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 Ouze wrote:
I do wonder about the possibility of the Coronavirus leading to a possible Planet of the Apes type situation, but with penguins.

What a time to be alive.

With Pengu instead of Caesar?

 Overread wrote:
There's also an attitude and experience aspect too. Many modern western democracies have had it good in the post-war periods in terms of diseases so there just isn't the cultural experience and built up behaviours to instantly shift and adapt behaviours. If anything the behaviours we've grown used too through our formative and adult lives have reinforced free movement in the extreme. Plus with family units breaking up and the shutdown of many smaller local services and the growth of supermarkets and major settlement hubs we've basically not just built a system that encourages free movement, but requires it.

Hoo boy, yes. I've been browsing the history of vaccines and took a look at American epidemics. The last major one we had was in the 1980's. How many of you were around in the 1980's? Okay, how many of you had multiple sexual partners who were male in the 1980's? No, I'm not saying that none of you did, but, while HIV was a scare (especially when Americans finally noticed that planes and bisexuals existed) it certainly wasn't transmitted as easily as CoVid is. (And, yes, during grade school we had HIV spitting jokes and certain comments towards certain minorities. We'e certainly progressed, since.

https://www.healthline.com/health/worst-disease-outbreaks-history

For the UK, I could only find mentions of the Spanish Flu, and that was back in 1918. Yes, I'm sure had you started your backlog of miniatures to paint back then you'd still be painting, but most of you didn't exist then. Anyone more familiar with UK history of epidemics please post about a more recent UK epidemic. One major difference between the Spanish Flu and CoVid is that "Young adults between 20 and 30 years old were particularly affected and the disease struck and progressed quickly in these cases." Certainly one of the barriers for the public to take action against CoVid is its perception that it's an old person's disease, reflecting the youth-oriented focus of much of western society. Personally, I think it'll take awhile before CoVid is seen as the poor person's disease, as testing is currently reserved for those who show symptoms, Hollywood entertainers, politicians, and not-exactly-elderly NBA basketball players.

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/The-Spanish-Flu-pandemic-of-1918/

Mad cow disease. was more recent i guess.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
With Pengu instead of Caesar?

Noot! Noot!

Translation: We, the descendants of the might dinosaurs, will rise again, at least until we all get infected by yet another strain of the avian flu.

 ced1106 wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
With Pengu instead of Caesar?

Noot! Noot!

Translation: We, the descendants of the might dinosaurs, will rise again, at least until we all get infected by yet another strain of the avian flu.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Mad cow disease. was more recent i guess.

And that was mostly "avoid eating beef" rather than "avoid your fellow man"


And that's the thing, we've not really had a major epidemic where we've had to avoid people for a prolonged period of time. Bird and swine flu were all avoiding animal contact and mostly only impacted the livestock markets. Serious and it caused huge problems, but by and large a countryside problem and one related mostly to animal contact. Foot dips at the entrances and such and people kept on going.

The last major Sars mostly was kept to China and whilst it was scared, the UK felt no real major impact.


So this is the first major outbreak in a very long while. The population just hasn't really got the right attitude, mindset nor past experiences to make them more self aware. It's why you get so many still going out to pubs and not giving into the fear. It does not help that the Media is known to hype things up and I think people have become so used to media hype that it almost has the opposite effect on them - a determination NOT to change their lifestyle and give into the hype.

Of course they all then go out and get toiletpaper because everyone else is and the shelf is getting a "little" bare - BANG - suddenly the shelves are empty and its panic buying. But they still got the shops; want to play their team sports; want to socialise etc...




I also think there's a very big urban-rural divide. I think the Urban areas are seeing a faster impact on the shopping centres and on businesses closing and doing things from home. So the top-down impact is filtering down to them faster. Countryside eh most rural industry is either already work from home or has no option but to turn up at the farm to work etc... Furthermore supermarkets and shops haven't been stripped bare as fast as bigger urban areas. So there's a considerable lag-time to the impact. It's not helped that thus far several rural areas haven't had major outbreaks so after a few days people go "Oh nothing's happening, the world isn't ending - I'm going out for tea" etc...

In a way putting the army on the streets would have an impact in localities where there aren't currently major outbreaks in terms of driving home the message about the seriousness of the situation.

 ced1106 wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
With Pengu instead of Caesar?

Noot! Noot!

