Are you scared? : (

[FairreLilette]

4 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Be sure you know what is "essential".  Food is essential.  Medicine is essential.  If you work in an area deemed critical, your work is essential.  Grooming is not essential.  Touching up your coiffure or your manicure can wait!

Ha!  I do my own nails.  I meant grooming products.  I use two main stores for essentials - food and grooming products.  

[Ceka Cianci]

1 hour ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Be sure you know what is "essential".  Food is essential.  Medicine is essential.  If you work in an area deemed critical, your work is essential.  Grooming is not essential.  Touching up your coiffure or your manicure can wait!

I don't know, I mean good personal hygiene is big part of grooming and pretty important to us and the ones around us..Hair is like our body filter catching a lot of things floating in the air and  that's what you lay on your pillow at night..Cleaning under the nails is more important than the top side of them..

Men with beards, I just picture the earths magnetic shield and solar flares and imagine all the things those are catching..hehehehe

Grooming is such a big category of things and important in stopping a lot of germs and whatever else gets on us every day, making it's way to the inside of us...

I understand what you mean by Styling your hair or painting your nails or doing makeup and things like that.. Those are not important.

[Marianne Little]

I should not post about politics... I do it anyway. Since I still have a fever, I am more hot-headed than usual. 😷

You over in the US, do not believe if some politicians tell you everything is so good outside of USA. It is complaints and confusing new messages here as well, every day, experts and doctors contradict each other, there is no tests for the public, only very, very few. Now "everybody" say we should have closed the borders earlier. Some say it was wrong to close the schools, some say not. Politicians bicker. Suddenly we found out we do not have the recommended number of intensive care beds. Or enough supplies in a crisis. There is no "consensus".

I remember our media running articles from US through google translate (I honestly think we have crappy journalists who use Twitter, WaPost and The Times as only sources). Trump was a racist and Xenophobe January 31. Now dr. Fauci believe those restrictions delayed the spread of COVID-19 here, and bought US time. Somehow the common mass media never reports that, at lest the news never reach me unless I read conservative news sites in English. https://cis.org/Arthur/Dr-Fauci-Trump-China-Restrictions-Slowed-Spread-Wuhan-Flu

I like to read full transcripts... they give more meaning than the selected quote I see referenced. Trump says the malaria drug is not new, it is approved by FDA and is used in 20 years. Then he say it is very effective. (Against malaria) I read it like this - the president speaks clumsy and crude. But if the reporters were not so eager to "take" him in saying something wrong, they could write it different. He goes on saying that he is not overly optimistic or pessimistic, the (doctors) will give it a try. But he has a good feeling.

Trump has called it a "game changer" earlier and that is too early to say. Still, it is 20 ongoing clinical trials in China and more to start in England, Thailand, South Korea and the United States. So he could stand there and cry and say it is not going to work, or be his cocky, self-confident usual self. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/chloroquine-malaria-drug-treat-coronavirus-doctors/story?id=69664561

I do not think media should fuel panic as a cheap way to get political hits. Trump has a certain way of talking and acting that set many people off. The pattern of taking everything he says and spin it in worst possible way is not new. But it is a nasty time to do it. So he called a reporter terrible when the reporter was pushing and pushing, saying he gives scared Americans false hope. Reporters are like sharks, I apologize to the sharks. Compared to how media did not create panic during the Swine Flu. It was also a pandemic. I am wondering if the number of deaths after Covid 19 will be lower or higher. No one can say now, but we can only hope for the best.

Media likes to state that Trump declared a Public Emergency when it was "5000 deaths" but that was worldwide. Only 40 in the US, 2 days after WHO declared it a pandemic. I know that initially, the WHO resisted characterizing the disease as a pandemic. So should he take draconian measures before? I am not so well versed in the difference between Public Emergency and Public Health Emergency. Which level is more serious, if it is a difference? I do not know.

