Coronavirus - How can people be so incredibly stupid?

[Hadilly]

Huh. Not up to figuring it out, but if you go to the SF Chronicle, the article is there. Basically a six county lockdown starting at midnight tonight.

[BigMoneyJim]

Link is dead yo

Of course, because more than 10 people clicked it.

But seriously, it works for me on Chrome desktop PC. TL;DR: "Everybody stay at home until April 7."

[ender]

Huh. Not up to figuring it out, but if you go to the SF Chronicle, the article is there. Basically a six county lockdown starting at midnight tonight.

You literally used the language the article specifically says is not actually happening:

The order falls just short of a full lockdown, which would forbid people from leaving their homes without explicit permission

[dandarc]

@Fish Sweet  - they should report that guy and get him fired if at all possible.

[Hadilly]

Fair point, ender. It is going to certainly feel very very different from life as we know it here though.

[PDXTabs]

Huh. Not up to figuring it out, but if you go to the SF Chronicle, the article is there. Basically a six county lockdown starting at midnight tonight.

You literally used the language the article specifically says is not actually happening:

The order falls just short of a full lockdown, which would forbid people from leaving their homes without explicit permission

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's basically identical (literally identical?) to what they call a lockdown in Italy.

[Freedomin5]

More on the topic of COVID-19 stupidity, it's nice (not) to see all the anti-Asian racists come crawling out of the woodwork at the slightest excuse to show their asses.

Yup, I'm glad that all my Chinese family is currently in Singapore where it is still safe to be Chinese. Also, coincidentally, they have the Covid-19 situation under control, at least for now.

With that said, there was plenty of food at my local Asian market over the weekend. If your local big box store is stripped please give your local Asian market a try.

I am actually shocked that anybody would use this as an excuse to vent racism. In my opinion no single chinese person (even patient zero) has any responsibility for this mess that we are in right now.

You could argue that chinese food-market practices are what caused this mess (according to latest scientific consensus) and that if China as a country wishes to maintain good relations with the rest of the world some changes might be nessecary.

But that is a complicated topic that will likely not be resolved over the next few weeks. But I sure hope we see cultural and legal changes that will make it far less likely that such a situation occurs again.

Unfortunately, good sense and human sympathy is just truly lacking in a huge part of the population.

Another haha-not-funny coronavirus racism incident:  A friend of mine works at an organization that processes applications from many folks in other countries as well as from foreign nationals residing in the United States.  These are important, time sensitive documents that people take great pains to prepare, as incorrect preparation and/or lack of completion can have bad consequences (comparable to say, people applying for visas to work in the US or to extend their current working visas.)

One of their coworkers has taken it upon himself to "quarantine" all applications coming from China, or from anyone who has a sufficiently "Chinese" sounding name, and place them in a separate location for a week or more.  He also will only touch these documents (that have been delayed for a week) with gloves, and a great deal of anxious mewling about how he's going to get Covid-19 from contact with these Chinese papers.

On the plus(???) side, he's horrifically inept and slow at the job, so his much more competent coworkers are sometimes able to "rescue" the applications assigned to him from "quarantine" and get to them before him.

Sigh, except most of the new cases here are coming from countries other than China, and eventually from community spread. So if he wants to be thorough, he should be quarantining all documents for a one to two weeks before touching them.

[Fish Sweet]

@Fish Sweet  - they should report that guy and get him fired if at all possible.

My understanding is that he's been reported and by more than one person.  Whether HR/management will do anything..... shrug_emoji.jpg

Sigh, except most of the new cases here are coming from countries other than China, and eventually from community spread. So if he wants to be thorough, he should be quarantining all documents for a one to two weeks before touching them.

You'd think, but there's not even some semblance of logic behind the racism.  My friend mentioned that someone had pointed out that he wasn't quarantining applications from Italy or "Italian sounding" names, and the gist of his response was that because COVID-19 originated in China blah blah blah some convoluted nonsense screening out the Chinese virus blah blah.  You can't put sense in the senseless.

[Sibley]

This is a big and very geographically spread community- does anyone know someone who got the virus?  A relative?  Friend of a friend?  How did it go?

Friend of a friend is a presumptive positive (no test), don't know the guy personally. I've been told he was miserable - fever, achy, sore throat - but is starting to feel better. Can't speak to how much of his miserableness was him being a big baby about being sick. Low to mid 30s, no risk factors that I've heard. Basically, he's on the couch doing whatever. Near Indianapolis, IN.

[Villanelle]

How long after the H1N1 outbreak was there a vax available?  I recall my workplace--a university--VERY strongly encouraging all of us to go get our vaccination.  It was all but required. 

When comparing the two diseases, I think the existence and availability of a vaccine against one and not the other (at least not yet, or any time soon) is pretty relevant. 

[Serendip]

This is a big and very geographically spread community- does anyone know someone who got the virus?  A relative?  Friend of a friend?  How did it go?

Friend of a friend has it after visiting someone in a nearby region--mid 30's, achy/flu-like symptoms. Is currently self-quarantined at home and around 6 days into symptoms.

