Western world has lost its mind

[Snowy79]

[OnMyWay]

2 hours ago, Gary D said:

The purgold supermarket was quite busy although not manic. We often shop at Royal but beginning to see how much more expensive they are. Items can be two or three pesos cheaper across the road at the big Puregold. Discovered at Royal you have to really watch the offers, they will often mix non-offer stuff in with the offer items. Last visit we bought some calamansi concentrate and the small bottles worked out cheaper than the big bottles per ml. Also I bought a triple pack of Maltesers and the pack in the middle of the three was a smaller size, Milk, they had the cowsdale on buy one take one but you had to read the sign carefully as it wasn't all the varieties on the offer pallet that were on offer.

I agree that Royal is not the cheapest place to shop, but they have all the stuff we need and in normal sizes.  We go to Pure Gold quite often too but they don't have a wide variety of the stuff we need, and some of their things are in large sizes we don't need.

[manofthecoldland]

I find this hard to believe:

My wife just got a text from a friend in Estancia, Iloilo that her trike driver husband is temporarily out of work since they're not allowing trike service to supposedly help with the quarantine/transmission effort.

I told her..... sure..... better to have the entire population face malnutrition, lack of meds, safe water purification access etc., then risk getting a virus of unknown threat proportions. NOT !

Apparently the medieval solution appeals to a certain group of very frightened people, i.e., we all totally self isolate, eating whatever we can get our hands on or living off of body fat reserves and drinking risky water while waiting for the infected ones to all die off so their bodies can be incinerated.

I hope that it hasn't come to shutting down to all local public transportation systems on every level, seeing that there isn't any sign or confirmation of widespread or even any proven disease cases here.  So.... the world is now expected to stop functioning because of a 1-3% selective mortality threat ?  

The real threat comes from the inability to detect and confirm suspected carriers and then isolate and treat accordingly. The governments' inept politicians and public health protectors bear responsibility for this debacle.

At least Taiwan got it right, early on.  (See Youtube vid in re)

IMHO    

[BrettGC]

Given that the evidence suggests that the virus does not do well in warmer climates,  it could be that as the northern hemisphere moves into its warmer months and the southern hemisphere cools down with the seasons, we may see a swing from North to South in the coming months;  yes it looks like it will be at least a couple of months if not longer that it will be around.

Here's a link to a site with purely hard numbers with regards to infection rates/deaths by country.  No conjecture, no predictions. Scroll down to see by country data, some surprising statistics: 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

SARS had a mortality rate of around 15% before it mutated away from humans, if it hadn't mutated we would have been in a lot more trouble than we were at the time.  Additionally Infection rates were much lower than COVID-19.  We can only hope that Corona mutates in a similar fashion even with it's much lower mortality rate - approximately 5% - and it ends sooner. But who knows?  People that have spent their entire adult lives studying such matters are still pondering these things right now and don't have any answers.  

Edited March 15, 2020 by BrettGC

[manofthecoldland]

3 hours ago, manofthecoldland said:

The governments' inept politicians and public health protectors bear responsibility for this debacle.

I should have been more selective and not tarred all with the same brush. I apologize since certain governments have, indeed, responded properly.  But not mine..... the USA.  Nor, initially, the CCP government which didn't allow for timely transparency re the global threat.

Sorry to mention the political aspect, but 3 of my expat friends here didn't show up for the regular meet-up and have isolated themselves from public contact.  But they are sending their Pinays to the markets. Go figure.

[Marvin Boggs]

4 hours ago, manofthecoldland said:

I find this hard to believe:

My wife just got a text from a friend in Estancia, Iloilo that her trike driver husband is temporarily out of work since they're not allowing trike service to supposedly help with the quarantine/transmission effort.

I told her..... sure..... better to have the entire population face malnutrition, lack of meds, safe water purification access etc., then risk getting a virus of unknown threat proportions. NOT !

Apparently the medieval solution appeals to a certain group of very frightened people, i.e., we all totally self isolate, eating whatever we can get our hands on or living off of body fat reserves and drinking risky water while waiting for the infected ones to all die off so their bodies can be incinerated.

I hope that it hasn't come to shutting down to all local public transportation systems on every level, seeing that there isn't any sign or confirmation of widespread or even any proven disease cases here.  So.... the world is now expected to stop functioning because of a 1-3% selective mortality threat ?  

The real threat comes from the inability to detect and confirm suspected carriers and then isolate and treat accordingly. The governments' inept politicians and public health protectors bear responsibility for this debacle.

At least Taiwan got it right, early on.  (See Youtube vid in re)

IMHO    

It strikes me that both Taiwan and Hong Kong tackled the virus effectively, without a lot of overblown nonsense.  Taiwan didn't even use travel restrictions within the island. Think of how densely packed HK and Taipei are.  Just goes to show what level heads can accomplish.

Current Flu deaths in the US this year are at 22,000, just to remind everyone about the other virus that kills people.  No one runs around with their hair on fire screaming about the flu though.   

 

[hk blues]

6 minutes ago, Marvin Boggs said:

Iurrent Flu deaths in the US this year are at 22,000, just to remind everyone about the other virus that kills people.  No one runs around with their hair on fire screaming about the flu though.   

 

Of course.  Problem is, now the at risk group now have another virus to worry about getting them in addition to the flu.

[GeoffH]

3 hours ago, BrettGC said:

We can only hope that Corona mutates in a similar fashion even with it's much lower mortality rate - approximately 5% - and it ends sooner. But who knows?  

There is already proof of 2 strains of COVID-19, what that means for people infected with the different strains isn't clear yet.

https://www.contagionlive.com/news/investigators-identify-2-circulating-sarscov2-strains

 

[Tukaram (Tim)]

6 hours ago, manofthecoldland said:

...since they're not allowing trike service to supposedly help with the quarantine/transmission effort.

So how do they expect people to get to the grocery store? Or the hospital?  That is a bit of an overreaction.

[Gary D]