219 replies to this topic

[Manitobant]

School is closing here for 3 weeks.

[Ants_Dakota]

I think we can all agree though that panicking is probably the worst option...

 

Actually this brings up an interesting topic. How do ants deal with disease?

Panicking is the worst. Not only does it do nothing good, it destroys the economy and shows how people are so self-centered.

[Thunder_Birds]

Walmart and amazon.com are price gouging on necessary items like bottled water.  $40 for a case of water I normally pay less than $5 for.

Wow. That’s a lot! I guess they know that people are very desperate, so their raising the money because they know people will still buy it. 

[PacificNorthWestern]

its .1% chance of dying of the flu and 3.4% chance of dying of the coronavirus. All schools in Washington closed down and are switching to online schooling.

[Zeiss]

The panic is extremely ridiculous and I'm losing money by being forced to take online courses instead of the in-person lectures and labs I am paying for.  

 

I hate how everything is blown out of proportion by increased presence of various types of media.  People just need to practice common sense and isolate themselves if they are sick (even if you do get sick, you will be fine unless you have a compromised immune system) as well as keep sensible hygiene.

 

I am also losing all my college funds because the stock market is crashing.  Good thing about the crash is that I can invest more easily in stocks and just wait for them to go back up in the next year or two.

 

Edit:  Another negative to everything being shut down is that we are indirectly making it harder for care centers to have staff available.  Kids are being sent home and parents of those kids will have to stay home more to take care of them.

Edited by Zeiss, March 13 2020 - 9:56 PM.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Some of these precautions are actually good and useful. It's just simple math. Slow the spread so that hospitals aren't overloaded by huge spikes. Even healthy young people have accidents or whatnot and having medical care available is good. Not to mention we are talking about the lives of younger people's parents, grandparents, teachers, doctors, friends, relatives, or plenty of young people themselves who have medical conditions.

 

Isolating themselves has been proven to be inadequate, unfortunately. I was hoping that was true, too, but the more I see the math the more I get it.

 

I'm hoping in a few months lots of people will be saying, "SEE? It wasn't that bad at all. TOLD YOU SO." Except, like with Y2K, a lot of effort may have gone into making it that way.

 

 

And to quote Twitter:

 

Alexandra Brodsky

 

@azbrodsky

·

Feb 29

 

A friendly reminder: people who will be high-risk patients if we get coronavirus can hear you when you reassure everyone we're the only ones who might die.

[justanotheramy]

This, from Australian satire mob Juice Media, pretty much covers it.
Got lots of swears in it though, which might frighten the young &/or devout, so don't open it if you're not okay with that.


People who die of regular flue each year don't tend to do it all at once, in a wave that overwhelms hospitals and takes out medical personnel to an extent that patients with cancer and kidney failure and gunshot wounds can no longer be attended to.
The point of slowing the spread is so that the capacity of health care facilities isn't overwhelmed — so it's manageable.

And that's what all of these social isolation procedures are for.


The thing about Australians panic-buying toilet paper is true though.
Nobody knows why, but it's true.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Oh man, I have too many online friends on both sides of the political divide to recommend everyone watch that, but uh ... parts of it yeah.

Like I said, hopefully in a few months everyone on here will be like, "TOLD YOU SO. IT WAS NOTHING."

But no one knows how much stuff goes on behind the scenes and how much work is involved to turn it into nothing. (And it is never going to be nothing for anyone who loses someone.)

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, March 13 2020 - 10:45 PM.

[justanotheramy]

This was shared on FB by an Australian doctor. Seems worth repeating:


"I [Adam Visser] am an intensive care specialist in a small city. 

 

Coronavirus isn’t just like the flu, but it’s only really very dangerous to the elderly or the already unwell.

Quite a lot of people in their 80s will die, but most of the rest of us will probably be okay. 

 

If you’re in your 70s and you get Coronavirus, you’ve got a really good chance of survival.

If I’ve got a bed for you. 

 

If you’re in your 60s and you have a heart attack, you’ve got a really good chance of survival.

If I’ve got a bed for you. 

 

If you’re in your 50s and need bowel cancer surgery, you’ve got a really good chance of survival.

If I’ve got a bed for you. 

 

If you’re in your 40s and have a bad car accident, you’ve got a really good chance of survival.

If I’ve got a bed for you. 

 

If you’re in your 30s and have terrible pre-eclampsia as a complication of pregnancy, you’ve got a really good chance of survival.

If I’ve got a bed for you. 

 

If you’re in your 20s and have a bad reaction to a party drug, you’ve got a really good chance of survival.

If I’ve got a bed for you. 

 

I have 7 beds equipped with life support machines. We have a plan to increase to about 25.

Getting more isn’t a matter of more equipment or more money, that bit is easy.

There are not enough skilled staff, even if we all work double shifts every day for six months (and we probably will). 

 

If 50% of my city gets infected, that’s 75,000 people.

If 5% of them need life support (which is the estimate), that’s 3750 people. For 25 beds.

And then I might not have a bed for you.

 

 

So it’s up to you to flatten the curve.

Wash your hands. Stay home."

(https://www.facebook...152043531379953)

Edited by justanotheramy, March 14 2020 - 4:08 AM.

[Da_NewAntOnTheBlock]

My district shut down and the governor closed all schools 

[RushmoreAnts]

I honestly think the media is making things worse than they actually are.

[Da_NewAntOnTheBlock]

I concur, the only real people at risk are infants, elderly, or people with a compromised immune system 

[TheMicroPlanet]

Walmart and amazon.com are price gouging on necessary items like bottled water.  $40 for a case of water I normally pay less than $5 for.

That's outright social darwinism.

[Da_NewAntOnTheBlock]

true

[TheMicroPlanet]

They have absolutely zero right to take advantage of people like that. Their objective should be the common good, not their own selfish interests. They're basically parasitizing off of people's panic and it's just making people panic more. 

[Da_NewAntOnTheBlock]

Trump said it's illegal to price gouge so...

[TheMicroPlanet]

Well, some people are selfish (surprising, I know), and selfish people just don't care.

[Da_NewAntOnTheBlock]

yeah...

[justanotheramy]

the only real people at risk are infants, elderly, or people with a compromised immune system 

.

Sorry, but that's not how an overwhelmed health system works.
If all the hospital beds are full and they're short-staffed, and you come in with something else — say you have an accident — even if under normal circumstances you'd be fine, if you don't pass the triage you're toast.

Also, if you're a person of faith go pray for forgiveness; if you're an atheist do try harder not to be such a selfish arsehole.
That's millions of people drowning in their own lungs that you'd be fine with just because they're not you.
Please have a think about that.

[TheMicroPlanet]

In times like this (and worse), people should just leave monetary society behind and well, ya know, help people because it's good to help people. I mean, how dare we let the monetary expense of something interfere with the good that we should be doing. On the other hand though, there's always that one selfish person waiting in line to take advantage (or perhaps parasitize off) of everyone else. I guess there's just too many risks involved for now, the biggest of which being people, i guess.

Edited by TheMicroPlanet, March 14 2020 - 5:30 AM.