How Do You Guys Feel Today About This Virus?

Log in

SmokingPipes.com Updates

Watch for Updates Twice a Week

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

How do you feel on 3/12/2020

  • All hell is about to break loose

    Votes: 20 27.0%
  • It's going to get weird but it will blow over

    Votes: 50 67.6%
  • There's not much to it at all

    Votes: 4 5.4%

  • Total voters
    74
Status
Not open for further replies.
Jan 8, 2013
7,493
733
My point, above, is this.... it may be coronavirus, it may the flu, maybe just a minor cold. But regardless of what it is, have some common courtesy because whatever it may be, nobody else wants it. Even if it's just allergies, because people have enough anxiety without wondering if you just coronavirused them.
 

olkofri

Lifer
Sep 9, 2017
8,033
14,644
The Arm of Orion
My point, above, is this.... it may be coronavirus, it may the flu, maybe just a minor cold. But regardless of what it is, have some common courtesy because whatever it may be, nobody else wants it. Even if it's just allergies, because people have enough anxiety without wondering if you just coronavirused them.
Exactly.

Also, it's quite irresponsible, and ultimately foolish, to take a 'don't worry, be hippy happy" stance and prance around topping it the unconcerned fellow. Whilst I do not advocate paranoia and panic, I am a strong proponent of extreme precaution, common sense, and gravity. It is a serious issue, whether it'll be lethal to millions or just thousands. As Hoosier mentioned above, it still flies by most people (it initially flew by me) that there'll be dire consequences besides physical illness: financial, societal, and even familial. We don't need to make things worse by being reckless and getting ill ourselves or being an asymptomatic vector to somebody else's misery. You're either part of the problem, or part of the solution, or part of the landscape.
 

rmpeeps

Lifer
Oct 17, 2017
1,122
1,765
San Antonio, TX
As a hospital nurse I'm dreading the kind of staffing shortage this thing could bring. It is stressful for the staff and unsafe for our patients to be stretched thin with sick families and staff.

If the cases skyrocket I am worried our staff won't be able to keep up. Even without a health crisis my hospital is almost always at capacity.

Here in central VA the spread seems imminent.
Thank you for your service, seriously.
 

kcghost

Lifer
May 6, 2011
13,140
21,408
77
Olathe, Kansas
My wife and I are getting a little concerned. With many public gatherings being postponed or delayed it makes you really wonder. We were supposed to go to a performance by the Tao drummers (seen them before and they are amazing) a week from Saturday but we may not go. I am somewhat encouraged by the baseball suspension. Their time frame is from yesterday through April 10. I don't know if they know something that we don't or not but we are hopeful. We're both in our 70's and pretty much figure if we get it it's pretty much over for us.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BROBS

peregrinus

Lifer
Aug 4, 2019
1,205
3,787
Pacific Northwest
The wife and I are here in Seattle, at ground zero for the U.S. experience.
There is definitely something different going on here.
Observations:
U of W and Fred Hutchinson Immunologists using computer models calculate it ( covid 19) was active locally a month before public officials announced the first case, probably patient 0 was here the 3rd week in January. Also some models show the possibility of 50% to 100% higher infections than currently diagnosed.
Downtown Seattle is very quiet. My friends in retail are really worried. Obviously, the stock market is worried.
Our legendary freeway rush hour traffic is currently like Sunday afternoon. The Seattle area is home to Amazon, Boeing commercial Airplanes, Starbucks, Costco, Microsoft, Expedia, Weyerhaeuser, Nordstrom, REI, Alaska Airlines and hundreds of supporting business large and small. Big economic impact that will reverberate for months, at the very least seems possible.
All public schools are closed, as are libraries, many restaurants, churches and in fact all public gatherings of 250 people are prohibited by order of the governor in the all larger western Washington counties, for at least a month, maybe longer.
My Doctor and hospital staff friends are hopping that quarantine measures will reduce resource overwhelming spikes in infections and help for to flattened the infection curve so that it won’t overwhelm medical resources.
Now most people will experience nothing more severe than the flu, maybe a bad flu, but 3-5% infected people will succumb (about 34 times more fatal than common flu) and this will be serious indeed for these people and families.
What exactly will happen is uncertain, but it has the potential to sweep across the country and the world. The social, economic and political consequences will be interesting to say the least.
 

sablebrush52

The Bard Of Barlings
Jun 15, 2013
19,621
44,831
Southern Oregon
jrs457.wixsite.com
I still don't understand the toilet paper fixation. People think with their ass?

This state of affairs is a many headed monster. There's the virus, fear of the virus, actions taken due to the fear of the virus, only some of which are rational, and the economic fallout for various sectors as a result.

Personally I think we're only beginning to see the wave coming. How big a wave it will turn out to be, I have no idea.

Today, my email was filled with notices of closures and cancellations of performances. At the studio, we had a surprise production meeting to discuss preparations underway in case we are ordered to work from home. The momentum to isolate as a means of limiting exposure is growing. It's an "ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" approach.

Yes, the total number of deaths so far is nothing when compared to the Spanish Flu, but so what? Should we put our thumbs up our asses and wait to see it we can increase the number of corpses to an amount that justifies action? In the 60 and above category, the death rate approaches 10% and more like 15% for those approaching 80. Shall we shoot for a 40% mortality rate?

Italy has quarantined itself. When in anybody's living experience has something like that happened before?
 

seldom

Lifer
Mar 11, 2018
1,035
940
I still don't think this is the inevitable big one. The big one I envisage will kill more people more quickly. Nevertheless this is serious and I fully expect it to get worse. My hope is that some lessons are learned from this pandemic so that when the more lethal one hits we are better prepared.

