Covid-19 Central

Agreed.

Indeed.

 

Its not a matter of Chinese tourists any more. The disease is highly transmissible. Western Germany has 100s of cases now. It started with just one couple who had been in the carnival and infected loads of people before getting sick. So I’m not convinced it can’t happen in the US.
As for summertime, some virologist are speculating the spread might go down in summer but nobody knows for sure just yet.

 

The good thing: Germany has about 650 cases now and nobody has died!

 

Get it before it's gone, lol..

Everclear 190 Proof Vodka
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190proof is 95% alcohol..has to be 60% and above to kill germs.

Bottle below is 151 proof, which is above 60%.

 

Europe is easier to transmit in because of free-flowing borders.
I still don't know anyone who has it. Hope never to, either.

 

I think there are enough cases now in the US for it to spread throughout the country. They don’t even need to keep coming from outside. Except they shut off the areas with the most cases like Washington State and California.
US hasn’t been testing on a large scale either so there’s no way to get an idea how many people have been infected.

 

To be honest I'm not that concerned. I'm a frequent, if not obsessive hand washer, wipes and purell user and I'm just going to go about my life.

I'm more afraid of catching the flu and developing pneumonia than I am catching this virus, as the flu virus is more prevalent.
Already this flu season, 10,000 Americans have died. Ten thousand!
Every single year, approximately 12,000 Americans have died from the flu.
The world did not stop.

Furthermore, last year 19 million here caught the flu and recovered, and of those 19 million sufferers, aprox 180,000 became so ill, they were hospitalized.
The world did not stop.

In contrast, less than 15 have died from covid19 here (so far) and less than 100 infected. Out of 340 million. And of those 15 dead, most had underlying conditions such as cancers, respiratory diseases and were very old. The news don't remind you of that.

Consider as well, the H1N1 virus of 2009 killed 600,000 people worldwide. The world did not stop.

Furthermore, the covid19 virus has been active SINCE the Chinese decided to tell us about it, which was in December.. pretty sure it was probably ramping up at least a month prior. We are now in mid March.
Now, the average incubation of this virus is 3, to some say up to 28 days. The average time for symptoms to appear is 5 days. Far, far more people should be showing active signs of this virus if it really was that contagious and that prominent here in the United States.

Also consider China, the epicenter, where 31,000 contracted it, with 4000 of those critical, and 700 dead. Out of one Billion people.

India has 3 cases, out of 800 million people. Africa has like 2.

You cannot let the flame-fanning from the news whip you into hysteria over this. They make their living from eyeballs on their shows, websites and news programs..
Live your life, of course take sane precautions like you would the flu, but the odds of that covid19 strain being within a 100 miles of you is very low. Worry more about catching the flu.

 

I never agree with Bliss but sound logic here

 

Yanno, it's not the first time l'm reading something like that from you, so it's not "never", lol.

Anyway, if you can't find Purell in NY your Gov and the Prison Industrial Complex has come to your rescue..


'Cuomo also unveiled a new state-made sanitizer on Monday. Speaking about the new sanitizer, Cuomo said it was made up of 75% alcohol and will be provided to facilities including schools, the MTA, government run buildings and prisons.

The governor said the state currently has the capacity to make 100,000 gallons of the sanitizer per week, adding that it is cheaper for officials to make it instead of buying it on the market.

It is being manufactured by Corcraft, which is the company that relies on prisoners in New York to make products, and is being made by inmates at the Great Meadow correctional facility.

The state-made sanitizer costs about $6 per gallon to produce, according to Cuomo. He said the production stemmed from reports of price gouging on sanitizer.'

 

First of all, I’m not hysterical. I’m aware that I do not fall into any of those risk groups. However, I have older family members as well and less healthy ones, too.
Secondly, I have a lot of doctors in my family who are at the frontline dealing with this bullshit. Part of it is a shortage of protective gear. The consequence is that in Northern Italy already 10% of doctors are infected. Higher viral load because of continuous exposure can be dangerous even to younger people. That’s why the whistle blower doctor finally died although he was just 34.
Secondly, if this turns serious whether you die from it or not it can cause breakdown to the health system meaning hospitals are gonna be so overloaded they can’t appropriate Deal with cases any more. That’s why you have a mortality rate of 4-7% in Wuhan and only 0.4% in the rest of China.
Thirdly, you said “US isn’t Italy, you started screening tourists etc early on” and then you said “it can spread easily in Europe because of open borders”, so I gave you a few points why that doesn’t even matter any more.
As for “people would have been showing symptoms by now”- they probably have but have been taken for having a normal cold or flu. They talk of 227 cases but have hardly been testing. So trust that that the actual number is a multiple of that.
I am aware of what the flu is (I had it 2 years ago and it wasn’t a nice experience) and how many people it kills each year. However, mortality rate of the flu is 0.1%, COVid probably around 10 times of that, we don’t know exactly.
I think the whole issue probably hasn’t touched your life personally that much, so if you want to keep going about your business and washing your hands that’s fine.
Here the real life consequences are beginning to set in.

 

When I said don't let It whip you into hysteria I wasn't speaking to you personally, but in general, however after reading your response, yes, now I am.

Do you understand this hysteria has caused schools to shut down, businesses to shut down, concerts to shut down, entertainment events, airlines to stop flying..(maybe we should skip the election to be safe, lol.)
In fact, your over-reaction went as far as to want to kill all bats. Wipe out a whole species that doesn't bother us, that pollinates our crops and eats malaria-carrying mosquitos because of some rare virus. We NEED BATS, Madeline.

