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Forums - General Discussion - Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread

JRPGfan said:
vivster said:

It's really easy to know what to believe. You believe the millions of professionals who say you need a mask and not the handful who say you don't. And if that simple rule fails you you just use your common sense that knows that having something in front of your mouth and nose will make things harder to spread that come from your mouth and nose.

Same logic as with climate change. Like 98% of scientist agree, and the last 2% are paid off by big oil companies.
Whoever should I believe?  There is some truth to the matter of fact, that these eggs heads that know better, and are asking the rest of us to act a certain way, should also be following their own advice. Its about leadership, you lead by exsample.

Common sense isn't as common as it used to be. One man's common sense today, is another man's crazy conspiracy theory.

I've been through my fair share of leaders in my career, and more than a few of them did a bang up job in terms of leading by example, though the examples they were setting were terrible much of the time. Now luckily, and with some better advice from others, many of the apprentices had enough brains to leave those crews or companies when those type of 'common sense' leaders were in charge, while many new greenhorns ended up staying once the correct leadership was finally put into place by management. Those companies profits also grew vastly as a result just by chance.

It's part of the reason why the American political system is set up as it is for example. Simply allowing the popular vote to be the end all be all, could lead to disastrous results. The majority isn't always necessarily right, and shouldn't always be allowed to rule with an iron fist. Even if it works the overwhelming majority of the time, all it takes is one major mistake and years if not decades of progress can be halted if not reversed. 'Simply always side with the majority', is not a logical answer.

Now what if your life partner, with a professional career, who you had been with for decades, was telling you what was best in a certain situation they had expertise in, though the majority were saying something quite different, if not the complete opposite? Who to believe? What would common sense suggest?

In terms of intelligence/IQ, what percentage of our smartest people are at a genius level? If it had to side with the majority of the brightest, or the few Einsteins, who would common sense choose?

SvennoJ said:

I guess people see visiting farms as an outside recreational activity.

Here in Paris, Ontario for those not familiar with the area :) people wear masks downtown to go shopping (it is mandatory, not allowed inside without a mask). However I've not see a single person using a mask for all the river activities. Boats loaded with people, 12 together, packed into vans to be transported back or tot the staging area. Social distancing, of course not in a raft or van. It's been very busy on the river lately. It usually starts at 10:30 AM then until 4 PM groups of people come by by the dozens of rafts, canoes, kayaks, pedal boards or their own whatever floats solutions.

Glen Morris the same, people do stay a little bit apart and there is a sign, maximum 2 groups of 5 allowed at the staging area if staying apart. You're supposed to wait at the parking lot for space, not that people adhere to that. And yup, the farm stands I cycle by, no masks anywhere.

It's a game of chance. No infected people around no problem. One infected person, distance helps, masks help, beware what you touch and wash your hands helps. More infected persons for longer indoors is not a good idea and masks will become less effective (more micro droplets building up in the air)

Outdoors the chances of getting infected are far less, so for outdoor farm stands it's not all that necessary to use a mask when keeping apart and have some airflow to dissipate any droplets. Masks still help outdoors for those that are infected, the less that comes out the better! I can see why that nurse thinks a mask is no use when she's sure she can't be infected. Of course that's just wishful thinking since anyone can spread the disease 3 days before showing symptoms and before getting test results back (which aren't 100% reliable either)

As a common courtesy to others, stay more than 2 meters apart at all times, wear a mask if you have to get closer or are indoors and places with lower air circulation.


I see now why people at the checkout wear gloves at the supermarket. There are still older people that use cash and dig through tons of coins to make change... Dunno if they clean those gloves before handling the groceries of the next person... Wash hands when getting back in the car before and after taking the mask off, then again after putting the groceries away. (Then close the cupboards lol)

Cases today in Brant County
The requested service is temporarily unavailable. It is either overloaded or under maintenance. Please try later.
Such a confidence boost, down yesterday, then a big warning high call volume, now site overloaded... I wonder what the fall out is going to be from the long weekend and phase 3 re-openings.

Ford is making an announcement today at 1pm so they already announced the numbers for today (88) while the pending cases jumped from 17K pending 2 days, 19K yesterday to 25K pending right now. No, we don't manipulate our numbers LOL.


... https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/americans-are-dying-after-drinking-hand-sanitizer-cdc-says-1.5053409

I think most people are either taking this from the most realistic, naturalistic point of view, or are fed up with the flat out deception from the media, along with poor decision after decision from the professional leadership during this event. Put all those together and it's a recipe for what we're seeing. Pretty hard for people to be expected to use common sense, when the experts can't even seem to use theirs.