Translation: We, the descendants of the might dinosaurs, will rise again, at least until we all get infected by yet another strain of the avian flu.

Makes that episode of Futurama when Bender becomes a penguin spring to mind. And they all get guns at the end.

 Orlanth wrote:

If you feel helpless against the circumstances, pray. Works for me.

He has already visited His plague o'er all the lands (even unto the antipodes). If you are praying for Him to take it back, His form in this area is not very encouraging.

Not sure if this was posted, but so much for "if you're not a fattie or diabetic you'll be fine" it seems.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/17/coronavirus-doctor-says-lung-scans-for-young-patients-were-nothing-short-of-terrifying/

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The issue here being that a huge number of people have such conditions, it seems that people in perfect health are relatively robust, but almost any pre-existing condition appears to monstrously magnify the mortality rate out of all proportion to more common seasonal viruses.

Look, I'm about to bail out of this thread as it is getting a little mean and a little personal, but I do want to say one thing before I go...

99% of the deaths in Italy had underlying conditions. That's as close as you can get to an absolute correlation. 75% of them had high blood pressure. 25% had diabetes. 25% had heart disease. All three of these can be treated (even cured) with proper diet and exercise - as opposed to taking drugs that only treat the symptoms. 50% of the people who died had three or more(!) underlying conditions. China has a high blood pressure problem, with it being poorly managed, and responsible for 2.3 million deaths a year. 1 in 3 adults in China has high blood pressure. 56% of Italian men between 35 and 79 have high blood pressure.

What if the best way to reduce mortality is not to destroy our society in an effort to control the virus, but to simply better treat the underlying conditions that make it lethal? It would have strong benefits outside of the coronavirus too. Or what if it is related to the drugs they take for these conditions? What if the real culprit is a popular blood pressure medication? Maybe what we need most is to change how we treat high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease?

The problem with that is, treating and curing these conditions takes months to years at best.

Corona is here NOW, and we need to deal with it NOW.

That doesn't mean dealing with pre-existing conditions more aggressively in the future isn't worth doing; clearly it is. But NOW is not... how do I say this? "Not the most opportune moment..."

While that's good information that some young people without underlying conditions could be more vulnerable (even though most are not, and experience it similar to a cold/flu), I don't think any doctor should be sharing quotes with the media like "nothing short of terrifying" lol . At least, it doesn't seem like the best public health / societal approach...

 Ouze wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
My state shut down all eat-in restaurants yesterday, and I own one. This stinks for my finances. I'm not going to go under or anything, I have an emergency fund that I could live off of for 6-months if neither my wife or I were working, but it took a while to build up and I don't like dipping into it.

What happens with your employees? No, this isn't a prelude to villainizing you, just an honest question.

I can't imagine virtually any small business owner can afford to subsidize employees who literally aren't working.

Sorry for the belated response. My employees can file for unemployment and can basically get fast tracked to get a check. Ironically, it looks like they will be getting unemployment checks before our next payroll was scheduled.

Thanks. Good to hear they are not totally in the lurch.

At least not until their unemployment runs out, anyway.

 RiTides wrote:
While that's good information that some young people without underlying conditions could be more vulnerable (even though most are not, and experience it similar to a cold/flu), I don't think any doctor should be sharing quotes with the media like "nothing short of terrifying" lol . At least, it doesn't seem like the best public health / societal approach...

Seeing how many fools are downplaying it "if you are young you are fine so all restrictions are not needed. They just hurt my bank account" despite evidence to contrary that language is mild. Situation needs to be driven home so even thickest ones get it.

The thing is, yeah. If you are under 60 is very rare that you'll die.

But even then you'll probably end up hospitalized and spent 1-2 weeks on respiratory assistance and will end up with ... I don't know how is it on english. "Secuelas". The damages that a sickness causes in your body that last longer or could be even permanent. And thats the biggest problem. Hospitals just don't have enough space.

does anyone actually know the rates of hospitalisation compared to rates of infected across the age groups? because that imperial college study yesterday had people in the younger age groups at a very low probability of being hospitalised, so saying : you'll probably end up in hospital on respiratory assistance.' is a bit of a push. if anyone has any counter evidence please let me know. I'd also bet that the younger people who are hit harder are likely smokers or vapers, or at least live in passive smoking environments.

