Coronavirus pandemic chat [no medical advice plz]

[Redneckerz]

20 minutes ago, printz said:

It's satisfying to see how people who think it's not a big deal eventually cave in that yes it is. I wonder how much death needs to happen for everyone to follow the protocol. 

If i have to believe my group app:

• Still making mild Corona related memes
• One person making an Instagram video of herself dancing in the kitchen around a song called Corona Time.

Whilst i agree that humor can and should be used to elevate discussion, the memes aren't exactly funny and the video is just cringe to me, more centered on getting attention than being actually aware of the situation. This became even more apparent when she asked whether or not people still hoard toilet paper in our country.

I chalk it off as an age difference, but its quite a sour development how many younger folks still seem to think you can just ''YOLO'' your way out of the situation. Because you can imagine that when you point out the tasteless nature of this, its ''just for fun'' or a joke.

 

Fortunately that same group app also showed clever and innovative ways of dealing with the situation when most people have to stay home, so faith in humanity is partially restored. *

 

*No surprise there that these innovative ways are done by people slightly more towards 30 and 40 than 20.

[Spectre.Charles]

2 hours ago, printz said:

It's satisfying to see how people who think it's not a big deal eventually cave in that yes it is. I wonder how much death needs to happen for everyone to follow the protocol. 

Ignore my statements, you were right I was grossly underestimating the problem.

Edited March 21, 2020 by DepravedDiptera : Removing misinformation.

[Spectre.Charles]

2 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

I don't see why that's funny. All it does is set you back on your course and your potential working carreer. So i would try to keep up to speed despite the offset.

This would be a problem if I was in college, but I'm still in high school. US public schools are really bad at preparing their students for their future. Right now I'm doing the bare minimum of work just to graduate then I'm going to get a temp job to make enough money to keep myself alive and try to get into a college for art, since the career I want is as a comic book writer / artist.

[insertwackynamehere]

Those death rate percentages are pretty high, I don’t know where you heard them but the hope is that the death rate among all infected (even those who don’t realize they have it) is much lower. If this had a death rate of almost 6% across all infections, that would be worthy of an even greater reaction. Right now, they are hoping that it ends up being in the 1% range I think which would be 10x worse than the flu.

 

Italy has 10% across cases which means the denominator is really broken probably (only the super sick have been tested) and also somehow just really high death rate relative to other places that I think is still trying to be determined as to why.

 

But 6% wouldn’t be low and I also don’t know where that number is coming from.

[Spectre.Charles]

24 minutes ago, insertwackynamehere said:

Those death rate percentages are pretty high, I don’t know where you heard them but the hope is that the death rate among all infected (even those who don’t realize they have it) is much lower. If this had a death rate of almost 6% across all infections, that would be worthy of an even greater reaction. Right now, they are hoping that it ends up being in the 1% range I think which would be 10x worse than the flu.

I got the exact percentage from this article:

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-worlds-highest-coronavirus-death-rate-limited-testing-2020-3?op=1

But I've heard from most people it's not a big percentage, but didn't get an exact number.

The deathrate I assumed was the chance of dying (5.7% chance the infected individual will die from it) not out of all infected 5.7% will die.

 

I think I've been misinformed and I'll apologize and delete all my statements. I was told the chance of dying was very low and I was arrogant in assuming that's what the percentages were in reference to and didn't look deep enough into it. I'm not worried about it on my behalf because my family and I don't go out much anyway, however I'm very worried that other people are just as uninformed as I was and it could get worse.

Edited March 21, 2020 by DepravedDiptera

[MajorRawne]

My opinion is that this is a crisis which should have been taken more seriously much sooner by world governments and the world population.

 

Covid-19 is a very nasty virus which attacks the weak and overwhelms health systems. The latter point is the real threat from the virus. If we all stick to lockdown and social distancing restrictions we will lessen the burden on our health services which WILL save lives, possibly thousands or tens of thousands of lives. (Covid-19 isn't the only illness in the world.)

 

Of course, with humans having been encouraged to become the "Me First" generation, we are making the pandemic ten times worse than it needs to be. We have seen supermarkets stripped almost entirely, we've seen people going to pubs and restaurants as the crisis worsened, we all know people who chose to fly out to countries struggling with the virus, we all know people who are supposed to self isolate but haven't because their own needs come first.

 

The virus which has frightened the world is the least of our worries. If we start acting intelligently we will limit the virus and eventually beat it as some countries appear to be doing already.

[seed]

I am glad this panic exposed even more idiots now, honestly.

