COVID - 19

[crowschmo]

This is getting pretty scary. All the shut-downs with schools and sporting events and of course the travel industry. Empty store shelves of sanitizers (and toilet paper).

The first guy to get the corona virus in my state (CT) is now in a coma. (Edit: He woke up and is home now).

Tom Hanks and his wife have the virus.

The schools in my state shut down until further notice.

Jeesh. This thing has many far-reaching arms disrupting so many lives.

The economy is definitely going to feel this sting.

Just when winter is coming to a close and you think you can start getting out and enjoying things (not that we had a winter where I am), people have to start shutting themselves up and avoiding everything.

I hope we can stem the spread.

I feel so bad for anyone who has this and their families.

Hope everyone is healthy and staying safe.

[Afgncaap5]

Indeed. People need to make a few changes to routines while we figure things out. Someone the other day said that it's like if We Didn't Start The Fire all happened in one day and, well... there's somethin' too that...

There hasn't been a case reported yet in my county, but we're takin' steps now.

[crowschmo]

Holy sh*t. I just got a robo-call from my city's police department. They're not going to respond to any calls unless it's absolutely necessary (like emergencies in progress), they have to determine the seriousness of the situation on the phone before they decide they really need to go to a location or someone's house - and if it's possible, they'd rather meet outside the house if the person calling can. No civilians in the PD lobby area or inside the PD unless it is absolutely necessary. Any reports, if possible, should be generated over the phone.

Wow. Talk about disruption.

There was a play I wanted to see at the local high school. That's cancelled, of course. I feel bad for all the kids out there who were looking forward to doing plays or concerts, or participating in sports playoffs and the like.

A restaurant in a town near me is offering 20% off for home delivery, because they know they are going to lose business from people who want to sit in and eat.

Lights are out on Broadway.

All the people who have to make a living like actors and musicians and athletes who have to put on plays and go on tours and go to venues and such (not the super rich celebrities, they'll be all right for quite some time), but those average Joe's - that just sucks.

And of course all the restaurants and stores. Airlines, the cruising industry. Museums, art galleries.

Even people who are looking for jobs or those who need to hire more people, who knows if places are putting that on hold for a while.

I REALLY feel bad for people in the health care industry who have to be around in hospitals and such, it's got to be scary wondering if one is going to get exposed and catch the virus.

Day-ummm.

[Afgncaap5]

Yeah, it's a rough time. My sister says she has a friend who is a "balloon animal artist for parties", and he just made a post saying, effectively, "Hey, so, 90% of my annual revenue just cancelled on me, anyone want me to deliver them a balloon animal by mail?" It's a sad time for a lot of different professions.

[sol-survivor]

According to a post one of my cousins made on Facebook this afternoon she was in a checkout line at the local ginormous grocery store for about two hours. I wonder if they had any toilet paper?

[mylungswereaching]

I went to my local BJ's warehouse club on Friday. They had 15 checkout lines open. Every one reached the back of the store. I could stand with my back touching the back wall and the end of the line was 5 feet in front of me. And this is one of those really big box stores so it was a long, long line. The shelves for food were empty.

[crowschmo]

I can't stand reading comments online under stories about this. Everything is just the left and right saying nasty things to each other. Idiots are saying, "oh, duh, drool, more people die from the flu than this."

Um...yeah - the flu's been around forever and there are vaccines for it and people take precautions during flu season, and still a lot of people die from it. This thing just STARTED. This strain of corona virus, that is. And the point is - we DON'T KNOW enough about it yet to know what precautions TO take. People are saying, oh, the percentages aren't that high. A lot of the percentages of people dying that they are spouting isn't the percentage of the WHOLE POPULATION; it's percentages of people who have CONTRACTED THE VIRUS. And if everyone was going around and gathering in places, the death toll certainly would be higher. Yes, we want to get on with our lives and yes we don't want to disrupt every economy on the planet in so many ways, and no we don't want to overreact or panic. BUT - If the death toll isn't as bad as we think it could be and the spread slows, how do you know it wasn't BECAUSE of all the precautions everyone's taking? People may look back and say, "See, it wasn't that bad, everyone went too far." Well, maybe because people took these precautions? We won't know, but it's better to have all this slow down then take the chance and say, hey, let's just go on like business as usual. Sure, as long as it's not you or someone you know who gets it, right? (The collective "you" who are writing comments elsewhere, I'm not addressing anyone on here).