And at the same time they say Trump acted too slow, they also worry about him using the emergency to "abuse his power". I mean, he can't do anything right. If he closes the border, he is xenophobic and overreacts. If he does not take extreme measures before WHO declares a pandemic, he is too slow. If he stops to take in asylum seekers, he is a racist. No matter that Germany, Greece and Netherlands do the same, I believe more will follow. When WHO declares a pandemic, he should have reacted before, he should have been ready and prepared before there was a single case of it in China. If he is optimistic, he is dangerous. If he was a pessimist, he would be dangerous too.

 

Edited March 22, 2020 by Marianne Little
spelling errors

[Qie Niangao]

Maybe there will be an effective antiviral in the year and half before we're all vaccinated (and for those who aren't completely immune after the vaccine). Maybe the anti-malarial will even play a significant role in the interim. (Although I gotta say, its current hype machine has all the credibility of a Nigerian prince hawking bitcoin.)

But "stay at home" is the one response that has real, proven effect. To see what's at stake, read "The Hammer and the Dance" -- the author is not himself a doctor, but he uses a lot of official data to explain how South Korea, Singapore, China, and Taiwan have succeeded, and what that means for saving millions of lives and the world economy. (Note: the final two charts in the paper are clearly discussed as illustrative -- but the watermark to that effect is easy to miss on the figures themselves.)

No matter what we do at this point, the economy is going to take a very significant hit. It'll be much, much worse if we take only half-measures and let this strangle commerce for a year and a half -- there just won't be anything left to restart at that point. Don't necessarily put a lot of weight on the stock market per se, but the fact the bond markets are also tanking at the same time: we're not getting out of this one any time soon.

20 hours ago, Pamela Galli said:

Dr, Fauci says if extreme measures work as we hope, it retrospect they will seem like overreaction.

Like Y2K. The naysayers will always blithely assume that it was just overblown, not that millions of person-years saved us from disaster and years of recovery. Time to invest again.

[FairreLilette]

6 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

Since I still have a fever, I am more hot-headed than usual. 😷

 

Sorry Marianne.  I do hope you feel better soon.

My state of California went on mandatory lock-down with the owner of my building actually locking us inside the building on Thursday night.  We were told "stay in, don't go out".  We were NOT told we could go out for essentials.  A store is not going to come to me plus the owner of the building said "don't order anything...we are not allowing Fed-ex in", etc etc.

But I wanted to say something to all of you.  

I believe I already had this coronavirus.  I was sick in January of 2020 with fever, chills, sweats, low appetite...and it was a flu.  The flu went around this building in January, not everyone here was sick but many were very ill.  I also was speaking to my online friends and SL friends at that time and told them my flu was causing my absence due to severe fatigue and for some events they would need to go on without me, and many of my SL friends told me they had the flu too.  Many of my SL friends are in Europe.

I believe this flu already went around my building in January.  I have never ever been that sick with a flu in my entire life but no one died here and none of my SL friends from Europe died either.

I also in January of 2020 noticed a lot of people saying they had the flu in posts.  I knew it was a bad flu.  I do believe I've already had it.  And, if I did, now what?   Would I have immunity to it? 

The President should give a formal address to the Union, however to clearly spell out the protocol of the lock-down.  

I think masks and gloves should be given to shoppers to quell the fears and I do need to go shopping soon for essentials because as I said a store is not going to come to me and packages are not being let in the building or something.  Whatever this mandatory thing is, it is currently not a very good plan.   

Edited March 22, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Qie Niangao]

13 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

I also in January of 2020 noticed a lot of people saying they had the flu in posts.  I knew it was a bad flu.  I do believe I've already had it.  And, if I did, now what?   Would I have immunity to it? 

If you were in the US in January, it is extremely unlikely you got COVID-19. Through the record of tiny mutations in the virus, there's a pretty good history of how it spread and where it started, and that's pretty early: at that point it was mostly spreading around China during Lunar New Year migrations (tragic miscalculations by some bureaucrats). But it was a normal season for influenza -- I got it around then, too, and it was nasty. But not even remotely related to COVID-19.

[ETA: Here's a piece from today's New York Times about the early spread of COVID-19.]

