Topic: Corona Virus Panic/Discussion Thread

@Ralizah Back in March, when they said their goal was to keep the number under 100,000, I thought they were talking about total deaths, not daily new cases

@nessisonett I just get confused as to how much more of a ***** show it could be. I thought it was bad in Scotland that you could get to an indoor pub before schools or swimming pools opened but in England its a whole new level. I love that delaying the opening of beauty salons and bowling alleys is Boris pumping the breaks! If they keep business open but schools have to go back blended learning its a disgrace.
@themcnoisy I get the idea behind something novel to keep things going but many commodity and leisure shops etc rely on people having free time to buy things. Lots of shops literally live for the weekend. We will see whether economic or public health considerations get priority soon enough. Personally don't think there will ever be full lock down with furlough ever again, even if its needed, due to cost.

@Zeldafan79 Yeah, several events that have led to a bunch of people getting infected have been traced back to restaurants. As far as I'm concerned, there's no particularly safe way to eat at a restaurant unless it's based outside and the tables are all WAY spread apart. I won't sit down in a restaurant again until this is over. It sucks, because my family and I had a nearly unbroken, decade-long tradition of attending Monday night trivia at a local Mexican restaurant, but... it's just not safe.

Bars are even worse. "Safely" reopening a bar right now is a fairy tale.

One of the more depressing outcomes of this will be the apocalyptic effect it has on smaller restaurants, pubs, bars, etc. I literally expect only chains and large businesses to survive this situation.

@Octane lol, and we'll end up not accomplishing either of those.

I don't know how a country screws up a virus response this bad. We've done everything wrong. You think the man in charge would at least TRY to contain the situation leading in to an election, but all he's doing now is making it harder to determine the full impact of the virus being revealed by hospital data.

At this point, I'm convinced we should have never locked down in the U.S. Not because it wasn't needed (it is), but because we screwed it up by not coordinating it federally and rushing to re-open early in a bunch of states. The result? Near depression levels of unemployment and lost economic activity for LITERALLY nothing.

I feel like I live in a country governed by small children. It's insanity.

@Ralizah Yeah... but... why do something when you can complain?

@Octane 17,000 deaths sucks. 200,000+ is vastly worse. And those numbers will keep climbing, because, until November, we don't even have the possibility of competent leadership.

If Obama had been in office when this kicked off, it'd still be bad, but we'd be in a much safer place as a country.

EDIT: Don't forget: "nObOdY lIkEs Me "

World's oldest drama queen.

@Ralizah I didn't realise this virus was a popularity contest.

@Arugula When they said ‘America First’, I didn’t think they meant this!

Passed by the Weather Channel this afternoon and saw this...

Only in America, lol.

So the UK as at a weird place right now, similar in many ways to when the USA had a down slide of deaths. Everyone thinks its OK and life's back to normal again, almost everyone I know is back out and doing stuff regularly. This is the most dangerous time.

As the virus multiplies exponentially spread predominantly A-symptomaticly its only a matter of time for things to go nuts again. We should be trying to kill the virus but it's kind of just lingering around like a bad smell.

Some good points today though is the realisation that antibody tests don't give a true picture of people who have had coronavirus. People who have a brief brush with the virus don't tend to get antibodies but their bodies can still give a T response or something. So the % of the population to have had it are likely to be way higher with a level of protection than the statistics state (10% a couple of weeks back).

@themcnoisy I think that at the moment in the UK you just have to do what feels right for you.

My parents came down last weekend and I had no problem with that. They've been going out to pubs with beer gardens and seeing friends for a while but me and the wife haven't really done that at all. We did take them out for dinner when they were down and it was absolutely fine. I decided we'd go out on the Thursday evening so it would be hopefully be a bit quieter and there were no problems.

The biggest problem at the moment is all the bloody tourists, just like every summer! That said, the beaches are crazy busy and, apparently, one we often go to had two hour queues to go down the small country road to get to it yesterday.

@Thrillho Yes and no, the places which have additional rules enforced are 25 miles from where I live. The eat out to help out incentive is obviously a nice bonus, however it's just going to encourage people to mingle indoors. When a few areas are in a pseudo LockDown on your doorstep it's a tad worrying.

We are almost there with a vaccine and cases are rising again, to me it seems we have gone past a sensible point with the rules and business which are operating. I don't think reopening pubs was sensible tbh. I'm not concerned for myself - more so the way it could impact business which can operate relatively safely in contrast to pubs.

We have finished our first wave now with a huge sacrifice from the population and would much prefer to tighten the rules now, than wait for the inevitable reactive LockDown response when numbers rise again which effects everyone, rather than just the areas of the economy causing numbers to rise.

This would be hilarious if it was a spoof on The Tonight Show or something. Instead, it’s terrifying that it’s real.

Trump proudly announcing that the US death rates are lower than the world is rather special.

Good to see the US has a better death toll than the world. That’s a really clear and precise thing to say.

lol

I don't use the word "hate" lightly, but I really do hate that man.

Anyway, it's weird how Trump keeps granting interviews to actual journalists lately. I understand how he could have gotten ambushed on Fox News (although he should've known that Chris Wallace, of all people, wasn't going to throw him softball questions in an interview), but what's the incentive for this Axios interview? When he's doing press events, he's keen on ignoring mainstream outlets in favor of bootlickers like OAN.

@Thrillho the video is like a spoof mock up. Honestly have no idea what's going on anymore.

On one hand it's hilarious watching Trump fumble around for excuses with self soothing stats. On the other this is the most powerful man in the world with his fingers on the biggest nuclear arsenal. Mad world.

@themcnoisy

It took me until the third panel to realise this one was a spoof.

I feel that even if we eventually find a way to rid the world of Covid 19, with the way the human race behaves, the next pandemic is likely only round the corner. Unless we really strive for positive change.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2250927-disease-carrying...

So if I lived across the street, I’d be back in lockdown but seem to have avoided it by the space of meters. Ludicrous.

@nessisonett What's going on?