Coronavirus

I think you should expect to see some perfectly fit 40yr olds falling foul of this virus. There may be a lower chance for fatality, the fitter you are but it certainly is not 100% safe. Outliers on the stats will take out some fit people.

Interestingly, the UK stance is NOT Boris Johnson's idea but is the direct advice from the top health professionals in the country. The current approach is the tactic they recommended for the UK. Whether it is more effective than shutting the borders has yet to be proven.

Schools in my county closed for at least 2 weeks. No word on my job thus far, beyond them offering 2 weeks paid sick leave for people exhibiting flu like symptoms. Which is nice, but not as proactive as it might be. Probably the best you're going to get from a big chain retail Operation though.

Uba --

That's an impressive level of absurdity. "Sorry, you're out of sick leave, bring the infectious disease to work. No exceptions!"

ThirstyMan wrote: Interestingly, the UK stance is NOT Boris Johnson's idea but is the direct advice from the top health professionals in the country. The current approach is the tactic they recommended for the UK. Whether it is more effective than shutting the borders has yet to be proven.

I'll mention that all the cases in the local area are from Americans traveling abroad, not foreigners coming here. The new restrictions don't keep U.S citizens out, and they aren't being tested on the way back in. So I don't know how closing the borders is going to help in our case. I think it's more about blaming those damn foreigners so that "it's not our fault" from our leaders sounds more plausible.

I'm sorry.... you have a type of leave called FML?

ThirstyMan wrote: I think you should expect to see some perfectly fit 40yr olds falling foul of this virus. There may be a lower chance for fatality, the fitter you are but it certainly is not 100% safe. Outliers on the stats will take out some fit people.

That's the thing with flattening the curve. Everyone still has to get sick. Everyone. We just want to make it so the severe and critical cases don't overwhelm medical facilities AT ONE TIME. The only way we could forgo everyone eventually getting it is if we develop a universal corona vaccine that somehow hits all the mutations. Best case scenario that is 12 months away, which gives this strain a chance to mutate. Actual eradication was only possible last December/January, but the Chinese didn't accomplish that. For "social distancing" to work properly we still get a lower 1% death rate, but we drag it out for six months instead of one. It is stupid that companies don't have any plans cognizant of this reality.

The thing about China. They have managed to stamp out the virus (except in Hubei) at great cost to their economy, culture, and human rights. However they didn't manage to cure or eradicate it. It's going to leak back in after they reopen the factories. WTF are they going to do then? Another three month quarantine of their whole country? Right now they are the same as any other country the virus hasn't taken hold yet. I don't know why the WHO praises them, they effectively did nothing except delay the problem until the future.

Lastly, Chinese studies let us know 80% of cases were mild. However they define mild a bit differently than us. So long as you didn't need oxygen or a respirator you were mild. You could be in a world of pain, but as long as you suffered at home you were mild.

Let us hope there is a "cure".

Here's some interesting visual aids to help explain the advantage of social distancing:

www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/wor...D4lwwTO2qlRhv76_ub9Q

Well, local schools just closed for two weeks. The governor has announced that school funding will continue so teachers will still get paid.

I’ll be homeschooling my kid I guess. My wife has been sending me a bunch of age-appropriate class schedules.

Is the two weeks most of us are talking about enough, or should it be much longer? It seems like whenever people are allowed to move about freely again we'll run up against the same spike in that curve.

Leaked document from the UK government estimates this could be ongoing until Spring of 2021. Guessing about a dip in July until it comes back strong in October.

I don't know see how we could keep this up until July.

It’s hard to predict. It will probably come back in waves until there’s a vaccine.

I think at this point the USA is going for herd immunity like the UK whether we want to or not. Our response has been too slow and by the time the Wal-Mart brand testing kits are available it'll be everywhere.

Massachusetts Governor has ordered all schools to close, no gatherings over 25 people, and restaurants are delivery/takeout only. No time limit yet.