71-Year-Old Slashdot Reader Describes His 'Moderate' Case of Covid (researchandideas.com) 279
71-year-old Hugh Pickens (Slashdot reader #49,171) is a physicist who explored for oil in the Amazon jungle, commissioned microwave communications systems in Saudi Arabia, and built satellite control stations for Goddard Space Flight Center around the world including Australia, Antarctica, and Guam.
After retiring in 1999, he wrote over 1,400 Slashdot posts, and in the site's 23-year history still remains one of its two all-time most active submitters (behind only long-time Slashdot reader theodp). Today theodp shares an article by Hugh Pickens: I am a Covid Survivor," writes former Slashdot contributor extraordinaire Hugh Pickens (aka pickens, aka Hugh Pickens writes, aka Hugh Pickens DOT Com, aka HughPickens.com, aka pcol, aka ...). "I got the Covid six weeks ago and yesterday I was declared virus free. I had what was called a moderate case of Covid. I was never hospitalized. I was never in any real danger of death. But I was in bed for three weeks.
"It knocked me on my ass. I have been talking about my Covid when I go out and a lot of people are interested in what it really means to have a moderate case of Covid. I don't claim to speak for every Covid patient. I certainly can't speak for the ones who went into the hospital and are on ventilators. But I think the majority of people have a moderate case of Covid so I thought I would write this up for people that were interested."
During those three consecutive weeks in bed, "I guess I ate Jell-O for about two weeks..." Pickens writes. "I was laying in bed all day long. I was sleeping 12 to 14 hours a day..." He lost 25 pounds — and vividly describes having nightmares "every night like clockwork." But the essay ends with him committed to making the most of his second chance. "I'm only going to do what's important from now on...
"I'm 71 years old and I may have five more years or ten but I am going to live every day like it's my last."
After retiring in 1999, he wrote over 1,400 Slashdot posts, and in the site's 23-year history still remains one of its two all-time most active submitters (behind only long-time Slashdot reader theodp). Today theodp shares an article by Hugh Pickens: I am a Covid Survivor," writes former Slashdot contributor extraordinaire Hugh Pickens (aka pickens, aka Hugh Pickens writes, aka Hugh Pickens DOT Com, aka HughPickens.com, aka pcol, aka ...). "I got the Covid six weeks ago and yesterday I was declared virus free. I had what was called a moderate case of Covid. I was never hospitalized. I was never in any real danger of death. But I was in bed for three weeks.
"It knocked me on my ass. I have been talking about my Covid when I go out and a lot of people are interested in what it really means to have a moderate case of Covid. I don't claim to speak for every Covid patient. I certainly can't speak for the ones who went into the hospital and are on ventilators. But I think the majority of people have a moderate case of Covid so I thought I would write this up for people that were interested."
During those three consecutive weeks in bed, "I guess I ate Jell-O for about two weeks..." Pickens writes. "I was laying in bed all day long. I was sleeping 12 to 14 hours a day..." He lost 25 pounds — and vividly describes having nightmares "every night like clockwork." But the essay ends with him committed to making the most of his second chance. "I'm only going to do what's important from now on...
"I'm 71 years old and I may have five more years or ten but I am going to live every day like it's my last."
My covid experience (Score:5, Interesting)
My eighty year old father got covid first and then I got it from him. I did not know that I had had covid until I tested positive for covid antibodies two weeks after I was discharged from the hospital. I blogged about it here.
https://yacoronablog.blogspot.... [blogspot.com]
Re:My covid experience (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: My covid experience (Score:5, Informative)
The bug is really weird. A friend in the UK is a youngish (Mid 30s) female GP who got Covid from the hospital. She had what she described as "the mild version" of the bug. Her oxygen saturation went down to the low 80s (bad) , she developed a nasty fever, coughed up blood and had a couple of Grand mal seizures(she does have epilepsy but never THAT bad). She says compared to some of her patients that's a pretty mild case. Some of her patients have severe brain damage , are permanently on ventilation until a donor lung can be found, some are needing liver transplants. Most including herself report neurological problems including poor memory and confusion.
This is a VERY nasty disease. And if you think you ought just risk it and return to normal life before the vaccine arives, think again. You might have life time disabilities or worse if it gets out of hand.
