Ask Slashdot: How Are You Handling COVID-19? 313
turp182 writes: What's your story? How are you doing? What do you predict? Below is a summary of the stats I've been following, some assumptions, and an overview of my personal situation. Anyway, how you all doing?
Current Situation:
1. 2.415 million active reported infected
2. 7% infected death rate globally
3. 6% infected death rate in U.S.
4. Very high case-fatality ratios in Europe (France, Spain, and Italy, 12-17% infected die) -- has to be a combination of older people getting sick, overwhelmed health system, public transit, late lockdown.
5. Daily infection rates are stable at around 3,500 per hour (globally)
6. Daily death rates are stable around 200 per hour (globally)
7. Daily recoveries is increasing linearly and is around 1,700 per hour (globally)
8. The U.S. has 5% of global population but 30%+ cases/deaths of global COVID-19.
My Assumptions:
1. This will be with us for at least a couple of years.
2. Vaccine will be a year or more away.
3. Most everyone will be exposed or contract the virus.
4. This will cull the elderly and also low wage workers.
4.1 -- Food supply is already an issue and will get worse.
5. Fabric of Society will decay.
5.1 -- More shootings and then home invasions as people run out of survival options.
5.2 -- Local efforts have gone a long way to preventing this, but it seems inevitable to me on some level.
My Situation:
1. Working from home, well-paid IT job
2. Wife unemployed (she was set to start a new job the day of the lockdowns)
3. Kids doing 3.5 hours/day of schooling via Zoom (reasonably effective if a parent is present)
4. I camp at a friend's farm about every two weeks (the Sanity Maker!).
5. Started smoking again, I realize it's the worst time to do so, but f*ck it.
6. Haven't needed gas for the car in 2 months, I go out about once a week, my wife does more times for groceries and basics.
7. No idea how the summer is going to play out when the kids get out of school in a couple of weeks.
8. Bug-out location identified and being stocked.
Reference: John Hopkins Data
Doing fine here (Score:4, Interesting)
Certainly supporting Amazon more!
But all is fine except the partisan blaring on both sides.
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Having said that, I know many are afraid, and want to stay safe and quarantine. Many also want to get back to work and their daily lives, an
There are 80,000+ dead with massive lockdowns (Score:5, Insightful)
And by all accounts if our hospitals get overwhelmed then the death rate goes up by a factor of 20. Source [facebook.com].
No one died from a ventilator shortage because we flattened the curve.
Meanwhile studies show Deaths from lockdowns [arstechnica.com] are overstated and less than lives saved by locking down.
Re:There are 80,000+ dead with massive lockdowns (Score:5, Insightful)
To clarify, it killed more in a month with a lockdown than the flu kills in a typical year with no restrictions.
Re: There are 80,000+ dead with massive lockdowns (Score:2)
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No, it hasn't. The flu kills 600,000 a year, Covid hasn't met that number yet, and it's certainly not meeting that number monthly. False fact
You are just being pedantic and misleading. He was clearly referring to the US, considering the very title of this thread is using the death figures in the US.
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No, it hasn't. The flu kills 600,000 a year, Covid hasn't met that number yet
Most likely, it has. Google says that recorded Covid deaths are 285k. But that number is lagging a week or so behind, and many, many deaths in places like India and Africa are not being diagnosed or recorded.
It is likely that current total Covid deaths are over 600k.
To keep things in perspective, about 100k people die worldwide every day from other causes.
Re: There are 80,000+ dead with massive lockdowns (Score:5, Insightful)
Those numbers are suspect, if you listen to Musk.
Well... there's your problem -- and, by that, I mean *your*. Seriously, why would listen to Elon about this? He's an authority on very few things. /shaking-my-head-in-disbelief
Re: There are 80,000+ dead with massive lockdowns (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed the data does stand on its own. We covered it on Slashdot https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]. In this case Musk, even if he is the source of the conspiracy, would be wrong.
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Those numbers are suspect, if you listen to Musk.
Hospitals which are going to go bankrupt, are pressuring Dr's to mark all deaths as covid-19 regardless of tests.
Even if this was true, why would Musk know about it? Why would doctors and nurses confide in him, rather than, say, going to the press?
Also, let's take a look at smoking, opiod
Smoking and opioids are opt-in.
Re: There are 80,000+ dead with massive lockdowns (Score:5, Interesting)
Hospitals which are going to go bankrupt, are pressuring Dr's to mark all deaths as covid-19 regardless of tests.
That's a fantastic conspiracy theory, but Covid-19 only causes death in 3 possible ways. Unless you die with one of those three causes and you have coronavirus you're not counted as a statistics.
That last part is key, not everyone is being tested for coronavirus either, not even people who died. Multiple studies have already identified massively "excess weekly mortality over historical average" statistics after correcting for coronavirus official deathtoll which are almost perfectly correlated with severity of COVID-19 outbreak in a given city.
Stop reading the conspiracy theories. Absolutely no country is over-reporting COVID-19 deaths. No the Chinese saving face. Not the Americans and their nearly bankrupt hospitals. Not he Australians largely unaffected with completely publicly funded healthcare. Not the Europeans. Even the bloody king of testing South Korea reported excess mortality figures.
Less Musk tweets (I don't believe you that he's the source of your conspiracy derangement), and more Slashdot https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Re: There are 80,000+ dead with massive lockdowns (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: There are 80,000+ dead with massive lockdowns (Score:5, Insightful)
Argument from authority is a especially weak form of argument when the authority you are citing is not an authority in the topic you are citing them for.
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I find it hard to believe that all of you morons lapping up the diarrhea coming out of the alt (faux) news media are so unconnected with the rest of the world that you don't realize that, even though you aren't going to die from this virus, you will spread it to someone you know and love who just might.
My best friend from college lost his dad to this. He was in your camp right up until that happ
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No one died from a ventilator shortage because we flattened the curve.
