OT: COVID-19 - NO POLITICS (MOD/warning post #527)

[ACC1224]

Paid 83 cents a litre for gas last night. No idea how long it's been since gas was that low.

 

[JT AM da real deal]

Paid 83 cents a litre for gas last night. No idea how long it's been since gas was that low.

I just heard it is going down 10 more cents tomorrow. I am holding out and then going to fill up 4 cars. Imagine 73 cents. Although we are starting to go into recession and likely will for next 6 months.

 

[Leafblooded]

I was just sent this.

Stanford hospital board internal message.
The new Coronavirus may not show sign of infection for many days. How can one know if he/she is infected? By the time they have fever and/or cough and go to the hospital, the lung is usually 50% Fibrosis and it's too late. Taiwan experts provide a simple self-check that we can do every morning. Take a deep breath and hold your breath for more than 10 seconds. If you complete it successfully without coughing, without discomfort, stiffness or tightness, etc., it proves there is no Fibrosis in the lungs, basically indicates no infection. In critical time, please self-check every morning in an environment with clean air. Serious excellent advice by Japanese doctors treating COVID-19 cases: Everyone should ensure your mouth & throat are moist, never dry. Take a few sips of water every 15 minutes at least. Why? Even if the virus gets into your mouth, drinking water or other liquids will wash them down through your throat and into the stomach. Once there, your stomach acid will kill all the virus. If you don't drink enough water more regularly, the virus can enter your windpipe and into the lungs. That's very dangerous. Please send and share this with family and friends. Take care everyone and may the world recover from this Coronavirus soon. IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT - CORONAVIRUS 1. If you have a runny nose and sputum, you have a common cold 2. Coronavirus pneumonia is a dry cough with no runny nose. 3. This new virus is not heat-resistant and will be killed by a temperature of just 26/27 degrees. It hates the Sun. 4. If someone sneezes with it, it takes about 10 feet before it drops to the ground and is no longer airborne. 5. If it drops on a metal surface it will live for at least 12 hours - so if you come into contact with any metal surface - wash your hands as soon as you can with a bacterial soap. 6. On fabric it can survive for 6-12 hours. normal laundry detergent will kill it. 7. Drinking warm water is effective for all viruses. Try not to drink liquids with ice. 8. Wash your hands frequently as the virus can only live on your hands for 5-10 minutes, but - a lot can happen during that time - you can rub your eyes, pick your nose unwittingly and so on. 9. You should also gargle as a prevention. A simple solution of salt in warm water will suffice. 10. Can't emphasis enough - drink plenty of water! THE SYMPTOMS 1. It will first infect the throat, so you'll have a sore throat lasting 3/4 days 2. The virus then blends into a nasal fluid that enters the trachea and then the lungs, causing pneumonia. This takes about 5/6 days further. 3. With the pneumonia comes high fever and difficulty in breathing. 4. The nasal congestion is not like the normal kind. You feel like you're drowning. It's imperative you then seek immediate attention.

 

[willmma]

To me it looks like the death rate is much higher than the 3.4% reported.

WorldOMeter Coronavirus Update (Live): 139,356 Cases and 5,117 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Outbreak - Worldometer
currently shows 139351 total cases world wide
out of which 5117 died. which is a 3.6% death rate.

but it also shows that 70729 recovered.

That means there are (139351total - 70729recovered -5117died) 63505 active cases, some of those may still die.

but if we look only at the cases that are not active we see that 5117 died out of 75846 not active cases. that is 6.7% of all cases that are no longer active, resulted in the death of the patient.

now I need some toilet paper.

 

[Coaches Coroner]

this is serious, but the arm chair analysts using sources at least (and likely more) sketchy than official reports have not and continue not to help matters.
Take some precautions, get some extra food, wash them hands, avoid physical contact and keep distance in public. Legitimate panicking won't help you or anyone else though.
My house has extra TP because it was of concern to one person, but I frankly don't get that main concern. Just use a shower head if you run out.
The panic that leads people to run out all at once and stock up is concerning as it boths deprives supply for others, and it leads to a lot of crowded situations and scrambling, which is the kind of scenario that would more easily spread the virus.

 

[yubbers]

this is serious, but the arm chair analysts using sources at least (and likely more) sketchy than official reports have not and continue not to help matters.
Take some precautions, get some extra food, wash them hands, avoid physical contact and keep distance in public. Legitimate panicking won't help you or anyone else though.
My house has extra TP because it was of concern to one person, but I frankly don't get that main concern. Just use a shower head if you run out.

