We're going to see situations where someone's loved one dies and a survivor assaults someone they know who ignored the warnings.

People who ignored the warnings deserve to get their ass kicked.

I think when the dust settles we will see a lot of animosity and blame directed at the people who didn't take this seriously.

Hogwash. We need to stay above this level of ageism nonsense. Literally every 60+ I know - including multiple who had the amazingly poor judgement to vote for Trump - is taking this seriously, self-isolating, rescheduling stuff on their own when they can without having to be asked to etc. This isn't a generational issue, it's a some people are self-absorbed jerks issue. My personal observations in my area are that the only people I see refusing to observe social distancing at all in any form are those around 30 who apparently think they're immune or something. This isn't making me go off on millennials though - they are just people making bad, selfish decisions.

Totally agree here, all day long.

You don't think they initially bought into Fox News and Trump downplaying this whole thing? They may be taking it seriously now, but it took a long time to get there and caused a lot of damage along the way. I completely agree with you that at this point you're just a fuckwad if you aren't on board.

Trump just put the responsibility for testing and medical supplies onto governors.

First, I think it's clear social distancing works (atleast to a point). But these comparisons to 1918 are apples to oranges. In 1918, there were 4 million cars in the US (there are 276 million now). People didn't travel a ton and most families involved the dad working and the mom staying home with kids. If you social distanced, you were pretty much 100% secluded. Houses were far from each other, traveling was more difficult, schools were smaller and the mom was already used to providing for the family.

That's nothing like 2020. Even a perfect social distancing "plan" will be nowhere as effective as it was in 1918. Most teenagers can hop in a car right now and drive to the next state. Mass transit systems in Boston, NY, Seattle, Chicago, San Fran, Portland and DC make it almost impossible to fully social distance if you are still working. Comparing the social distancing effects of 1918 to 2020 would be akin to comparing the ease of communication from 2020 to 1918. Not even close

Yes, I've heard you on here many times, you just wish we'd all stick our face in a bowl of coronavirus and get it over with. I got it.

Not at all. I'm 100% for social distancing and think everyone should take part. I just take issue with the idea that it will be as effective as 1918. That's just not feasible given our society.

But that in no way means I think we shouldn't try. I just think we need to have more reasonable expectations other than that graph for 1918. It will help, but it's not going to be as effective.

Damn.

I don't think people over 60 are a hive mind. I'm sure some listened to Fox News. I'm sure many more didn't. Lumping them all together is just intellectually lazy.

Definitely agree with Arles on the 1918 comparison. This isn't the same world as that. One of the consequences of the inevitable, unstoppable globalization in modern society is more and worse pandemics.

Sorry finally felt the need to respond since the majority of your posts are about Fox News which you seem to spend a lot of time obsessing over. Hindsight is great for everyone but jesus man two weeks ago you were debating (with a large portion of the board) whether to go on vacation to Cancun. You were downplaying it too, everyone was. Stop with the uneccessary politcial division in every one of your posts.

There are selfish 20 year olds, selfish 50 year olds, selfish 80 year olds, selfish democrats, selfish Republicans, selfish libertarians, selfish whites, selfish blacks, selfish atheists, selfish jews...

Old people don't all watch Fox News. My parents are 80ish and have been progressive their whole life. They're hunkered down, though my mother did deliver toilet paper to a bunch of people in her church.

Grocery store workers in Minnesota classified as emergency workers | TheHill

With some of the abuse I am seeing and hearing being directed at grocery store workers, it's the least they can do.

Agree.

Its these hyperbolic, out-of-context assumptions that I'll continue with (and try dream up of others) the Bernie is a socialist-commie-lover-deadbeat-dad-and-husband-7-bills-in-29-years-itwasntmyfaultiwasabumuntil41,itwasthesystemholdingmeback tirade.

How exactly is debating something downplaying it? If fact it is just the opposite.

If I was saying I was going no matter what that would be downplaying it.

Jesus, he doesn't even know where the hot counties are located.

My birthday is coming up next week and I've asked my family who seems intent on buying me a gift (which, IMO, is a little silly amid all this) to buy me gift cards to local restaurants. Not only will that give my wife a nice break from cooking every meal, but it will help get some cash to these businesses who need it badly right now.

My apologies for coming across as overly political. I will attempt to control it.

This is insane.

Dude every one of your posts in about being intellectually superior to people who watch Fox News. And if you go back to the beginning of the thread nobody thought was is happening now would be happening. Nobody, quote a post from early March that proves otherwise. It's not fox news fault.

And I'm not a Trump supporter either and I like you a lot. We have kids about the same age and have always liked your posts I just think it gets old hearing about Fox News when nobody thought this would happen. And honestly we still arent certain if this county will be Italy, South Korea, or something way worse or something a whole lot better.

...

My girlfriend was supposed to be off this week, on vacation in California. Instead she's working long shifts at Whole Foods every day. Yesterday she trained 10 workers on something she had just been trained on an hour before. And she's unloading trucks and getting paid separately by Amazon for that (since it's through Prime delivery). Amazon gave a raise to full-time employees that are carrying extra duties. We all know the evils of Amazon, but I think there's something to be said for the role of corporations in a crisis. They can deliver services in ways government cannot. I think private industry has hugely outperformed government so far.

She says most customers have been very polite, but a handful aren't handling the stress well and take it out on whoever is around them. But, foot traffic is down considerably since earlier in the week, as Amazon is still churning out the grocery prime deliveries.

