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Good article! Answer: not very scared! I'm surprised to hear people hyperventilating in fear while speaking of returning to the gym, school, or work. The press

Good article! Answer: not very scared! I'm surprised to hear people hyperventilating in fear while speaking of returning to the gym, school, or work. The press has a lot of fools whipped up into a frenzy with this virus. Granted it is very contagious, but there are still very few cases relative to the population. And it kills so rarely! Over a period of 4 weeks I have periodically and anecdotally polled all friends by asking the questions: 1. Have you or anyone you directly know caught Covid-19? 2. Have you, or anyone you know, heard indirectly (i.e., someone told you) of someone they knew who had Covid-19? For me, the answer to 1 was "One person": an in-law who was in longterm care in a Hong Kong hospital and died of Covid-19. For me, the answer to 2 was still "One person". When I extended the questioning to all acquaintances the answer to 3 was "Six persons": the in-law and what a clerk described as "five men I know who are workers from South America." I asked him how the five dealt with the ailment and he said "They worked through it; they're young and strong and they need the jobs!" If you told me to find a Covid-19 patient I would be hard pressed to do so w/o visiting a local hospital or funeral home. Even then I doubt they would have one on hand.

lma22 6y ago
>Granted it is very contagious, but there are still very few cases relative to the population. There's entire nations on lock down to stop the spread. Without such an order, you'd have much more than "very few cases". You said it, COVID-19 is "very contagious". >And it kills so rarely! If it spreads, there's less medical equipment, space, and personnel to help fight. This will increase the death rate. You can look at NY and Italy as an example. Not to mention, people are not statistics. If you mom dies, it doesn't comfort you that the mortality rate is so low. You want to keep mom safe. >When I extended the questioning to all acquaintances What's n? Is it statistically relevant? Where do you live? >If you told me to find a Covid-19 patient I would be hard pressed to do so w/o visiting a local hospital or funeral home. Even then I doubt they would have one on hand. What is even the point of this statement? Illness can be a danger to society without _you_ knowing where to "find" a patient.
- giardini 6y ago
  The point of my post was precisely what I said in the first line of that post: "Good article! Answer: not very scared!" To elaborate: people are panicking unduly and they need to quit being scared, they need to calm down, they need to relax and go about their day w/o being on edge every minute. I'm not saying that people should not take precautions: I'm saying that, once you take precautions, there isn't much else one can do that will make one safer than to relax and enjoy the ride as best one can. So, for example, I read, exercise, eat right and live a somewhat normal life. The point of my last statement was emphasis: I was emphasizing how uncommon Covid-19 is and, in particular, how rare Covid-19 deaths are. The topic or thought of death is what seems to trigger panic in most people about Covid-19. Mention of the reality of Covid-19 is like waving a magic amulet: all I need do is utter "A Covid-19 death..." in a meeting and half the participants appear to void their bowels and the other half begin to make attempts to exit the room. Everybody needs to calm down and focus.
  - WalterGR 6y ago
    I was emphasizing how uncommon Covid-19 is and, in particular, how rare Covid-19 deaths are. At one choir practice, one person spread COVID-19 to 52 people, two of whom died. During dinner at a restaurant, one person infected four people sitting at the same table, and five people sitting at other tables. You think because COVID-19 is rare right now that we should go back to work and the 2-hour meetings in conference rooms? Working back to back with someone in a cubicle? Just... going to a restaurant and eating? COVID-19 in the US is rare because of the lockdowns. Deaths are rare because COVID-19 infections are rare because of the lockdowns. (For some definition of rare.)
    - giardini 6y ago
      I already stressed that Covid-19 was very infectious, so why you're bringing this up is beyond me. But... "At one choir practice, one person spread COVID-19 to 52 people, two of whom died." There were 61 people present. The sick singers' average age was 69 [shades of "Nearer My God to Thee!"]. Of those, two died of Covid-19. 2 of 61 is pretty good odds, if you ask me, BUT... how can we be certain that both deaths were due to presence at choir practice? Maybe they caught Covid from their grandchildren, a neighbor, or the postman, .... Similarly for the restaurant case, the affected could have caught the virus from someone other than the assumed. Did the two deceased choir members have comorbidities (e.g., heart disease, diabetes, lung disease or asthma, AIDS, cancer treatment, an immune-suppressed system, etc.)? We should avoid the 2-hour meetings b/c they are unproductive and boring. Back to back in cubicles puts the actual effective recommended 1 metre social spacing into play. The 2-metre value was a judgment, a non-scientific value, tossed out by a British official: https://sports.yahoo.com/coronavirus-social-distancing-lockdown-scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-180826409.html https://sports.yahoo.com/coronavirus-social-distancing-lockd... From that URL: "Robert Dingwall, from the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said the [2-metre] rule was 'conjured up out of nowhere'. The sociology professor at Nottingham Trent University said scientific evidence supports a one-metre gap, but the two-metre advice was a 'rule of thumb'. Laura Ingraham may indeed have been correct when she claimed during her May 4 Fox News broadcast: "Although, intuitively, I think it probably seemed like social distancing would be necessary, there was no real scientific basis for believing that since it had never been studied," Covid-19 is rare and will remain rare. The lock-downs reduce spread but destroy the economy, which also kills people. It remains to be seen whether the "cure" of lock-downs is any better than the disease of Covid-19. It is almost certainly not less expensive.
lumberingjack 6y ago
Same here and I was completely shocked when one of the YouTube channels that I watch the owner got it. I was like holy crap I actually know of somebody who got it and had to go to the hospital.