[SwordGuy]

This is a big and very geographically spread community- does anyone know someone who got the virus?  A relative?  Friend of a friend?  How did it go?

Daughter and granddaughter of a friend of a friend has it.   

There is so very little testing going on that the numbers are probably way low.

In China, they had over 25 times the number of confirmed cases on the way up the curve.   That's because of the lag between getting it and feeling sick enough to get medical attention.   

Our testing is so scarce (piss-poor is perhaps a better phrase to use) that our ratio may well be double that.

Either way, with 4661 confirmed US cases, that puts us at 4661 * 25 or circa 116,500 cases as a bare minimum.   Doubling that every 3 days for the next 15 days (to account for the aforementioned lag time) puts us at around 373,000 people after 5 doublings.   

At that point, if our social distancing is working, the rate of growth in the number of infected would drop.

Except, of course, if we start doing serious, large-scale testing, and find out there are hundreds of thousands more infected.   Right now we have people presenting themselves to doctors, the doctors agree they've got the symptoms, and the tests aren't available!

Meanwhile, a 3rd world African country can test and get people their test results back in 4 hours.   It takes us 4 days.     They've administered more tests than we have, too.

If we end up with mass trench graves like we did with the Spanish Flu and the Yellow Fever epidemics, I'm going to be putting in a Whitehouse.gov petition to have all those mass graves become national monuments, "The Donald J. Trump Healthcare Debacle Mass Gravesite".

[better late]

This is a big and very geographically spread community- does anyone know someone who got the virus?  A relative?  Friend of a friend?  How did it go?

Daughter and granddaughter of a friend of a friend has it.   

There is so very little testing going on that the numbers are probably way low.

In China, they had over 25 times the number of confirmed cases on the way up the curve.   That's because of the lag between getting it and feeling sick enough to get medical attention.   

Our testing is so scarce (piss-poor is perhaps a better phrase to use) that our ratio may well be double that.

Either way, with 4661 confirmed US cases, that puts us at 4661 * 25 or circa 116,500 cases as a bare minimum.   Doubling that every 3 days for the next 15 days (to account for the aforementioned lag time) puts us at around 373,000 people after 5 doublings.   

At that point, if our social distancing is working, the rate of growth in the number of infected would drop.

Except, of course, if we start doing serious, large-scale testing, and find out there are hundreds of thousands more infected.   Right now we have people presenting themselves to doctors, the doctors agree they've got the symptoms, and the tests aren't available!

Meanwhile, a 3rd world African country can test and get people their test results back in 4 hours.   It takes us 4 days.     They've administered more tests than we have, too.

If we end up with mass trench graves like we did with the Spanish Flu and the Yellow Fever epidemics, I'm going to be putting in a Whitehouse.gov petition to have all those mass graves become national monuments, "The Donald J. Trump Healthcare Debacle Mass Gravesite".

Wow....Which country in Africa? source?

[SwordGuy]

This is a big and very geographically spread community- does anyone know someone who got the virus?  A relative?  Friend of a friend?  How did it go?

Daughter and granddaughter of a friend of a friend has it.   

There is so very little testing going on that the numbers are probably way low.

In China, they had over 25 times the number of confirmed cases on the way up the curve.   That's because of the lag between getting it and feeling sick enough to get medical attention.   

Our testing is so scarce (piss-poor is perhaps a better phrase to use) that our ratio may well be double that.

Either way, with 4661 confirmed US cases, that puts us at 4661 * 25 or circa 116,500 cases as a bare minimum.   Doubling that every 3 days for the next 15 days (to account for the aforementioned lag time) puts us at around 373,000 people after 5 doublings.   

At that point, if our social distancing is working, the rate of growth in the number of infected would drop.

Except, of course, if we start doing serious, large-scale testing, and find out there are hundreds of thousands more infected.   Right now we have people presenting themselves to doctors, the doctors agree they've got the symptoms, and the tests aren't available!

Meanwhile, a 3rd world African country can test and get people their test results back in 4 hours.   It takes us 4 days.     They've administered more tests than we have, too.

If we end up with mass trench graves like we did with the Spanish Flu and the Yellow Fever epidemics, I'm going to be putting in a Whitehouse.gov petition to have all those mass graves become national monuments, "The Donald J. Trump Healthcare Debacle Mass Gravesite".

Wow....Which country in Africa? source?

Senegal.   

https://news.yahoo.com/senegal-reportedly-turning-coronavirus-tests-165224221.html?soc_src=hl-viewer&soc_trk=tw

What's more, a lab in Senegal just got a 1 million pound grant to develop and produce a 10 minute test.   

It can take a week for Americans to find out -- if of course we can get tested at all.

[Morning Glory]

Tests are taking about 12 hours to result where I'm at (large Midwest teaching hospital). We have a drive through site now too.

[Seadog]

I think this is the number we should be talking about. Last I looked the death rate in America is 50%.  Outside of the US  I've seen ranges from 1 - 4%.   I would like to see President Trump address that statistic.

The American death rate would be based on closed cases.  There's close to 70 deaths and 70 recovered, but there are thousands of active cases and many who still need tested.  So, 50% is a snapshot in time, but that number will come down significantly with more recoveries, hopefully resulting in less than 1% fatality rate.

