How concerned are you about Coronavirus?

[Rob]

Restaurants can stay open if they have takeout. Which means my uncle's restaurant gets to stay in business. I was worried about that.

[Jeannette]

As a parent to a school aged kid I just don't see how they can close for that long. Are they going to force the kids to re-do the grade they're in? What about seniors who have already been accepted into college?

I just don't see the point in closing for that long of a time period. Are they waiting for a vaccine? I just don't get the thinking behind it.

[frodi]

The pharmacy went on lock down today. Front door is now kept locked and only a max of 2 customers at a time allowed in. This might be changing to 1 later on if things change. Within the pharmacy I've set up a barricade to keep customers back from the counter. Some of my colleagues are already stopping them at the door and working behind locked doors.
On a pharmacy forum there is an unofficial competition for worst experience. Leading contender was one who had a patient have a fit of coughing into her face, however the current leader is one who had a patient ask to see her in the consultation room. They had been told by their doctor that they should self isolate because of contact with a positive case. They then wanted the pharmacists opinion.
I had an appointment with the cardiologist this morning. As from Wednesday the hospitals are cancelling all non-essential work for at least the next 4 months. Two of Dublin's medical schools are completing final exams early over the next two weeks so that the new crop of docs will be ready for June. The third school is nearly finished as they use continual assessment. They are expecting the surge in cases in about 2 weeks.

[martycanuck]

Well fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

My wife went to take a deposit for our business at the bank this AM. Sign on the door - CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. No reports of a bank robbery and that would have made the news quick.

I have to think it is Covid.

Lisa was in that branch on Friday. Fuck.

Trying desperately to get any info. Bank has no announcements. Nothing on news yet. Been on hold with local public heatlh dept. for almost 1-1/2 hours waiting to talk to someone who knows something.

Posted something on FB on a local news sharing page. First response “Heard there were people going in there in full HazMat suits on Sunday. FUCK!

Again not that worried about the illness killing me but if that is the case we almost certainly need to quarantine our house for the next 2 weeks! FUCK!

God I need to get some answers from somebody. Uncertaintly is the worst!

[martycanuck]

What a fucking duimb dildo.

www.insider.com/girl-films-herself-licking-plane-toilet-seat-coronavirus-challenge-video-2020-3?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sf-bi-ti

[graham]

Coronavirus: PM says everyone should avoid office, pubs and travelling

Shit just got real over here.

[martycanuck]

Mar 16, 2020 19:15:15 GMT -5 graham said:

Coronavirus: PM says everyone should avoid office, pubs and travelling

Shit just got real over here.

It was real a while ago. Too many people were in denial over it.

[martycanuck]

Mar 16, 2020 16:28:41 GMT -5 martycanuck said:

Well fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

My wife went to take a deposit for our business at the bank this AM. Sign on the door - CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. No reports of a bank robbery and that would have made the news quick.

I have to think it is Covid.

Lisa was in that branch on Friday. Fuck.

Trying desperately to get any info. Bank has no announcements. Nothing on news yet. Been on hold with local public heatlh dept. for almost 1-1/2 hours waiting to talk to someone who knows something.

Posted something on FB on a local news sharing page. First response “Heard there were people going in there in full HazMat suits on Sunday. FUCK!

Again not that worried about the illness killing me but if that is the case we almost certainly need to quarantine our house for the next 2 weeks! FUCK!

God I need to get some answers from somebody. Uncertaintly is the worst!

Got more info. Hoping this was a customer and not an employee. Greatly improves our odds of not getting it....yet.

[martycanuck]

Well damn I might have just had a revelation. A lot of you aren’t going to like this. I was chatting on another board about current events when I realized......

The US Healthcare system is private sector.
The private sector does not spend to build excess capacity. They only build to meet demand.
A huge number of Americans don’t have any health insurance and don’t seek healthcare.
So your system only has the capacity to service a normal number of patients that only represent part of the population.
There is now an outbreak that is going to affect 100’s of Millions of people with and without healthcare benefits.
The system is not going to be able to even handle all the people who DO have healthcare.
This is going to change the way a lot of Americans think about private versus public healthcare systems, at least in my opinion. YMMV

ETA
If I’ve made assumptions incorrectly I am totally open to changing my opinion with good back up. But I also saw that the # of hospital beds in the US per capita was actually very, very low. 

[martycanuck]

From an article I read. Don’t ask me the source. But damn it resounded loud and clear.

“Trump was comparing flu statistics to coronavirus statistics,” said Chamberlain. “Well, that’s the same mistake that people make when they say, ‘Why do you care more about terrorism? Terrorism kills so many fewer people in car accidents every year.’ The answer is, ‘Because if something goes really wrong in terrorism, they could do unbelievably dramatic damage.’ Same logic here.”

