Coronavirus

[Burinn]

Chernobyl was an absolute fuckup of legendary proportions, but nuclear disasters just aren't nearly as scary as the media makes them out to be.

I beg to differ, having to have land perpetually maintained for centuries to prevent contamination strikes me as something that justly warrants of fear. The land is permanently unusable and the sarcophagus is going to need to be regularly maintained longer than the current length of recorded history. It would not shock me however if that were something most people neither think nor care about though.

For comparison, Italy has over 1000 deaths so far on a population of 60 million. Scaling to the US, the US will probably have at least 5500 deaths even if they don't mess up worse than Italy - which they will, Trump or not.

It is the case that the number of deaths is only going to be inhibited by relieving pressure off of hospitals. When no effort is being made to quarantine, test, and lockdown locations with high rates of infection you can be more than certain that there is going to be a shortage of intubators. When people need intubation, and they can't get it, people are going to die.

Does it seem unreasonable to you to hold the man with the power to react to pandemic accountable for failing to act soon enough? It does not seem like it is to me. Moreover, it seems entirely reasonable to me to find it disgusting that the same man with the responsibility to react to pandemic had painted media reporting on covid-19 as a media hit job when he could have been using his position to prepare the nation for what is ostensibly going to be a catastrophe.

[AntiBlitz]

you know we go through this same shit like every few years, yall just keep running to the grocery store and buying your fucking milk, bread, and eggs like the good sheeple you are. the rest of us are going to move the fuck on like we did with the other hyped up bullshit stuff...............Ebola outbreak, Avian Flu, Swine flu, Sars, Zikia, foot-and-mouth, etc......etc.....

like yes, shits spooky, but your government is doing more then you know they are, so keep sensationalizing your agendas.............

[Burinn]

you know we go through this same shit like every few years, yall just keep running to the grocery store and buying your fucking milk, bread, and eggs like the good sheeple you are. the rest of us are going to move the fuck on like we did with the other hyped up bullshit stuff...............Ebola outbreak, Avian Flu, Swine flu, Sars, Zikia, foot-and-mouth, etc......etc.....

like yes, shits spooky, but your government is doing more then you know they are, so keep sensationalizing your agendas.............

Yeah, I remember when the 8th largest economy in the world came to a stand still over all of those. Or when central banks had to offer liquidity to commercial banks and cut interest rates to accommodate for the hit they were taking from those viruses. Or when people were getting laid off because supply chains had been totally interrupted. /s

"The Spanish Flu could never happen again!" has got to be the most head-in-sand thing you could possibly think. Swine flu, avian flu, and all the rest could have been global pandemics if the international community did not make appropriate measures to contain them.


What is my agenda that I'm trying to sensationalize by saying that I think that my country is not taking adequate action in response to a global pandemic? Do you think it's unreasonable to say Bush bungled the response to Katrina because "people were going to die anyways" too?

[Burinn]

https://www.itv.com/news/2020-03-11/italy-doctors-coronavirus-covid-19-quarantine-milan-health/

it's all a libral conspiracy guys, they just hate trump and MAGA!! relax it's all fine!! nothing to see here!!

[AntiBlitz]

because you think we arent doing anything, as if anybody wants to hear your griping over the issue. they are obviously doing something, they dont need you standing on the fucking sideline chanting "YOURE DOING IT WRONG". Go sit the hell down, and ride it out. Instead we have a fucking army of you, Burinns, chanting your garbage all over the fucking internet and the media for that matter over-sensationalizing an issue. We literally caused our own problems with the economy. 7 people in my state, SEVEN, WHOM ARE QUARANTINED, are infected, and now my state has declared a state of emergency. IE, over-sensationalized. We shouldnt be crippling economies over this, and yet we are. Proper measurements need to be taken, and people need to make appropriate decisions to keep themselves and the others of their communities safe. They literally have an obligation to others to not be asshats, but lets be real, nobody would ever take responsibility, millennials are too ignorant for that.

head in the sand lol, fuck, i forgot how "woke" people are on the internet, dont worry man, im sure the government just overlooked your immense credentials by accident when choosing a proper candidate to combat a pandemic.....


