Dubi Doo
Registered User
- Aug 27, 2008
- 19,495
- 13,004
The thing is, we've had a bit more time to react to this then other countries, and we're still testing at an extremely low rates, which is absurd, imo, because that the best way to combat this virus outside of shutting down cities.Good stuff from my homie!
You're right, tho. We cant test everyone. We need to focus on highly dense areas, because that's where this virus can have catastrophic effects. Drive through stations should be readily available in every major city. We've had a month to start preparing for this. Hell, it could've been a nice stimulus bill for the economy, haha.
Also, I'm not really concerned about catching the people with negative results. I want to find the people with positive results. The real scare of this virus is a lot of people show no symptoms or similar symptoms to the common cold. These are the people we need to catch, and have measures taken to keep quarantined. This would drastically reduce the spreading, which is vital during the early stages of breakout since vaccines aren't readily available.
I agree that the mortality rate is likely way lower than the 3-4% being reported. I'm assuming it'll be under 1%. I'm more concerned about overcrowding in hospitals due to lack of knowledge, lack of vaccines, and how rapidly this virus is spreading.Once testing kits become more widely available, it is much more likely that we see that this virus is more widespread and the mortality rate is way lower.
The number one reason for concern for this is the higher mortality rate. But, if that is being overstated currently due to a lack of testing, then that gets to people saying that a lot of the panic to this virus is overstated.
I do believe that we have enough data to reinforce that people take basic respiratory infection precautions.
Wash your hands, you filthy animals!
Cover your cough.
If you have a fever and/or a persistent cough, go see your PCP and stay home from work.
And other, basic, common sense stuff like that.
But, creating panic behaviors among society at large that leads to behaviors like hoarding medical masks and hand sanitizer isn't a good way to respond to this virus. Shutting down all sorts of things like university campuses and any events with 100+ spectators also falls into this realm, to me.
There is plenty of disinformation being spread about this virus and a reasoned, commonsense approach to this has been in short supply, IMO.
I also agree we need to educate the population and stress to use good personal hygiene. The issue is- a lot of younger people see they aren't in the group that gets hit heavily by this virus- and are acting nonchalant about it, which is concerning.
I've talked to nurses who literally will be the first line of defense if this spreads rapidly here, and they dont seem to be phased by this at all- some of them have the ' it wont kill me, so who cares?' Attitude.
The thing that separates this from other viruses is we dont know much about it yet, we dont have any vaccines or symptom suppressors in place, and it is spreading rapidly. It's causing overcrowding in ICUs, which will have a terrible ripple effect.
We'll know a lot more about the effect this virus will have on our country in the coming weeks. Luckily, we arent nearly as dense as Italy and our elderly population per capita is much lower, so it shouldn't hit us as hard. I'm concerned about the dense cities and how this will hit our extremely high obese population.