And because, as we gained a better understanding of the virus, we learned that "shove everyone on ventilators" was actually the wrong treatment in many cases.
Re: There are 80,000+ dead with massive lockdowns (Score:2)
Re: There are 80,000+ dead with massive lockdowns (Score:2)
And we have vaccines for flu. The only way to be properly safe from this virus is never go out etc.
Re:Doing fine here (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm disappointed that the federal government has not slapped the state governors with the 14th amendment, given that our liberties were abridged without due process. Its a clear violation.
No. The 14th Amendment covers "arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints", which is the criteria used when reviewing these sorts of things. There are numerous precedents of State governments having these authorities for public health, which isn't "arbitrary or purposeless". We've over a century of history of these sorts of things happening, and being judged Constitutional by those authorities specified in the Constitution -- the judicial branch.
See Planned Parenthood v Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (U.S. 1992) for the recent clarifications.
Re:Doing fine here (Score:5, Interesting)
Freedom means other people get to make decisions you do not like. You have to stand up for their right to do so regardless.
Sure, but if your decisions endanger my safety, we need to talk. I cannot simply say it's my decision to empty a bottle of liquor and go for a drive either.
The problem is that the more effective our responses to the pandemic are, the more useless they will seem. We can clearly see that the measures we have taken are effective. The curve has been bent and we have all made sacrifices for this to happen. Now we all start yearning for life to return to normal but this will not happen anytime soon; the virus is still here. The only thing we can do now is to slowly relax the measures as the virus becomes more visible due to increased testing capacity, and hope there will be a vaccine soon. It's difficult times, half my coworkers are unemployed now. No idea how much longer I'll be able to keep mine. But we'll make it in the end. I live in a country where social welfare is well-organized, so I don't need to worry *that* much. Still, it's tough.
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What's the evidence for this? I can only find speculative/circumstantial reports. The only things we do know are confirmed cases, hospitalization and death rates. [jhu.edu]
Major League Baseball just announced the results of their testing [yahoo.com]: 5754 people tested; 0.7% (60 people) had covid antibodies; 70% were asymptomatic; no deaths reporte
Your numbers are a bit of date on the ship (Score:3)
The Navy has been releasing results from testing on the USS Theodore Roosevelt [popularmechanics.com] (the Capt. Crozier aircraft carrier): About 5000 people tested; 777 tested positive for the virus (16%); 50% asymptomatic; 1 death (0.1%). This is a population of generally healthy younger people. The article also reports that 25% of the positive American test results are asymptomatic
The current numbers are out of a crew of 5680 total number of positives is 1156(20%), Number of deaths is still 1 though and about 60% were asymptomatic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Doing fine here (Score:4, Interesting)
Freedom also means you are responsible for your actions. If you ignore the advice of public health officials, spread a contagious disease, and someone dies as a result of your actions (even if the actions are taken as a result of ignorance), you have committed negligent homicide. A jury of grieving grandchildren or parents may not show you any mercy. (Ok...That's harsh, but it does make the link between personal responsibility and personal freedom.)
In fairness to your argument, real-time estimates of case fatality rate are recognized as unreliable; reliable estimates will come too late to settle the debate or inform policy decisions. (The fog of war is real.) If we are lucky, a less deadly variant of this virus is circulating and flattening the curve for us; but, the available evidence suggests that is not the case. Data from the USS Theodore Roosevelt and randomized sampling in Iceland indicates that about half of cases are asymptomatic (not enough to support an optimistic view of transmission or mortality rates). The more likely assumption is that social distancing flattened the curve enough to avoid overwhelming the hospital system (although medical personnel in New York City might not agree with that assessment). Italy was not so fortunate...
As for food shortages, I'm not particularly worried. If things get to that point, Uncle Sam will reinstate the draft and make sure food stays on the grocery store shelves. (As a friend of mine pointed out, during the Vietnam War era the Army demonstrated that it is possible to hand someone a loaded gun and convince them not to point in the wrong direction.)
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Also fine here. 97,000 people in this county, 186 cases, 3 deaths from the virus, two from bad driving over the same period, although the guy who rolled the dump truck walked away from it.
We dropped from 5 cases a day to one, but none today. At this rate we'll never get to herd immunity, and I do think this virus will be back in the fall. Here, Trump was mostly right, it petered out in May instead of April.
Local interest in mask wearing is dropping precipitously. My garden is mostly in, only the late corn I
Because you've been locked down (Score:2)
Or because you've been drinking bleach. Not sure which.
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Freedom means other people get to make decisions you do not like.
I wonder if you have the same opinion when some anti-social arsehat coughs in your face and you're on a ventilator for 3 weeks struggling to survive. A not insignificant portion of the human race has been shown to be too dumb to be given complete freedoms, like that fuckwit standing so close to me at the supermarket yesterday I could feel their breath on the back of my neck.
No I'm not kidding. Security got involved when I told them to back the fuck away only for them to tell me "don't believe in this corona
Re:Doing fine here (Score:5, Insightful)
and way less lethal than we were lead to believe
This is a fucking lie.
The US currently has a CFR of 6%, which is well over the 2.5% that we were "initially led to believe"
disappointed that the federal government has not slapped the state governors with the 14th amendment, given that our liberties were abridged without due process. Its a clear violation.
The Supreme Court has been pretty clear on this matter.
Due process can mean merely the act of passing a law.
You're a clear idiot.
I don't see why we need a government to come down and tell us we can't work, we can't visit, we can't go out
That's because you're obviously too fucking dense to understand the problem.
Those people will kill people from class A- people who didn't want to be killed. If the suicidal shit-for-brains only killed themselves, well, that'd be fantastic.
Trump can afford to lose a few voters.
Clearly the flattening of the curve was either massively effective, or unneeded.
It was successful. The curve obviously didn't flatten itself.
Our hospitals were not overwhelmed.
You mean your specific hospitals were not overwhelmed. And I'm glad for that.
Many sure as hell were.
