Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

You've gotta stop looking at the fatality rate in isolation. That's not what epidemiology is. You can't look at the fatality rate independent of the R0 rate. That's basically the measure of how contagious something is.

The R0 of most common flu strains is around 1.3, meaning for every person that gets it, they will infect 1.3 people. For this thing, it's estimated at 2.2. Again... that's exponential, so that 0.9 difference is huge. If you spread flu, you're at 3 people just two generations out (including you). If you spread coronavirus, you're at 9 two generations out (including you). At the current infection rate, the hospitals will be overwhelmed, and if you avoid the virus and have a heart attack, you're ****ed, because they may not be able to treat you.

So how do you combat something more contagious? You stay home. It's so insanely uncomplicated. It isn't convenient or without consequence, but it's not complicated.

The flu is contagious, period. How do you stop a contagious disease? You stay home. So why don't we do that for the flue? Why are those deaths seemingly irrelevant, when the exact same "cure" is available for it as Corona?

Not trying to start an argument, just trying to understand why we have become so tolerant of the flue and its many thousands of deaths each and every year.

I explained the math... I don't think you're hearing it. We don't "tolerate" flu, we have vaccines for it and encourage people to stay home for that too. We have no vaccine for this disease, and as I explained, it is more contagious, and has a higher mortality rate. These factors combine for an exponentially higher infection and fatality count. The risk ultimately is not the disease itself, it's the ability to treat it. Did you see what they did in China? They literally had to build hospitals in tents.

Yes. The main difference is that we already have preventative measures in place for the flu. Vaccines, an understanding of how it’s transmitted, suggestions on staying home, treatment, etc.

This time next year we will likely have those things for COVID 19. But we don’t now.

We know how to mitigate people dying from the flu, and know that they still will even with many precautions in place.

We don’t yet have that for COVID 19.

Is Britain trying a different method?

https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/herd-immunity-why-britain-is-actually-letting-the-coronavirus-spread-20200315-p54a5h.html?fbclid=IwAR3hkMyYXPxG5RUvLkhR86HJhx_xv3uTbvrxUPgm_IbJjS4C5gpM0G4usxA

Tekwardo said:

We know how to mitigate people dying from the flu, and know that they still will even with many precautions in place.

Exactly. So why have we not gone to the approach that we take the ultimate precaution that we are now with corona? Why is it acceptable that 40,000 people die every year when if we would clamp down the country as soon as patient #1 is found then the vast majority of deaths would be prevented because it would be contained.

My question is, in response to Andy's original post, is why are the 40,000 deaths acceptable when there is a way to prevent the majority of them? Is it simply because 40,000 is less than what can die from corona? If the answer is yes than that tells me that we have placed a $ on a person's death from the flue and we find it acceptable as a society.

40,000 deaths aren’t acceptable, the number of deaths are nearly unavoidable WITH the precautions. And that number fluctuates.

AND this is deadlier than the flu.

Instead of 40,000 deaths, with the same amount of infection, we could have Tripp’s that.

You keep glossing over that. There are going to be deaths from the flu and we do all we can to mitigate that based on the type of illness it is and tools we have.

There are going to be deaths from this, and we’re doing all we can to mitigate it with a deadlier virus and far less experience and tools.

40,000 is the death rate WITH adequate medical capacity. The hospitals all have very good* estimates on how many people will require hospitalization for the flu each season and prepare for that. Coronavirus, on the other hand, is more contagious, and more lethal than a typical flu season. Someone with coronavirus will be asymptomatic and contagious for longer than they are with the flu making it much easier to spread. Thus, coronavirus is going to spread to more people faster than the flu does. If nothing is done to slow the spread, hospitals will not be able to keep up with the number of very sick patients, and would have to turn people away simply because they don't have enough resources to treat them.

*Or at least as good as any human can estimate

With all of the lack of understanding I've seen on the Internet today, or unwillingness to understand, these posts give me hope.

1.3 and 2.2 might not sound like a big difference but when you're talking about exponentials, it's a gigantic difference.

To reach 1,000,000 it takes ~52 generations at 1.3 and ~17 generations at 2.2. Then even the most conservative estimates are that corona has 10x the mortality rate. THAT's the big difference between flu and Corona.

And Vegas is shutting down.

They are shutting down until May. They might as well, it's a freaking ghost town right now.

Well, if you were looking for that Vegas retirement home, and assuming you have liquid assets that aren't tied up in the market, you will soon get your chance.

As in 2008-2009, Vegas will be ground zero for defaults and bankruptcies. The Larger casino groups have indicated that they will pay people for some short time, but they can't float the whole city indefinitely.

