We Are So Screwed

[sablebrush52]

These charts will answer many questions:

COVID-19 #CoronaVirus Infographic Datapack — Information is Beautiful

Updated daily, now with global vaccination stats

informationisbeautiful.net

How deadly and contagious is it - about the same level as the Spanish flu, according to the chart. We all know how well THAT turned out.

I'm working from home and practicing what is recommended for hygiene.
This will get worse before it gets better.
Many thanks to Florida's government for being so proactive regarding Spring Break. Now hundreds of thousands of kiddies are heading back to their various homes all over the nation after weeks of close contact partying. Dumbfuckery in excelsis.
Part of the problem with figuring out rates of transmission is that testing is woefully behind the curve. There are a lot of estimates and a lot of guesses, but not a lot of hard data.
What we have are models based on past pandemics and how they spread. Too bad our leadership didn't pay attention to them.

 

[georged]

Absolutely without a doubt the situation (disease from out of the blue + Earth's social media addiction + the "if it bleeds it leads" mindset of the M$M) is being exploited in every way possible by those who see an opportunity to make headway toward creating a "global society". i.e. the EU model expanded to include the entire Western world.

All manner of precedents are being set that wouldn't be tolerated for an instant otherwise.

Times are a changin' indeed.

 

[olkofri]

@gamzultovah: thanks for asking where I heard the story and making me google it, because I found that medical journal where it was quoted and the section where it was bears re-quoting here:

FEAR A CAUSE OF EPIDEMICS​

Fear is one of the most prolific among the causes of epidemic disease. ' It is an old saying, that fear kills more than the plague. " Fear," says Haller, " diminishes the powers of the body, enfeebles the movements of the heart, and weakens the circulation. Influenced by this passion, the scurvy and other diseases become more fatal, putrid and other contagious maladies acquire more malignity, and the body becomes more disposed to be affected by pestilential miasmata."​

​

When a disease like the cholera or the yellow fever comes among any people, the utmost consternation prevails. Exaggerations are multiplied on every hand. The laws of health not being by the many at all studied or understood, and there being, moreover, a general belief that disease is a thing of God's own sending, without any reference to errors in the voluntary habits of the individuals and communities of the race, fear, and fear only, can be the legitimate result.​

​

It is to be observed, also, that fear is itself contagious. A person in fear brings those who are about him into the same condition. Suppose a physician, when treating a patient, exhibits fear : what success does he meet with? If nothing worse, a dismissal from the case, as he ought to have. People would much rather die, if die they must, by the side of a strong man, even if he be unskilful, rather than a scientific man, if he be liable to the impression of fear.​

​

There is a highly wrought account of the effects of fear in the city of Paris, when the cholera raged with unheard-of violence and devastation in 1832. The deaths at one time, were calculated at one thousand and three hundred, to one thousand and four hundred per day. Hearses falling short, artillery wagons were used instead. These having no springs, the violent jolting burst the coffins, and the bodies were thrown out, and the pavements were stained with their blood. The people went mad with terror, believing the wildest fictions, and indulged in the most dreadful atrocities. It was rumored that the deaths were all owing to poison, and that there was no such thing as cholera. Then you might behold all the horrid secrets of a modern civilization, displayed in the rolling billows of a seething population.​

​

—The New England Botanic, Medical and Surgical Journal​

 

[georged]

How deadly and contagious is it - about the same level as the Spanish flu, according to the chart. We all know how well THAT turned out.

That's apples and oranges. The mortality of an historical event is calculated years after the fact when an accurate estimate of the entire number of infected can be made.

The present Corona mortality number is a straight calculation of deaths among confirmed cases. Cases that are already a subset---people sick enough to go to a hospital.

No one has any idea (yet) how many people 1) never showed symptoms of any kind, and 2) got sick but never went to a hospital / got tested.

If that group is, say, five time larger than the tested & confirmed group, the mortality just dropped 80%.

