Novel Coronavirus COVID-19

[CaliforniaGirl]

2 minutes ago, amaysngrace said:

Well yeah, we should try to stop the suffering at least.  But if people aren’t willing to take care of themselves then why is it our job to?

Why isn't it? We're a society.

But if we must be selfish, how is it not our loss to lose big chunks of our population?

[sothereiwas]

2 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

Why isn't it? We're a society.

But if we must be selfish, how is it not our loss to lose big chunks of our population?

Reality check: We routinely lose about 3 million a year in America to various causes. 

Continue as you were. 

[CaliforniaGirl]

3 minutes ago, sothereiwas said:

Reality check: We routinely lose about 3 million a year in America to various causes. 

Continue as you were. 

And now, quite a few more. You, too, please do carry on, I have no objection.

Edited May 18, 2020 by CaliforniaGirl

[amaysngrace]

4 minutes ago, NuevoYorko said:

Following preventative measures that can extend the lives of millions of people is hardly "saving everyone." 

Many of you seem to agree that old people or those who are not perfectly healthy have no value in this fine land.  They're definitely less useful at feeding the rich, which appears to be the main criteria for the privilege of  being alive.  This perspective will also free us from useless annoyances like medicine,  science, end of life care, social security etc.  If you're not keeping the wheels of the economy churning, please step aside and croak.  Survival of the fittest, american style.  

A society is only as strong as its weakest members.  

It’s not American thinking either, Darwin was British but that’s neither here nor there.  

Its funny because a lot of people are scared of this virus, they hide from it, worry about it, cry about it yet you and many others here seem to see this as being strong. 

You (collectively) hold up the science as proof but only the parts that fit your own narrative.  

It cracks me up. 

 

 

 

[NuevoYorko]

6 minutes ago, amaysngrace said:

Well yeah, we should try to stop the suffering at least.  But if people aren’t willing to take care of themselves then why is it our job to?

Another good point - get rid of alcohol, addiction, obesity & nutrition and psychological / psychiatric medicine and study.  

This world view of purging the society of people who are considered "useless" is familiar ... pre WWII.  

I have a question:  Do you believe that human lives only have value as long as they serve to enrich the wealthy and powerful?  When did we lose the idea that the "economy" is here for the benefit of all of us, including those in need?  

 

[CaliforniaGirl]

18 minutes ago, amaysngrace said:

A society is only as strong as its weakest members.  

It’s not American thinking either, Darwin was British but that’s neither here nor there.  

Its funny because a lot of people are scared of this virus, they hide from it, worry about it, cry about it yet you and many others here seem to see this as being strong. 

You (collectively) hold up the science as proof but only the parts that fit your own narrative.  

It cracks me up. 

 

 

 

The weakest members thing has never quite been true and in fact isn't Darwinian; Darwin's theories supported constant mutation with no one mutation ever being universally the strongest. Indeed dominance, if you will, could and has many times, through any species been specific enough and unlikely enough to have actually contributed to if not caused its demise after a lucky period of having matched temporary conditions for survival. 

Survival of the fittest has never been entirely accurate because the definition of fitness to survive changes constantly and depends upon changing conditions of all types, plus internal factors.

If we look at history the overwhelming numbers of any population have been average worker bees, not those who were extraordinary in any given direction, not even super strength or super size or even, believe it or not, always brains.

We have always been the Great Unwashed, and a few amazeballs.

Even a superior immune system can backfire and actually be lethal to the host. 

You ma crack up all you like, but your chances are about even with anyone else's of winding up dead of this. Laugh, don't laugh, biology doesn't care which you do or what any of us does.

WE care, though. Tell me. And I'm not assuming I know what you'll answer because people are funny ducks. If you discovered tomorrow that you had a particularly nasty, slow, painful form of cancer would you laugh and say you were being selected out, that you of course should be given something not to suffer but that this is nature?

Edited May 18, 2020 by CaliforniaGirl

[Ellener]

5 hours ago, Redhead14 said:

I consider anyone who isn't wearing a mask to be a weapon, a threat to me if they try to approach me and I will treat them as such. 

That seems extreme to me in most circumstances, but I would continue to stay home if I felt that strongly about the risk.

Depends where you live but staying home would be easy enough here where everything can now be delivered.

1 hour ago, NuevoYorko said:

We don't go to the doctor for a chest cold.

I think way too many people DO go to the doctor for common colds and seasonal flu, and hope that one good thing to come from the pandemic is people will be able to do virtual appointments for infectious illnesses. I remember the days when doctors used to do home visits if someone was considered an infection risk to go in to the surgery...we also need to address the facts of people working when infectious via HR, employers and benefits otherwise people will feel they have no choice. 

