Topic: Coronavirus outbreak

I feel like some news people are being a bit cavalier saying the curve is starting to "flatten" in places. Progress is great, but without testing or a vaccine, we've still got to keep isoloating. I'm having doubts kids can even go back to school in the fall (here in the US).

I guess I'm venting because there's still a long road ahead.

As a bike friend would say, "this s**t's gnar" : P

@Cotillion well, Canada got an insanely late start but it sounds like you're at least doing the isolating right unlike us......

Though i can't imagine that working well here. The sheer number if people that pack into these stores in a regular basis is insane, and that's in a place where people eat at least half their meals out..... Now the grocery demand is tripled, and with product limits that means more frequent trips. Queuing like that would mean 9 hour grocery shopping, or worse, waiting 9 hours and not getting in that day. Like 1930s bread lines' evil twin.

@Heavyarms55 If you bail water from the Titanic really fast you'll see measurable progress. You're still going to drown pretty soon though.

Yes, the curves are flattening slightly in most of the worst states. But it's a hollow victory as peak is still 10 - 35 days away depending on where you are in the region. The curve is "flatter" in that cases are doubling every 3 days rather than daily, but that still means every 3 days are twice as many infected. Better than daily, but still a nightmare getting worse and worse rather than better. Just getting worse at a less sharp rate of change.

But that's where my problem comes in with the pretend lockdown. Yes it's "working", but not well if just cutting how many hours it takes to double. Weeks into the lockdown that means all the current cases were infected after the lockdowns. So it's not working very well. Sure essential workers are exposed, but the only common point of community spread that exists, outside the joyriders end essential workers, of which there's plenty, is the grocery stores. If everyone weren't grocery shopping and instead had exterior pickup, I wonder where that curve would be today... Not eliminating that link that still ties everyone to communal space is the critical folly here. And it's an easy one to solve. We can put a man on the moon, we can build space stations, we can print 1k checks to 300m people, and we may or may not be able to producea vaccine against the virus, but we still can't figure out how to gather and bag someone's groceries. Even Bezos suddenly forgets logistics when he can't find minimum wage suckers to walk into a hot zone. No need to nationalize grocery. National guard, peace corps, actual military easily could have been utilized in the homeland to simply bag some orders and walk them outside for a month or two to keep things safe and moving. Considering most spreading, and getting the disease don't even know they have it, imagine how it's spreading in that common environment. The doubling is coming from somewhere while locked down and where else are the bulk of the population sharing space?

You guys want an example of how full on stupid people are getting over this whole mess? I went to a mcdonalds today with my dad and we got yelled at by one of the employees for not standing apart on those X's they put all over the floor. A lady actually shouted at us like we're some six year old! My dad got pretty annoyed by this and told the girl WE LIVE IN THE SAME DAMN HOUSE! I guess he's getting pretty disgusted with all this as am i. Heck on the car ride over there we couldn't possibly have been six feet apart so what good would it do to space ourselves apart in the restaurant?

Anyway we got our food and got the hell outta there but after that i doubt we'll be going back.
Oh and before you say why not stay home and eat well funny thing about that our fridge recently crapped out and we can't buy another one because you know the apocalypse and no stores open and all that.

I noticed something else too. Some restaurants aren't as hardcore about it as others. Pizza hut, Wendy's and even burger king don't have X's or sneeze guards all over but mcdonalds does. Other restaurants won't let you in period not even for takeout. What's up with that? If we're gonna be so paranoid how bout a little consistency? I just want this nonsense to end so we can get back to normal. 😒

@NEStalgia So essentially what you're saying is that you believe things are still screwed and the worst is still yet to come? It's just going to take a little longer?

@Zeldafan79 Honestly better that than the people going around spreading the #emptyhospitals conspiracy and claiming, still claiming, this is all a hoax. They are actually claiming things like western media and China conspiring to bring down America and other such things. THAT is what I consider stupid. The whole idea of things like that baffle me - because if a group had that much power and influence, I would argue that said group already effectively controls the world and I don't see what they have to gain from doing this sort of thing.

