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RFalvo69 -> RE: OT - The New Coronavirus (2/29/2020 9:40:50 PM)
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What I think is that the World leaders underestimated the seriousness of the problem, and now they are behind in the "decision cycle" (as dictated by the evolving events).
I know that this borders politics but I'm not pointing fingers or making names. I'm simply more and more convinced that this virus is always one step ahead the measures taken to fight/contain it. Like in any struggle, when you only react you end up losing.
I'm still convinced that to fight the Coronavirus the most powerful weapons are good info and common sense. True, it is scary, but the basics are actually simple: wash (and disinfect) your hands, don't touch your or others' face before doing that, monitor your temperature and warn the officials in your country if you do suspect you have gotten it (try not to panic - your temperature can go up simply because you are tired; again, use your head).
And protect/isolate the people that can be hit the hardest: the elderly and those with a compromised immune system.
True, almost one-hundred thousand people around the World got this bug. For some reason, the follow up is never mentioned: almost all of them are not dying. The highest projection is a 2% mortality - and most of it in the above mentioned vulnerable part of the population. I lost hope to read/hear the words "...however 98% of the afflicted will recover".
I don't want to minimise the situation. It is scary, but the confusing and sometimes contradictory declarations coming right now by public officials don't fight the scare, only enhance it.
My parents live in a good hospice, which is under severe lockdown. I can agree with that: having a sick person in a place with 90+ people over 80 would be like throwing a light match in a pool of gasoline. Then I speak again with my daughter in Milan and she describes me a ghost city. Gathering places are closed, the streets are empty of people, disinfectant gel (usually 1 Euro over the counter) is sold by shady people in shady corners at 10-20 Euro; she told me that she was not making it up and I believe her. She had to take a cab, and the usually busy streets are so empty that she paid half the usual fare.
But now hear this: she is in Lombardy, in the middle of one of the hottest zones on Earth (we are told) - and she can't name a single person hit by the Coronavirus. Not one of her fellow students, not one of her friends, not her grocer, not the cab driver, not the brother-in-law of a friend's dentist. No one. She told me "Should I decide to try how this bug is, I wouldn't know how to do it." (she was always the creative one).
Now the economy is collapsing, worse than after 9/11 and the 2008 meltdown. This scares me more than the bug, because (if I understood correctly how this little bastard acts) we are yet to see the worst of it in terms of diffusion; which is, unfortunately, the only thing that does seem to matter.
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