Everyone being instantly connected can be highly constructive, but can also lead to chaos. People being conditioned to expect immediate undeniable results is also a big downside during a situation like this. Not to mention the personal political attachment divide that keeps widening.

It's a mess, no doubt about it.



Around the Network

Edit: forget that before anyone thinks I did a serious comparison. 

Last edited by crissindahouse - on 08 August 2020

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunyavirales

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_novel_bunyavirus_outbreak

China apparently has a new virus (novel bunyavirus), that they believe has person to person transmition.
Normally these are caused by ticks & flea's, that then infect others. However blood and mucous could also do the job.
They expect thats how its spreading, but arn't yet sure.

So far 60 people have been infected, and 7 have died.

2020, the year that keeps on giveing.



EricHiggin said:
JRPGfan said:

Same logic as with climate change. Like 98% of scientist agree, and the last 2% are paid off by big oil companies.
Whoever should I believe?  There is some truth to the matter of fact, that these eggs heads that know better, and are asking the rest of us to act a certain way, should also be following their own advice. Its about leadership, you lead by exsample.

Common sense isn't as common as it used to be. One man's common sense today, is another man's crazy conspiracy theory.

I've been through my fair share of leaders in my career, and more than a few of them did a bang up job in terms of leading by example, though the examples they were setting were terrible much of the time. Now luckily, and with some better advice from others, many of the apprentices had enough brains to leave those crews or companies when those type of 'common sense' leaders were in charge, while many new greenhorns ended up staying once the correct leadership was finally put into place by management. Those companies profits also grew vastly as a result just by chance.

It's part of the reason why the American political system is set up as it is for example. Simply allowing the popular vote to be the end all be all, could lead to disastrous results. The majority isn't always necessarily right, and shouldn't always be allowed to rule with an iron fist. Even if it works the overwhelming majority of the time, all it takes is one major mistake and years if not decades of progress can be halted if not reversed. 'Simply always side with the majority', is not a logical answer.

Now what if your life partner, with a professional career, who you had been with for decades, was telling you what was best in a certain situation they had expertise in, though the majority were saying something quite different, if not the complete opposite? Who to believe? What would common sense suggest?

In terms of intelligence/IQ, what percentage of our smartest people are at a genius level? If it had to side with the majority of the brightest, or the few Einsteins, who would common sense choose?

SvennoJ said:

I guess people see visiting farms as an outside recreational activity.

Here in Paris, Ontario for those not familiar with the area :) people wear masks downtown to go shopping (it is mandatory, not allowed inside without a mask). However I've not see a single person using a mask for all the river activities. Boats loaded with people, 12 together, packed into vans to be transported back or tot the staging area. Social distancing, of course not in a raft or van. It's been very busy on the river lately. It usually starts at 10:30 AM then until 4 PM groups of people come by by the dozens of rafts, canoes, kayaks, pedal boards or their own whatever floats solutions.

Glen Morris the same, people do stay a little bit apart and there is a sign, maximum 2 groups of 5 allowed at the staging area if staying apart. You're supposed to wait at the parking lot for space, not that people adhere to that. And yup, the farm stands I cycle by, no masks anywhere.

It's a game of chance. No infected people around no problem. One infected person, distance helps, masks help, beware what you touch and wash your hands helps. More infected persons for longer indoors is not a good idea and masks will become less effective (more micro droplets building up in the air)

Outdoors the chances of getting infected are far less, so for outdoor farm stands it's not all that necessary to use a mask when keeping apart and have some airflow to dissipate any droplets. Masks still help outdoors for those that are infected, the less that comes out the better! I can see why that nurse thinks a mask is no use when she's sure she can't be infected. Of course that's just wishful thinking since anyone can spread the disease 3 days before showing symptoms and before getting test results back (which aren't 100% reliable either)

As a common courtesy to others, stay more than 2 meters apart at all times, wear a mask if you have to get closer or are indoors and places with lower air circulation.


I see now why people at the checkout wear gloves at the supermarket. There are still older people that use cash and dig through tons of coins to make change... Dunno if they clean those gloves before handling the groceries of the next person... Wash hands when getting back in the car before and after taking the mask off, then again after putting the groceries away. (Then close the cupboards lol)

Cases today in Brant County
The requested service is temporarily unavailable. It is either overloaded or under maintenance. Please try later.
Such a confidence boost, down yesterday, then a big warning high call volume, now site overloaded... I wonder what the fall out is going to be from the long weekend and phase 3 re-openings.

Ford is making an announcement today at 1pm so they already announced the numbers for today (88) while the pending cases jumped from 17K pending 2 days, 19K yesterday to 25K pending right now. No, we don't manipulate our numbers LOL.


