Flu

[malleefarmer]

Fact is nobody really know jazz, we can all cut and paste etc but nobody has any idea except it’s spreading and fast.

Did watch fox and is it cnn this morning for a bit and both were quoting same 3 plus% figure.

6 months time will possibly be a non issue.

Good news here finally fuel is starting to fall down around 20 cents per litre over last two weeks

[biglentil]

Hospital in Washington state scouring face masks from contruction sites already. Talk about looking foolish, health care professionals earning large salaries that have had 2 months to get prepared.



Not sure if the virus has mutated but the Italian strain appears to be extra virulent and deadly. 27% case mortality is a long ways a way from 3.6%.

[malleefarmer]

This is one of the more rational intelligent posts I’ve seen from NAT

Hi All,
Haven't posted in here for awhile. Some might remember I farm and also am on 2nd term as a county commissioner in Eastern Washington state. Also have a biology degree and married to a Veterinarian. None of it makes me a doctor and I AM NOT PRETENDING TO BE ONE HERE, but it does put me in the middle of a lot of information streams. None of what I write below is saying we should panic. I'm trying to give a good summary of the reality of our situation regarding Corona Virus as I understand it and what I am saying is don't expect this to be a non-problem here or elsewhere in the world. We'll get through it, but it will take a bit longer than normal flu. It is NOT bubonic Plague or Ebola-which kill lots of people who get it! It is more serious than the common cold or average non-virulent flu we normally see.

So "basic biology"--why would corona virus (Covid-19) be different for us to experience than the flu. The real basic reason, as someone probably mentioned elsewhere, is that none of us in the U.S. have ever had this disease. Flu of one type or another most people have seen. If we get a new flu that jumps from birds or mammals to humans, it usually is a more severe flu which might resemble this outbreak-but that depends on how "new" the flu is to our body. With Covid-19, none of us have an immune system tuned to respond rapidly to it and be ready to quickly shut down the disease replication process inside our body. Each flu shot gives you exposure to different types of flu based on what they thought 6 months ago would likely hit and basically "primes" your immune system to respond, as does having the actual flu a few times throughout your life. So most people get over flu and death rate is low unless you have other vulnerabilities (weak immune system, dehydration, exhausted body that can't respond to virus attack). No vaccine is available for Covid-19 because it is a new corona virus to humans that makes us sick. The testing, until the last few days, had to be done at the CDC Federal lab because they had to 1) develop a test and 2) strictly operate the test process so you didn't get false negatives or false positives-they needed true answers with low error rates. It looks like that test process is standardized now and the ability to test is rapidly spreading to state health department (since late this week) and soon to hospitals. I'm sure private companies are working to be certified to sell the test equipment and test kits.

Next step-Corona virus seems to attack the respiratory system harder than the flu normally would. A lot of the people who have got the full blown Covid-19 get admitted to hospitals for IV's and supportive care. They get really sick and then they recover. Young people seem to not get it too bad, the guess is because they have robust respiratory systems and immune system. Most of the people in Western Washington dying from it are elderly, in a nursing home, with weaker health. Many are surviving it too.

So we have a new virus, with limited or no immunity in our population and no vaccine. What else is a new problem: Asymptomatic carriers==people who don't get sick but spread the virus. This is suspected because of people having no contact with someone who turned out to be sick. It is something they are still researching but believe to be happening. It is tough to control disease if people don't show the signs when they spread it. How do you combat that? You decrease the size of your gatherings so fewer people would get the disease during each transmission event. That doesn't mean you stop the transmission in the long run through our whole population, but you intentionally slow it down. This decreases the peak number of people getting sick all at once (they get roughly same number sick but spread out over a longer period of time). Why do this---your hospital can only handle a certain number of really sick people at one time. You overwhelm it and you can't provide the critical care to really sick people and more people die. That is why State government agencies, universities (University of Washington is doing only online class for the next two weeks-they are in Seattle), Boeing, Insurance companies, etc... are stopping travel or limiting it to critical people only. That is why big gatherings are being voluntarily cancelled because normally people would come from all over the country or world and then go back. If a few people come who are sick but don't know it (or don't get sick until they arrive) you multiply the rate of spread.

At this point, where it has spread to lots of places across state and country, we're probably not going to be doing much more official quarantine. CDC sent out a notice that they are stopping the cell phone text response tracking requirement for people suspected of having it. I infer that means we have enough cases in enough different places we aren't going to stop it by quarantine anymore. If it were necessary to quarantine an area, you can bet the national guard and other military would be called upon to shut down all movement into and out of an area. As an aside, The Board of Health at local level with recommendation of public health officer(Dr.), and state level with state health officer have legal power to do this and require law enforcement to enforce it. Federal government could get involved too. Just think about Foot and Mouth disease in Europe quite a few years ago-it can be done and that was only animals. Something that threatens human life severely (like Ebola) would have an instant lock down. I don't see this type of quarantine being likely anymore-but I suppose a real Hot Spot could trigger a local event.

