D&D and the rising pandemic

[Sadras]

nvm

 

[Umbran]

I wasn't mocking them.

Mod Note:
Per The Rules, do not argue with moderation in-thread. If you feel a need to discuss it, please take it to a private message.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Point of info: “pandemic” has a specific definition. The situation we are in with
Covid-19 meets it,

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

 

[Morrus]

Human trials on the U.K. vaccine start on Thuraday.

Coronavirus: UK vaccine to be trialled on people from Thursday — Sky News

Clinical trials of a coronavirus vaccine will begin on people from Thursday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said.

apple.news

 

[MoonSong]

O.O° Ok, I'm shutting in inside the dresser and never going out again...

 

[FrogReaver]

This is not helpful discourse.

And just as importantly what he said was against the forum rules

 

[Eltab]

[Oops! posted as mod posted. I can delete if this violates the mod?]

I've seen a couple reports (some posted upthread) that coronavirus infections could be far more widely spread-- and therefore much less lethal-- than initially thought. I've seen critiques of some of these referencing the questionable reliability of the tests, but even so, a more than order of magnitude difference from initial estimates is a pretty eye-popping claim.

But my question is:
How does this claim square with how the thing has exploded in NYC or Italy, and very clearly overwhelmed medical systems? How does a new virus that is "only as dangerous as flu" generate such massive numbers of critical patients and deaths?

My point is just this: even if the lethality number is lower than anticipated, there still appears to be something about it that makes it worth worrying about. (Sorry, I have exactly zero of the proper vocabulary or knowledge to ask these questions more clearly.)

I'm going to use RPG terms for a moment, hoping to communicate by analogy, not be flippant.
If you are the guy who rolls a '1' on your Corona Save, yes it is dangerous. If you have any or many of the several risk factors that give you a penalty to your roll, yes it is dangerous. But some people are looking at it as "Roll better than a '1' on d%? Yah, hand me the dice. I can take those odds." If you and your social circle are all in the 'young healthy' demographic, you aren't a threat to them. If you think you got it earlier at the "nasty flu bug" level, past experience leads to the conclusion you are Corona-resistant.
All of this may turn out to be false later on. But right now we have some knowledge to work with and some gaps where we have to 'rule-of-thumb' it and take our best guess (as in the Star Trek IV scene).

The lockdowns and stay-at-home orders are A tool to get a handle on the situation, not THE tool, nor THE ONLY tool, to get a handle on the situation. To borrow from Jim Collins' book "Good to Great", we need to find a 'both-and' answer, not an 'either-or' answer. How can we be safe and get work done? How can we get more people out to be a positive help to relief efforts, to supply chains, to the 1001 things that have to be done, be reinforcements for exhausted personnel? Instead of telling them that they are dead weight, a danger to everybody around them, useless, unwanted?

My own fear is that the discussion on 'what to do and how to do it?' will turn into a "Who's in charge here?!" contest with Smart People and Trained Professionals ignoring or denouncing all concerns coming from outside their own sphere of knowledge.
We just saw in MI a silly mistake that blew up into a shouting match, when the Governor forbade the sale of garden seeds just as planting season has arrived. Mother Nature runs on her own schedule, not ours, and getting in the way of that never ends well. Based on experience with other diseases, I posit the hypothesis that eating fresh fruits and vegetables are an immunobooster and will help slow down the spread by depriving Corona of easy victims. Lift that ban and encourage otherwise-unoccupied folks to plant gardens; it is something.

There is another ticking timer running in the background that worries me. Weimar Germany's hyperinflation began when the government, for reasons that seemed good at the time, told millions of workers to stay home from work and collect unemployment. You can read a history hook to see what happened next. Two years later, money was worthless and everybody was poor. That length of time is too close to "maybe 12 - 18 months to a vaccine, if everything goes well" for my comfort.

The US response to COVID so far has been marked by being taken by surprise at the beginning and flailing at the symptoms since. Defensive and even passive - fortress mentality - a sense of "hope it will pass" and "somebody else has to do something about it". I want to see a serious counter-attack on the germs. Push will all due speed towards a vaccine but having one is not a precondition for action, drugs that work made available for doctors to prescribe, factories Stateside converted or rehabilitated to make the gear we use every day and the biotech we need for research (and treatments and cures and Corona-resistant-boosters). A real plan to deploy all that idle manpower as an aid in the fight; they may not go back to the old job but doing something that says "I'm a part of this too". And importantly, something like FDR's ringing clarion call the day after Pearl Harbor: "...with the unbounded determination of our people, until we gain the inevitable victory, so help us God. "

 

[FrogReaver]

[Oops! posted as mod posted. I can delete if this violates the mod?]