 

Casually watching the TV today, and I noticed a lot of people do not take the virus and its danger to society at large at all. They've gone shopping, picnics, partying together in large/medium-sized groups "because it's no big deal and it's likely a governmental conspiracy/only those afraid of it get sick/it's the fault of the secret societies or the occult secret order led by the freemasonry".

 

Wow. Just. Wow. So people are dying and getting sick due to this virus and all that's "conspiracy nonsense to fool the population". Ugh, I'll refrain from saying something here...

[Spectre.Charles]

I feel really bad about what I said, I've made stupid statements in the past due to not bothering to researching and have been rightfully called out for it, but this is a new low. I didn't just say something like "this show is bad because blah blah blah" I basically just shrugged off the death of 10,000 people and potentially even more in the future.

19 minutes ago, seed said:

I noticed a lot of people do not take the virus and its danger to society at large at all ... "because it's no big deal and it's likely a governmental conspiracy/only those afraid of it get sick/it's the fault of the secret societies or the occult secret order led by the freemasonry".

And now I feel even worse that I basically sided with conspiracy nuts and my logic and reasoning was on the level of a conspiracy theory.

Well I learned my lesson about not researching things that can affect the lives of thousands of people then making a statement about it, then barely doing any research at all to defend my flawed thinking. Shit that's where conspiracy theories come from isn't it? I need to use the internet less, or use it more productively.

[seed]

1 minute ago, DepravedDiptera said:

And now I feel even worse that I basically sided with conspiracy nuts and my logic and reasoning was on the level of a conspiracy theory.

Well I learned my lesson about not researching things that can affect the lives of thousands of people then making a statement about it, then barely doing any research at all to defend my flawed thinking. Shit that's where conspiracy theories come from isn't it? I need to use the internet less, or use it more productively.

 

I don't actually understand, is this supposed to be sarcasm or?

[Spectre.Charles]

2 minutes ago, seed said:

I don't actually understand, is this supposed to be sarcasm or?

It's not sarcasm, the part that looks sarcastic is referencing what I actually did wrong, but in a more humorous way to make myself feel a bit less guilty, "Well I learned my lesson about not researching things that can affect the lives of thousands of people then making a statement about it, then barely doing any research at all to defend my flawed thinking. Shit that's where conspiracy theories come from isn't it? I need to use the internet less, or use it more productively." Sorry if it came across as sarcastic.

[seed]

7 minutes ago, DepravedDiptera said:

It's not sarcasm, the part that looks sarcastic is referencing what I actually did wrong, but in a more humorous way to make myself feel a bit less guilty, "Well I learned my lesson about not researching things that can affect the lives of thousands of people then making a statement about it, then barely doing any research at all to defend my flawed thinking. Shit that's where conspiracy theories come from isn't it? I need to use the internet less, or use it more productively." Sorry if it came across as sarcastic.

 

It confused me at first, because what I put in quotation marks actually comes from the idiots I've heard recently and others like them who unironically believe that crap, and I thought you somehow unironically agreed with that nonsense lol.

[Spectre.Charles]

5 minutes ago, seed said:

I thought you somehow unironically agreed with that nonsense

Lol, I'm glad that cleared up I was worried I was going to be digging my grave deeper no matter how much I tried to correct myself.

I can't believe there's people out there would actually believe that though. I've seen conspiracy theories that are downright offensive and disrespectful, but the epidemic is happening right now and they could really mislead people who already are uninformed and get people killed.

[Grazza]

1 hour ago, insertwackynamehere said:

Those death rate percentages are pretty high, I don’t know where you heard them but the hope is that the death rate among all infected (even those who don’t realize they have it) is much lower. If this had a death rate of almost 6% across all infections, that would be worthy of an even greater reaction. Right now, they are hoping that it ends up being in the 1% range I think which would be 10x worse than the flu.

 

Italy has 10% across cases which means the denominator is really broken probably (only the super sick have been tested) and also somehow just really high death rate relative to other places that I think is still trying to be determined as to why.

 

But 6% wouldn’t be low and I also don’t know where that number is coming from.

The 1%-3% range appears to have been drawn from the early stages of the outbreak, when it was easier to have an accurate picture of the numbers infected. (Note for any who hasn't done the arithmetic: 1% of the world's population is about 78 million; for comparison all the wars in the 20th century claimed about 123 million lives.)