We're a coddled society. I find it so odd TP is the go-to product.

 

[yubbers]

I grabbed 2 weeks worth of provisions yesterday just for peace of mind. Good thing I did cause i went to pick up coffee today (i bought whole bean-like an idiot again) and it was PACKED.

 

[Coaches Coroner]

We're a coddled society. I find it so odd TP is the go-to product.

not sure that's it, you can go back decades and look at any type of mass panic situation and TP is always very high on the list. Bidet's are more common in Europe/Asia, I guess we've been using TP for so long we just have no idea what to do with our buttholes if we don't have any.

 

[Clark4Ever]

Neither is toilet paper.

Speak for yourself.

 

[JT AM da real deal]

To me it looks like the death rate is much higher than the 3.4% reported.

WorldOMeter Coronavirus Update (Live): 139,356 Cases and 5,117 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Outbreak - Worldometer
currently shows 139351 total cases world wide
out of which 5117 died. which is a 3.6% death rate.

but it also shows that 70729 recovered.

That means there are (139351total - 70729recovered -5117died) 63505 active cases, some of those may still die.

but if we look only at the cases that are not active we see that 5117 died out of 75846 not active cases. that is 6.7% of all cases that are no longer active, resulted in the death of the patient.

now I need some toilet paper.

This is only tested people. Many many more had it and recovered with mild symptoms but were never tested. Bottom line most people going to feel unwell but recover and they did not go to hospital ever. This is my understanding of it from my guy in China. But I think you right from the tested crowd the number is 3-4 %. No matter what it sucks royally. Let's pray for everyone. and let's pray for a very very quick vaccine. i think people in terrible shape should be given the option of trying different things that might work as long as it does not cause death on its own.

 

[Burnie97]

To me it looks like the death rate is much higher than the 3.4% reported.

WorldOMeter Coronavirus Update (Live): 139,356 Cases and 5,117 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Outbreak - Worldometer
currently shows 139351 total cases world wide
out of which 5117 died. which is a 3.6% death rate.

but it also shows that 70729 recovered.

That means there are (139351total - 70729recovered -5117died) 63505 active cases, some of those may still die.

but if we look only at the cases that are not active we see that 5117 died out of 75846 not active cases. that is 6.7% of all cases that are no longer active, resulted in the death of the patient.

now I need some toilet paper.

True... but I bet there's another 50000 cases not reported that made it through fine... dropping that percentage significantly.

Not that this isn't a big deal... but just for a little more peace of mind.

 

[yubbers]

So H1N1 killed 12,456 Americans with 60.8 million cases. Killed over half a million world wide.

Corona is 39 deaths with 1329 cases. Predicting half a million dead worldwide if it gets bad.

So what am I missing? Mass hysteria now vs meh then?

 

[Warden of the North]

O

So H1N1 killed 12,456 Americans with 60.8 million cases. Killed over half a million world wide.

Corona is 39 deaths with 1329 cases. Predicting half a million dead worldwide if it gets bad.

So what am I missing? Mass hysteria now vs meh then?

Well, theres a concerted effort to prevent those deaths if possible. Hence the immediate cancellation of all large gatherings and closing of schools for three weeks. Telling people to prep and stay away from others for the next couple weeks.

 

[AvroArrow]

The testing line ups are insanely long. Both my mom and girlfriend work at Pearson and were feeling sick, i been sick for 3ish days now but today felt worse. Went to a test center in peel, an hour wait outside just to get a number. Was told to come back in 4ish hours, or tomorrow to get my test and the results by the end of the day or the next day. If you're feeling sick or any of the symptoms i suggest going asap, because you will not get seen right away.

It may just be the common flu, but it feels a little worse, maybe its paranoia. Better safe than sorry though.

Even if the number calling goes past your ticket number, you can come back and still be seen/tested. Just don't cut people in line or create any kind of scene, security was throwing people out and banning them from test centers for that kinda stuff.

 

[willmma]

True... but I bet there's another 50000 cases not reported that made it through fine... dropping that percentage significantly.

Not that this isn't a big deal... but just for a little more peace of mind.

This maybe true, but I'm going by the official numbers.
Cuz, going by the "I bet" theory is much less reliable. If we're to assume that thousands more got it without reporting it, we can't assume they all made through fine, they could be active or some may have died but had their deaths attributed to the flu or something.

We know the official numbers are not complete, but I would say it is a large sample and the error margin on a sample size like that would be less than 1%.

