[Treasur]

Well, it seems that Prince Charles has the virus now. And there are a few more stories of younger folks dying. Perhaps these things might jolt some people out of denial, idk. On a positive note, it seems as if over 400,000 people have signed up to a government scheme to volunteer in ways that will support the NHS and free up frontline staff which is rather heartwarming. (Although I have no idea how central government will coordinate that tbh) On top of lots of local volunteer schemes including one organised by the town council and church where I live. There are lots of good people in the world trying to bring their best selves to bear on events, and that is rather nice to know. Not everyone out there behaves like an MLCer lol.

[Finding Joy]

Thank God for that Treasur!!

[OffRoad]

Good stats, if you like facts.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/

[Thunder]

I agree with this:

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2020/04/01/bill-gates-us-needs-to-shut-down-everywhere-to-fight-covid-19/23967212/

[Whyus]

I cannot believe how many still dont Take the coronavirus seriously.
They 80,000 cases from China is obviously no guide as the USA, itaĺy and spain Flying past that number.  Germany will overtake China today too.
I personally Think thats ist possible that most States in the USA will overtake China.
Stay strong and Stay safe.

[Treasur]

Just heard here in the uk - where testing is also a fiasco - that the mortality numbers are only hospital deaths so they have been increased to include some people who died at home. Probably best to take them as minumum numbers not absolute ones.

I find it astonishing if anyone doesn't now think this is a real and significant thing. People who are front line healthcare workers are saying openly, with battleworn faces, they have never experienced anything like it. My government has just built both a big temporary hospital and an equally big mortuary in East London. A large London hospital almost ran out of oxygen a few days ago bc of the number of folks on ventilators. These are hard facts without any political spin.

Like others, the government here is failing miserably on testing. Both types of test.  I'm not sure why. But apparently only about 2000 of over 500,000 healthcare folks have been tested. It seems to me that with a little time people are going to start feeling rather angry about the disproportionate level of individual compliance vs the tardiness of government. When people are risking their lives to care for others, watching their businesses and finances go to the wall, dealing with loved ones dying alone.....it starts to seem rather unreasonable that the government system is failing to do what only it can do when the rest of us are doing our bit.

Please, if you haven't until now, take this seriously. It isn't flu. It is an entirely different kind of virus. It is highly infectious even when people don't have symptoms. It doesn't just affect the elderly or ill.  Please do anything you can that might keep you or anyone else out of needing hospital care bc frankly, despite the commitment and ingenuity and love of nurses and doctors, there is just a blindingly obvious gap between the capacity of most of our national healthcare systems and the basic numbers of people who might need them in the next couple of months.

The two gifts of being an LBS, it seems to me, are the experience of having to accept the previously unimaginable and to find ways to live around awful circumstances with grace. All the non-LBS are playing catch up........

[marvin4242]

I think there is some confusion about those who think this is a “hoax”, those who don’t think its serious for them without considering others (like kids on spring break who say stupid s**t like “I don’t care if I get a cold”), and maybe a third group I will say I am in.

I am trained a a biologist. So I am following all the data, the papers, the mechanism of the disease, the potential treatments, what it means to have a novel pathogen where the population has no immunity whatsoever. I try to tell people not to be needlessly frightened, because a lot of people, specially in the US, can’t understand this is not a plague with 30-40% mortality rates. If you are healthy, younger, and get Covid-19 (which most likely you will at some point in the future) you will not die. You may be a asymptomatic, you may have a very light symptoms, or you may be one of the very few who will have a less mild version. From all the newer data the non at risk population who has severe complications it is an overreaction of their own immune system. There have a been a couple of small case studies where giving those people immunosuppressant drugs have worked very well (one in which a 44 year old who was in distress started recovering with 2 doses of the drug 8 hours apart as it turned off what is called a cytokines storm reaction). As we learn and pass this around there will be better and better treatment.

It is highly serious disease for at risk population. And the rate of infection and the uncontrolled onslaught will cause massive negative consequences in healthcare as Italy and soon the US will discover. What I see is its very hard to explain to people WHAT to take seriously. The baseless fear of the disease as deadly on its own is misplaced. The not understanding how the actions of those of us who are not at high risk can jeopardize so many others through the consequences is what is baffling. It almost requires a sense of community and understanding how each of our decisions and actions impact people around us. In some cultures this is something that is clearly a part of daily life. In other cultures this is foreign and you see some of it in the reaction of the governor of Florida and the disaster that I believe is about to hit that state. I know of too many people in the US who still say things like “my rights are more important than the lives of others.”