And the way she likes to relax is cook, so, when she gets home, with whole foods groceries, she goes to town and we've been eating like kings.

I'm very much in awe of her this week. I hope I can take her on an even bigger vacation when it's all over.

I'm finally working from home but the job is basically the same either way - just writing appellate briefs. Our support staff is still at work regular hours, because they can't really work from home and the government has to churn on. I'm in awe of them as well. (Though they probably enjoy having the big office space to themselves).

I'm going to say I called it on the below post on 2/21. I will say that I never expected the US to be 3-4 weeks delayed in getting test kits/results.

Yeah I followed up also. I need to stay off twitter and social media probably took more out on you. Just think it's a given that Trump sucks but think the social distancing is being ignored by all parts of society.

Too much Trump talking in today's conference (and don't see Fauci). There was a press person that tossed him a soft ball question.

They should have 2 conferences, one for the real info, status updates and another for Trump to blabber on.


Trump said Carnival (?) was offering use of their cruise ships. I like the idea assuming I get a room with a view and balcony.

Two young men from my office (early 20's) were supposed to go to a wedding in Florida this weekend. That got cancelled. So they decided that they are still going to go to South Carolina to do some spring break shenanigans. Boss told them they are morons and not to come into the office for two weeks after they get back. They are mostly out in the field so they can still work but he did want to slap them upside the head for being stupid.

The ship is for the Google engineers working on the COVID website.

150 deaths / 8898 confirmed = 1.7%

No breakdown of demographics in below report.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/19/healt...day/index.html

Italy has now passed China for number of deaths.

Indiana's governor just closed all schools until May 1. There goes softball season. :(

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/19/81819...ts-on-covid-19

To be safe, let's not vote for any Republicans at any level of government for the next 500 or so years until we can figure out what's going on with them.

My 70 year old mom who hates trump and never turns on fox news is being her normal, erratic, irresponsible self. I don't speak with her anymore for my own well being but have been keeping up with my sister closely and trying to help her to get mom in the right mindset. Last Friday she wanted to go to urgent care for allergies. Sister is trying to help her get a bunch of groceries so mom doesn't have to go anywhere, mom is resisting in all kinds of strange ways, and is likely to just go out and run 20 errands as soon as she feels up to it. In addition to being 70, she's a poorly controlled diabetic, and has had 3 or 4 issues in the past that took a whack at her respiratory system. Her level of risk is completely off the charts, and there is zero way to get her to give a shit about it.

I'm with those who say you can't trust numbers out of China as far as you can throw them, but no question Italy's a horror show right now. I honestly expected the lockdown over there to have more of a mitigating impact.

I've read with the virus incubation period it'll still be another week or so before new case counts reflect measures taken. I think the key to follow is new cases per day. If that levels off, good news.

Wow what an unusually large cluster in that area, right near New Orleans. How many weeks since Mardi Gras? 2 to 3 right? pic.twitter.com/xC5883H898

— Mister AntiBully (@MisterAntiBully) March 19, 2020

We should be doing everything in our power to setup as many "drive up" testing spots as it humanly possible right now. Just getting the people who go through 7 hoops to qualify is nearly useless. We need to find out if some cities have massive sections of their population walking around/going to work with the virus.

My understanding is that we don't yet have enough test kits available to make that viable. I 100% agree that's what we need to do, as in two weeks ago, but until we have the capability to sustainably test at volume it's really not something we can do.

The consensus seems to be growing that testing on a massive scale is the key to mitigation short of a complete lockdown (which is impossible anyway).

The only question is when (if ever) we will be able to do it.

Yeah, later they said it wouldn't be for patients, so I have no idea what the point of this would be.

What I heard is it would be for non-coronavirus patients so it frees up hospital bed space.

The existence of this thread is an indication. The very first sentence is:
Infectious disease experts have been sounding the alarm since January. Did we 100% KNOW then what would happen? Of course not. We still don't know what our future holds. But what we are seeing today is not a surprise to scientists and was a probable outcome. They had been telling us. People didn't want to believe the experts.

Terrible news in FL. Residents in 19 long-term care facilities have tested positive.

Worth bringing this back up at this juncture, especially in light of the Burr revelation. My friend is a run-of-the-mill private practice doctor, not particularly well connected, relatively young (late 30s/early 40s,) and basically everything medically that he said would happen has happened. I didn't want to say it at the time, because honestly I thought folks would think he was a quack or overreacting, but at that dinner, everyone was required to wash their hands before serving themselves, before getting seconds or refilling drinks, and before leaving the house. The kids weren't allowed to get their food themselves at all, including his 12-year-old, even, because he didn't want any of them in the kitchen.


And again, this was just a regular ol' unconnected doctor. It's certain that those higher-ups in the CDC and elsewhere had more info than he did. It's becoming more and more impossible to believe that high-ranking officials didn't hide this information. They knew they should have taken action earlier.

One week is way too short, it's 14 days to not have caught it plus 14 days to develop symptoms. Results of measures won't show up until at least 4 weeks after the (semi) lockdown starts.

See post #39 back when the first hearings were happening.

Or post #51.

#57
#61
#86
#93
#112
#119
#123
#133
#139
#151
#165

But, you're right, none from early March. All of those are from February.

We're going to do a dick measuring contest about who the most pessimistic was? Great!

And congrats to anyone that was fired up about people dying that you need to brag about that now. I've noticed that some people seem super excited about worst-case scenarios.