It's peaked in those countries, but we are months behind those countries which means it is still going to get worse here before it gets better. Also China is Communist so when they locked down cities people stayed in or got shot. Our open society doesn't function like that.Originally Posted by GoSlash27
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Ezra, you're dead on right. In fact, I have a friend in China who has reported police welding shut doors to apartment buildings, children on the street starving because both parents were arrested on suspicion of being infected, and doctors and scientists being arrested for speaking anything but the government line. But yeah, our resident epidemiologists are sure the numbers from China are absolutely reflective of how things will go in other nations.
Once again. I'll let the scientists and experts in their fields lead the way. Right now, they're saying it can be a very big threat. Okay. So be it.
No reason to panic. It's not the apocalypse. It's just something to take serious.
They tried to clamp down on the “wet market” stuff after the SARS out break. That lasted about nine months, then got worse. They started breeding different animals, even endangered ones to be sold. I would hope that the world will start putting some serious sanctions on China’s ass if they don’t start cleaning up there act.
There’s no such thing as “too much Purell.”
That's not known. As they return to work, gear back up, they could face a resurgence of the virus.
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Good old media. Allergy season is upon us and Fox has an interview titled "Started with Sniffles" Just what the phobia crowd wants to hear.
I thought it actually started with a cough.
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Could be the shits since there isn't any TP in the stores
No cases at Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg, where my son is in graduate school, on Saturday, 8 yesterday. Imagine where those eight have been in the last fourteen days.
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At this point, I think their making it up.
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My wife just texted me and said her pediatrics office is insane. Parents in total panic over watching the news and what is going to happen to their children.
The news media needs to be shut down. All they have to offer is 4000 people have the virus and 70 died in the US and oh by the way the stock market is in the shitter.
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Yeah shutting down the media is the answer - WTF?
Then the markets will go back up?
Shut down Dr Fauci as well and have more uplifting briefings from the Surgeon General (aka the self-proclaimed “nation’s doctor”)?
LOL, I don't think anyone under the age of 19 has died from this thing. Kids don't even seem to show any signs is what I've heard but they can carry the virus which is why schools are closed so they don't spread it.
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At this point I wouldn't watch any of the MSM channels you normally would watch and that is for whatever side of the aisle you lean. They are all still interested in making money off this. Now is not the time to talk about how we got here but how to get out of it. Once this passes, and it will, then we should be looking into solutions like passing laws to MANDATE that all manufacturing be moved back on shores if the product pertains to national security (i.e. vital medicines, medical equipment, military, etc.).Yeah shutting down the media is the answer - WTF?
Then the markets will go back up?
Shut down Dr Fauci as well and have more uplifting briefings from the Surgeon General (aka the self-proclaimed “nation’s doctor”)?
I really hope this is a wake up call to the rest of the world that China cannot and should not be so vitally linked to ALL manufacturing. If we really need these "cheap" goods then we should look to moving the supply chains to countries closer to us or back on shores. You want to stop migrants from central America ... then build manufacturing down there, it's a lot easier to ship stuff up a rail line then across the Pacific Ocean.
The rest of the world needs to send China a clear message that these types of outbreaks won't be tolerated unless you reform your 3rd world shit.
Go to websites coronavirus.gov (a hot link to the CDC's site).
Last edited by EzraTank; 03-16-2020 at 11:52 AM.
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[QUOTE=AtlantaDan;727555]Yeah shutting down the media is the answer - WTF?
Then the markets will go back up?
Shut down Dr Fauci as well and have more uplifting briefings from the Surgeon General (aka the self-proclaimed “nation’s doctor”)?[/QUOTE
ok don't shut down the media, just don't watch it.
Don't watch and don't be dumb.
A lot of this is due to how little people understand what a virus is and how it works.
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[QUOTE=Shoes;727558]Agreed on ignoring a lot of what is being broadcast.Yeah shutting down the media is the answer - WTF?
Then the markets will go back up?
Shut down Dr Fauci as well and have more uplifting briefings from the Surgeon General (aka the self-proclaimed “nation’s doctor”)?[/QUOTE
ok don't shut down the media, just don't watch it.
CNN/MSNBC/FOX justifiably get a lot of grief but in terms of short term overreaction to every twist and turn nothing tops CNBC reporting on the markets
[QUOTE=AtlantaDan;727563]Exactly. I've stopped looking at my 401K. There's no point it's a roller-coaster as this point and once this passes it will most likely return to normal after 3+ months.
Agreed on ignoring a lot of what is being broadcast.