Well - yes. The American death rate is based on closed cases, as is the death rates I mentioned for all the other countries. My point is that Trump would have to concede that either 1) Americans are dying at a staggering rate or 2) we’ve only tested a minuscule number of people who have been infected.

It's pretty high in some other countries when only including closed cases.

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/coronavirus/msg2581435/#msg2581435

Good point. When you look at Italy’s death rate of 44% versus S. Korea’s of 6%. Part of that is the difference between the two countries in testing numbers. Part of that is that people are dying at a staggering rate in Italy.

I'm taking all those statistics with such are large grain of salt that my french fries are set for life.

Deaths are probably pretty accurate, since it's hard to hide a body, but with extremely limited testing, rationed testing kits, and many people without symptoms, the number of infected people could be an order or two of magnitude higher, and thus the death rates an order or two of magnitude lower.

Sadly the only things that can get counted is that which is known, and that which is known is that with is tested. Two perfect examples. After spending time in OK one summer, work thought it prudent to explain to us Tornado safety. Fair enough. but a curious statistic emerged. Tornado frequency, was almost perfectly correlated with population density. Two counties, 5 km apart, and one had 10x the tornadoes of the other. Why? How did the tornadoes know? Were they making a cruel joke and targeting busy places? They didn't. What it shows was that in order for their to be a tornado, it had to be seen, and less people to see it, many would simply go unnoticed that wouldn't in a more populous place.

Fraccing in oil wells. There was a huge issue about people saying it caused earth quakes, and once they started actually looking with seismic equipment, they found literally hundreds of them. Were there no earth quakes before, or was it just because they weren't looking, that these hundreds of <2.0 earthquakes weren't be felt.

This virus is certainly not a nothing issue, but the numbers are so meaningless at this point that you might as well throw a dart at a board.

[ender]

I don't know that it's meaningless to observe hospitals cannot read everyone.

Regardless of infection rate or mortality rate, that is a fact in many places at this point.

[bmjohnson35]

I don't think this has been posted yet, but here is an interesting article on the virus that demonstrates that it will be very difficult to track/control the virus.  I think I heard yesterday that the US now has around 2 million tests in inventory.  This is a start, but we really need to ramp this up.  Depending on how this unfolds and long-term implications of this virus, it may become necessary to develop a home test that a layman person can self administer.  This seems like an ideal way to get on top of an outbreak.  Imagine if we could simply all receive the test in the mail, perform the test and take appropriate action.

https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/study-covid-19-spread-china-mild-undocumented-cases-stealth-transmission/

[frugalnacho]

I have a cousin that works in Detroit metro airport and comes into contact with thousands of international visitors. She works as a translator between English and Japanese.  She's got all the symptoms of covid-19 and went to the Dr. They sent her to the drive through testing facility set up to test for coronavirus. They performed a test for the coronavirus and sent her home with instructions to self quarantine.  That was a couple of days ago.  She just got contacted with the results which were "uh, we decided not to test you after all. You're young and will get through this, just continue your quarantine. we have limited tests and need to save them for people that actually need it"

So maybe the official numbers in the USA will stay very low? Can't have any official positive cases if you don't actually test anyone.

Her illness seemed somewhat severe, not enough to require hospitalization, but like a very bad cold.  But it was also pretty short lived as she is already feeling better.  Apparently she has been instructed to return back to work at the airport this week.  I don't know enough about the transmission of this virus to know if this is a good or bad call. 

[bmjohnson35]

Yup, that's another example of how the virus can easily spread.  Employers are often driven by production and are making decisions without appropriate guidance. Even once a person's symptoms subside and appear to be over the illness, the virus continues to shed, meaning they are still contagious.  It is my understanding that you are likely less contagious, but still contagious for some time.  This time period of shedding varies from person to person.

BJ

[frugalnacho]

What are the odds that a good number of us have already gotten it?   I had a respiratory infection several weeks ago, and so did my wife and son.  Did we all get the coronavirus, or just a common cold?  There was nothing extraordinary about our illness, but we may be in the part of the population that develops relatively mild symptoms to the point we couldn't differentiate it from a cold. 

There is a very real possibility it was just a cold though as my son is a fucking cesspool of infectious disease and we've had a total of close to 20 illnesses in the last 6 months between the 3 of us.  Obviously they couldn't all have been coronavirus.  I also don't think it was 20 unique viruses, as I am counting and illness shared by all 3 of us as 3 separate illnesses even though it's likely a single virus infecting all of us during that time period. 

[bmjohnson35]

From the article I posted:

"the study did report these milder undocumented cases were most likely responsible for causing 79 percent of the subsequent documented cases."

[SwordGuy]

I'm taking all those statistics with such are large grain of salt that my french fries are set for life.
...
This virus is certainly not a nothing issue, but the numbers are so meaningless at this point that you might as well throw a dart at a board.

@Seadog , I recommend you read this for a better understanding of the numbers we have.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

[John Galt incarnate!]

.