Are you claiming the horror stories coming from interviews with doctors and nurses are all fabricated?
No one died from a ventilator shortage, no one died from a lack of hospital beds.
What the fuck are you talking about? This is a blatant lie. Or were you again talking about your particular neck of the woods?
All of the extra hospital supply we created (thanks to the Army core) turned out to not be needed.
Bizarre since they were occupied.
Did we need as many as they built? Of course not. They built for the worst-case-scenario: An inability to flatten the curve.
But really, we should be respecting the wishes of each individual to decide for themselves what levels of safety they wish to maintain, and let them.
If you can invent a one-way mask that allows you to get infected but not spread it, I'm all game. Otherwise, go fuck yourself.
You don't have a right to endanger my health. Government emergency powers are well established, and they exist because of assholes like you.
Fucking shameful.
Re:Doing fine here (Score:4, Informative)
Doing well here. My state is down to 7 active cases, no new cases in the last two weeks except for a new arrival in quarantine, and a worker in a quarantine hotel.
Kids have been back in school for 2 weeks, restaurants are about to open (with restrictions). Of course the state borders are closed to anyone without good reason. Air travel is down 97%. Liberties, schimberties. Keep that drawbridge up thankyou! There is a light at the end of the tunnel, if you are patient and do not let down your guard too early.
It helps to have competent leadership who started closing things and implementing quarantine in time.
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Doing fine here in WA (that's Western Australia).
Still at work (I'm in essential services, it turns out) there is more traffic on the roads than a week or two ago and pubs and restaurants are allowed to open, with just 20 customers so most won't, this coming Monday. The supermarkets didn't shut.
People here are generally keeping 1.5m from each other and washing/sanitising hands often. Flu shots are being offered and that offer is being taken up more than is usual, some employers (like mine) offer free flu sh
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Not just USA. Worth noting is that such statistical reviews have taken place in multiple countries. The FT link you provided at the bottom gives a basic summary around the world.
So the conspiracy of bankrupt hospitals holds no water given the number of countries with complete socialised healthcare showing almost identical excess mortality trends.
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I second this, verbatim.
Re:Doing fine here (Score:5, Insightful)
Doing great here in South Australia, highest test rate in the world no new cases for 15 days, down to 5 active cases. Our great universal health care helped a lot, only 4 deaths in 1.5 million people.
It’s almost as if co operating, having good free health care and staying at home works great, go figure.
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Ruff and ready (Score:4, Funny)
My wife is super-paranoid* of the virus, sleeps in the guest room, and avoids contact with me. I'm so friggen lonely I'm almost ready to [bleep] the family mutt.
* The alternative theory is that it's an excuse to avoid me. Don't want to entertain that theory.
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Vaccine will be here sooner (Score:3)
There's a world-wide race to get a vaccine so if it's possible to have a vaccine at all (there's still some open question about immune response to the virus and how long immunity might last), I think there will be large scale availability by January. Which is insanely fast for a brand new vaccine, but getting it out a few months faster means thousands (or tens or even hundreds of thousands) of lives saved world wide.
I just hope they figure out the supply chain for all of the supporting supplies by the time it's ready for mass production -- sure would suck to have a vaccine ready to package but not being able to because there's not enough glass vials to package it in.
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Regardless of when a vaccine is ready; the real test is how to distribute it to Seven Billion People.
Who will be in charge of distribution?
Who will get it first?
Who will get it towards the end of the distribution?
Who will pay for it and the logistics to distribute it?
Re:Vaccine will be here sooner (Score:4, Insightful)
Regardless of when a vaccine is ready; the real test is how to distribute it to Seven Billion People.
Who will be in charge of distribution?
Rich people.
Who will get it first?
Rich people.
Who will get it towards the end of the distribution?
Poor(er) people.
Who will pay for it and the logistics to distribute it?
Poor(er) people (ultimately through higher taxes rich people don't want to pay).
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Who will get it first?
Rich people. and inmates (yes they get better then people on the street who need the ER)
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Regardless of when a vaccine is ready; the real test is how to distribute it to Seven Billion People.
Who will be in charge of distribution?
Who will get it first?
Who will get it towards the end of the distribution?
Who will pay for it and the logistics to distribute it?
I think it's safe to say that world's wealthiest countries will be first in line for the vaccine since they will have developed and manufactured it, and unfortunately by the time the vaccine is widely available, the disease will have ravaged poor countries because their population doesn't have the luxury of using self-isolation to stop its spread, so there will be comparatively few left in those countries to vaccinate since most people will have acquired immunity by having the disease. Though maybe it's mor
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Poorer countries tend to be tropical, and with the exceptions of Ecuador, Peru, and western Brazil the tropical climate seems to cause a lower rate of COVID infection. In short, your wealth-hating diatribe of ravaging poor countries is contrary to fact.
Wealth-hating? Where did that come from?
https://www.theguardian.com/co... [theguardian.com]
If only it were true that warmer climate would stop the virus, then Florida wouldn't be gaining 10,000 cases and 60 deaths per day.
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I wonder if once a vaccine is developed though, new vaccines for the new strains will be easier to create...
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Covid-19 doesnt mutate fast and the one different strain is so slightly different that they are confident a vaccin would cover it and future ones for several years.
Not that it matter, as I predict a vaccine wont be needed by the end of the year, except maybe for future outbreaks years away from now.
We'll get immunity sooner ...or later (Score:2)
I think there will be large scale availability by January.
I don't think anyone really knows how long it will take to get a vaccine. There have been some reports that early trials of at least one of the vaccine candidates went really well and those involved said that if this holds a vaccine could be ready sooner. A few days later and it was reported than the spike protein - which is what most vaccine approaches are using to trigger an immune response - may be evolving to better infect us and this might slow vaccine development. This is part of the very nature of r
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I someone succeeds ahead of schedule, give those people the biggest fucking Nobel prize ever seen, and a free shiny 18-wheeler truck to haul it off with.
