COVID-19 Mega thread

[Dr. Arch]

You're trolling all over the place. I hope you enjoy what's left of your short stay. For now, you will be muted.

[Dr. Arch]

A case has been confirmed at UW-Madison. 

[Dr. Arch]

A case has been confirmed at UW-Madison. 

They allowed the person to go home, so they aren't too worried.

They allowed the person to go home BEFORE knowing it was corona (while they waited for test results). It was insanely irresponsible. Let's hope the patient followed through and stayed home.

[Dr. Arch]

For anyone interested in maps and numbers, John Hopkins has a live map of reported cases, recoveries, and deaths for the Coronavirus:

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

[Dr. Arch]

Not sure if it's been posted yet, but the first COVID-19 death in the U.S. has been confirmed: https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/us-coronavirus-saturday/index.html

[Dr. Arch]

https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/1237779140620759043

That number seems a bit low considering the estimates I've seen with regards to both the worldwide spread and my own country.

Is this sarcasm, because literally no country is close to having a third of its population infected.

No, no sarcasm. Those are the projections I've seen, which usually range somewhere between 40% and 70%.

For instance, Angela Merkel has said today in a press conference that she expects "60% to 70%" of the German population to get infected eventually.

Then why haven’t these numbers been reached in the countries already hit with the virus?

There's no timeline for an outbreak.  The 1918 Spanish Flu, for instance, started off slowly, faded, and then roared back for round two in the Fall. 

It lasted around 2 years, right?

[Dr. Arch]

Question for PQG: Am I entirely off-base in thinking that colleges sending students home rather than having them hunker down on campus is stupid in much the same way as "hey, let's send the infected WWI soldier on a crowded troop train to a hospital hundred of miles away"?

No. It's the right thing to do. There's too much contact in dorms and college areas, and a lot of these students depend on cafeteria services, which are prime locations to have more contact and proliferate the spread.

[Dr. Arch]

UW-Madison has cancelled all in-person classes at least until mid-April, more updates forthcoming. Students have been advised to leave the dorms and stay updated. Instructors and services are to transition to online instruction.

Source: https://covid19.wisc.edu/updates-to-campus-operations/

[Dr. Arch]

In my Philosophy class today, the subject of Coronavirus came up. My Professor believes that the response to it is overblown, and almost everyone in the class thought the same. I also had some people in my Environmental Politics class yesterday say the same thing, with a few people saying that this isn't that different from the common flu. People are upset that UCCS will be transitioning to online classes after Spring Break, and think that the authorities are overreacting. What say you here on Atlas?

I say that they should all listen to epidemiologists and stop their armchair theorizing about what they believe should be done.

It's a threat in the sense that it proliferates while someone is asymptomatic, and those to whom it does proliferate are at risk if they're older folks. More so, because it spreads the way it does, it can easily crater the health system by overwhelming it, which would create a systematic collapse of our national infrastructure.

Is it as deadly as Ebola? No. Is it "just like" the flu? Absolutely not.

[Dr. Arch]

In my Philosophy class today, the subject of Coronavirus came up. My Professor believes that the response to it is overblown, and almost everyone in the class thought the same. I also had some people in my Environmental Politics class yesterday say the same thing, with a few people saying that this isn't that different from the common flu. People are upset that UCCS will be transitioning to online classes after Spring Break, and think that the authorities are overreacting. What say you here on Atlas?

I've seen this attitude as well, and it seems like a very bad sign.  People aren't taking this seriously.

I'm proactively stocking up on non-perishable food and essentials before everyone wises up, panics because it's late in the game, and then empties out the stores.

In my Philosophy class today, the subject of Coronavirus came up. My Professor believes that the response to it is overblown, and almost everyone in the class thought the same. I also had some people in my Environmental Politics class yesterday say the same thing, with a few people saying that this isn't that different from the common flu. People are upset that UCCS will be transitioning to online classes after Spring Break, and think that the authorities are overreacting. What say you here on Atlas?

I say that they should all listen to epidemiologists and stop their armchair theorizing about what they believe should be done.

It's a threat in the sense that it proliferates while someone is asymptomatic, and those to whom it does proliferate are at risk if they're older folks. More so, because it spreads the way it does, it can easily crater the health system by overwhelming it, which would create a systematic collapse of our national infrastructure.

Is it as deadly as Ebola? No. Is it "just like" the flu? Absolutely not.

I think there was a major reason why Ebola gained more hearty respect overall: the name "Ebola" brings to mind some pretty graphic and vivid imagery symptoms-wise (bleeding out of your orifices, etc.). 

Yes. Human beings are conditioned to respond to imminent threats, and visual input is one of the primary ways of sensing that kind of threat.

It's the same reason why we, as a collective, have been slow to respond to climate change and similar concerns, because it's slow and incremental.

[Dr. Arch]

So when’s a good time to stack up on emergency food

. now. just went to a local walmart and they are literally running out of toilet paper. the toiletry aisle was like 75% empty

Yep. We're stocked up on all the essentials and long term basic ingredients, like flour, peanut butter, sugar, salt, etc.

More than anything, it's the panic that will overwhelm the system and leave hospitals overflowing and supermarkets empty more than anything else for now.

[Dr. Arch]

Just a question here-

The death rate for people under 50 for this is under 1% and really only gets serious for people over 70.  So why isn't the solution here just to tell seniors or people with asthma or heart problems to stay home and get other people to deliver the their groceries and stuff for their own protection? As opposed to telling everyone to do that and pretty much shutting civilization down and crashing the world economy. If you're a young and healthy person the real risk of getting it would be to potentially transmit it to an old person or someone with respiratory issues who it could kill.

Because people don’t think when they are panicking.

Response vs. Reaction.

You also have an incompetent Federal administration that is unable to make citizens feel safe or comfortable with its actions, which amplifies the panic factor.

Although, I'm sure you neither believe it nor want to hear it, but that's reality.

[Dr. Arch]

WTF?

https://twitter.com/AnaCabrera/status/1238126303238410243?s=20

Lamar needs time to hear from both sides - the virus and patients - before making his decision. 

Elected Republicans are an existential threat to our national security.

[Dr. Arch]

This whole administrations response has been a sh**tshow, people are hoarding essentials, society is all but collapsing as norms are changing, we don't truly know how many people may actually have the disease because OUR GOVERMMENT CAN'T PROPERLY TEST PEOPLE and we don't have the capabilities to handle a large scale pandemic. Meanwhile people in this ADMINISTRATION outright believe this is a hoax to get Joe Biden elected President....

God give me strength.

This. So much this. I am so done.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1238318535769808898

[Dr. Arch]

If Trump tests positive and becomes ill, he should temporarily hand the reins over to Pence.  This is exactly the type of situation that section 3 of the 25th Amendment was intended to handle.

We all know he would never do that.