HOW FUCKING STUPID/SELF-ABSORBED/NAIVE/IRRESPONSIBLE CAN SOMEONE BE???????

"In South Korea, a single person led to more than 1,000 infections by refusing testing and going to religious services and brunches." Ezra Klein (Vox) 3/17/20

[Paul der Krake]

Can we suspend faith based businesses for the rest of the year?

[GuitarStv]

Can we suspend faith based businesses for the rest of the year?

The whole stock market is a faith based scheme though . . .


Stocks don't actually have any value at all.  They're pieces of paper.  Or 1s and 0s in a machine.  If people lose faith that these bits of paper aren't somehow connected to a company by printing it's name on the piece of paper, the market is toast.

[Telecaster]

Who doesn't recall H1N1?? Why wouldn't we take measures to insure that this doesn't become as bad?? Or worse, given that COVID 19 seems to have a higher hospitalization and death rates?

Apparently all Republicans got zapped with Men In Black mind eraser.  To refresh those memories,  at that time the CDC developed quickly developed a test and a vaccine which was available before the before the start of the winter flu season.  It took about a year before it ran its course.  Obama declared a public health emergency and made of point of getting vaccinated.  There was a lot of public outreach, some schools closed.  It baffles me some claim they didn't remember.   Did they not read any news for year?

At no point did Obama tweet false or misleading statements or contradict his own public health authorities.  He did not blame others. 

Italy has run out of hospital beds.  They have to triage patients.  As was pointed out above, if you are too old you don't get treated.  And by the way, Italy has more hospital beds then than the US on a per capita basis.  The whole country is locked down and they still couldn't get out in front of it. Today deaths in Italy increased by 16%.  That trend doesn't have to continue very long before....we'll we all know the power of  compounding.   

If we don't get in front on this, that will be happening here.  My wife is a health care administrator here in Seattle.  There are staffing shortages right now. 

Yet many on the right are trying to tell this all a big "hoax."  Their word.   And they've lied and downplayed this and dismissed it.  And those lies extend all the way up to the President and some of his top advisers.   Suggested that Italy ran out of hospital beds and Iran is digging mass graves as a plot to embarrass Trump is too fucking dumb for words. 

Grow the fuck up people and turn off Rush Limbaugh. 

[dandarc]

The number of new cases in Italy has been flat-ish for 4 days in the mid-3,000's. I hope that means the spread is hitting a slow down, but I fear it could mean they basically reached the limit on how many tests can be done in a day there.

[OtherJen]

The number of new cases in Italy has been flat-ish for 4 days in the mid-3,000's. I hope that means the spread is hitting a slow down, but I fear it could mean they basically reached the limit on how many tests can be done in a day there.

Sadly, probably. It doesn't sound good.

Looking to map the spread of the illness, the head of the northern Veneto region announced that he would ramp up the number of tests done daily to some 11,300 from 3,000 at present.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy/italy-rushes-to-promote-new-doctors-to-relieve-coronavirus-crisis-idUSKBN214245

[tooqk4u22]

Who doesn't recall H1N1?? Why wouldn't we take measures to insure that this doesn't become as bad?? Or worse, given that COVID 19 seems to have a higher hospitalization and death rates?

Apparently all Republicans got zapped with Men In Black mind eraser.  To refresh those memories,  at that time the CDC developed quickly developed a test and a vaccine which was available before the before the start of the winter flu season.  It took about a year before it ran its course.  Obama declared a public health emergency and made of point of getting vaccinated.  There was a lot of public outreach, some schools closed.  It baffles me some claim they didn't remember.   Did they not read any news for year?

At no point did Obama tweet false or misleading statements or contradict his own public health authorities.  He did not blame others. 

Italy has run out of hospital beds.  They have to triage patients.  As was pointed out above, if you are too old you don't get treated.  And by the way, Italy has more hospital beds then than the US on a per capita basis.  The whole country is locked down and they still couldn't get out in front of it. Today deaths in Italy increased by 16%.  That trend doesn't have to continue very long before....we'll we all know the power of  compounding.   

If we don't get in front on this, that will be happening here.  My wife is a health care administrator here in Seattle.  There are staffing shortages right now. 

Yet many on the right are trying to tell this all a big "hoax."  Their word.   And they've lied and downplayed this and dismissed it.  And those lies extend all the way up to the President and some of his top advisers.   Suggested that Italy ran out of hospital beds and Iran is digging mass graves as a plot to embarrass Trump is too fucking dumb for words. 

Grow the fuck up people and turn off Rush Limbaugh.

To be fair most millennials probably don't really recall H1N1 just like many don't really have an appreciate of the stress/crisis during the great recession.  Not a millennial, but I personally don't have a grand memory of H1NI other than I had little kids and my DW was pregnant with another, so I was worried about that.  I also recall that it impacting other countries more than the US.   Nothing shut down or slowed down, there were a few school closings but not widespread and some attributed to regular flu.  We were at the depth of the great recession so there were other stresses and a lot of people already out of work and maybe that pressure clouds my recollection.     

H1N1 was estimated to hit 61 million people with 12,500 deaths but the confirmed figures were 115,000 and 3,400 deaths.   The CDC and others use various methods to make estimates of how widespread it was.   