Re: My covid experience (Score:5, Informative)
What's really scary is that people don't realise the high proportion of people that are affected. Although many people are asymptomatic, at one point people thought that most were asymptomatic we know know more than three quarters of people are symptomatic [bmj.com] so plenty of people that think they have had it actually haven't. Also we know that many young adults get organ damage [bmj.com] and other long term problems even if they were asymptomatic but the level just isn't clear yet.
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Personally I had it with symptoms unlike anybody else: I was deaf for 2 weeks and I had nothing else (I kept jogging, etc while wife was in bed).
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I had what felt like a slightly more serious attack of the flu, which progressed as real flu always does with me: 3 days of high fever, a couple of days of feeling meh afterwards. Now, that might have been ordinary flu, but this stupid country does not do antibody tests unless you're symptomatic, so I have no definite proof it was Covid.
However: my running performance took a nosedive. I'd only recently started, and until my flu-like attack in March I was working up to doing 5km in about 30 minutes, and maki
Re: My covid experience (Score:5, Interesting)
There was a lady here in Nashville who had it for a couple of weeks and got over it. A couple of weeks after she got over it husband woke up to find her dead. The issue was the blood clots.
I have a blood oxygenation meter and they're cheap and accurate:
https://www.amazon.com/Oximete... [amazon.com]
I check that every single day. Your blood oxygen level is one of the best indicators of having the virus and having problems even if you don't know it.
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Get correct or get wrecked.
Re: My covid experience (Score:4, Interesting)
I share your sentiments, but feeding a troll is a waste of keystrokes. Doesn't matter if he's sincerely stupid, proudly ignorant, or paid to fake it.
Yeah, I acknowledge that some people like playing with trolls, but I'd prefer not to watch. The trolls or the play.
So does anyone know a good discussion system where the trolls have all the tools they need to render themselves invisible? But with a loophole for exceptionally funny and thought-provoking BS to pop up once in a while?
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Your "PROOF" is a model. That's not the way things work. We build a model then we do the measurements. If the model matches then it's may be useful. If it doesn't match then we throw it away as useless.
In fact, my "Russki" friend, by september fewer than 10% of Americans in all regions had had SARS-COV-2 infections [jamanetwork.com] which is more than backed up by more recent, more limited seroprevalence surveys [cdc.gov].
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Wait, you build the model *before* you do the measurements? I've been doing it wrong for years.
That depends (Score:2)
That depends on what you're doing. For most general science yeah you collect the data, then fit a curve / model to the data. Data first, then model.
If you're doing something brand new with a lot of unknowns like 1940s-1960s rockets, you model it, build your rocket to the model, then check to see if the rocket's flight fit the model. Model first, then data.
If you're doing one specific kind of "science", you first build the model, then collect the data and "adjust" the data until it fits the model. Then you
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It is all a fucking model because NO ONE REALLY KNOWS THE NUMBERS. All we can do is model it. Life is not a computer program. That is what the CDC does. You should read their models, not come up with your own proof. The seroprevalance studies literally even say they are not representative. Seriously, leave science to the scientists.
I'm well aware the CDC study isn't fully representative which is why I pointed out the earlier study which was. It's also why I pointed out in my other comment the ONS surveys from the UK which are done properly. Science - you use that word, but I don't think you know what it means. In "science" we have this thing called "random sampling". Yes, random sampling relies on the "basic statistics" model of the world, however if you are going to claim that statistics doesn't work, I think you can call me when
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Re:My covid experience (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if the symptoms were not bad for you, now you have a pre-existing condition on file which may affect your ability to get health insurance. So far somewhere in the region of 20 million Americans are in the same boat.
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"You can get insurance, it just won't cover the illness you have." is the definition of useless insurance. Even if "most" insurance plans aren't useless - citation needed - last I heard there were many geographical areas with only 1 insurer in the market. If they aren't offering a "most plan", it's not really relevant.
Re:My covid experience (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you have proven anything with those articles.
Rates of testing have changed dramatically since the original estimate of an 8x multiplier, so I would be willing to bet that that multiplier is lower than the original estimate (there will be fewer uncaught cases). So I really doubt that this multiplier can be applied blindly. And it isn't as if CDC's estimates were an absolute truth either. They were just their best guess at the time with likely sparse data.
