Coronavirus (No Politics)

Anyone else having a hard time trying to have your parents take this seriously? My parents are 81 and they work out every day. They were still going to the gym till they were all closed down. Still going out to eat until they were shut down.

Now they have been walking at large supermarkets to get their exercise. They are mad because I won't let them in my house to use my workout equipment. My wife has had symptoms and told them they can't come over until she's healthy and clear for 14 days.

You get to a certain age and people are going to do what they want. They both have their masters and are highly educated but are stubborn as mules.

My folks have been good. I've been telling them for weeks that I didn't like the look of this one, and what was coming. Got them stocked up before the panic-buying began. They know I'm not an alarmist about these things, so that got their attention.

I have another relative who was being a bit more stubborn. But he listened to the argument that it's not just about whether your time has come - if you take up a bed, that's heaping more pressure on the NHS, and someone else, perhaps completely unconnected to coronavirus, might not get the urgent care they need. "Keep calm and carry on" doesn't work if carrying on is assisting the enemy.
 
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Kind of wishing for a Surrogates universe setting at this point. How soon can we have it?
 
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Kind of wishing for a Surrogates universe setting at this point. How soon can we have it?

I don't know that one. What's that all about?
 
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You get to a certain age and people are going to do what they want. They both have their masters and are highly educated but are stubborn as mules.
Over here, we're having the exact same problem with people old enough to have experienced WW2.
They just don't care.
 
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Once you've seen some real shit, it takes some real shit to widen your eyes.
 
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the argument that it's not just about whether your time has come
I have read some medical reports about when ‘the time has come’. It would not be my preferred way to die, often people have difficulty breathing (which seems to be absolutely terrifying so they start panicking), and dying alone without loved ones being allowed to say goodbye. At best you’ll see some friendly strangers wrapped up in plastic with just two eyes that show they are not Martians.
Apparently morphine is given sometimes to make the breathing a bit easier but that will increase the chance of the patient getting a delirium.
Often people are rapidly deteriorating, with death knocking at the door within 24 hours, 2-3 days at the max. Many don’t make it to the ICU, where you can die completely oblivious during a coma. I’m talking about the elderly here.
People are really frightened the moment they set foot in the hospital.

It is getting this bad that doctors are noticing a decline in cases brought in because of a heart attack. People noticing heart related problems are too afraid to call, too afraid of being brought to the hospital and getting the virus.
 
Yes, no argument from me - this is not the way to go. The problem is that some of the older generation are unmoved by that kind of talk. I just found that emphasising that one's carelessness could deprive others of a desperately needed bed, and stress our exhausted frontline health workers unnecessarily, strikes more of a chord with that war generation mindset.
 
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If I don't go to work I can't pay my bills. I'm not going to make myself homeless for <3% risk.

Your mortality risk is not why you're being asked to stay home. It's to slow the spread so as to not overwhelm health care systems.

On the flip side, if a government is asking this of people, it better have a plan in place to take care of them.
 
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Your mortality risk is not why you're being asked to stay home. It's to slow the spread so as to not overwhelm health care systems.

On the flip side, if a government is asking this of people, it better have a plan in place to take care of them.
I work in one of the "essential services". If people like me stay home, who works in the hospitals, provides emergency help, puts food in stores and keeps it available. Without people like me there would be anarchy and a lot more people would die than from the virus.
 
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Cool little gamer article related: https://www.pcgamer.com/foldinghome...-data-twice-as-fast-as-the-top-supercomputer/

As for dying - does sound like an awful way to go for sure. But I suspect many will die alone regardless because they don't have friends and family around anyhow. There are a lot of people who outlive family and have no local friends. I'm in that boat. Best I can hope for is to die alone in my sleep (I don't want to leave any animals behind so my current dogs will probably be the last I get ... and I have arrangements for them should something happen). But that is preferable to dying from lack of air. I have breathing issues and sometimes wake up at night struggling to breath. I also recall getting stuck underwater once, and a few years ago choking on inhaled orange juice and almost passing out from lack of air ... its a horrible sensation.
 