CNN/MSNBC/FOX justifiably get a lot of grief but in terms of short term overreaction to every twist and turn nothing tops CNBC reporting on the markets
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[QUOTE=Ezra Tank;727566]I'm sick of these roller-coasters, even more so now since I'm retiring in two months.
[QUOTE=Shoes;727568]Yeah that kind of sucks if you are retiring now. I've still got 16 years left in this rat race.
I'm sick of these roller-coasters, even more so now since I'm retiring in two months.
I don't plan on retiring. I think I will just die in the traces. I mean I would like to retire...but I don't think you can stop working when all your financial statements have negative signs on them!
Haha and Dave Ramsey can't help me.
My son has given me hope for the the next generation. He told me a bad/funny Covid-19 story from Mary Washington Hospital. A very arrogant doctor ignored all procedures admitting a patient and ended up getting the virus himself and being quarantined. My son said, “this is why I want to be a hospital administrator, so this crap doesn’t go on”. Sorry to say Mary Washington use to have a really good reputation. Still does in cardio care, but the rest.....
I think it is a good time to revisit this, given the rapid pace of events. In less than two weeks, we've managed the following:
- Destroyed the entire world's economy
- Nationwide full wartime lockdown
- Panic with hoarding and empty store shelves
- Hundreds of millions likely bankrupt and unemployed in short order, if not already
- Conditions ripe for looting to begin and National Guard called out
- Within shouting distance, if not handshake distance, of authoritarian dystopia
- Italy appears to have established itself as an extreme outlier
- Massive death tolls simply not materializing
So, the $50 trillion question: Is it worth it?
Given the first half-dozen items on the list, and the bolded ones in particular, the answer appears to be, unequivocally - no, it isn't worth it.
"Wait - but the virus would get worse if you didn't do this!"
Yes, the virus would almost certainly get worse without these measures. But the fact is, there is a good reason why these measures are unprecedented. That reason is that they are so destructive, in and of themselves, that only in a truly apocalyptic scenario - i.e., the Black Death - is the cure not worse than the disease.
Let's say that if you didn't take these measures, a million people would die. Do you still do them? Absolutely not. See again the bolded part on the list. Thrusting hundreds of millions, if not billions, into real hardship and danger is far worse. It's very important to understand that this is not me bitching about not being able to watch March Madness and go out and eat at my favorite burger joint. That is not a huge deal, and I will be just fine. What everyone should be far, far more concerned about is what happens in a couple weeks, when the 50% of people who live paycheck to paycheck run out of money because everything is shut down with no end in sight, and the government handout wasn't enough. What happens then? Desperate people do desperate things. Millions of people broke and hungry; millions of businesses standing empty and closed down. Hmm, what's going to happen next?
Which brings us to the real question - how long CAN this last? Unless the government is going to pay everyone's salary for 3 months or 6 months (spoiler: they can't), all this talk about an extended lockdown strikes me as incredibly naive, because it is going to collapse on itself. You are going to start having REAL problems, like people getting angry over food, clothing, and shelter, that go way beyond Facebook memes about how we'll ever survive with GameStop closed. I think a lot of people just don't understand that. It's not REAL to them.
What happens when that comes to a head? "You want me to carry on as-is, voluntarily go bankrupt and hungry - well, where are all these millions of dead bodies you told me about?" Well, guess how likely they will be to agree to that, so you have two choices. Either you force them to with jackboot martial law, or you back off the total lockdown and tell people to take reasonable precautions. People can't live like this for long - again, no, I don't mean staying at home instead of going out, I mean living with no income. That is the fork in the road coming up in a month, maybe two months tops.
Does this mean the initial response should have been, "Everyone just go your merry way and party like you don't give a shit at all?" Of course not, you total idiot. It definitely should not have been this, though. There are intermediate steps, such as, "Hmm, we know this disproportionately affects certain groups of people, and it is easy to identify who that is, so perhaps doing things like telling elderly and at-risk people to stay away from large groups, and people who are around elderly and at-risk people to do the same, would at least avoid the worst of it."
I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why it was decided that this was it, this was the one where the entire world was going all-in to stop this, consequences be damned, and don't you dare even bring up the costs of collateral damage or you are a selfish dickhead. If, for example, I could provide a way to eliminate 90% of all deaths from traffic accidents, but the cost was $250 million each, and no one could drive except midnight to 5 a.m. ... well, you'd probably go thanks but no thanks, there are just some unpleasant but unavoidable downsides to things that we have to do in order to have a functional society. Why is this so different? Why is no one asking these questions? Well, it won't be long before they are, because people stop being considerate when their lives or their livelihoods are at stake.
See you Space Cowboy ...
Really?
Still going at it.