And so what if you get a little sick and get over it. Okay, but what if you spread it to someone who won't be as lucky as you?

As far as the hoarding goes, they're saying just get like a two week supply of things and then go on from there instead of going crazy and buying two million of everything, so other people can get stuff and so it doesn't strain the supply.

People are also bringing up the overtaxing of hospital staff and rooms and such. If people don't take precautions, and more people get infected, that puts people with other illnesses in jeopardy also, because doctors and nurses will be overworked and won't be able to focus as much on those with other ailments and emergencies. ER's are overcrowded already.

I feel bad for parents who both work (and can still go TO work) and don't know what to do now that their kids are out of school. Does one have to stay home and forgo their paycheck? Do they spend more money on daycare and babysitters? And of course those that are told to stay home and can't go to work either. No pay.

This is just affecting every aspect of everyone's lives all over.

And I wanted to watch the Final Four, dammit!!

[mylungswereaching]

The big problem that people don't get is that hospitals have been going out of business, consolidating and reducing the number of beds for years. I live in Rhode Island so I looked up some figures.
There are 2,424 staffed hospital beds in RI.
There are almost 200,000 elderly people in RI. Close to 200,000 people in RI are disabled. Now there is surely a lot of overlap between these two groups. So lets guess that there are 250,000 vulnerable people in RI.

Somewhere between 5% and 15% of vulnerable people who are infected die. But many of the ones that survive are in the hospital for a prolonged period of time.

So 250,000 vulnerable people. Say 5% of them get sick enough to need to go to the hospital in the next 3 months so we need 12,500 hospital beds. But the entire state only has 2,424 beds. We'd have to find 10,000 new hospital beds along with the doctors, nurses and others to staff them. Add in that there will almost certainly be a lot of sick medical staff. You can't send them to another state because they all have he same problem.

Once the hospitals are swamped and people are dying left and right because they can't get treatment, what happens to the really healthy 20 something person who needs to go to the hospital? They are out of luck.

The government has a choice. They can go on as usual and have a really good chance of collapsing the medical system and watch hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of people die. The black death killed up to 50 percent of the people it infected. If the medical system collapses we could have similar numbers.

Or we can take the steps we are taking and collapse the economy. Intentionally go into what is effectively a deep recession for several months.

And, the conservatives, led by Trump have let go almost everyone who was qualified to help in order to save money.

[crowschmo]

[Afgncaap5]

Things are still pretty calm here in Indiana, but as of today restaurants and bars have been ordered to go into a "deliveries only" mode. Which is dumb. I was hoping to get food from my local Chinese place tonight without paying extra for delivery.

[mylungswereaching]

Mar 16, 2020 16:25:04 GMT -5 Afgncaap5 said:

Things are still pretty calm here in Indiana, but as of today restaurants and bars have been ordered to go into a "deliveries only" mode. Which is dumb. I was hoping to get food from my local Chinese place tonight without paying extra for delivery.

Places near me have roadside pickup. Call in your order. Pay by credit card. They give you a number and a time. Call when you show up and they bring your order out to the curb. Get out of the car and pick up the order.

No delivery charge. No close contact.

[Mod City]

It's pretty real here in South Dakota.

I'm "lucky" enough that I primarily telecommute to my office about an hour away, and we just put our weekly in-person staff meetings on hold for the time being. But, being a newspaper reporter, there are still public government meetings going on that need to be covered, emergencies that need you present and a host of other situations you have to show up for.

