And that’s truly sad that people are so short sighted. 2 months -vs- potentially their life or the life of a loved one that they’ve exposed asymptomatically.
It’s truly sad to watch but i view it as thinning the herd. More air for the sane if they take unnecessary risks (hair, nails, bar, gym, CHURCH, etc.) and reap the consequences.
I’ve definitely seen a wide variety of responses from people, as I’m sure most have.
The people I know who have absolutely hunkered down and won’t touch their mail until it has sat in their garage for a minimum of seven days seem to be getting more and more fearful the longer they stay isolated and watch 24/7 cable news.
There are the people who have started going out to stores more often, but shop at smaller local stores, go during off-peak times, wear masks and are armed with hand sanitizer. I’m in this camp.
Then there are the people who have continued hanging out with friends and having playdates for their kids. I have a friend (medical professional) who maintains that the longer we hunker down away from each other, the sicker Everyone will be upon reopening because everyone is losing regular immunity to GI bugs, colds, etc since we’re so uber-sanitized and isolated.
I view the pandemic as the run-of-the-mill assigned high school group project. You have your diligent group leaders who carry the team, the compliant people who don’t innovate, and the slackers who don’t even show up. We’ll all get the same grade in the end, and it’s not fair, but it’s always this same mix of people.
We are in the same camp that you are in. My wife is the only one that goes out and she’s armed with her mask and hand sanitizer for anytime she has to touch something like a gas handle, shopping cart, etc.,
This has always been my wife’s and my view:
When I went around two months ago to my neighbors’ houses to explain that my backyard would be closed to neighbor kids until we get to the other side of this thing, some agreed readily and some looked at me like I had seven heads. Our yard had been the gathering place for 11 neighbor kids prior to Covid. I’m not going to be the conduit for other people getting it or spreading it.
@jag1 You may not know about that inconsequential old document called the US Constitution, ( because it’s not taught in schools anymore) but some “troglodytes” still take it very seriously. Second Amendment rights included. They see their Right to make a living being trampled by government gone awry.
Did you ever learn that old saying “Give me liberty or give me death”? Maybe the American spirit of Thomas Payne is still alive.
This comment, like yours, belongs in the politics category because you are pushing an agenda. And your protestations prove it. Now, just stop it and accept that this is not the proper place.
Since we want to talk about data, this is from the CDC and shows the excess deaths as predicted from Coronovirus compared to the expected death rate in the US. I hope that many of you understand that while this infection is serious (it is) it also isn’t decimating the US in the way it is often being portrayed. We are talking about a sad event, but the excess deaths according to the CDC are approx. 55,000, out of an expected 330,000 deaths expected over the last 6 weeks. You can see it in comparison to a tough flu season in 2017-2018.
Keep in mind it takes 2 weeks to see these trends and since many states are just now opening up, let’s look again in 2 weeks, 4 weeks, etc., The numbers are as low as they are BECAUSE of the social distancing. Since that’s ending, we can expect these numbers to continue rising.
Flu and Covid-19 shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same breath imo. The morbidity rate between the two is nowhere close - and reports are surfacing of some states not even accurately reporting their morbidity rates from Covid correctly due to politics.
The Golden Rule! 
In my family’s industry, it’s turning out that many of our coworkers had Covid in February before we knew it had landed domestically. Their symptoms from then plus positive antibody tests make a post-Covid diagnosis credible.
This thing has been around here longer than we knew. I agree reopening will increase positives. But it remains to be seen by how much and to what total detriment of the population. I think 45% of positives in my state’s recent public health study were asymptomatic. This thing can be devastating, but isn’t devastating to everyone infected. Or even a majority from what I understand.
Flu and Covid can be mentioned in the same breath, comparisons are good they help people understand things. Covid appears to have 5-8 times the morbidity as the flu. I find that to be a quite reasonable way to view it. It certainly isn’t 100-300 times the morbidity that was originally predicted.
Also in the graph above there is no Covid count (just an estimate), it is just a count of deaths and the CDC has been collecting the data for a very long time. So I do think it is a reasonable way to view and compare things. You are correct that the Covid number may jump around a bit, and the total death count will adjust slightly as different states report, but I do believe the death numbers are accurate.
Right, we should not overstate the impact of the virus. The director of the infectious diseases institute in my country showed a similar graph today. However, he noted two important differences between Covid and the 2017-2018 flu season. First, the Covid peak is much sharper and second, there are way more ICU admissions due to Covid.
All very valid points.
Per dr birx… they have a “very liberal” methodology of what they’re counting as covid deaths… in other words a significant percentage of the deaths being counted as covid would have died in this timeframe regardless.
It’s very hard to really get an accurate count of deaths caused by a virus, particularly one that is most harmful to the elderly and unhealthy…
A source I trust much more than the current CDC:
Interesting, because your source agreed with me. If you would like the individual studies recounted that agree with my position, I can offer that as well. Suffice it to say, Covid is easier to catch than the flu and has a higher death rate than the flu, that is exactly why it such a great comparison, because we experience the flu every year and so people are familiar with it.
“Columbia University recently estimated that only 1 in 12 cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. are documented, which they said would translate to an infection fatality rate of about 0.6%”
Edit - 0.6% is 6 times the fatality rate of the flu which runs about 0.1%, which is in the middle of the range I quoted previously.
passing someone for like a 10 second period is not a significant issue IMO
@ClaudnDaye Your signs are inconsequential to this discussion and rather childish in outlook. This is not a situation in which you turn the switch on or off, there are certainly steps in between.
I remember telling you once that you’ve probably never owned a business. Your adamant responses here only further prove that.
I didn’t link my article to agree or disagree, only cited a source I trust more than the current CDC. As long as we are agreed that Covid is much more serious than the flu, then we’re saying the same thing. Many people out there are living their lives like Covid is just the flu…it’s a lot more contageous, it’s a lot more deadly and there are a lot more long-term issues that stem from it.
Currently, the good news is that right now they believe they have a hospital model that can predict who will die within 10 days with 90% accuracy, which will help them treat the correct people and possibly reduce that mortality figure further. This is similar to the approach that revolutionized the treatment of sepsis.
