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COVID-19 Coronavirus: general discussion

Which is why those workers are limiting their social contact.
I hope this is true and they have ethics not to go to places which can put them at higher risk. However, attendees are still people too. They have family that they see, who might have gotten a community infection and not know it at the time, also, they need to shop for necessities like everyone else.
What airline? Usually with nonrefundable tickets you get a credit that you can use in the future I thought.
Hawaii Air. I most likely will never need it as it'll be teleconferenced.

A credit with Hawaiian Airlines would do me no good in the next 5 to 10 years. Even though I'm American and would like to visit Australia one day, and I just so happened to find the cheapest tickets from Okinawa to Japan and the cheapeat tickets from Hawaii to Australia, an Okinawa to Japan to Hawaii and Aussie trip, even if $200 cheaper, seems much less appealing due to travel days probably being 4 round trip as opposed to Okinawa to Hong Kong, Taiwan or Japan to Aussie.

A future credit does me no good at that $500ish portion of my route is worth especially more today than it would be in 5 years, given the market's positions, in 5 years it could easily be double that with the losses now and future expected comeback and gains.
What stimulus check? I thought you are an expat in Okinawa. Would you still qualify?
As I get some Veteran's Affairs payments, and if it's disbursed that way like Obama's $250 was, I'd most likely get it. Though, I was stateside then and it looks like only vets in the States got them? We'll see how it plays out for me being here.
 
Finally.

Olympics finally postponed.



There is only one reason I can think of where I could possibly agree with that decision and it would be that the different reactions, shut downs, etc in different countries has probably sparked excessive training difficulties for the athletes of certain nations....meaning a likely exceptionally poor performance and unfairness in events.

Otherwise I approve of Japan's holding firm up to now. The Olympics are still...what? More than 3 months away? By then I bet half of everyone will have forgotten Covid-19 just as they forgot about SARS, MERS, etc. in a quick space of time.
 
By then I bet half of everyone will have forgotten Covid-19
You've got to be kidding me. If you think COVID-19 with nearly 400,000 infections and 16,500 deaths worldwide at about 3 months into the pandemic won't be worse than vs 2009 Swine Flu that had 1.6m infections and 200,000 deaths, I need your optimistic outlook on life.

The numbers will get there or exceed it.

Closing now makes for good reason due to every country having different travel restrictions as well as the events being a breeding ground for it to worsen worldwide.

Revisit this exact post in 3 months and tell me I'm wrong.

Edit: Okinawa just got its 2nd case in a row today.
 
Revisit this exact post in 3 months and tell me I'm wrong.

That's going to be fun.

But its going to be hard to prove what the world has and has not forgotten.

But in order to get a handle on your challenge, please name, immediately and without looking, as many cold or flu scares of the last 20 years as you can. Go.
 
You've got to be kidding me. If you think COVID-19 with nearly 400,000 infections and 16,500 deaths worldwide

Not kidding. As I keep repeating, flu has killed many more people this season...and other seasons too. And those who did not get it or did know they had it will forget unless a loved one died from it. There are something like 7,700,000,000 people in the world. What percentage is 400,000? It is .0052 percent of the world. Not one percent. Not half a percent. Not even half a half a percent. Not even one percent of one percent!

You don't need optimism. You need statistics and math.

Anyway, the media blitz will be the most memorable part. But people forget those in weeks.
 
At this point there is no risk forgetting 2020 / Covid-19. It doesn't matter if we're personally affected by the sick and dying. Billions of us have already been impacted with schools canceled, restricted travel, stay-at-home not to mention the people getting laid off and under serious economic duress. That's enough to leave a major impression and it's not yet over.
 
I don't want to put a bet on this but I'll say the total outcome will be 10,000,000 infections and 550,000 minimum when this is said and done because unlike 2009, it's already reaching countries, impoverished ones, that weren't impacted by the 2009 outbreak, putting it at, if not worse than, the annual flu.

Good luck to Doctors Without Boarders cause they'll be overwhelmed too, if they're not already occupied with Ebola still.
 
At this point there is no risk forgetting 2020 / Covid-19. It doesn't matter if we're personally affected by the sick and dying. Billions of us have already been impacted with schools canceled, restricted travel, stay-at-home not to mention the people getting laid off and under serious economic duress. That's enough to leave a major impression and it's not yet over.

It all hinges on what we mean by "forget" and what we are saying they forgot.

