Why?

[dachsie]

This is the best explanation I have seen:

https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/03/a-covid-19-coronavirus-update-from-concerned-physicians.html

 

[gwynne]

Those who think we're not doing enough, what would you like to see? Everyone simply stay at home? No work, no outside, no nothing? Any exceptions? For how long? What about those living paycheck to paycheck who can't afford to miss work (I'm talking about those who aren't sick)? Too bad for them because they didn't build a nest egg?

I think sooner rather than later federal, state and local authorities will set many more guidelines.
I believe we are in a public health emergency.
I hope we have the will to work hard together.
If not, we will be facing a similar situation to what is happening in Italy.
We all need to do whatever we can to flatten the curve.

 

[LSUmiss]

South Boston voluntarily closed bars and restaurants for today. The St. Patrick's Day Parade for today was cancelled, but they were still expecting large crowds to go out to celebrate.

That’s what happened here yesterday. Parade was cancelled but idiots still went and basically had a block party. Police broke it up eventually.

 

[kiddo76]

That’s what happened here yesterday. Parade was cancelled but idiots still went and basically had a block party. Police broke it up eventually.

I'm not at all surprised. When Boston cancelled the parade, I commented that people will just gather inside the bars. I'm glad to see South Boston business owners do this voluntarily. St. Patrick's Day is a huge money maker for them so I'm sure it was a very difficult decision for them to make.

 

[LSUmiss]

I'm not at all surprised. When Boston cancelled the parade, I commented that people will just gather inside the bars. I'm glad to see South Boston business owners do this voluntarily. St. Patrick's Day is a huge money maker for them so I'm sure it was a very difficult decision for them to make.

Yeah the bar here on the parade route here did not do anything responsible like that. Now our city council is tweeting that they’re discussing shutting down everything non essential.

 

[Boardwalk Jedi]

Regarding the bolded, not according to WHO:

So while the incubation period COULD last up to 14 days, it's most commonly around 5 days, so comparable to the flu.

People here have tried to explain it to you in reasonable fashion. You are choosing to disbelieve it at this point. Medical professionals have given plenty of reason to take severe precautions. Not sure what your beef is with people who might know something more about a subject than you do.

 

[okeydokey]

Those who think we're not doing enough, what would you like to see? Everyone simply stay at home? No work, no outside, no nothing? Any exceptions? For how long? What about those living paycheck to paycheck who can't afford to miss work (I'm talking about those who aren't sick)? Too bad for them because they didn't build a nest egg?

It’s only a matter of time before guidance comes from the government that all people should shelter in place for a period of time. I believe this IS what needs to happen. Only essential people should leave their homes. Once McConnel reconvenes the Senate they can vote on the bill that passed the House that will help some. More help will have to come for those who need food assistance, and I think that will happen too. NOW is the time to take this action. If we don’t we are looking at a bigger problem in the weeks and months to come.

 

[Hikergirl]

The message I’ve been getting is that we must all assume there IS an active case in our town because people are contagious before showing symptoms & test results are still very limited

Yes that is what our county exec. has been saying but it's clear people are ignoring that.
If those same people knew for a fact that someone in their town, or the next town over is positive it may change their attitude.

 

[pryncess527]

Sadly the US tested about 75 people last week, and the vast majority were NBA players. So the officials probably don’t know for a fact either

 

[gwynne]

Currently in NY-

https://twitter.com/x/status/1239234279957237762

 

[Boardwalk Jedi]

Those who think we're not doing enough, what would you like to see? Everyone simply stay at home? No work, no outside, no nothing? Any exceptions? For how long? What about those living paycheck to paycheck who can't afford to miss work (I'm talking about those who aren't sick)? Too bad for them because they didn't build a nest egg?

We may have to do a lockdown, nest egg or not. And don't be so arrogant. Your nest egg is likely tied up in stocks which haven't been going very well this week.

 

[Hikergirl]

Sadly the US tested about 75 people last week, and the vast majority were NBA players. So the officials probably don’t know for a fact either

NY opened a drive through test site near New Rochelle, they say they will test up to 200 people a day with the goal of testing 500.
They tested 200 on Friday, so while the US may only be testing 75 some states have taken upon themselves to do their own testing.

 

[LSUmiss]

Currently in NY-

https://twitter.com/x/status/1239234279957237762

And that’s a little old. We are up to 91 in Louisiana now.

 

[pryncess527]

NY opened a drive through test site near New Rochelle, they say they will test up to 200 people a day with the goal of testing 500.
They tested 200 on Friday, so while the US may only be testing 75 some states have taken upon themselves to do their own testing.

yes, it is starting to ramp up. I’m just saying officials in a given area may not have a confirmed case yet to tell you about, hence the more generalized pleas to adhere to rules.

 

[tzolkin]

Maybe this scenario explains it best: Say 5000 people in your community present with Covid19 over 2 weeks. 20% will have severe symptoms, 1000 people. Normally if all these people were able to get treatment, maybe 100 still succumb but without treatment maybe 700 die. 600 of those could've been helped to recovery but there weren't enough resources to treat them all at the same time. Multiply those excess deaths to every community over many weeks. Not a pretty picture. It won't only be the 75yo with underlying issues, it will also be people you know of various ages. To exacerbate the situation, your 27yo daughter is in a bad car accident and cannot get the care she needs to survive because the machines, procedures and manpower to do that are already being used.