Actually, enlighten me, tell me what they should have done. What do you do to combat this situation? stop millions of civilians traveling to test them? how long does the test take? how much would this cost? you cant begin stopping something that hasnt started, so what was the appropriate action?

just food for thought, 16,000 people died during the 2019-2020 flu season, with 250,000 infections(recorded).

[Sevenless]

(For comparison, Italy has over 1000 deaths so far on a population of 60 million. Scaling to the US, the US will probably have at least 5500 deaths even if they don't mess up worse than Italy - which they will, Trump or not.)

Just to clear things up a bit, the CDC for the US is estimating 40-70% infection by the time the pandemic ends. World average reported 127k infected total, 4.7k dead for rough ratio on kill rate. The US has a notably higher death rate than most countries, up there with italy at around 5%. If 40% (best case predicted by CDC) of the US gets infected and 5% (current kill rate, before hospitals get overloaded) of those die, that's 5 million people. Everyone will know someone who loses a parent to this disease if that happens. Nearly everyone will lose a family member to it.

Drastic quarantine measures need to be put in place to keep that death toll down.

[Burinn]

because you think we arent doing anything, as if anybody wants to hear your griping over the issue. they are obviously doing something, they dont need you standing on the fucking sideline chanting "YOURE DOING IT WRONG". Go sit the hell down, and ride it out.

I'll be the first to admit I'm a pretty hardcore statist. But imagine having the boot so far down your throat that you're actually complaining that someone wants their country's leaders to do more about an imminent problem. Or complaining that someone else is complaining that they don't think enough is being done about a problem. As it turns out me bitching on the forum has no bearing or impact on my nation, so I'm sorry if having to read this bothers you as much as it seems to.

We literally caused our own problems with the economy.

No shit, that's how economies work. People are being fired for tangible, real, reasons. Not because of ooh I'm scared of this virus. Businesses are physically not receiving goods from abroad because workers in factories in China are not working due to quarantine. This is not some shit-lib feelings related response, sorry.

7 people in my state, SEVEN, WHOM ARE QUARANTINED, are infected, and now my state has declared a state of emergency. IE, over-sensationalized.

It takes up to two weeks to be symptomatic, and until very recently you wouldn't have been tested unless you're both showing symptoms and have recently traveled abroad. I can assure you with 100% confidence that there are hundreds of asymptomatic carriers in your state now. Reacting sooner rather than later will slow the rate of infection, reduce the impact on our economy in the long term, and save lives. This is not disputable. This has been shown time and time again every time there is is a viral outbreak. Draconian as they are, the measures taken by China to lock down Hubei have worked and the rate of new infections has dropped substantially. It does not matter if you think it's irrational for other people to be behaving the way they are. You and I are going to have to live with the consequences of other people's alleged irrationality regardless of what you or I think about it.

They literally have an obligation to others to not be asshats, but lets be real, nobody would ever take responsibility, millennials are too ignorant for that.

Pot meet kettle. Every generation since Socrates has called their successor ignorant. If you take that kind of thing seriously, get a grip.

head in the sand lol, fuck, i forgot how "woke" people are on the internet, dont worry man, im sure the government just overlooked your immense credentials by accident when choosing a proper candidate to combat a pandemic.....

Do you seriously think I'm pretending to be some kind of authority on the matter? It does not take a genius to think that writing off what was going on in China and South East Asia as a political hit job was a waste of time that could have been spent taking the threat seriously. It does not take a genius to see that what is going on is markedly different than ebola or anything else you've mentioned. It does not take a genius to realize that other people realize this as well. If I were in the position to give advice, it would literally be do what other nations are doing where it has worked and what the WHO recommended we have done from the start. Does that seem unreasonable to you? We are barely testing anyone. Anywhere. We have the lowest test rate per capita of any nation right now. Do you agree that we should be testing more people?

What do you do to combat this situation? stop millions of civilians traveling to test them? how long does the test take? how much would this cost? you cant begin stopping something that hasnt started, so what was the appropriate action?

Yes. South Korea is doing it. Italy is now doing it. Nations around the world are doing it because the cost of not doing so is thousands of deaths and an economy in free fall. Literally test as many people as we can in areas known to have outbreaks of the virus. Yes. It's going to cost money. The disease is already in the country, there were 300 new cases today. There are going to be more tomorrow, and more the day after that. And it's going to keep increasing unless we start testing people, make them aware they've the virus, and quarantine them to prevent further infections. If people do not know they have the virus they aren't going to self-quarantine. Preventative action is literally the cornerstone of modern medicine so to suggest that we can't do anything about this until everyone in the nation is infected is just absurd.

just food for thought, 16,000 people died during the 2019-2020 flu season, with 250,000 infections(recorded).