This seems far worse to me, whether it is real or being blown out of proportion due to the media, or the president bungled a lot of it, or social media makes things so readily apparent an in your face - I don't know.   

The other thing is that H1N1 is a flu so while novel at the time existing treatments (vaccines and anti-virals) could be leveraged to come up with a treatment more quickly, that is not the case for this.

Anyway, I think there are a lot of people that don't have a full recollection of H1N1 if they take away all that they are reading right now - ie reading a historical context but then believes it is memory

[wenchsenior]

I wonder about this also.  Most people I know seem to have been very briefly worried about H1N1 at the time, and then almost immediately forgot it the second a vaccine was developed and never worried again.

I can't forget b/c a healthy friend of ours in his 50s got it and ended up in an induced coma for a couple of months, then was revived with nerve and lung damage and had to do about 2 years of physical rehab to breathe well, walk well, and have any manual dexterity. He was a musician, and while he was able to recover his capability from nonexistent after the coma to competent several years later, he'll certainly never play at the level he used to.

Technically, he 'recovered' from H1N1, but he'll never be the same.  I worry that this coronavirus might end up being similar, in that a lot of those who recover might have some impairment that is not yet evident or is not yet being reported in terms of raw numbers.

[Telecaster]

Technically, he 'recovered' from H1N1, but he'll never be the same.  I worry that this coronavirus might end up being similar, in that a lot of those who recover might have some impairment that is not yet evident or is not yet being reported in terms of raw numbers.

Thus far about 15% of people infected develop permanent scarring of the lungs. 

[Paul der Krake]

Can we suspend faith based businesses for the rest of the year?

The whole stock market is a faith based scheme though . . .


Stocks don't actually have any value at all.  They're pieces of paper.  Or 1s and 0s in a machine.  If people lose faith that these bits of paper aren't somehow connected to a company by printing it's name on the piece of paper, the market is toast.

That's like, deep, man. Tell me about your vegan meditation routine. :)

[Sibley]

Who doesn't recall H1N1?? Why wouldn't we take measures to insure that this doesn't become as bad?? Or worse, given that COVID 19 seems to have a higher hospitalization and death rates?

Apparently all Republicans got zapped with Men In Black mind eraser.  To refresh those memories,  at that time the CDC developed quickly developed a test and a vaccine which was available before the before the start of the winter flu season.  It took about a year before it ran its course.  Obama declared a public health emergency and made of point of getting vaccinated.  There was a lot of public outreach, some schools closed.  It baffles me some claim they didn't remember.   Did they not read any news for year?

At no point did Obama tweet false or misleading statements or contradict his own public health authorities.  He did not blame others. 

Italy has run out of hospital beds.  They have to triage patients.  As was pointed out above, if you are too old you don't get treated.  And by the way, Italy has more hospital beds then than the US on a per capita basis.  The whole country is locked down and they still couldn't get out in front of it. Today deaths in Italy increased by 16%.  That trend doesn't have to continue very long before....we'll we all know the power of  compounding.   

If we don't get in front on this, that will be happening here.  My wife is a health care administrator here in Seattle.  There are staffing shortages right now. 

Yet many on the right are trying to tell this all a big "hoax."  Their word.   And they've lied and downplayed this and dismissed it.  And those lies extend all the way up to the President and some of his top advisers.   Suggested that Italy ran out of hospital beds and Iran is digging mass graves as a plot to embarrass Trump is too fucking dumb for words. 

Grow the fuck up people and turn off Rush Limbaugh.

To be fair most millennials probably don't really recall H1N1 just like many don't really have an appreciate of the stress/crisis during the great recession.  Not a millennial, but I personally don't have a grand memory of H1NI other than I had little kids and my DW was pregnant with another, so I was worried about that.  I also recall that it impacting other countries more than the US.   Nothing shut down or slowed down, there were a few school closings but not widespread and some attributed to regular flu.  We were at the depth of the great recession so there were other stresses and a lot of people already out of work and maybe that pressure clouds my recollection.     

H1N1 was estimated to hit 61 million people with 12,500 deaths but the confirmed figures were 115,000 and 3,400 deaths.   The CDC and others use various methods to make estimates of how widespread it was.   

This seems far worse to me, whether it is real or being blown out of proportion due to the media, or the president bungled a lot of it, or social media makes things so readily apparent an in your face - I don't know.   

The other thing is that H1N1 is a flu so while novel at the time existing treatments (vaccines and anti-virals) could be leveraged to come up with a treatment more quickly, that is not the case for this.

Anyway, I think there are a lot of people that don't have a full recollection of H1N1 if they take away all that they are reading right now - ie reading a historical context but then believes it is memory

I was early-mid 20s during H1N1. My memories are pretty vague. I had to look up when it happened because I couldn't remember.

I also pretty much floated through all the 2008/housing/etc - I had a job because I graduated early enough, I wasn't in danger of losing said job, etc. It did not personally impact me. My sister was impacted by it so I'm sure her memories are very different than mine.

