Coronavirus

Though ill admit there seems to be no long or midterm plan that i can discern, only responses to the situation as it develops.

 

It is my understanding he can only affect the travel bans, grounding air travel, closed boarders, etc. If your governor decides to shut down their state they still have the ability.

Rural states where the concept of social distancing is funny because your neighbors are miles away might not need to have stay at home orders where as NYC will. A great example is GA vs Atlanta. Atlanta is shut down and needed to be. Elijah doesn't so shouldn't be. So the governor wouldn't shut down the state despite all the pressure from Atlanta so Atlanta shut down because they needed to.

People are hurting losing their jobs, companies are worried about going bankrupt and not because of poor planning and risky behavior like 08 but because of government action. Food and rent are real concerns for a lot of people. The longer this goes on the more this will look like a depression that will take a long time to come out of rather than a recession.

For those that support others, or are responsible for employing people so they can feed their families there needs to be a balance or at least a re-look at things every few weeks so they know when this will end and how to plan.

Maybe in 15 days we take a look and have to extend things, maybe we have a better understanding of our infrastructure and know we can expand what is essential business to a few other sectors. There are a lot of things that can be done and panic over headlines or insults from left or right doesn't help what people are facing on the ground. Think past the headline.

 

One item I wish I could employ is my reusable to go box from college. Places seem to have run out off or never carried anything besides styrofoam containers. I'll have to ask if the Indian and middle eastern spots will do it with their traditional metal combo pots, or sushi and bento boxes. And why am I getting plasticware? when Im taking this home where I have silverware.

 

I have dug well past the headline and into Trumps mismanagement of the crisis as well as the good moves he has made such as closing the borders. Overal i'm not impressed, had he listened to experts back in january the US might never have had an outbreak, had he listened in february they could have reined it in. Instead it was allowed to spread, with more than 10.000 new infected (340 of whom will die by the most generous estimates) being found per day at the moment. Thats not alarmist, thats simply a fact. They minimized and ignored the crisis as it grew right under their noses, despite receiving numerous warnings that little to no testing was being performed.

People in rural states still need to eat, meaning they need to go to stores. They still have neighbors, families, etc. that can spread the virus. Corona is very contagious compared to the regular cold (corona has an r0 of 2.5 vs the colds 1.3, meaning it grows extremely fast and infects very, very easily). Ask yourself, do people in remote rural areas get the cold because of what little contact they have with other people? If they do, they can far more easily contract corona.

I haven't looked at the numbers, but I imagine the majority in all states live in clusters, hamlets, villages, towns, or cities, not 10 miles from the nearest neigbor with half a years worth of supplies in storage.

 

Yes rural areas with less travel tend to get less sick. After the fall of the Roman empire populations in cities were only able to maintain steady populations and grow in population due to constant flows from the countryside looking for work and opportunity up until almost the modern era. Cities had more death from illness than births.

For many people in this country going to the store can be a bit of a treck so they don't go all that often. So, yes they do have weeks if not a few months worth of food. Lots of dry foods and frozen meats. Also, in tinier towns and hamlets they don't have tons of travel from other communities so their risk is smaller. Someone sick has to come to their area and these are not exactly tourist spots. The largest risk would be the supply chain coming to restock things and if that is the case that is still much lower risk than a city with constant inflows and outflows.

Do you at least agree that different areas might have different needs and situations?

Edit: I forgot to include only 27% of people live in cities in the U.S. which is much lower than other countries. 52% live in grayish suburban area and 21% live in rural area. This is self described. When you look at the census they include any area over 2500 as urban so that is where you get the 80%+ number. "In America 100 years is a long time, but in Europe, 100 miles is a long way" -No one knows. Suburbia requires cars here to get to the grocery. It is hard to grasp how spread out we really are.

 

I get that it will be less widespread, but diseases such as Corona can spread through dispersed populations as well, the far less virulent cold does so. Corona has 3-4 days where you show few symptoms, and some people are mostly asymptomatic, meaning they often do not know they are carrying the disease. They can still spread it to others.

