed cases jumped by 1000 in one night, lol) is likely indicative of more widespread testing, but the virus obviously will be spreading faster in areas that aren't on top of things (that's how exponential growth works). S. Korea shows us that it's possible to slow its spread pretty dramatically with widespread testing and tracking of confirmed cases (along with sufficient containment methods), but most countries aren't built to respond like that.

The U.S. is going to pay dearly for messing up so badly with the testing for weeks like we have.

@CurryPowderKeg79 Terrifying. Sorry you had to go through that. I hope you're feeling better.

@Ralizah South Korea, to be fair, is a much smaller country than the US both in terms of population and just size in general. So while they did seem to react better than the US - it's also a lot easier for them to react. In this era of digital everything where we can talk in real time to anyone, anywhere in the world, it can be easy to forget just how big things really are.

I agree with this paragraph 100%. The political blame game here in the US is getting old; it's like a never-ending tennis match. A primary reason I don't have cable and get all my news online from various (and if possible, non-biased) sources is because I'm sick of the subtle twisting of bias into news coverage, political pandering, and, of course, the near-constant Q&A and opinion/analysis panels. Give me the straight news. Don't add your own twist to it. Stop feeding and taking advantage of people's misery and uncertainty by trying to win political points, clicks, and views. I find it sickening, especially in a massive situation like this.

I also agree on the fact that the virus only cares that we're human. It doesn't pay attention to nationality, ethnic origin, beliefs, ideals, political leanings, favorite football teams, etc. Everyone should be focusing on a solution together, not placing blame and avoiding those who appear a certain way or cough offhand.

@Tyranexx "Give me the straight news. Don't add your own twist to it. Stop feeding and taking advantage of people's misery and uncertainty by trying to win political points, clicks, and views. I find it sickening, especially in a massive situation like this."

The modern mainstream news is a for profit industry that makes their money doing everything you are asking them not to. The old-school idea of honest journalism is largely dead. They are in it to make a profit because that's what corporations do. And two things the mainstream media loves are

1. Political drama
2. Natural or man-made disaster

It's not that they are some evil group cackling manically in their basements and plotting evil things. They are scavengers and opportunists. The drama and fear is what makes them the most money so that's what they do. And throwing in that political slant to everything just help ingratiate them to the people who see politics like some kind of sport where you pick a team and root for your team.

This is what happens in our system. I'm not gonna try debating the merits and demerits of capitalism in this thread - but the fact is that if there is money to be made doing something - people are going to do it. That's as certain as the sun coming up tomorrow.

@gcunit I get what you are saying here, and I also hate how it seems like everyone is pointing fingers at him solely. It’s a classic media misdirection tactic. Who can we blame for this?

I think the main concern is obviously getting those who feel symptoms tested and the treatment they need, regardless of insurance. This is really the only solution at this point and it’s good that has been given the “go ahead”.

Nonetheless it may be time after this blows over, to consider how the medical system can work better for everyone. Regardless of what anyone says, times of crisis expose what a country’s real priorities are. It was saddening to see how much bartering and pleading it took to get just a sensible emergency measure passed. That’s bigger than Trump, that’s a reflection of something greater and should have resonance on policy later.

Notice there's a pattern that the majority of bad diseases that didn't originate in Africa originate in China? The naming is fair enough. But more to the point yes, China deserves a lot of blame. WHO deserves a lot of blame carrying Chinas water. And the whole world deserves a lot of blame for a whole variety things including permitting travel to and from affected areas at all. China should have been quarantined globally in December. Other affected countries should have been in January. The idea of "oh there's an epidemic in location X, we'll just fly to and from there anyway and hope everything goes fine" is the problem.

Disease pops up, location is cut off from the world. PERIOD. Anything not deemed essential and submitting to arrival and departure quarantines for weeks gets shot down. PERIOD. It should have been that way from the BEGINNING of international flight. It already was that way for a long period of ocean travel, and ocean wasn't nearly as destructive due to voyage times. Staten Island was built as a quarantine and processing center before inflicting arrivals on the populace. We abandoned that in the flight age. The ocean voyage itself was a form of quarantine. We lost that in the flight age (and even that wasn't perfect.) We need to either reshape the entire concept of how international fight/travel is handled, or we need to burn international travel to the ground and build hospitals where it once stood. It was insane before, it's more insane now. And yeah, I know @NotTelevision would be stranded there, or quarantined upon return no matter what with such a system. But it has to become accepted that that's the cost of travel. That's a necessity of such "rapid access" to lots of places and a risk one has to accept when travelling so that one person travelling doesn't risk everyone else and an entire economy and countless industries. It was NEVER a good idea, and this highlights why in stark view. Death toll aside, we're probabably headed for the second great depression, countless lives of uninfected ruined, a secondary death toll via other means including what I guess will be a suicide, substance addiction, spike due to said ruined lives over what would span a decade plus, because a handful of people somewhere in the world decided they felt like traveling somewhere, or wanted to attend a conference somewhere, or visit a customer somewhere for maximum business expediency, and leaders worldwide didn't have the guts to say "you know, I think that process should be pretty difficult due to the risks." If the world weren't pretty isolated, Black Death would have wiped out the species. If this thing were like Black Death, we'd all probably be dead already. The handling of people moving between geographically unconnected places needs to change, needs to change radically, and needs to change immediately.

@NEStalgia
And one more thing.
Our future is NOT dictated by a Script that written by the Creator.
There is NO such thing of Revelation.
If the timeline of past and future like a tape roll, the Creator might be have created our fates like a Pre-Recorded video. Whatever happened is like already decided by them and as they wanted, we are puppets with have no power to complain. The Creator wants a drama about Corona virus, they already plan and just wait the chaos happened and it will be a very exciting drama for them to be watched.
I don't even think our universe has been controlled like that.
We can defy the Creator. (Cue FF XIII Lightning Returns)

What on Earth are you babbling about?! Is this your weird way of telling us you are not religious? Or is it something else?

Hmm... So I was pretty psyched when Manhunt 2 came out for Wii. Sure, it’s an overly violent and graphic game, but I thought it was a neat way to show that there weren’t just cute and cuddly games on Wii. I mean, in Cooking Mama, you didn’t have the ability to use motion controls to put a plastic bag over a guard’s head and shake it to suffocate them to death. In Elebits, you couldn’t jab your wiimote forward repeatedly to shank someone in the stomach with a shard of glass. Blood splattered everywhere! My favorite was the garrote wire! While it wasn’t unique, and was also featured in The Godfather: The Game, you definitely couldn’t play Mario Galaxy and sneak up on Toad in order to move both your nunchuck and wiimote up and over his head, then rip them back tightly. The vibration would slowly die off as you freed the last air from their mouth.

Anyway. Glad you’re on the mend now, Curry!!

@Zuljaras I have no idea either 😂.