[GuitarStv]

Can we suspend faith based businesses for the rest of the year?

The whole stock market is a faith based scheme though . . .


Stocks don't actually have any value at all.  They're pieces of paper.  Or 1s and 0s in a machine.  If people lose faith that these bits of paper aren't somehow connected to a company by printing it's name on the piece of paper, the market is toast.

That's like, deep, man. Tell me about your vegan meditation routine. :)

Just sayin'.  I used to be quick to make fun of religious people for their blind faith in things that make no sense . . . but have tried to tone that down a bit ever since I realized that I do much the same albeit in slightly different ways.

[Bloop Bloop]

There was no cancellation of all sporting events and school closures with entire cities being told to shelter in place during H1N1.  Considering the huge numbers affected back then vs. now it seems very much not the same.  What is different?  Pervasive social platforms and a media with a 24 hour agenda.  I resent them.  Inferring that anyone who notices the difference must be some tinfoil hat bitter clinger is not helpful.  I hope that since we are in the thick of it now the extreme measures will simply result in a swifter conclusion.  We can argue about whether there was an over reaction once everyone is in the clear.

New cases declined for the first time in the last 24-hour reporting cycle.

Suspect the current suppressive measures might be working and we have probably broken the back of the disease. Time will tell.

I suspect the reaction was also an over-reaction, but I am someone who is in the low-risk category for the disease, and I'm also someone who tends to deal with median outcomes rather than trying at all costs to avoid the low (1-10%, say) chance of a truly uncontrollable reaction. Shrug. Most people are extremely risk-averse when it comes to large, visible risks, so they deal with it differently.

I have no issue with doing 200km/h (twice the speed limit) on a backcountry public road, but I drive slower than the speed limit in nasty weather or traffic. Most people will just follow the speed limit regardless, but then drive at 10km under when they see a police vehicle. It's all just about different tolerances to and perceptions of risk.

[American GenX]

It seems like the people who think it's an overreaction are Trumpers, watch FOX News, or are young and don't care about other people.

[dandarc]

<snip>
New cases declined for the first time in the last 24-hour reporting cycle.
<snip>

? almost 13k yesterday, 15K today . . .

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

Unless you're saying 12,924 is substantially more than 12,897. Technically a decrease, but that's well within the noise for sure.

[Bloop Bloop]

<snip>
New cases declined for the first time in the last 24-hour reporting cycle.
<snip>

? almost 13k yesterday, 15K today . . .

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

Unless you're saying 12,924 is substantially more than 12,897. Technically a decrease, but that's well within the noise for sure.

I'm looking at the charts on this page which have slightly different figures:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic#Diagrams

[Telecaster]

There was no cancellation of all sporting events and school closures with entire cities being told to shelter in place during H1N1.  Considering the huge numbers affected back then vs. now it seems very much not the same.  What is different?  Pervasive social platforms and a media with a 24 hour agenda.  I resent them.  Inferring that anyone who notices the difference must be some tinfoil hat bitter clinger is not helpful.  I hope that since we are in the thick of it now the extreme measures will simply result in a swifter conclusion.  We can argue about whether there was an over reaction once everyone is in the clear.

This is the Surgeon General of the United States:

“We are at a critical inflection point in this country, people,” Adams said. “When you look at the projections, there’s every chance that we could be Italy.”

There were an estimated 1,700 cases of coronavirus and 34 deaths in Italy two weeks ago. Now Italy is reporting an estimated 27,000 cases and more than 2,100 deaths.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/16/surgeon-general-on-coronavirus-us-could-become-as-bad-as-italy/

I should note I checked earlier today and the number of deaths is up to 2,500.   A 16% increase over the day before. 

The difference is not social media because we had social media back then too.    The difference is COVID19 has the potential to overwhelm our medical facilities, just as it did in Wuhan and Italy. 

Another difference is our government leaders took H1N1 very seriously from the very beginning.  The didn't make dipshit remarks like “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine,"  or “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away,"  or “We had 12, at one point. And now they’ve gotten very much better. Many of them are fully recovered,"  or “We’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.”

There is a word for these type of statements.  It is called "lying." 

Or consider this helpful Tweet:

Cryin’ Chuck Schumer is complaining, for publicity purposes only, that I should be asking for more money than $2.5 Billion to prepare for Coronavirus. If I asked for more he would say it is too much. He didn’t like my early travel closings. I was right. He is incompetent!

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1232304804820467714

The $8.3 billion that the president fought against as being too big, now looks like far too little.

Or this remark from a press conference:

And here we’re talking about a much smaller range (than the flu).  Now, hopefully, it stays at a much smaller range. 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-members-coronavirus-task-force-meeting-pharmaceutical-companies/

Note: COVID19 is roughly 6-10 times more lethal than the flu.  If Trump doens't know that at this point it means he is either lying or doesn't know shit about a potential major crisis.  Neither is a good look.

Consider this Tweet:

The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1232058127740174339

Again, he's either lying or doesn't know what is going on.   Great tip on the stock market too. 

Also this remark:

Q    Are you concerned that the virus is getting closer to the White House and D.C.?