There are practical things people are doing now like waiting outside in their vehicle until their appointments which could be a good idea when booking appointments for infectious patients in places where it's possible.

There's never going to be zero risk living on this planet, but we can minimise some of the risks, and costs in terms of lives and dollars.

 

[sothereiwas]

12 minutes ago, Ellener said:

Depends where you live but staying home would be easy enough here where everything can now be delivered.

One thing I think we should do is help facilitate people who are high risk to self-isolate, including deliveries in places that Amazon Fresh etc don't serve. 

[CaliforniaGirl]

45 minutes ago, NuevoYorko said:

Another good point - get rid of alcohol, addiction, obesity & nutrition and psychological / psychiatric medicine and study.  

This world view of purging the society of people who are considered "useless" is familiar ... pre WWII.  

I have a question:  Do you believe that human lives only have value as long as they serve to enrich the wealthy and powerful?  When did we lose the idea that the "economy" is here for the benefit of all of us, including those in need?  

 

 

I don't know whether its a rich/poor thing, even, or a weeding out of the unfit. I know people who certainly aren't rich and for sure are no specimens of human vitality who easily dismiss "the numbers" (not people...numbers...or "the dead" or "deceased"...they're never actually called people...and grief is never expressed).

Honestly my feeling is that it's because this has been a political issue from the beginning, and admitting to this being a pretty serious disaster is admitting to some serious flaws in the handling of this pandemic. This seems to be borne out by the style of the protests. It's really pretty clear. That's been what people have been at one another's throat about since the very beginning.

It's as if our actual lives don't matter at all. And certainly the past lives of the dead don't matter at all. There's never any grief expressed. They're not even called people. Just the numbers, the numbers, the numbers.

I really just feel like that above all else is telling. I mean would you go to the funeral of a couple who died in a car crash and say "I see that your numbers are down by two...stay strong, I can see your income is as large as ever"? Wouldn't the *first thing* you said be "I am so very sorry, I am so hurt for you, I am sad for you"? How come that NEVER happens with this, how come it took like 15 press briefings to hear it once and we haven't heard it again, how come it's screaming and sneering and hatred and just...it's like these families aren't even part of it when they're actually the *whole thing*, they're the victims? Isn't that bizarre to anybody else?

I hope we can retain some humanity. We ARE human. We may try not to be at times but we are still in these meat suits and we still have person-brains and we still have emotions...after all of this is over, believe it or not, you guys...we ARE still going to need one another.

I hope we still have eachother by then.  

 

Edited May 18, 2020 by CaliforniaGirl

[amaysngrace]

1 hour ago, NuevoYorko said:

I have a question:  Do you believe that human lives only have value as long as they serve to enrich the wealthy and powerful?  When did we lose the idea that the "economy" is here for the benefit of all of us, including those in need?  

 

No I don’t believe humans are only as good as servants which is why I don’t understand how you can argue that heathy people should be okay with serving those in poor health through their own fault. 

Or is it only a problem when the rich man is the boogie man?

[CaliforniaGirl]

2 hours ago, amaysngrace said:

No I don’t believe humans are only as good as servants which is why I don’t understand how you can argue that heathy people should be okay with serving those in poor health through their own fault. 

Or is it only a problem when the rich man is the boogie man?

Healthy people aren't literally serving the sick right now unless they are either getting paid to or volunteer to. As far as healthy people staying home, which I think is the idea here, I believe that's the problem - we don't know that we're healthy or if we feel well, we don't know that we're not carrying 19. So actually we're not divided along those lines when it comes to the various rollout phases. It's impossible for any governing or other body to do that because they don't know either.

I am not the poster you're quoting and don't have an opinion on the server/servant aspect, it's just that I don't see the parallel of quarantine being a greater/lesser than scenario in that way, or one group being punished for the sake of another group, since at any given time we don't even know which group (if you will) we're in.

I do get what the poster was saying about how it seems cavalier to decide it's all well for the fittest to survive and anybody else to be sacrificed, although most here I think are taking a less harsh approach than that. But it's an undercurrent so I get it and the irony is that any of us "fit" people could be ill with something that could complicate 19 and just not know it yet. It's possible.

Anyway...there are some gradual reopenings happening, is anyone seeing positivity in that? Here in Los Angeles we still have our noses against the glass and could do with some chirking up.

Edited May 19, 2020 by CaliforniaGirl

[NuevoYorko]

5 hours ago, Ellener said:

 

I think way too many people DO go to the doctor for common colds and seasonal flu

 

I agree.  My point was that people may be going around with undiagnosed chronic bronchitis or walking pneumonia, unaware that they have an "underlying medical condition."  I suspect that quite a few people here who are happy to rid our society of its "weakest members" might feel that medical intervention might be warranted if it turned out that their family members or themselves were the ones on the chopping block.