 

It's harder now to know how many are affected, with limited availability of testing, and many of those with mild symptoms perhaps not reporting at all. (A hospital is not the place you want to be right now, unless you really need treatment.) So that means dividing known cases by deaths will not give a meaningful mortality rate at all.

 

One thing that doesn't appear to be stressed enough is that the 1%-3% was during a period when those in need of urgent care were by and large getting it. The mortality rate if most of those people go untreated could well be a different matter. Not wanting to be alarmist or anything, but anyone thinking that the best course is just to "let this thing get on with it" might want to ponder that. That's the basis for the "flattening the curve" business.

 

On another topic, I found the following article interesting. I hope "zoonotic spillover" is word of the year, rather than something lame like "social distancing".

[j4rio]

6 minutes ago, Grazza said:

The 1%-3% range appears to have been drawn from the early stages of the outbreak, when it was easier to have an accurate picture of the numbers infected. (Note for any who hasn't done the arithmetic: 1% of the world's population is about 78 million; for comparison all the wars in the 20th century claimed about 123 million lives.)

 

An even better comparision is the last pandemic, the spanish flu. Somewhere between 50 to 100 million people died and the death rate of it was LOWER than covid-19, with most estimates believing it to be around 2%. If you can put those numbers together, I'm certain anyone can finally come to a realisation that the situation is very dire.

[Hellbent]

On 3/10/2020 at 1:01 AM, Jello said:

I've got 10,000 rounds of toilet paper in the spare room. The Corona virus ain't shit.

Exactly, it's not, so then why do you have 10,000 rounds of toilet paper? :P

[Hellbent]

From https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2011/11/17/the-seduction-of-the-exponential-curve/#60278ef02480

 

This article speaks to the logic behind Ray Kurzweil's prediction of a technological singularity, but I'm presenting it here because it applies to the rate at which the CoronaVirus spreads:

 

Matthew Yglesias waxes rhapsodic about being on the "back half of the chessboard" in terms of the exponential growth of computer technologies.

 

The point of this, in terms of technological progress, is that we’ve gotten so accustomed to Moore’s Law that we sometimes overlook the implication that the deeper we get into the chessboard, the bigger the changes. We all know that computers advanced a lot between 1991 and 2011, but we should expect the scale of change over the next 20 years to dwarf those changes.

 

The "back half of the chessboard" is a reference to the old story about the inventor of chess. As the story goes, when chess was presented to a great king, the king offered the inventor any reward that he wanted. The inventor asked that a single grain of rice be placed on the first square of the chessboard. Then two grains on the second square, four grains on the third, and so on. Doubling each time.

 

The king, baffled by such a small price for a wonderful game, immediately agreed, and ordered the treasurer to pay the agreed upon sum. A week later, the inventor went before the king and asked why he had not received his reward. The king, outraged that the treasurer had disobeyed him, immediately summoned him and demanded to know why the inventor had not been paid. The treasurer explained that the sum could not be paid - by the time you got even halfway through the chessboard, the amount of grain required was more than the entire kingdom possessed.

 

The king took in this information and thought for a while. Then he did the only rational thing a king could do in those circumstances. He had the inventor killed, as an object lesson in the perils of trying to outwit the king.

 

For the most part, this fable is used as a lesson in the power of exponential growth. From the one grain of rice on the first square of the chessboard, the amount increases to the point that by the time you get to square 64, there are over 18 quintillion grains of rice on the board. In mathematics, it's a demonstration of extreme growth.

 

But in the real world, this story teaches a different lesson, and that lesson is this: exponential growth cannot be sustained. The inventor can't be paid because well before you get to the end of the chessboard, you run out of grain!

 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

 

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

Mar 9

"So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!"

 

March 9th wasn't that long ago (What a year this week has been!) We're still not even close to being on the 'back half of the chessboard.' Think about that.

Edited March 22, 2020 by Hellbent

[DoomUK]

It's as good an excuse as any to stay indoors and play video games. Every cloud.

[Hellbent]

New York gained very nearly as many new cases today as all of the USA gained in new cases yesterday. USA surpassed Italy (and everyone else) in new cases today; and by a lot: 50% more new cases than Italy today. Which begs the question, is epicenter of the pandemic rapidly shifting to the USA?

 

sources:https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-update.html

[Red-XIII]

4 hours ago, Hellbent said:

New York gained very nearly as many new cases today as all of the USA gained in new cases yesterday. USA surpassed Italy (and everyone else) in new cases today; and by a lot: 50% more new cases than Italy today. Which begs the question, is epicenter of the pandemic rapidly shifting to the USA?

