Question for everyone...

**SimplyEcstatic** · 03-25-2020, 10:05 PM

Originally Posted by MAtuzak

I think you all have beaten this thread to death. Now lets talk about fucking, pussy, food, anything else besides COVID-19 and the quarantine please. Thanks.

If people won’t take it seriously, then info has to keep being pushed around about the virus until it finally clicks. This isn’t something that is going to annihilate everyone and kill the world in a literal manner. Most of the world should survive as long as most people are doing as they should. The problem is right now the world is paused. It will stay paused as long as we have to deal with this pandemic. The people that ignore the facts and needs are the ones that prolong he problem, keep the world paused longer, cause more infections and more deaths. The world has never paused in our lifetime yet people are acting like it’s a normal thing and nothing to worry about. Over 7 billion people are on pause with their lives. If the world stays paused too long then over 50% of the businesses in our country will die. You think some rich guy will keep his company open just to keep sending people relief checks? Yea right. All the small businesses won’t even be able to support themselves. And your bills in 3 months? They won’t go away and with the world on pause most people will go broke and homeless due to their jobs still being shut down assuming those jobs even exist at that time.

**mathguy** · 03-26-2020, 01:38 AM

Originally Posted by launchy

The common cold is a type of corona virus/rhinovirus. No vaccine. If it was that easy to make a vaccine that was effective, we wouldn't need to have clinical trials. During the 1918 Flu pandemic, several vaccines were attempted that were more harmful than the flu itself.

Comparing this to the 1918 flu pandemic is completely and insanely irrational at this point. To compare it in any way, in any shape, to even mention the two in the same sentence should put any "medical expert" or journalist in jail for inciting panic with absolutely no rational basis or data to support such a bombastic idea.

Originally Posted by launchy

I prefer to follow the distancing rules, not because I worry about catching the virus, but because I don't want to be responsible for infecting/hurting someone else. For the folks that think they are young/strong enough to catch it, the statistics coming out of New York say if you are over 20, you still stand chance of going on oxygen/respirator, no matter how healthy you are - russian roulette, an OBTW, if you do catch the severe version, it will affect your lung function for the rest of your life.

Launchy this is too exaggerated. I'm speaking about the mentioning of, "statistics coming out New York say if you are over 20, you still stand good chance fo going on oxygen/respitator [sic]" (you meant "ventilator" but I get your point). That's hyperbole from fearful officials who are extrapolating numbers based on already confirmed cases. That's the problem. There are not enough confirmed cases. Particularly when you are only able to check the elderly and/or "obviously symptomatic" (due to supply issues & not having fast tests - which is an issue our stupid ass president could fix right now with an executive order b/c we do have 15min tests available - S.K. is actively using the same ones that come from our very own US lab!!).

Yet One More Hypothetical Example (to display this concept):
If the "flu" were new to us, let's pretend (opposed to decades of data), and I said my team had 50K people (those were the only tests I had so I was limited in who we could test; so we triage it to the most likely ones) who came back confirmed infected with "flu", 750 of them died. You could draw all sorts of extrapolated mathematical models and conclusions from such a scenario. Sure. And, yes, it *could* be that bad but it also could easily not be so bad (we just don't have enough of the data yet - which we get from massive testing).

As I've said many times before, and as we know with the flu, the idea that only 50K had it would be absurd. B/c we know that it in any given year it's more like 12Mn to 45Mn Americans that get the flu. Some don't care to get tested. Or they weather through it. Some are asymptomatic. Some are immune. Some only have mild forms (strains) or the strain they do have affects *them* in a mild manner. There could be countless hundreds of thousands or millions more than my teams "50K confirmed + 750 dead" hypothetical test. That's the most glaring issue here. We are testing far too small a group of people and we are testing only those who appear sick. What if many many many more have it already? Just like with most colds? The vast majority don't flood ER rooms or hospitals. They do right now b/c people are scared.

What I'm espousing to people is that it's very possible that that *could* be the scenario here. It's ONE possibility.

In fact, do you realize that this coronavirus didn't necessarily even emerge in Dec 2019? We think it did, but don't know for sure. That's just when we noticed it, when some virologist got curious enough to look more deeply. There is another virologist who was reporting today on TV that he had warned against this as early 2015. This could have existed for multiple seasons already. It's entirely possible. I'm not saying that IS the case but it's very possible.

