Coronavirus

[AtoB]

I'm sure that his staff and members of Congress that get sick will get very good treatment, too. However, they'll have to be under quarantine, and the US Senate, at least, has been obstinate about making rules to deal with the potential reality of this pandemic, such as too many members under quarantine at the same time.

Wait, what? Your politicians did not exempt themselves from this charade like they did here?

[MagicManICT]

They haven't explicitly exempted the "needs of the government" from safety guidelines so far. Most members of Congress that have been exposed have done voluntary quarantines... at least from what I recall seeing in the news. It's not something I've gone and checked out or kept close track of.

quick addendum: I did just spot an article via The Guardian that states at least 27 in Trump's circle of advisers, campaign, military, and White House staff are confirmed to be infected.

[Zentetsuken]

http://www.sfu.ca/university-communicat ... f-cov.html

second wave is starting to get serious across a lot of european countries, wear your masks and stay safe out there

[Jalpha]

Yes, I am planning to get trapped somewhere more interesting this flu season. Kosovo was not a 5 month travel destination.

[NeoBasilisk]

Trump receives the best socialized healthcare in the world

[shubla]

Its mildly amusing to watch clips in the news about politicians arguing masks in their face about stuff like "yes this is very serious situation how can you question it we have hundreds of active infections!!! we must close down schools, restaurants, workplaces and everything NOOW!!"

And then you look at the fact that there are 5 people in the hospital in the whole country because of the virus and compare that to the situation that was in the spring.
In my opinion the current situation is not bad, and no more restrictions are needed. Even if we removed all restrictions, we would in the worst case have the same situation that we had in the spring, and in the spring hospitals did not go even near over capacity, so there is no reason to worry that they would now, when we have more information etc. I am sure that some people restrict themselves even without official restrictions from governments when the number of cases rises.
Politicians (and many people in general) seem to forget the fact that tests are done more now, I think people should ignore the positive tests, most of which are mild cases, and only look in the numbers about the serious cases and deaths, which more realistically tell what the situation is. Only downside that I see in this is that of course, hospitalization and deaths happen in a slightly delayed manner, compared to the tests. But as I said, no need to worry now.

I don't know about other countries. But at least in Finland they refuse to release pretty much any accurate statistics about age or health issues of that the infected/dead people. Because of "privacy reasons".
like 350 people have died because of covid in Finland, but out of those most are cases from elderly homes. Sad stuff yes, but not too much reason for the public to worry about. Though I have glanced at some statistics from US for example, and it seems that numbers for even younger people (aged <50) are rather high, which is weird because in Finland this is not (yet?) the case.

I think that after the epidemic there will be a lot of discussion about if it was all worth it, and to what extent are governments obligated to go to protect the lives of the few, in the cost of greatly reducing the quality of lives on all others.
Total morbidity charts will also be interesting to see, and to compare them to covid deaths. (There has been some discussion in news about people not going to doctor to check for example their progressing treatable diseases, because they fear the infection so much, and this may of course lead to the progression of the illness to the stage where death is imminent, also many surgeries etc. treatments have been delayed, currently the queue to get to the "public/free/cheap" dentist in the capital is more than 1 year, even if you had aching cavities, and for the record it was about ½ year before the epidemic)

[Jalpha]

Yea. Nah.

The only people who are safe are people like me who have been crossing borders and exposing ourselves to other travellers from all over the world. Building up our own immunity. I hope so for my own sake anyway.

What is happening in countries which have controlled outbreaks is a form of human assisted natural selection. Imperfect but functional. We are selecting for less dangerous strains of the virus by isolating people infected with more dangerous strains. If you are not really very sick, you may not even realise you are ill. You will remain active in the community and transmit your asymptomatic strain of the virus.

On the flipside, if you have a dangerous strain of the virus you will be isolated in a hospital and opportunities for the virus to spread will be limited. Keep in mind this is not the way the virus is being managed in places like the USA.

I am probably doing a poor job of explaining (it's 4am) so I will link the TED talk I watched on this topic many years ago.

Highly relevant. (Evolution of Viruses)

[Zentetsuken]

We are selecting for less dangerous strains of the virus by isolating people infected with more dangerous strains. If you are not really very sick, you may not even realise you are ill. You will remain active in the community and transmit your asymptomatic strain of the virus.

Are you trying to say that you believe people who display less severe symptoms acquired a totally different version of coronavirus than people who may require hospital care?

[Jalpha]

Basically, yes.

Are you trying to say that all people infected with the virus have an identical strain of the virus?

[Zentetsuken]

Basically, yes.

Are you trying to say that all people infected with the virus have an identical strain of the virus?

No, I think like 3-4 have been identified but they are divided at a continental scale

There are oodles and oodles of examples of households getting sick and every member having it with a different severity. Grandpa dies, kids barely notice it, mom is bed ridden for a week, etc.

This is not because there is 1000 different coronaviruses floating around, this is because of the dynamic and infinitely differentiating ways that a singular virus can affect many different people in many different ways.

It is the people who are unique, not the virus.