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  No, I’m not concerned at all.  No, I’m not.  No, we’ve done a great job.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-president-bolsonaro-brazil-working-dinner-west-palm-beach-fl/

Not concerned at all.  That was just ten days ago by the way.   Plenty more lies where those came from too. 

Organization take the priorities of their leaders.  If the boss isn't concerned at all then nobody else is either.   That's the difference.  In 2009 H1N1 was taken seriously.  In 2020 Trump consistently downplayed any problems on an almost daily basis.  Tweet after Tweet minimizing the danger.  And the lack of concern was picked up and amplified by his surrogates in government and in the media (Yes, Rush Limbaugh is part of the media). 

Pro tip:  Look at what the big money does.  The NCAA tournament makes billions of dollars, and the money is spread far and wide.  You don't walk away from money like that unless you think the risk of going forward is worse.  Billions of dollars.  Social media didn't do that.  Same with the NBA, MLB, XLF and so on.  You don't walk away from the big bucks unless that's the only option. 

Apple closed all of it stores.  They didn't do it because of social media.  They did it because they were worried about something more than the immediate lost sales.

This isn't social media being mean to our president.  This is our president consistently lying and downplaying a real risk to our country. 

[SwordGuy]

There was no cancellation of all sporting events and school closures with entire cities being told to shelter in place during H1N1.  Considering the huge numbers affected back then vs. now it seems very much not the same.  What is different?  Pervasive social platforms and a media with a 24 hour agenda.  I resent them.  Inferring that anyone who notices the difference must be some tinfoil hat bitter clinger is not helpful.  I hope that since we are in the thick of it now the extreme measures will simply result in a swifter conclusion.  We can argue about whether there was an over reaction once everyone is in the clear.

This is the Surgeon General of the United States:

“We are at a critical inflection point in this country, people,” Adams said. “When you look at the projections, there’s every chance that we could be Italy.”

There were an estimated 1,700 cases of coronavirus and 34 deaths in Italy two weeks ago. Now Italy is reporting an estimated 27,000 cases and more than 2,100 deaths.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/16/surgeon-general-on-coronavirus-us-could-become-as-bad-as-italy/

I should note I checked earlier today and the number of deaths is up to 2,500.   A 16% increase over the day before. 

The difference is not social media because we had social media back then too.    The difference is COVID19 has the potential to overwhelm our medical facilities, just as it did in Wuhan and Italy. 

Another difference is our government leaders took H1N1 very seriously from the very beginning.  The didn't make dipshit remarks like “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine,"  or “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away,"  or “We had 12, at one point. And now they’ve gotten very much better. Many of them are fully recovered,"  or “We’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.”

There is a word for these type of statements.  It is called "lying." 

Or consider this helpful Tweet:

Cryin’ Chuck Schumer is complaining, for publicity purposes only, that I should be asking for more money than $2.5 Billion to prepare for Coronavirus. If I asked for more he would say it is too much. He didn’t like my early travel closings. I was right. He is incompetent!

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1232304804820467714

The $8.3 billion that the president fought against as being too big, now looks like far too little.

Or this remark from a press conference:

And here we’re talking about a much smaller range (than the flu).  Now, hopefully, it stays at a much smaller range. 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-members-coronavirus-task-force-meeting-pharmaceutical-companies/

Note: COVID19 is roughly 6-10 times more lethal than the flu.  If Trump doens't know that at this point it means he is either lying or doesn't know shit about a potential major crisis.  Neither is a good look.

Consider this Tweet:

The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1232058127740174339

Again, he's either lying or doesn't know what is going on.   Great tip on the stock market too. 

Also this remark:

Q    Are you concerned that the virus is getting closer to the White House and D.C.?

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  No, I’m not concerned at all.  No, I’m not.  No, we’ve done a great job.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-president-bolsonaro-brazil-working-dinner-west-palm-beach-fl/

Not concerned at all.  That was just ten days ago by the way.   Plenty more lies where those came from too. 

Organization take the priorities of their leaders.  If the boss isn't concerned at all then nobody else is either.   That's the difference.  In 2009 H1N1 was taken seriously.  In 2020 Trump consistently downplayed any problems on an almost daily basis.  Tweet after Tweet minimizing the danger.  And the lack of concern was picked up and amplified by his surrogates in government and in the media (Yes, Rush Limbaugh is part of the media). 

Pro tip:  Look at what the big money does.  The NCAA tournament makes billions of dollars, and the money is spread far and wide.  You don't walk away from money like that unless you think the risk of going forward is worse.  Billions of dollars.  Social media didn't do that.  Same with the NBA, MLB, XLF and so on.  You don't walk away from the big bucks unless that's the only option. 

Apple closed all of it stores.  They didn't do it because of social media.  They did it because they were worried about something more than the immediate lost sales.

This isn't social media being mean to our president.  This is our president consistently lying and downplaying a real risk to our country.

Well said.

I suggest reading this to see what it's like in Northern Italy right now.

In simple terms for the clueless and the deniers, 7 of those 10 pages of obituaries are dead from this epidemic -- and that's just one day's newspaper in Italy.