[mank]

Well, we started to drive to the Grand Canyon, which is open by the way, and turned around the next day and drove back to Pittsburgh. Why? Because all restaurants are closing for take out only. I am not going to eat take out from fast food places for two weeks.

I am at my work in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania since we don't allow anyone from the public at my office and we have to report to work unless we are sick. I know Governor Wolf declared people stay home for non-essential businesses but you don't tell United Technologies Corporation a 70 billion dollar, soon to be a 130 billion dollar company - we bought Raytheon, what to do, period.

And, I still think this is a total over reaction. When I was in Walmart waiting in a long line a guy yells out it is the end of the world and everybody laughed. Another guy commented we shut down the country because 90 people died. He went on to say, "What the fuck is wrong with this country?"

I tend to agree. I ate at a buffet the other day. Oh NO I might die. I know some of you think I am wrong but it seems ridiculous to me.

My two weeks of vacation turned into 1 day. I drove to St. Louis stayed overnight and then drove back home, 1300 miles in two days. Not bad considering I didn't leave the first day until noon. I am at work while I write this. All of this just pisses me off.

[Rob]

It's not just our country. It's the world that's shutting down. Because 7,519 people died. Out of 190,664 cases, 80,648 people recovered.

I think a lot of people are afraid that they themselves will die, though most of them are healthy and should get through this just fine. But many more are like Marty. Their biggest fear is they might pass it on to someone who won't be able to survive it.

My brother is very worried that if our dad catches CV-19, it'll kill him. I take that into consideration, but I'm not that worried about my dad. I think he's strong enough to get through CV-19. But there are many other people I know who, if they caught CV-19 there's a high chance that they won't survive.

I agree with Graham that they are putting undue emphasis on the number of deaths and causing a lot of unnecessary panic. Why aren't they saying more about the number of people who recovered? It might settle people down a bit. But I've seen very little about people recovering from CV-19.

At the same time, though, I think something has be done to protect the people who are high risk. But the measures they're putting in place, closing everything down and so on, is that going to make a difference?

Right now everything in Michigan is closed down for a couple weeks and they want us to stay home during this time. But in a couple weeks, is the situation going to be any better? What if it's worse? Are they going to keep extending the length of time that they expect people to avoid in person contact with each other?

[Stan]

At 2100 miles of a 3200 mile trip. Have my puppy, need to get her home. Georgia was open for breakfast, Tenn is takeout only.I'm a bit concerned about hotels; but it hasn't been a problem, so far.

None of the names I had selected seem to fit. Working on that as I drive.

I worry that some dumbass that figures it is no big deal will share it with my wife or father, for which it is a big deal.

[Dan]

As long as my contracts continue to pay me, I'm on the road until/unless I'm symptomatic. If I am, I'll go down. Nothing less. But I will go down.

[MalcolmR]

I'm not worried al all. I've just had an Email from Norton to say that I won't get infected for another year, for just $30.

[martycanuck]

Hello? The problem is how fast it can spread and how many people it can make sick at once. Your health system will be over-whelmed. You may say you don’t care if you get the virus but if it shuts down your health care system and you are in a car crash you might be in a lot of trouble.

It’s not about how serious the illness is. It is how many it can infect quickly. Not doing something to slow the spread will increase the virus deadliness because the really sick ones won’t be able to get any treatment.

[Jackie]

Mar 17, 2020 12:56:02 GMT -5 mank said:

I ate at a buffet the other day.

When Reggie and I went to Walmart on Saturday we did stop for lunch at the same Chinese buffet we always do. Some might say that was not a good idea since Reggie is 66 and has COPD. But we're talking about a small family owned place that is never super busy in a county where there have been no cases of the virus.

I'm just grateful that I don't have to worry about my hours being cut or being laid off. The only change at my workplace due to the virus is that starting tomorrow no walk in customers. The drive thru will be open for taking payments and anyone who needs new service or wants to make changes to existing service can to their order by email, fax, or phone. We're most likely going to be even busier than usual with all the people who will now have to work from home. I did three orders today for people who wanted to install high speed internet and two more for current customers who wanted to up their broadband speed.

[Rob]

They're already telling us, if we get the virus and we're not a high risk case, to just stay home and ride it out. I read somewhere that 90% of recoveries were done at home..

I don't think anything we do is going to slow the spread much. I'm not expecting the situation to be any better in two weeks, no matter what we do. When things aren't better, will they extend the time that they want people to keep their distance from each other?

This could go on for months or years. How long will it be before they have a vaccine ready? Will we ever be able to go out and have a good time again?

🖕 This finger is for whatever chef didn't wash his hands after handling a pig carcass. Because of you, there are no baseball games on and Shipt Shoppers won't deliver beer.