Hell, just in the US 60K people a year can die from the flu so it's not like already high risk individuals in the past 1-2 seasons at a rate of let's call it 40K-65K deaths worldwide (on an annual basis) would raise eyebrows (if it were really COVID-19 but no one knew at the time until late Dec). It wouldn't be until someone started looking into the possibility of a new viral strain infecting humans. It's not like they can just look under a microscope and go oh yea there it is right there....hehe. It would look like any other coronavirus (of which are very normal and infect humans extremely commonly in at least 4 others we know of). It could have existed, killed these people over an entire year, or two years, or half a year earlier, or whatever, and most get categorized as someone who died from the flu or some "type of flu", one of the other 4 known human coronaviruses, a lung infection, pneumonia, some other form of sars, or any other pulmonary infections or distress.

Originally Posted by launchy

I refuse to tell anyone how to live their life, if you want to carry on, it's your choice, I really dgaf, but please get your information from the CDC, not from a monger board.

Agreed. However, I do believe all places on the internet are good places to share info where people can then research it and make their own objective analysis based on the data they find (from credible sources of course). But sharing the info does help people to understand the possibilities and then they can go source it for themselves.

Originally Posted by launchy

As mentioned earlier, the longer we spread this stuff, the longer we will be on lock down - it really is that simple.

Well, I get what you are trying to say, I agree about people needing to listen and be diligent about precautions. However, the truth of what needs to happen is a lot more difficult than "its that simple". We cannot, simply cannot, stay locked down until this "dies out" (UNLESS it happens FAST). That's unlikely. And we can't do it until there is a vaccine or even antivirals. Even if our administration cuts all the trial red tape through executive order (which is unlikely considering they fucking idiot won't do anything about the lab tests in the first place) we can't wait. There DOES come a point, unfortunately, that we do have to weigh the cost of creating what would make the Great Depression of '29 look like a virtual DisneyWorld against whatever the death rate does happen to be. Even if it's not quite as low or lower than the flu (which is still very possible - we don't have enough tests to know this yet - we need millions more before we can determine that), but, even if it remains at .5% to 1.2% range (~5-12 times the rate of seasonal flu) we simply cannot wait for a vaccine and stay in this current mode. We will create a dystopian wasteland right out of the fucking movies if we let this go any more than about another 4-8 weeks (and that's pushing it). Millions are out of work, the government can't just keep up a stimulus until a vaccine is around.

Eventually, and not too far off, we really do have to weigh the costs whether my earlier hypotheses (across many posts on the internet & here) is proven incorrect and instead it does turn out to be about what it appears to be now which is roughly .5%-1% depending on the particular strain and geographic area (about 5-10 times seasonal flu). Either way. Doesn't matter. We simply can't wait for antivirals or vaccines. We WILL have to do something. Meaning, we have to go back to normal life. Back to work. The elderly or compromise maybe have to be super careful for the time until antivirals/vaccine. Hopefully summer will slow the spread. But we can't just sit around like this. Nope. No way. Not realistically for more than about 1mo (maybe 2 but that's pushing it so far) and not create a very potentially and completely catastrophic future for our early middle aged (my group), our young adults, our children, our grandchildren, etc...

My hope is still that this is far more pervasive and ubiquitous than we realize and that people are developing antibody proteins quickly. With the summer coming that will help slow most of these types of virus. By the time the next season comes around the proteins needed in our immune system to fight the virus will be in place and most people will be fine. With some cutting of the red tape (FDA/CDC via executive order) we can possibly have antivirals and maybe even a vaccine in that time (or very shortly after). However, we simply can't stay in "shut down" mode.

Once again too, realize that even if 100K people worldwide died from this it would be nothing but similar to the flu (less even). Even if it turns out to be 5 times that rate we still DO have to weigh that cost at some point soon. I know that may sound shitty (particularly if you are older) but we don't have a choice. Do the elderly want to hand their children (those my age), their grandchildren (my children), or other older millennial age people a complete wasteland? Which would you rather have? It MAY come down to that.

And the thing is if you read my posts, if you follow my posts, what I've been saying, you really should pray that my original hypothesis is correct (about it being fantastically ubiquitous already - or having been around for 1-2 years & we just didn't know it). Why? Because essentially if that is NOT correct (it might not be, it's simply an educated postulate) then the OTHER scenario of weighing the cost of a disease that is 5 times or so as deadly as the flu to our elderly (and certain younger people as well) has to be considered as we simply CANNOT (and I mean *CANNOT*) continue like this for much longer.

