MN Board of Dentistry just issued a "recommendation" to postpone all non-emergency treatment for at least 14 days. I guess I'll have a couple of weeks to watch the snow melt.

local af base just locked down - mission essential only and families. retirees can enter to pick up meds at the pharmacy. medical is off base.

My wife just texted me to tell me that one of her work friends just tested positive for it, and she talked to her the day she returned from leave, some ten days ago. She also said a fair bit of the other people she spent working with the last few weeks are home on quarantine. It’s getting closer to us.

quote:

Originally posted by oddball:

Very appropriate

quote:

Originally posted by AirmanJeff:

quote:

Originally posted by TXJIM:

I am not a boomer but please stow that boomer bullshit. So fucking sick of hearing that. A big chunk of the people here on this board are in fact boomers, is your intention to insult them as stupid?

Not an insult - it's simply a generational difference, no need to get your panties in a wad.

Yes, it is absolutely an insult. If you are not aware of that perhaps you shouldn't be using it.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
I mean seriously, how much toilet paper can one fit in his garage?

To answer that, we'd need to know if its a one, two, or three car garage. And if you moved the cars outside, you could fill them with TP, too.

quote:

Originally posted by Ryanp225:
For fuck sake! What are there, less than 1700 confirmed cases throughout the whole damned country and we are going to destroy 100,000's of small businesses with this silly shit?

The thing (rational) people are worried about isn't number of cases currently in the United States, it's the rate at which the virus can spread.

There were ~1700 cases on Thursday. Yesterday, three days later, there were ~3700. The spread isn't linear - just because we saw an increase of 2000 cases over the last three days doesn't mean we expect to see an increase of 2000 cases over the next three days. It's exponential - the number of cases (more than) doubled over the last three days, and we expect the number of cases to keep doubling every several days (exact estimates vary across a range of something like 2 to 8 days) until something changes. Hopefully the measures now in effect will be enough to change that.

quote:

Originally posted by Ryanp225:
Italy will fare better than we will on the long term.

Do you think that Italy has taken less stringent measures than we have? Because they haven't.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news...r-essential-services

quote:

Italy on Thursday moved to virtually bring a halt to normal life, paring the economy down to just essential services in a desperate bid to stem the advance of the deadly coronavirus.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte ordered all shops in the country to close except for grocery stores, pharmacies and few others until March 25.

Thank you Maladat. I’ve tried to explain that so many times over the last few days I couldn’t do it again

Also, the numbers are artificially low because of the lag on testing. My wife has seen patients she thinks likely have it but can’t get tested because they aren’t sick enough and don’t have the travel connection

Once this drive thru testing gets going I suspect we will see a lot of people already have it

I have been Virus Splaned to death. I don't fucking care anymore.

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Originally posted by AirmanJeff:
Not an insult - it's simply a generational difference, no need to get your panties in a wad.

Free clue: Most boomers were brought up by parents who experienced The Great Depression and WWII. I know I was. From my parents I learned what "bad" really is, that things are rarely as bad as they seem, and the value of self-sufficiency.

And you believe people like me are the primary panickers, eh?

quote:

The thing (rational) people are worried about isn't number of cases currently in the United States, it's the rate at which the virus can spread.

There were ~1700 cases on Thursday. Yesterday, three days later, there were ~3700. The spread isn't linear - just because we saw an increase of 2000 cases over the last three days doesn't mean we expect to see an increase of 2000 cases over the next three days. It's exponential - the number of cases (more than) doubled over the last three days, and we expect the number of cases to keep doubling every several days (exact estimates vary across a range of something like 2 to 8 days) until something changes. Hopefully the measures now in effect will be enough to change that.

If you look at the graph here:
https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/
and hover over a particular day it will tell you the cumulative cases to that point, and the new cases that day.
The new cases have been running around 20-25% of the cumulative cases.

