The COViD19 Coronavirus, consequences and discussion, related to the Pro1 and in general

[silversolver 849]

5 minutes ago, auvo.salmi said:

Yeah it is a cold. Pretty the same way than Ebola is casual gastroenteritis.

You are illustrating my point. This IS A COLD that's a little nastier than normal. Ebola has a kill rate comparable to bubonic plague (about 25-90% depending on a lot of variables) and you're practically equating the two. Unless you're trolling me (which is entirely possible) YOU are a victim of the disinformation campaign.

Edited March 12, 2020 by silversolver

[Rob. S. 1,664]

12 minutes ago, silversolver said:

Unfortunately, this scenario could play, but it won't be because of the virus, but because of the PANIC

No. You're completely misguided about what the virus is and what it isn't, why people will need to go to the hospital, which makes you a potentially lethal danger to everyone and their surroundings who might take your irresponsible half-truths as advice. It seems you're a hopeless case, and I won't discuss this further. You seem to believe you're cleverer than the whole world's best and most competent medical personnel. I repeat, you need to educate yourself by reading what those professionals have to say about it, and stop your dangerous trivialisation of a major world health crisis that only can kept limited by following their guidelines. And this is my last word to you on this subject, because if I would go on, I probably couldn't stay polite anymore.

[silversolver 849]

4 minutes ago, Rob. S. said:

And this is my last word to you on this subject, because if I would go on, I probably couldn't stay polite anymore.

Clearly we disagree, but I appreciate that you are wishing to keep discourse polite. It says good things about you.

[EskeRahn 5,471]

5 minutes ago, Rob. S. said:

....that only can kept limited by following their guidelines

This is NOT about limiting it, it is about STRETCHING it, so fewer are sick at the same time. Most likely almost all of us will get it sooner or later, no matter what.

[auvo.salmi 135]

37 minutes ago, silversolver said:

You are illustrating my point. This IS A COLD that's a little nastier than normal. Ebola has a kill rate comparable to bubonic plague (about 25-90% depending on a lot of variables) and you're equating the two. Unless you're trolling me (which is entirely possible) YOU are a victim of the disinformation campaign.

Says a guy from country of which president has denied coronavirus or global warming to exist...

[removed one argument, which was supposed to be answer to your earlier message, but I forgot to quote it so my argument was an useless insult]

a) people don't die to a cold. Some fraglie elderly people do, but they would have died anyway soon, and yet you can't say the actual cause of death was the flu, but it was weak heart or bad lungs instead. Influenza kills people, still most of them are old and sick, but there is some healthy young people among them. And corona has several times higher mortality than influenza, no vaccination, no medicines.

b) Also nobody having a cold needs hospital care. With influenza, much more people need hospital care. Some percent of them need ICU. We already have influenza wave going, and reasonable amount of patients both in regular wards and in intensive care. With the possible spread of corona virus, there would be massive number of patients who need hospital care and ICU. Hospitals would get overcrowded, and it would make nurses and doctors get infection more easily, which would halt the hospitals, both wrom curing corona patients and from performing their normal actions with normal, non-corona patients. I have heard your public health system is quite different in the USA, but at least in Finland we don't have the capacity to cure that amount of patients. Which basically means that increasing amount of people (who could be cured normally) will die because there's no space in hospitals. (Basically, when there's no cure to corona, the point of intensive care is to keep the patient alive until he/she starts recovering)

c) As healthy (rather) young people, we don't have to panic or even be afraid of our own lives. Also we need to be very unlucky to see our family member die to corona infection. It won't be that common in any case. Of course elderly people like our parents or grandparents willl be more likely to die to corona infection. But the point is that you or me or any single person doesn't matter.

Edited March 12, 2020 by auvo.salmi

[Rob. S. 1,664]

Just now, EskeRahn said:

This is NOT about limiting it, it is about STRETCHING it, so fewer are sick at the same time. Most likely almost all of us will get it sooner or later, no matter what.

I don't think so. In China, only a very small percentage of the population had it, and the recovery rate is already higher than what is left of the infection rate. It may well be that China will very soon see the end of the epidemic.

[silversolver 849]

3 minutes ago, EskeRahn said:

This is NOT about limiting it, it is about STRETCHING it, so fewer are sick at the same time. Most likely almost all of us will get it sooner or later, no matter what.