Edited March 22, 2020 by Qie Niangao

[FairreLilette]

13 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

If you were in the US in January, it is extremely unlikely you got COVID-19. Through the record of tiny mutations in the virus, there's a pretty good history of how it spread and where it started, and that's pretty early: at that point it was mostly spreading around China during Lunar New Year migrations (tragic miscalculations by some bureaucrats). But it was a normal season for influenza -- I got it around then, too, and it was nasty. But not even remotely related to COVID-19.

[ETA: Here's a piece from today's New York Times about the early spread of COVID-19.]

Okay, thanks for your input.  

It was nasty.  I have never ever been that sick ever.  

I sat in a recliner with a blanket and heating pad for 11 days.  The heating pad to hopefully alleviate some of the aches and pains.   I did shower, change clothes and eat a few meals but my appetite was very low. 

This "flu" seemed to be going around my building for about six weeks and then it was gone.  It ceased.  

But, if it was "a normal year for influenza" why so many here in my immediate surroundings so severely ill...even those saying they had never had the flu?  So, it got me wondering what that was all about and if it might be related in any way as it is said the coronavirus is a flu.  

Why two flus?  I've never heard of that.  

I've only had a mild flu maybe twice in my entire life.  Nothing like what I experienced in Jan. 2020...horrible but I recovered.  

 

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

But, if it was "a normal year for influenza" why so many here in my immediate surroundings so severely ill...even those saying they had never had the flu?  So, it got me wondering what that was all about and if it might be related in any way as it is said the coronavirus is a flu.  

Why two flus?  I've never heard of that.  

Coronavirus is not an influenza virus. They're both RNA viruses but otherwise quite dissimilar, which is part of the reason COVID-19 is so deadly: nobody has any pre-existing immunity. On the plus side perhaps, the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) mutates slower than influenza viruses (although faster than DNA-based viruses). The fact influenza mutates so rapidly is why seasonal flu shots tend to be only modestly effective against the predominant strain by the time it's in wide circulation: it's changed so much that the vaccine is often effective in only about 80% of recipient -- but that's usually enough to establish significant "herd immunity."

Flu shots often contain a cocktail of more than one strain, and it's not unusual for multiple strains to spread in a single season.

[SueWorthly]

My country, Italy, is under national-lock down since a while now. Yesterday we had about 800 deaths in a single day, today they report 651. Still a bunch, but after 2 weeks of lock-downs, that sounds like good news, if confirmed, but time will tell. It's neither to panic over it, nor to laugh and think it's just another flu (it is not, hospital beds get filled up way quicker). It's a serious thing and everyone should act responsibly caring for others too. If I was thinking only about myself, I'm not an elderly person, so I shouldn't be too much afraid of it, although I don't want to get sick, badly sick or to end up in ICU: even when it doesn't kill you, viral bronchitis or pneumonia sux. Also it's true that those deaths are mostly elderly people with underlying health conditions - lots of them were in their 80s - but in the past days there were also people in their 40s who died, with no underlying health conditions, like a carabiniere (a military police man), a GP doctor, a supermarket cashier woman... However, I'm afraid. I don't want that my parent catch the virus. They get vaccinated for seasonal flu, but there is no vaccine yet for covid-19 and there won't be one for quite a while. I don't want catch it and to spread it over and contribute to elderly deaths. I don't want that hospitals get even more overwhelmed: the amount of beds in intensive care aren't infinite, then they have to choose who to save and that's terrible. Meanwhile another thing that concerns me seriously is jobs and the economy, of course. That's going to suffer, let alone tourism and all the jobs that revolve around it indirectly... it doesn't look good at all. Yet I prefer that than 200k+ funerals.

So I stay at home etc. Second Life helps. Now in real life you can't even walk alone on the beach in winter, as beaches have been locked down as well. In SL I can enter in mouselook / 1st person view and, even if it's virtual, I can immerse myself there and it feels nice, in beaches or other natural places. Events too. I'm not a clubber, but I love amusement and I always loved the events made by "Townies" and others for Christmas, Valentine, Carnevale/Mardi Gras, St. Patrick, Easter... I couldn't go the the last ones in RL this year, so SL helps to feel better.

