Some countries do seem to be particularly badly hit, and it’s hard not to see that as evidence of a genetic susceptibility.
I saw a news flash earlier today saying that in Iran, one person dies from coronavirus every 10 minutes. That may seem a lot, but it’s going to get a lot worse.
The figures I’ve been seeing suggest a death rate of between 3 and 5 percent. Of course, we need to be very careful there, because the figures are only compiled from people who are known to have had the disease. Without immunity testing, we have no way of knowing how many people have been infected, but didn’t get sick at all.
Still, even at the lowest estimate, 2 percent is an awful lot of deaths. I said earlier that the population of the US is around 330 million. 2 percent of that is 6.6 million.
We are being told expect 1 in 3 to catch it. Who knows how many of those will die. My mom was relating from a woman she knew as a teenager, she had told my mom that when the Spanish Influenza swept through, there was not a single family who did not have at least one person in their family catch it.
Our country (South Africa) will be enforcing a 21 day national lockdown from 27 March to 16 April. Ie. all citizens to stay home except for priorities such as medical care and buying food , and obviously exempting emergency and other key service providers.
Individual states are doing similar things here. Louisiana has enacted the same rule as you have. The National Guard has been deployed to New York, California and Louisiana to help with the medical aspects. I have seen pictures of beds being set up in open parking lots in NY. Really scary. That is how bad they expect this to get. MASH units will be set up by the military.
I have also seen pictures of police on the toilet paper aisle as some stores. Pitiful that it has to come to that.
Here in Arkansas, we have a no more than 10 people rule. Stay home as much as possible, which most people are doing. I am ordering my groceries through an app and picking them up in the parking lot. So far, we only have 1 confirmed case in the county I live in. I wish it could stay that way.
Most stores have a ‘senior’ hour before opening for those over 60 years old. However, I am ordering my mom’s groceries with mine and dropping them at her door and waving through the window.
This still seems so surreal.
Seems we are converging. Czechia also has senior hours in grocery stores since last week. And for two weeks, schools, entertainment and shops (except pharmacies and groceries) have been closed and restaurants only sell meals to go. Everyone who could, worked from home, so the ones who do unpostponable work (deliveries, repairs, buying food/meds) could move without being in a crowd. In public places, everyone is now covering their faces (most sew their own cotton masks since the real masks are either out of stock or reserved for hospitals).
After the second week, I am now looking at statistics, and even if it’s far from over, the “daily new infected” number is stabilising, and the “daily total infected” has not turned into a vertical line. To me (as a layperson) it looks like “starving the virus” is worth a try.
While I would not be surprised, I meant to state no gatherings larger than 10. I suspect that number will decrease.
I will say, the local WalMart has stocked the empty TP aisle with plastic containers. I am not quite sure what that means…
I’m thinking that Arkansans use uninfected people to shuttle rolls of TP around the community. After a use, you place the TP roll outside your house, then call a “roll runner” to quickly slide it to the next house in need (wearing gloves and keeping social distance, of course). As long as roll runners don’t get “the runs” and use the TP enroute, I guess the system could work in small Arkansan hamlets.
Here in Switzerland, everything is closed and everyone is on quarantine for at least end of april. Schools are closed, pretty everything is closed. Army has been mobilised in the hospitals for small care programs… man… this all thing is totally crazy, Switzerland been one of the countries in the world that the virus has spread so fast and so hard after Italy…and no ghaterings more than 2 peeps…
In the meantime, here in the greediest country in the world, Trump has decided the economy is more important than lives and has vowed to send everyone back to work in 15 days despite what the medical community tells him
CNN: Trump predicts ‘this is going to be bad’ but vows to reopen America.
My personal prediction, the US will soar past the number of cases in China in both total number catching it and total number dead.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world is taking positive action
Mashable: Government launches Minecraft server so young people can stay inside and game during coronavirus.
The plastic containers are to be employed instead of toilet paper. Once used they are shipped off to Animal Crossing, to provide an exciting new in-game resource.
Good point. If the danger was “tigers in the grass” we cavemen could gang up and punch them in the nose, but with abstract viruses, our brains get stuck in fight mode with no tigers to fight…
I wish you luck and I hope not, but yeah, looking at the stats, be prepared.
That’s actually kinda nice.
In Estonia and Germany, they organised weekend Hackathons, and the best projects get government funding. (The projects were about coordinating help efforts.)
I wish you luck and I hope not, but yeah, looking at the stats, be prepared.