 

[gervais]

@gamzultovah: thanks for asking where I heard the story and making me google it, because I found that medical journal where it was quoted and the section where it was bears re-quoting here:

FEAR A CAUSE OF EPIDEMICS​

Fear is one of the most prolific among the causes of epidemic disease. ' It is an old saying, that fear kills more than the plague. " Fear," says Haller, " diminishes the powers of the body, enfeebles the movements of the heart, and weakens the circulation. Influenced by this passion, the scurvy and other diseases become more fatal, putrid and other contagious maladies acquire more malignity, and the body becomes more disposed to be affected by pestilential miasmata."​

​

When a disease like the cholera or the yellow fever comes among any people, the utmost consternation prevails. Exaggerations are multiplied on every hand. The laws of health not being by the many at all studied or understood, and there being, moreover, a general belief that disease is a thing of God's own sending, without any reference to errors in the voluntary habits of the individuals and communities of the race, fear, and fear only, can be the legitimate result.​

​

It is to be observed, also, that fear is itself contagious. A person in fear brings those who are about him into the same condition. Suppose a physician, when treating a patient, exhibits fear : what success does he meet with? If nothing worse, a dismissal from the case, as he ought to have. People would much rather die, if die they must, by the side of a strong man, even if he be unskilful, rather than a scientific man, if he be liable to the impression of fear.​

​

There is a highly wrought account of the effects of fear in the city of Paris, when the cholera raged with unheard-of violence and devastation in 1832. The deaths at one time, were calculated at one thousand and three hundred, to one thousand and four hundred per day. Hearses falling short, artillery wagons were used instead. These having no springs, the violent jolting burst the coffins, and the bodies were thrown out, and the pavements were stained with their blood. The people went mad with terror, believing the wildest fictions, and indulged in the most dreadful atrocities. It was rumored that the deaths were all owing to poison, and that there was no such thing as cholera. Then you might behold all the horrid secrets of a modern civilization, displayed in the rolling billows of a seething population.​

​

—The New England Botanic, Medical and Surgical Journal​

@olkofri hold me, I'm scared

 

[gervais]

Has anyone put a hold on any tobacco purchases since this shit has gone down?

 

[olkofri]

@olkofri hold me, I'm scared

Drink some ale. If fear is the mind-killer, alcohol is the great fear-killer.
?

 

[olkofri]

Has anyone put a hold on any tobacco purchases since this shit has gone down?

I have because I dunno if they'll let the parcels across the border. Been waiting for a knife coming from England for almost two weeks now.

Lack of funds is another reason.

 

[gervais]

I have because I dunno if they'll let the parcels across the border. Been waiting for a knife coming from England for almost two weeks now.

Lack of funds is another reason.

I'm curious of that myself. I have a tobacco order due to hit the border early this coming week. My fingers are double crossed

 

[olkofri]

2) got sick but never went to a hospital / got tested.

Yup. I heard that some Chinese who are ill say nothing because they don't wanna be taken away and interned into the sick bays the gov't is corralling people in, where the conditions are quite bad and they are away from their relatives.

 

[sablebrush52]

That's apples and oranges. The mortality of an historical event is calculated years after the fact when an accurate estimate of the entire number of infected can be made.

The present Corona mortality number is a straight calculation of deaths among confirmed cases. Cases that are already a subset---people sick enough to go to a hospital.

No one has any idea (yet) how many people 1) never showed symptoms of any kind, and 2) got sick but never went to a hospital / got tested.

If that group is, say, five time larger than the tested & confirmed group, the mortality just dropped 80%.

Sure, but I'm just quoting the estimate in the chart that you linked us to. It's a range, with the Spanish Flu in the center. Could be worse than the Spanish Flu.
It may be months before more accurate estimates become available. Even the idea that it affects older populations and not younger is starting to be called into question as more data becomes available.
The way I see it, I'd rather be proactive with something like this than reactive. Less deaths that way, including, possibly, me, or you.

 

[olkofri]

I'm curious of that myself. I have a tobacco order due to hit the border early this coming week. My fingers are double crossed

Let us know how it goes.

 

[sablebrush52]

Absolutely without a doubt the situation (disease from out of the blue + Earth's social media addiction + the "if it bleeds it leads" mindset of the M$M) is being exploited in every way possible by those who see an opportunity to make headway toward creating a "global society". i.e. the EU model expanded to include the entire Western world.

Maybe, I don't know. But I can tell you about one thing that doesn't give a shit about nationalism, a virus.

 

[curl]

After we get past the pandemic part of the crisis and we start to rebuild our economy, we will embiggen the process of decoupling our economy from China. I don’t think China will take this sitting down. It’s going to be messy.