Those are real people who have families, who loved and lived and now are dead because Italy mishandled this epidemic.   Take a look.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/coronavirus-obituaries-bergamo-italy/2020/03/16/6c342f02-66c7-11ea-b199-3a9799c54512_story.html?fbclid=IwAR0HMyLfgJ6fSzGhFeBcO1wdclHJshYT_6oi4J2oKh4ZRWC5rKltCElGwWI&utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

That paper usually has 2-3 pages of obituaries. It has the 10 you can see. People aren't being buried, they are being cremated. One day, but maybe not right away, because the crematoriums are running 24/7 and aren't keeping up.   They have to forget about funerals or saying goodbye to their loved one at the hospital before they pass.   

[ixtap]

There was no cancellation of all sporting events and school closures with entire cities being told to shelter in place during H1N1.  Considering the huge numbers affected back then vs. now it seems very much not the same.  What is different?  Pervasive social platforms and a media with a 24 hour agenda.  I resent them.  Inferring that anyone who notices the difference must be some tinfoil hat bitter clinger is not helpful.  I hope that since we are in the thick of it now the extreme measures will simply result in a swifter conclusion.  We can argue about whether there was an over reaction once everyone is in the clear.

Within 2 days, COVID 19 will kill as many people in Italy as H1N1 killed in all of Europe in 2009-2010.

[SwordGuy]

There was no cancellation of all sporting events and school closures with entire cities being told to shelter in place during H1N1.  Considering the huge numbers affected back then vs. now it seems very much not the same.  What is different?  Pervasive social platforms and a media with a 24 hour agenda.  I resent them.  Inferring that anyone who notices the difference must be some tinfoil hat bitter clinger is not helpful.  I hope that since we are in the thick of it now the extreme measures will simply result in a swifter conclusion.  We can argue about whether there was an over reaction once everyone is in the clear.

Within 2 days, COVID 19 will kill as many people in Italy as H1N1 killed in all of Europe in 2009-2010.

And don't forget, all those Italians are really volunteering to die so US Democrats can make Trump look bad.

No, I don't believe that and Yes, I do know Trumpites so damn stubborn they still believe this is a hoax of some sort.

[Paul der Krake]

There was no cancellation of all sporting events and school closures with entire cities being told to shelter in place during H1N1.  Considering the huge numbers affected back then vs. now it seems very much not the same.  What is different?  Pervasive social platforms and a media with a 24 hour agenda.  I resent them.  Inferring that anyone who notices the difference must be some tinfoil hat bitter clinger is not helpful.  I hope that since we are in the thick of it now the extreme measures will simply result in a swifter conclusion.  We can argue about whether there was an over reaction once everyone is in the clear.

Within 2 days, COVID 19 will kill as many people in Italy as H1N1 killed in all of Europe in 2009-2010.

I lived in Europe during H1N1, but I had to double check that, because nobody gave two shits. I don't remember the government ordering anyone around, or anything closing down. Maybe an email from the university that went straight to the trash.

The two situations are on two completely different playing fields.

[Imma]

This is a big and very geographically spread community- does anyone know someone who got the virus?  A relative?  Friend of a friend?  How did it go?

Netherlands.

5 relatives sick
7 friends

1 critical
1 in hospital
1 with 0 symptoms

The others have symptoms anywhere from feeling mildly under the weather for a few days to unable to get out of bed for 10 days. The nasty thing with a virus is that it hits whole families all at once.

[former player]

This is a big and very geographically spread community- does anyone know someone who got the virus?  A relative?  Friend of a friend?  How did it go?

Netherlands.

5 relatives sick
7 friends

1 critical
1 in hospital
1 with 0 symptoms

The others have symptoms anywhere from feeling mildly under the weather for a few days to unable to get out of bed for 10 days. The nasty thing with a virus is that it hits whole families all at once.

Imma, I'm sorry to hear that.  Wishing you and your family and friends the best.

[Imma]

Those European borders that cannot be closed? Yeah, they're closing, partially:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51897069

Sure, formally some inner borders and the outer borders are closed.

Informally? People who have been left stranded trying to enter the country they live in but aren't citizens of, others aren't allowed into their home country unless they go into quarantaine because they come from a country where the virus is widespread. What do you think those people are going to do? Yup, now they can't fly in they're going to get into a car and drive home on the backroads because they don't have symptoms so they don't feel they should be in quarantaine.

We haven't even tried to close the border where I live because there's no point in even trying. People are advised not to travel abroad and most flights are cancelled, that's about it.

[GuitarStv]

I wonder if coronavirus will create some sort of turning point where Trump supporters are finally forced to accept some small amount of reality that doesn't jive with the Trump/Fox News propaganda machine of lies.

[ixtap]

I wonder if coronavirus will create some sort of turning point where Trump supporters are finally forced to accept some small amount of reality that doesn't jive with the Trump/Fox News propaganda machine of lies.

You don't actually know any Trump supporters, do you?

[Omy]

I just read an article suggesting that Trump supporters will be hardest hit by this. As a group, they are older and believe that the media is making this up to hurt Trump...and they aren't buying into social distancing.