It is the nature of the world in which we live; we are connected, and we share things. Sometimes the things we share are wonderful. Sometimes they're not. I appreciate the sensible perspective you shared. The balance of how to achieve the reasonable goal of slowing the spread without the unreasonable side-effect of panic is definitely going to be difficult to find under the best of circumstances, because you almost need the panic to make people change their habits, but on the other hand, the panic is going to kill people too.

Personally I think we should have let nature take its course on this one. I think we'd have never noticed this except for the fact that we now have the technology to notice that a flu-like symptom-causing organism isn't genetically exactly like the last one, so now we worry more.

[auvo.salmi 135]

7 minutes ago, EskeRahn said:

This is NOT about limiting it, it is about STRETCHING it, so fewer are sick at the same time. Most likely almost all of us will get it sooner or later, no matter what.

But stretching helps to prevent more people from dying to the infection, when there's less people sick at the same time.

 

I would love to see a genocide caused by corona virus, to reduce the amount of population on this planet, and to remove the weak from existence, but that's simply how it works nowadays. We have to try to minimize the damage.

[Rob. S. 1,664]

9 minutes ago, silversolver said:

Clearly we disagree, but I appreciate that you are wishing to keep discourse polite. It says good things about you.

To return the compliment, one of the reasons for that is that outside of this subject I've always perceived you as a rather likeable person here in the forum. 

[Rob. S. 1,664]

18 minutes ago, auvo.salmi said:

I would love to see a genocide

Wow, I hope I'm misunderstanding you here, because that would be several orders of magnitude more inhuman even than Silversolver's stance — with or without this continuation:

18 minutes ago, auvo.salmi said:

caused by corona virus, to reduce the amount of population on this planet

Even if reducing the population would be something that should be desired, would killing human beings really be an acceptable way to do it? Why not drop some atom bombs? (Don't answer, it's a rhetorical question.)

But why should we reduce the population of this planet anyway, while this planet can easily nourish a far larger population? (This was attested only a few years ago by the UN Special Representative for World Hunger.) Just because we don't want to allocate the resources appropriately for the needs of mankind?

But I guess this is finally getting completely off-topic.

Edited March 12, 2020 by Rob. S.

[silversolver 849]

@auvo.salmi OK, first of all, President Trump did not say that the Coronavirus' existence was a hoax, but rather that the hype surrounding it is a hoax, and I agree that it is. Malicious news outlets who despise him edited his remarks to make it sound like he was saying that the existence of the virus was a hoax. It's interesting that that piece of the disinformation campaign has reached so far.

Flu definitely is the better comparison for the severity level here, but I call it an extra-nasty cold because the virus is in the family with the cold, not flu. I don't think the data supports your statement that scare-onavirus has higher mortality than flu, as it is currently sitting at about 3.5%, and certain strains of flu have been 9%. I seriously doubt that no vaccination changes much, for reasons I stated earlier, and "no medicines" is simply untrue, as the treatment for all these kinds of things are just symptom-supportive, and not targeting the pathogen specifically, as that has so far proven impossible, and so the available treatments are exactly the same for this as for the similar illnesses we get every day with no fanfare.

[silversolver 849]

15 minutes ago, auvo.salmi said:

But stretching helps to prevent more people from dying to the infection, when there's less people sick at the same time.

 

I would love to see a genocide caused by corona virus, to reduce the amount of population on this planet, and to remove the weak from existence, but that's simply how it works nowadays. We have to try to minimize the damage.

Well, that's embracing our mortality a little too tightly, perhaps......

[auvo.salmi 135]

13 minutes ago, Rob. S. said:

Wow, I hope I'm misunderstanding you here, because that would be several orders of magnitude more inhuman even than Silversolver's stance — with or without this continuation:

Even if reducing the population would be something that should be desired, would killing human beings really be an acceptable way to do it? Why not drop some atom bombs? (Don't answer, it's a rhetorical question.)

Yeah, maybe it was bit too much. But speaking from philosophical point of view, don't you think that this globe is overcrowded? That it would be a good thing if we had lesser amount of people here? No one should have the power to decide who has the right to live and who has to be removed in order to reduce population, but what IF it would be caused by the nature? It would be rather fair to everyone, and no one needs to be the executioner?

