792 replies to this topic

[iSocialism]

I lived in the lesser state of Washington, where 6 confirmed deaths have been reported. My only worries are not being able to buy TP/regular stuff when needed, my almost 5 month old and her health, and idiot drivers.

[Disdain]

As for my country, I read yesterday that people have started stealing masks from hospitals since they're nearly impossible to buy anymore, or at retarded prices. I only got a handful, as I lean more towards that they don't quite help to not get it - just to help remind you not to touch your face too much and if you are infected to sort of try to keep it within the mask and not infect others.

[Blade 619]

Blade: isn't the issue less about the overblown lethality but more that it is a SECOND flu-season virus. basically you just doubled the potential deathtoll if you let it spread readily. Not to mention it also keeping medical staff off patient care due to either being sick or possible carrier post-sickness.

 

Not really. Flu season isn't a fixed window. In a good year you might only see a winter increase of 2-3 times the summer influenza like illness load. If you're in a bad season you may look at 15 times. IF you're in a 1916-1918 style season then... well... tell your >70 relatives you love them.

 

Yes, obviously the more people it infects the more people that will die from it. 

 

As for medical staff, no healthcare system has the reserves of trained staff required to deal with a true pandemic ILI. In a reasonable worst case scenario you're looking at 20-25% of the workforce off sick at the peak. Health care workers may be higher than that due to high levels of viral load exposure prior to effective vaccination. This would lead to either bed closures in hospitals or increasing the workload on staff who would end up providing close to emergency only care and very strict criteria as to who would be admitted to a hospital etc.

 

For those who don't know I  am a doctor in a large emergency department in the UK. We have many anxious patients a day coming to us convinces they were near a foreign person who sneezed and they might be dying. The media panic along is nearly breaking the system, hell only knows what it'll be like if shit actually hits the fan.

 

Ultimately many people will catch this illness and be unaware they caught it or think it's a normal cold. Those who die will likely be the old people. Considering the western world is heading towards a population crisis of too many old people and no young people willing to take care of them... well... you can make your own mind up as to how that sentence could end.  

 

re: CC's comment on compatibility, I suspect it is largely driven by it not being hugely different from existing well circulated corona viruses. 

[onbekende]

Blade, I rather meant it is a "second coming" of a similar disease, regardless how neatly it overlaps the actual flu

 

Part that also plays is that it is "new", mankind still mistakingly thinks it can whip mother nature to its whims. Sure it doesn't come from a multitude of (non-human)carriers like the actual flu, but we are still overstating our superiority.

Sadly the infection rate is to large coupled with a mediocre sickpanel and various infectiontiming leads to a lost cause from the start. You are just lagging a good week behind the curve. Heck Italy just started massivly exporting their failed containment due to the end of spring holiday

 

Also, the Spanish one went disproportionate to 20-30y olds, offcourse a recent world war didn't help.

[Blade 619]

Blade, I rather meant it is a "second coming" of a similar disease, regardless how neatly it overlaps the actual flu

 

Part that also plays is that it is "new", mankind still mistakingly thinks it can whip mother nature to its whims. Sure it doesn't come from a multitude of (non-human)carriers like the actual flu, but we are still overstating our superiority.

Sadly the infection rate is to large coupled with a mediocre sickpanel and various infectiontiming leads to a lost cause from the start. You are just lagging a good week behind the curve. Heck Italy just started massivly exporting their failed containment due to the end of spring holiday

 

Also, the Spanish one went disproportionate to 20-30y olds, offcourse a recent world war didn't help.

 

I mean... we are all expost to 4 routine corona viruses, the 2 historic "dangerous" ones were MERS and SARS. 

It was supposedly a bat if I recall correctly?

The infection rate isn't a huge deal. Many will be minimally symptomatic. It's hardly a death sentence.

 

Pragmatically it might lead to nature the culling of the infirm 60+ population, which will hopefully put the UK right wing out of action.

[onbekende]

All fine, just noting we could keep it at the routine ones, no need to add another on into the mix and make flu vaccinnes even harder to predict/formulate

 

Yeah, something bad, something snake. Chinese like their magixks...

 

Talking about the elderly, the nations closng down schools and such just to make the kids get dumped at the grandparents place is hindsight 20/20...

[HackSlash]

Thought some of you might find this interesting

 

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200304-coronavirus-covid-19-update-why-people-are-stockpiling

[ccabal86]

Interesting link, thanks for sharing!

[HackSlash]

In relation to the article I posted a few weeks ago....

 

I had to go out tonight to pick up a few things.  I ended up at the No Frills grocery store.  MADNESS!  ABSOLUTE MADNESS!

Nothing left on the shelves, no toilet paper, no junk food, no fruit, no vegetables, no meat, no canned vegetables, no flour, no rice. Nothing.

Line ups around the bloody store.  I waited 20 minutes to get through the self checkout line!

I watched a lady buy a cart full of Mr.Noodle!

I was having a lovely time, chatting with the other people around me.  Common reaction to the people I spoke with was just to laugh at the panicked idiots.

 

There are (currently), 40 cases reported in Alberta.  Our Prime Minister and his wife are in self isolation after she tested positive for COVID 19.

I'm glad that there are still people out there with a sense of humour about this. 

On the way to work, I listen to "Terry and Phillip In the Morning" on K97.  They currently have a contest running based on the difficulty of finding toilet paper in Edmonton.