The Miami Herald article was dated November 27, 2020 (not all that long ago) and states that at that time about 13% of the population was likely infected. Even if we assume about the same number got infected since that date (it seems a bit high), this would give about 25% of the population today, or about 82 million - giving us 246 million more people who could still be infected. In other words, quite a large number still to go.
The fact of the matter is that large numbers of people are falling ill today, overwhelming many hospital systems. So whatever percent already has had it isn't all that relevant. It is a major problem right now.
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I wasn't claiming any particular number. I was just claiming that the 8x multiplier might not be up to date. With more widespread testing (which has happened, but I don't know the exact extent to which it has), the multiplier inevitably has to go down.
If 10% of the world has already had it, that means that 10x more can die from Covid (making the assumption that immunity is for life for most people and the virus won't mutate... neither of which are probably likely to be true). In this US, this is around 300K
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Re:My covid experience (Score:5, Informative)
Mr. Barky's post is likely right. The correct way to find this out is to do antibody surveys. It's very difficult to get the actual numbers for the US because, due to your clown of a President, nobody has been doing country wide randomised surveys like the surveys the Office for National Statistics carries out in the UK [ons.gov.uk] however there have been surveys and the presence. However those surveys that have been done [cdc.gov] suggest something between 3% and 10% (maximum) of the population have been infected. Given the delay between the surveys and now, 20Million sounds reasonable, though with error bars of +-10 million at a guesstimate.
Re:My covid experience (Score:5, Funny)
It's very difficult to get the actual numbers for the US because, due to your clown of a President, nobody has been doing country wide randomised surveys
Well, be fair - he's been very, very busy trying to steal the election and asking fellow republicans to find "missing" votes. There are only so many hours in a day.
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We can tell you aren't a COVID nutter because of your regular use of caps.
I know whenever I read anything where the author regularly switches between caps and non-caps I think to me self "Gee, this person must be super intelligent".
Math error [Re:My covid experience] (Score:5, Informative)
Do you see your error?
You're applying the same correction twice.
For reference, the current (Dec. 2020) CDC estimate is that 1 in 7.2 COVID-19 infections were reported. This is slightly lower than the number you quote because there's more access to testing now.
source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronaviru... [cdc.gov]
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Hold on. Neither of those article mentions the numbers you are talking about. The second article mentions 52.9 million. The first one 20 million. Both articles have already accounted for the 8x multiplier so they are already worst case scenarios - you can't use the multiplier twice.
I'm no expert, so I don't know which numbers are correct (a lot of people have had it, a lot more can still get it) but you're numbers don't seem anymore accurate than the OP. Is that because at the moment its all still estimates
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I had a moderate case similar to the article but my mother contracted pneumonia and died. She was in her 70's but she was extremely healthy for her age.
I have a dead friend from within the last month (Score:5, Insightful)
who was half Hugh's age. I know people who were hospitalized and some who weren't, but a number who have been confirmed to have had it. No one knows the long term effects. YMMV.
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I have a friend who died of smoking last month. Over 480,000 of my other friends also died of smoking this year. Oh and 860,000 of my friends died of heart disease. Get a grip. Welcome to planet Earth where viruses exist. The good news is none of my friends died of the flu this year. Quite mysterious.
Bad analogy.
Which are the result of individual lifestyle choices and genetics; they are not caused by viruses and are not communicable diseases. Smoking comes close but we limit second hand effects by limiting smoking; and if a place allows smoking I can decide whether I want to go there. If Americans weren't so fat heart disease would be much less of an issue but again it's not a communicable disease.
The good news is none of my friends died of the flu this year. Quite mysterious.
Perhaps your friends were smart enough to get vaccinated or the strain they had was mild this year.
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The sad thing is there are COVID deniers who continue to insist it's a hoax even as they literally, not figuratively, die of COVID.
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Re:Rugged individualism (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Rugged individualism (Score:5, Insightful)
As for empathy: you COVID nuts have zero. There are regular people (who don't work in IT) who cannot live their lives and work from home and thus have lost their jobs and futures. You guys have no empathy for them.
Empathy? I have a lot of empathy for those who have lost jobs, many of which will not come back. That is a challenge that will need to be addressed or their will be long term problems. You can't just say "learn to code" or "find a job."