Or not. Seems to me like the "it's only X, it's only Y, it's only people who live with X" is wishing upon a star. I'm safe, I'm not X or Y. No one is saying every young person will end up in ICU, but we now have proof that even completely healthy individuals can be hit with it. Just accept no one is safe, and it's up to chance and genetics what happens.

of course, but saying, everyone is going to be hospitalised, is just the other end of the scale.

 Vulcan wrote:
The problem with that is, treating and curing these conditions takes months to years at best.

You think this is the last panic we are going to see? SARS, MERS, bird flu, swine flu - these things hit every other year. And we have flu season every year that kills thousands. If you could do something that would reduce your risk of dying from any of these things, wouldn't you think that was a pretty good deal?

But there are a few things that can really help with stuff like hypertension very quickly. For instance, giving up smoking. Eating yogurt (gut microbacterial will also help fight disease - it is possible that one of the reasons why South Korea has been so successful in fighting this is because of the amount of kimchi they eat). Exercise, even just taking 30 minute walks every other day, will have an almost immediate affect as well. It takes weeks, not months, and given that everybody is going to be on lockdown for a few weeks anyway, what better time to start?

Corona is here NOW, and we need to deal with it NOW.

What about the 2018 flu which killed an estimated 80,000 Americans? That's not worldwide. That's America. And that was a really bad one, but a typical flu season sees highs of about 1,000 people dying per week in America. And news flash, that's with a vaccine (though to be fair, the flu vaccine is not nearly as effective as they would like people to believe - there's some funny math done to arrive at the conclusion that the flu vaccine is 40% effective).

Why are you freaking out now? Because you are in the middle of a media-driven hysteria. Every flu season would seem absolutely terrifying if you saw daily updates for worldwide numbers.

That doesn't mean dealing with pre-existing conditions more aggressively in the future isn't worth doing; clearly it is. But NOW is not... how do I say this? "Not the most opportune moment..."

There's nothing to suggest that this coronavirus will behave any differently than the others we know about, all of which operate seasonally. By the end of April, there should be so few new cases (naturally, without us having to do anything) that everybody is going to stop paying attention. The WHO can't operate under the assumption that this will happen, since COVID19 is essentially a "new virus", and also because nobody really knows why these things are seasonal and hoping for something that we don't understand to happen is going to be seen as doing nothing.

I think it is very likely that it is the way we are treating things like diabetes and hypertension that is leading to a higher mortality rate than there should be. Generally speaking, modern medicine is built upon the premise that if we can control the mechanisms of the body - the hormones, the organs, the nervous system, the circulatory system, etc - then we can not just prevent all sickness, but customize our body. We can make ourselves stronger and faster, end all disease, and even turn men into women. If we have too much cholesterol, we can just take a pill. If we have diabetes, we don't have to give up sugar. We just take a pill to cause our bodies to produce more insulin.

I don't think this belief is necessarily wrong, but I think that we are too ignorant of how complicated the body is and this approach to medicine is creating unintended consequences. Use too much aerosol and now you've got a hole in the ozone. Problem is, we only know that after there is a hole in the ozone. Modern medicine's progress is largely just a history of large scale human experimentation and the disasters that follow (DDT for example). Autism, which has grown every year to the point that it is now 1 in 25 children, is also one of these unintended consequences - but we still don't know what is causing it (seems glyphosate is a contributor, but it still doesn't account for volume nor the steady increase year over year). Autism is going to cost the US more money than it currently has in care and treatment in about 50 years. We need to rethink the assumptions made by modern medicine.

The coronavirus is not the problem. All evidence points to a healthy immune system being able to battle it successfully and easily. The problem is the number of people without a healthy immune system. If we could increase those numbers, we'd greatly lower the mortality rate (and not just of this disease). We still wouldn't be able to help everybody, but the difference made would be enough to release this weird stranglehold this virus seems to hold over the entire world right now.

Is autism "growing", or are we better at spotting it? A LOT of neurodivergence was previously either ignored, lumped together or dismissed, it's been only the last few decades that we've started to properly consider and diagnose those cases.

I do agree with one main point- in the name of profits and convenience we've let too many standards slide, and that is impacting us as a society. But to change that, we'd have to dismantle the whole system, based upon the idea that your body is disposable and secondary to profit.

Sqorqar, it is being taken more seriously than the flu because- wait for it- it is.

Sure, let's keep the focus on Italy.