I am not saying they will have completely forgotten anything to the point that when you say "Covid-19" they will stare at you blankly. Of course they will remember then. But they won't be like "We really averted disaster then!"

Also, yes they will remember the impact of government intervention. That was not was I was talking about. I meant the actual virus. It will be like, "Remember when we were kids and the schools closed and all we did was sit around and play Fortnite?" then "Yeah...what was that about again? Oh yeah....that flu thingy (sic)."
 
Also, yes they will remember the impact of government intervention. That was not was I was talking about. I meant the actual virus. It will be like, "Remember when we were kids and the schools closed and all we did was sit around and play Fortnite?" then "Yeah...what was that about again? Oh yeah....that flu thingy (sic)."
You think that was a conversation that many had growing up during, and surviving, the Spanish Flu had later in life too? 🤔

Not even an argument to make...
 
And for the record, now that the Olympics have been moved to 2021 that is going to be the biggest collective reminder of Covid-19 and I was meaning if the Olympics went as scheduled....but of course, now they aren't.
 
A fifth of the world are currently under lockdown, which is an unprecedented event. Could we rise above bickering?
 
You think that was a conversation that many had growing up during, and surviving, the Spanish Flu had later in life too?

Lothor, this was a question put to me directly. If you leave it, do I not get to answer it?

The Spanish flu was a global pandemic from one 100 years ago, with far more deaths and far fewer people in the world. Memories of Covid 19 will be vastly different and far more muted.

A fifth of the world are currently under lockdown, which is an unprecedented event.

It sure is and that part will be remembered I believe. But the irresponsible media blitz won't be and neither will the virus directly, for the most part. This is my contention.
 
I posted this a while ago, but Toyota just closed 5 of its plants here in Japan. I think they got one or 2 plants in America also. Wonder when they close them down?

It appears they just idle them for a few days each.

 
It appears they just idle them for a few days each.



OK, I heard it's temporary, but in my mind, the Toyota show rooms now are making their money on maintenence . I don't think Toyota will be opening soon though. Things are too uncertain at the moment.
 
Baseline opinion poll:

1) Is Covid-19 equally as easily spread or deadly as the Spanish flu of 1918? More mild? Worse?
2) Is the answer obvious or ambiguous?
3) Are comparisons even valid?
 
This was from Feb 25, 2020 exactly one month ago. Spring has not truly sprung yet as its getting down to -3 degrees at night where I am. But the virus is still spreading.


While the number of deaths have surprised me, in Italy and Iran especially, (but I made no predictions on how many would die) I am still sticking with this for the most part.

To be brief Covid-19 will spread until spring has truly sprung and then it will peter out and probably mutate back to a weaker form. Governments will try and take credit for what nature did and maybe even pass some legislation for the next panic. Covid-19 will joint SARS, bird flu, swine flu, zika and MERS in the media blitz history books, although MERS seems to have been more on the "real danger" side. The hysteria and the hysterical will move on to the next hot topic until the next media blitz about some other cold or flu virus in a couple years.
 
1) Is Covid-19 equally as easily spread or deadly as the Spanish flu of 1918? More mild? Worse?
Easily, if not greater to spread, with the same carelessness taken then when you factor in the incubation period. Less deadly, but I hardly believe that all reported cases were because of the Spanish Flu itself and not secondary conditions directly relating to it, as we'll see with COVID-19 when medical facilities are closed, more plants are shut down, and entire cities are blocked off for essential shipments and goods due to quarantine measures to recross the line. It'll still pale in comparison.
2) Is the answer obvious or ambiguous?
Statistically, it's obvious. The ambiguous part are the 100s of unrelated deaths going unreported from secondary conditions, such as a heart attack or diabetic not getting insulin, because the entire medical community is overwhelmed in some places combating COVID-19.
3) Are comparisons even valid?
It is valid to make, to an extent, as those that didn't die from Spanish Flu died of other ailments as well because there were not enough attending. We could see that happen here, easily. How it'll correlate with what we know (and have) now about social distancing, washing hands and using hand sanitizer as well is what will keep us below the curve.

What doesn't help are idiots thinking that this isn't serious and traveling anyway—prime example is spring breakers in the US flocking to Florida where I believe 6 were already confirmed from 1 university alone while they all partied with 1000s.

So if we have less Darwinisms running around, COVID-19 will still be less than the Spanish Flu, but topple annual seasonal flu numbers nonetheless. If people continue, the pandemic will outgrow that, but not to 1918 levels.