OTOH, I do have zero empathy for those who insist is all a hoax and refuse to take even simple steps to help stop the spread because well "I HAVE RIGHTS!!" Or those who actively try to convince people not to be vaccinated , because well, Gates and Soros and Pelosi. Or those who scream for that teachers should shut up and go to work, with the school district saying there is no money for PE, while demanding the luxury of keeping their spawn at home and be taught remotely by the same teacher who is also expected to teach in class. Of course, the first time one of their snowflakes gets infected and they find out the school isn't disinfecting desks they'll scream their rights were violated. So yea, fuck them.
The best news about the vaccine is it does not mean you van't get it ab be contagious, so all those anti-vaccine nutcases can get infected and die, thus creating heard immunity. Glad they are willing to make the sacrifice.
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I have a lot of empathy for those who have lost jobs, many of which will not come back.
If a job is lost and doesn't return due to a temporary virus it wasn't a stable job in the first place. Jobs exist due to the supply and demand curve. Will you have the same job at the same company? Maybe not. That doesn't mean that somehow post virus when everything goes back to normal the entire world decides that actually they are happy not cutting their hair, not eating out, or to stand with extra long queues at the checkout.
If your job doesn't come back it's because it was on borrowed time, not because
Re:Rugged individualism (Score:4, Informative)
No one is saying it's a hoax? You're a liar.
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NO ONE IS FUCKING SAYING IT IS A HOAX.
I guess you never heard the phrase Plandemic?
They are saying that it is overblown for political purposes. And yeah, teachers SHOULD SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GO TO WORK. Even the CDC said so:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/23... [cnn.com]
This is what the CDC issued as guidance, [slashdot.org]criteria many schools simply cannot meet as suggested so they just ignore the protective actions.
You fuckers stopped "following the science" a long time ago. Narcissistic IT fuckers.
Whatever. Enjoy your permanent unemployment.
Re:Rugged individualism (Score:5, Interesting)
They are all poster children for anti-smoking campaigns. What a miserable existence; their lives completely controlled by an addiction to tobacco.
Re:Rugged individualism (Score:5, Insightful)
As for empathy: you COVID nuts have zero. There are regular people (who don't work in IT) who cannot live their lives and work from home and thus have lost their jobs and futures. You guys have no empathy for them. You are narcissists.
This is real fuckfaced dipshittery. If we had just locked down the country hard for two weeks when we discovered this thing and implemented test and trace then all those people would be back at work by now. But you "but muh rights" dildos refused to stay home, and your orange asshole up in the white house fucked up the pandemic response including testing, and now here we are with hundreds of thousands dead and still having to see dumbfucks like you bitching about how we need to reopen to save jobs.
What we know from the 1918 pandemic is that when you lock down harder and sooner you have better economic recovery because you get back to work sooner. But 45 fucked that all up and now you're blaming people who just want the pandemic to be over so that life can go back to normal for things not being normal. But as usual, it's not their fault, it's some republican warmongers' faults. They wanted to spend all the money on bombs. Look where that got us.
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LOL (Score:2)
I have the god given right to eat shitty food in an Applebee's without a mask!
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Lockdowns don't help when you have governors forcing nursing homes to take in covid-positive patients even when the virus isn't already in the facility. Cuomo's arrogance directly lead to thousands of deaths that didn't have to happen. He had a hospital ship available but he couldn't use it because it might make Trump look good.
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*sigh* I have seen you on Slashdot for a very long time. It is a shame to see that you have been radicalized at this point. I feel the pressure too.
If we had just locked down the country hard for two weeks when we discovered this thing and implemented test and trace then all those people would be back at work by now.
A two week lock down would definitely have altered the trajectory of the virus in a positive manner. Your following assumptions that everything would have been okay afterwards is the clue that you have been radicalized.
The clincher is:
But 45 fucked that all up
There are other clues, such as using the term "orange man". Ultimately, the views you are espousing are full of assumptions and u
Re:Rugged individualism (Score:5, Insightful)
BULLSHIT. We could not lock down the country anyway. Stupid fucking Fauci said it wasn't necessary. PROOF: https://www.usatoday.com/story [usatoday.com]...
Sure, that was wrong. So what? Is Fauci president? Is he in control of congress? No, and no? So it's not his decision to make? Okay then. Also, "Fauci said it wasn't necessary" and "We could not lock down the country anyway" are separate statements and you've only supported one of them. Now support the other one if you want me to be impressed.
