Posted on 03/12/2020 4:41:18 AM PDT by Kaslin
Try this thought experiment. Envision the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, as a living, breathing enemy -- which, of course, is exactly what it is.
But imagine for a moment that we are in real war with a cognizant, thinking and clever enemy whose sole reason to live is to hurt, maim or kill as many of us as it can.
COVID-19 may not have jets, tanks or nukes, like our past enemies. But its arsenal, numbers, cunning and willpower are said to be formidable.
To win its war against Americans, COVID-19 must infect and sicken lots of Americans each day. If it cannot infect enough victims to multiply and sustain a hungry army of viruses, COVID-19 will soon sputter and die. It will get trapped in just a few hosts among an otherwise victorious and healthy nation of about 330 million.
Nature has given COVID-19 some weapons that its defeated cousins -- the H1N1 swine flu and the MERS and SARS viruses -- lacked.
It is more clever by being less lethal -- and a little tougher in its ability to live outside a host. Viral resiliency ensures that it rarely turns into a suicide bomber by dying with a terminally sick host, and that it does not perish so quickly when orphaned in the air and on surfaces.
The coronavirus has allies. It infiltrates our defenses by using our own weapons against us -- our dirty hands, the habitual touching of the face, and indiscreet sneezing and coughing.
Poor personal and public hygiene gives the virus some sustenance and camouflage. To win -- defined as sickening or killing thousands of us -- COVID-19 counts on our laxity. It hates careful individuals who block its invasion into the eyes, nose and mouth.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
10% -20% of known cases require hospitalization or an ICU.
And with an aerosolized virus like this (published research as of yesterday shows it can survive 3 hours in the air; and CHINESE research shows people can get infected from 4 meters away sitting on a bus)...that means negative pressure rooms.
Guess how many hospital beds, TOTAL, of ALL KINDS, there are in the US?
About 930,000 - 960,000.
Only about 30k I think are ICU.
And many of those are needed for gunshot / transplant / cancer / heart attack victims.
What happens when the available hospital beds go bye-bye?
+1
BINGO!
hey if your REALLY worried about it I read where you can stop the virus easily by placing a plastic bag over your head and securing it with a rubber band around your neck !!! it works!! I promise !!
(This is what’s coming, Italian-style.)
YOUNG AND UNAFRAID OF THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC? GOOD FOR YOU. NOW STOP KILLING PEOPLE | OPINION
A DOCTOR IN WESTERN EUROPE
ON 3/11/20
Put aside statistics. Here is how it looks in practice. Most of my childhood friends are now doctors working in north Italy. In Milan, in Bergamo, in Padua, they are having to choose between intubating a 40-year-old with two kids, a 40-year old who is fit and healthy with no co-morbidities, and a 60-year-old with high blood pressure, because they don’t have enough beds. In the hallway, meanwhile, there are another 15 people waiting who are already hardly breathing and need oxygen.
The army is trying to bring some of them to other regions with helicopters but it’s not enough: the flow is just too much, too many people are getting sick at the same time.
We are still awaiting the peak of the epidemic in Europe: probably early April for Italy, mid-April for Germany and Switzerland, somewhere around that time for the UK. In the U.S., the infection has only just begun.
But until we’re past the peak, the only solution is to impose social restrictions.
And if your government is hesitating, these restrictions are up to you. Stay put. Do not travel. Cancel that family reunion, the promotion party and the big night out. This really sucks, but these are special times. Don’t take risks. Do not go to places where you are more than 20 people in the same room. It’s not safe and it’s not worth it.
But why the urgency, if most people survive?
Here’s why: Fatality is the wrong yardstick. Catching the virus can mess up your life in many, many more ways than just straight-up killing you. “We are all young”—okay. “Even if we get the bug, we will survive”—fantastic. How about needing four months of physical therapy before you even feel human again. Or getting scar tissue in your lungs and having your activity level restricted for the rest of your life. Not to mention having every chance of catching another bug in hospital, while you’re being treated or waiting to get checked with an immune system distracted even by the false alarm of an ordinary flu. No travel for leisure or business is worth this risk.
Now, odds are, you might catch coronavirus and might not even get symptoms. Great. Good for you. Very bad for everyone else, from your own grandparents to the random older person who got on the subway train a stop or two after you got off. You’re fine, you’re barely even sneezing or coughing, but you’re walking around and you kill a couple of old ladies without even knowing it. Is that fair? You tell me.
Please see 44.
Thanks Travis. For those who don’t get it, that graph is the public health equivalent of the difference between a nuclear reactor with proper controls, safely and efficiently generating electricity for your community and Chernobyl.
And the border patrol caught Chinese trying to sneak in from Mexico.
This smells like biological warfare. (One of the researchers at the Wuhan BL4 lab, had published work in the journal Nature in 2015, about addition of function studies in bat coronaviruses; and last November, the Wuhan lab was advertising for postdocs to do research on how coronaviruses hid from the immune system. If it is proven China engineered this as a weapon, we need real Russian collusion where Trump and Putin nuke China off the face of the Earth.)
Quarantine Washington State!?
I live in Washington!
And I approve of this message! (I’m also 2.4 miles from the Life Care center at ground zero).
What’s really interesting, the few times I go out I’m wearing a face mask, googles and a trench coat. I rarely get a second look now!
“Statistics lie and liars use statistics.”
I am going into work today because I need to pick up some last-minute shopping. I will speak to my manager about telecommuting (which I do once a week anyway) for the foreseeable future.
I can’t believe how many Freepers, who I thought were really intelligent and sensible, have disappointed me in their conclusions.
Very enlightening. And a little scary.
With a Pangolin.
Sideways.
I have a lot of respect for folks who learned on the streets rather than in institutions of higher learning. Idiots like you learned in neither place.
Then they all die.
Now explain to me how panic and arm waving have any positive results?
Grey_whiskers and Travis and I are not advocating panicking. We are all advocating strong effective public health measures. NOW! and trying to educate some reckless fools like yourself why this is necessary.
If graphs are not accurate and nobody knows if yours is then its not helpful. Didn’t some guy who designs robots put this thing together?
I don’t remember the Swine Flu of 2009, but I do remember hearing on the news the one from 1976. I thought it was BS, How can anyone catch the Flu from a pig?
I’m flat out mocking this over the over the reaction.
The only group that i know that does that are leftist and RINOs.
Avoid being in closed and or confined spaces for more than 15 minutes. Even if you find yourself in that situation the odds that you will contract the CroronaVirus is slim.
If you touch surfaces that other people touch frequently ..including money..and obviously after using public facilities ..wash your hands.
If you sneeze or cough ...do it into a tissue ..and throw it away. ..and then wash your hands.
Avoid walking on defecation if you live in, or near San Francisco.
And avoid illegals ..many who do not care if they spread Ebola , TB or any other deadly virus.
Have i missed anything?
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