PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Covid 19 Virus (Corona)

The "cure is worse than the disease" folks are missing one extremely critical point. Without extreme measures the hospitals WILL BE OVERWHELMED within weeks. States like New York, California and Illinois are already doing what should be done nationally to try and stop this. And when the hospitals are overwhelmed with sick and dying the economy will be in far worse shape.

Again, this is NOT a political issue! Here is what two prominent REPUBLICANS are saying as they urge trump NOT to "back off aggressive containment policies within the United States."

"There is no functioning economy unless we control the virus...When it comes to how to fight #CoronavirusPandemic, I’m making my decisions based on healthcare professionals like Dr. Fauci and others, not political punditry" - Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

"There will be no normally functioning economy if our hospitals are overwhelmed and thousands of Americans of all ages, including our doctors and nurses, lay dying because we have failed to do what’s necessary to stop the virus" - Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wy.

YES!

I don't think you see this in the big picture. Imagine hospitals overwhelmed across the nation. And it is easy to imagine because take a look at Italy right now!

Now think about your comment about it being just "a virus that has a better than a 99% survival rate". Yeah, on its face that sounds like something we can just live with, right?

Well, NO!

The problem is it is new and we have no immunity and no vaccine.

The problem is it spreads fast and far. It already has. trump bragged about us having only 15 cases and said it would soon be zero. Now we have 54,453 people infected that we know of.

Left unchecked, or even left inadequately checked, or America opened up by Easter, means certain overwhelming of our hospitals. Not enough ICU beds. Not enough ventilators. Not enough healthcare pros who are not themselves infected and home sick.

At that point people die who did not need to die. Yes, maybe it affects the elderly more and some seem to think that is a price we can afford. But what about all the people who would normally go to the ER at that point? A very sick baby? A mom who just had a heart attack? A dad in a bad accident? Guess what? Those people die too because the system is overwhelmed!

This is NOT hype! It is already happening in other countries.

And when this happens here how good do you think the economy will be once we have an overwhelmed system and then we must shut it down again? The second time will be far longer and harder.

JohnJohnJohn,

First, I would like to say you had, in my opinion, some really good points in these last two posts. To me, conversations could be had about what you said. That's productive.

However, saying things like...



makes it political. I do understand what you were going for; and it's a valid attempt at showing that. I like what Morgan Freeman had to say when asked about how to get past racism. His response, "stop talking about it." I thought that was brilliant.

In this thread, there have definitely been people who have an agenda beyond the pandemic we are facing. It IS political for them; and them just saying it's not doesn't make it true. Some don't even say it. They just bash and blame away with no concern. You can tell this by the pleads to stop with the political BS followed by several posts about political BS.

I know some people could care less about what I am saying. That is the problem. This forum is a great place to be. When people start spouting off with total disregard for the forum and the people on it; I do feel the need to say something.

I would really like to see how our friends in other countries are doing; and how they are facing things. I would also like to support our community where possible. I like this place and what goes on here musically.

We are guests here. I think we need to remember that.

HearToLearn, we are facing a potential catastrophe worldwide. Thousands or maybe millions dead who didn't need to die.

I truly hope the worst pain you experience in this crisis is the "political BS" in this thread.

I stand by Everything I've said here!

I'm well aware of this.



I don't think that will be the case; but that doesn't change that it shouldn't be here. It's not what this board or forum is supposed to be about.


The sad thing is, most of what I stated had nothing to do with you and wasn't recognized as such.
As far as you were concerned, you seemed as though you were trying to prove how this wasn't political for you. If that was the case, I thought I would show you a perspective of how someone may take what you're saying as being political. I see now that you weren't looking to relate. You are looking to defend your stance regardless of effectiveness. That just makes me curious the point if it's not about being effective. Not enough to make me really want to know though. So, I'm good. Please keep safe.

Like I said...

I live in the northern Illinois, the far NW suburbs of Chicago. My wife is a retired nurse. In conversation with her nursing family we were informed that the two major hospitals in our area both are each reporting 1 case of a patient admitted for Corona virus. That is two in total! Not sure what that means but I was greatly surprised by this fact. Meanwhile I sit at home and watch my business slowly die.

Yes you did. No surprise.

Hopefully you will be able to get some help with that. Best of luck to you.

Great!

What's happening in my little corner of the world...

I live in the Australian state of Victoria. The below pdf is Australia's federal response to COVID-19.

Australia's Health Response to COVID-19

We are currently on what's called "Stage 2 Restrictions". This includes things like...