The virus was already spread by then.
So what? That's irrelevant. You stop the spread by locking down, any time before everyone gets it.
Plus politicians were encouraging people to go to fucking Chinatown: Is she one of those "muh rights" people?
No, she's one of those "muh corporate donations" people. Nobody on the left considers her to be on the left.
Stupid IT guys think running a country is like SimCity. It isn't. You cannot hide from viruses.
Yes, you actually can. You totally, actually can. We know this from prior pandemics. At least, those of us capable of learning from history, unlike russian trolls who think surely THIS time their party will be grateful to them for their service.
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We know it from THIS pandemic. We see across the world, the better countries are locked down, the less severe it is.
Re:Rugged individualism (Score:5, Insightful)
We know it from THIS pandemic. We see across the world, the better countries are locked down, the less severe it is.
Oh right, absolutely. We're re-proving what we knew from before. My point in saying it that was was that we already knew it before Covid. It's also why I get so pissed off when reich-wingers cry about how Trump was lambasted for locking down... Trump didn't lock down. He didn't lock down domestically, he didn't even try to lock down travel but only to prohibit some people coming from some places which was a fat waste of time, as if the virus were racist. It ain't.
It would still work, we could lock down any time for just two or three weeks and kick this virus' ass right back to where it came from (waiting to escape from a wet market, probably.) But we STILL won't do that, and now that a vaccine is starting to trickle out, we never will.
So which did he choose? (Score:5, Funny)
So he's either going to spend each day on his knees before God or doing lines of coke off a hot escort's ass. A little specificity would have been nice.
Re:So which did he choose? (Score:5, Funny)
So he's either going to spend each day on his knees before God or doing lines of coke off a hot escort's ass.
But that's how I worship, you insensitive clod!
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I definitely read that "or" as "and."
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It's happened! (Score:2)
It's happened! A Titan against a Titan!" [youtu.be]
Doesn't sound moderate (Score:2)
I've known several people who tested positive for Covid-19 after displaying symptoms who were back on their feet in 10 days or less, without symptoms. Fever, cough, loss of taste/smell, the usual.
Any case that leaves you bed-ridden for three weeks is pretty severe, even without the potential pneumonia.
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Yeah definitely not the same as I might use them.
Thats not moderate (Score:2)
Myself and my wife had moderate covid - I had a very bad cough for a week and felt a little fatigued , she felt a bit off. That was it.
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And have you been aggressively checked for additional damage? Blood clots? Stuff that's going to come back to bite you later?
Re: Thats not moderate (Score:3)
I asked to make the point that he doesn't likely even know what the full impact was, for anyone who might be reading this and paying attention. But since you care about no one but yourself that surely would make no sense to you.
I had Covid in April (Score:5, Informative)
In the US, 1 in 1,000 are dead (Score:2)
This disease is one of those that some people just don't understand. It did not help that a certain politician did not accept the problem. Nor did he work with the CDC, (who's job it is to help us with exactly this type of problem). This led far too many normally sane people to dismiss it as another flu, (the flu can kill too!).
In the end, (July?), we will likely have many more dead. Perhaps not as many per year as heart disease or cancer, (the 2 biggest killers in the
Got the vax (Score:2)
Moderna flavor. Arm was sore for a few days. No fever, no tiredness, just a sore arm. I'll take that 100x over COVID. Waiting for the next dose. There's a bit of relief as my wife and I wondered how we'd handle being sick with 3 young, active kids, specifically the overpowering exhaustion and long sleeps/naps we've heard about people helplessly getting.
I work in medical industry and the hospital I'm usually at decided not to give them to vendors, despite that I'm there every day and it would make sense
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that was nothing, 2nd dose is the one that many people say hits hard
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that was nothing, 2nd dose is the one that many people say hits hard
Source?
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Is mainstream news item from the makers' studies that side effects were more common after 2nd dose.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/... [statnews.com]
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It is mainstream news item that 2nd dose has the most negative side effects, I posted one example link, have a look. You clearly live under a rock if you haven't heard of 2nd dose problems with both Moderna and Pfizer two vaccination protocols.
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I said nothing about safety nor any "disaster" fantasy. Saying 2nd dose is the difficult one most likely to cause trouble (which the manufacturer themselves state) is not the same thing. Some people did have serious effects, that is a fact and again mainstream news item.
