Frightening. ☹️

Absolutely

My husband and I have already discussed this very situation. If our death is inevitable, please hasten our deaths, and use limited medical supplies for someone that has a chance of recovery.

I sure hope Americans are learning how interconnected we are and how the adage of "It's not hurting anyone" is RARELY true. Selfish hurts many others every time!!!

And just where is someone to go? Everything is closed. You have no choice but to stay home.

Well, I dunno. According to news accounts, there were 100's of people having fun on SoCal beaches over the weekend.

Beaches, parks, restaurants...still tons of people out and about living normally and risking other people's lives.

Laguna Beach yesterday:

Selfish, selfish people.

People here were taking their children to playgrounds in parks over the weekend and they were filled with people. Our mayor asked this morning what the people were thinking then threw up his hands. Our parks especially those with playground equipment are for the most part not fenced.

I think it's going to take people losing loved ones to finally take it seriously. And by that point it'll be very hard to slow down.

My uncle just drove to another state for vacation and is complaining that things are closed. A friend posted that he should be home and he said "don't tell me you drank that koolaid too!"

It really angers me because he's a caretaker for my medically fragile grandparents. :( If they die because of his carelessness I will never forgive him.

Britain instituted tighter restrictions today. I think they follow what Germany and France have done.

"Because the critical thing we must do is stop the disease spreading between households. That is why people will only be allowed to leave their home for the following very limited purposes:

• shopping for basic necessities, as infrequently as possible;
• one form of exercise a day – for example a run, walk, or cycle – alone or with members of your household;
• any medical need, to provide care or to help a vulnerable person; and
• travelling to and from work, but only where this is absolutely necessary and cannot be done from home.

That’s all – these are the onlyreasons you should leave your home."

I suspect these rules will be implemented in the US.

This is what I was trying to say before, and I got shot down. There are only so many beds and personnel to take care of the patients. Medical personnel aren't going to magically appear, even if it's life-threatening. I wouldn't want to have to make the choices they're making now.

Part of the problem is that the list of essential workers that have to go to work. “Essential businesses and operations” also includes a lengthy list of exemptions, including: stores that sell groceries and medicine; food, beverage and agriculture; organizations that provide charitable and social services; religious entities; media, gas stations and businesses needed for transportation; financial and insurance institutions; hardware and supply stores; critical trades; mail, post, shipping, logistics, delivery and pick-up services; educational institutions; laundry services; restaurants for consumption off-premises; supplies to work from home; supplies for essential businesses and operations; transportation; home-based care and services; residential facilities and shelters; professional services; manufacture, distribution and supply chain for critical products and industries; critical labor union functions; hotels and motels; and funeral services.

The heck of it is though as these young people run around infecting themselves and hopefully surviving it, they will help build in herd immunity sooner so in that sense, they're taking such a personal risk is helping all of us be better off in the long run.

I'm not saying I agree with it, but it will be a consequence of their behavior.

Annie, they're also spreading the virus -- too fast for our medical system to keep up with. So NO we will NOT all be better off. NOT EVEN in the long run. What are the survivors going to do for medical care when all the doctors, nurses and health care givers are gone?

I put in a request to have my mail forwarded to Cathedral City, but since I wanted a temporary forwarding, I had to put an end date, and so I chose May 30. The Sony lot is closed until further notice (at least until April 19 - probably longer), and so Kevin will be working remotely during this time. I wish we did not have to go back to get our medications, but that is something we absolutely need. We'll be in L.A. for two days, and we won't need to go to any stores or leave the house while we are there, but we do need to come back to Cathedral City to wait this out. I think it will be a lot easier for us to maintain social distancing here, and I've heard it's been crazy in L.A. I'm not looking forward to going back, but I will bring some of my plants back with me - especially some of the orchids and bromeliads, so that I can take care of them here and have flowers.

Permit Walmart, Target, Sams, and Cosco to ONLY sell food, cleaning supplies, necessary paper products, medicines and tools. Then you'll see a lot more people staying home.

Pretty terrifying indeed! There is some truth in what Annie says, controversial as that is. I heard that is kind of like what England is following.

In the US, the average viral flu season begins by end of October, and extends through March; with a peak usually occurring during several weeks in January or February. In China, we know that despite their recent extensive efforts; Covid-19 has been in play for months. Most people in the US do not have the luxury of staying home for 4-6 months.