In fact, no one really knows where it actually came from - there's even speculation that it came from China's largest bio-lab, which sits 30 ft from that wet market, where unscrupulous workers were routinely and illegally selling the lab animals to the vendors, instead of burning their bodies.

Now Covid19's mortality rate is NOT 10X the flu's. The flu is 0.1%, C-19 is 0.3 %, however C-19 is much rarer to catch.

You stated there's "a lot of doctors in your family who are on the front line" - do they have it? Are they scared?
Because I was briefly hospitalized 2 weeks ago and not one nurse or doctor or intake personel or security guard or cafeteria person or medical techs or other patients were wearing a mask or protective gear. Not one.

Furthermore, there were an abundance of masks everywhere. (I took 2 when l was discharged, lol). I think if doctors or nurses wanted masks and protective gear, they will have them.

As for a breakdown in the health system here, I told you ten thousand people have died this flu season already -- if that hasn't broken our health system yet, the 15 or 20 people so far dead will not break our system nor will 2,000, or even 20,000.
Look, it is getting warmer here not colder. If this virus was going to kill millions of people, it would have already done so.

And if, as you suggest, people have been suffering from the covid-19 virus and recovering thinking it's the flu, then what's the problem?


FTR, l worry about my mother, too, but l worry every year for her over -- the flu. Every winter season, my sister ramps up vit-C for her immune system. So you should be concerned for your relos every flu season.

 

Let me guess, someone said to be more concerned about the flu as if we don't have a flu vaccine and as if they know for a fact that this virus isn't just as contagious.

Here in this country those are right wing talking points. Embarrassing as it is this country is even divided among political lines when it comes to viruses. Right wingers down play it because their God is in office.

Just a heads up in case you rather just ignore the fuckery.

 

Yep, they know for a fact, they’ve got all the numbers, they also have abundance of face masks even though the whole rest of the world is running short because China’s been confiscating them. Also, your health system is so stable it can’t possibly collapse during an epidemic. So seems you guys don’t have problems, congrats!

 

Sounds like ostrich reasoning to me.
Anyway, it’s supposed to be a warm spring which might help, we can probably agree on that.
I won’t go into what doctors are seeing or saying because you have made up your mind already.

 

I'm getting so many mixed messages about what doctors agree on. Like how deadly is this because the way everyone is acting is like it's Ebola level deadly. You get it and you die instantly. What happens if and when you get it? Just some bed rest for a few weeks then you're good? Do you build up antibodies so you're ok till next flu season?
All this has shown me is a bunch of experts don't really know much or enough to actually do things correctly.

 

I've read interview reports from doctors who say, slow down, everybody's over-reacting to another saying hundreds of millions of going to die.

So if you have the "inside scoop" of what's really going on, then just self-isolate. Advise your family and friends to isolate themselves for months and you won't have to worry.

I mean, what more do you want people to do? There's nothing much that can be done except wait it out, and take precautions just like you do with the flu virus. If you get it, you hope you make it through, if you don't, well there's not much that can be done there. They're actively working on a vaccine and when they have it you can take it. I'm not going to take their vaccine.

 

Yeah the experts don’t know yet so there have to be different opinions. The main thing I have realised is that it doesn’t take that much to make our seemingly well-functioning states crumble.
Going by your age and assuming you are healthy you’d probably have something between mild and severe flu symptoms, maybe viral pneumonia, you might need oxygen. Many just have something like the flu. So it’s nowhere near on the scale of Ebola. Ebola kills 70-90%.
However, it’s just obvious how quickly doctors and hospitals reach their limits when large numbers of patients have to be isolated and anyone who has been in contact with them has to be isolated as well. Meaning staff that treats Corona can’t treat anyone else. Then you have people stealing sanitizer and masks from hospitals like crazy while doctors, especially private practices, can’t even get hold of any single mask because they are all sold out and each country has forbidden exports. So if you combine the flu and Corona virus patients and other cases hospitals get to a point where they can’t take care of everyone like they should. If the epidemic is on a scale like Italy. Mortality rates rise when hospitals are overloaded and staff can’t protect themselves and get sick themselves. Hopefully the containment strategies they are using here work so we don’t get there. For now risk for a healthy individual is relatively low, except you stay in one of the hotspots, like Italy and West Germany for instance. It’s a public health issue and an economic issue and those will come back to us sooner or later.
As for antibodies, yes, they think you’d have a level of immunity once you’ve had it. The mortality rate is still significantly higher than the flu, just check how many people died in Italy.
I think it just hasn’t hit the US to the extent it has hit Europe yet so people aren’t feeling the impact yet. It doesn’t take that much to understand that the health system can’t cope when 2, 3 or 4times as many patients need treatment at once as usual. That’s why the RKI (German CDC) has been saying the most important for now is to slow down the spread (because it’ll certainly spread) so they can make sure life can still function properly. If too many people get sick at once then we can end up in a lockdown situation fairly quickly. So they are trying to slow it down as much as possible until it gets hotter and then use summertime to invest in the health system and get ready for it to return in autumn. They also admit it’s a possibility the virus has no problem surviving in warmer weather in which case they might shift holidays so schools can stay closed and everyone has to be quarantined for a while to interrupt transmission.

 

Perspective.

Population of Italy is 61,000,000.
463 dead.

Population of Europe:
Almost ONE BILLION.
518 deaths.

Population of Germany
68,000,000.
0 deaths.

Again, perspective.

Turn off the news for one day. You will feel much better by morning. Doctors orders, lol.

 

To be fair a much better metric is the population of those infected and of those infected who died. That's a lot more concerning

 

The metric is there.
Did you mean the numbers infected?
For the each country, the number in white is how many infected.
In red next to it, are the deaths.