I think they will -- it will take many months to actually vaccinate everyone that needs it, but my guess is that by January of next year a vaccine will start going out to those most at risk, first responders and the elderly. Since we'll be mid-way through the flu season, I think some of the vaccine testing that normally would have been done will be short-circuited to get the vaccine out to the population that's dying.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
luck so far (Score:5, Interesting)
I have always worked from home, so no change there.
Kids are getting next to no schooling, their situation sucks the most.
Supporting local businesses, keeping up subscriptions to closed gyms.
Going out about twice a week to shop, wearing a mask. This is not a big city, not many cases.
Transferred over half of 401k into bonds.
gaining weight, eating too much, not keen to excercise over "zoom" (but my wife enjoys the yoga)
No bug out plans.
'straya (Score:3)
I live in Australia, so things are going pretty well here.
Still working from home, but we have had less than 100 deaths in the whole country.
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And in the same time span, how many less road-related deaths has there been compared to 2019? I'd bet you lost less people overall.
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https://www.theage.com.au/nati... [theage.com.au] :/
All is well (Score:2)
I'm fine, working from home, walking/jogging/biking as the weather allows.
I don't know anyone who has the virus.
I expect the economy to fully open back to normal pretty soon.
I imagine the virus will still be around but I'm not concerned at all.
Stayin' inside. (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' inside, stayin' inside
Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' insi-i-i-i-ide
Apologies to the Bee Gees.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Nearly back to normal (Score:3)
My life is nearly back to normal -- like many here, I tend to be somewhat introverted. My city/county just opened parks and trails, so my weekend hikes are back to normal. My favorite restaurants are all doing takeout, so I'm eating outside meals just about as much as before the crisis, probably a little more than usual. We don't go out to bars much, but our local brewery is still doing growler sales and some bars are doing pre-mixed drink kits.
I've been avoiding going out for groceries by using grocery delivery (and I've been tipping very well), and in my state, alcohol deliveries are allowed too, so I have pretty much anything I need at home. Haven't run into many food shortages, just a few things here or there that have been out of stock for a week.
I'm working from home, which is fantastic and I hope my company allows this long term. My wife was already working from home, so that's no different for her. My work used to bring in catered lunch, so now I'm cooking more at home, and probably eating more healthily.
The biggest adjustment is for the dog, he'd usually spend his days sleeping upstairs next to my wife as she works, now he splits his time downstairs with me or upstairs with her, and he gets to go on more walks now since both of us take walk breaks with him.
I stopped biking during quarantine, so bought a spinning bike when quarantine started, I exercise more regularly now than I did before the crisis.
The biggest omission is seeing friends in person - we'd usually go out with local friends a couple times a month and of course that's stopped, but on the flip side, thanks to video conferencing, I'm staying in touch with far-flung friends and family much more than before -- have been staying in touch with some people that I'd normally only see or talk to once a year. I usually go back home across the country for Thanksgiving or Christmas, but will need to give that up this year.
We'd canceled an overseas trip in March to see my wife's family, and probably our next opportunity for international travel will be next summer. Assuming we're able, we'll do some local car trips this summer for camping/hiking just to get out of town.
So overall I've been exceptionally lucky - I have a job and my employer is in an industry that's been doing well.
It's boring but fine (Score:5, Insightful)
We're still both employed, and our home offices continue to get quality-of-life improvements every few weeks. The gym in the basement is continuing to steadily grow bit-by-bit, and the personal trainer we used to see in person is customizing work-outs for us based on what we have for equipment.
Cooking a ton more, which is a good thing because I love to cook. It's just too easy to eat out and pay someone else to prep and clean up, so I haven't been doing as much as I should have been doing in the last few years. Home all day means I'm getting a lot more stuff out on the smoker, since normally I need a weekend to do that. A whole turkey will go out at about 1pm tomorrow, to be ready in time for dinner. We're making tons of casseroles and soups and chilis and things braised and roasted in the oven. Nicely blackened brussels sprouts, luscious caramelized sweet potatoes, amazing salads with avocados, fruit, nuts, goat cheese, pickled red onions, etc. We're eating as good as we used to in our foodie city, at 1/4 the cost. All it took was having the time and drive to make that happen.
The cats love that their people are around all the time.
The real issue is just the mental stress of both the gob-smacking idiocy of about 10% of the population and the uncertainty of when or even if we'll be going back to work in our buildings. My wife's company is already talking about remote work starting to become the "new normal", which doesn't surprise me given the expensive buildings they own. If they can get 70-90% of the work done remotely without having to pay for the infrastructure, I bet the penny-pinchers are making a stink about how much they could save on overhead.
My work is way more traditional, with a lot of paper-based management. They are definitely going to want to get us back into the building, but the good thing is that they're about all in the high risk group, so they're going to be scared to do it until this is well over. I think I'm looking at remote work until at least the start of July, but quite possibly well through the summer and into the fall. I'm hopeful that we retain at least a few days a week of remote work, as I do not want to spend every day in the ancient, appallingly shitty building I work in.
We're finally going to break 70F/20C here for daily highs, so life is going to get better with windows open and some work happening on the deck in the morning when there's enough shade I can still see my laptop. Gardens can start to go in, and we can start doing a lot more walks, hikes and bike rides, even short ones during down-time during the work day.
I miss people, but given how shitty this is for a large percent of the population, I definitely can not complain. My retirement is far enough off that I'm not stressing about the stock market, which doesn't seem to be tied to the economy anymore anyway. At some point I'm going to refinance my house, and drop 10 years off the mortgage for the same monthly payment. If you're already doing well, it's possible to come out ahead after this disaster. If you're not doing well, you're going to get repeatedly kicked while you're down.
If this doesn't cause us to demand real progressive change, like single-payer health care and UBI, I don't think anything will ever get us there. This should be the catalyst that makes everyone realize that our social safety nets are shit, our health care policies are shit, and the hourly workers are getting shit on while everyone doing well (like us) are sad that they can't completely replicate a duck cassoulet at home and are doing the math on how much they're going to save due to the low interest rates.