What is the subtext here? That relatively speaking, plenty of people die from other diseases? You won't find anyone disputing that. The reason I, and other people, care is because actual effort can be made to reduce the number of people who die from this outbreak. If people are diagnosed they can self-quarantine themselves and not spread the disease to tens or hundreds of other people unknowingly. There are a lot of elderly and immuno-compromised people around the world that I would prefer not risk having die when we could be taking more serious measures. If you don't think that with effective quarantine and testing the number of deaths can be reduced, I really don't know what to tell you. I just disagree.

Hey bud maybe have some kind of substantive reason to disagree with me other than "You're just sensationalizing it because you're a shitlib woke piece of shit". Or maybe even respond to the content of my post rather than the tone.
I have asked you several questions. You seem to just ignore them and just start slinging the personal attacks.

[AntiBlitz]

nice effort post, you read into things way too much, are making vague assumptions, exaggerating reality and real world events, and cherry picking topics, keep trying.......... i already responded to the content of your post. You need to be more rational, there was never any stopping it, it was here well before we were ever going to catch it and if it couldve been stopped, all the other countries you want to point out would have already held it at bay. Its a half assed media-blitz, go grab all the toilet paper you can, the government assuredly isnt doing anything.


yes, heaven forbid i point out the cultural fallacies created and perpetrated by media and younger society, assuredly they arent to blame for the many hysterical issues our country faces at all.

To note off your argument, I think you fail to realize how aligned we are in our views, perhaps I could be more elaborate in my answers, but like you, i just wanna be loud, capisce?

soap box is yours, im going back to lurking.

[MagicManICT]

2200 people died from the panicked evacuation though, because nuclear energy is scary so we better get back to pumping burned coal into the atmosphere.

I'm sure statistics are out there, but how many deaths per year from mining and burning fossil fuels for energy.... :thinking:
For fear of derailing....
We really can't go to nuclear. As great as it sounds, and I'm a fan, fission energy just isn't safe in the long term. Too much waste that has to be managed properly. Coal is bad now and in the foreseeable future. Nuclear is bad for the next thousands of years. Maybe if we can get fusion done efficiently....

you know we go through this same shit like every few years, yall just keep running to the grocery store and buying your fucking milk, bread, and eggs like the good sheeple you are. the rest of us are going to move the fuck on like we did with the other hyped up bullshit stuff...............Ebola outbreak, Avian Flu, Swine flu, Sars, Zikia, foot-and-mouth, etc......etc.....

All these others didn't spread internationally like covid-19. Africa is about the only place left that isn't touched by this. I just saw this a couple of days ago, but the last global epidemic close to what this currently is was the in late 60s. Before that, it was the Spanish flu during 1918-1919, the last years of WWI. Of those two, the Spanish flu is the closest of two to rate of death, and that was a hundred years ago when medical care was a fraction of what it is today. If that strain of flu was to hit today, the death rate would have been significantly lower. (I'm sure someone has done a study on it and come up with numbers, but I don't think it's worth digging up.)

Yes, the media has done a wonderful job of crying wolf over anything and everything. Maybe they're just crying wolf again, but so far, it's not looking like it to me. People can cry "fake news" all they want, but be careful you're not crying that to your grave. So far, it han't really reached my neck of the world, so I'm going about my normal life, but I am watching things closely (or as close as I can) and paying attention. All those others? Never really made it into the US (I won't speak for parts of EU), let alone my section of it. The last major outbreaks we had here were measles (stupid antivaxers) and West Nile Virus (been a low case number issue every summer for the last couple decades now).

Swine flu, avian flu, and all the rest could have been global pandemics if the international community did not make appropriate measures to contain them.

Pretty much. Most of our governments have done what was necessary as soon as outbreaks started popping out to contain them. SARS 18ish years would have been much worse if not for the relatively fast response.