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The trouble is, most of our countries have too many infections now, and in order for that strategy to work, you'd need a hard lockdown - a Chinese style house arrest for most of the population, shutting down all ports, etc. That could allow for what you're describing - a sort of reboot for the country, which then reopens, and implements a highly-resourced test and trace program as new cases emerge.
That depends on the tests. If you get tests to the point where every family has boxes full of little swabs that you can stick up your nose and will turn dark purple if you're positive and not otherwise, then you can just have everyone test every night. No clue if that's even feasible or not but it would sure help if it came to pass.

Unfortunately, we've been heading the opposite direction so far. Here, it's just about impossible to get tested unless you're exhibiting symptoms AND have some occupation that is deemed vital. There was a lot of talk about private labs cranking up their testing by the end of the week. Well, it's the end of the week and I haven't heard a peep. Maybe we'll get an announcement in the next day or two?
 
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That depends on the tests. If you get tests to the point where every family has boxes full of little swabs that you can stick up your nose and will turn dark purple if you're positive and not otherwise, then you can just have everyone test every night. No clue if that's even feasible or not but it would sure help if it came to pass.

Yes, those types of rapid, easy test kits can sometimes be developed. The trouble is, all these things take time, and it seems unlikely we'll have that soon enough to help with the critical early period. It's possible we could see something like that in the coming months, but they'll need to ramp up to global scale production.
 
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Yes, those types of rapid, easy test kits can sometimes be developed. The trouble is, all these things take time, and it seems unlikely we'll have that soon enough to help with the critical early period. It's possible we could see something like that in the coming months, but they'll need to ramp up to global scale production.
A couple of hacks mentioned that might help in traditional testing. One involving skipping the big expensive machine to extract rna by using heat/cooking instead, and the other repurposing parts of std tests. Here quick tests have been announced might be available for the general population but little details yet. I personally wouldn´t trust any manufacturer before we see some validation.
 
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Yeah, there is a lot of concern about low-quality, inaccurate test kits being put out there. There is at least one promising test kit being developed over here, but that's thought to be months away from being in wide circulation

The trouble is that while we're relying on lab testing, test and trace to control the epidemic is only really practical while numbers are reasonably low - once the forest is on fire, that strategy is unlikely to help us much.
 
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I work in one of the "essential services". If people like me stay home, who works in the hospitals, provides emergency help, puts food in stores and keeps it available. Without people like me there would be anarchy and a lot more people would die than from the virus.

As do I. But that's a different argument that isn't being disputed.
 
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I don't know that one. What's that all about?

It's a Bruce Willis film in which people are represented in the real world by robotic likenesses, while their mortal body is back home wirelessly plugged into their robot.
 
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New York and surrounding counties now have 50,000 cases. That's more than all but four other nations in the world. The total world count also started to take off exponentially early in March. It's chilling to watch this stuff happen.
 
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Someone earlier posted this link: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

if you look at the data there and consider only closed cases (tested positive and either recovered or died) then the death rate is much higher for the resolved cases.

Course there is the huge number of unreported and mild cases. I don't know how they derive all the numbers.

Some useful information on that page as well.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-symptoms/

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/

Typical Symptoms

COVID-19 typically causes flu-like symptoms including a fever and cough.

In some patients - particularly the elderly and others with other chronic health conditions - these symptoms can develop into pneumonia, with chest tightness, chest pain, and shortness of breath.

It seems to start with a fever, followed by a dry cough.

After a week, it can lead to shortness of breath, with about 20% of patients requiring hospital treatment.

Notably, the COVID-19 infection rarely seems to cause a runny nose, sneezing, or sore throat (these symptoms have been observed in only about 5% of patients). Sore throat, sneezing, and stuffy nose are most often signs of a cold.
 
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Yeah, any numbers on the infection rate aren't something I would put much stock in right now. BUT, as testing gets better, the sites should get a lot more useful. In fact, they could be a nice indicator of those tests getting in place - the numbers are going to jump hard when that happens.
 
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