"if you're the X caller, you'll win a two pack of Go Anywhere Bidet"  that they found on Amazon.

Here it is!  https://www.amazon.ca/Brondell-GS-70-GoSpa-Travel-Bidet/dp/B008CSDKSQ

 

I thought I'd share another article from the National Post, some of you might find it interesting: https://nationalpost.com/news/eighty-minutes-that-changed-our-world-how-covid-19-went-from-abstract-to-very-real-in-a-hurry

 

On that note, (most of you know what I do for a living), I am not permitted to leave the country, as there may be a need for us to deploy domestically.  That has already been released in the media, so I can disclose it.

 

All I can say.

Stay safe, and exercise some common sense.

Don't buy a shopping cart of Mr.Noodle!

[ccabal86]

I am getting worried. Not because of the virus, but rather the economic effects: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-pandemic-economy-which-stocks-are-weathering-the-storm/

 

It's too early to say how bad it will be, but hopefully we can avoid a repeat of the 2008 recession.

[HackSlash]

ccabal, you are right to worry about a recession.  From everything I've seen it going to just as bad as 2008, if not worst.

 

I know on Thursday the Dow Jones and NYSE posted their worst day since 1987.  On the same day, the TSX posted its worst day since 1940.  I'm not sure how the Asian and European markets fared, but I'm assuming they were just as bad.

On that note, now is a good time to get in.  Prices are down.

 

I don't know where you are, or if you've been following international news.  Last night the Bank of Canada cut the prime lending rate to 0.75%, and the Federal Government announced a one billion dollar stimulus package.  Alberta's provincial government is announcing one as well, I just don't have the details.  From what I've been able to gather, other national governments are doing the same.

 

The bank called us on Thursday night, and told us our Mortgage Rate has dropped.

 

Hell, it was my husband's birthday today.  We went out to a nice restaurant.  We were the only ones in the restaurant, and our waitress told us that normally at that time on a Saturday night, the place was packed.

[Lysistrata]

From everything I've seen it going to just as bad as 2008, if not worst.

2008 was real. After years of over-inflating Real Estate values for the sole purpose of making everyone from Loan Officers to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation filthy rich... most every piece of Real Estate in the entire USA was mortgaged to the gills for far more than comparable sales... which all property values are based on... could possibly continue to appraise for. Anyone that owed money on a house, lost everything. This caused the entire country to go pretty much belly up. This was real economic collapse.

 

This is a virus. We go through them all the time. I believe this will last a few weeks, and then everyone will get real sick and tired of being bored and not making any money. They will discover that this is all self inflicted, and it's back to normal as fast as these idiots caused a global panic. 2008 was a real economic collapse. This is overhyped bullshit. I feel sorry for those that have died... but the flu killed my mother back in '97 along with thousands of others, and Congress didn't spend a trillion dollars to make themselves look more important back then. I know for a fact... if I get this virus... I will beat it. It's largely over within the month, and everyone I know is already changing the channel. If no one wants to hear about it anymore, then you have lost the crowd.

[ccabal86]

I guess we'll see. I also hope that once the pandemic is over with, the economy will bound back, since this wasn't caused by an endemic problem, but an outside factor. Who knows, maybe we're even better off in the long run, as everyone from governments to investors were already talking about a looming crisis that would eventually arrive. Maybe this event will serve as a pressure valve for those fears, and we can get back to growth once this blows over.

 

Here's hoping at least.

[onbekende]

Investors just don't like their dividend to be slashed due to less profit. That and markets were in for some re-adjustment cause interest rates are still hilariously low despite being a booming economy.

 

Meanwhile, people be people and they are celebrating their 2 week holiday by going to parties just over the border. meh.

[Lysistrata]

That and markets were in for some re-adjustment cause interest rates are still hilariously low despite being a booming economy.

No... they're hysterically low. I don't think it's very healthy for the US Dollar to be so... worthless. Surprise! We agree on this.

[Imran Ehsan]

Had to postpone my vacation to the white beaches of Phuket due to this outbreak. Me = not happy 

 

Not really worried about the coronavirus too much ( I think people are panicking a bit too much) but worried about the travel restrictions worldwide and possibility of being put into forced quarantine if I go overseas. 

[dsfrr1]

I know how you feel, i'm pretty much in same boat. Ended up canceling my vacation due to the panic that it has created.

[onbekende]

 

That and markets were in for some re-adjustment cause interest rates are still hilariously low despite being a booming economy.

No... they're hysterically low. I don't think it's very healthy for the US Dollar to be so... worthless. Surprise! We agree on this.

 

 

while interest rates and exchange rates are seperate, you guys were indeed making your $ rather cheap. Then again, you guys were doing that to let exports pick up (kinda like what the UK did with the £).

 

I know how you feel, i'm pretty much in same boat. Ended up canceling my vacation due to the panic that it has created.

Ignore the panic, but understand the reasoning for the movement restrictions. Think any nation with some deaths has an example of the virus getting inside an elderly home and wreaking havoc

[Lysistrata]

The total number of people in my entire state that have this virus can fit comfortably in my office... but my city looks like it did after 9/11

[ccabal86]

The total number of people in my entire state that have this virus can fit comfortably in my office... but my city looks like it did after 9/11

For now. But it'll be worse, for sure.