[Rob]

I just saw a CNN article that says China has lifted their travel ban and life is returning to normal there. Looking at the numbers on the Johns Hopkins site, it looks like most of China's confirmed cases are now recoveries.


Maybe this will soon be over.

[martycanuck]

Rob we all want that. You can slow the spread by not getting it and sharing it. That is why they isolation. If you did it you would be fine almost certainly. But if you shared it to someone vulnerable that is the risk. That is why we need to slow the spread.

[brandon]

These are just random thoughts that are bouncing through my head today.

I get the concern that most people have, that they may spread it to someone that may not have as good of a chance to fight it off due to age and/or underlying conditions.

I know how this sounds, but are you normally worried about these same people every year when it comes to the seasonal flu?

To me, it seems that there are such extraordinary measures being taken for this, I am not sure that it is totally justified. I know the numbers have been all over the place, but it seems that there is a lot of panic, which is causing even more strain on the very things they are trying to protect, the healthcare system. People with the slightly symptoms are rushing to the er because they may have this bad nasty killer virus, even though normally they would just say, oh, I have the flu and just stay home and rest.

[Rob]

Mar 17, 2020 22:23:55 GMT -5 martycanuck said:

You can slow the spread by not getting it and sharing it. That is why they isolation.

I know that. I just didn't really think isolation would make that much of a difference. Some people would still have to go to work and produce things that the rest of us would need to survive, and the virus would get shared. The rest of us would still have to go shopping to get things that we will need to survive, and the virus would get shared. And that's not counting the people who wouldn't be able to make their livings from home.

And if this thing drags on for months, or even years, would we have to spend that much time in isolation? Loneliness can be a killer too.

But after hearing the latest news on China, I'm feeling better about all this.

Mar 17, 2020 22:30:28 GMT -5 brandon said:

but are you normally worried about these same people every year when it comes to the seasonal flu?

The differences is there are vaccines for the flu and there are none for Covid-19.

But I agree that the panic is unnecessary and problematic.

[mank]

Mar 17, 2020 14:30:17 GMT -5 Stan said:

At 2100 miles of a 3200 mile trip. Have my puppy, need to get her home. Georgia was open for breakfast, Tenn is takeout only.I'm a bit concerned about hotels; but it hasn't been a problem, so far.

None of the names I had selected seem to fit. Working on that as I drive.

I worry that some dumbass that figures it is no big deal will share it with my wife or father, for which it is a big deal.

It seems that hotels are still open around the country.

[mank]

Mar 17, 2020 22:30:28 GMT -5 brandon said:

These are just random thoughts that are bouncing through my head today.

I get the concern that most people have, that they may spread it to someone that may not have as good of a chance to fight it off due to age and/or underlying conditions.

I know how this sounds, but are you normally worried about these same people every year when it comes to the seasonal flu?

To me, it seems that there are such extraordinary measures being taken for this, I am not sure that it is totally justified. I know the numbers have been all over the place, but it seems that there is a lot of panic, which is causing even more strain on the very things they are trying to protect, the healthcare system. People with the slightly symptoms are rushing to the er because they may have this bad nasty killer virus, even though normally they would just say, oh, I have the flu and just stay home and rest.

Brandon,

With any virus it has to run its course. You make a good point about people with the flu just stay home since again it is a virus and antibiotics don't work on viruses. Even if you have the Coronavirus there is nothing a hospital can do but try to lessen the symptoms. If I did get the Coronavirus I would check into a hotel and quarantine myself for two weeks. My father-in-law who is 92 lives with us and it would kill him if he got it. He coughs up tons of phlegm now all day. We tell him that isn't normal but he ignores us. He has lived with us for two years now and he does have under lying health problems. He might have leukemia since his hemoglobin count is around 8 and should be around 13. The goal is to get him to 10 but he never gets there. He gets HGH shots every month and occasionally a blood transfusion. At 92 chemo or a bone marrow transplant would kill him. Therefore, they are only treating the symptoms. He has been getting these shots for over a year now. He is still in pretty good shape and still drives.   

[Drea]

This appears to be a pretty clear science-based article, with lots of graphs and charts. Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now

[graham]

Mar 17, 2020 21:49:33 GMT -5 Rob said:

I just saw a CNN article that says China has lifted their travel ban and life is returning to normal there. Looking at the numbers on the Johns Hopkins site, it looks like most of China's confirmed cases are now recoveries.


Maybe this will soon be over.

Looks like good news, but remember that China was even more draconian with its restrictions, so I hope people don't get complacent...

[martycanuck]

Mar 18, 2020 7:05:36 GMT -5 mank said:

Mar 17, 2020 22:30:28 GMT -5 brandon said:

These are just random thoughts that are bouncing through my head today.

I get the concern that most people have, that they may spread it to someone that may not have as good of a chance to fight it off due to age and/or underlying conditions.