Your Assumptions (Score:4, Informative)
I think they're based off of watching too many episodes of Doomsday Preppers or The Walking Dead.
Things will get harder for us all, but not so quickly that there will be armed home invasions looking for cans of dogfood to bring home to feed the kids.
oops (Score:5, Funny)
Posting to remove accidental mod. Why is there no undo option?
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Posting to remove accidental mod. Why is there no undo option?
If /. still hasn’t implemented an undo-mod option, there’s no hope for a Twitter ‘edit’ feature.
Re:oops (Score:5, Funny)
They haven't added UTF-8 in all those years and you're wondering why there's no undo option?
You must be new here.
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eat, sleep, movies and being puzzled (Score:2)
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I usually look at Data every day, but sometimes I cheat and watch an episode of DS9 or Voyager instead.
Doing better than expected (Score:2)
When I saw a good computer game in the past did I always keep saying to myself, "I'll play this game one day when I have time". I never did, because there is never really time to go into a game for me. But thanks to COVID-19 am I actually enjoying myself like a kid, playing some old games.
I also buy food more consciously, because I try to use less trips to the shop in order to avoid contact. So I've begun to eat a bit healthier and am losing a bit of weight too. I even picked up with workouts and do more of
so far no problems (Score:2)
Currently, basically staying home since on furlough till June. Drawing more money from unemployment than take home pay from work. Catching up and rewatching a lot of anime. Currently, watching "That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime" again while typing this. One thing for sure, my apartment is the cleanest it's been since I moved in 10 years ago. And the mail carrier is probably tired of all the online orders I have been making. Oh yea, I lost a few pounds since I live in a small town and the rest
The Situation looks different from Down-Under (Score:4, Interesting)
My own experience and expectations contrast sharply with the original poster, probably because I live in Australia not America.
Current Situation:
1. Australia is an island with very strong border controls and mandatory quarantine measures
2. Total recorded covid-19 infection are 6,968 with 692 still infected and 97 deaths
3. State and Federal government continue to act in a timely and effective manner
My Assumptions:
1. This will be with us for at least a couple of years.
2. Vaccine will be a year or more away.
3. Most Australians will not be exposed to covid-19
4. Population and demographics will remain largely unchanged
4.1 -- Food supply is strong and will remain so
4.2 -- Dramatic reduction in foreign students, foreign workers, tourism and migration has a large economic cost
5. Fabric of Society will probably strengthen
5.1 -- Strong sense of economic nationalism that may see a return to onshore manufacturing
5.2 -- National reassesment of geo-political risks and opportunities particularly in relation to China
5.3 -- Popular mood to further strengthen the national welfare system
My Situation:
1. Staying at home
2. No wife
3. No Kids
4. No non-essential travel
5. Still smoking
6. Last filled up the car in January
7. No Bug-Out plans at all
I bought an absolutely kick ass home theater setup and have now watched the Marvel Comic Universe in it's entirety and despite my initial distate have come to appreciate the rich and complex tapestry quite unlike any other film franchise.
Alright (Score:2)
My employer fell under the scientific research category so they got to stay open. Although its mandatory work from home except for me and a handful of other hardware and tech folks. So the building is pretty empty and my commute is down to 9 minutes now. At first I was kind of excited about possibly getting unemployment and having lots of time off. But then I quickly realized I enjoyed keeping my job and getting paid. The company is very supportive overall and I'm happy to work for them.
I used to stop at my
Meh... (Score:2)
Aside from my wife really wanting to get a dog, and missing going to restaurants and bars, it isn’t a huge impact for me. I am semi-retired, no kids, but my core activities are unimpeded and the only issue I have is getting sick of my home.
The predictions / assumptions though are asenine. About 70% of the population is afraid to go out anywhere (~15-20% where I am to an extreme degree), and that is limiting R0 to something well under 1.0. I am guessing infection numbers are low by a factor of 50, a
Re: (Score:2)
Going crazy with kids (Score:3)
My life before the shelter-in-place wasn't all that different on a day-to-day basis, on weekdays anyways. The biggest change now is being stuck in the house with the kids, with nothing for them to do and nowhere for them to go. In the past, this was stressful enough that we'd always plan something to keep our sanity during school breaks. Now, somehow, we're just dealing with it. Its probably harder on them than it is on us, and they're young enough that "Zoom All The Things!" doesn't really do anything for them at all. Simply doesn't hold their attention.
The one thing we're waiting for, more than almost anything else, is simply being able to send them somewhere outside the house where they can socialize with peers and we can get a breather.
Fine, with Corrections (Score:2)
First, the correction: the Case Fatality Rate (percentage of known cases that die) is high, but the Infection Fatality Rate (percentage of total cases) is much lower, under 1% IIRC. That's not to diminish the threat of the virus, since even 0.5% deaths from the 70% of infected Americans we'd need in order to achieve herd immunity is around 1 million people, which is still a shockingly large number. It also doesn't account for additional deaths due to a collapsed healthcare system, fewer deaths due to reduce
How are you handling COVID-19? (Score:2)
Meh (Score:2)
I'm having to wait for a root canal because emergency dentist is backed up, that f'ing sucks!!! I don't like working from home, because it seems like I spend more time in meetings than ever and get less done. But, other than that everything is fine.
Tired of my own cooking. (Score:2)
I hear that Amanita phalloides are delicious, maybe I'll fry some up and see.
Living the good life (Score:3)
Working from home, more productive than I would be at work (no interruptions I don't volunteer for), excuses to not have to go out side. My employer has made it clear we won't be back in the office for at least 2-3 months, maybe longer.