That's what we're trying to avoid by spreading out the severe cases so those people get a shot at recovery.

This is what people don't seem to be understanding. Even if this was "just a flu" and not that life-threatening, the numbers are what will have an unprecedented impact on our healthcare system. You might not be concerned at all about dying of the illness, but that's not really the point and doesn't mean it's "no big deal".

On one of the other threads (the summer one maybe?) some of the posters were commenting things like "just rip the bandaid off", "let's just let everyone get sick at once and get it over with", etc. And these are the same ideas I have seen from others on social media. Can people really not comprehend that the hospitals only have a certain number of beds and a finite amount of equipment and resources. If you have double, triple, or more the capacity, patients will simply not be treated.

And, yes, it extends beyond this particular illness. My husband and I both work in healthcare. He has been in administrative meetings all week trying to come up with various ways to cope with the inevitable issues they will be facing in the coming weeks. If they start converting the ORs into temporary ICUs, that means that thousands of people will not be receiving surgeries that they need. If they have hundreds of patients in the ER and the staff is overwhelmed, how quickly will they be able to care for the patients coming in with other various emergency medical conditions or accidents?

So even people with low risk for this illness may still be affected (and possibly even die) as a direct result of it's impact on our hospitals.

 

[Christine]

Those who think we're not doing enough, what would you like to see? Everyone simply stay at home? No work, no outside, no nothing? Any exceptions? For how long? What about those living paycheck to paycheck who can't afford to miss work (I'm talking about those who aren't sick)? Too bad for them because they didn't build a nest egg?

I can only speak to my little corner of the world and I posted this earlier another thread. I work in a huge building that houses 3,000 people. 70% of us are regular teleworkers. A small percentage choose not to telework and some cannot due to classified work. I think we could force another 10-15% to telework which leaves a small percentage having to come in. At a minimum, I think the 70% of the 3,000 people should be forced to telework. Those who cannot telework can come to work in a building that is huge but has very little people in it (which equals pretty safe in my mind). But they aren't doing it (or haven't yet). I think this should be going on everywhere. If you can reasonably do it, telework. This allows those that cannot telework to safely work out in the world. My husband is a trades person and he works in large commercial buildings. If they close the buildings, which I don't think they should do, then he can't work and I lose half my income. But if they take a more measured approach by forcing those home that can work from home and keep operations going, then others can work safely in their work sites. Pure definition of social distancing versus a shutdown.

 

[pryncess527]

https://www.newsweek.com/newt-gingr...inion-1492270?amp=1&__twitter_impression=true
I think there are a few issues with some of his statements, but thought Newt provided a (mostly) helpful perspective from an American living in Italy.

 

[NotUrsula]

We have a LOONG way to go before realizing similar level of GDP reduction and monetary and fiscal stimulus as was the case with subprime mortgage crisis. Hopefully, by everyone adhering to the advice of scientists and medical professionals, the economic impact can be minimized before we even come close to the level of economic costs during the subprime mortgage crisis. Another FYI, the mortgage crisis wiped out 50% of market value from prior peak to bottom. We're only 20% down so far.

Do you understand what would happen if we just let the virus replicate in society unabated, across the entire world? Much severe losses economically than what we may have to endure for a few months, half year. And you wouldn't even be able to get a hold of an advice nurse on the phone to get an appt with the doctor.

I will gladly spend time at home with family if it reduces the chance of having a complication from the virus for any of my family or neighbor.

Firstly, I did not say that kind of economic scenario WOULD happen, I said *IF* it happened, that decisions of this very ugly sort would have to be made.

I am not at all saying that present measures being seen in democratic nations are too costly, for the present (& I would define the present as not much longer than 2 fiscal quarters.) However, I do believe that if the question of sustaining these levels of isolation indefinitely were to become a reality, governments would have to do that math and redefine levels of acceptable risk.

We are in an unprecedented position in the post-industrial era, of actually being able to attempt this on a near-global scale. Even 20 years ago it would have been impossible to isolate to this degree and still have any kind of functioning modern infrastructure, but advances in computing have made it possible to have a fighting chance at pulling it off, both from a healthcare standpoint and an economic one. May it prove to be enough.

 

[sam_gordon]

We may have to do a lockdown, nest egg or not. And don't be so arrogant. Your nest egg is likely tied up in stocks which haven't been going very well this week.

Do you have a solution for those who can't afford to miss a paycheck? How do they pay rent? Food? Medicines? Utilities?

 

[sam_gordon]

I can only speak to my little corner of the world and I posted this earlier another thread. I work in a huge building that houses 3,000 people. 70% of us are regular teleworkers. A small percentage choose not to telework and some cannot due to classified work. I think we could force another 10-15% to telework which leaves a small percentage having to come in. At a minimum, I think the 70% of the 3,000 people should be forced to telework. Those who cannot telework can come to work in a building that is huge but has very little people in it (which equals pretty safe in my mind). But they aren't doing it (or haven't yet). I think this should be going on everywhere. If you can reasonably do it, telework. This allows those that cannot telework to safely work out in the world. My husband is a trades person and he works in large commercial buildings. If they close the buildings, which I don't think they should do, then he can't work and I lose half my income. But if they take a more measured approach by forcing those home that can work from home and keep operations going, then others can work safely in their work sites. Pure definition of social distancing versus a shutdown.

Thank you for actually answering the question.