So I am in no way diminishing the seriousness of what is happening, but I try to put in context. Baseless fear and panic will not help the situation imho, but a clear grasp of what we are facing will. And from what I see there are other complications, like concerns that if you simply lock everyone down immediately and for too long people stop paying attention.

Here in the UK they have been trying to time the response to the right point in the spread curve. This has been controversial for some, as they wanted maximal action immediately. The initial data now starting to come out is showing (too early to tell) that they may have timed it right, the infection rate seems to be now below 1.0 (where it is around 2.5) and if this holds it means it is contained for now. And they are now quietly saying that if this holds NHS will not get overwhelmed with cases which is the other major fear. So at least here in UK we shall soon see all the modeling by the scientist, epidemiologists and experts worked well. Did they pick the right moment to enforce the lockdown?

Some early indication in California and Washington state also show some positive results. We are learning as we go, but even after initial containment the next problem is how do you start allowing spread in a controlled fashion in the non vulnerable population. You can’t just go back to full blast spread, and there is no feasible way to keep everyone locked down to contain it. And vaccine is a long way away and may not be 100% effective.

For those of you who are interested in how its going look at the new case change rate as measures are imposed. Deaths are the tragedy of the disease obviously, but they lag 3-4 weeks behind any measure taken. So even as the situation may be getting under control the death rate will lag and increase and most of the headlines are focused on the death rate for good reason.

There are a lot of very clever and useful new and faster tests coming online. So as time goes on the availability of testing will increase. But there are real shortages of chemicals needed, verification of new methods to make sure what the accuracy of the tests are, and production all means it takes time. But that is the ultimate way out of this, once we can easily tell who has already had the disease, who is actively sick, and who is not we can handle the control of spread problem much better and hopefully resume something more akin to normal life.

[Treasur]

Thank you for sharing that, Marvin.
Yup, figuring out what to look at and what not, as well as ones own almost philosophical starting place is part of the process. Learning how to live with these new realities perhaps as opposed to expecting some speedy return to 'normal' but without giving up on a do-able new normal. And the need perhaps to be cautious about some of the stories we tell ourselves or some of the assumptions we make when in truth we don't know some things yet.

I was chatting to a chum recently who is a big fan of the 'planet has too many people/herd immunity' argument. My stance was that, even so, I wasn't keen on the idea of the social and practical impact of say half a million dead people in the UK within a three month period. No matter how elderly they were or my own values about life etc. I just didn't see that our social or health infrastructure could deal with that without it being an unsustainable trauma. Just not a price I would want to pay.

But i also believe - despite some of the quirks of individual public figures and the inherent 'learning as we go' failings of any government structure - that most of our societies and public bodies are trying to deal with things the best they can with good intent. Not enough sociopaths in the world sitting in bunkers with a white cat on their laps chortling at the benefits of a pandemic to warrant some of our suspicion, fear or anger imho 

[marvin4242]

Treasur: one thing to clarify. Herd immunity is a truth of what must happen with a new disease, not an approach to handling the crises. It’s a law of nature. This SHOULD happen with combination of controlled exposure (which minimizes death and human cost) and vaccine. A lot of the science based practices (like timing a lockdown) are to make sure the toll on human lives are minimized. Problem is so much of this is human behaviour, how do you get people to do the right thing, and KEEP doing the right thing for months not just days.

 Unfortunately it’s sometimes misunderstood as saying “let everyone just get sick and die.” Its really not. It’s like saying if you fall off a building gravity will pull you down. The trick is using the right parachute.

[Thunder]

Marvin, I know of no one in the US that thinks  “my rights are more important than the lives of others.”  I'm not sure where you're getting this from.  You get radicals anywhere.

I would say there may be a political group that may feel this way, but not the majority of Americans.  I see people taking this very seriously, and have from the beginning.
The government just didn't act as fast as they should have.  Places of business that were non essential, beaches and parks should have been closed right away.
Now their panicking.