• no more than 5 people can attend a wedding
• a maximum of 10 people at a funeral
• maintaining social distancing of 1.5 metres or a maximum or 1 person per 4 square metres
• wash hands regularly and avoid touching your face (because of the virus' ability to survive for days on various surfaces)
• family gatherings are out
• cinemas, sporting events, stadiums, etc., are closed
• 2 weeks self-isolation applies if: returning from overseas; travelling to some of the other Australian states; one is exposed to COVID-19. This is being monitored by police and enforced where needed. There is a maximum fine of $20,000 for anyone who flouts this.
• essential services -- supermarkets, pharmacies, doctors, etc. -- are operating
• our major supermarkets have set times where only the elderly and disabled can shop and separate set times where only people from the health sector can shop. The regular population shops outside these times.
• restaurants are only open for take-away food
• we are told to stay indoors unless we have to travel to doctors, supermarkets, etc.
• the list goes on...

So far, around 2,000,000 people (10% of our population) have become unemployed. Our major airlines are down to around 10% of their usual number of flights, and daily I read in the paper about more industries that have temporarily closed and have suspended people's employment. Our state and federal governments are doing what they can to provide financial safety nets.

I'm a school teacher and at the end of last week, my school moved to distance education. This means, that my classes are now conducted over the internet using Microsoft Teams. Since I'm a 'chalk and talk' kind of teacher, MS Teams (with video and audio) and Onenote suits me perfectly. However, many of my colleagues are not finding it that easy to instruct their students online. We are told that it is likely that we will be remote teaching for some time yet. No-one knows how long because this is all new territory.

Because being a classroom with close contact to 25 students is a bit scary right now, I'm glad that I can work via the internet. After having had a number of serious health issues in the last handful of years, I don't think that I'd cope too well with COVID-19. I don't want to find out whether or not that is true, though.

• As a number of others have indicated in posts above this one, the important thing always to keep in mind with COVID-19 is that the ONLY reason that the statistics are favourable right now is because governments all over the world have taken action to contain transmission of the virus. This has stopped hospital systems from being overwhelmed and has allowed people to be treated. Italy and Spain are showing the world what it looks like when health sectors start crumbling.
  
  In the news, article after article shows just how ferociously and eagerly this virus travels from person to person. Because of this, it would be very easy for countries to become incapable of providing treatment. If that happens, the statistics would change enormously because escalating cases would be impossible to accommodate.

The 'around 1% death-rate' is misleading because it more closely represents the best case scenario where medical containment of the virus has been, more or less, accomplished. Were this virus allowed to run wild and free, the situation around the world would be vastly different than it is right now.

Literally, we are all in this together. I'm more than happy for my governments to err on the side of caution. As Sundance says, there's no coming back from death. I'm going to do whatever it takes to stay alive as long as I can. 'Inconvenience' is a small price to pay for living.

I'd love to hear stories from other forum members in other countries and find out what they are doing and how they are coping.

Regards,
Noel

This morning, there was an article in one of our newspapers, The Age, about how the corona virus' impact on mental health is around seven times greater than the impact of the bushfires. The link is below (although this probably won't work if you are outside Australia).

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/coronavirus-impact-on-mental-health-seven-times-bushfire-anxiety-20200325-p54dwg.html

This is pretty frightening because the emotional damage of the bushfires was enormous!

This article made me realise that, even though we are now in a state of household isolation I need to keep in touch with friends and family and be mindful that they may not be coping well.

Because I'm a teacher, I have a job that is regarded as essential. This means that I am guaranteed an income. Some of my friends and family do not have that guarantee. Because of this, I have told those around me that if they need money for living expenses, they should ask me for it without feeling embarrassed. While I can't promise to cover everything, I will certainly do what I can to help. Even if I cannot provide money, I might have some thoughts that could help reduce anxiety.

These are extraordinary times and I don't want to lose anyone because I could have helped out when they couldn't cope.

In 2014, I lost a son to medication for severe PTSD that was a consequence of his years of working in Iraq and Afghanistan. The day he died, my employer let me have time off to be with him. When lunch ended, I debated in my mind whether or not to return to work or to take him home - he lived about an hour's drive away. I chose to go back to work because he was in good spirits and so I sent him home on a train. I never again want to feel the immense guilt and the overwhelming loss that I felt when he left this world later that day.

I know how you probably feel. Driving around mid-week on major roads that have little traffic certainly does feel spooky. I guess the good side is that vehicular CO2 emissions will drop for a little while.

Your situation doesn't sound too different from what's happening here. Fortunately our panic buying is settling down and supermarket shelves are starting to fill again.