Give it up on this issue.
Do yourself a favor, listen to Dr. Fauci.
Really? And what is he saying that materially changes any of the above?
The thing about medical experts' predictions is that in the real world, there is a lot more going on besides medical issues. Things that, if not accounted for, make the medical plan not work.
Please, explain to me what great wisdom of Dr. Fauci is going to placate the guy who is out of money and doesn't know where his next meal is coming from, and make him say, "You know what, the medical experts are right, I'll just take one for the team - I won't kick down this door, I'll just go hungry."
I am guessing you read little, if any, of the actual post that you quoted, otherwise you would have realized that your reply didn't actually have anything to do with it.
I realize that this will probably be wildly unpopular to talk about at the height of the hysteria, but if you are refusing to even consider the possibilities, you are fooling yourself.
See you Space Cowboy ...
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Simple.
Because the experts who study this have identified without these measures in place when they were place the death rate in the US alone would have been over 1.5 million and over 100 million ill. The workforce would have been severely depleted. If even 1/20th of them needed hospitalization, the entire medical industry would have been swamped over and come crashing down. That leads to other diseases and illnesses that are usually fought out of the gate now taking their natural paths. Everything from the flu to the other Coronaviruses to all different bacterial infections. That further depletes the workforce. At that point, key industries begin to shut down. Industries like food production. Food transport. Fuel production. Fuel transport. So on and so forth.
This virus, unlike so many others, can stay alive in the wild up to two or three days depending on what it is on.
Furthermore, the WHO reports concerning the virus living on surfaces in the home:The scientists found that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the new disease COVID-19, was detectable in the air for up to three hours, up to four hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard, and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel.
AndStudies suggest that coronaviruses — including preliminary information on the COVID-19 virus — may persist on surfaces for a few hours or up to several days.
All of that on top of the fact that people can get the virus and spread it for days without even known they're sick.Previous coronaviruses can remain viable in cold, moist surfaces up to nine days."
That's why they went this way. This isn't the common cold or common flu. I've posted links several times to experts. That is, basically, disease hunters who research these very things. No one can force you to listen to them, but I'd suggest going back and listening.
The ENTIRE point of my previous post is that an extended lockdown simply will not be possible because it will collapse under its own weight.
If you create 30% unemployment overnight by putting 100 million people out of work by decree, and expect that will sort of take care of itself with no serious repercussions, I don't know what to tell you. No one really seems to have a good answer for the fact that medical experts aren't going to put food on your table, and it is frightening that people are not talking about that more.
In the experts' WORST CASE scenario of 1.5 milion dead and 100 million infected (emphasis on "worst case" because the death rate seems to fall lower and lower the more cases are discovered) ... it is still pretty questionable whether that would be more impactful than shutting down everything everywhere for an extended time. I pray that your confidence in people's solidarity is well-founded, and that it does not devolve into violence.
Since the success of a quarantine is a self-fulfilling prophecy (no matter the outcome, people will always say, "just imagine how much worse it would've been otherwise!") it will be very interesting, when all is said and done, to see what happened in places like, say, Morocco or Tanzania, where when push comes to shove, people are going to be left figuring out how to deal with it as best they can. I have more than a passing suspicion that, within our lifetimes, this will be used as a case study in how NOT to respond to a crisis.
See you Space Cowboy ...
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That dude's a chiropractor. So might wanna use a few grains of salt.
Pretty much a 21st century charlatan and snake oil salesman.
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Look....I'm not totally pulled in to this is the black plague of 2020 but you have to look at the death toll numbers. Not the percentages just the numbers. Are the measures extreme? Probably. But if the end result is fewer deaths total, I'm in it to win it. Go home and stay home till this passes. If you simply won't comply you're being an asshole. Just fucking do it and let's get past this. Nothing really to argue about, do your 2 weeks and it's done. Hopefully.
Yeah, like I said, it's not the inconvenience or any of that stuff that's a problem. Taking sensible precautions is not a bad idea (even though some people seem to think I am advocating being reckless for no reason whatsoever).
What is amazing to me is that it was simply decided to suddenly put hundreds of millions of people out of work, and that anyone thinks that is sustainable for any length of time.
You hear them saying the lockdown could go on for several months - well guess what, it is going to get dangerous in a matter of weeks, not months. Not just inconvenient, but actually dangerous. It goes much past 2 more weeks, and we've got big-time other problems.
This coming week, I'd also expect to see some companies announcing layoffs of full-time positions as they go into survival mode. Even if you can do your job remotely, that's no assurance you'll have a job to come back to after this is all over.
See you Space Cowboy ...
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