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/taiwan-who-coronaviru...

Man reading this article is pretty fun :V If only some nations listened to Taiwan maybe things won't be as severe

I couldn't think straight until I made these pictures

Remember ladies and gentlemen; don't eat bats (or batmen).

@Heavyarms55 Pretty much exactly that. By their own projections the worst is definitely yet to come - they're at least open and honest about that. They're currently working on bracing the medical world for the incoming surge. For NY I think they expect that in the next 10 days for a week or so (the absolute hospital peak). In surrounding region it's I think sometime between then and mid-May they expect it (it expands from the epicenter, so when it's starting to get somewhat better in NYC, surrounding area will just be catching up and getting worse and worse for a while still.) The hope is, after that numbers will recede somewhat....but receding from the peak that's yet to come. Meaning "progress" will mean returning to where we are today, which will seem comparatively better. Remember, the numbers are still doubling regularly....just slower to double than it was. But double every 3 days still means, I'm not the logarithm expert, but that comes out to what roughly 6x per week? - we're months away from receding numbers, and probably many months from receding back to March, and even that isn't "return to life" levels of cases.

That would be fine if it were a manageable problem. If the infections got out of hand in Feb, and we started reigning it in in Mar, and just are playing the wait and catch up game. But if numbers are still doubling, that means the lockdown isn't actually halting spread. Tens of millions of jobs gone (6M was only the initial shock), lives ruined, just to slow it down a month or two. Slowing the water intake doesn't stop the Titanic from sinking - it needs to be stopped and reversed. If infections are still doubling, that means people are getting it somewhere. If the lockdown were effecitve, they wouldn't be. The people that got it before lockdown already should have run the course. Essential workers in harms way account for part of it. But not numbers on that scale. Even if we assumed half the total population were already carriers before the lockdown, that means they're still transmitting it during the lockdown. How and where are they transmitting it? Grocery is the only common link between all lockdown populations, and was an easy, obvious deduction before actually taking any measurements. If we assume up to half the infected are carriers, you can assume there's almost always someone infected in the stores at least once a day. That's a lot of spread in the middle of a "lockdown." And with limited supplies, "self quarantine" is a hilarious joke. If you're not the people with the 1000 sq ft refrigerator that stockpiled food a month ago, and you think you have it....you're just going to go out and infect people....there's really not much choice in it. And since you probably got it from someone else doing the same, it's a viscious loop.

There's one other possibility: I saw that they think some lions and tigers in the Central Park Zoo have it. If it can jump from human to feline, could cats, or even dogs be carriers? How about bovine and poultry? Could meat be a carrier? Or, if only live animals, could house pets be carriers as people run their dogs all over? Or just feline? Only big feline? Are we back to the black death era where we start killing cats as Familiars?

As for the media and China, I almost think it's the other way around. China/media/corporate aristocracy really has been on an agenda to down America for a long time - it's a thorn in their collective autocratic sides. The disease, ironically, halted and threw a huge anti-China wrench in their scheme. It exposed all the self-serving flaws of their utopian window dressing.

@darkfenrir The only one thing out of this disaster we do know is that WHO should be dismantled, wholesale. They've always been a bad joke, but this has proven the level of joke they really are. They're a political appeasement body, not a health body. Their meddling in this medical disaster not only failed to help, but actively caused additional harm compared to if they simply did not exist at all, as they served as nothing but an enabler and echobox of China's coverup. Actively celebrating and congratulating China having dealt with it. If the WHO were not there at all, covering for Chinese politics, a REAL health body may have actually stepped in and raised alarms early. This has been a long time coming from their business as usual, but I never imagined they'd lead to the actual collapse of the post-WWII world. They need to be disposed of, yesterday. They can't help anyone anymore. They can't even help themselves.

@shaneoh Ok, that's just plain funny.

