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Nuvendil on 10 March 2020
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vivster said:
John2290 said:

Wow. I never thought I'd see you in line with Trump on something. My respect. 

I'm worried gor two people in my life who will be warrented a death sentence from this virus so nothing would change. It also doesn't matter about the death rate, if it was much lower the problem doesn't just go away as it's still exponential and critical patients are still going to over load the system at some point as they pile up through the year even if it's half of the expected 10% or a quarter or an eight. We've seen now in Italy how little stress a well managed medical system can take and it is very little. You cut the numbers down tenfold and they still pile up over time with the rate and breath of infection. 

Why do you ask?

I don't align with Trump. It's just a coincident that thinking properly about the issue and not thinking at all lead to the same conclusion.

The health care system is overwhelmed not because of the severity of the virus but because of the forced and unproportional reaction to it. It would be overwhelmed 10 times as much if you treated the common cold exactly like it. I'm pretty sure that if this virus is threatening to kill the people you care for, so will many other common ailments. So how come you've not been a complete nervous wreck long before corona came around? Could it be the hysteria created around it by the media and the constant direct stimulation of fears with scary looking numbers that actually aren't that scary?

I mean I'm not thrilled that we have another virus additionally to flu and cold viruses, but I'll be damned if I waste precious resources on this one when there are already way more serious health issues out there.

Finally some sense.

I also am not a Trump fan, especially his often very poorly fact-check off the cuff comments and tweets and the CDC's fumble is a perfect example of how clumsy our bureaucracies can be.  But people are losing. their. minds.  And while doctors are hesitant to say this, I will:  the WHO failing to properly contextualize that the 3.4% is the Case Fatality Rate and is not at ALL representative of the actual mortality rate is one of the most astoundingly irresponsible things I've seen an international organization do.  The mortality rate is best represented with the most widespread and thorough testing.  South Korea is our best look at that and the CFR is shaping up to be less than 1% and even then there's the matter of those who are asymptomatic who are not being diagnosed well even there.  But that 3.4% has resulted in widespread comparisons to things like the Spanish Flu.  THE SPANISH FLU!  One of the most deadly viral pandemics in human history!  Even made in passing comparisons of this to that are extraordinarily reckless panic mongering.

People are buying three months - three damn months! - of emergency supplies. Stores are running out of everything from toilet paper to hand sanitizer to bleach to face masks. Whole swaths of the economy in some areas are being frozen.  There's an ever growing concern over health systems being overrun not because people are sick but because everyone with a runny nose is could stampede in at any moment.  And the best part?  Most of these supplies are being snapped up in droves by people who will be least affected by this at the expense of those who need them.  The overwhelming majority of people suffering seriously are older or those with preexisting conditions.  If you are young and healthy, please for the love of all that's holy don't buy a bunch of face masks or twelve boxes of cold medicine or a dozen hand sanitizer bottles. 

And do not - please, please do NOT - rush to the emergency room with the sniffles to demand a Coronavirus test.  All you are doing is A) overwhelming the system, B) taking up resources - time, a test kit, etc - that could be used on proper needs and actual COVID-19 cases, and C) if you DO have it, risking contaminating a whole bunch of people.  If you are that concerned, call in sick, call your health care provider and inform them of your concern and they will walk you through the need for a test.  This is in the US, anyway.  The last thing we need is everyone and their grandmother storming into hospitals and clinics for COVID-19 tests in a wave of mass hysteria.  It will burn through the test kits no matter how many are made, waste doctors' time, massively overburden even the best and most organized hospitals, and and in the event that people with the disease are part of the stampede result in further spread.  

Hysteria and panic will only make every single element of this worse.  And I am so sick of this arms race of sensationalism (THE WALLS ARE CLOSING IN! IT'S AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT! IT'S A HOAX! REMEMBER THE SPANISH FLU?!) that has so consumed main stream corporate media.  Nothing can ever be what it is anymore, everything is the next sensationalist panic-fest.  Now a healthy concern is important, yes.  But when everything is depicted as a massive disaster, it's impossible for people to formulate proportional plans and take proper, reasonable precautions.