Coronavirus

[The Heretic]

The thing is, with the flu, there's a seasonal vaccine (granted not a huge % get it) but we know roughly the amount of numbers that will enter our hospitals every season. It's not a surprise to the health system (and we know the story with the Irish health system regards trolleys/waiting lists and the rest). Flu death rate from WHO/CDCs usually puts it at around 0.1%.

The reason why this COVID-19 is discussed (to death by some) is because it's new and we really don't know how it will pan out. We will only know the proper death rate when this is all over but WHO currently put it at 3.4%, this changes from country to country - like Italy who have an older population and places like South Korea with a much lower death rate because they are testing everyone (drive thru testing). Northern Italian hospitals are overrun with people, the health system is collapsing there in terms of it being a war zone type situation, having to choose who lives or dies. I started the thread off in the middle seeing both sides - I'm not panicked but I'm more concerned/prepared myself. What we do determines what happens to older people and people with pre-existing conditions. I'd rather be safe than sorry. I've been tracking this since January and as time has gone on the more convinced I am that this is not hysteria. You just need to see the drastic measures China had to implement in order to try slow the spread. Iran has become a complete mess and not handling it at all.

Ebola is so fatal that it's hard to spread around, this has the perfect balance so far, I was never concerned with Swine flu / SARS / MERS and the rest when it all came out, this is different. We have our heads in the sand when it comes to this and I really don't like this "I'm alright jack" attitude. The economy was on course for a recession regardless of this, it's been a talking point for 2 years now...we just have extremely low interest rates and Central banks printing money out the ying yang with QE to keep the holey bucket from leaking, if you looked at the German/Japanese stats, they were heading for a downturn...now this coronavirus has pushed a recession quicker and further down the tracks. Global recession happens regardless of a few of us posting on online forums. Again it reminds me of this talk of "doom mongers" "talking down the economy" back in 2006. Bertie Ahern with his famous "why don't they commit suicide?". We will talk ourselves into a recession is just daft.

We are being told to listen to our experts. Remember those Irish "experts" during the property bubble era of 2006? "Fill your shoes with bank shares" they said. And we all know what happened...I'd rather listen to the experts in the countries that this is effecting the most and what we can learn from their experiences. The response to this has been shocking in my eyes. We had our Chief Medical Officer saying 3 weeks ago that we MIGHT get 1 or 2 cases in the COMING MONTHS and we are will positioned to manage it....he will be the equivalent of our financial regulator Pat Neary when this is over. And they said "it takes more than 15 minutes to risk infection if you are beside someone with COVID-19" What the fuck like...these are our experts?! RTE telling people to put signs on the door if you are infected...talk about harking back to the plague times! They cancelled the rugby because they were worried about "large crowds in close proximity" but with the same breath  saying they saw "no implications" "No reason" to cancel the parades...fast forward to now and they are cancelled.

It has the huge potential to cripple/overwhelm our health services with even heavily conservative numbers of infection rates here. I don't call this panic, this is a call to be alert, not alarmed. Again I hope I'm wrong, if we can slow the spread, push it out until April maybe the warm weather will help if it's seasonal but gives it time to wait on a vaccine. We are an island that gives us a huge advantage too, just hope our officials become more proactive than reactive currently. Just don't read about the first/second waves of the Spanish flu and then the fear will definitely set in!

great points!!

[Juggz]

There's a lad in the office here who sounds like he's bringing up a furball. Ok, it may not be Covid-19 but, given the attention being given to virus transmission, you'd think he might have had the cop-on to stay at home and not give whatever the fuck he has to everyone here.

[kiehozero]

There's a lad in the office here who sounds like he's bringing up a furball. Ok, it may not be Covid-19 but, given the attention being given to virus transmission, you'd think he might have had the cop-on to stay at home and not give whatever the fuck he has to everyone here.

My housemate has been sent home from work with exactly this, he was basically walked straight back out of the office after 30 seconds. Luckily he works for a big company with a fairly well-established remote access network and can easily work from home. I do worry about how well smaller businesses will cope if they have to start sending lots of staff home.

[The Heretic]

There's a lad in the office here who sounds like he's bringing up a furball. Ok, it may not be Covid-19 but, given the attention being given to virus transmission, you'd think he might have had the cop-on to stay at home and not give whatever the fuck he has to everyone here.

I've been half spluttering all week, but I'm always a bit like this anyway in the colder weather, I wouldn't go into the office like this in the current climate anyway but in any event we've all been told to work from home, thank fk for decent broadband....

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Been having fun perusing this today:
https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death

Perspective and all that. 10% of global deaths are in the under 5 age bracket, but in high income nations that drops to 0.6%, meaning that 94% of global infant deaths are avoidable.