This is what I meant. But I realize it is not wise to say to people you don't know that "I'd love to see a genocide" 😄

Edited March 12, 2020 by auvo.salmi

[Rob. S. 1,664]

13 minutes ago, auvo.salmi said:

Yeah, maybe it was bit too much

Thanks, I'm a bit relieved 😉

13 minutes ago, auvo.salmi said:

But speaking from philosophical point of view, don't you think that this globe is overcrowded?

No, I don't think so... Yes, there are places on earth which are too crowded for people being able to live a decent life. But this planet could sustain many more people. It's just that we need to work out a way to ensure that it does...

Edited March 12, 2020 by Rob. S.

[EskeRahn 5,471]

36 minutes ago, Rob. S. said:

I don't think so. In China, only a very small percentage of the population had it, and the recovery rate is already higher than what is left of the infection rate. It may well be that China will very soon see the end of the epidemic.

I think it is EXTREMELY optimistic that it should be contained in China, and somehow miraculous will not sieve back from abroad. But of course I HOPE you are right.

[silversolver 849]

11 minutes ago, Rob. S. said:

Wow, I hope I'm misunderstanding you here, because that would be several orders of magnitude more inhuman even than Silversolver's stance — with or without this continuation:

Even if reducing the population would be something that should be desired, would killing human beings really be an acceptable way to do it? Why not drop some atom bombs? (Don't answer, it's a rhetorical question.)

But why should we reduce the population of this planet anyway, while this planet can easily nourish a far larger population? (This was attested only a few years ago by the UN Special Representative for World Hunger.) Just because we don't want to allocate the resources appropriately for the needs of mankind?

But I guess this is finally getting completely off-topic.

I find it interesting that you look at my perspective as inhuman (did you mean inhumane?) at all....to me it is just a matter of believing, correctly or incorrectly, that this virus does not represent a far greater danger to human health than previously common illnesses such as influenza, and the same common precautions would have represented adequate control mechanisms had we not known that it was something different from what we'd seen before. Yes, people will die from it, as from influenza outbreaks, but I don't think this reality represented a reason for the widespread disruptions caused on behalf of this particular virus. That really was my whole contention. I embrace human mortality as a matter of realism, not as a desirable outcome. I'll own I could have been a little more sensitive about it at certain points.

On the other hand, there is a growing cult of (mostly, but not entirely) young people who believe that the earth is overpopulated, and we need to depopulate it significantly so that the planet won't die. I personally think the premise is ridiculous, for the reasons you state and more, and some of the logical conclusions of that premise are unintentionally evil, as you beautifully illustrated with your rhetorical question. Prince Charles is a famous believer, who is reputed to have said that if he could be reincarnated, he'd like to return as a killer virus to wipe out huge swaths of the earth's population. When you hold these kinds of radical beliefs, embracing human mortality can rapidly become making love to human mortality, and some very twisted and sad children come from that union. The Columbine killers were of that school of thought, for example. I'm not suggesting auvo.salmi is going to become a mass murderer, but genocidal depopulation is a very dangerous ideology.

[Rob. S. 1,664]

43 minutes ago, silversolver said:

it is just a matter of believing, correctly or incorrectly, that this virus does not represent a far greater danger to human health than previously common illnesses such as influenza, and the same common precautions would have represented adequate control mechanisms had we not known that it was something different from what we'd seen before

Yes, there's the problem – everything I've read about the new coronavirus says that it can cause more severe symptoms (like pneumonia) than influenza, that it spreads faster than influenza, and that it's more lethal than influenza. And of "the same common precautions" an important one is missing, vaccination. And then there's the fact that much of the new virus isn't even known yet – like whether it mutates, how fast, and what will change in mutating.

It's not the most renowned source that I managed to dig up quickly  (most of what I've read so far are German-language sources, I have no English ones handy right now), but i think many important things are summed up well there: https://www.sciencealert.com/the-new-coronavirus-isn-t-like-the-flu-but-they-have-one-big-thing-in-common

And there's a side effect – every precautions now taken against the coronavirus will also help against this year's influenza, and against it becoming as widespread and lethal as it could...

Edited March 12, 2020 by Rob. S.

[netman 1,424]

4 hours ago, EskeRahn said:

@silversolver I agree to a very large extent. But the point of the current actions of many governments  is NOT to claim that it can stop the virus (only fools believe that IMHO). The point is to DELAY the spread. So the few that will need treatment can get the treatment. If a lot get sick at the same time the health system will crash. But if it can be prolonged it is possible.

