tth2 Posted March 21, 2020 Share Posted March 21, 2020 Don't believe the stats from Japan. It is absolutely not in control there and neither the government nor the general population is taking it seriously yet. I am the farthest thing there is from a conspiracy nut, but the Japanese government is deliberately under-reporting infections and deaths. exitmusicblue 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjonahjameson11 Posted March 21, 2020 Share Posted March 21, 2020 1 hour ago, Rick2you2 said: I don't think you appreciate what a really bad disease is. Go read up on things like Polio epidemics, the death rate for Smallpox, the devastation caused by the Black Death, or even measles' impact without being vaccination. Even other diseases in the coronavirus "family" have a higher death rate, like SARS and MEARS. I did not say it was a "good" disease. I honestly wouldn’t know where to begin responding to your incredibly ignorant statements. Just plain stupid. eewwnuk and tth2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
batman_fan Posted March 21, 2020 Share Posted March 21, 2020 Hopefully some of the treatments being discussed will end up being effective so the death rate can be reduced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodou Posted March 21, 2020 Share Posted March 21, 2020 14 minutes ago, jjonahjameson11 said: I honestly wouldn’t know where to begin responding to your incredibly ignorant statements. Just plain stupid. Too far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Carlo M Posted March 21, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 21, 2020 Hi everybody, writing from Italy so I thought my contribition might be of interest. I appreciate the topic is highly sensitive. It touches upon important themese like healthcare, economic policy, transaprency, etc etc. which are not only a matter of hard facts but also of political orientation. So I am not going to intervene with my views as to what is the right policy approach (the two main approaches being suppression of the contagion through drastic measures at the risk of a major economic downturn vs. mitigation, with more deaths, in particular from the weak side of the population). Just reporting what I am seeing here. We all underestimated the impact of this thing (and it was only middle of February,even though it feels a totally different world now). The common view was "it is just a flu that sometimes degenerates in pneumonia". Today, only one month later, we have over 47k infected, rising at about 15-20% every day, and about 4k dead. And this is after 14 days of lockdown in Lombardy (the region where this started) and 10 days of lockdown in Italy. And consider that most cases are in the North/Eastern area of the country whch is one of the wealthiest regions in Europe, with a very advanced healthcare system. True, most of the reported deaths might actually be of people with other pre-existing medical problems. But the hard fact is that we also have several dead in their '20s-50s. In any case, spending 7-10 days intubated is not great even if you don't die. As a sheer example of the danger, please consider that 14 doctors servig in treating the contagion are now dead. Our health system is at the utter limit of its capacity; ambulance sirens are going off continually here in Milan. The picture below, of an exhausted nurse taking one minute's rest, has become a Nationwide symbol of the battle that is being fought everyday by doctors and nurses. Besides the various different political positions, I would like to send my best wishes to all the countries that today are lagging 7-14 days from Italy's current situation. I seriously hope that your path diverges from ours (for the better). Best to everybody, J.Sid, tth2, NC101 and 8 others 2 6 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RBerman Posted March 21, 2020 Share Posted March 21, 2020 1 hour ago, tth2 said: Don't believe the stats from Japan. It is absolutely not in control there and neither the government nor the general population is taking it seriously yet. I am the farthest thing there is from a conspiracy nut, but the Japanese government is deliberately under-reporting infections and deaths. What data do you have about this? My friend in Japan felt the actual situation was comparable to the reported situation. I do know that Japan has a reputation for reclassifying deaths as "not murder" in order to reduce the perceived rate of unsolved murder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crowzilla Posted March 21, 2020 Share Posted March 21, 2020 59 minutes ago, RBerman said: What data do you have about this? My friend in Japan felt the actual situation was comparable to the reported situation. I do know that Japan has a reputation for reclassifying deaths as "not murder" in order to reduce the perceived rate of unsolved murder. I think it has more to do with Japan not testing to full capacity, and even refusing some tests when requested. If you don't test for it, there are no official cases (and the Olympics will be just fine) http://theconversation.com/coronavirus-in-japan-why-is-the-infection-rate-relatively-low-133648? tth2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlo M Posted March 21, 2020 Share Posted March 21, 2020 16 minutes ago, Taylor G said: Bear in mind that this virus has a long incubation period, so there will be a lag from when the lockdown starts to when you start to see the number of people diagnosed