I still get restaurant food as much as before, now featuring liquor! I usually pay a bit more at the local chains just because they're obviously suffering, for the big chains i'm less willing. I tip for take-out, I wouldn't ordinarily do that, I will not keep doing that after I deem the crisis over. I do not visit any store that can and should have an online presence that is basically "pick up", *except* groceries. Costco where I can, they are adhering to sensible policies. Local grocery store chain (HEB) is terrible, does not enforce anything, I avoid them in favor of Walmart or target for most things. Amazon gets the rest. I don't really like amazon, but I'm not walking into your store unless I absolutely have to, and certainly not if you are not taking proper precautions.
I engage in medical appointments sparingly. Ongoing treatment I continue for myself and my kids, provided the doctors are sensible (all of mine are more paranoid than I am, so it's not a problem). I have put off dental cleanings and what not, probably will do for another month or two, before resuming depending on the situation. Similarly regular physicals and whatever are put off indefinitely.
I have tuned out to most online forums, I've witnessed the very vocal minority screaming and yelling things that are utterly unsupported by any proven data, and I'm tired of arguing. From my perspective, based on the data, we are very much in the middle of the crisis, and have the most tenuous control. I am interested only in ideas for how to safely return employees to work, who absolutely must physically be at work. Safely first, rules and regulations first, employment second. I will support the government in whatever payouts need to happen while we re-engage. I feel this is the best, fastest way to get businesses moving, re-employing the unemployed and recovering the economy (in that order). I am frustrated with the reckless crowd, their way seems to ensure this drags on longest, with unnecessary deaths, and all of my arguments with them have been circular and nonsensical and devolve into conspiracies and jingoism.
I'm in a soldier mode (Score:2)
Keep your head down. If you have a job, do your job and do it well. Keep moving, metaphorically speaking. Don't listen to scuttlebutt. Everybody speaking in a public capacity is trying to exploit this for their benefit, on all sides, and ultimately to the determinant of The People.
I still have a job but dunno how long that'll last.
I despair at the damage done, economically.
I despair at the damage done sociopolitically. This *will* be exploited to get us closer to 1984 than 9/11 was. If you thought Geor
Re: (Score:2)
Bush was President Butthead. Trump is President Beavis.
If that doesn't scare you, you haven't been paying attention.
To the OP (Score:2)
To the OP
Current Situation
2. Wrong
3. Wrong
Death rates cannot be calculated on convirmed cases. When we very well know from dozens of serology studies that the number of infected are 10 to 50 times more depending on country and region.
Your assumptions
1. Not possible. This is not how respiratory viruses function. They go through the population and die out. Especially those that come from wild animals.
Exemple 1: SARS
Reserve: This one will last a few months longer than it should because of the confinement.
4. It
Re: (Score:2)
How about you make an argument about one of my points instead of an anonymous drive by devoid of any substance.
Non of my points above are controversial and some of them are facts with sources.
No wonder you where down voted to oblivion Mr Anonymous coward.
I'm enjoying the non-commute (Score:3)
My 4-days-a-week commute was about 90 minutes each way, and I'm enjoying not having to do that. I'm expecting this to go on for a while, given that I and my wife are both in a higher-risk group. Fortunately my web developer job can be done just as well remotely - the unanswered question is whether my boss's boss will be able to wrap her feeble little brain around that (seriously, how do seriously stupid people get in those positions?). But if she ends up having issues with it, I'm planning to push back hard.
I'd like to say I'm using that 3 hours a day productively... and I am, if you count the fact that I'm actually getting 6-7 hours sleep a night as productive. Sure beats the 5.5 I tended to average weeknights before all this...
The one thing I really need to get better at is regular exercise. My commute involved a fair bit of walking. I need to do a better job compensating for the loss of all those steps.
Re: (Score:2)
the unanswered question is whether my boss's boss will be able to wrap her feeble little brain around that (seriously, how do seriously stupid people get in those positions?).
It's called The Peter Principle.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah commuting is a terrible thing...
* Wastes your time unnecessarily (assumes your hours are worthless)
* Bad for the environment
* Increased risk of infection spreading (not just covid, but anything thats infectious) especially when using shared transportation
Jobs like web development should be remote by default. After all, it's not like you're commuting to the location of the web server every day anyway.
The more people who work from home the better for everyone.
* Employees get more free time and lower expe
Too much hyperbole ... (Score:3)
Agree with 1. But it will be localized outbreaks and waves, not like this first wave. As governments and people learn more, they will handle the following waves better. Be it because of social distancing, masks, ..etc.
Agree with 2. That is just how long vaccines take.
As for 3, social distancing will lessen the possibility that all people contract the virus. And if it happens, the herd immunity kicks in, and it will not be as scary as it is now.
For 4, this is a product of 3. If 3 does not happen, the 4 will not either.
For 4.1, 5, 5.1 and 5.2, I can't help but say this is the mind set of some Americans, and a lot of Hollywoodism. Food shortages are not on the horizon. There will be less selections, and rise in prices of some commodities (beef maybe). But nothing to the level of Hollywood post-apocalyptic movies. The fabric of society will not decay.
Rural areas, and low population density areas are largely unaffected, as long as people do not come in from outside. An example is the province of Nunavut in Canada. They have zero cases. New Brunswick, which does not have an international airport, nor large cities has been flat for weeks.
Even where I live, a tri-city area with 500,000 or so [regionofwaterloo.ca], it has been flattening for several days. The worst outbreaks were facility related (mostly long term care homes, hospitals, meat processing plants, and the like).
The danger is opening too soon, or people not distancing enough, then we have outbreaks, and need to shutdown things again, and so on and on ...
Not necessary. Again, too much Hollywood fantasy ...
same same (Score:2)
How am I doing? (Score:3)
Not much of a change tbh (Score:2)
I've been working from home for a few years now, so not much of a change there.
Both of us still employed, so I suppose that's a positive where others have not been so lucky.
We go to the grocery store about once a week.