Major causes of death in the 50-69 and 70+ groups also of interest. Lots of interesting things in there: "too much fuckin' perspective" to quote David St.Hubbins.

[mickO)))]

There's a lad in the office here who sounds like he's bringing up a furball. Ok, it may not be Covid-19 but, given the attention being given to virus transmission, you'd think he might have had the cop-on to stay at home and not give whatever the fuck he has to everyone here.

My housemate has been sent home from work with exactly this, he was basically walked straight back out of the office after 30 seconds. Luckily he works for a big company with a fairly well-established remote access network and can easily work from home. I do worry about how well smaller businesses will cope if they have to start sending lots of staff home.

Was just saying to someone last night I can see a lot of employers refusing to pay people especially in the event of a lockdown. I can't imagine any legislation or anything is in place for an event like this. I am in a place now that is a lot worse then Ireland and all we are are getting is some politicians saying "don't travel unless it's necessary" yeah my boss is going to accept that. I can easily work from home but nobody is being given that option. I spend about 40mins each way on a jam packed subway full of asians each day it doesn't fill you with confidence when you see how this thing is getting worse with each passing day.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Could be worse. Could be packed with Italians :rolleyes:

[mickO)))]

Yes but at least the Italians wouldn't demand be taken out of Italy to other countries.

[Pedrito]

I think the blasé attitude isn't going to work this time. Just listened to a young 30 something Spanish doctor who works in Milan describing what's happening there. Said they have the best health system in Italy and the first patient was a 38 yr old perfectly healthy individual who was on a respiratory machine for 18 days before finally being able to breathe solo yesterday. Issue is there are no more of these machines left, so if there's a car accident or something completely unrelated where they need one to keep someone alive, well you can see how fucked the system starts to get when numbers start increasing. Basically Coronavirus is generally not to be worried about but if you do get sick then we're going into dodgy territory. He urged a civic duty response to the issue, stay indoors, away from big gatherings, basically the less you're breathing on people the less chance of contagion, which has a cumulative effect then overall. I see the message as positive, I've pushed back on the likes of your Greta Thurnbergs in the past, but maybe it's not a bad thing for me to review my own behaviour and adjust it towards the greater good. Who knows it may have knock on effects in terms of the other issues that are out there at the moment.

[Nail_Bombed]

I am at the moment reconsidering my approach to heading out this weekend to two gigs in Cork - purely on the basis that if I do pick something up, it's on me that I went out and got it, and I would not want to inflict it on my aging parents.
There is of course the element of a generalised fear of what may or may not happen here of course, but I reckon it's better to be at least aware that if you are heading out to gatherings, there is the possibility that you could catch Covid-19.

[Scáthach]

Went to go go see the doctor today for a long ago scheduled check up. She looked in tatters and was carrying wads of tissues around with more unopened packs on the desk. I maintained a polite distance.
I just hope the international acts due to play Redemption fest don't cancel. I ain't paying €50 for a primordial gig 

[The Butcher]

Just listened to a young 30 something Spanish doctor who works in Milan describing what's happening there. Said they have the best health system in Italy and the first patient was a 38 yr old perfectly healthy individual who was on a respiratory machine for 18 days before finally being able to breathe solo yesterday. Issue is there are no more of these machines left, so if there's a car accident or something completely unrelated where they need one to keep someone alive, well you can see how fucked the system starts to get when numbers start increasing.

That's the concern around it. Lombardy's health service scores 9.9/10 in OECD ranking and is in the top 5% in health compared across all OECD regions. COVID19 mortality rate in Lombardy is now 8%, more than double Wuhan. Lombardy health system is completely beyond ability to deliver adequate care - rationing who gets ICUs. We had 3 doctors come out 2 weeks ago saying we had zero capacity to deal with an outbreak here. Can only imagine what will happen to the third world that can't even test for it.

[Ducky]

First death confirmed in Ireland and the WHO has declared it a pandemic.

[Eoin McLove]

As I've been saying all along, it's time to take this thing seriously! [Edit edit edit]

The woman in Ireland who died, it has to be pointed out, was both elderly AND had an underlying health issue. I think a big problem will be, as a consequence of the amount of coverage it's getting,  you'll have every Tom, Dick and Harry with a runny nose clogging up the system and fucking things up for people who are actually at the most risk. But sure...

[Pedrito]

I hear you but 168 deaths in Italy in one day, whatever age they are, as a result of the virus, is a number that needs to be taken seriously. The danger is the dopes of course, I'm sure the supermarkets are being emptied as we speak, selfish arseholes are what caused the outbreak in the first place and the rest of us have to put up with them unfortunately.