This is an article about the flu season that started in 2017, considered the worst in Italy in 14 years.
https://www.thelocal.it/20180119/italy-worst-flu-season-in-14-years
TLDR- 3,883,000 cases in a 5 month span. 30 died.
Now that sounds really overoptimistic to me, so I went and found a scientific journal too- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971219303285
TLDR 5,290,000 flu cases in Italy. 68,000 deaths, for a mortality of .012.

NCOVID 19, in Italy.https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/
TLDR- 35,713 cases in a little over 1 month. 2,978 dead.
The mortality here is .083.

Thus, in the same population, which has the same culture and underlying health conditions, this is , roughly 7 times more fatal than the flu. If it also infected the 5,290,000 people which the flu did when there was no social distancing or quarantine, the death toll would be 441,117.

This is a massive oversimplification, based on a few layman's calculations. But if being isolated for a month can even just knock a quarter of that mortality off- I'm happy to stay home to help save 100,000 lives.

People are accusing other folks of not taking it seriously enough. Well, back in the fourteenth century during the black death plenty of people decided to party.

Everyone has their own way to respond to stuff like the outbreak. People may choose ways that do not prolong their lifespan, or that of others. This should be no surprise, people smoke and do all sorts of harmful stuff. We all have our reasons.

Your freedom ends where the freedom of others begin. You want to party like it's the decameron? Sure, but remember they decided to seclude themselves, not go pub crawling like a bimbo version of typhoid mary.

Someone told me today that our city’s indoor hockey area could be converted into a morgue. That this is a serious suggestion and probably not hyperbole really hammers home how serious this is.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Someone told me today that our city’s indoor hockey area could be converted into a morgue. That this is a serious suggestion and probably not hyperbole really hammers home how serious this is.

Have you ever seen the size of a hospital morgue .? There tiny generally only hold a dozen to 20 people. Also this is rather morose body disposal is an issue as body could still be infected after death and can't just do mass burnings as have to be civilised so burials and cremations take time to organise, hopefully undertakers won't be overwhelmed.

Marxist artist wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Someone told me today that our city’s indoor hockey area could be converted into a morgue. That this is a serious suggestion and probably not hyperbole really hammers home how serious this is.

Have you ever seen the size of a hospital morgue .? There tiny generally only hold a dozen to 20 people. Also this is rather morose body disposal is an issue as body could still be infected after death and can't just do mass burnings as have to be civilised so burials and cremations take time to organise, hopefully undertakers won't be overwhelmed.

They had mentioned on the news that our local mortuaries are limiting funeral services to 10 people but didn't mention any strain from additional Covid-19 deaths fortunately. Obviously Washington State has additional deaths, but not enough to make it to the point of overflowing morgues, so that's fortunate as well

IronWarLeg wrote:

Marxist artist wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Someone told me today that our city’s indoor hockey area could be converted into a morgue. That this is a serious suggestion and probably not hyperbole really hammers home how serious this is.

Have you ever seen the size of a hospital morgue .? There tiny generally only hold a dozen to 20 people. Also this is rather morose body disposal is an issue as body could still be infected after death and can't just do mass burnings as have to be civilised so burials and cremations take time to organise, hopefully undertakers won't be overwhelmed.

They had mentioned on the news that our local mortuaries are limiting funeral services to 10 people but didn't mention any strain from additional Covid-19 deaths fortunately. Obviously Washington State has additional deaths, but not enough to make it to the point of overflowing morgues, so that's fortunate as well

Perhaps I was being a bit extreme , its perhaps a ,local issue in certain areas , but in Italy in Bergamo which has been an epicentre area, they have army trucks taking away corpses.

IronWarLeg wrote:

Marxist artist wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Someone told me today that our city’s indoor hockey area could be converted into a morgue. That this is a serious suggestion and probably not hyperbole really hammers home how serious this is.

Have you ever seen the size of a hospital morgue .? There tiny generally only hold a dozen to 20 people. Also this is rather morose body disposal is an issue as body could still be infected after death and can't just do mass burnings as have to be civilised so burials and cremations take time to organise, hopefully undertakers won't be overwhelmed.

They had mentioned on the news that our local mortuaries are limiting funeral services to 10 people but didn't mention any strain from additional Covid-19 deaths fortunately. Obviously Washington State has additional deaths, but not enough to make it to the point of overflowing morgues, so that's fortunate as well

There has only been a bit more then 100 deaths nation wide... It hasn't even come close to straining the system yet.