Say the local store clerk gets it, but being a young man with good health show no or few symptoms. Maybe he even shakes the hand of everyone passing through, scratches his face (humans do that dozens of times in an hour, we just don't think about it) resupplying on virus, shakes another hand. Maybe he just coughs once in a while, spreading droplets out into the air. All those people with dispersed homes that come to the store for groceries or other things are at risk. Just as their urbanised countrymen are at risk when they leave their homes and interact with others.

 

As for the dark ages, it is true that rural populations were often hit less hard by infectious diseases, but people were also far more isolated back when. Foreign food was a rare delicacy, and by foreign I mean from the nearby towns or cities. People had their own stores of food and villages could be isolated for weeks or months from the outside world, presenting little chance for infection to spread (it did however spread fast along the trading routes and from there it seeped outwards).

Various disease often made their way through rural communities as well. The black death is one extreme example of this, killing as much as two thirds of Europe's population, laying waste to entire cities and even countries (Norway effectively collapsed, going from an estimated 400.000 people to 150.000 two centuries later. Large sections of the country was abandoned to wilderness).

What happened to native americans when the white man landed on their shores is another example. They were far more isolated than modern americans with settlements far apart, but that did little to inhibit the spread of the diseases that decimated them.

 

Both those posts were very well stated. We have world leaders in the western world expecting between 50% - 80% of the population being infected. Basically everyone will get this until herd immunity kicks in and the main focus is on keeping the curve low enough to keep the health care system from crashing. Once we open travel again countries will get second and third waves due to reasons you mentioned above. Having only a few ventilators in these areas based on current rates may be enough as it moves through these communities since there will still be a lag. Also, we will still need an economy to fund the healthcare system. Money is a representation of productivity divided by total dollar amount. (I know not really but it is any easy way to think about it.) So we can't just print the money and say keep going hospitals. That is how you get hyper inflation along with a depression. Weimar republic here we come. Joking a bit there.

I just think we are all in the dark here and a lot of people are making very definitive statements without the depth of knowledge we would normally demand due to this being a crisis and not really having time to wait. People suffer and starve and die in depressions also this plague is awful. Both are true at the same time.

Catch-22 if we do too much and catch it early everyone laughs and says you idiot you ruined the country and only 100,000k died that's less than cars and the flu combined. Glad we all get to starve now. We should get rid of cars and shut down every winter. You do nothing and everything blows up, people scream at you for every death even those you couldn't have prevented. I think both sides are very valid and no answer will appease everyone but middle of the road bipartisan negotiations seem best. And when I say bipartisan I don't mean our typical left vs right in this country it is just the easiest way to say both sides of this argument. Despite part affiliation there are people in both parties arguing for more or less of this or that.

 

The black death is a great example of how nature favors an asymptomatic mutation to stay around longer. There is always a fear of mutations making this much deadlier but viruses don't benefit from killing their host and often causes them to burn out. Once it hit Poland it mutated to be asymptomatic and the population was left largely unscathed leaving them to be a power house for hundreds of years. Also didn't help that armies from the east, middle east, and north africa used biological warfare fo spread the disease. The best example was flinging infected corpses over city walls during sieges.

Thankfully we aren't talking about Corona is not nearly as deadly despite being novel with no resistance.

 

Spoiler: how on earth did it get the name Corona anyway?

 

Lol I loved the meme going around that Corona was offering $100 million to news networks to change it to the bud light virus.

 

Good news. Denmark is beating back our Corona epidemic and seem to be on the slow, gradual curve that does not overwhelm the health system. Great government work, collaboration across all 10+ parties, a one-day deliberation on compensating workers and corporations (biggest help packet in danish history), as well as competent people in the health system seem to work.

Even if we do not test as much as WHO wants, the news are looking pretty good all things considered.

Here's hoping the rest of you are on the right track.

 

Here is hoping the help packet doesn't cause massive inflation. Probably wont, because you are not using nation-specific currency.

 

we are on our own currency, so it will cause inflation. On the other hand we have been working our national debt down ever since the potato cure in 1986 - 1993. Currently we have a debt of 34% of bnp and are considered to be in quite good health.

While 13% of bnp is indeed a pretty big chunk of money to invest, its not going out all at once, and it is used to replace money from companies into customer hands as well as loans to companies so they can keep the engine going.