How does this translate to the economy. Well the obvious issue in China was too many sick people at one time to run factories or dockyards. Samsung just shut down factories again after reopening them. Didn't see details but probably a resurgence of sick people. Beef, Pork and Chicken is not getting exported in a timely manner from west coast because of ability to unload ships in China in a timely manner and people to move food around in the normal speed of commerce. I'd think about Italy and other European countries with weak economies also. Heard that Boeing has only a few people delivering a new plane to customer now rather than usual whole sales crew that would go with pilot crew. This decreases risk to the company's operations (fewer potentially sick employees) but also decreases airline ticket sales to airlines that fly the group back. Airline industry estimate is for $69B-115B decrease in ticket sales worldwide. Southwest is estimating $200 million in 1st quarter.

The end result is a slowdown, not a full stoppage, in our economy. Fuel, food and labor for airline use will decrease and feed down chain. Hotel rooms and conference centers will not get expected revenue and workers will not be as busy. I agree below regarding most people's savings and capacity to not earn money. I was talking with our HR director, most people don't have enough savings to last past their normal twice a month paycheck.

We'll get through this, but it will be a factor for a few months at least.

[sawfly1]

Death rates are probably a function of
How many people are tested.
And CNN explains it that way too.
Even if it is 0 .67% , it is still bad .
Who knows the next one to come along
Could be 4%.
As for shortages of equipment.
Masks , suits etc.
Apparently things are not that good in Sask
Either.
Do not know if it is from budget cuts
Or what?
Maybe this go round and experience
Will prepare us for the big one.

Might change folks attitude when it comes
to health care costs. Preparedness. Esp. Considering we
Only spend about 55-60% of what the American's do.
Stop being so dam cheap.





.

[jazz]

If you know enough about a discovered virus to give it a name, chances are you should be starting the vaccine research at the same time. Probably dozens of these sitting in test tubes and nobody doing anything.

Anyway, this has been in the MSM for 60 days and I heard china knew about it in early Dec. 3 months of transmission and 3400 people dead. If this thing was really going to take off, you would see stadiums of dead people.

And very little transmission in non Asian, non ME populations. Some genetic anomaly making those groups more susceptible. But we cant report the infections by race because that would be racist.

Looks like china was overly precautious because of their experience with SARS and then our MSM latched on to blow it out of proportion.

[biglentil]

If you know enough about a discovered virus to give it a name, chances are you should be starting the vaccine research at the same time. Probably dozens of these sitting in test tubes and nobody doing anything.

Anyway, this has been in the MSM for 60 days and I heard china knew about it in early Dec. 3 months of transmission and 3400 people dead. If this thing was really going to take off, you would see stadiums of dead people.

And very little transmission in non Asian, non ME populations. Some genetic anomaly making those groups more susceptible. But we cant report the infections by race because that would be racist.

Looks like china was overly precautious because of their experience with SARS and then our MSM latched on to blow it out of proportion.

Jazz the theory that it is less dangerous in non Asians was debunked over a month ago. Did you have a look at my above post about whats happening in Italy? Over 3000 cases now 61% of cases hospitalized 27% case mortality. Their 1st case was only a little over a month ago. 40% of the city of Tehren is said to be infected by the end of the month. North America is littered with cases and many thousands are now in quarantine. Lots of ignorance out there, few seem to understand the implications of such a virulent exponential growth curve . Have you ever lit up a field of flax straw bunches? Not much seems to happen for the first few minutes, we are still in that first minute metaphorically. As a society we are in for a rude awakening.

[macdon02]

https://youtu.be/UDY5COg2P2c

If snowed in, this weekend, give this a watch. Found this video interesting, scared the shit out of me tbh. Was looking for similarities to today, that have happened. Oddly enough it mentions widescale killing of dogs because it was believed they were carriers, what did i hear on radio yesterday? "Dog carries flu virus but not affected", who got the idea to test dogs? Did they watch the same video and decided to test fluffy? History repeats when least expected. It also mentioned the first round wasnt as bad as the second. It'll come in waves. Next winter could be the time for concern rather then immediate timeframe? How does one react next year if you thought March 2020 was the big one and it turns out a dud? Complacent? It gets exhausting mentally, prepping for imminent destruction. Save the resources for the appropriate time. Being early has it downfalls. It'll be really hard to convince the family to self isolate if you get a reputation for crying wolf. I thought it was the real deal to start with, and then I didn't. Things are not adding up in my mind at present. The wife and kids started laughing among themselves when i said "get ready", 2 days later Health Canada said the same as it got into Italy. No more giggle. Fear sucks us in and it sells. Imo stay cognizant but don't treat it as a non event.

[bobofthenorth]

I predict this flu will quit killing people in about 2 months. Started early Dec, 3 months in now, 5 months total, maybe 6 months max. That's about the average lifespan for anything made in China.

[malleefarmer]

Wow population explosion in Italy in nine months time


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51787238 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51787238

[biglentil]

Wow population explosion in Italy in nine months time


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51787238 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51787238

Nine months? A month ago they had just a couple cases.

[jazz]

And to think, I had some of my city friends say once we should get everything from china including our food.

Oh and to think, our woke idiots trespass on NA farms to protest animal agriculture. Look how animals are treated in the rest of the world. I wish I could slap every one of those woke fks personally.

[GDR]

Nine months? A month ago they had just a couple cases.

I think you missed Mallee's point on passing the time. I'm thinking a quarantine might not be all that bad!😉