... https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/americans-are-dying-after-drinking-hand-sanitizer-cdc-says-1.5053409

I think most people are either taking this from the most realistic, naturalistic point of view, or are fed up with the flat out deception from the media, along with poor decision after decision from the professional leadership during this event. Put all those together and it's a recipe for what we're seeing. Pretty hard for people to be expected to use common sense, when the experts can't even seem to use theirs.

Everyone being instantly connected can be highly constructive, but can also lead to chaos. People being conditioned to expect immediate undeniable results is also a big downside during a situation like this. Not to mention the personal political attachment divide that keeps widening.

It's a mess, no doubt about it.

Again, it's not hard. You just take the least biased source. The two best ways to decide if something is biased is either looking at peer reviews or using your own common sense to determine if the person making a claim would benefit from incorporating their own bias. Science is mostly unbiased and it is set up to be as least bias as possible. You don't trust politicians, you just trust the science. Science is the best way to determine truth, it is in itself perfect. The failings of science are the failings of humans making mistakes. But that's why there is a huge scientific community keeping checks on everyone.

In the end it's not about making the correct decision all the time, it's about making the best possible decision given the information at a time. If that turns out later to be less optimal then it's gonna be that way, it's still better than indecision or being contrarian and doubting everything. Since it is impossible to have perfect information it is natural and prudent to just choose whatever seems the most solid answer at that time. And when it comes to science majority consensus is ALWAYS the correct way to go, even in the rare cases where it turns out false in the end.



If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.

Weekly update.

Daily reported cases in the world saw a slight decline this week, -1.5% average week over week.
Reported deaths still climbed further up, 40,455 this week compared to 39,886 last week (38,665 the week before that)

The USA has been going down further since HHS took over, -14% average week over week.
Reported deaths also saw a slight decline, 7,331 this week compared to 7,677 last week (6,385 the week before that)

Europe is still increasing, +10% average week over week, a bit less growth than the week before (+16%)
Reported deaths decline a bit again, 2,288 this week compared to 2,351 last week (2,325 the week before that)



The rest of the continents

Asia ends on top this week with Brazil a hair behind, both about 5% growth week over week.
North America is declining thanks to the USA. Africa is also declining, -18% average week over week.
Oceania looks to be stabilizing, Australia is getting things back under control.


India passed the USA in reported cases this week by a hair, Brazil is now in third.
The USA still leads in reported deaths, 7,331 this week, Brazil 7,134 and India 6,027
South Africa is declining although reported deaths are still going up, 1,904 this week.
Japan and Australia are getting things back under control while Canada continues to decline slowly.
Iran doesn't seem to want to go anywhere although it looks like their reported deaths are finally starting to go down (1,366 this week)
South Korea remains in control of the situation and China turned another outbreak down.

Europe in detail

Same as last week, everyone steadily building into the second wave, except Russia.
Even Sweden's odd reporting is showing an increase again (Somewhere between Switzerland and Italy)
There is also Romania which is doing about as badly as the Ukraine.



Around the Network

US is gonna reach the elusive 500 deaths per million number today. They are less than a month away from catching both Italy and Sweden.



If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.

vivster said:
US is gonna reach the elusive 500 deaths per million number today. They are less than a month away from catching both Italy and Sweden.

Got to be nr 1 in all measures :/

Other milestones this week:

USA passed 5 million reported cases on Thursday.
Europe reached 3 million reported cases yesterday.
Africa crossed 1 million cases on Thursday.
Brazil is reaching 3 million cases today.
India passed 2 million on Thursday.

Worldwide reported cases will reach 20 million by the end of tomorrow.
10 million cases was reached on June 27th. 43 days to double.
There were 500.6K reported deaths on June 27th, will be about 740K by the end of tomorrow.



Japan's solution to their new outbreak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=IebwbtGUti0

Of course after the amount of fiddling he did to get that napkin on his face mask...



vivster said:
US is gonna reach the elusive 500 deaths per million number today. They are less than a month away from catching both Italy and Sweden.

Brazil will probably overtake the US before that happens.
Kinda sad when there are still countries that grow that fast.



vivster said:
US is gonna reach the elusive 500 deaths per million number today. They are less than a month away from catching both Italy and Sweden.

The same model that the white house used to quote, on deaths (because it was on a lower side of things), now says near 300,000 deaths by the end of the year, in the USA. That 1,000-1,500 deaths pr day, is going to continue in the US, and probably rise still more.

The fact of the matter is even when factoring in the 160,000+ deaths to covid19, theres still around 60,000 excess deaths this year, in the same time period. Which are likely just "missed" case fatalities due to covid.

In half a year's time, theres probably 220,000 total deaths due to covid19 so far.
No signs of it slowing down either (unless vaccines turn it around).