[FairreLilette]

45 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Coronavirus is not an influenza virus. They're both RNA viruses but otherwise quite dissimilar, which is part of the reason COVID-19 is so deadly: nobody has any pre-existing immunity. On the plus side perhaps, the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) mutates slower than influenza viruses (although faster than DNA-based viruses). The fact influenza mutates so rapidly is why seasonal flu shots tend to be only modestly effective against the predominant strain by the time it's in wide circulation: it's changed so much that the vaccine is often effective in only about 80% of recipient -- but that's usually enough to establish significant "herd immunity."

Flu shots often contain a cocktail of more than one strain, and it's not unusual for multiple strains to spread in a single season.

I see.  I read a little about RNA viruses.

What I don't understand though is that since there is a test for coronavirus why not a test for what flu I had in January of 2020?  When, it's flu season...it's just called the flu.  There must be tests for what was a very horrible flu in January 2020 where I live.  Why does my doctor treat as just a flu and not tell me which kind? 

Also, President Trump wanted to call this flu "The Chinese Flu" which was considered too racist.  Which I agree is too racist of a name.  But, if it is a flu, it still should have flu at the end of it's name like "The Swine Flu", "The Bird Flu", etc.  It should have been called COVID-19 flu if it is indeed a flu because I think they made a huge mistake not putting the word flu at the end of it and it's causing a lot of panic like it's a plague which it is not.  

[Qie Niangao]

6 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

What I don't understand though is that since there is a test for coronavirus why not a test for what flu I had in January of 2020?  When, it's flu season...it's just called the flu.  There must be tests for what was a very horrible flu in January 2020 where I live.  Why does my doctor treat as just a flu and not tell me which kind? 

Also, President Trump wanted to call this flu "The Chinese Flu" which was considered too racist.  Which I agree is too racist of a name.  But, if it is a flu, it still should have flu at the end of it's name like "The Swine Flu", "The Bird Flu", etc.  It should have been called COVID-19 flu if it is indeed a flu because I think they made a huge mistake not putting the word flu at the end of it and it's causing a lot of panic like it's a plague which it is not.  

Well again, it's not a flu -- it's not caused by an influenza virus. This is a whole different category of viruses. (The "China" thing is a whole different question. The "Spanish Flu" not only didn't start in Spain, it wasn't even called that at the time. Anyway, doesn't matter.)

I don't know why they don't administer flu tests. Maybe because treatment doesn't really depend on which strain of flu it is? But there are tests for the flu. In fact, before there was a test for COVID-19, it was generally diagnosed by process of elimination: Flu-like symptoms with a negative test for influenza and depressed white blood cell and lymphocyte counts. (Or something like that. I'm not a doctor or anything.)

[Rolig Loon]

1 minute ago, FairreLilette said:

Why does my doctor treat as just a flu and not tell me which kind?

Because, as Qie said, RNA viruses mutate rapidly enough that there are many different versions of "the flu" around each year. When the labs put together vials to distribute to doctors and hospitals, they don't just include a vaccine for the most common one.  They hedge their bets by putting together a "cocktail" of vaccines for several of the current flu versions, hoping that one of the vaccines in the vial will be the right one for the specific flu virus that you have.  That way, they don't have to test each patient individually and they don't have to stock a dozen different vials to choose from.  Chances are pretty good that something in that shot you get will be the right one for your flu virus. That assumption is pretty good, although not perfect. RNA viruses mutate fast enough that you just might catch a brand new version that wasn't around when they put together the cocktail at the start of flu season .... so you get sick anyway.

And then there's the corona virus, COVID-19, which isn't just another RNA virus. It's a different kind of beast.  (Think of all the people in the English-speaking world named "Smith", many of whom are totally unrelated to other Smiths or are so distantly related that it's irrelevant that they all have the same last name.)

