Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

[Flint]

Extended, two-week spring break for my kids' school district.

Today I am sure I have a cold-- sore throat, congested nose. I am staying home from work. I work at a hospital. I do IT work, but I'm there. I eat from the cafeteria, I use the bathrooms. I was already obsessive about hand hygiene, but I've been especially careful.

I know people in my small community who have medical conditions affecting their respiratory/immune systems. Hearing that I'll probably be okay but they might die is supposed to make me feel better.

[sexobon]

Well I hope he doesn't put it in his own mouth after that!

[glatt]

Kids will be the death of us all.

[Undertoad]

Parents call them kids, we non-parents call them disease vectors

[sexobon]

That's why I get my flu shot in early October. So it will have full effect by Halloween when the little disease ridden monsters are out in force.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

If the regular flu kills up to 70,000, what say let's put the over-under for this level of panic at 80,000 dead. The panic has resulted in the loss of 6 trillion dollars in valuations of public companies, and the loss of who knows how much economic activity. So a number worse than the regular flu is warranted. 80,000, place your bets.

I like the numbers game, with two caveats. One, everything I've read says flu kills around 36,000 per year in the U.S., and I think we have to go with exclusively U.S. numbers if we're talking about U.S. panic. Two, the death toll from COVID-19 may take a year or more to fully assess, because this thing is going to continue to kill people, fast or slow, until we've achieved some level of herd immunity...

That being said, I personally think over 100,000 deaths means it was a problem worth focusing on as much as we have--roughly three times the rate of the normal flu. My actual prediction is that it's going to kill over a million Americans.


Edit to add: I say this as someone who lost an uncle to the bad flu season two years ago. I don't know if it was technically his cause of death in the final paperwork, but his downturn started with a bout of flu caught at his nursing home, escalating to pneumonia, compounded by Parkinson's.

[Undertoad]

Excellent additions: US-only, I should have specified.

100,000 is a nice round number. I'm taking the under

[Undertoad]

they did the math

[Flint]

I am mildly alarmed, and processing something new..

I overheard my co-workers complaining about, in general, media hysteria over the coronavirus. Complaining about events being cancelled. Then it happened-- I heard, "The LIBERALS won't be happy until everything is shut down!" Followed by 10 minutes of complaining about LIBERALS and DEMOCRATS causing the coronavirus panic.

Folks, if you don't know, I work at in the healthcare sector. If people are treating a public health event as POLITICAL in nature, I'm afraid our civilization may have reached the point of no return. If not this, something, soon.

[Undertoad]

OMG. Yes. You just put on the They Live sunglasses and now you can see it too





now... didn''t want to tellya... but... look at your friends with the sunglasses on





it's infected everyone





politics makes us stupid

[monster]

All the universities here closed today. If we want to politicize and conspiracy theorize ....isn't it dictatorships who want an uneducated populace?

[Undertoad]

It is the ideal time not to be employed at a business that serves large numbers of the general public.

[glatt]

I just ordered a computer monitor and cable so I can have dual monitors at home if/when my firm closes. I can't do my job with just a single little 19 inch monitor.

I wonder if corona virus will reimburse me? Or Trump? Didn't he say something about freeing up money?

My daughter is home for spring break and has been told that break is going to be extended an additional week. (So far.)

We've been slowly stocking up on food, but with an extra mouth in the house, we need to get more. We have only about a week or two of food. It looks like a lot more than that though. 4 people eat a lot of food. We are running out of shelf space.

One admitted student college visit day for my son has been cancelled. The other school's day is in April and hasn't been cancelled (yet.) That one will likely cost us $1k in non-refundable plane tickets. We may visit anyway and walk around the closed campus. I was stupid though. Should have paid for the travel insurance on that one. I knew the virus was out there when I booked it.

Schools are still open. Work is still open. I'm still riding the Metro each day, but with roughly 1,000 cases in the US, and maybe 100 people in each metro car, there is only a 0.03% chance that I'll encounter one of them on any given ride, according to that chart above.

[monster]

Originally Posted by glatt

I'm still riding the Metro each day, but with roughly 1,000 cases in the US, and maybe 100 people in each metro car, there is only a 0.03% chance that I'll encounter one of them on any given ride, according to that chart above.

cough a little and you'll soon have a carriage to yourself and reduce your chances?

[monster]

Originally Posted by glatt

My daughter is home for spring break and has been told that break is going to be extended an additional week. (So far.)

mine gets spring break next week. They were told it was going to be one extra week, but now it's two...

And my sons' uni (which had spring break last week) cancelled everything for the rest of the week and is going online only for the rest of the semester starting Monday.

Of course my ditsy son broke his phone and spent hours playing games instead of ordering a new one so now can't access all the online stuff because it's dual factor authentication requiring a mobile phone..... sigh