Now certain cities in Italy are having to farm out there cremation, because they've have had more then 100 deaths so far (in the city specifically), and that's when you start getting serious.

My company just got closed down nationwide for at least 2 weeks.

Cronch wrote:Is autism "growing", or are we better at spotting it? A LOT of neurodivergence was previously either ignored, lumped together or dismissed, it's been only the last few decades that we've started to properly consider and diagnose those cases.

It's actually growing. In 2012, the rate of autism was 1 in 69. In 2014, it was 1 in 59. In those two years, we did not significantly change how we identified autism. Going back to 2000, it was 1 in 150. Today, it is 1 in 40. That's 1 out of every 40 children born 5 years ago now has some form of autism. Children born today have even worse odds, and we won't know for another 5 years just how bad.

Gitzbitah wrote:Sure, let's keep the focus on Italy.
...
Now that sounds really overoptimistic to me, so I went and found a scientific journal too- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971219303285
TLDR 5,290,000 flu cases in Italy. 68,000 deaths, for a mortality of .012.

NCOVID 19, in Italy.https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/
TLDR- 35,713 cases in a little over 1 month. 2,978 dead.
The mortality here is .083.

Yes, and no. The flu is actually multiple viruses (and even multiple diseases, as coronavirus estimatedly makes up between 5%-15% of the cases) which collectively make up a flu epidemic. A very small fraction of those numbers are actually verified cases of influenza. Basically, if you have symptoms of the flu and die, but they don't test you, it is counted as the flu. I'm not sure about this report, but the CDC also believes that the majority of flu cases don't result in doctor's visits, so when they estimate the number of flu cases, they take the number of confirmed flu cases and multiple it by 2.7. Why 2.7? No idea. Honestly, it could be overestimated (we have less flu cases and the mortality rate is higher) or it could be underestimated (mortality rate goes down).

With the coronavirus, we are extremely limited by the amount of testing going on. We basically know everybody who is dying from the disease (or at least have much more accurate accounting of it), but a lack of testing means that we only have a fraction of the number of people who are confirmed with the disease. The mortality rate is one number divided by another. One of these numbers is fairly accurate. The other is under reported by some significance. We can't know that significance without further testing. Basically, we're only testing sick people or communities close to sick people, so we've biased our numbers toward the sick and are not counting anyone with the virus who is not showing symptoms or who successfully fights off the sickness without going to a doctor. Based on testing everybody aboard the Diamond Princess, the number of asymptomatic cases would dwarf the number of sick.

My point is, they use two very different meathodologies to reach these two mortality numbers, so they aren't directly comparable. Even if they were, because testing is limited and biased for the coronavirus, it means that the result is the appearance of a higher mortality rate.

Thus, in the same population, which has the same culture and underlying health conditions, this is , roughly 7 times more fatal than the flu. If it also infected the 5,290,000 people which the flu did when there was no social distancing or quarantine, the death toll would be 441,117.

Ignoring the hyped up mortality rate, it's very possible that the coronavirus is not capable of infecting 5,290,000 people. Like I said, the flu is actually multiple different influenza viruses and multiple diseases. Different diseases spread in different conditions. This diversity gives it a much greater chance of spreading to a significantly larger portion of the population.

This is a massive oversimplification, based on a few layman's calculations. But if being isolated for a month can even just knock a quarter of that mortality off- I'm happy to stay home to help save 100,000 lives.

45% of the people who died in Italy from the coronavirus had 3 or more pre-existing conditions (hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, renal issues, respiratory issues, etc) and the average age of the people who died were 79.5 years old. It appears that the diabetes connection is the damage done to the kidneys and lungs by the advancement of diabetes and not the disease itself. Diabetes cuts about 9 years off the average life expectancy of the average 50 year old. High blood pressure equally cuts your life expectancy by 5 years. The life expectancy of an adult male in Italy is 80.5. If you are an 80 year old man with high blood pressure and diabetes, you are already WAY ahead of the curve.

Realistically, you aren't saving 100,000 lives. Not for very long, anyway.

So your solution is that society should ignore the virus, send everyone back to work/school/etc and let the chips fall where they may? If you are old and have pre-existing conditions tough luck mate, sucks to be you?