COVID-19 Information updates

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Paulm said:
this is a different strain of the corona virus
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What makes this particular virus difficult to deal with is the transmission is higher than regular flu (we don't even know yet all the ways it transfers) and it can go from mild to respiratory arrest within HOURS. The speed at which it can change is beyond any "flu" known. Another unusual fact is there have been children reported born with this...which means it can affect in utero. Three so far that are known.

My hope is they can contain this puppy and keep it locked down. Realistically, I'm not sure they can. In any case, keeping an eye on the situation is something I'll be doing.
 
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I'm not saying that this isn't serious or a potentially disastrous situation in a worst-case situation. I am just seeing too many people sliding off into a panic mindset and that is dangerous. Decisions made in panic are seldom the best decisions. When there are less than 100 people in the entire US that are infected you don't need to start panicking. That is what the prepper movement is about. You consider what you might need to do if certain things happen and make preparations for those situations based on their probability and your situation. I look at my preparations as much the same as I do life insurance, health insurance, and property insurance. I hope I don't die unexpectedly, or get bad sick or lose my possessions through some sort of theft, fire, flood or another disaster by JUST IN CASE I have insurance to protect me and more importantly my family.

In the prepper/survival community you have a lot of people like me but then there is a small minority that goes beyond this. You occasionally hear about some guy that has withdrawn from the world into some retreat acting as if the end of the world is either immediately imminent or has already happened and the rest of us just have not noticed it yet. It is like the difference between caution and paranoia.

At this time in the US we are not at the point where we need to make BIG changes or decisions that are based on a POSSIBLE worst-case scenario. Prepare yes, I have increased my stocks of several things so that if it gets bad here I can hunker down and limit my exposure. At this time there is little to fear. A 2% mortality rate is still better odds than many things that I have faced in the past. Fear is the mind-killer. If you prepare and plan then you have even less to fear.

I just don't like the mood that this is beginning to bring forth. Sometimes the reaction to something bad can actually be many times worse than the results of the bad thing that you feared if you panic and make awful mistakes. This is already an election year and so the media will be filled with doom and gloom as the various parties and candidates try to convince you that if their opponent wins the results will be catastrophic. I loathe election years. People get unsettled and weird. The last thing that we need is them to "weaponize" the worry about this disease and to further scare people with wild warnings about the horrific results of the other guys winning.
 
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Argh it can be scary if you think about it too much.
I just heard on the radio in the car that doctors are saying this will slow down and probably stop by April. I hope it does !!
 
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TexDanm said:
I'm not saying that this isn't serious or a potentially disastrous situation in a worst-case situation. I am just seeing too many people sliding off into a panic mindset and that is dangerous. Decisions made in panic are seldom the best decisions. When there are less than 100 people in the entire US that are infected you don't need to start panicking. That is what the prepper movement is about. You consider what you might need to do if certain things happen and make preparations for those situations based on their probability and your situation. I look at my preparations as much the same as I do life insurance, health insurance, and property insurance. I hope I don't die unexpectedly, or get bad sick or lose my possessions through some sort of theft, fire, flood or another disaster by JUST IN CASE I have insurance to protect me and more importantly my family.

In the prepper/survival community you have a lot of people like me but then there is a small minority that goes beyond this. You occasionally hear about some guy that has withdrawn from the world into some retreat acting as if the end of the world is either immediately imminent or has already happened and the rest of us just have not noticed it yet. It is like the difference between caution and paranoia.

At this time in the US we are not at the point where we need to make BIG changes or decisions that are based on a POSSIBLE worst-case scenario. Prepare yes, I have increased my stocks of several things so that if it gets bad here I can hunker down and limit my exposure. At this time there is little to fear. A 2% mortality rate is still better odds than many things that I have faced in the past. Fear is the mind-killer. If you prepare and plan then you have even less to fear.

I just don't like the mood that this is beginning to bring forth. Sometimes the reaction to something bad can actually be many times worse than the results of the bad thing that you feared if you panic and make awful mistakes. This is already an election year and so the media will be filled with doom and gloom as the various parties and candidates try to convince you that if their opponent wins the results will be catastrophic. I loathe election years. People get unsettled and weird. The last thing that we need is them to "weaponize" the worry about this disease and to further scare people with wild warnings about the horrific results of the other guys winning.
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Dan, I do understand what you're saying, and I do agree with you that no one should panic at this point nor should they run for the hills and hide out in a bunker. The objective here is to keep people informed of the most factual data I can find on this thing. And, perhaps, get people to think about adding a bit of that insurance into their lives as many are not preppers in any way. You and I rely on machines to keep us around....we may have a bit more of a "be prepared" thinking than some others may have. I have a neighbor who shops daily and who has nothing to fall back on in her home.