 

sources:https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-update.html

Also, for the first time, today the number of new cases in Italy are less than the previous day, and less death. If in the next week the numbers keep going down, then we can assume that the epicenter will no longer be Italy, but the USA. 

Still, it gives me chill everytime I mention the word "numbers". They were people. This is situation is simply horrific.

[taufan99]

Welp, what I feared has happened in my country.

People have been reported to faint like what happened in Wuhan back in February. My aunt even saw some of them by her own eyes.

The fact that USD 1 is now over IDR 17,000 absolutely doesn't help...

[Pechudin]

    Over these weeks I saw my attitude go from 'why are you wearing a mask lul' to being carefully concerned. Last week I kind of got into the rythm, stockpiled some weeks worth of food and prepared to hermit with my roomate. But then a fucking earthquake hit the city I study in, and now I am back with my parents in my hometown, just in the nick of time as all intercity travel is shut down. Even now typing this and having the table shake because of my typing makes me feel uneasy.

[Pirx]

On 3/21/2020 at 4:09 AM, eargosedown said:

 

Good news; I'm getting better!  Now just gotta avoid Pneumonia!

 

My girlfriend is still a little back and forth but also seems to finally be on the mend.

 

2/10, would not recommend.

 

good news! have a megasphere.

[Redneckerz]

2 hours ago, Pechudin said:

    Over these weeks I saw my attitude go from 'why are you wearing a mask lul' to being carefully concerned. Last week I kind of got into the rythm, stockpiled some weeks worth of food and prepared to hermit with my roomate. But then a fucking earthquake hit the city I study in, and now I am back with my parents in my hometown, just in the nick of time as all intercity travel is shut down. Even now typing this and having the table shake because of my typing makes me feel uneasy.

Stockpiling is a panic reaction and causes unnecessary shortages. And since an earthquake (sadly) hit your city (Zagreb, by chance?) what is that stockpile helping?

 

Ontopic:

We just got told of extra measurements - Only 3 other participants can be in the same room as you are, with 1.5 metres inbetween. Groupforming is now punishable, as people enmasse went to the beaches, along with youngsters grouping up. This is till June 1.

 

Unfortunately, these people think: ''It does not happen to me. And even if it does, so what? I am young, i can deal with it.'' without realizing that they still can infect others. Because people can't think or simply do not care about the consequences (That effectively put a further burden on our healthcare for temporary egocentrical gains), these measurements had to be taken.

[insertwackynamehere]

I’m in NYC and I’m growing concerned about the solutions. I know some people may jump down my throat and act like I’m a denier, but I see all these people who seem to think a ridiculously long lock down would be feasible.

 

I’m social distancing for over a week now. I can handle that. When I see these 9 month to 18 month hand wave predictions, I think “no way.”

 

When I bring this up, a lot of people seem to get really mad. I feel like I’m going crazy as people act like any number of years of being completely isolated from others would be acceptable.

 

No matter how bad this disease is, I cannot believe that 18 months of global shutdown and de facto house arrest will be better.

 

Also, the post-9/11 vibe I feel right now of tragedy and panic brewing misplaced rage and reaction scares me regarding the DOJ’s desire to basically go into “Trump is now an emperor” mode, especially in an election year.

 

Once again, I’m not denying this exists, I’m not saying “it’s just the flu” and I haven’t seen anyone in weeks.

 

However a lot of people on Reddit are talking about they hope the military shoots people in parks. How they think they could go 10 years alone to save one person. Blah blah blah. All virtue signaling mixed with a really weird self-righteous rage against anyone concerned for their own future in all of this or the future of the US.

 

Its really making me frustrated and angry so I guess I’m just venting. This kind of thing could spur much needed change in the US but really it just seems like it might be this generation’s 9/11 with regards to panicked bad decisions about a very real tragedy.

 

Also, I reject the notion that the moral upper hand belongs to the individual who cares more about the sick. If someone wants to smugly talk about collectivism, then they have to recognize there is a point in time where billions under house arrest for the good of millions is not collectivist. Maybe it is for one or two months. Maybe three months. Maybe six months. Certainly not ten years. Somewhere in that range of extremes is a crossover point where this isn’t the answer. Ten years is obviously an extreme but it’s used to demonstrate that at some extreme point, most people would agree it’s ridiculous.

