Topic: Corona Virus Panic/Discussion Thread

@Arugula Coronavirus is the virus being spread. Covid-19 is the disease caused by this virus. Unless you’re referring to ‘The Chinese Virus’ 🙄

Noticeable downturn in customers for us the last 3 days. Got a few concerned colleagues. So we decided to launch home delivery.

It's a massive change to the business. But we need to save jobs and to keep the business bubbling for 15 weeks at a minimum level of sales and matched the government mortgage holiday by offering motor finance with no payments for 3 months. Trade your current car, stop payments and get a newer one! Hopefully that incentives people to buy!

@kyleforrester87 This is the conundrum. I'm personally gutted schools have closed so soon. There's a zero death rate in kids under 10 in Italy.

London and the immediate surrounding area is an outlier and should be rightfully closed, teachers and parents are a real worry with covid taking a grip. Up here we should be looking at next Wednesday or Thursday. But no, panic panic panic. It's been called too soon, according to all the reports acting like this will cause waves of the desease. There's limited immunity so expect the current, less effected areas to be buggered by Christmas.

The only positive is we will have more ventilators and a possible solution in drugs or injections. But I get the sinking suspicion we could sit it out a bit in areas like mine.

@Arugula it’s like when you were called Frigate and then changed your name to Arugula. Annoying and pointless.

@nessisonett as for calling it the Chinese virus, maybe someone needs to set me straight, but I don’t know if I really have a problem with them being called out like that. They’ve been responsible for a number of diseases like this, surely they’ll face some international pressure down the line to raise standards to help stop something like this happening again? I dunno. It’s the virus from China, after all.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy My kids will still be going to school as my wife's a keyworker (nurse NHS). They reckon 10% of kids will still need schooling of some sort.

The chances are 3/4 schools will close up and all the key workers kids will go to the open one on a skeleton staff.

@Arugula wow I never realised that was you Frigate.

@nessisonett Coronavirus is just a nick-name for Corvid 19 though. I'm not sure what you mean. We just tend to use something easier to say than a scientific name.
And wait, @Frigate is @Argula? I almost missed that completely. Dang, a name and avatar an change is hard to keep track of.

@Arugula see the problems it causes?

@kyleforrester87 There’s been a massive surge in violence against East Asians, whether that’s Chinese, Korean, Japanese, they literally don’t care. Let’s be honest, anyone listening to what Trump says clearly is a few sandwiches short of a picnic so giving them a clear scapegoat instead of just telling them to wash their bloody hands does more harm than good.

@Arugula Woah, I had no idea that was you. This is like a major plot twist 😂😂

@Arugula 😂 least I picked up on it.

@nessisonett fair enough, I’m happy to be enlightened, I can be pretty ignorant sometimes. Do you think there should be some international pressure put on China down the line though?

@Jaz007 No it’s the other way round. COVID-19 is Coronavirus Disease 19. The virus being spread is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, (SARS-CoV-2).

@kyleforrester87 Honestly, China cracked down on it. Yes, through dodgy ass means but it was when the countries brought their citizens back from Wuhan that all hell broke loose. I’m not saying we should have just left them but these sorta viruses find a way, despite the best efforts of governments. I don’t think it would do much good to blame China for not cracking down on it more while also blaming China for being too autocratic. Would be a bit ironic!

@nessisonett but, correct me if I’m wrong, it’s their wet markets which were the problem (now, and in the past?)

@kyleforrester87 Yeah, the markets were permanently closed and banned but in all honesty, they’ve been operating for years and this was bound to happen at some point. They operate in other countries too such as Mexico so I reckon it’ll change attitudes around the world. I think if you looked at a lot of countries around the world, you’ll probably find ‘traditional’ ways of doing things that are inherently unhygienic.

@kyleforrester87 to be fair wet markets are now illegal in China. So they have taken action.

Sars, mers and probably a few other local affair viruses have been linked to multiple wet markets. It's a cultural thing and having such a high concentration of people and animals in an unnatural habitat in one place.

More concerning is the pig issue from last year has been largely forgotten;

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/nov/23/china-pigs-a...

Something invisible and a force of nature has been chosen by natural selection to start making serious headway in killing both our and the animals we know lives. Maybe that has always been the case throughout the ages, there's just limited data from isolated sub groups of humanity. Yet the rate and rise of a significant number of super deadly and versatile virus is a tad worry some.

@nessisonett yeah you’re right, all it really does is insight hatred then. I don’t see it in that way myself so don’t make the connection that some idiots will. I still think they need to regulate better, but as you say it’s not just their country.

@themcnoisy yeah it’s going to be interesting to see what, if anything, happens. But it’ll likely get swept under the rug. All i can think about during all this is global warming, and how the writing is on the wall, yet the global leaders are dragging their heals. Even with warning signs we are apparently reluctant to act until it’s on our front door. I was one of the people saying it was pointless for the UK to lock down once it had left China and made its way into Europe, and I stand by that because it was already too late - you really need to prevent it before it kicks off in the first place.

@nessisonett @themcnoisy The thing is, it's only banned for food use; trading and selling for medicinal use is still allowed. That's the reason why the pangolin was there in the first place.