positive going down: Best of luck and stay safe. Hope so! Today was day +14 here in Lombardy and numbers were not good (the "war" bulletin just came out). Hopefully tomorrow we'll start seeing some relief! Twanj 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RBerman Posted March 21, 2020 Share Posted March 21, 2020 "Refusing some tests when requested" could be good or bad. Not everyone who thinks he needs testing necessarily does. But it wouldn't shock me for any country to pretend things are better than they are. Russia, for instance, reports a low prevalence which seems unlikely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluechip Posted March 21, 2020 Share Posted March 21, 2020 On 3/19/2020 at 10:15 AM, Twanj said: I can see people asking to have their bigger ticket items removed. Also wondering if any winners from the last signature auction haven't paid. FWIW, I've been following how different groups of people I know are reacting to the pandemic and even among the groups that have been discussing it logically, I find the discussion here to be more fact-based than others, on average. The pursuit of comic-related things may be rife with emotional and sometimes illogical views, but the folk within it seem nonetheless able to look at this situation objectively and with relative calm. Not sure why. Twanj 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
batman_fan Posted March 21, 2020 Share Posted March 21, 2020 2 hours ago, Carlo M said: Hi everybody, writing from Italy so I thought my contribition might be of interest. I appreciate the topic is highly sensitive. It touches upon important themese like healthcare, economic policy, transaprency, etc etc. which are not only a matter of hard facts but also of political orientation. So I am not going to intervene with my views as to what is the right policy approach (the two main approaches being suppression of the contagion through drastic measures at the risk of a major economic downturn vs. mitigation, with more deaths, in particular from the weak side of the population). Just reporting what I am seeing here. We all underestimated the impact of this thing (and it was only middle of February,even though it feels a totally different world now). The common view was "it is just a flu that sometimes degenerates in pneumonia". Today, only one month later, we have over 47k infected, rising at about 15-20% every day, and about 4k dead. And this is after 14 days of lockdown in Lombardy (the region where this started) and 10 days of lockdown in Italy. And consider that most cases are in the North/Eastern area of the country whch is one of the wealthiest regions in Europe, with a very advanced healthcare system. True, most of the reported deaths might actually be of people with other pre-existing medical problems. But the hard fact is that we also have several dead in their '20s-50s. In any case, spending 7-10 days intubated is not great even if you don't die. As a sheer example of the danger, please consider that 14 doctors servig in treating the contagion are now dead. Our health system is at the utter limit of its capacity; ambulance sirens are going off continually here in Milan. The picture below, of an exhausted nurse taking one minute's rest, has become a Nationwide symbol of the battle that is being fought everyday by doctors and nurses. Besides the various different political positions, I would like to send my best wishes to all the countries that today are lagging 7-14 days from Italy's current situation. I seriously hope that your path diverges from ours (for the better). Best to everybody, Stay safe and thanks for the information ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mmehdy Posted March 22, 2020 Share Posted March 22, 2020 10 hours ago, Carlo M said: Hi everybody, writing from Italy so I thought my contribition might be of interest. I appreciate the topic is highly sensitive. It touches upon important themese like healthcare, economic policy, transaprency, etc etc. which are not only a matter of hard facts but also of political orientation. So I am not going to intervene with my views as to what is the right policy approach (the two main approaches being suppression of the contagion through drastic measures at the risk of a major economic downturn vs. mitigation, with more deaths, in particular from the weak side of the population). Just reporting what I am seeing here. We all underestimated the impact of this thing (and it was only middle of February,even though it feels a totally different world now). The common view was "it is just a flu that sometimes degenerates in pneumonia". Today, only one month later, we have over 47k infected, rising at about 15-20% every day, and about 4k dead. And this is after 14 days of lockdown in Lombardy (the region where this started) and 10 days of lockdown in Italy. And consider that most cases are in the North/Eastern area of the country whch is one of the wealthiest regions in Europe, with a very advanced healthcare system. True, most of the reported deaths might actually be of people with other pre-existing medical problems. But the hard fact is that we also have several dead in their '20s-50s. In any case, spending 7-10 days intubated is not great even if you don't die. As a sheer example of the danger, please consider that 14 doctors servig in treating the contagion are now dead. Our health system is at the utter limit of its capacity; ambulance sirens are going off continually here in Milan. The picture below, of an exhausted nurse taking one minute's rest, has become a Nationwide symbol of the battle that is being fought everyday by doctors and nurses. Besides the various different political positions, I would like to send my best wishes to all the countries that today are lagging 7-14 days from Italy's current situation. I seriously hope that your path diverges from ours (for the better). Best to everybody, Good luck and beat this darn thing... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tth2 Posted March 22, 2020 Share Posted March 22, 2020 10 hours ago, Carlo M said: Today, only one month later, we have over 47k infected, rising at about 15-20% every day, and about 4k dead. Unfortunately, now almost 5k dead, with 793 new deaths reported in Italy today. Absolutely staggering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tth2 Posted March 22, 2020 Share Posted March 22, 2020 10 hours ago, RBerman said: 11 hours ago, tth2 said: Don't believe the stats from Japan. It is absolutely not in control there and neither the government nor the general population is taking it seriously yet. I am the farthest thing there is from a conspiracy nut, but the Japanese government is deliberately under-reporting infections and deaths. What data do you have about this? My friend in Japan felt the actual situation was comparable to the reported situation. I do know that Japan has a reputation for reclassifying deaths as "not murder" in order to reduce the perceived rate of unsolved murder. Very little testing, very few restrictions, very few protocols, and deaths from flu-like symptoms, unless actually known to be from the Wuhan Virus, are reported as being flu. And the bodies are being incinerated immediately, so no chance of checking them later. And of course the Japanese mainstream media is very much in the pocket of the government and generally presents the message that the government wants, so people inside Japan might actually be getting the least accurate picture of all. In all fairness, there doesn't seem to be a bulge in deaths that would indicate that regardless of how the Japanese government is categorizing deaths, there are more deaths than usual that could point to Wuhan Virus. So at the moment things probably do seem okay, but it's not because of proactive measures being taken by the government or the population. Things may indeed have stabilized, but in my opinion it'd be down to good luck rather than good process, and one should not rely on good luck continuing. Given that the elderly make up an even larger percentage of the population than in Italy, any slip will have catastrophic consequences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tth2 Posted March 22, 2020 Share Posted March 22, 2020 9 hours ago, Crowzilla said: 10 hours ago, RBerman said: What data do you have about this? My friend in Japan felt the actual situation was comparable to the reported situation. I do know that Japan has a reputation for reclassifying deaths as "not murder" in order to reduce the perceived rate of unsolved murder. I think it has more to do with Japan not testing to full capacity, and even refusing some tests when requested. If you don't test for it, there are no official cases (and the Olympics will be just fine) http://theconversation.com/coronavirus-in-japan-why-is-the-infection-rate-relatively-low-133648? Exactly. As I said in my other post just now, in all fairness, if there was suddenly a big, unaccountable bulge in deaths, then it really wouldn't matter what testing was or was not being done or how the government was reporting or categorizing things. So for whatever reason Wuhan Virus genuinely doesn't seem to be affecting Japan at the moment, but wishing and hoping is a terrible strategy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
comix4fun Posted March 22, 2020 Share Posted March 22, 2020 14 hours ago, delekkerste said: At least twice in the past day I've seen people consciously divert and decide to take the stairs instead of sharing an elevator with me. Sheesh. Have you been cutting back on showers to ration water? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exitmusicblue Posted March 22, 2020 Share Posted March 22, 2020 (edited) On 3/21/2020 at 8:26 AM, tth2 said: Don't believe the stats from Japan. It is absolutely not in control there and neither the government nor the general population is taking it seriously yet. I am the farthest thing there is from a conspiracy nut, but the Japanese government is deliberately under-reporting infections and deaths. Hate to say it, but 100% truth. Desperate efforts to save their (doomed) Olympics complicating matters. Edited March 22, 2020 by exitmusicblue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exitmusicblue Posted March 22, 2020 Share Posted March 22, 2020 Anyhoo... back to OA. Must take a closer look at the May auction as my birthday follows soon thereafter. : > Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
batman_fan Posted March 23, 2020 Share Posted March 23, 2020 1 hour ago, exitmusicblue said: Anyhoo... back to OA. Must take a closer look at the May auction as my birthday follows soon thereafter. : > Hey wait, my birthday is in May too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timely Posted March 23, 2020 Share Posted March 23, 2020 9 hours ago, batman_fan said: Hey wait, my birthday is in May too Mine too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...