Coronavirus in Massachusetts (income, deals, nurses)

[porterhouse]

Originally Posted by Bridge781

Am I the only one who thinks this coronavirus fear has gone too far?

Nope, there are lots of fools out there.

[BostonMike7]

It’s not the flu.

I might have a slightly different perspective on this now, but sometime you need to put a face on something for it to hit home.

If it’s an overreaction we will know and talk about in 3-6 weeks about how we overreacted. But if it’s not an overreaction, then it will become pretty obvious and nothing we say in this thread will matter.

[Bridge781]

I don’t think this virus has been around long enough for us to really have numbers and stats in deaths. It does seem to be very contagious and I’m not saying nothing should be done. I was prepared to work from home, prepared for some social distancing, but when school started cancelling and telling students not to leave that’s where **** got real. My boss is an MD and he thinks school is done for the year.

Restaurants closing and sports and concerts being cancelled has been crazy to see happen but it does make sense.

I know we are trying to stop the spread and flatten the curve for People who would get very sick from this but life has stopped. People are losing money and I’m sorry but money is important, it’s how people survive. I could care less about the wealthy people losing money. Again I’m talking about the restaurant workers and hotel employees who depend on tips and so many others who won’t be making ends meet.

Some seem to think the closings will only be for 2 weeks but I think people will be avoiding going out much for a while. There’s been too much fear instilled in them over this. And I’ve also heard that we’re all going to get this virus anyways?

Also takeout is still available. I guess we’re screwed if whoever prepared the meal has coronavirus.

I just got an email that my gym is closing until March 30th. It seems like places are just feeling pressure to close. Earlier today my gym had sent a note saying they’d be cleaning more. Now they’re closing.

How long do you think companies will be working remotely for? I’ve been told for the foreseeable future.

I’m not ignorant or uneducated on this. I know we don’t want to overwhelm hospitals and we need to take measures to stop this. But this is going to ruin people’s financial stability. People are getting the virus every day still.

I think we could have been ok if we kept people away from nursing homes And cancelled some huge events. Really would have been nice if biogen cancelled their international leadership meeting. Apparently they just couldn’t imagine that their high level executives could possibly be carriers of a virus.

[Bridge781]

I also know this isn’t the flu or pneumonia but it’s hard not to compare. We don’t shut down a damn thing when it’s flu season and people die all over the world from that.

I also wonder what crime will be like now. Boston public is out until April 27th. Could be longer. I went to the library On Saturday and the librarian said they will stay open and will see how many parents send their kids to the library unattended. Happens all the time and they’ve had to call 911 when parents haven’t picked their kids up at closing. Well the libraries are closed now I guess so that’s one place where these kids won’t be.

[OutdoorLover]

Marc Lipsitch is the Director of the Harvard Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics - that's a research group for mathematical modeling of disease propagation.

He has stated that the Covid-19 virus will be with us for a long time yet, and over the entire course of the pandemic, 20-60% of the world's population may catch it.

If we assume that's also true of the USA in particular, and pick the middle of his interval - 40%, then assume 1% mortality, this works out to 330 million * 0.4 * 0.01= 1.3 million US fatalities over time. That would be bad.

Now, one could rightly say that is is "just" an educated guess. But compared to the average bear, this guy and his group will be pretty good guessers, and I read that most other researchers in the field are producing results in agreement with the prediction, so he is not an outlier. This is why we need to take it seriously...

See:

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/sto...Tno5MIW-4Rt2C0

https://ccdd.hsph.harvard.edu/

[Bridge781]

Parks are closed now too. Not sure if that means just the playground area or people are banned from walking in them as well.

[brightdoglover]

Originally Posted by Bridge781

...
I am not sure why the elderly and the ones with compromised immune systems aren’t just being shuttered in. Most people when they get it will experience cold symptoms.

Non-"elderly" people can become severely ill, although it is less common. Anyone is contagious if infected, but might not show any symptoms, and spread it to other people and through the population.

Fifty percent of the people currently in ICU in France (and overflowing) are under 50.

Sorry you are so willing to dispense with people over 60 and anyone with a history of lung problems or undergoing cancer treatment or a history of bronchitis or or or.

[mdovell]

think about this relative to Supply Chain management. Remember what happened at Chipotle a number of years ago? They had to go line-by-line ingredient by ingredient to look at it every single step along the way. how can we not guarantee that this virus is going to stay the way it is or if it's going to mutate and evolve and become more hazardous as time goes on?

sure it might not be dangerous to you.... now but we all get older.

[Bridge781]

My parents are over 60 so I worry about them getting it but I worried about them dying before coronavirus came along as well. I am not fine with parting ways with elderly people but part of life is dying. Unfortunately most elderly people get taken out by cancer, flu or pneumonia. I never said I thought we should do nothing to stop the spread of this but we’ve stopped life as we know it over this. And someone above made good points that we’ve never put a ban on cars and people are killed in cars everyday.

Curious to see your source on 50% of people in France being in the icu who are under 50.

The biogen folks are apparently all fine and doing well.

[NewfieMama]

Originally Posted by sombrueil

Are you reading about the coffins piling up in Italy? The mass graves in Iran? Is that fear-mongering? Or facts? Or do you care what the difference is?

I'm low on energy, so just copy and pasting my response from a different thread:

It's not that people don't care about coronavirus deaths. It's that there is a cost involved with the decisions that are being made. We are in a global recession. It's likely that millions will be without jobs. Businesses will fail. And panic has played a major role in that.

Car accidents are the #9 cause of death globally, so not all that high on the list. The CDC reports that nearly 3,700 die globally every day from car accidents. Globally 7,100 people have died of Coronavirus. That's not even 2 days' worth of car accidents. And while new Coronavirus cases have come to a screeching halt in China, car accident deaths will continue on and on every single day. Every year more than a million will die. And we all accept that it's worth the risk. Nobody demands we stop using cars because it's the socially responsible thing to do. We don't all work from home even though statistically you are more likely to die commuting into work than dying from the Coronavirus.