Quit getting triggered. You are the one with the chip on your shoulder tilting at windmills. Meanwhile, those of us not living under a rock will discuss reality.
Never knew I had it (Score:2)
I tested positive for the antibodies, but I never even knew I had it. I never felt the slightest bit sick at any point in 2020.
Don't know when I got it or from whom.
Odd thing about those nightmares... (Score:2)
The nightmares described sound a lot like an ayahuasca trip, but presumably with less vomiting.
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Oh look at me, look at me! (Score:2)
I almost died of a mild case!
A sack of rice fell over too, the world almost ended, so I'm gonna massively overblow the significance for my life!
Got the Rona back in October (Score:2)
Who says that's "moderate"? (Score:2)
My wife and I (our mid 50s) both had it at the same time as one daughter (23). Our son (26) also lives in the house, so I have to assume he had it but there were no symptoms for him.
This was in Mpls region, the week following Christmas last year (2019) - so we were some of the earliest cases, as IIRC only 1-2 other cases had been announced in MN by then, and 1 of them was in our county.
It was a bad cold. In fact, that's what we thought it was, until later revelations dovetailed with
- my wife noted at the
Re:Justification for worldwide panic? (Score:5, Informative)
1. The world's economies are not "shut down".
2. Vaccines are on their way.
3. Hundreds of thousands of premature deaths in the US alone are not enough of a reason to restrict people's behaviour ?!
There are stats on that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There are stats on that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Justification for worldwide panic? (Score:5, Informative)
#3 is absolute bullshit. Take a look here at CDC's data:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
If it isn't stunningly obvious from just glancing at the graph, you can hover over any given week. The death rates are notably higher in 2020 than in any of the years shown in the graph (2017 - 2020). Basically death rates have been up for every single week since the week of March 28, 2020. Many weeks, it is 20%+ more deaths. (And please note: the most recent weeks are partial counts - there is a lag of up to 10 weeks for data reporting).
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It is undeniable that USA has excess deaths due to COVID-19. But what will you expect the death rate to become once the vaccine program is implemented given that COVID-19 mainly kills old and chronically sick people? I expect it to drop to lower than average for the coming years even though the impact of closing down sports, loneliness and less spread of other diseases will of course also impact the death rate. But of course it will be a net loss of life years. But the integral effect of COVID-19 will be le
Re:Justification for worldwide panic? (Score:5, Insightful)
The mental and moral athletics people will go through to claim that COVID isn't as bad as the medical community in the entire world says it is is astounding.
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I expect it to drop to lower than average for the coming years
I don't agree (but this is just speculation). There will be some of what you describe but...
I think Covid's effects will be with us long-term and will lower the average age of death for years to come. A vaccine is unlikely to completely eliminate Covid - especially because there are so many people who will refuse vaccination. It will be around for a long time (I really hope I am wrong here!). Next, people who weren't outright killed but required hospitalization are likely to have chronic conditions that mig
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So, let me get this right: we should be blasé about being infected by a pathogen that has killed 350k in the US alone, but scared of being injected with a vaccine that has killed no-one and will never, ever, come close to killing 350k in the US alone? And you want us to take you seriously, do you?
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'Denial' ain't just a river in Egypt, old son, and you're dancing as fast as you can trying to convince yourself that this shit ain't real -- BUT IT IS.
Get over yourself, none of this is fake, none of it is a 'conspiracy to take away your freedoms' or any other fucktarded shit like that. STOP LYING TO YOURSELF, STOP LYING TO OTHERS.
Re:Justification for worldwide panic? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just look at the surges that happen where economies partially open. People ignore distancing/mask guidelines and the numbers spike drastically. And really, nothing is "shut down" for the most part except large public events and businesses which enable dense indoor gatherings. It doesn't take a whole lot of close interaction for the virus to surge dramatically. I think it would be awful to have the typical surge at double, triple or worse levels.
Plus a lot of it is self-enforced. I know a ton of people who won't eat at a restaurant at 1/4 capacity. Right when the pandemic broke in the US in March, but before any official shutdown happened, people I knew went to restaurants that were otherwise impossible to get in without a reservation made weeks in advance, and they walked right in at 7:30 pm and were seated.