 

And it’s not about economy like “oh no my stocks!!!” There is a suffering component to long-term solitary confinement or isolation. There is a measurable amount of years lost when one is impoverished. There is the fear that a return to serfdom would occur for almost everyone not ultra-wealthy after a certain period of time passes. This can be weighed as ruined and lost man-years in the scale of billions to ruined and lost man-years in the scale of millions caused by the illness itself.

 

What bothers me is I think all this makes sense and it’s not meant to be an edgy shit-post about the value of life, but an acknowledgement that we are now trapped in a real life trolley problem and through no fault of our own will have blood on our hands from whatever choice we make. But the blood from one choice is perhaps more abstract and easier to ignore or rationalize away.

 

I’m posting here because DW is more close-knit than Reddit and I just feel like Reddit right now berates anyone who expresses sorrow at the situation and questions the long-term end game, as if anyone saying this is just callous towards the sick, when I’m not at all and also currently doing my part staying home. It makes me feel crazy when everyone is gung-ho about some open ended isolation potentially spanning over a year with dumb passive aggressive Reddit-y/Twitter-y “find a hobby!” chipperness and I wonder if anyone else has given it thought. 
 

 

Edit: It seems Trump in his most recent speech agrees with me. I don’t see it as an endorsement but I stand by my words, just know I’m not parroting Trump. I also fear Trump having this opinion as well will further cause a reactionary outright rejection of the entire premise of my point.

Edited March 23, 2020 by insertwackynamehere

[Hellbent]

I started listening to Trump's speech last night and then he said "The China Virus". I really... I just... I couldn't really believe my ears. At this stage of the game for him to still call it that... I couldn't keep listening to what he had to say.

 

I don't think the lockdown will be 18 months straight. My understanding is after say six to ten weeks if the virus has really diminished we can do phases of returning to quasi-normal (school, work) and then if the cases start to ramp up again, we have to go back into lockdown for another 6+ weeks. It is weird and surreal, but ultimately 18 months isn't that long and your life will be a more interesting tale to tell because of it.  

 

I would suggest not trying to envision how your life will be for the next 18 months too much since we don't know exactly how this will play out, and burdening yourself with the future will be taxing; better to just take one day or one week at a time. Besides, isn't 18 months more of a worse case scenario? The sooner we do our duty and strictly follow the guidelines the sooner life will be able to return to normal. 

 

And for the

Edited March 24, 2020 by Hellbent

[taufan99]

My university's professor who was diagnosed positive has just passed away.

Not a good start of the day (then again, we are all still in a critical condition).

[Doominator2]

3 minutes ago, InDOOMnesia said:

My university's professor who was diagnosed positive has just passed away.

Not a good start of the day (then again, we are all still in a critical condition).

I'm sorry to hear that man, I hope you and everyone stays safe and takes the necessary precautions to avoid the infection rate.

 

As for my opinion, it's definitely a concerning situation and my family and I are making sure to stay low until this blows over. It's really discouraging to see people treat this situation with a lack of seriousness. People need to realize just because they're young doesn't mean you wont die if infected, and even then I think it's just common courtesy to not potentially endanger other people's live just because you want to go out and socialize or what ever the case is.

 

Thankfully my province has started arresting people who've tested positive but breach containment.

[taufan99]

@Doominator2 Thanks dude.

On the other side, my province (the only sovereignly active kingdom with a special region status) has been warning people not to hang out, and most of them are obedient enough (God save the Sultan!), so much that roads are now unusually silent, almost as though a ghost town.

[ReaperAA]

3 hours ago, InDOOMnesia said:

My university's professor who was diagnosed positive has just passed away.

Not a good start of the day (then again, we are all still in a critical condition).

 

Sorry to hear this. Take care of yourself and your family.

[elend]

Yes, my condolences as well.

 

I have been more or less three months in quarantine now and... it's okay, you'll survive. Don't worry about the stupid quarantine so much, instead think about the medical staff you help by just keeping a low profile right now. Most people (aka all of them iirc?!) can still go to the supermarket. So buy fresh vegetables (nutrition, vitamins, keep your immune system strong) and sleep enough. Maybe exercise a bit, although I didn't do that. Use the time to get creative at home and do the things you always wanted to do. Try to distract yourself. If you follow the news too closely now, you just go insane and become depressed. I had this time in the later days of the quarantine, where I slowly lost interest in doing anything, because everything was just "bad". But that doesn't help anybody, so try to avoid this.

 

The world always goes on somehow. Be happy that you at least have a comfy place to quarantine in with enough food, a nice laptop and basically everything you could want. There are people stranded on Lesbos, who have no such luck.

Edited March 24, 2020 by elend