Assuming we can reduce the infections, financially It's going to get ugly folks

Shades said:

If the answer is yes than that tells me that we have placed a $ on a person's death from the flue and we find it acceptable as a society.

Of course. There's obviously some trade off between saving people and disrupting the normal function of society. But the number of potential deaths from corona virus is possibly multiple orders of magnitude higher than the normal season flu. And the potential lives saves by instituting these measures is also much greater. The flu isn't as contagious and it isn't as deadly in comparison, so, yes, in a sense we do make some kind of trade off value judgment. I think Gonch made this point earlier in the thread and it was what I responding to when I said, "There is a point to be made but I don't agree with it." One could make the point that we should shut everything down every winter at the first sign of flu because "every life is sacred" or one could take the the approach that social disruption is so intrusive and problematic that it is not worth the cost and it stinks that more people die to avoid that cost. It's a lot harder to make the second point with Corona than it is with seasonal flu because you're weighing against the potential for millions of deaths.

Bakeman31092 said:

Lotta smart people on this forum. I’d love to hear everyone’s theories on why people cleared the shelves of toilet paper.

I’m serious.

We've got this super-fun concept in Psychology called the "locus-of-control". It's easy to think about. If you rate really high, you have what is called an internal-locus-of-control. This means you feel like you have a lot of control and power over your own life and the things that happen to you. Basically, you take responsibility for the consequences and man-up when needed. On the opposite end, though, is an external-locus-of-control...when you believe in stuff like fate and good/bad luck; basically you feel like your fate is already determined and there is not much you can do to change your situation.

People that fall victim to this toilet-paper crap have a really strong external locus of control, and this is their brains' way of making up for that. Basically what has already been said with a little more detail. If I buy an ass-load of toilet paper I can taste a little bit of control. That said, these people (shocker!) also tend to be sheep, doing what they see someone else doing (which is what happened in Australia where this nonsense seemed to have started). If I see you buy it, it must be the thing to do, and so on, and so on...

Two questions.

1. Where does the general population fall on the internal/external locus-of-contol scale? Like are there degrees? Are more people internal or external?

2. Is there some degree of or condition known as hyper-internal locus-of-control? Because I think I may be afflicted.

Extra credit question: Can I punch external locus-of-control people in their stupid faces?

ApolloAndy said:

I think Gonch made this point earlier in the thread and it was what I responding to when I said, "There is a point to be made but I don't agree with it."

That is the line that I was originally commenting to. I was pointing out that you/we do agree with it at some level.

Speaking as an Ohioian, the measures that are being taken here to contain the virus are extreme. Extreme as compared to any other illness in my lifetime or anyone else here, we've never seen this level of containment action ever. The amount of disruption in our lives and livelihood is very concerning. From what I listened to, to Dewine's address yesterday, there are measures being taken to help those employees and employers affected by the bar and restaurant closures, but nothing is going to be perfect. My expectations are that this level of disruption is only going to increase as time goes on.

I don't like it. But I'm going to be a good citizen and comply where I can. In the end, we are going to talk about this virus for months, instead of weeks because this containment is most likely going to prolong who gets infected because of how contagious we are being told this is.

And that’s flattening the curve. What we absolutely can’t have is everyone getting infected at once.
The virus is real and more and more people are going to get it. Our best hope is to spread it out so it’s manageable.
I have so many friends in panic mode because they can’t work now, and I agree it will get worse.

Thanks OhioStater, that's interesting.

I bet that explains how something like that gets started, but I think the Easter egg hunts we used to take our daughters to explains how it gets perpetuated. Here's the scenario: a bunch of families gather in a large field around a section that has been roped off. Inside the ropes are a bunch of eggs laying in the grass in plain view. Once the horn goes off, all the little kids are supposed to jump in and collect as many eggs as they can. Simple enough. Now clearly, having adults go in with their kids, helping them collect eggs, would be very stupid and would make the whole thing pointless. I felt this way immediately, and I'm guessing that the vast majority of the people there probably felt the same way. But there were also a small handful of idiots that wanted to make sure their precious little Billy or Sally got as many eggs as possible, or at least that they didn't get less than the kids next to them. So these parents rush in with their kids, and now everyone else feels like they have to join in too. The field is picked clean in about 20 seconds, the kids get lost in a forrest of giant humans, and no one has any fun. It was infuriating.

I think the same thing is happening here. Most people (or at least many people) weren't compelled to buy enough bathroom tissue to TP the Amazon rain forest, but once a few individuals start doing it, it's hard to resist stocking up yourself.