I've seen a couple reports (some posted upthread) that coronavirus infections could be far more widely spread-- and therefore much less lethal-- than initially thought. I've seen critiques of some of these referencing the questionable reliability of the tests, but even so, a more than order of magnitude difference from initial estimates is a pretty eye-popping claim.

But my question is:
How does this claim square with how the thing has exploded in NYC or Italy, and very clearly overwhelmed medical systems? How does a new virus that is "only as dangerous as flu" generate such massive numbers of critical patients and deaths?

My point is just this: even if the lethality number is lower than anticipated, there still appears to be something about it that makes it worth worrying about. (Sorry, I have exactly zero of the proper vocabulary or knowledge to ask these questions more clearly.)

Was New York medical system actually overwhelmed? All the evidence I'm seeing is that it didn't actually get to that point (thanks to social distancing of course)

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

I'm going to use RPG terms for a moment, hoping to communicate by analogy, not be flippant.
If you are the guy who rolls a '1' on your Corona Save, yes it is dangerous. If you have any or many of the several risk factors that give you a penalty to your roll, yes it is dangerous. But some people are looking at it as "Roll better than a '1' on d%? Yah, hand me the dice. I can take those odds." If you and your social circle are all in the 'young healthy' demographic, you aren't a threat to them. If you think you got it earlier at the "nasty flu bug" level, past experience leads to the conclusion you are Corona-resistant.
All of this may turn out to be false later on. But right now we have some knowledge to work with and some gaps where we have to 'rule-of-thumb' it and take our best guess (as in the Star Trek IV scene).

The lockdowns and stay-at-home orders are A tool to get a handle on the situation, not THE tool, nor THE ONLY tool, to get a handle on the situation. To borrow from Jim Collins' book "Good to Great", we need to find a 'both-and' answer, not an 'either-or' answer. How can we be safe and get work done? How can we get more people out to be a positive help to relief efforts, to supply chains, to the 1001 things that have to be done, be reinforcements for exhausted personnel? Instead of telling them that they are dead weight, a danger to everybody around them, useless, unwanted?

My own fear is that the discussion on 'what to do and how to do it?' will turn into a "Who's in charge here?!" contest with Smart People and Trained Professionals ignoring or denouncing all concerns coming from outside their own sphere of knowledge.
We just saw in MI a silly mistake that blew up into a shouting match, when the Governor forbade the sale of garden seeds just as planting season has arrived. Mother Nature runs on her own schedule, not ours, and getting in the way of that never ends well. Based on experience with other diseases, I posit the hypothesis that eating fresh fruits and vegetables are an immunobooster and will help slow down the spread by depriving Corona of easy victims. Lift that ban and encourage otherwise-unoccupied folks to plant gardens; it is something.

There is another ticking timer running in the background that worries me. Weimar Germany's hyperinflation began when the government, for reasons that seemed good at the time, told millions of workers to stay home from work and collect unemployment. You can read a history hook to see what happened next. Two years later, money was worthless and everybody was poor. That length of time is too close to "maybe 12 - 18 months to a vaccine, if everything goes well" for my comfort.

The US response to COVID so far has been marked by being taken by surprise at the beginning and flailing at the symptoms since. Defensive and even passive - fortress mentality - a sense of "hope it will pass" and "somebody else has to do something about it". I want to see a serious counter-attack on the germs. Push will all due speed towards a vaccine but having one is not a precondition for action, drugs that work made available for doctors to prescribe, factories Stateside converted or rehabilitated to make the gear we use every day and the biotech we need for research (and treatments and cures and Corona-resistant-boosters). A real plan to deploy all that idle manpower as an aid in the fight; they may not go back to the old job but doing something that says "I'm a part of this too". And importantly, something like FDR's ringing clarion call the day after Pearl Harbor: "...with the unbounded determination of our people, until we gain the inevitable victory, so help us God. "

Thanks, that's a very thorough overview of the economic concerns. And believe me, as someone who was caught unawares in between jobs and homes by this thing, I'm more than a little stressed about how business fares in coming months, if only for personal reasons.

My question, though, has to do with the medical issue, not economic or policy ones. Specifically, how do these reports that Covid are less lethal than originally thought square with how the pandemic has unfolded in places like NYC or Italy, where the disease slammed the systems in place, quite unlike seasonal flu?

If those high infection rates are correct, those numbers are suggesting that it's not especially dangerous, yet it also causes big spikes of critical cases? I just don't understand how that can be, and I'm curious to hear an explanation for it.