RFalvo69
Posts: 1380
Joined: 7/11/2013 From: Lamezia Terme (Italy) Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive Hope all is still well with you and yours RFalvo. I hope the last couple of pages of arguments are not too frustrating to you still living in the epicenter of this. I'm as guilty as anyone in terms of derailing this thread off of it's correct purpose. We are fine, thanks. What scares me, however, is the number of high-profile people who got the virus (Albert of Monaco, Boris Johnson, Prince Charles of England...) One would assume that these people (exp. a PM) would enjoy an extra-layer of protection, with all the conceivable measures put in place to avoid a possible contagion (a sort of "Antiviral Secret Service") - and still they got it. What does this tell to us peons who have to provide for ourselves? quote:
Do you think the recent Italian numbers are as encouraging as they look from an outsider's perspective? In particular that so far there hasn't been the mushrooming of cases and deaths that we might have feared as the virus reached southern Italy? This question actually points to a problem I'm seeing in this thread: the attempt to reduce this colossal emergency to "numbers", with no regard for the social and psychological impact in the various countries. Yes, latest news are encouraging - if you only watch the statistics (*). But what about social disruption? Possible food shortages? "Stress tiredness" that leads to mistakes in the mandatory emergency routines? Will we be able to sustain the population and avoid a revolt during the time necessary for this emergency to pass? Because "flattening the curve" in meaningless if your population is assaulting supermarkets, trucks that carry food and other goods, and closed shops. All these problems are compounded by the stressful situation we are in 24/7, a kind of unavoidable anxiety which is already leading to an increase of alcohol and drugs abuse, depression, bulimia, lack of physical exercise and cabin fever. Then the usual Spring allergies will arrive, with you sneezing and coughing due to pollen or hay fever - but also with the people around you treating you as a human bio-bomb. All of the above with no real end in sight. Even happier news are the PTSD that will hit the whole World when all of this will be over. Don't fool yourself in thinking otherwise: we will be all suffering from PTSD (**). Doctors and nurses will be the hardest hit, then the Police/Army, politicians (no matter what your opinion is about them and what they are doing, a large number is sleeping for three hours/day while taking decisions that will affect tens of millions of people), and then us. And of this will happen while we all are facing the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression. I don't want to sound like a Doom Prophet. I can only point how debates about these very real problems are close to zero - if compared with the number of charts we are seeing in the Coronavirus debate. So, yes, the numbers are encouraging. All the rest isn't. quote:
Sadly in London it looks like we are going to go through something similar to what you have been experiencing - I am hopeful that with a couple more weeks of notice we might have been able to take a few more steps towards providing more 'ad hoc' critical care beds but I think that that advantage will be counterbalanced by the 'running on fumes' state the NHS has been in coming into this situation. My younger daughter lives in London sharing a flat with a friend, and she lost her job. I sent her money, but she says that she would be happier just to be here in Lombardy. I understand your concerns. quote:
All the best to you and your family Thanks! To yours too (*) Analysing how things are going is useful and informative. But sometimes I wonder if all of this obsession about data statistics is a way to psychologically distance yourself from the virus, its implications and the possibility to be infected - by reducing it to numbers. An illusion of control. (**) As it is already happening in China.
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"Yes darling, I served in the Navy for eight years. I was a cook..." "Oh dad... so you were a God-damned cook?" (My 10 years old daughter after watching "The Hunt for Red October")
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