 Not only that, as some people will build an immunity the spread with be permanently slowed down hugely if they manage to contain it a bit now.

[Craig 1,435]

Anyone know any real good deals as a result of coronavirus, etc?

I spent some time searching cruise ship rates, seems they're not heavily discounted.    And the way they advertise is tricky, had to actually go thru adding to cart  to see all the fees and actual rates, etc, but needless to say a trip thats advertised as 42/night ends up twice that....   And apparently rules prevent direct  erson-to-person resale.

I found disneyland tickets a little cheaper than normal, so did buy those....

Edited March 13, 2020 by Craig

[Rob. S. 1,664]

4 hours ago, netman said:

Not only that, as some people will build an immunity the spread with be permanently slowed down hugely if they manage to contain it a bit now.

I'm not sure, because one of the aspects (which I forgot to mention above) that make Covid-19 more dangerous than a usual strain of influenza is that people who recovered can get it again.

Edited March 13, 2020 by Rob. S.

[Polaris 423]

10 hours ago, auvo.salmi said:

I would love to see a genocide caused by corona virus, to reduce the amount of population on this planet, and to remove the weak from existence, but that's simply how it works nowadays.

While I don't agree with the concept of your statement, and wouldn't delight in massive amounts of the population being killed, my biggest objection is with your use of the word "genocide."  A genocide is defined as deliberate acts against a specific group, or groups, of people in order to exterminate them.  I don't believe a genocide is ever warranted, regardless of whether one believes there are too many people on our planet or not.

Furthermore, I have some good news (phrased from your perspective) for you... If a third of the population being killed enough for your liking, then you are in luck because it's prophesied as going to happen in a book known as the Bible.  Tons of other prophesies have already come true, and this is one of the remaining ones.  Thankfully (phrased from my perspective), I believe in, what is termed, a pre-tribulation rapture so I won't be around when it happens.

 

[david 929]

I'm not saying any of this as fact.  Just some things some of the experts have shared that I found interesting.  They could be wrong, of course.

- I believe that they believe the reason this spreads faster than other infectious diseases, is because people *might* be contagious almost immediately after exposure and before they get sick (which is 4+ days after exposure).  And, at a minimum, I believe they have shown that people are very contagious even when they are first getting sick (showing symptoms).  And by sick, I mean mildly, as well as deadly sick, depending on their immune system.

- Because of the above, social distancing (people working remotely, limiting large gatherings of people, etc.), is a way to slow it down.  They can't move fast enough to quarantine people, because by the time someone shows symptoms, and they track down the people exposed to the sick person, those people have already passed it to others.  And many (probably most?) people will have mild symptoms and not necessarily attribute it to this virus and may not self-quarantine themselves, still go to work, etc.

- I believe that the theory of the experts is that once China puts people back to work fully, the number/rate of infected people will balloon again.  As @EskeRahn said, they believe it will move through pretty much the entire population (not just China, but everywhere) (due to being contagious very quickly after being exposed).  They can't put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak.  One expert likened it to trying to stop "wind."  It is a matter of balancing the rate of infection to not overwhelm the healthcare systems, yet not collapse economies and financially ruining/stressing individuals/businesses by shutting everything down.  And shutting down grade schools also stresses the healthcare system, because it means some number of healthcare professionals have to stay home to take care of their kids.

- Now, if enough people in China do not go back to work, that could certainly slow the spread, but if the above is true, it may not greatly reduce how many people are infected before it is all over.

- There is a very nasty wildcard here.  They don't know how long your natural immunity lasts for those people who get it and recover.  I believe I read something stating a guess of a certain number of months, but I have to believe that was a total guess, since there is still much they don't know about this strain of the virus.   I believe there are differing views on whether the immunity is permanent or temporary for this exact strain of the virus too.  However, *if* immunity is temporary, and *if* the spread of the virus is slow enough that it doesn't hit everyone before that temporary immunity expires, then the whole thing could flair up again.  Additionally, the virus could mutate, given how many people it is going through, and it is *possible* that a mutated form could reinfect people, regardless of how long it has been since they have recovered from the first strain.

- I'm certainly not saying those possibilities in the previous point are likely, just that it is theoretically possible with something this widespread, depending on the longevity of natural immunity and depending on mutations.

- I also don't think they know yet if people can go from mild symptoms, and looking like they are recovered, to deadly sickness, or if cases where that has happened to people were really those people being reinfected.  This was a question early on with people reacting that way, and I haven't seen much mention of it since then.