As for what to name a virus .....  virologists use their own naming convention, so in this case they have labeled our nasty corona virus COVID-19 from the start. Other people ( politicians, news people, bloggers ... ) make up their own names or just take the lazy way out and call everything a "flu".  It can be handy to have shortcut names, but they can mask the more complicated story that most people would just find confusing.  The fact is, viruses are such a complicated mix that some people are going to get confused no matter what names they use.

[Madelaine McMasters]

19 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

What I don't understand though is that since there is a test for coronavirus why not a test for what flu I had in January of 2020?  When, it's flu season...it's just called the flu.  There must be tests for what was a very horrible flu in January 2020 where I live.  Why does my doctor treat as just a flu and not tell me which kind?

It's all a matter of cost. A typical viral assay might cost $100. A panel of them capable of identifying any of a flu season's various strains might cost $1000 or more. If everyone who got the flu also got a test, we'd be looking at massive nationwide costs. There'd also be little benefit from doing so, as the test comes after the infection, when it's too late to do anything about it. There's also not much to be done about it in the first place. It's far less threatening than COVID-19.

Doing small sample testing across the population is sufficient to get a picture of the genetic makeup of each year's flu crop, and that's precisely what the health care system does.

[FairreLilette]

14 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

It's all a matter of cost. A typical viral assay might cost $100. A panel of them capable of identifying any of a flu season's various strains might cost $1000 or more. If everyone who got the flu also got a test, we'd be looking at massive nationwide costs. There'd also be little benefit from doing so, as the test comes after the infection, when it's too late to do anything about it. There's also not much to be done about it in the first place. It's far less threatening than COVID-19.

Doing small sample testing across the population is sufficient to get a picture of the genetic makeup of each year's flu crop, and that's precisely what the health care system does.

Okay thanks...just made me wonder what the heck kind of flu I had in January 2020 because I've never ever experienced anything like it before but now it will remain a sort of mystery as to what it was.   It seemed far more severe than a flu what I and many others experienced in January of this year.   Far more severe.  Takes months to get back your full energy from it.  It was horrible!

[Chic Aeon]

9 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

Okay thanks...just made me wonder what the heck kind of flu I had in January 2020 because I've never ever experienced anything like it before but now it will remain a sort of mystery as to what it was.   It seemed far more severe than a flu what I and many others experienced in January of this year.   Far more severe.  Takes months to get back your full energy from it.  It was horrible!

You may have a chance to know eventually if you really want to.  According to Governor Como's press conference today (LIVE), there is a test  (not quite available if I understood him correctly) that tests for antibodies. This let's you know if you actually had COVID-19.  It sounds like you may have and since information (CNN as well as many other places) is coming into focus that the virus was here long before it was publicized you are likely not alone. Very happy you made it though.    Como wants to give that test to the healthcare workers to see which may be  "less likely or immune" to getting the virus again.   

There are even reports from Italy from November -- and while I wasn't watching back then, apparently China didn't publicize in any timely matter either.   For me, the safest action is to assume you HAVE Corona and not "yearly flu" and act accordingly.   

[Selene Gregoire]

On 3/21/2020 at 4:57 AM, sirhc DeSantis said:

Yes. Not for me (indestructible R us). Still find this helps, hippyish as it may be.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain

 

(Herbert/Dune/1965/almost as old as I am)

Funny that. I happen to have been re-reading the series (again and again and...). I'm currently half way through Chapter House.

[Selene Gregoire]

On 3/21/2020 at 11:54 AM, Amina Sopwith said:

Yeah. It would actually in a way be great if, in the future, people are saying, "Oh, why did we go to all that trouble, it was no big deal!" That means it worked and we did actually avert the worst of the crisis. 

Until the next one that comes along and the same thing happens. Only next time, it will be a highly contagious, rapid, silent killer that leaves no human untouched and millions dead. 

We've altered our environment to the point that nature is fighting back and in the end humans will lose because they're too selfish and uncaring about others.

