Corona and you!

[Thomas]

Aint that the truth.

We had a visit from the grandchildren last week ... they sat in our front garden, we were indoors, window open, keeping the distance.

I thought it would be difficult, we're a cuddly family, but the eldest (4) explained that we have to keep apart or we get 'poorly'. They took it in their stride ... but yeah ... what's their world gonna be like, and what's the psychological price of all this?

I'm hoping we'll have a vaccine in place in a couple of years, then all this will be a distant memory. But then my folks grew up with worse ...

+++

I read a bit of historical fiction. In many ways, we're spoilt by science. In Tudor England, right up until fairly recent times, the 'sweating sickness' was a periodic pandemic and those who could afford moved out of the city to their country houses until it died down. Then there were plagues, of course.

My ma and pa tell me of times when TB was 'incurable'. In rural areas, if one member contracted the disease the whole family would be in lockdown, completely cut off from the rest of the community, until it had run its course. Sometimes the whole family. My father-in-law contracted it when in the Navy.

 

[wil]

Yes current thinking is areas that have the tech (automatic or manual digital temperature readings) will be isolating those with fevers and those they were in contact with (thru tracking software) for 2 weeks IF they test clear...

We will be back to the TBpolio style qyarentines of the past, till we come up with some sort of therapy/cure for the bigger since vaccines currently seem years off for a very remote possibility...

Hugs, kisses, hand shakes as greetings...will they be gone? Sharing drinks, food, cigarettes. How will social distancing affect the dating/romance scene....in 20 years will folks be freaked out by people making out in movies? Heck will covid change the population explosion.

We can currently only hope for a two year hiccup and then some return to normalcy as a pandemic response is permanently initiated by all countries for the next round...and the next.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Uncertain times.

 

[RJM]

I think the nutter Fauci/Gates/5G little green men from Mars conspiracy theorists are making it difficult for ordinary reasonable people to be heard who question whether the cure may be worse than the disease -- in the most literal sense.

This crisis is encouraging conspiracy theory. Usually conspiracy theorists are just a silly, slightly amusing fringe that do no harm, but in this situation it is becoming dangerous.

It's bad enough without the flaming conspiracy idiots.

London yesterday:

 

[wil]

In Baltimore so many folks crammed the fells point area the police used the wind from helicopter blades to help disperse the crowd.

 

[Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine]

Y'all might've heard about what happened in Wisconsin when the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied the request from our governor back in early April to allow for everyone to vote via absentee ballot (several people that voted "in-person" turned out to have COVID-19, thereby infecting countless others.) Luckily for me, I was feeling a tad "under the weather" (not COVID-19! *knock wood*) so I didn't vote

What's worse is that they opened the bars recently, and people were disregarding the "social distancing" mandate by the CDC. The bigger problem is that there's a "new" disease that's been linked to the novel coronavirus specifically found in younger victims (it resembles Kawasaki's Syndrome iirc.) Oh, and humans can transmit the virus to nonhuman companions (not necessarily the other way around.)

Idjits: can't live with them and there's no decent exchange rate!

Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine

 

[RJM]

Ummm ... but surely if I don't want to contract covid or spread it, I don't have to go out? If I am worried about it? There is no-one denying me the right to stay at home? If I choose to? For as long as I want to? While the rest of the world goes on turning?

Imo it's no longer about overburdening the health sevices? The health services are sorted by now; new hospitals are ready, etc?

 

[RJM]

US deaths 327 per million of population today. That is 3.27 in ten thousand. And those who recover have no lasting damage.

Of course I sympathise with health workers. And with the bereaved. But health services are managing, while everything else is crumbling, or at breaking strain?

These lockdowns need to end soon, imo.

 

[Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine]

Ummm ... but surely if I don't want to contract covid or spread it, I don't have to go out? If I am worried about it? There is no-one denying me the right to stay at home? If I choose to? For as long as I want to? While the rest of the world goes on turning?

Imo it's no longer about overburdening the health sevices? The health services are sorted by now; new hospitals are ready, etc?

First you have to get the new cases on a steady plateau or even show a decrease. Otherwise you will have a worse spike in cases.

Another thing is that a person can spread it even when asymptomatic, bring it home, and spread it to loved ones, including those of the four-footed kind.

Thirdly, not every medical facility is equipped for the pandemic, even now.

Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine

 

[wil]

Imo it's no longer about overburdening the health sevices? The health services are sorted by now; new hospitals are ready, etc?

with only a small percentage of the population affected/infected, the hospitals have yet to see how bad it coould be if it really ramped up again...and yeah, imo.


Impossible to pen a bar, a profitable bar, and social distance...I think that lunacy...

I agree RJ, I can stay in and avoid... every sunday night I zoom with my family, play online games and chat. Other nights/days I do the same with friends around the world and with clubs that no longer get together...

I actually communicate with more people in the past couple months, friends companies have landed large deals during covid....folks are figuring out how to work it out.

 

[RJM]

with only a small percentage of the population affected/infected, the hospitals have yet to see how bad it coould be if it really ramped up again...and yeah, imo.


Impossible to pen a bar, a profitable bar, and social distance...I think that lunacy...

I agree RJ, I can stay in and avoid... every sunday night I zoom with my family, play online games and chat. Other nights/days I do the same with friends around the world and with clubs that no longer get together...

I actually communicate with more people in the past couple months, friends companies have landed large deals during covid....folks are figuring out how to work it out.

This is never going to be a plague that decimates. It kills mostly the old and those with preconditions. The health services are there to help old, sick people.

If I don't want to go to a restaurant and so risk spreading the disease at home, I don't have to go to the restaurant. But why should he be forced out of business?