I know how this sounds, but are you normally worried about these same people every year when it comes to the seasonal flu?

To me, it seems that there are such extraordinary measures being taken for this, I am not sure that it is totally justified. I know the numbers have been all over the place, but it seems that there is a lot of panic, which is causing even more strain on the very things they are trying to protect, the healthcare system. People with the slightly symptoms are rushing to the er because they may have this bad nasty killer virus, even though normally they would just say, oh, I have the flu and just stay home and rest.

Brandon,

With any virus it has to run its course. You make a good point about people with the flu just stay home since again it is a virus and antibiotics don't work on viruses. Even if you have the Coronavirus there is nothing a hospital can do but try to lessen the symptoms. If I did get the Coronavirus I would check into a hotel and quarantine myself for two weeks. My father-in-law who is 92 lives with us and it would kill him if he got it. He coughs up tons of phlegm now all day. We tell him that isn't normal but he ignores us. He has lived with us for two years now and he does have under lying health problems. He might have leukemia since his hemoglobin count is around 8 and should be around 13. The goal is to get him to 10 but he never gets there. He gets HGH shots every month and occasionally a blood transfusion. At 92 chemo or a bone marrow transplant would kill him. Therefore, they are only treating the symptoms. He has been getting these shots for over a year now. He is still in pretty good shape and still drives.   

Things you need to understand.

No one has any built in immunity to this disease. That is reason 1 why it is worse than seasonal flu.

Mank, by the time you knew you had Covid you may have been spreading it for 2 weeks without symptom. So your FIL would probably have been exposed before you knew you were sick.

This is worse than seasonal flu because of the number of people who would require ICU/CCU hospital care at the same time. The needed resources just don’t exist.

If nobody could die from this, if it was just a sniffle for a few days then the best thing would be for everyone to get it quickly and be done with it. That is NOT the case.

The “best” option is to isolate aggressively to SLOW the spread so the health care system can keep up on demand for critical care.

[mank]

Mar 18, 2020 9:55:18 GMT -5 martycanuck said:

Mar 18, 2020 7:05:36 GMT -5 mank said:

Brandon,

With any virus it has to run its course. You make a good point about people with the flu just stay home since again it is a virus and antibiotics don't work on viruses. Even if you have the Coronavirus there is nothing a hospital can do but try to lessen the symptoms. If I did get the Coronavirus I would check into a hotel and quarantine myself for two weeks. My father-in-law who is 92 lives with us and it would kill him if he got it. He coughs up tons of phlegm now all day. We tell him that isn't normal but he ignores us. He has lived with us for two years now and he does have under lying health problems. He might have leukemia since his hemoglobin count is around 8 and should be around 13. The goal is to get him to 10 but he never gets there. He gets HGH shots every month and occasionally a blood transfusion. At 92 chemo or a bone marrow transplant would kill him. Therefore, they are only treating the symptoms. He has been getting these shots for over a year now. He is still in pretty good shape and still drives.   

Things you need to understand.

No one has any built in immunity to this disease. That is reason 1 why it is worse than seasonal flu.

Mank, by the time you knew you had Covid you may have been spreading it for 2 weeks without symptom. So your FIL would probably have been exposed before you knew you were sick.

This is worse than seasonal flu because of the number of people who would require ICU/CCU hospital care at the same time. The needed resources just don’t exist.

If nobody could die from this, if it was just a sniffle for a few days then the best thing would be for everyone to get it quickly and be done with it. That is NOT the case.

The “best” option is to isolate aggressively to SLOW the spread so the health care system can keep up on demand for critical care.

Marty,

I know nobody has immunity to this. People don't have immunity to most viruses. People die from flu too. I just think this is way over hyped. I did see a woman near Seattle got the first vaccine shot. Going to the hospital for Coronavirus does nothing. I know I have heard this over and over and over, call your doctor, don't go to the hospital. If you are sick and think you have it quarantine in place.

And I will say the media has made it worse and have created panic.

[brandon]

Mar 17, 2020 23:13:56 GMT -5 Rob said:

Mar 17, 2020 22:30:28 GMT -5 brandon said:

but are you normally worried about these same people every year when it comes to the seasonal flu?

The differences is there are vaccines for the flu and there are none for Covid-19.

But I agree that the panic is unnecessary and problematic.

Well, the flu vaccine only covers the strains that they think will be for the year. There have been many times when they turned out to be incorrect.

With all of this, I guess the question is what is an acceptable death rate? We know that the flu kills tens of thousands every year, but everyone just accepts that. You could even go on to everyday things like car crashes and smoking and pollution. How many more lives could we save if we pulled out all stops to tackle these issues?

[Gimpy]

Mank, People in my age bracket may need a respirator to survive. That's a valid hospital visit.


Over reacting? Possibly but our national leaders didn't get their shit together promptly and what we have is the result.