[Madelaine McMasters]

45 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

You may have a chance to know eventually if you really want to.  According to Governor Como's press conference today (LIVE), there is a test  (not quite available if I understood him correctly) that tests for antibodies. This let's you know if you actually had COVID-19.  It sounds like you may have and since information (CNN as well as many other places) is coming into focus that the virus was here long before it was publicized you are likely not alone. Very happy you made it though.    Como wants to give that test to the healthcare workers to see which may be  "less likely or immune" to getting the virus again.   

There are even reports from Italy from November -- and while I wasn't watching back then, apparently China didn't publicize in any timely matter either.   For me, the safest action is to assume you HAVE Corona and not "yearly flu" and act accordingly.   

Yep, one critical measurement we need to really understand what's going on is the "total infected" number. This requires detecting COVID-19 antibodies. Those will be present in anyone exposed to the virus, including those who were completely asymptomatic. I've also read theories that COVID-19 may have been around much earlier than widely reported. I don't think such claims fit well with the current growth curves. Until we get accurate metrics for total infected population, we won't know just how bad it might actually get.

I'd caution against anyone in the US concluding that flu symptoms they experienced, and recovered from, were actually caused by COVID-19. Such beliefs might encourage those who've had the flu to think they're immune to COVID-19 and pose no risk to others. If you ARE having symptoms then yes, behave as if you are carrying COVID-19. If you have recovered from something unidentified and are now fine, I'd presume you are still vulnerable to COVID-19.

Edited March 22, 2020 by Madelaine McMasters

[Lyssa Greymoon]

6 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Like Y2K. The naysayers will always blithely assume that it was just overblown, not that millions of person-years saved us from disaster and years of recovery. Time to invest again.

Y2K isn't a bad analogy. If our response to Y2K was like COVID-19, America would have started investing in dealing with it sometime around 2004. Just like Y2K, everyone knew something like this was coming, the difference is we didn't know exactly when, so we didn't make the investment and now we have no choice but to overreact at a vastly higher cost. Both in money and lives.

Edited March 22, 2020 by Lyssa Greymoon

[Selene Gregoire]

19 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

My building is currently locked - can't go out, can't come in.

I don't think they can legally do that since if a fire breaks out no one can get out. Check with the Fire Marshall. Let him know what is going on.

[FairreLilette]

1 hour ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Yep, one critical measurement we need to really understand what's going on is the "total infected" number. This requires detecting COVID-19 antibodies. Those will be present in anyone exposed to the virus, including those who were completely asymptomatic.  

As far as myself and the horrible supposed "flu" I had this January of 2020, I'm wondering if I did, did my body build up any immunity or does that make me a possible carrier?   I did recover after about four weeks...at about three weeks I still felt terrible...from what, I'm beginning to wonder.   But, it was "flu-like".   Reports are coming out now that "lock-down" is not an answer 'if' those with coronavirus are not isolated. This is the current from The World Health Organization:

LONDON (Reuters) - Countries can't simply lock down their societies to defeat coronavirus, the World Health Organization's top emergency expert said on Sunday, adding that public health measures are needed to avoid a resurgence of the virus later on.

"What we really need to focus on is finding those who are sick, those who have the virus, and isolate them, find their contacts and isolate them," Mike Ryan said in an interview on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.

"The danger right now with the lockdowns ... if we don't put in place the strong public health measures now, when those movement restrictions and lockdowns are lifted, the danger is the disease will jump back up."

Much of Europe and the United States have followed China and other Asian countries and introduced drastic restrictions to fight the new coronavirus, with most workers told to work from home and schools, bars, pubs and restaurants being closed.

https://news.yahoo.com/lockdowns-not-enough-defeat-coronavirus-103904159.html

 

Edited March 22, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Madelaine McMasters]

45 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

As far as myself and the horrible supposed "flu" I had this January of 2020, I'm wondering if I did, did my body build up any immunity or does that make me a possible carrier?   I did recover after about four weeks...at about three weeks I still felt terrible...from what, I'm beginning to wonder.   But, it was "flu-like".   Reports are coming out now that "lock-down" is not an answer 'if' those with coronavirus are not isolated. This is the current from The World Health Organization:

LONDON (Reuters) - Countries can't simply lock down their societies to defeat coronavirus, the World Health Organization's top emergency expert said on Sunday, adding that public health measures are needed to avoid a resurgence of the virus later on.