 

[olkofri]

After we get past the pandemic part of the crisis and we start to rebuild our economy, we will embiggen the process of decoupling our economy from China. I don’t think China will take this sitting down. It’s going to be messy.

That's one thing I've been pondering: if the economy gets so screwed that people end up with very little money, China will be there to offer goods cheaper than anybody else. Even if we still had any local industry left, the cost of locally-made goods would be higher than the sinojunk flooding the market.

They're already not taking this and the future of this sitting down. One thing the Chinese do have is they're industrious: they've been working tirelessly to profit from this situation as they did in creating it.

 

[hawky454]

Heh, yeah. Trust me, not wanting to be a killjoy or a perverse pessimistic, but the shit I've seen this past week being implemented is more scary than the virus. Now the police is enforcing quarantines and people are actively encouraged to report any whom they suspect is breaching isolation to the cops; lockdowns; people frightened shitless and being unable to turn to each other or to mental health practitioners or their pastors for support, which is much worse; I could go on but you get the picture.

Province's premier was on the telly saying 'we will get through this!' I wish I had been at the press conference and asked him right there, 'HOW, Mr. Premier? As in how screwed are we gonna be after getting through this.'

I come from a medical family. I went to med school myself. I know about diseases and epidemics and safety measures. I am not advocating recklessness, or civil disobedience. I am taking preventive measures myself as I am in the at risk population with my medical conditions and age (past 40: no longer young, even if not elderly). I am willing to do what is in my power to avoid getting sick; not just because being sick sux, but because I must not be selfish and think of how my illness or death would impact my parents.

What I am NOT willing to do is to let them powers that be and fearmongers scare me to death and force me to live the way they want, rather than the way I know is best for me. THAT I will resist. So, I'm still smoking my pipe, drinking my ale, driving where I need to, and walking down the street taking pictures whilst I wait for my car to get fixed. And turning off my cell phone to avoid being sleep deprived or constantly distracted by BS governmental alerts that don't even apply to me.

I agree with you on almost everything but this is the typical stuff that’s been going on for ages, any time a natural disaster occurs or a we have a new pandemic, there is bound to be hysteria and chaos, and of course we have to have some kind of enforcement to bring some order amongst all the chaos but that doesn’t mean it’s going to lead to martial law, one world government and voila, the brave new world is born. Change is a constant but I don’t think this is a political ploy to follow through with some great master plan.
But then again, the older I get the more I realize I don’t know shit, so I really don’t have a leg to stand on. For all I know you could be absolutely right and this is the dawn of the brave new world but something within me tells me it’s not, I think we are going to face some hard times but I think we’ll land on our feet. There are also those who believe we are already living in the brave new world, if that’s true, than I’m cool with it, I’m quite enjoying my life as it is.

 

[bnichols23]

How deadly and contagious is it - about the same level as the Spanish flu, according to the chart. We all know how well THAT turned out.

I'm working from home and practicing what is recommended for hygiene.
This will get worse before it gets better.
Many thanks to Florida's government for being so proactive regarding Spring Break. Now hundreds of thousands of kiddies are heading back to their various homes all over the nation after weeks of close contact partying. Dumbfuckery in excelsis.
Part of the problem with figuring out rates of transmission is that testing is woefully behind the curve. There are a lot of estimates and a lot of guesses, but not a lot of hard data.
What we have are models based on past pandemics and how they spread. Too bad our leadership didn't pay attention to them.

Totes agree, Jesse. Great, just what we need -- new chaos vectors delivered by unreliable college kids. Now we have to have yet another plan. Dumbfuckery indeed!

 

[georged]

The way I see it, I'd rather be proactive with something like this than reactive.

The question is how proactive?

Everything from sensible daily reminders about hand washing to burning down the barn to kill the rats falls under the proactive umbrella.

Remember that some guy who loses his business, goes bankrupt as a result, starts living on the street, and then gets murdered by a robber is just as dead as if the virus got him.

The successive cascade of such events and feedback loops that will occur when the modern world simply stops without warning are effectively infinite. The key difference (in the mind of the policy makers & deciders who felt they had to virtue signal more than the competiton to win the next election), is they think the general population isn't bright enough to hold them accountable for the damage their "good intentions" cause months or years from now.