lma22 6y ago

>Granted it is very contagious, but there are still very few cases relative to the population. There's entire nations on lock down to stop the spread. Without such an order, you'd have much more than "very few cases". You said it, COVID-19 is "very contagious". >And it kills so rarely! If it spreads, there's less medical equipment, space, and personnel to help fight. This will increase the death rate. You can look at NY and Italy as an example. Not to mention, people are not statistics. If you mom dies, it doesn't comfort you that the mortality rate is so low. You want to keep mom safe. >When I extended the questioning to all acquaintances What's n? Is it statistically relevant? Where do you live? >If you told me to find a Covid-19 patient I would be hard pressed to do so w/o visiting a local hospital or funeral home. Even then I doubt they would have one on hand. What is even the point of this statement? Illness can be a danger to society without _you_ knowing where to "find" a patient.

giardini 6y ago
The point of my post was precisely what I said in the first line of that post: "Good article! Answer: not very scared!" To elaborate: people are panicking unduly and they need to quit being scared, they need to calm down, they need to relax and go about their day w/o being on edge every minute. I'm not saying that people should not take precautions: I'm saying that, once you take precautions, there isn't much else one can do that will make one safer than to relax and enjoy the ride as best one can. So, for example, I read, exercise, eat right and live a somewhat normal life. The point of my last statement was emphasis: I was emphasizing how uncommon Covid-19 is and, in particular, how rare Covid-19 deaths are. The topic or thought of death is what seems to trigger panic in most people about Covid-19. Mention of the reality of Covid-19 is like waving a magic amulet: all I need do is utter "A Covid-19 death..." in a meeting and half the participants appear to void their bowels and the other half begin to make attempts to exit the room. Everybody needs to calm down and focus.
- WalterGR 6y ago
  I was emphasizing how uncommon Covid-19 is and, in particular, how rare Covid-19 deaths are. At one choir practice, one person spread COVID-19 to 52 people, two of whom died. During dinner at a restaurant, one person infected four people sitting at the same table, and five people sitting at other tables. You think because COVID-19 is rare right now that we should go back to work and the 2-hour meetings in conference rooms? Working back to back with someone in a cubicle? Just... going to a restaurant and eating? COVID-19 in the US is rare because of the lockdowns. Deaths are rare because COVID-19 infections are rare because of the lockdowns. (For some definition of rare.)
  - giardini 6y ago
    I already stressed that Covid-19 was very infectious, so why you're bringing this up is beyond me. But... "At one choir practice, one person spread COVID-19 to 52 people, two of whom died." There were 61 people present. The sick singers' average age was 69 [shades of "Nearer My God to Thee!"]. Of those, two died of Covid-19. 2 of 61 is pretty good odds, if you ask me, BUT... how can we be certain that both deaths were due to presence at choir practice? Maybe they caught Covid from their grandchildren, a neighbor, or the postman, .... Similarly for the restaurant case, the affected could have caught the virus from someone other than the assumed. Did the two deceased choir members have comorbidities (e.g., heart disease, diabetes, lung disease or asthma, AIDS, cancer treatment, an immune-suppressed system, etc.)? We should avoid the 2-hour meetings b/c they are unproductive and boring. Back to back in cubicles puts the actual effective recommended 1 metre social spacing into play. The 2-metre value was a judgment, a non-scientific value, tossed out by a British official: https://sports.yahoo.com/coronavirus-social-distancing-lockdown-scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-180826409.html https://sports.yahoo.com/coronavirus-social-distancing-lockd... From that URL: "Robert Dingwall, from the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said the [2-metre] rule was 'conjured up out of nowhere'. The sociology professor at Nottingham Trent University said scientific evidence supports a one-metre gap, but the two-metre advice was a 'rule of thumb'. Laura Ingraham may indeed have been correct when she claimed during her May 4 Fox News broadcast: "Although, intuitively, I think it probably seemed like social distancing would be necessary, there was no real scientific basis for believing that since it had never been studied," Covid-19 is rare and will remain rare. The lock-downs reduce spread but destroy the economy, which also kills people. It remains to be seen whether the "cure" of lock-downs is any better than the disease of Covid-19. It is almost certainly not less expensive.

lumberingjack 6y ago

Same here and I was completely shocked when one of the YouTube channels that I watch the owner got it. I was like holy crap I actually know of somebody who got it and had to go to the hospital.