Some factoids, grist for the mill. China is not unacquainted with pandemics - a short list:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30180422

From the genomics and epidemiology, this virus, without question, unequivocally and undeniably, originated in China, from the province of Hubei. It may exist elsewhere in the wild, but this pandemic started there as Ground Zero. As did almost certainly the H1N1 pandemic of 1918. During the second wave of that pandemic later in the year, China lost the equivalent of one-tenth of the population of the US at the time. I'll let that sink in - the word "decimation" refers to the Roman military practice of killing every tenth man in a cohort as punishment for failure or mutiny. The US lost only (a strange qualifier) 675,000 during the entire pandemic, or about 0.7% of the population. We were no better equipped to deal with a pandemic than the Chinese - immunilogically, medically or socially - we left them on stretchers to die. The Chinese were killed by population density and contact.

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Originally posted by TXJIM:

quote:

Originally posted by AirmanJeff:

quote:

Originally posted by TXJIM:

I am not a boomer but please stow that boomer bullshit. So fucking sick of hearing that. A big chunk of the people here on this board are in fact boomers, is your intention to insult them as stupid?

Not an insult - it's simply a generational difference, no need to get your panties in a wad.

Yes, it is absolutely an insult. If you are not aware of that perhaps you shouldn't be using it.

It's only insulting if one lets it be. Sticks and Stones, eh. Or are some that sensitive?

TP stuff is crazy. I hate to type this because I don't want to get bagged on....

Growing up in poverty there were times when we had no TP. And I was too ashamed to go to a friends house and ask if I could take a shit. The parent, if you want to call her that (her haircut appointments and clothes buying took precedence over the bills and groceries) would s steal rolls from work occasionally. But, the point to my story....when I was a kid, and I had to go #2 and we had no TP, well I'd hop in the shower and spread 'em. The shower head works like a bidet. So unless your water supply gets turned off a shower head will work in a jam.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by Ryanp225:
For fuck sake! What are there, less than 1700 confirmed cases throughout the whole damned country and we are going to destroy 100,000's of small businesses with this silly shit?

The thing (rational) people are worried about isn't number of cases currently in the United States, it's the rate at which the virus can spread.

This is why I asked Doc H what the current thinking was regarding the R0 of SARS-CoV-2. He replied current thinking suggests it's probably around 3.6. If accurate: That's more than twice as infectious as most common seasonal influenzas. Given the other aspects of this virus, that makes for a pretty potent problem that needs to be treated with respect, in my inexpert opinion.

Besides all the other issues, one that's received scant attention is the virus' probability of mutating. The more it replicates, the better the odds of that happening. Should it happen, people already infected with and having gotten over the current strain will likely be susceptible all over again.

I'm not trying to buy trouble or induce FUD. I'm just trying to explain how this thing isn't "just like a cold or the flu."

quote:

Originally posted by AirmanJeff:

quote:

Originally posted by TXJIM:

I am not a boomer but please stow that boomer bullshit. So fucking sick of hearing that. A big chunk of the people here on this board are in fact boomers, is your intention to insult them as stupid?

Not an insult - it's simply a generational difference, no need to get your panties in a wad.

Bullshit.

Boomer, used that way, is an insult. THe Urban Dictionary offers this definition:

Boomer... A slang term for Baby Boomer, often used in a derogatory manner.

If you want a phrase to describe the generation from 1947 to 1960, try "Baby Boomers" or "people 60-77 years old."

The virus isn't what concerns me, it's the amount of control over personal lives, businesses, what we can and cannot do that we just ceeded to the governments over personal responsibility.

We can claim it's the right thing, and how unsurprised we are at things that have been closed, the the fact is we'll never really know if those things did any good.

In the end if the numbers fall, it worked, and the restrictions were the reason, right or wrong, we'll never really know.

And for the future, this will be the method of control, regardless of what it does to the economy, families, or health.

And that is the part that is scary.

The human race has survivied much worse health scares, it will survive this..

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Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by PowerSurge:

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
Some of y'all are panicking as badly about the economic impact as others are about the virus, itself.

Next up: People panicking over people panicking.

The economic damage from this panic will be far worse than the virus.

Mark my words. No panic, just facts.

And as a consequence, is anyone even talking about the likelihood of a spike in suicide rates? And after we finally started to see a real drop in those rates after the terrible Obama years.

I used self check out at the grocery store with about $400 worth of food. I almost slit my wrists because of that darn self checkout thing. Does that almost count?

With all the people being sent home to work we'll see a spike in pregancies and divorces over the next several weeks/months

Probably alcohol consumption too!