I'm looking at this through the medical side of things, where you are looking at it from a slightly different perspective. I think we both have points here. As someone who is retired from 30 plus years in the medical field, I am looking at this virus and what it can do and how different it is. I'm looking at the Ro (the rate of reproduction or how many people one person with the virus is most likely to infect), which is higher than a normal flu. Currently the estimates put it at a Ro of 2.5 to 5.5....no one has a good handle on that just yet, but it's higher than the 1.4 Ro of "normal" flu. Add into it there is now some real concern of "super spreaders" out there (a Typhoid Mary type of person), which is highly unusual but may be the cause of this spreading so quickly as in the case of the Japanese harbored cruise ship. This virus is unusual in many aspects and I've mentioned some of those points previously.

As I said at the beginning of this thread, I'm not trying for doom porn here. I'm just posting updates to what is happening out there. You will notice I am making every attempt to keep the political angles out of it because on that point you and I are in total agreement. This should never become a weapon for politics. The fact it is under control in our country does not negate the fact the Chinese people are suffering a terrible ordeal with many families losing loved ones or being impacted at a human level in some way. We can all add some prayers that this burns itself out soon, but this virus is out of it's box now and will most likely be added into the list of things to watch for from now on.
 
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You have made some good points Tex.
A couple of weeks ago I was in full freak out mode and I didn’t send my kids to school. One of my friends said “ Emma you can’t just lock them up this could go on for months”. I understood what she meant but I just wanted them with me for a couple of days for peace of mind. I was a little worried for my 3 kids who are under 10 but to be honest I was worried about my 7 month old baby. When I read that it can be bad for older people and young babies I just went into abit of a panick and didn’t want my children to pass it to the baby. Now that the govt have said 14 people have it here, it is not that hard to catch, we have it under control etc I’m okay with sending them and have relaxed abit. I also saw the videos of people falling over and the body bags I guess that played with my mind abit also.
People are always scared of what they don’t understand sometimes, I think it was abit like this and I went into protective mum mode. My kids make me interested in a lot of topics that I didn’t take seriously before lol For example, I’m always constantly checking the weather so I know how to dress them. Many years ago when I didn’t have kids I didn’t care what the weather was going to be lol
I am happy to hear that it could be slowing down or gone by April but I’m also still watching and reading lol
 
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As you mentioned my personal survival is no longer an issue. My preparations for the last year or two have been more to try and have my family such that they can survive even without me. My skill sets can't be replaced but they have their own and so the big plan has to be modified to take advantage of their abilities.

My problem is that I don't trust the powers that be to act in the best interest of people if there is more money or power in scaring them. The media is GOING to blow this up whether it is deadly serious for us or not. It is like they did with the Ebola thing. YES it is an awful disease but it never was a genuine threat to people in the First World nation on any mass level.

I remember when "holes" in the ozone layer were going to kill us all with skin cancer and we rushed into a several trillion dollars revamp of our refrigeration systems that were in the ned totally unnecessary. I remember when Jimmy Carter told us that by the year 2000 there would be no oil left unless we found new sources. We did and then they decided to buy from the Arabs instead and the oil industry crashed in the 80s because we overproduced.

No matter what, decisions made in panic are seldom good decisions in retrospect. One of the flaws of our system is that when people get scared they start demanding that the powers that be DO SOMETHING right now or they won't keep their cushy job in Washington. The media will feed into this frenzy and there is no way to predict what sort of idiocy they are liable to come up with just so that they can be seen DOING SOMETHING. The things that the politicians do and come up with so often have NO BASIS in reality. When Glock first came out with their polymer-framed and coated pistols the cry went out that these guns were made of plastic and would not be detectable by metal detectors. This was absolutely stupid. It has a steel barrel, slide assembly, magazine and actually had more metal in t than a small revolver. Nevertheless, our beloved leaders rushed to pass laws banning the evil plastic guns...that didn't exist!

As you said, we see things from different angles. That is a GOOD thing because of everything and every story has several sides. We each are offering caution through being informed. We are just sort of describing the situation from different perspectives. Your focus is directly on the medical issues because that is something that you know a lot about. My knowledge in the health area is much less. My attention is more along the lines of concern having to do with the social or political problems of overreaction.
 
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