Just a reminder for those that don't know or have forgotten, COVID-19 is a SARS type virus. China failed to respond in a timely manner here (as well as kept it hidden for some weeks or even months), the US has failed to respond... Again, won't speak for countries in the EU, but some of them are dragging heals on it, possibly because of the whole "cry wolf" syndrome. (That has two lessons--1. dont' cry wolf for nothing. shame on you for causing panic; but, 2. you always have to pay attention when someone cries wolf. the last few times might have been false alarms, but this time the wolf might eat your face.)

Instead we have a fucking army of you, Burinns, chanting your garbage all over the fucking internet and the media for that matter over-sensationalizing an issue.

That's like saying we have an army of people standing at the "safe line" from Chernobyl saying to the safety workers "why don't you go home and quit bothering people." The media's job is to inform the public about things. If you don't care to know more, ignore it. Quit doing whatever it is you're doing that exposes you to this.

In case you need to be "woke up," the following is probably a better point than all this bickering:

Just to clear things up a bit, the CDC for the US is estimating 40-70% infection by the time the pandemic ends. World average reported 127k infected total, 4.7k dead for rough ratio on kill rate. The US has a notably higher death rate than most countries, up there with italy at around 5%. If 40% (best case predicted by CDC) of the US gets infected and 5% (current kill rate, before hospitals get overloaded) of those die, that's 5 million people. Everyone will know someone who loses a parent to this disease if that happens. Nearly everyone will lose a family member to it.

This is great and all, but saying "the elderly are most at risk" is ignoring (or haven't seen) recent studies saying that risks are exactly the same with the flu: pulmonary illnesses (COPD, asthma, etc), high blood pressure, and diabetes. Being young isn't protection. Being young just means you're less likely to have such medical issues.

And yeah, if this runs its full course without intervention of a vaccine, cure, or better treatment, than this is going to be a worse pandemic than the Spanish Flu by a long shot.

[VDZ]

The land is permanently unusable

Nothing unusable about it. Hell, you can even just live in The Zone, and there are a bunch of stubborn elderly folks who still live there. You just have a slightly increased risk of getting cancer. The government doesn't want people to live there because 'a slightly increased cancer mortality rate' scaled to a complete city is a lot of additional deaths.

I beg to differ, having to have land perpetually maintained for centuries to prevent contamination strikes me as something that justly warrants of fear. The land is permanently unusable and the sarcophagus is going to need to be regularly maintained longer than the current length of recorded history.

That's complete bullshit. The New Safe Confinement (formerly the Sarcophagus) only needs to be maintained so they can clean it up properly (which is taking ages); without the confinement the waste will spread and they'll have no choice but to just wait it out. Even if left alone, though, the area will be practically indistinguishable from unaffected areas in 300 or so years; during that time the effect outside of The Zone will be negligible.

And that's for one of the biggest fuckups in human history. To reiterate:

• They knew the reactor had safety issues. In trying to find a solution for them, they performed live tests on that same reactor.
• Three previous such tests had been executed, and all three failed (though in a safe manner).
• The reactor's safety measures were not properly documented.
• The test plan had no oversight and was put in action without requiring any approval from higher-ups.
• Said test plan was designed by people insufficiently familiar with the nuclear reactor.
• As part of the test, several safety systems were disabled.
• After the initial parts of the test, the test was interrupted and postponed.
• The crew who were to perform the test and were briefed on it went home and were replaced by the next shift. Said shift noticed safety systems were disabled and did not give a fuck.
• Those folks also went home and got replaced by the night shift, who had no idea how to perform the experiment but were ordered to start the experiment immediately after starting work.
• A significant technical failure occurred. The test continued.
• Multiple, repeated warning signals were received, triggering alarms. The test continued regardless.
• Reactor readings were very different from the intended test conditions, indicating reactor instability. Manual tweaks, some involving turning off safety systems, were made to keep things running, and the test continued.
• Towards the end of the experiment, the emergency shutdown button was pushed even though nothing was wrong yet (chances are they just used it as a 'quick shutdown'). Due to the manual tinkering and most safety measures being turned off, a chain reaction occurred and things went boom.
• Government response took 36 hours. Information on the incident was suppressed for even longer.

Chernobyl wasn't just an accident, or even just a case of serious negligence (that's what happened in Fukushima). Chernobyl was a very long chain of very stupid decisions made by people who did not give a single fuck about safety standards in addition to serious negligence on a lot of levels.