- In short, the word from experts who know about how these things spread through populations, and with what they know about this particular strain, is that we could still have another 3-7 months of this virus, until it burns out by infecting the majority of the population.

- The recommendation is to do what you can to keep your immune system operating well, which means what it always does -- getting enough sleep, lowering stress, eating a balanced diet, exercising, not smoking, using physical keyboards instead of virtual, etc.  In those countries where obesity is a problem (*cough* USA *cough*), that and high blood pressure are two things that *could* put someone at greater risk for a more severe reaction.  People who are already immunocompromised (possibly diabetics, elderly, or people with other chronic illnesses), should probably take more precautions than those with stronger immune systems.

- And at least there is one silver lining in all of this.  Only about 2% of those who get seriously ill from this are 19 or younger (at least in China).  It isn't that the other kids don't contract it and not that they don't spread it, it is just that the way it interacts with the immune system of children is such that they largely don't get seriously ill.  Different infectious diseases affect different segments of the population differently, and thankfully children don't appear to be at high risk for this particular one.

- It will be interesting to see, once this is all over, if people learn from it or if their memories are short-term -- diversifying supply-chains, business and government stockpiling of certain products, proper funding for research and and vaccines for certain families of infectious diseases (COVID-19, MERS, SARS, etc.), etc.  On the one hand, this one really should be a wake-up call.  On the other hand, humans don't always make smart choices.

[Polaris 423]

58 minutes ago, david said:

- The recommendation is to do what you can to keep your immune system operating well, which means what it always does -- getting enough sleep, lowering stress, eating a balanced diet, exercising, not smoking, using physical keyboards instead of virtual, etc.

Good point.  Yes, this is crucial! 😁

[auvo.salmi 135]

8 hours ago, Polaris said:

While I don't agree with the concept of your statement, and wouldn't delight in massive amounts of the population being killed, my biggest objection is with your use of the word "genocide."  A genocide is defined as deliberate acts against a specific group, or groups, of people in order to exterminate them.  I don't believe a genocide is ever warranted, regardless of whether one believes there are too many people on our planet or not.

Furthermore, I have some good news (phrased from your perspective) for you... If a third of the population being killed enough for your liking, then you are in luck because it's prophesied as going to happen in a book known as the Bible.  Tons of other prophesies have already come true, and this is one of the remaining ones.  Thankfully (phrased from my perspective), I believe in, what is termed, a pre-tribulation rapture so I won't be around when it happens.

 

Yeah I think the problem is that I am not native English speaker. I took a minute to choose the word, and was actually going to use holocaust instead.. But then thought that genocide could work better (basically the same but doesn't refer to particular group of people like holocaust does). But did you read my next message? Where I tried to explain what I meant. Seriously speaking, I wouldn't like to see anybody to die, to corona virus or any other reason. I was originally making sarcastic reply to EskeRahn, trying to point out that we have to try to prevent/delay/stretch corona wave instead of letting it hit us with full force. Doing so would mean accepting mass deaths/genocide/whatever you would call it. So I meant that although I do think that there is too much population on this globe, I wouldn't accept killing all the weak by not trying to prevent corona virus. PS. I work at central hospital ICU, where we are atm preparing to epidemia.

Edited March 13, 2020 by auvo.salmi
typo

[SchattengestaIt 559]

I think the biggest actions should be taken by the government. The best option would theoretically be to infect all (healthy) children to prevent the biggest infection threat. Children don't show symptoms and they don't care about hygienic actions.

Next thing is to isolate elderly people or make sure that infections won't be possible. Visitors should be reduced as much as possible, those who take care about the people will have to pass through huge safety precautions (which is already the case in most places).

 

A word to the panic: I would understand if people were suddenly vomiting on the streets, or dying a few hours after infection. But we are talking about a lethal rate of around 0.2-0.5%.

Sadly, most cases won't be noticed since the symptoms are similar to the flu and testing is still difficult. If the government(s) wants to reduce panic, testing should be possible everywhere and at best at home.

I agree that public events should be stopped since infections do happen in the incubation state (and we all could theoretically be infected without knowing yet). But hoarding toilet paper is definitely not the right attitude. And the flu with 300-650k deaths per year (worldwide) shows that panic really isn't needed.

But don't we all love sensations and exaggerations?