Camping now illegal in much of Utah

[oldschool]

The endgame for our government officials is to get reelected. To that end they cannot take huge steps all at once before the people (like you) think it's necessary. It's also legally hard for them to, for instance, put all of Colorado under house arrest and try to get it out of here, and it wouldn't even work when the rest of the country isn't acting and can still just bring it right end.

The endgame for our country is to find and isolate every single case in the country and get it out. We're working up to this by letting it spread as much as we can at the start (basic math suggests 70k-1 million infections currently) until it's no longer necessary to have a huge argument every time you want to convince someone to do anything about it, then isolate everyone for 6 weeks, then go out and test every single person in the country. There are other endgames, but none of them even bear talking about: watching 1-10 million people die as we have a 60-90% nationwide infection rate is bad enough, but we have no idea if catching the virus even gives you long-term immunity (for most coronaviruses it doesn't). All third world countries are going to go into those other endgames: sitting at home, watching people die, waiting for a vaccine, hoping you can't catch it a second time before that vaccine comes out.

Comparing this to the flu is asinine. 100 million people are going to die.

As for why we let 15000 people a year die from the flu, that's just stupidity on our part. And it contributed to this problem, because even now most sick people have the flu, not COVID-19. But whatever measures we take to contain coronavirus - which is almost infinitely more contagious than the flu - are going to eradicate flu as well, at least in the short term.

If you go ANYWHERE, self quarantine for 14-21 days when you get there.

It's a shame you chose to include me in your snide ass remark "To that end they cannot take huge steps all at once before the people (like you) think it's necessary." I never said or even remotely suggested that any of the current restrictions being taken were good or bad, warranted or unwarranted.

I wasn't "comparing" it to the flu. My main point was why don't we, as a Country, take the same precautions with the flu.

100 million deaths huh...time will tell but I respectfully disagree.

[XterraRob]

The endgame for our government officials is to get reelected. To that end they cannot take huge steps all at once before the people (like you) think it's necessary. It's also legally hard for them to, for instance, put all of Colorado under house arrest and try to get it out of here, and it wouldn't even work when the rest of the country isn't acting and can still just bring it right end.

The endgame for our country is to find and isolate every single case in the country and get it out. We're working up to this by letting it spread as much as we can at the start (basic math suggests 70k-1 million infections currently) until it's no longer necessary to have a huge argument every time you want to convince someone to do anything about it, then isolate everyone for 6 weeks, then go out and test every single person in the country. There are other endgames, but none of them even bear talking about: watching 1-10 million people die as we have a 60-90% nationwide infection rate is bad enough, but we have no idea if catching the virus even gives you long-term immunity (for most coronaviruses it doesn't). All third world countries are going to go into those other endgames: sitting at home, watching people die, waiting for a vaccine, hoping you can't catch it a second time before that vaccine comes out.

Comparing this to the flu is asinine. 100 million people are going to die.

As for why we let 15000 people a year die from the flu, that's just stupidity on our part. And it contributed to this problem, because even now most sick people have the flu, not COVID-19. But whatever measures we take to contain coronavirus - which is almost infinitely more contagious than the flu - are going to eradicate flu as well, at least in the short term.

If you go ANYWHERE, self quarantine for 14-21 days when you get there.

It's going to be okay.

[timisimaginary]

I went to look at the flu. I know, I know...the percentages of death to ill numbers are much lower...nonetheless, please bear with me. IF the end goal of our Country and Government is to keep as few people as possible from dying (again, a good goal) then why do we (as a Country, Government, Municipalities) "allow" 61,000 people to die from the flu? (see quote below) I truly am not trying to be naive nor am I naive..but I am confused. Why doesn't our Country, our Municipalities, our Government take the same precautions and put in place the same restrictions and closures for the flu as is being done now? Surely if we did much less people would die from the flu.

we don't "allow" people to die from the flu. we give people vaccines to prevent it. and if people get sick of the flu, sick enough to need treatment, they are hospitalized and treated. we don't force people to get vaccinated, if we did, there'd be fewer deaths. we do force, or try to force, vaccinations for other diseases because they would be much deadlier if they ever got out of hand. the 61,000 (or whatever number it is in any given year) is how many people die despite our best efforts. and we accept it because it is a manageable number. it is the number we end up with when vaccinations, and acquired immunities by the population as a whole, and adequate treatment with our current available health care resources are taken into account. as a society, we've accepted that 60K or so deaths a year is not enough to warrant taking more drastic measures that would cripple the economy or impinge on our freedoms. just like we've accepted the over 1 million deaths per year worldwide (37K in USA) for car accidents as an acceptable price to pay for the convenience of being able to drive.

so the question is, how many deaths are we willing to accept from COVID-19 before deciding to take drastic, economy-crushing actions to prevent or minimize them? hundreds of thousands? millions? with the measures we are just now taking, all the things that are being shut down, we'll probably have hundreds of thousands of deaths before this thing is over. without taking those precautions, it will be in the millions. is it worth an economic slowdown to save a couple million lives? that depends on your definition of the value of a life.