"What we really need to focus on is finding those who are sick, those who have the virus, and isolate them, find their contacts and isolate them," Mike Ryan said in an interview on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.

"The danger right now with the lockdowns ... if we don't put in place the strong public health measures now, when those movement restrictions and lockdowns are lifted, the danger is the disease will jump back up."

Much of Europe and the United States have followed China and other Asian countries and introduced drastic restrictions to fight the new coronavirus, with most workers told to work from home and schools, bars, pubs and restaurants being closed.

https://news.yahoo.com/lockdowns-not-enough-defeat-coronavirus-103904159.html

 

The risk in lifting lockdowns is that people currently contagious will start passing the virus around again. If you've been symptom free from your "flu-like" episode in January, regardless whether you had the flu or COVID-19, you are probably not contagious. Even so, it's important to sample the healthy population for the presence of antibodies, so that we can determine how widespread the disease is, and to identify people who have developed immunity that can be transferred to others via convalescent sera therapy... if that proves effective.

I theory, if you could implement a perfect lock down to groups of say 50 or less, it would take only a few infection cycles (lets way two weeks) for any infected groups to develop immunity (and lose members). That's not possible though, because we're not going to leave locked down groups of people fend for themselves. We're going to tend to those who need it, perpetually exposing the health care system, which will eventually become the source of most new infections.

I don't think there's much hope for the US to perform the level of tracking done in China and South Korea. We have "freedoms" that prevent the government from doing the sort of invasive investigations done there, and we're generally less accepting of government control.

 

[Lindal Kidd]

2 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I don't think there's much hope for the US to perform the level of tracking done in China and South Korea. We have "freedoms" that prevent the government from doing the sort of invasive investigations done there, and we're generally less accepting of government control.

True.  But what we COULD do is widespread testing.  Not just for the wealthy and powerful.  Not just for "suspected cases".  Not just for people showing the worst symptoms.  I mean every-fricking-body.  Separate and quarantine the positives.  It's too late for the detailed backtracking and selective testing that China used.  The virus is now everywhere, and we need to test everyone.

[Madelaine McMasters]

19 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

True.  But what we COULD do is widespread testing.  Not just for the wealthy and powerful.  Not just for "suspected cases".  Not just for people showing the worst symptoms.  I mean every-fricking-body.  Separate and quarantine the positives.  It's too late for the detailed backtracking and selective testing that China used.  The virus is now everywhere, and we need to test everyone.

I think you might be confusing the COVID-19 test with the antibody test, Lindal. It is terribly important to be testing people for live virus, as those are the ones spreading the disease. Despite Mike Pence's claims, we do not have enough test kits available for even those who are manifestly sick, let alone everyone else.

I don't think we have the ability to test ANYONE for antibodies at this time. Those tests are under development right now. I don't know how much such tests will cost when they're finally available, but if we guess in the range of $100-$1000, and opted to test everyone, that's a bill of $33-$330billion for the US. The best use of limited resources would probably be to perform sampling on populations and then extrapolate.

I forgot to mention that, over the course of treatment, a COVID-19 patient will be tested for live virus several times. The total test cost is much higher than the cost of a kit and its use. To test "every-fricking-body" in the US might potentially cost $100 billion-$1Trillion. I think there will be far less expensive tests (pee-on-a-stick equivalent) developed soon, but not soon enough to manage this explosion.

Edited March 23, 2020 by Madelaine McMasters

[Selene Gregoire]

All I can say is, I hope Medicaid will cover it otherwise I'm not only up Sheet Creek without a paddle, I won't have a canoe either. I don't have $100 let alone be able to pay for all the testing. 

Why the hell did I have to pick this planet to be born on.