( Other than wearing a mask. Folks seem to have finally quit hoarding toilet paper. )
The only thing that has really changed for me is we no longer eat on site at restaurants. We order
the food and I typically go pick it up. I'm trying to keep the local Mom and Pop places going as much
as I ca
turp82, CHILL OUT, okay? (Score:3, Insightful)
My Assumptions:
1. This will be with us for at least a couple of years.
2. Vaccine will be a year or more away.
3. Most everyone will be exposed or contract the virus.
4. This will cull the elderly and also low wage workers.
4.1 -- Food supply is already an issue and will get worse.
5. Fabric of Society will decay.
5.1 -- More shootings and then home invasions as people run out of survival options.
5.2 -- Local efforts have gone a long way to preventing this, but it seems inevitable to me on some level.
So, in other words, you're drunk deeply of the Blind Panic Fear Kool-Aid and are assuming The World Is Coming To An End, and it's going to be like a Mad Max movie in a few years? Seriously.
For fuck's sake, dude.. chill the fuck out. Do you really think this is the first time this sort of thing has happened in all of the history of our species? Guess what: we're all still here. The world is not ending.
But here: let me address your 'assumptions' one at a time:
1. Maybe. But again: It will not be the end of our civilization. You want to help ensure that doesn't happen? Stop panicking.
2. I'd say a year or less. There is great motivation to develop it, and there are great minds working on it.
3. Maybe. But only people whose immune systems are weak, or who have other medical problems, will die. Most will survive it and live a normal lifespan.
4. Is this something you're looking forward to happening? If so then I'd question my morals and ethics if I were you.
4.1 No, it's not, not in and of itself. People are HOARDING things, because they're panicking. Stop panicking yourself, encourage others to be calm, and that will stop. For fuck's sake farmers are throwing food AWAY because they can't get it to market fast enough!
5. BULLSHIT. In a year, most things will be back to normal.
5.1, 5.2 Encourage people to stop panicking and being stupid about this and that won't be a problem.
Now, what I've been doing all this time? Trying to live as normally as I possibly can, not panicking, not hoarding, and so on, and encouraging people to not panic, not hoard, not be stupid -- but yes, take REASONABLE precautions. We will all get through this, just like our species has got through similar things in the past -- and we have an even better chance to do that now than we ever had in the past.
By writing a parody to I Will Survive (Score:4, Funny)
But it turned out to be a new strain of corona
Then people made so many memes about the markets of Wuhan
And the new pangolin and bat trade ban
So they come back from overseas
And just walk into supermarkets bringing supply chains to their knees
I should have kept my cupboard stocked
I should have prepped preemptively
If I'd have known for the next month that people would hoard the TP
CHORUS: So no do not walk out the door
Unless you keep away from people 6 feet or more
I wasn't the one who suggested hydroxychloroquine
Did you think I'd Trumpet
That blatantly stupid advice
Oh, no, not I
I will survive
Oh, as long as I know how to wash my hands, I'll stay alive
I've got all the masks supplied
Bottles of hand sanitizer
And I'll survive
Coronavirus, yeah
I lost all the sense of taste I had from my tongue
I'm trying hard to breathe enough air with my fluid filled lung
And I spent oh so many nights reading about COVID-19
There's nothing else on the news but lockdowns and quarantines
You don't see me out for a jog
I'm not some fucked-up antivaxxer with a wellness blog
So I feel like getting takeout
Maybe pizza delivery
But now I need to go for a walk to work off those calories
CHORUS
View from the other side (Score:2, Interesting)
Things have opened back up now. Kids have recently gone back to school in my city (~2 million people) so the house is a bit quieter in the daytime now. Burnt through a bit of cash paying wages to staff that can't work but can't be fired either. Though we would have kept them anyway.
Processing all the tedious paperwork so we can reopen soon.
Noticing locals are a lot more racist now. Making sure they give you a wide berth if you're out walking about. All the propaganda th
Doing great! But a bit bored... (Score:2)
So I feel amazing. After almost a decade of a several hour a day commute, I'm in much better shape without that commute. Wife and I are home with our dogs and relaxed, happy, if a bit bored. I'm looking forward to getting back to work! This has convinced me that I'm not interested in an extreme commute any longer, but I'm not ready for retirement yet either.
My assumptions are different (Score:4, Interesting)
My Assumptions are very different - different country I guess:
1. This will be with us for at least another year.
2. Vaccine will be a year away.
3. About 10 to 15% of the global population will be exposed to and get the virus
4. This will heavily impact the elderly and those with underlying health conditions
4.1 -- Food supply will continue, but choice will be limited
5. Society will persevere in countries where there is civil responsibility and a culture of helping others.
5.1 -- More shootings and then home invasions will happen in countries where social bonds have already broken down, due to a selfish and self-entitled society.
5.2 -- Local efforts have gone a long way to preventing this, it isn't inevitable in countries that are more social adept.
6. The economic impact is going to be massive, society will have to cope by being more sharing. It will require big state intervention to sort out.
7. There is a good chance that in some countries, populism and far right leadership could get worse.
I live in the UK, the second worst effected country globally currently. Much like the USA, our authorities sat on their hands believing this wouldn't get through the bluster and bullshit - only to find it did get through, which resulted in more bluster and bullshit.
Still working, as a developer, I can pretty much work from home permanently. My company - a very large global - is doing fine.
Got plenty of food, enough backup stocks to last about a month should things go badly.
No 'bug out' space to run to - this is the UK, there really isn't anywhere to go. We don't have a wilderness. I don't expect it to come to that in this crisis, that'll wait until the climate crisis reaches the point where crops won't grow.
The society in the UK is holding together and people are caring for each other. Nobody has any guns, so gun crime is as low as it has always been. We will get through this.
No amateur dramatics this side, just a lot of frustration, boredom and of course the fear of getting Covid-19.