[XterraRob]

we don't "allow" people to die from the flu. we give people vaccines to prevent it. and if people get sick of the flu, sick enough to need treatment, they are hospitalized and treated. we don't force people to get vaccinated, if we did, there'd be fewer deaths. we do force, or try to force, vaccinations for other diseases because they would be much deadlier if they ever got out of hand. the 61,000 (or whatever number it is in any given year) is how many people die despite our best efforts. and we accept it because it is a manageable number. it is the number we end up with when vaccinations, and acquired immunities by the population as a whole, and adequate treatment with our current available health care resources are taken into account. as a society, we've accepted that 60K or so deaths a year is not enough to warrant taking more drastic measures that would cripple the economy or impinge on our freedoms. just like we've accepted the over 1 million deaths per year worldwide (37K in USA) for car accidents as an acceptable price to pay for the convenience of being able to drive.

so the question is, how many deaths are we willing to accept from COVID-19 before deciding to take drastic, economy-crushing actions to prevent or minimize them? hundreds of thousands? millions? with the measures we are just now taking, all the things that are being shut down, we'll probably have hundreds of thousands of deaths before this thing is over. without taking those precautions, it will be in the millions. is it worth an economic slowdown to save a couple million lives? that depends on your definition of the value of a life.

While the numbers provided by the CCP are highly suspect, China recorded 3,237 deaths. That's with their extremely dense population centers and less-than-good healthcare system (as well as their authoritarian tactics for quarantine). To say we'll have hundreds of thousands or millions of deaths would be a stretch unless it mutates into the Progenitor Virus.

[highpilgrim]

While the numbers provided by the CCP are highly suspect, China recorded 3,237 deaths. That's with their extremely dense population centers and less-than-good healthcare system (as well as their authoritarian tactics for quarantine). To say we'll have hundreds of thousands...

^^ He's not a doctor, but plays one on the interwebz.

Btw, the new cases are doubling, every other day. We had 1800 new yesterday and 2500 new today with 8 or so hours left to count. All this with no widespread testing being conducted.

While I don't believe jdorge's contentions, I believe your drumpfian minimizing is premature.

A useful website: https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en

[justiner]

I gotta stay in my lane on this one (I walk fast and writer good - sometimes).

But, listening to the experts being interviewed on NPR, this isn't a small thing and treating it as a short-term annoyance is not the correct response IMHO. I would consider the idea that we're all grieving of the loss of a normal way of life, and we're all going through the stages of said grief.

Many of us are in the, "denial" stage.

[OldTrad]

I gotta stay in my lane on this one (I walk fast and writer good - sometimes).

But, listening to the experts being interviewed on NPR, this isn't a small thing and treating it as a short-term annoyance is not the correct response IMHO. I would consider the idea that we're all grieving of the loss of a normal way of life, and we're all going through the stages of said grief.

Many of us are in the, "denial" stage.

+1

[XterraRob]

^^ He's not a doctor, but plays one on the interwebz.

Btw, the new cases are doubling, every other day. We had 1800 new yesterday and 2500 new today with 8 or so hours left to count. All this with no widespread testing being conducted.

While I don't believe jdorge's contentions, I believe your drumpfian minimizing is premature.

A useful website: https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en

I know you don't agree with me HP, but it's going to be okay.

Here's another interactive site if you're interested: https://covid19info.live/us/

[OldTrad]

^^ He's not a doctor, but plays one on the interwebz.

Btw, the new cases are doubling, every other day. We had 1800 new yesterday and 2500 new today with 8 or so hours left to count. All this with no widespread testing being conducted.

While I don't believe jdorge's contentions, I believe your drumpfian minimizing is premature.

A useful website: https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en

I know you don't agree with me HP, but it's going to be okay.

Here's another interactive site if you're interested: https://covid19info.live/us/

I don’t know if that site is one of them, but DO NOT visit any purported site like this unless you know for a fact that it’s legit. There were several articles in the news today indicating that several of these sites are being used to spread malware.

For now I’d recommending sticking with the Johns Hopkins or NY Times sites

[justiner]

This site is amazing. It uses the John Hopkins data, as well as the WHO (as options)

https://observablehq.com/@elaval/corona ... -evolution

[XterraRob]

For now I’d recommending sticking with the Johns Hopkins or NY Times sites

It's fine.

[highpilgrim]

I don’t know if that site is one of them, but DO NOT visit any purported site like this unless you know for a fact that it’s legit.

I've been using this one for a week with no obvious issues. It was given to me by a research doc, but your point is well taken. I'm having a tech guy look at it, just in case.

Thanks.