 

[willmma]

The testing line ups are insanely long. Both my mom and girlfriend work at Pearson and were feeling sick, i been sick for 3ish days now but today felt worse. Went to a test center in peel, an hour wait outside just to get a number. Was told to come back in 4ish hours, or tomorrow to get my test and the results by the end of the day or the next day. If you're feeling sick or any of the symptoms i suggest going asap, because you will not get seen right away.

It may just be the common flu, but it feels a little worse, maybe its paranoia. Better safe than sorry though.

My prayers to you, friends and family.

 

[willmma]

This is only tested people. Many many more had it and recovered with mild symptoms but were never tested. Bottom line most people going to feel unwell but recover and they did not go to hospital ever. This is my understanding of it from my guy in China. But I think you right from the tested crowd the number is 3-4 %. No matter what it sucks royally. Let's pray for everyone. and let's pray for a very very quick vaccine. i think people in terrible shape should be given the option of trying different things that might work as long as it does not cause death on its own.

This is a strange counter argument using hearsay to argue against facts and it contradicts basic statistics.

 

[IPS]

I grabbed 2 weeks worth of provisions yesterday just for peace of mind. Good thing I did cause i went to pick up coffee today (i bought whole bean-like an idiot again) and it was PACKED.

Get yourself a coffee grinder off amazon for ~30 bucks. A fresh grounds cup of coffee is so much better than normal.

 

[Pookie]

Speak for yourself.

 

[yubbers]

Get yourself a coffee grinder off amazon for ~30 bucks. A fresh grounds cup of coffee is so much better than normal.

I know....i should just wander over to Crappy Tire even

 

[JT AM da real deal]

This is a strange counter argument using hearsay to argue against facts and it contradicts basic statistics.

Just look to US. Hardly anyone on the public system is getting tested. Why? Test kits.
In China people were locked down in their homes and scared. There is no possible way to test everyone. They don't have enough test kits.
These orgs dat does da counts are only doing them based on test results. They are not doing estimates.
It is not hard to figure out that people will recover at home who had virus and never got tested.
This only stops with a vaccine. We need it bad. and fast.

 

[sxvnert]

Last night it was announced that Santa Clara County is banning gatherings of over 1000 people. This directly affects the SJ Sharks, as they will play in front of an empty rink? or just a max capacity of like 800 people?

The first home game for them is March 17th.

Coronavirus causes mass gatherings ban, impacting San Jose Sharks

Might as well not even do it if its 1000 gathered together.

 

[TheTotalPackage]

The testing line ups are insanely long. Both my mom and girlfriend work at Pearson and were feeling sick, i been sick for 3ish days now but today felt worse. Went to a test center in peel, an hour wait outside just to get a number. Was told to come back in 4ish hours, or tomorrow to get my test and the results by the end of the day or the next day. If you're feeling sick or any of the symptoms i suggest going asap, because you will not get seen right away.

It may just be the common flu, but it feels a little worse, maybe its paranoia. Better safe than sorry though.

Even if the number calling goes past your ticket number, you can come back and still be seen/tested. Just don't cut people in line or create any kind of scene, security was throwing people out and banning them from test centers for that kinda stuff.

There was a doctor interviewed on the news last night at the Brampton test centre that said you should only go get tested if you have flu like symptoms AND were out of the country in the previous 14 days (he emphasized it wasn't an OR statement). Maybe people probably don't know that, so I'm sure there are many there waiting in line who probably wouldn't fit the criteria. They did say that more testing centres will be opening up soon to alleviate the burden on the one in Brampton.

All the best.

 

[CharasLazyWrister]

Just look to US. Hardly anyone on the public system is getting tested. Why? Test kits.
In China people were locked down in their homes and scared. There is no possible way to test everyone. They don't have enough test kits.
These orgs dat does da counts are only doing them based on test results. They are not doing estimates.
It is not hard to figure out that people will recover at home who had virus and never got tested.
This only stops with a vaccine. We need it bad. and fast.

People will continue to become infected albeit at a slower rate. And obviously there are way, way, way more people carrying the virus than we will ever know. But if you can buy time to get more test kits and work on a vaccine, the entire situation becomes more manageable.

The numbers of people testing positive will continue to skyrocket as more people are tested, but the death rate will continue to fall because you’re not simply testing those who are gravely or severely ill (or famous/rich), which comprises only a small portion of those infected.

At the end of the day, it’s hard for me to believe there’s a new virus with the same symptoms of influenza that is somehow exponentially more deadly. At max, I could see a .2% death rate as opposed to the commonly quoted .1% for influenza.

