Illinois Stay At Home Order to Be Extended

[Maintainschaos]

Wow, just...wow.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/20...onavirus-rally

[MassVt]

Originally Posted by Justabystander

No, just go ahead and spread it to other people. This thing is dangerous. It is not all about you, its about others you can spread the virus to and the damage to those individuals and the healthcare workers in the hospitals. You should be attacked, as you were, for being ignorant, careless and self-centered. The media is reporting the deaths and infections as an important fact.

Excellent post--I agree completely.

[Robert9]

Some people I know in Lagrange Park told me that the Village Field Club there has its usual gathering of people like normal and nobody is wearing masks and they are as close together as can be. So if they dont have to follow the rules then why should anyone else?

[personone]

Originally Posted by Curly Q. Bobalink

If you or your family become one of the 1%, my guess it would go up a bit on your list of priorities. Part of the problem is, although it does primarily kill those with weakened immune systems (the elderly, diabetics, the obese, etc.) it also appears to kill in a "random" fashion otherwise healthy people and children - we really don't know enough about this disease to make truly informed decisions about it.

As was said in an above post, 1% of the U.S. population is over three million people, which is simply an unacceptable loss if reasonably preventable. The bigger problem was, with a hospitalization rate of 20%, you would have had over sixty million people requiring hospitalization within a very short window had this disease been allowed to flow unchecked through the population. There is NO WAY the country could have coped with this, and the death rate would have climbed from your 1% number (although I believe that number is high by two or three times), to over ten percent of the population, with people dying on the streets, in hospital parking lots, in their homes, etc.. What happened in NYC would have occurred in the entire population by a number of magnitude greater, and there would have been additional untold deaths from food shortages, murders, riots, etc..

However, even with all that in mind, I tend to agree with you that we need to start opening up the country, but in a very deliberate manner, and unfortunately, wearing masks and social distancing is going to be fundamental to that process. Where I completely agree with you, is that some folks are saying that "ANY" deaths are unacceptable. Which is nonsense, considering almost a half million Americans die each year of smoking, fifty thousand die in automobile accidents, etc. - there HAS to be an expectation that "preventable" deaths will occur each year, and the "cure" for that cannot be that we wrap ourselves in bubble wrap and never leave our homes (I have to wonder how many people die in bubble-wrap factory accidents each year?).

The larger sociological consequences of pronouncing "no more deaths!" is an especially scary thing when you consider how many soldiers were killed during the island hopping campaign of WWII. I do not think the country could mount, let alone win, a war against a modern enemy today. Is the only thing keeping us from being invaded and taken over our nuclear threat? Something to consider.

This is what scares people, and they don't like to mention or think about. They sweep this under the rug, and suppress this because it's scary to think about. It points exactly to your point that we don't really know much about this virus. Granted it has affected mostly the elderly and immunocompromised (those with other chronic conditions). But the random healthy adults and children with no previous conditions that it has infected and killed is a mystery. It's something people don't like to mention or think about, but something that needs to be understood before completely "going back to normal."

[PJSaturn]

People, you were warned before that if this thread [again] devolved into off-topic discussions, including discussions about COVID-19 in general, the thread would be closed. There are way too many off-topic posts here, as well as rude posts and personal attacks. I've deleted some, but I'm not going to spend hours cleaning up the thread for a second time. The thread is now closed.

Please take your general information and opinions about the pandemic to the relevant thread(s) in Current Events and P&OC.

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