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Plenty of stuff is shut down that shouldn't be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
He spent $12,000 to build an outdoor dining area and then the city wouldn't let him use it. So, he's out the $12,000 and now he's being harassed by a stupid "inspector" because customers bought from him and then sat on a *city owned* bench on the sidewalk in front of his store to eat and he's apparently supposed to shoo them away himself.
This woman set up an outdoor dining area at her restaurant at a cost of $80,000:
https://abc [abc7news.com]
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I'll totally admit there's a ton of arbitrary interpretation, some of which seems unfair.
But this isn't done as part of some conspiracy, it's an absolute byproduct of the lack of centralized leadership and the politicization of the pandemic. The rules are scattershot, lack uniformity and implementation and enforcement wind up all over the map.
If we had some kind of centralized leadership on this, and not politically and economically motivated denial it would be a lot better.
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Go on then.
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The nice thing about morons like you is you don't actually rise to positions of actual importance. That's by design.
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I wish you were right, but current evidence is that morons do indeed rise to the top all too often.
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Is it worth the risk of your child, your spouse, and/or your parents dying? Tell you what, I will agree with you if you gather your family together and I get to come over and randomly shoot your loved ones.
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The economies were not shut down. They were some business sectors that needed to be closed down for a bit. Then they reopened, and management was a bunch of assholes who didn't bother following the regulations nor tried to enforce the rules. Thus became a hot spot and had to close again.
The biggest problem with COVID is how long a person can be infectious without any symptoms (Around 2 weeks). How easily it is to spread the virus. How long it will stay in the air and on surfaces.
So even if you are Mr He
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Wear your gods-be-damned mask, stop gathering in large groups of people, and get the gods-be-damned vaccine as soon as it's available to you, and shut the fuck up. Sick to death of people like you dragging this shit out orders of magnitude longer than it has to be.
Re:Justification for worldwide panic? (Score:5, Insightful)
How would I know? There are many, many cases that have been reported where the "infected" person didn't even know they had it until they were forced to take a test. Asymptomatic carriers are the signature of this shapeshifting disease, remember?
Asymptomatic infections are currently thiought to be below a quarter. Although that means it might happen to you, typically you will know about it because other people around you will get symptoms.
Re:Justification for worldwide panic? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. Quarantine the most vulnerable and narrowly target relief payments to them. Let the young and healthy work. This magic money costs us hundreds of billions every year in interest payments.
That was the strategy they tried in Sweden which led to massive infection and death in care homes. This just doesn't work since the most vulnerable are the people that need to meet with their younger or more able carers. Only by protecting those carers (in other words, the young) can you protect the elderly.
Re: Justification for worldwide panic? (Score:4)
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You can look at CA right now and see lock downs don't work because stringent enough lock downs to effectively control the spread are just not possible in the USA or most western economies.
They're very possible, but not when senior politicians are constantly undercutting the lockdown requests.
Frankly, if Trump hadn't been running the US and spending the pandemic arguing against masks and lockdowns I suspect the infection and death rates across the western world (his reach extends beyond the US) would be substantially lower.
On the other hand isolating care homes and at risk population is clearly a manageable logistics problem.
Lets just pretend you're right (though I think you're wrong).
Did you miss what happened in NYC? A minor outbreak ravages the care homes, but a major outbreak ravages everyo
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Thanks to this style of reporting, there are probably more people who think of Brock Allen Turner as a member of the Harvard swim team than a brutal rapist despite the fact his actual claim to fame is the latter.
That style of reporting doesn't seem to be working. He was not a member of the Harvard swim team.
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Great resume qualifications, but what dramatic value was that suppose to add?
Because he doesn't really have those qualifications. His "oil drilling" experience was when he was an observer working for the Peace Corps.
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It was to honor a celebrated Slashdot O.G. with a 5-digit UID and over 1,400 posts!
I've only got 1 more digit and likely to be closing in on the post count. I look forward to getting my corona hospital stay blog post on Slashdot too.
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The use of "doctor" for physicians seems to be sort of a courtesy or informal thing in most of the world, with only a few outliers like the US and Canada taking it seriously. And of course you've got all the others too, vets, dentists, naturopaths, chiropractors, lawyers....
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Put an upper age limit of 65 on voters and politicians and you have my support.