I will safely put it between the 7th cholera pandemic (1961–present) at 570,000 and the modern plague if unlucky (1894–1903) at 10,000,000.

However, with it now effecting young to die, and many with underlying conditions. However, if this does reach impoverished nations on a wide scale, it can kill millions more in Africa as there is a 1.2 billion population and sickle cell—which would be very bad for a respiratory illness as it delivers oxygen to the body—occurs in 1 out of 365 births. Let's just say, 500,000,000 are affected by that in Africa and apply those numbers: 1.3 million births. All wiped out. There are also 12.7 million African Americans in the US, same number, 11500 could be at greater risk. Applying to just African population alone prone to have sickle cell and it's not improbable that COVID-19 directly effects more where we do reach the 20 million of 1918.

It's all up to finding a vaccine and dispersing it as quickly as we did for Swine Flu, which will be more of a logistical challenge as not many countries were effected then, while we're seeing COVID-19 in every, or almost every country now. More vaccines will also have to be created because of the incubation period too. I doubt it'll be a year to do that, I'm betting on 1.5 to 2 years.
 
To be brief Covid-19 will spread until spring has truly sprung and then it will peter out and probably mutate back to a weaker form.
I highly doubt this theory because of community spread in Okinawa with one case as well as in hotter, spring-like conditions, of countries like Singapore to name 1.

Edit: Not to mention, it downplays the weaker form still having the same incubation period but lower death toll, if we can count on L and S type reporting by China.
 
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Not to mention, it downplays the weaker form still having the same incubation period but lower death toll, if we can count on L and S type reporting by China.

If the weaker forms still provide immunity to the original form, then it's a win either way. Heck, if there were a mutation that gave just an ordinary cold but provided immunity to the original form, I'd want to catch that. Unfortunately, because common colds are... well... common... and so untracked, we will likely never know if such a mutation exists... but if one did, it would still spread naturally and improve overall herd immunity levels, slowing the spread of more dangerous forms.
 
If the weaker forms still provide immunity to the original form,
It's still unclear whether you can build an immunity because it's evident that you can become reinfected after testing negative. Whether it was a false negative or not is unknown, but 2 negatives to confirm before release would statistically make it harder to believe full immunity is possible.
 
it's evident that you can become reinfected after testing negative

It's not evident to me.

Are you talking about testing twice before declaring a patient clear? Relapse is a different thing from re-infection, and it's not exactly a 'false negative'. Someone on the edge of recovery may only sometimes be shedding virus when their immune system has *almost* eliminated it, which is all a swab tests. It's only a 'false negative' if you credit the test with more than it is capable of. (Swab tests are normal, blood tests rare, as I understand it.)

It could also be that they are shedding virus but below detection levels, which is technically a false negative. False negatives of course don't indicate reinfection when followed by positives.

Two negatives 24 hours apart is a common standard for ensuring that someone is fully recovered and not shedding virus, not mostly recovered and only sometimes or only slightly shedding virus. Alternating positive and negative at the edge of recovery is not a sign of reinfection, but ... well... a sign of recovering.

Re-infection would be a confirmed case, confirmed recovery, and then some time later going through the entire process of contraction/incubation/symptoms/testing confirmation all over again. I'm not aware of that happening to anyone at this point. At some point, of course there will be descendents of COVID-19 that can reinfect, the same as any other cold virus mutates until it can re-infect but hopefully such descendents will have symptoms more in line with any other cold virus and less like COVID-19.
 
It's not evident to me.
Li QinGyuan, director of pneumonia prevention and treatment at China Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing, said a protective antibody is generated in those who are infected.
"However, in certain individuals, the antibody cannot last that long," Li said. "For many patients who have been cured, there is a likelihood of relapse."
Source: 75,000 ill, 2,000 deaths, many thousands recovered: Can you get coronavirus twice?

See also: Questions raised over COVID-19 reinfection after Japanese woman develops illness again | The Japan Times
 
I really do not get all this concern over no one having or not enough people having anti-bodies to this corona virus. This is, and always has been a thing. Every time a sufficiently new strain of cold or flu virus comes out (which is very often) this process of people making new anti-bodies for it happens.

Same thing with the concern over not having a vaccination for it yet. This is not new or special or surprising.

Those bits of it seem like "same old" to me. So I am really only concerned with how severe of pneumonia it causes and how easily it spreads.
 
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