@NEStalgia It’s already been shown in domestic pets in a few cases. And people in China were already throwing their cats off buildings.
It’s not just grocery stores people are going to. Lowe’s and Home Depot are getting packed with people buying “project” junk, nonessential things like nail salons and vape shops are open. The governor in GA just overrode counties and cities to reopen beaches and state parks. First responders have to go to peoples homes or pull cars over. There are still huge churches having indoor services. Golf courses are still open. People from different households are going on walks together. Many areas of the country are not under restrictions still. Funerals are still being held with large groups of people.
It’s all of that together, not just grocery stores. People by and large have no sense of moral obligation to protect themselves or others.

I imagine a not insignificant reason for numbers of cases continuing to rise into the lockdown is that the amount of testing is increasing. You can't count what you haven't tested, and US and UK have been caught with their pants down when it comes to getting enough test kits.

That and the lag between contracting the virus and showing symptoms can be many days.

Plus the fact that significant numbers don't follow the lockdown expectations doesn't help.

Lockdown itself is effective. Of course it is. Other countries have shown it is. But you can't just expect case numbers to fall the day lockdown starts. That's why this is about months rather than days or weeks.

@HobbitGamer Wow, really? None of that here. Funerals are never fun, obviously, but now they're even sadder than ever, what with only the direct family being allowed to be there, and only at a distance. Practically all shops are closed, except for super markets, and other essential stores or places, but vape shops definitely aren't among those. The city's basically dead. And people that are gathering in groups get fined, so you don't see that over here either.

I guess at least a few of them just like killing time by driving aimlessly.

@NEStalgia Georgia is a joke last week the guv said the reason he finally ordered a (dumbed down) shelter in place was because he wasn’t previously aware it could be spread asymptotically. By that point, there were already 2000+ case and 120+ deaths in the state.

@NEStalgia Ah, okay. I guess that makes some sense, then. Over here, vape shops are just that: shops for electric cigarettes. We've got the coffee shops and apothecaries for our Mary Jane needs...

"Where are they all going?"

They're going to the factories, to be "processed". Have you ever watched that movie "Soilent Green" with Charlton Heston? If not, look up a wiki page of it or something. I think the story will interest you...

On a side note: I hope you're holding up in your little fortress, surrounded by all the suburbians. And keep a clear head. I've read some of your text walls and although I can sympathize with most of it, I'm not going to let my anger get the best of me, and neither should you, so hang in there.

By the way: have you read that article that darkfenrir linked to in comment #583? That oughta tell you more than enough about the WHO and if their statements are trustworthy and/or telling the whole story...

@Eel Are you sure it's just time they're killing?

@HobbitGamer What cave did he crawl out of, exactly? How could a governer not actually know how it spreads, with a team of advisors, when the entire public knows that by now?

@ThanosReXXX Coffee shops as dispensaries? Blasphemy! I mean you always assume the kid at the counter in the chain shops is stoned out of their minds, but not dealing...

I'm certainly familiar with Soilent Green - can't ignore the classics! If they were going and being processed I'd cheer them on and buy some pom poms or something. Unfortunately they seem to always come back, which, really, is the whole problem to begin with.....

And, yeah, that article is gold. WHO has been a quackery for a long time. Humorously I got shot down every time I mention that on some "gaming addiction disorder" thread here when people reference the WHO's position. Then we get that beautiful gem. I don't put much faith in "stock 2 weeks of groceries and wear a mask don't wear a mask wear a mask don't wear a mask" CDC, but those guys are oracles of truth next to WHO.

Maybe their cars too. All that driving.

@NEStalgia Wearing masks is more to prevent you from infecting others, but other than that, it's about as useful as a bricked Wii, so people hoarding them are mostly idiots...
Unless you're working in a profession where you'd actually need them, of course, and these people have professional masks, that actually work.

Well wearing masks seems to help you from getting infected too, but of course with shortage you shouldn't hoard mask and instead try to reuse what you have.

I do hear that wearing three layers of fabric would help, which you'll then wash after 4 hours of use (maximum).

Why do it help? Because they capture the saliva that come out of people when they talk and ensure that the virus that come in contact with you is far less so your immune system can neutralize them instead of overwhelmed :v

(Reminder that Taiwan is aggressively producing mask to around 10 million masks a day)

@Eel Somebody’s gotta buy all the cheap oil and gas! 😛