[Art_Critic]

12 minutes ago, NuevoYorko said:

I suspect that quite a few people here who are happy to rid our society of its "weakest members" might feel that medical intervention might be warranted if it turned out that their family members or themselves were the ones on the chopping block.

That's a pretty big stretch, protect the weak and medically fragile but to think there are many people who are looking to have weak people die is a bit short sighted and bleak.

My 84 year old Mom has been quarantined for over 2 months, she is a retired RN so she knows how to handle herself, all her groceries are delivered and cleaned and she has gone nowhere in the public, she is the weak and she is protected.

All the while I have been to work each day as I own an essential business, but me being out there doesn't mean I think the weak should die, the exact opposite actually, being out there has made me more aware of what is actually happening out there and what to stay away from.

 

 

[sothereiwas]

3 hours ago, NuevoYorko said:

I suspect that quite a few people here who are happy to rid our society of its "weakest members"

You really think there are "quite a few" people on this forum that feel this way?

[amaysngrace]

3 hours ago, sothereiwas said:

You really think there are "quite a few" people on this forum that feel this way?

See that’s the problem, the over-exaggeration that’s being pushed has people buying into it.  People are in panic mode.  They lose their ability to rationalize and begin to exaggerate their point themselves to justify their own panic.  

Rather than being proactive and using their own common sense to find a balance they stay stuck in anxiety and fear.  

This whole thing has been interesting to say the least.  Seeing human behavior under a microscope  has been quite enlightening. 

Well, for some.

[Emilie Jolie]

Devil's Advocate.

 In the case of People's Lives vs The Economy, I present to you the following:

Your small business was hanging by a thread, you lost your job because your employer didn't have the money to keep you on, you are in so much personal debt or have so little savings you can't manage a couple of months without an imcome, you have literally no-one you can depend on in your life to support you: are these not also 'underlying conditions' that make it inevitable for you to be in a financial mess regardless of the state of the economy? In which case, is it not more urgent to try and save as many lives as possible?

One of my doctor friends (she works in A&E) caught it at work. Home for 5 weeks, H and 3 kids infected. SO probably caught it, as most of the doctors we know. Most of them won't get tested because there are not enough tests to go round and they don't want to 'waste' tests on themselves since they already know they have it. They won't be included in the stats. When they self-isolate, that's one less doctor in the field. When a doctor self-isolates for having 'like' symptoms just in case, that's one less doctor on the field who could be there if testing was automatic. Not even addressing the 'asymptomatic' side of things. Lots of health professionals who have vulnerable people at home are having to quarantine from their partners, their kids, etc so they don't risk infecting them. I don't know about the USA, but those on the frontline in the UK are making huge personal sacrifices so they can look after all of us.

This situation really is bad for the medical community here. Where I live has the second highest health worker death rates after London, and the second most lethal rate in general too. Clapping for them is nice and all, but that's not enough.

[sothereiwas]

There seem to be a lot of people in the world, at least in 'developed' nations, who believe food comes from the grocery store, gasoline comes from the pump, electricity comes from the wire, and as long as the bill can be paid those things will remain true. That's simply not how the world works, and the sooner we all realize it the better.

[Emilie Jolie]

Who believes that?

Everything to do with the food chain, from making to processing to delivering to selling, is considered essential work. So is most activity related to the energy sector. They haven't stopped providing us with those services, just like health workers.

Of course plenty will be financially hit by the economic crash following this world health crisis; what that situation has actually clearly shown is that there is no 'developed' world unless we can afford to care for anyone who needs it most for any reason. If our governments can't afford to support us at critical times, we are neither 'wealthy' nor 'civilised'. 

Edited May 19, 2020 by Emilie Jolie

[sothereiwas]

7 minutes ago, Emilie Jolie said:

Who believes that?

Anyone who advocates handing out money as a substitute for letting people go back to producing implicitly promotes this idea, whether they are willing to explicitly admit it or not. 

[Emilie Jolie]

Producing what, though? Everything that absolutely needs producing is still being produced, teachers are still teaching, farmers are still farming for the most part, essential workers are still working. 

What do we need producing in the next few months that is more important than helping others stay healthy?

[Redhead14]

22 hours ago, amaysngrace said:

  But if people aren’t willing to take care of themselves then why is it our job to?

There are millions of people who are high risk through no fault of their own.

[CaliforniaGirl]

9 hours ago, amaysngrace said:

See that’s the problem, the over-exaggeration that’s being pushed has people buying into it.  People are in panic mode.  They lose their ability to rationalize and begin to exaggerate their point themselves to justify their own panic.  