Originally Posted by SimplyEcstatic

If people won’t take it seriously, then info has to keep being pushed around about the virus until it finally clicks. This isn’t something that is going to annihilate everyone and kill the world in a literal manner. Most of the world should survive as long as most people are doing as they should. The problem is right now the world is paused. It will stay paused as long as we have to deal with this pandemic. The people that ignore the facts and needs are the ones that prolong he problem, keep the world paused longer, cause more infections and more deaths. The world has never paused in our lifetime yet people are acting like it’s a normal thing and nothing to worry about. Over 7 billion people are on pause with their lives. If the world stays paused too long then over 50% of the businesses in our country will die. You think some rich guy will keep his company open just to keep sending people relief checks? Yea right. All the small businesses won’t even be able to support themselves. And your bills in 3 months? They won’t go away and with the world on pause most people will go broke and homeless due to their jobs still being shut down assuming those jobs even exist at that time.

I agree with a lot of this SimplyE. Particularly the economic fallout issues if we go this way (current lockdown, social shut down, business, etc....) for more than 4-8wks or so. That concerns me greatly. It's not an apocalypse virus people. It's not. This is not an extinction level event. No no no no. It's not even close. Not even at the 5-10 times seasonal flu rate that's an utterly laughable notion (if not also tragic for those who do succumb to it - of course)

We need more testing. We need millions tested so we can see if it really is so dangerous or it's really 5+ times the mortality of seasonal flu. All it takes is to know that 5-10 times as many people as currently confirmed have it right now and bang we already know at that point that it's roughly on par with regular seasonal flu at ~.1%. It COULD be FAR less though. What if as I speculated above is the case and it's already been around for a year or two and we just didn't know b/c it's so much like the other 4 CoV and other rhinovirus? A known virologist (I have to find his name - I'll come back to update this) has already said today he was cautioning about this in 2015/2016.

Sooooo.... who knows? We can't continue like this though. And we can't wait for a vaccine. That takes too long. We have to hope its either massively widespread already and the rate is *really* like .05% (half seasonal flu or more) OR we just accept that it's .5-1% and go back to life and live through the best we can. Elderly would have to be very cautious during that period. But again, we really just don't know yet if it's truly that dangerous in the grand scheme (as in what if it has been here for 3 years already? 1? 2? All the deaths were just attribute to pulmonary disease, pneumonia, flu, flu-like cold, etc....). We still don't know. Not even close. These numbers were are seeing are junk b/c they are not representing a large enough sample of the population. It's just the sick or old being tested. That's BS from an epidemiological standpoint. It tells us shit. For example, Prince William was tested but he doesn't meet the criteria for testing (Brits were mad that he was able to get one just b/c he's royalty). He didn't even know he was sick! How do we know that that is not the case with countless millions of people?

**launchy** · 03-26-2020, 01:32 PM

@ Mathguy (I'm not going to quote that)

1. I didnt compare this to the 1918 flu pandemic. You are twisting my words to suit your narrative. I said that they rushed vaccines that were deadlier than the flu. To the OP comment that it's easy to make a vaccine - its not, the process is not fast, and counting on a vaccine to all of the sudden fix this is not something to be hopeful for. Very unlikely.

2. I did not use hyperbole. Just stated a fact. We know now that just because you are statistically more likely to end up in the hospital if you are old, no age group that would be visiting this board is immune from becoming extremely sick and requiring a hospital bed. Again, it's russian roulette, I did not say how many chambers of the gun hold bullets, only that the argument that "I am young and healthy, I wont get that sick" is not 100% true, anymore than saying if you are over 65 you will die if you get it. No one knows how their body will react until they get it. What chance are you willing to take?

3. We could play out statistical examples of every disease known to man. This disease, left unmitigated will overwhelm the health care system - this is fact. It's happening right now. How we react to it collectively will determine the extent of the pain we are about to experience. Both medically and economically. This is going to hurt a lot of different ways, and I didnt/dont claim to have any answers. I choose to distance myself because I dont want to be responsible for hurting anyone - I'm very lucky to have that choice, in different circumstances, I might have had to make a different choice. I dont fault anyone for what they choose to do in this, as long as they are not being selfish.

**Phoenixx** · 03-26-2020, 01:38 PM