 

Congratulations on the good news!

There is tons of doom and gloom that should not be taken flippantly, but there is also good news that is not getting tons of attention. I pray for all your health and happiness. The malaria medication trials, started in France and promoted it the U.S. have shown beyond expected positive results. It looks more and more likely that certain countries like Sweden have been hit by an asymptomatic variant. Hopefully this spreads. When it comes to silver linings there have been some thick ones too long to list.

To not upset those sitting at home taking proper precautions it is important to note multiple countries have been duped into buying faulty Chinese test kits and hospital supplies, there has been an increasing trend towards younger demographic hospitalization rate, etc. All that being said this is serious but if you keep an eye out there is good news as well.

Things will change day to day both positive and negative. Do what you can and keep heart things will get better.

 

Agree with most of it, though Sweden has not been struck by an asymptomatic variation, they are dying as rapidly as we are. Scandinavians are generally in pretty good health though, which allows us to fight our way through it at a higher rate. On the other hand, i just read about a 29-year-old man in good health who spent weeks in a respirator, fighting for his life before the disease finally broke. He lost 3 kilos worth of weight despite the best efforts of doctors. Without that aid there is no question he would have died.

 

You are correct that the young are being hit hard and that the death rate is lower for younger people because their bodies can better handle ventilators and such. With an overwhelmed hospital we would see a massive spike in younger deaths.

I wish the news at least here would stop pushing the narrative that the young are fine and the only risk is to the elderly. I know many young people with asthma taking unnecessary risks and when I try and warn them they point to the news.

Sweden does have the same strain the rest of the world is fighting. From what I read they could also have a more mild strain burning through the country simultaneously, but it is hard to verify because test kits are being used on those that need to be tested obviously. Also, a more mild strain is less contagious because of the lack of coughing so it would only slightly help, but a fraction of a percentage less deaths is a step in the right direction. I read that I think yesterday or the day before so that theory might have already been proven wrong. My bad if it has.

 

I remember reading the original strain that made the jump from bat to human may have mutated. The newer strain is more attuned to humans and therefore more contagious. Both strains cause many of the same symptoms, but the original has a harder time getting going inside the human body.

Younger people do get sick, but we have an easier time fighting it off because our bodies are usually stronger than those of older generations. That said, in Denmark about 10% of those hospitalized are below 40 as well as in good health. The rest are from more vulnerable groups.

On the flipside, people in their forties are dying from a epidemic that could have been stopped. If not in Europe, then certainly in the US.

 

For some reason I thought Denmark was on the Euro. My bad.

 

This could only have been stopped in China. With how interconnected everything is these days once it escaped Wuhan the only thing world leaders can do is slow the spread and flatten the curve.

Even taking a random country and let's say the go full quarantine before they got their first case. Covid is likely to stay with us for a long time. Once they open their country for business, trade, and travel they will get their waves of infections.

If we are lucky and chloroquine works great! Hind sight is 20/20 and we could have acted differently. If China hadn't destroyed information about Corona virus back in January and lied saying there was no evidence of human to human infection we could have acted differently. I am angry by a lot of world leaders actions during all of this but I also understand many of them were working on incomplete information just like us.

I am angry that at least here even during a national emergency partisan bickering hasn't slowed at all. I am angry we don't produce any of our own health care equipment. I am disappointed that Obama used the national supply of masks and never refiled the stockpile and neither did Trump. I am disappointed that the media used an idiot who drank fish cleaner as a scare tactic against Trump for a medical solution that is showing promise. Multiple governors have now banned chloroquine for use in their states.

Mostly I am disappointed in how bad the news media is so we don't know what is real. We don't know when it is a real and righteous attack or political pot shots from twisted statements. We don't know what the real stats are or fear mongering. We had a case of a 25 year old star athlete die and the media claimed is was from Corona with no underlying conditions. The kid had a heart attack and it had nothing to do with corona. We had a picture that was supposed to show the war zone that was happening in New York but it was actually a picture from Italy a month ago. This comes from many networks from multiple countries.

Sorry for the long post. In conclusion that is why I keep hedging with based on what i read because they get it wrong so often and things change and I am happy to be corrected by all of you if you have better information.