Rather than being proactive and using their own common sense to find a balance they stay stuck in anxiety and fear.  

This whole thing has been interesting to say the least.  Seeing human behavior under a microscope  has been quite enlightening. 

Well, for some.

I think it is going both ways. People also panic about restrictions and claim they're being incarcerated and so on, when this isn't the case either. People are also saying the economy has been "shut down." While the economic impact is no joke, there are millions of jobs currently running and more work openings occuring already, with more business openings planned.

We tend to go to extremes when we are limited in any way. We need to keep cool heads 

[CaliforniaGirl]

9 hours ago, Emilie Jolie said:

Devil's Advocate.

 In the case of People's Lives vs The Economy, I present to you the following:

Your small business was hanging by a thread, you lost your job because your employer didn't have the money to keep you on, you are in so much personal debt or have so little savings you can't manage a couple of months without an imcome, you have literally no-one you can depend on in your life to support you: are these not also 'underlying conditions' that make it inevitable for you to be in a financial mess regardless of the state of the economy? In which case, is it not more urgent to try and save as many lives as possible?

One of my doctor friends (she works in A&E) caught it at work. Home for 5 weeks, H and 3 kids infected. SO probably caught it, as most of the doctors we know. Most of them won't get tested because there are not enough tests to go round and they don't want to 'waste' tests on themselves since they already know they have it. They won't be included in the stats. When they self-isolate, that's one less doctor in the field. When a doctor self-isolates for having 'like' symptoms just in case, that's one less doctor on the field who could be there if testing was automatic. Not even addressing the 'asymptomatic' side of things. Lots of health professionals who have vulnerable people at home are having to quarantine from their partners, their kids, etc so they don't risk infecting them. I don't know about the USA, but those on the frontline in the UK are making huge personal sacrifices so they can look after all of us.

This situation really is bad for the medical community here. Where I live has the second highest health worker death rates after London, and the second most lethal rate in general too. Clapping for them is nice and all, but that's not enough.

This is true as well. The economy has underlying conditions as well. 

[CaliforniaGirl]

4 hours ago, sothereiwas said:

There seem to be a lot of people in the world, at least in 'developed' nations, who believe food comes from the grocery store, gasoline comes from the pump, electricity comes from the wire, and as long as the bill can be paid those things will remain true. That's simply not how the world works, and the sooner we all realize it the better.

My husband and I had the "this is a lesson for us" conversation with our kids right at the beginning of this. Our boys are lovely people, everybody loves them. They're good guys, good friends, they're responsible, helpful, they get great grades, they're fun, hilarious. 

BUT right when school shut down and there were restrictions, AND the first 30th of the month came with no Baskin Robbins Friday came OMG. It was the end of the world as they knew it.

So we sat them down and immediately became our own parents with the "Perhaps we've indulged you to the point that you don't know what real struggle and real sacrifice are" speech. Gently but firmly. Except we included ourselves in that. We explained that all four of us are now learning that we have definitely been, to put it bluntly, spoiled. Not because we're bad people or lazy people but because of the circumstances of our lives. We never lived through WWII rationing (something that immediately rang a bell with my youngest, who had just done a project on it in class). We didn't live through the Great Depression. We didn't dig for potatoes and rotting cabbage with our bare fingers in the freezing cold so we wouldn't starve to death like my grandparents' village had to do so they wouldn't literally starve to death.

But here we all seemed to be yelling that we couldn't have everything that we wanted at the snap of our fingers...we were used to going out and grabbing whatever, whenever...

We had a really interesting couple of hours talking about where stuff REALLY comes from...the chicken doesn't just magically land at the store all packaged and ready for us to select the brand plus cut plus fat percentage, computers didn't magically just happen (they were actually centuries in the making, that's a fascinating story), electricity isn't a monkey riding a bike somewhere to keep us going...and so on.

[sothereiwas]

9 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

Not because we're bad people or lazy people but because of the circumstances of our lives.

I think that's a really great sentence. I wouldn't go so far as to say it should be recommended, but I personally learned a lot in my ex-pat experiences regarding a lot of things, but as it relates to your post, poverty, needs vs wants, and so on. America has 'poverty', but it's an amazingly luxurious poverty, surrounded by safety nets and displays of wealth that are so effortless we don't even notice. Our street lights, for the most part, work. Our streets are relatively well maintained, and clean. When we call a policeman there is some reasonable chance they will not be completely corrupt. We can drink tap water. We can drink the water.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be this way, but I am saying it's not this way for most humans. The reasons it's this way for us are things we should be careful to maintain, because this sort of thing doesn't happen by accident.