Coronavirus outbreak

[MntnMan62]

The news in the States just gets better and better every day. I can't sit here and read anymore. I'm going out for a ride. This stuff is just too depressing.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/actual-coronavirus-infections-vastly-undercounted-151300720.html

 

[marinyork]

That is exactly what I was going to post after reading Marin's post
In fact, it's quite cold and wet today

It wasn't warm here today, but I did a long walk and was great.

Others seemed to agree with you because as a weekend it was the quietest one I've seen in a long time.

If everyone is indoors that'll be even worse though.

 

[mjr]

My local, quite posh area Facebook group has people defending those urinating in the streets from "takeaway" drinks sales as perfectly entitled. After all, what are they supposed to do when the toilets are shut??

All reason seems to be suspended.

Well, why are your public toilets shut? How shoot is your council that they can't keep toilets clean?

 

[mjr]

Because vaccines take time to develop, and in the meantime the virus could also mutate into a strain that no-one has tried to develop a vaccine for. It's a massive risk, because still having a large uninfected population at large come the winter could have disastrous results when added to the seasonal illness workload.

It's all risky but I am sure having a large infected population then will be far worse.

I would liken it to how you avoid wildfires spreading. If you don't want your town burned down, you deliberately burn a swathe of land surrounding it to create a firebreak. In the case of the coronavirus, the firebreak is the healthy population who are unlikely to be badly affected by catching the virus. Let the well population go down with it with no interference, and you reduce the amount of virus carriers around able to transmit it to the sick population.

So kill a load of healthy people and pile the bodies into a defensive wall? That seems crazy!

This virus isn't like a fire because it doesn't have near-100% case fatality. People aren't like trees because they move around. Using a wildfire defence tactic is folly. Much better to delay and develop treatments and vaccines.

 

[fossyant]

I'm going to take a gun loaded with handwash next time I see someone poking and squeezing fruit and veg repeatedly in the supermarket, especially old folk. FFS.

 

[fossyant]

Well, why are your public toilets shut? How shoot is your council that they can't keep toilets clean?

A friend of ours is back working in Manchester City Centre. She decided to sit in St Anne's Square for a few minutes before work, then realised the place stank of wee. No toilets or businesses open with public toilets.

 

[mjr]

A friend of ours is back working in Manchester City Centre. She decided to sit in St Anne's Square for a few minutes before work, then realised the place stank of wee. No toilets or businesses open with public toilets.

I suspect pee and poo in doorways is a bigger public health risk than coronavirus transmission in well-maintained public toilets.

 

[marinyork]

Well, why are your public toilets shut? How shoot is your council that they can't keep toilets clean?

Public toilets are shut around here.

According to news outlets it's the majority of the country.

 

[classic33]

I'm going to take a gun loaded with handwash next time I see someone poking and squeezing fruit and veg repeatedly in the supermarket, especially old folk. FFS.

It's those that apply sanitizers after picking something up and placing it back that annoy me. Each and every item they pick up, even if they decide they don't want it. Fresh fruit and veg being the worst.

 

[MntnMan62]

It's those that apply sanitizers after picking something up and placing it back that annoy me. Each and every item they pick up, even if they decide they don't want it. Fresh fruit and veg being the worst.

Wait. You don't like it when someone uses santizer every time they pick up something and put it back? Why? That only means their hands have a high probability of being virus free. And if they do that, you know they are sanitizing their hands before they even walk in the store. I'm puzzled by your comment. Fruits and vegetables often have to be handled in order to know if they are ripe or fresh. That's just how it goes. Care to elaborate?

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Didn't that Ferguson bloke model that and the death count came to about a quarter of a million?

I wouldn't place too much trust in the mathematical modelling by the likes of Ferguson, who himself broke the lockdown rules. That tells me he doesn't actually believe the virus is that dangerous himself. The total death toll in previous pandemics has proved to be only a fraction of what some of the more hysterical "experts" predicted they would be. The one to watch is Brazil, where the most useful picture of the real potency of the virus will emerge very soon, since there has been relatively little attempt to interfere with it's natural progression.

 

[MntnMan62]

I have to say that the more I think about it, the more I believe opening up is nothing less than ignoring that we are in the middle of a pandemic. There is no vaccine. There is no treatment. And with each state and country that has chosen to "open up" we are seeing skyrocketing numbers of new cases. The challenge of coming up with a vaccine is definitely rocket science. But the interpretation of numbers and statistics that we are seeing is far from rocket science. How stupid can people really be?

 

[Tanis8472]

I have to say that the more I think about it, the more I believe opening up is nothing less than ignoring that we are in the middle of a pandemic. There is no vaccine. There is no treatment. And with each state and country that has chosen to "open up" we are seeing skyrocketing numbers of new cases. The challenge of coming up with a vaccine is definitely rocket science. But the interpretation of numbers and statistics that we are seeing is far from rocket science. How stupid can people really be?

Checks notes,



See Bournemouth etc and a lot of previous comments everywhere.

 

[srw]

I wouldn't place too much trust in the mathematical modelling by the likes of Ferguson, who himself broke the lockdown rules. That tells me he doesn't actually believe the virus is that dangerous himself. The total death toll in previous pandemics has proved to be only a fraction of what some of the more hysterical "experts" predicted they would be. The one to watch is Brazil, where the most useful picture of the real potency of the virus will emerge very soon, since there has been relatively little attempt to interfere with it's natural progression.

Watch, and learn.

And that's despite a lot of people outside the Brazilian government doing a lot of work to cap its spread.

Ferguson may have been an idiot by letting his lover break the rules (he didn't break them himself), but his modelling has been pretty much on the money

 

[DaveReading]

Fruits and vegetables often have to be handled in order to know if they are ripe or fresh. That's just how it goes. Care to elaborate?

Try that it any market in Italy (even pre-Covid) and you'll be given short shrift.