In the meantime they get to reap the popularity boost and commensurate increase in power.

Politicians LIVE for opportunites like this.

 

[warren]

If anything this "pandemic" will speed the ongoing demise of the EU. Countries are going to become more nationalist with regard to borders. This is going to set Soros and his followers back a couple of decades. They won't have to start over from scratch but, they'll have to recover bunch of lost ground.

 

[hoosierpipeguy]

Here is a scientific explanation I read tonight. I'm not a Doctor or Biologist but I do understand enough science to see how it is plausible if not likely. It would be great to believe conspiracy theories because that makes the danger of the virus seem less real. It's difficult to fathom the Governments of the World creating a conspiracy that ruins one of the greatest economic runs I have seen in my adult life. Trump was a virtual lock for his second term, what possible reason would he have for creating this disruption? This isn't political but I applaud him for not burying his head in the sand, leaving everything alone hoping this would all turn out okay. Here's the article. I pray that we all are here to participate in this forum 6 months from now. No matter what the economic damage turns out to be, you can't make a penny if you're dead.

“Why the Covid-19 virus is so dangerous!”

Stolen from Ryan Beaumont who is a respiratory therapist in Nashville.
The best explanation I’ve seen so far.

Feeling confused as to why Coronavirus is a bigger deal than Seasonal flu? Here it is in a nutshell. I hope this helps. Feel free to share this to others who don’t understand...

It has to do with RNA sequencing.... I.e. genetics.

Seasonal flu is an “all human virus”. The DNA/RNA chains that make up the virus are recognized by the human immune system. This means that your body has some immunity to it before it comes around each year... you get immunity two ways...through exposure to a virus, or by getting a flu shot.

Novel viruses, come from animals.... the WHO tracks novel viruses in animals, (sometimes for years watching for mutations). Usually these viruses only transfer from animal to animal (pigs in the case of H1N1) (birds in the case of the Spanish flu). But once, one of these animal viruses mutates, and starts to transfer from animals to humans... then it’s a problem, Why? Because we have no natural or acquired immunity.. the RNA sequencing of the genes inside the virus isn’t human, and the human immune system doesn’t recognize it so, we can’t fight it off.

Now.... sometimes, the mutation only allows transfer from animal to human, for years it’s only transmission is from an infected animal to a human before it finally mutates so that it can now transfer human to human... once that happens..we have a new contagion phase. And depending on the fashion of this new mutation, thats what decides how contagious, or how deadly it’s gonna be..

H1N1 was deadly....but it did not mutate in a way that was as deadly as the Spanish flu. It’s RNA was slower to mutate and it attacked its host differently, too.

Fast forward.

Now, here comes this Coronavirus... it existed in animals only, for nobody knows how long...but one day, at an animal market, in Wuhan China, in December 2019, it mutated and made the jump from animal to people. At first, only animals could give it to a person... But here is the scary part.... in just TWO WEEKS it mutated again and gained the ability to jump from human to human. Scientists call this quick ability, “slippery”

This Coronavirus, not being in any form a “human” virus (whereas we would all have some natural or acquired immunity). Took off like a rocket. And this was because, Humans have no known immunity...doctors have no known medicines for it.

And it just so happens that this particular mutated animal virus, changed itself in such a way the way that it causes great damage to human lungs..

That’s why Coronavirus is different from seasonal flu, or H1N1 or any other type of influenza.... this one is slippery AF. And it’s a lung eater...And, it’s already mutated AGAIN, so that we now have two strains to deal with, strain s, and strain L....which makes it twice as hard to develop a vaccine.

We really have no tools in our shed, with this. History has shown that fast and immediate closings of public places has helped in the past pandemics. Philadelphia and Baltimore were reluctant to close events in 1918 and they were the hardest hit in the US during the Spanish Flu.

Factoid: Henry VIII stayed in his room and allowed no one near him, till the Black Plague passed...(honestly...I understand him so much better now). Just like us, he had no tools in his shed, except social isolation...

And let me end by saying....right now it’s hitting older folks harder... but this genome is so slippery...if it mutates again (and it will). Who is to say, what it will do next.

Be smart folks... acting like you’re unafraid is not the answer.

#flattenthecurve. Stay home folks... and share this to those that just are not catching on.