Coronavirus, a threat or media hype?

[Tray Dub]

What really bothers me about that doctor's post is that he says stop cancelling music festivals but then urges people to be altruistic. Well, the entire point of canceling public events is to take care of our most vulnerable populations, the old and the sick. They are who will bear the brunt of this; they are who we're protecting by doing the tough stuff like staying home and canceling basketball tournaments. Doing the right thing is taking reasonable steps to keep people safe.

The doctor didn't say that, the first paragraph was the original poster, not the doctor

Got it, glad you cleared that up.

Look, I don't mind people saying don't panic, don't teach your kids they need to be terrified, etc. But I do think the actual numbers suggest this is going to be a major challenge. More difficult than anything we've confronted in quite some time. The right attitude is concern – neither panic nor nonchalance.

[StevensTechU]

Definition of Pandemic - "prevalent over a whole country or the world" With 1000 documented cases in the US I'd say we've hardly reached that point yet. Could we, possibly, but certainly not yet. Neither China or Italy have reached Pandemic so let's pump the brakes on the use of such extreme words.

Panic does not equal reality.

So much for that, eh? https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-corona ... 1583917794

World Health Organization declares pandemic.

[maxduck]

A high school kid in Washington State (267 confirmed cases, 24 fatal) put together a dashboard that accumulates data from the WHO, CDC, etc. An easy way to check the latest numbers.

https://ncov2019.live/data

[EncinitasDuck]

Definition of Pandemic - "prevalent over a whole country or the world" With 1000 documented cases in the US I'd say we've hardly reached that point yet. Could we, possibly, but certainly not yet. Neither China or Italy have reached Pandemic so let's pump the brakes on the use of such extreme words.

Panic does not equal reality.

So much for that, eh? https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-corona ... 1583917794

World Health Organization declares pandemic.

You win Feel free to panic

[StevensTechU]

Oof. I see you're here for internet argue-points rather than dialogue. I should have known when I did some basic math showing that one possible outcome using reasonable estimates is 1.6M dead Americans, but you focused on what word to call that.

[greenyellow]

Here's an article that puts into perspective the severity of COVID19 versus past pandemics like SARS, MERS, and H1N1:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/coronavirus-c ... d=69329364

[droop10]

I still believe the mortality rates are greatly inflated, as the only people getting tested are those that are high risk. Millions of people will get it and be asymptomatic or have such a mild case that they won't ever see a medical professional. That's going to skew the mortality rate. Realistically, the US number of infected is much higher than what is currently being reported.

[Tray Dub]

Italy is now considering putting an age limit on who can enter the ICU. As the tweet I posted earlier suggested, our trend line looks just like theirs did, we're just a couple weeks behind.

[Duck07]

Definition of Pandemic - "prevalent over a whole country or the world" With 1000 documented cases in the US I'd say we've hardly reached that point yet. Could we, possibly, but certainly not yet. Neither China or Italy have reached Pandemic so let's pump the brakes on the use of such extreme words.

Panic does not equal reality.

So much for that, eh? https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-corona ... 1583917794

World Health Organization declares pandemic.

Here I thought they were going to wait until July so they didn't have to pay out those Pandemic Bonds!

[Duck07]

You win Feel free to panic

If you're looking to waste some time while at the airport, you can create your own pandemic! http://pandemic2.org/

[EncinitasDuck]

Oof. I see you're here for internet argue-points rather than dialogue. I should have known when I did some basic math showing that one possible outcome using reasonable estimates is 1.6M dead Americans, but you focused on what word to call that.

Seriously it was said in humor thus the

[OregonFan4Life]

The fact is, we have a virus going around, sure, wash your hands, be safe, be smart, be courteous, but you can't control it, plain and simple. Closing schools so kids can go spread it hanging out at the playground or somewhere else won't help. People will still travel and live their lives despite these closures. The fact is, closing the NCAA tournament to fans and all of these schools and events are coming from an unreasonable fear, nothing else. I know America is way too afraid of death, but no matter if it's from the coronavirus or something else, it's going to happen eventually. Living in fear is no way to live. It sucks to see so many things, including the NCAA tournament and the US economy negatively affected, not by the coronavirus itself, but by people overreacting from fear. Literally the only way to stop the virus is if every person in the US is in complete isolation for 3 weeks, and no way in hell that happens. This is what viruses do, they spread. It's great to improve cleanliness and encourage others to, but plain and simple, the damn thing is gonna spread. I hate to say that but it most likely will.

[Duck07]

The fact is, we have a virus going around, sure, wash your hands, be safe, be smart, be courteous, but you can't control it, plain and simple. Closing schools so kids can go spread it hanging out at the playground or somewhere else won't help. People will still travel and live their lives despite these closures. The fact is, closing the NCAA tournament to fans and all of these schools and events are coming from an unreasonable fear, nothing else. I know America is way too afraid of death, but no matter if it's from the coronavirus or something else, it's going to happen eventually. Living in fear is no way to live. It sucks to see so many things, including the NCAA tournament and the US economy negatively affected, not by the coronavirus itself, but by people overreacting from fear. Literally the only way to stop the virus is if every person in the US is in complete isolation for 3 weeks, and no way in hell that happens. This is what viruses do, they spread. It's great to improve cleanliness and encourage others to, but plain and simple, the damn thing is gonna spread. I hate to say that but it most likely will.

The whole point of limiting these public interactions is so it doesn't become as bad as it could get, which is to say that if a million elderly people in the US die, that is a major impact on society as a whole and people won't give 2 craps about attending a basketball game.

The transmission zone is up to 15 feet and it can last for up to half hour in the air and for longer than 2 days on some surfaces.

There is a high level of ignorance going on by a lot of people when it comes to this, I agree; and its from those trying to down-play the significance of it.

If this wasn't a big deal, China wouldn't have reacted the way it did as soon as it got bad because of all the reasons you gave. Mind you, China is a country that currently has over 1 million Uighurs in Concentration Camps so its not like they're operating on a high level human rights record. They do whatever they can to manipulate their economy so if they reacted this way, tell me again why its all "fear based?"

[Tray Dub]

The fact is, we have a virus going around, sure, wash your hands, be safe, be smart, be courteous, but you can't control it, plain and simple. Closing schools so kids can go spread it hanging out at the playground or somewhere else won't help. People will still travel and live their lives despite these closures. The fact is, closing the NCAA tournament to fans and all of these schools and events are coming from an unreasonable fear, nothing else. I know America is way too afraid of death, but no matter if it's from the coronavirus or something else, it's going to happen eventually. Living in fear is no way to live. It sucks to see so many things, including the NCAA tournament and the US economy negatively affected, not by the coronavirus itself, but by people overreacting from fear. Literally the only way to stop the virus is if every person in the US is in complete isolation for 3 weeks, and no way in hell that happens. This is what viruses do, they spread. It's great to improve cleanliness and encourage others to, but plain and simple, the damn thing is gonna spread. I hate to say that but it most likely will.

You seem to think this is a binary, either we will stop it 100% or it will spread 100%. Are you aware that we can reduce how much it spreads, and spread it out over more time so our hospitals aren't overwhelmed? Like there's an entire spectrum of outcomes that you just seem completely oblivious to.

[greenyellow]

Maybe we wouldn't have incidents like this originating in China if they weren't such a third-world country (with first-world aspirations) eating so many wild animals with viruses and pathogens that transmit to humans. If people want to call me racist, I'm half-Chinese.