My personal opinion is that having a functioning health care system for everyone benefits everyone. Individual health depends in large measure on the health of all (never mind moral/ethical duties).

I think it is more likely than not that most of us will be infected by this virus at some point. Many of us may not know we've had it if our symptoms are mild. How severe the death rate is depends a lot on how sharp the spike in cases is. There are too many wild cards in the deck for me to speculate much more.
 

mikethompson

Lifer
Jun 26, 2016
11,287
23,315
Near Toronto, Ontario, Canada
we have tickets to attend a Scooby Doo Live show with our grandson which I'm guessing will be cancelled also.

We have Disney On Ice tickets which I'm sure will be cancelled too.

They just cancelled school here for two weeks after March Break, so I have a lot of family time coming up. I'm not buying more than I usually would, although my wife came back in tears last night trying to go to Costco and Wal-Mart. You know how people are.

We were planning on going to the Strong Museum in Rochester and staying the night, but probably not anymore. When you have young kids you have to walk that line between living your life and hoarding toilet paper.
 
If we are going to err, I say err on the side of caution. Nothing wrong with being too careful. We just have to slow the spread till our healthcare system catches up.
Me, I have a full cellar of tobacco, a bunch of clean pipes, a pantry full of Mountain Dew and coffee, and a storage building full of toilet paper. puffy I can live for a few months on coffee and toilet paper soup.
 

tbradsim1

Lifer
Jan 14, 2012
9,092
11,008
Southwest Louisiana
If I survive this, I’m 77,cancer survivor, don’t go off my farm but to buy feed. I will make every effort to expose the numnuts who put our meds in the hand of China, DONT blame China, blame the greedy Americans who are probably in their safe rooms now. Makes you wonder who’s in charge of National security. Remember 85% of our meds are made in China!
 

blues4goose

Starting to Get Obsessed
May 15, 2019
243
720
30
Bethlehem, PA
I'm not worried about myself getting sick. I'm not worried about most of the people I know getting sick. What worries me more than anything is how this may end up affecting our day-to-day lives, should this continue and get worse. I went to the store last night and stocked up on about a week's worth of canned goods, just in case I need to quarantine for any reason. I see no need to stock up any heavier than that. Also probably going to buy an extra monitor for my laptop, in case I have to work from home. I use a triple monitor at work and it'd be a real pain to try to work on just the laptop screen, and STG is taking this pretty seriously.
And if emergency rooms begin to get overwhelmed, I'll definitely avoid going outside if I can. Imagine getting in a car accident and coming away with a broken arm, and being turned away from the hospital.
It's odd, too, the things people are stocking up on. The toilet paper thing is weird but I understand, that's one thing you definitely don't want to be without if you can't leave your house for a few weeks (though I got myself a bidet attachment a few months ago and I've been preaching for everyone to do the same, now I get to say 'told ya so!'). What I don't understand is why the milk, eggs, and fresh produce were totally cleaned out. The canned goods aisles were stocked totally full, with every option still on the shelf. Same for pasta, rice, dry beans, etc. Why are people loading themselves down with perishables??
 

jeff540

Part of the Furniture Now
Jan 25, 2016
514
788
Southwest Virginia
I generally stock up on basic consumables every few months, and coincidentally this month was the time to stock the deep freeze with seafood, get more toiletries (TP, hydrogen peroxide, etc.) and need to get more dog food this weekend. Don't eat much meat anymore other than seafood. I did get a little extra vitamin C, D+K, and at the insistence of family members some high quality chaga mushroom tea.

As to perishables, you see the same thing when the masses "prep" for snow storms. It's as if they're going on a french toast diet that will induce diarrhea. It's some of the basic health and human welfare advancements that get overlooked: asprin, iodine, isopropyl, bandages, baking soda, basic soap, etc. All those are cheap too.

I did have a sizable tobacco order planned, but I already have 18-lbs in the closet that's mostly Esoterica bags, so instead I decided to buy another firearm (Henry Big Boy color case hardened with octagon barrel chambered in .357/.38). So I guess I did buy into the hysteria a little with that decision. :eek: ?
 
Dec 6, 2019
4,296
19,375
33
AL/GA
We have Disney On Ice tickets which I'm sure will be cancelled too.

They just cancelled school here for two weeks after March Break, so I have a lot of family time coming up. I'm not buying more than I usually would, although my wife came back in tears last night trying to go to Costco and Wal-Mart. You know how people are.

We were planning on going to the Strong Museum in Rochester and staying the night, but probably not anymore. When you have young kids you have to walk that line between living your life and hoarding toilet paper.

With the Disney on Ice, you really dodged a bullet. Haha I accidently got roped into that one on a field trip with my son last year.. learned my lesson about getting stranded with no smoking, and 50 1st graders.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: BROBS
Dec 6, 2019
4,296
19,375
33
AL/GA
If we are going to err, I say err on the side of caution. Nothing wrong with being too careful. We just have to slow the spread till our healthcare system catches up.
Me, I have a full cellar of tobacco, a bunch of clean pipes, a pantry full of Mountain Dew and coffee, and a storage building full of toilet paper. puffy I can live for a few months on coffee and toilet paper soup.

I might need this recipe. Maybe it could be like egg drop soup.
 

briarbuck

Lifer
Nov 24, 2015
2,287
5,492
20-50% of the US is going to get it. That is a FACT. The issue is we don't want the infection to happen all at one time because it potentially could over stress our healthcare system. That is why they are closing down large gatherings. Large groups cause the virus to explode exponentially.

If 50 million people get sick all at one time, we are screwed and lots of people will die.
If 50 million people get sick over a 4-6 week period (or longer), we're fine.
If 50% of the US gets sick over the next 12 months, all good.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.