Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

will anything change your mind that this is not like the flu?

 

nope. because it is. you can call it all you want as it seems titles matter but the effects and the outcome appear the same with only one big difference. People care more about the deaths of a well advertised virus versus a much more deadly flu. Seems dying requires the proper marketing company to be relevant.

 

can you really believe anything that man says anymore?

 

Lost Sense of Smell May Be Peculiar Clue to Coronavirus Infection

Lost Sense of Smell May Be Peculiar Clue to Coronavirus Infection

 

Why are my replies requiring moderator approval? Am I on opinion watch? What's the point in responding if the post takes 2 days to be seen?

 

my response will show up once it gets approved by a moderator because for some reason..I replied. Anyway, think about it like this.
New Orleans gets 20" of rain over 3 days then suddenly a Tropical Storm forms and dumps more rain. Then the well produced and yet less devastating Cat 1 hurricane hits them. What you would have is the hurricane given credit for mass damage simply because the underlying cause were already in place.

 

Today's total dead was 112. 58 in New York alone. Terrible.

 

none so blind as those that refuse to see. I guess you believe that all the doctors, virologists, epidemiologists, and infectious disease specialists are wrong and you are right. Not sure what else to say to you except good luck with that

 

The narrative on the site everyone references says 420 total and 117 new. If accurate that’s an increase of almost 39%.

 

Why Covid-19 is worse than the flu

Why Covid-19 is worse than the flu, in one chart

 

Sometimes it’s because of a link. Sometimes a flag word. I’ve gotten it more than once with innocuous posts. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Usually, we see eye to eye, but you're way off the reservation here, my friend. We aren't anywhere near the peak of this thing. The best experts in the world have a consensus, and they're all warning us of how deadly this can be. We all saw what happened and is happening in Italy. Imagine if they had ignored it and not locked everything down. They won't reap the rewards of that lockdown for some time, but you're simply in denial here.

 

I don't know what else to say to convince you other than I hope you to look to the experts and try to understand how they understand this outbreak. It's basically a polar opposite of your attitude toward this pandemic.

Anyway, here are some of the sources that have heavily informed my opinion, especially about this outbreak.

Watch and listen to what Dr. Fauci has said in his many public comments and interviews.
Check out the video that @96Gatorcise posted here or where @gator_lawyer linked to the youtube version.
Watch this intertview by Joe Rogan of Michael Olsterholm, one of the country's leading epidemiologists.
Follow some epidemiologists and serologists and others on twitter. For instance, Mark Lipsitch, Nicholas Cristakis, and Adam Kucharski.
There are many many others.
Read through what you can on the CDC's website about pandemics. A wealth of information that can help you understand why novel infectious disease outbreaks are fundamentally different than ones that we know and understand already.
Read the following books:
Plagues and Peoples by William H. McNeil
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston
Spillover by David Quammen.
Here is a nice journal series by the BMJ for healthcare professionals that goes through ins and outs of epidemiology.

I swear that if you keep an open mind about all of this as I think you will, you will likely be thinking differently. Maybe you won't be in agreement with me or others thinking similarly, but if I were a betting man, I'd put my money down that you would.

 

This isn't the first doctor saying that our numbers (even the number of deaths) are severely under-reporting how bad things are:

 

The flu pushes hospitals to the brink in bad years. What do you think will happen when you throw in thousands more sick people on top of that? The systems breaks down. There won’t be enough doctors, nurses, beds, or supplies. It’s not like hospitals sit empty waiting for sick people. Have you ever met a healthcare professional that wasn’t super busy? He’ll they make friggen movies and tv shows about it. It’s an insanely busy profession and you think a few thousand more sick people all at one time is no big deal? Anyone who thinks that is just plain stupid.

 

Governors and mayors in growing uproar over Trump’s lagging coronavirus response

But the growing gulf between the White House and officials on the front lines of the pandemic underscored concerns in cities, states and Congress that Trump does not have a coherent or ready plan to mobilize private and public entities to confront a crisis that could soon push the nation’s health-care system to the brink of collapse.

“We’re all building the airplane as we fly it right now,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said on ABC’s “This Week.” “It would be nice to have a national strategy.”

Uncertainty prompted by the Trump administration’s statements abounded amid the rancor. Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Peter T. Gaynor said Sunday the president has not yet invoked the Defense Production Act, which would allow the government to order companies to ramp up the production of ventilators and protective masks, among other products.

Gaynor’s remarks directly contradicted what Trump told reporters on Friday, when he said he had “invoked” the law and “put it into gear” — and were coupled with vague optimism about corporate America’s ability to do what is necessary without being compelled by an executive order.

“We haven’t yet,” Gaynor said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” when asked whether Trump has ordered companies to make supplies. He described the Defense Production Act as “leverage” as the administration moves forward and said, “If it comes to a point we have to pull the lever, we will.”

 

Dear God, I hope this isn't true:

 

No.

Your 'joke'- "Blue staters don’t care about red staters.

What better way to limit conservatives then have them die off."

Though there is truth in that comment in this context on this post it is a deflection just as your brief question

No. It's a deflection

And no, you are not "hitting yourself between the eyes."

By casting yourself in the role of the victim (a conservative) and declaring "Blue staters don't care about red staters" you malign those who hold political views opposite yours through the ugly implication they wish death to red staters. Then you deny those ugly implications and try to make them acceptable or excusable through the disclaimer - just kidding..

This transference of attitude is known as psychological projection and we see an awful lot of it on this board.

"Psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. Psychological projection involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings. Have you ever disliked someone only to become convinced that the person had a vendetta against you? This is a common example of psychological projection. "