All the best with the lockdown!
Noel

I simply want to wish everyone well and hope the you are spared the worst of the impacts from the health issues to economic issues. At times like this we find out more about ourselves than anything else. I pray that when this is over we are all able to live with the decisions we made and the things we have lost.

Don't lose hope or faith.

Mike Bonadonna (DC SpaceDog)

They're really nice words, Mike.

Thanks for posting them.

All the best to you and yours too.
Noel

Look guys, you're not reading and understanding my last two posts about needing to get the world back to work. I'm not talking about now or even a month from now. I only posed a question earlier and I'll rephrase it again and then make a few comments. Here it is:

How long would you shut down the the worlds economies? DO NOT answer "As long as it takes". Give me some kind of answer. Christmas? Sometime next year? If some of you answer yes to that then think about that for a minute because NO government anywhere can support everybody that long. No schools for a year and a half? All sports leagues, concerts, Las Vegas and all that stuff shut down until when, 2022?

I know the numbers and potential numbers as much as anyone here. This virus is now the new normal, it's not going to go away no matter what we do. What does "keeping it under control" mean? What does having a vaccine mean? We've had a decent but not perfect vaccine for the flu for decades yet millions get it and hundreds of thousands die of the flu every year. My guess is unless we're very lucky and this thing mutates itself out of existence, it's going to be with us basically for years, decades even. We can't shut down everything for even one year, much less decades. It's death stats will simply have to be added to everything else we're at risk from.

Just another anecdote from this morning. I was scheduled for my annual physical at the West Los Angeles VA today. It's one of the largest VA's in the country. I got a call from the nurse last week saying they had stopped taking walkins for routine appointments and my doctor would call me for a telephone consult which he did. I need to do the usual annual blood work and he said just check the website and I'll be notified when they think it appropriate to come in for that, he thought 4 to 6 weeks or so. I asked him how many COVID 19 patients they had. He said 1 for sure that he knew of, maybe 2. I was shocked. That's it? I figured at least 10 or 15 by now. And the VA is heavily weighted towards older patients some going back to WW2. The VA is also the largest single health care system in the US. This is in the face of our governor saying he expects 56% of California's population of about 30 million to catch this within 60 days. So he's been telling people over 20 MILLION Californians are going to get infected in 60 days?? Where's the evidence of anything remotely like that anywhere in the world?

I'm sorry folks, call me stupid, call me unrealistic but I really don't see that happening. Not that isn't still very serious but man, give me a break.

Oh and FWIW, the WHO today said Trump is doing great with the response to this.

Bob

In Louisiana we had one case on Mar 9. Today we have 1795 cases and 65 dead.

How the hell should "we" know?

Here's a few suggestions.

1. When testing is widely enough available to confirm and/or modify the models.

2. When appropriate Health Officials declare that a relaxing of social distancing restrictions would not put us back to square 1 in exponential increase in infections, making all this current pain absolutely pointless.

3. When appropriate government officials listen to them, plan for the "re-opening", and communicate effectively. In the US, those officials are state-wide and local as well as national. NYC and New Orleans might need to handle things differently than Bismark SD. They may need to do so not only for "themselves" but for their less effected neighbors. The rest of the world will handle things as they see fit in their situations.

If those suggestions too much resemble "as long as it takes", feel free to name your own date and rationale.

Bob,

How long should we shut down? I don't have a clue. I'm just a layman with no medical background. But April 15 seems to be rushing it.

I called one of my sisters today to check on her, and she's a big Trump supporter and even she was worried about the April 15 date.

Since we don't have a clue how many people have it and aren't showing symptoms yet, then it would seem to me that a target date at this point would be the middle of May at the earliest.

The experts can't even agree on how long its going to take, so my WAG means nothing.

I'm just an old overweight fart with high blood pressure and just had 5 heart bypasses in open heart surgery a little over a year ago. If I get a bad case of it, I'm toast.

What worries me much more than myself is my young adult son. He's been prone to viruses and bacterial infections since he was an infant so this is a big concern for both of us.

So once again, April 15 seems to be much too soon to set as a potential target date. An additional 30 days would be hard on the economy but it wouldn't be devastating.

Hopefully Keith will weigh in with a more educated estimate since he knows much more about this than any of us.

Jazzmammal et. al. Look at this site https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

This is what is very scary. I’ve been looking at it for a week and the daily figures from all over are very scary indeed.

We in Oz are lucky at least on the surface all areas and sides of Government seem to be working together.

My thoughts

Tony