Right now, it’s all about slowing the infection rate to not overwhelm hospitals. In the longer term (not much longer), it is all about a vaccination because the virus as a whole isn’t containable and hasn’t been for quite some time.

 

[HoweHullOrr]

Forgive me if I'm wrong but did that say cut when adjusted for inflation? Because if that's the case the budget has increased year on year not decreased, that's a neat little accounting trick that shows the current administration in the worst possible light now doesn't it?

The president get to choose who's in charge of what, including the CDC and if he didn't like the former officials he's allowed to replace them with people he does

That's within his presidential perview

The vice president of the US (2nd most powerful person in government) is leading and directing the response to the virus with multiple experts and the CDC under him giving advise about how to deal with the situation the US is in

If you want to argue incompetence and differing messages at a federal level which is under Trump's perview I'm on board, I don't think this pandemic has been handled well by the administration even though it's health outcomes look pretty solid with only 40 odd deaths in a population of 330 million thus far

This budget argument is dumb however, the CDC are getting more money year over year and the country has a trillion dollar fiscal deficit and is 20+ trillion dollars in debt

Or do we just ignore unpleasant little realities like that? Just keep on doing that forever like Greece?

This is getting old, you don't like Trump I get it but some of this stuff is just stupid when there's plenty of actual faults to pick at from the Trump administration

The excerpts that I posted were from a very long report done by experts in this subject matter who studied the subject. Amongst many other things and many recommendations, they also looked actual spending over the last number of years. You could peruse the links to those reports that I provided if you want. I don't think this was a political hack job which is the picture you seem (?) to be suggesting. Perhaps we should compare the amount of money being spent to protect citizens from a pandemic to the amount of money being spent on other things e.g., military? Wouldn't both of those expenditures be designed for the purpose of protecting citizens?

Also, saying that Congress disregarded DT's budget proposals and approved higher budgets isn't any kind of endorsement of POTUS whatsover. Also, remember until the midterm elections in Nov. 2018, the current administration had majority control of both the House & Senate.

However, you are right about the unprecedented debt levels in the U.S.which have sharply accelerated under the current administration. I've seen many economists on the CSPAN channel (panels of subject matter experts, not a proxy for any political party) argue that the danger in recent tax cuts was that the debt would significantly increase, and we would not be keeping our powder dry so to speak for crisis situations where federal stimulus would be necessary. And, they were stating that the economy (& stock market) was doing well before those tax cuts went into place, hence were unnecessary.

Having said all of this, perhaps the focus should turn to more topical & important matters. That should be the real focus here & its certainly what I want to discuss. As the expression goes, "A problem well identified is a problem half solved."

Health & disease control experts have been saying that the coronavirus could effect between 40% to 70% of the U.S. population. However, they say that only 20% (of the previous number) will be severely impacted and are at risk. If you do the math, that means 26 to 46 million people will be severely impacted. Any effort by any official or anyone to downplay the situation doesn't seem appropriate one would think, no?

A list of the some of things that we do know because of recent news includes:

• There's a lack of ICU beds/resources.
• There's a critical shortage of ventilators.
• The CDC decided not to use a test being used (internationally) by other countries, but there were problems with the CDC test kits, and they are having to fix the problem. Nobody can answer the question when large scale distribution of test kits will occur. Fauci was asked this question yesterday. He had no answer.
• The total amount of testing done so far in the U.S. (over several weeks) is slightly higher than one day of tests done in S. Korea e.g. 13,000 tests in U.S. so far over several weeks versus 10,000 per day in S Korea. The top official (Fauci) has stated that the testing program in the U.S. has been a failure.
• Some government officials (won't name the person in question here) have decided to appear on camera to state that the testing program is going very well.
• We've known about the outbreak (in China) since late December.

They are fighting now over legislation of a bill to fund efforts to fight the pandemic. Looks like one party is trying to strike down an individual's income requirement to pay for test kits that the other party wanted.

One party proposed a $2.5 B program, while Congress approved a $8.3 B program. Again, as a matter of interest, compare that money approved for military. Or, compare that to the amount of federal taxes Amazon would have paid if it weren't for the deductions they were able to claim given current tax codes (they paid $0 in federal taxes in 2018).

The other thing is that experts in the field have been predicting & warning about pandemics since at least the Bush administration (I provided info on that topic in a post that you replied to). So, there has been plenty of inaction and blame to spread around across many administrations. What we do (as a country), where we spend the money, & what we prioritize is a matter of choice & the political system is directly involved in that. I would guess its fair to question if the priorities have been correct.