It can't drag on, imo?

 

[RJM]

First you have to get the new cases on a steady plateau or even show a decrease. Otherwise you will have a worse spike in cases.

Another thing is that a person can spread it even when asymptomatic, bring it home, and spread it to loved ones, including those of the four-footed kind.

Thirdly, not every medical facility is equipped for the pandemic, even now.

Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine

That is all understood. But covid is killing a very small percentage if mostly aged people, while those who recover do so completely with no lasting damsge.

Yes it is hard on health workers, but there have been new hospitals built to cope, etc. We all have our cross to carry. In the meantime thousands of businesses are being destroyed.

 

[Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine]

This is never going to be a plague that decimates. It kills mostly the old and those with preconditions. The health services are there to help old, sick people.

If I don't want to go to a restaurant and so risk spreading the disease at home, I don't have to go to the restaurant. But why should he be forced out of business?

Not every victim was elderly/those with a preexisting condition. Health care officials have found that children/young adults that were previously healthy have suffered major illnesses related to the coronavirus, including a teenage girl that has suffered a major heart attack directly related to the coronavirus and numerous cases of Kawasaki's Syndrome in otherwise healthy kids.

Do you go grocery shopping? I hope that I don't have to go into that. Ditto shop for nonfood items/get prescription medications?

Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine

 

[RJM]

Not every victim was elderly/those with a preexisting condition. Health care officials have found that children/young adults that were previously healthy have suffered major illnesses related to the coronavirus, including a teenage girl that has suffered a major heart attack directly related to the coronavirus and numerous cases of Kawasaki's Syndrome in otherwise healthy kids.

Do you go grocery shopping? I hope that I don't have to go into that. Ditto shop for nonfood items/get prescription medications?

Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine

Perhaps. But the percentage of deaths amongst the young and healthy is very very small. It doesn't justify wrecking the future.

I don't have to go out if I am worried? I can order online. Why should others be forced into destitution? I can stay at home for ever and order online if I don't want to bump into anyone.

I mean they're talking about a future where people no longer shake hands. Where we all go around in masks, etc? But for WHAT? For a VERY mild illness that hardly kills anyone?

Anyway ...

 

[wil]

it is complicated I leave it up to the epidemiologists not the economists.

I don't think the latter are really ready to make a decision on acceptable levels of deaths per million people. I think the former are comparing restriction access measures and testiing levels per country with those very figures to predict where spikes have yet to happen and how long after reopening before we see the tide rurn back up.

I also don't think people take into account when it comes to PPE, Hospital beds, care givers, expenses...the dead are a drop in the economic bucket compareed to the cost of the recovered and the healing...there are many more on ventilators and in treatment and quarantine and recovery than dead...and that will coninue to go oon until we curv the rate infection.

But hell, thats just me, in the past few years I've gained more respect for the scientists than the politicians....

 

[muhammad_isa]

...there are many more on ventilators and in treatment and quarantine and recovery than dead...and that will coninue to go oon until we curv the rate infection.

But hell, thats just me, in the past few years I've gained more respect for the scientists than the politicians....

Good point..
I think each individual country/locality has to "fend for itself".
Some might not get it quite right, but timing is very important.
..as you say, it depends on the "R" value .. the rate

 

[RJM]

it is complicated I leave it up to the epidemiologists not the economists.

I don't think the latter are really ready to make a decision on acceptable levels of deaths per million people. I think the former are comparing restriction access measures and testiing levels per country with those very figures to predict where spikes have yet to happen and how long after reopening before we see the tide rurn back up.

I also don't think people take into account when it comes to PPE, Hospital beds, care givers, expenses...the dead are a drop in the economic bucket compareed to the cost of the recovered and the healing...there are many more on ventilators and in treatment and quarantine and recovery than dead...and that will coninue to go oon until we curv the rate infection.

But hell, thats just me, in the past few years I've gained more respect for the scientists than the politicians....

I guess ...

 

[RJM]

I think each individual country/locality has to "fend for itself".

A summer without tourism is going to kill thousands of small hotels and restaurants and small tour operators. Never mind larger operators employing thousands. Health workers may be stressed, but they continue to be paid -- and no-one bangs pots and pans on Thursday night for restauranteurs and craft markets and tour-bus drivers ... do they?

EDIT
And then end December comes no-deal Brexit. Well, they wanted isolation ...

 

[RJM]

I do apologise. Please do not think I'm being argumentative and abrasive. I genuinely believe the three month lockdown was to give time for the health services to get equipped to deal with the cases needing hospitalisation and ventilation -- which by now they are --not to be extended indefinitely while thousands of businesses are wrecked.

We will just have to wait and see ...

 

[Thomas]

A summer without tourism ...

When global warming brings about the collapse of the travel industry ... what then?

I agree with your comments, but I do not agree that the old, sick, infirm, etc., become collateral damage in the perceived need to keep a failing economic model on its feet.

In short, 'the fifth largest economy in the world' (or thereabouts) should have the resources to weather a downturn. That we don't highlights the flaws in the system: Twenty six people own the equivalent of more than half of the world's total wealth. More than half the world's biggest economies are not countries, but corporates, and the wealthy and the corporates do not pay their taxes at anywhere near the rate they should. So we have billionaires bleating on TV that they need bale-outs to keep afloat. It never occurs to them to put back, in hard times, that which they took out in the good.

We have corporates who are drawing up treaties that allows them to sue nations if that nation's laws prevents them from making sufficient profit.

Please read this article on OpenDemocracy.

It's not alone in making the point. The world can't go on as it is, COVID-19 is just highlighting the real problem, it's not creating it.