D&D and the rising pandemic

[CleverNickName]

I'm taking this as seriously as I can. We aren't under an official quarantine or anything, but I'm doing a lot of no-brainer stuff just to be cautious and courteous.

• I've restructured my work so that I can attend meetings remotely, and as of tomorrow I will be working from home 4 out of 5 days a week. If I don't need to be out and about, I don't want to be.
• I've set up home delivery for three different grocery stores. It's worth the $5-10 delivery fee to not have to deal with parking, crowds, and unpredictable inventory.
• I set up a Roll20 account for our gaming session this weekend. We're going to be playing Call of Cthulhu, some of us for the first time, and we are going to be doing it 100% remotely. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions for folks who are taking their first trip through Roll20?
• I bought a half-dozen new games off of Steam. They have some truly ridiculous sales going on right now, especially if you are a fan of JRPGs.
• I put a variety of eBooks in my checkout queue at the local library. I don't quite understand how there can be a queue or even a wait list for eBooks, but here we are.
• I dusted off the old Super Nintendo and XBox and got them installed. Steam is great and all, but sometimes you need to bust out the Dr. Mario or Oblivion.
• I picked up a couple of canisters of disinfecting wipes and a couple of boxes of tissue, and refilled our medicine cabinet's supply of prescription and over-the-counter meds. I figure I'll likely catch what's going around, and I aim to be ready.
• I finally installed that new webcam I got for Christmas, and my mom is thrilled that she gets to see my face when she's chatting with me.
• And the last one is probably the biggest for me: I'm limiting my social media exposure to just one platform, and for only 1 hour a day (30 minutes in the morning, and 30 minutes in the evening). I can only take so much hype and myth in a 24-hour period, and lately I've been hitting the saturation point before I can finish my breakfast.

 

[Sacrosanct]

San Francisco just announced a three week long lockdown. No leaving your home unless it’s for a doctor, or groceries. It won’t be the last city to do so, so get prepared.

In ‘defining moment,’ San Francisco to order residents to stay home over coronavirus

Mayor announces drastic measures to curb spread of COVID-19 alongside five other Bay Area counties

www.sfexaminer.com

 

[slobster]

San Francisco just announced a three week long lockdown. No leaving your home unless it’s for a doctor, or groceries. It won’t be the last city to do so, so get prepared.

In ‘defining moment,’ San Francisco to order residents to stay home over coronavirus

Mayor announces drastic measures to curb spread of COVID-19 alongside five other Bay Area counties

www.sfexaminer.com

This is about an hour and a half from me, I'm expecting the same here soon. I'm incredibly concerned about my business, but I'm also supportive of whatever measures need to be taken to save lives.

Hopefully Congress will offer some meaningful relief to small businesses while the government is spending 700 billion on debt buying and 60 billion on airlines. We'll see.

 

[Zardnaar]

A young Zards gateway drug to D&D was Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf Gamebooks.

Zard kept his 90s stuff.

Hmmmn.

Thinking if setting up some vintage gaming. Break out the Dreamcast, Megadrive, GameCube or something.

 

[Sacrosanct]

A young Zards gateway drug to D&D was Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf Gamebooks.

Zard kept his 90s stuff.

View attachment 119960

Hmmmn.

Thinking if setting up some vintage gaming. Break out the Dreamcast, Megadrive, GameCube or something.

I literally just ordered some lone wolf books that just arrived.

 

[Zardnaar]

I literally just ordered some lone wolf books that just arrived.

Nice a did a playthrough not to long ago. Got to book 16 iirc.

Might do another one.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID19 mortality and healthcare demand published by Imperial College London on 16th March 2020. This modelling is currently being used to inform UK government policy.

In total, in an unmitigated epidemic, we would predict approximately 510,000 deaths in GB and 2.2 million in the US, not accounting for the potential negative effects of health systems being overwhelmed on mortality.​

 

[THEMNGMNT]

I live in Los Angeles. My wife and I are making decisions for our family under the assumption that those decisions could be a matter of life and death. On Friday we decided to self-isolate. I expect that in 24 to 48 hours, LA will follow SF and make "shelter in place" mandatory. The US, even with its obviously incompetent leadership, will probably follow within the week (but hopefully sooner). No matter where in the world you live, I encourage you to stay home starting today. It's the best thing you can do for yourself, your loved ones, and your neighbors. It's the best way to fight back.

 

[NotAYakk]

Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID19 mortality and healthcare demand published by Imperial College London on 16th March 2020. This modelling is currently being used to inform UK government policy.

In total, in an unmitigated epidemic, we would predict approximately 510,000 deaths in GB and 2.2 million in the US, not accounting for the potential negative effects of health systems being overwhelmed on mortality.​

And "need ICU or die" is ~5x "dead after attempted treatment in ICU".

And within rounding, every country has 0% ICUs. Our ICUs are not built for this scale of problem.

Any solution that ends with "and then almost everyone is infected" and doesn't last 10+ years, involve some new trestment, or building many million ICU respirators and blood oxygenators, gets ~5x that death rate roughly.

We fight the epidemic and win, or many, many millions die.

#stayathome - we can beat this thing. It just won't be easy.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The paper concludes:

We therefore conclude that epidemic suppression is the only viable strategy at the current time. The social and economic effects of the measures which are needed to achieve this policy goal will be profound. Many countries have adopted such measures already, but even those countries at an earlier stage of their epidemic (such as the UK) will need to do so imminently.​

What "suppression" entails (emphasis mine):

In the UK and US context, suppression will minimally require a combination of social distancing of the entire population, home isolation of cases and household quarantine of their family members. This may need to be supplemented by school and university closures... The major challenge of suppression is that this type of intensive intervention package – or something equivalently effective at reducing transmission – will need to be maintained until a vaccine becomes available (potentially 18 months or more) – given that we predict that transmission will quickly rebound if interventions are relaxed.​

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