Working on low CO2 project (Score:3)
I am 73, right in the Covid-19 crosshairs, and I am scrambling to put together a chain of atmospheric CO2 monitoring stations and begin recording data before commute traffic bounces back to the levels of a few months ago
www.lowco2america.com
My wife (who unfortunately still commutes 40 miles 4 days a week) and my son both seem to buy groceries shortly before I go shopping. Thanks very much to them. At home, I use lots of soap and water with a washcloth usually twice a day to dissolve the corona viruses. Thanks to Pauli Thorardsen for his extraordinary series of Twitter posts explaining why soap and water dissolves the Covid-19 virus.
I look at the shelter in place crisis as a double edge sword,. I have received a gift of time to work on my CO2 project and I know there is a clear risk of death if I neglect to stay clear of crowds.
For society, I mean all of us, Remember "the power of free and Google?" This is a great opportunity undermine the fossil fuel culture by providing some free electrical energy and some free electrical transportation. This is a good time to recapitalize individual Americans to undertake new kinds of work and creation of some free food, some free transit, and some free transportation. We need to recapitalize America around limited solar electric energy. We need an instrument of payment and exchange that can structure an enterprise as fast as a cell phone text. The new businesses we need are local food gardening, local canning, local plastics recycling amd even a local electric cement kiln.
No need to panic, ideal time to plan reform (Score:3, Interesting)
We're lucky in a sense in our industry, many of us already were working from home a few days a week already, and most of us already had the infrastructure to do so setup and saw accelerated adoption. Work has been going relatively well the past few weeks during the lockdown. The biggest change for me has been that a lot of the bullshit meetings have disappeared entirely or have seen their duration cut down significantly in their online formats. Useful meetings seem to stick to the meat and bones, nice and concise.
Two weeks ago the government here (a European country) announced we'd slowly crawl out of the lockdown one step at the time, starting this week. My company started looking into how to plan a safe work environment together with building safety coordinators with the new guidelines made available. The biggest change (aside from disinfection stations, mouth masks, etc) will be to the open office spaces where safety precautions will cut the available number of desks in half. There will be a focus on working from home for most of our staff, and presence on the office will need to be planned. They're still working out how to plan presence in the office. Our current guidelines are that at least until June 8th 95% of the workforce will be working from home every day. The current changes have been announced to last at least until summer 2021 at which point they're reevaluate the situation, but it seems likely that the next 3-4 years we'll be following this kind of strategy.
The town I live in was hit hardest in this region. I went in the hospital for a follow up on my cancer treatment just as the first infections were happening in the region. The hospital had already cordoned off many of its sections, and they were well prepared, even though they didn't have the capacity needed to handle all the cases. They were able to forward patients as needed through medical transport. I've been avoiding supermarkets for the most part. Local supermarkets have been somewhat negligent in adoption of the rules wrt maximum amount of people allowed in their stores. I started shopping at smaller stores which are less busy and seem more willing to adhere to those rules, although their offering is smaller.
Two people in my family have died from covid-19, and another from a long fight against cancer. Phone conversations with friends and acquaintances seem to indicate that everyone has family members that have been seriously ill (not necessarily in critical condition) or have died. It's been difficult for many with young children, who have been juggling keeping their kids busy in a somewhat meaningful fashion while trying to get work done. For some the 9 to 5 workday has shifted to 5-10 and 13-17, trying to create a structure for their kids where they have "learning hours" and "play hours".
Many criticize our governments response as lacking, but I don't feel that strongly about it. For the most part they've consulted experts, followed the majority of their advice, sought meaningful compromise where the advice was impossible or impractical. The lockdown avoided the hospitals being overrun and avoided a worst case scenario, and now that the infection rate has dropped significantly and the daily deathtoll is slowly dropping they've got a reasonable exit-strategy. I'd say that given the circumstances the response was adequate, though somewhat chaotic due to the continuously developing situation. There's a few politicians hell bent on agitating the population into fast tracking the lockdown exit, but for the most part they're a loud minority. What's become clear is that we were ill prepared for an epidemic of this scale on several fronts, mostly the elderly care sector, and there were a lot of issues with PPE. I suppose that after all this, we'll reevaluate setting up a larger national emergency stock of PPE. A large amount of resources were sunk into emergency buying of PPE such a N95 and surgical masks, often from dubious suppliers and of equally dubious quality.
The real response will be after the health crisis h
Submitter - The Data I've Collected (Score:3)
I've been watching this daily this since March 4th, via John Hopkins data. Here's a bunch of data and a couple of graphs. Google Sheets (John Hopkins link is there):
https://docs.google.com/spread... [google.com]
60 times (6,000%) reported infected increases since March 4th is exponential and holding steady (it's sort of linear now, but overall infections increase at a decent rate - 60-80K per day).
I believe there is widespread under-reporting (China, India, Russia, probably Africa as well - infections and deaths).
I've been at home for 2 months and know 3 people that tested positive, and I don't know many people.
A lot of people die without being tested.
I think the global numbers, on a % level are probably pretty accurate on a % basis. I adjusted my numbers to hourly levels to see the pattern.
Be safe everyone.
The key solution is an effective vaccine, minimal exposure and hospital capacity. It's timing and flow. I have no doubt we will kick this, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Re: (Score:2)
I see your "Doomed!" and raise you a "I don't want to live on this planet anymore".
Re: (Score:2)
Graph is debunked pretty well in the comments.
Re: (Score:2)
Masks alone are not enough.Either wear gloves or sanitize everything you touch that someone else might touch.
Your arithmetic is baseless. Almost all COVID deaths are among old people, as are deaths generally.
Re: (Score:3)
I just can't trust people to be smart enough not to horde stuff.
So, the answer to that is for *you* to hoard stuff. Funny!
Re: (Score:2)
There's a lot of outrage at the various state governors. Mostly for arbitrary, overreaching, and nonsensical executive orders.
The president got flack for closing borders too early by some, and then flack for not doing to sooner.
What should he have done? What would you have done in his place?
Why the rage, short of Orange Man Bad?