Governor has called off school through at least the end of the month. Century theaters in the largest city in the state have been shuttered. The state high school boys and girls basketball tournaments are cancelled. Heck, all spring sports are on indefinite hold. Concerts, public works like museums, all shut down. Festivals are off.

I live in a town of about 1,500. I finally found some toilet paper in one of the few grocery stores around here after about a week of watching for it because I wasn't one of the barbarians who cleared the damn shelves like a maniac.

I guess one thing that's good for us is our population density. We have less than a million people in the 17th largest state by land area (or roughly around there). It's like a combination of Dances With Wolves and Field of Dreams - lots of space between everything.

Everyone better settle in for the long haul. This is going to have a bigger impact on life now and into the future than 9/11, and that's saying something.

We'll make it, but it's gonna be a drag for a long time.

[crowschmo]

Oh, but this is all a hoax from the "Deep State" as our Prez believed and actually said out loud, to undermine his presidency and MAKE him look bad. And in the earlier days of this outbreak, wonderful Chris Hannity from oh-so-spinless Fox News said it was probably true. Then, of course, when things got more "real", he praised DT saying how "quickly" our fearless leader reacted and what a great job he was doing against this (suddenly) serious issue.

I see comments online from people believing this is a lab created virus to collapse the world economy.

I see others saying the reactions are "overblown." Yeah, as long as you don't have it, right? I can't stand when people think everything is fake, or at the very least no big deal, when it's not affecting them directly. Some idiot in the comment section of a video I watched on a reaction to the NCAA tournaments being cancelled, said it was all overreaction and "the" NBA player who tested positive "felt fine." Now, more NBA players have tested positive (Kevin Durant being one of them). I pointed out that ONE relatively young and healthy person "feeling fine" was not a basis for believing everything was overblown and that a lot of people are going to get mild symptoms, or not even realize they have symptoms, and that's not a reason to go around infecting thousands of other people who might not be so lucky. I really want to punch people sometimes. It's too early yet to determine how all this is going to pan out.

I was going to go see Jim Gaffigan at Radio City Music Hall in April. That's been postponed until July at the moment, if all goes well. Who knows. Even that might be too soon after all this happening. Not a real tragedy in the grand scheme of things. But, all these little things, too, are going to drive people nuts in their everyday lives on top of all the big issues.

We have a long few months (or years) ahead. Hopefully the vaccine they are testing helps.

[crowschmo]

What's scarier than COVID - 19? The comment sections of YouTube and articles about it.

A lot of people keep saying it's all media hype and lies. Some idiot said no big deal, just give people antibiotics. I kindly informed him that antibiotics are for bacterial infections, NOT viruses. I read an article that said COVID -19 was unknown to science until this outbreak. Some woman was commenting the usual, "more people have died from the flu." I said that this was new and not enough known about it yet and we won't know the full scope of it yet. She said it's been around a long time. I said corona virus has been, but not this strain. She gave the old conspirator's fave line, "OMG do your RESEARCH!" I told her I did.

There was a video describing some infected people's symptoms. One guy in the comment section said, "They said this person has pneumonia! Which is it? Corona virus or pneumonia?!" I told him viral, bacterial and fungal infections can cause pneumonia. So, apparently there are people walking around who don't know what pneumonia is.

One guy said he had the cure for the virus and the U.S. government was denying and refusing his cure. I reported THAT whack job as a spammer.

And of course there were those, "this is the devil's work" comments.

I really weep for humanity. There are way too many stupid people out there. I have to learn not to look at comments or at the very least learn not to respond to them. I'm sure it's raising my blood pressure.

How have we come this far with so many nincompoops among us? Scary indeed. (And I'm not claiming to be smart by any means, but damn, people, read up on some things).

[kidflash]

Man, as someone with a journalism background, I avoid comment sections like the plague. People and their inherent stupidity will just make you mad.

First rule of The Internet: NEVER READ THE COMMENTS.