There are over 30,000 known cases of Covid-19 in the US at present. We know that represents just the tip of the iceberg of actual current cases, as well as thousands of possible cases existing here before we even began testing. There are nearly 400,000 "known" cases in the world. That means likely millions are infected yet untested. We are way, way, way beyond controlling the spread of this virus by self-quarantining for 2 weeks. We absolutely can slow the curve, and the burden on our health system by practicing good hygiene and care. But, for at risk populations, your very best protection is to isolate and sanitize for several months; while the rest of us get sick and get through it.

These are terrible decisions to have to make--but you could likely see health care, and the general population suffer far more death, suicide, disease, and poor care through a depression economy than through this virus. Healthy people need to be at work. Children need to be in school. churches and charities need to be able to support and care for those already suffering physically and emotionally from the economic fall-out already in play. And yes, I am working very hard to protect my family, and those at risk in my own circle--and pray constantly that they will be well.

Annie, Ladydi- not really.

If you didn't read the article nickel posted the other day, it had some very good information. I'm copying and pasting below the relevant part.

Herd Immunity and Virus Mutation

The idea is that all the people who are infected and then recover are now immune to the virus. This is at the core of this strategy: “Look, I know it’s going to be hard for some time, but once we’re done and a few million people die, the rest of us will be immune to it, so this virus will stop spreading and we’ll say goodbye to the coronavirus. Better do it at once and be done with it, because our alternative is to do social distancing for up to a year and risk having this peak happen later anyways.”

Except this assumes one thing: the virus doesn’t change too much. If it doesn’t change much, then lots of people do get immunity, and at some point the epidemic dies down

How likely is this virus to mutate?
It seems it already has.

This graph represents the different mutations of the virus. You can see that the initial strains started in purple in China and then spread. Each time you see a branching on the left graph, that is a mutation leading to a slightly different variant of the virus.

This should not be surprising: RNA-based viruses like the coronavirus or the flu tend to mutate around 100 times faster than DNA-based ones—although the coronavirus mutates more slowly than influenza viruses.

Not only that, but the best way for this virus to mutate is to have millions of opportunities to do so, which is exactly what a mitigation strategy would provide: hundreds of millions of people infected.

That’s why you have to get a flu shot every year. Because there are so many flu strains, with new ones always evolving, the flu shot can never protect against all strains.

Put in another way: the mitigation strategy not only assumes millions of deaths for a country like the US or the UK. It also gambles on the fact that the virus won’t mutate too much — which we know it does. And it will give it the opportunity to mutate. So once we’re done with a few million deaths, we could be ready for a few million more — every year. This corona virus could become a recurring fact of life, like the flu, but many times deadlier.

Some who choose to refuse to maintain 6 foot horizontal separation from others ...

... may come to have a 6 foot vertical separation forced upon them ... after the funeral.

Most of us figure that being above the grass is preferable!

o j

Prez is bored with the virus. Wants everybody out and the country "open for business" again. HE thinks country can do two things at once, be open for business and contain virus. And he knows because he's "a very stable genius."

God help us.

Texas-gem, does the mitigation strategy presume fewer deaths overall than a "do nothing" strategy? My thinking is that it would only save those who need hospital intervention, get it and survive because of it....the idea is to keep medical treatment capacity from being overwhelmed. Also, the later you acquire the disease, the better shot you have at reaching a treatment/cure or vaccination for it. But I'm not sure that the mitigation strategy does anything to stop the number of people who acquire the disease...only a vaccine could do that.

Have you'all thought about what permanent isolation would look like in say 6 months or a year?

What percentage of the population would be unemployed when almost all commerce is halted? Would the unemployment rate be 50%, 60%, 80%?

And the majority of the unemployed only have a few months savings to live on and they would have no options for gaining employment, so crime skyrockets because they need essentials such as food but have no legal source of income to pay for it.

And all these unemployed people are no longer paying taxes so the government is running out of money and a great way to conserve their resources is to stop all entitlement programs. The elderly and disabled will no longer have Social Security checks or medical insurance. Guess they will be living off of their savings too.

Reality has to set in at some point...

Read the article (The Hammer and the Dance) again, all the way through to the end. "The Hammer" refers to the early stage of the epidemic, when containment measures can have the most effect, buying time to figure out how to SAFELY RELEASE the containment measures. (That stage is called "the dance", because the epidemic won't magically go away, ever. It can only be monitored, measured -- and controlled by less stringent, less across-the-board measures.) It will take time, not be easy, no shortcuts.

I firmly believe we must deal with the epidemic first, then I firmly believe we must deal with economic security for all.

eta: perhaps President Trump is jumping the gun, looking forward to the next "dance" stage. Yes I want to get there too, but taking shortcuts to get there will backfire and cause many otherwise preventable deaths.