Coronavirus

[roce]

Both Iran and China have dead young people. Doctors, nurses and football players in their 20s and 30s.

[Mega Drive Bowlsey]

I'm carrying on my daily routine and going about as normal. I can't afford to take time off work anyway. I wonder, however, if we're being told the full story regarding this virus and it's potential.

[JCU]

Actually it's airborne contagious, but I mean sure.

Do you think coughing and sneezing without covering mouth/nose is hygienic and using etiquette and safe c19 or not?

[JCU]

I honestly wouldn't mind if this thing blew up into a real worldwide plague. Cruel as it is, it would make the world better. It would deal with the aging population, lower the social budget (less pensions to pay), it would point out to how massively underprepared, underequipped, and underfunded our healthcare is, it would lower worldwide migration (especially if the refugees end up contracting the virus), and all the above combined would result in a shift in the political climate which is something we really need. But most likely none of that will happen - if China got through it with one or two hundred thousand deaths, then Europe may not even reach a quarter of that.

Now I don't want to say we need a disease to eradicate a portion of the population but disease and illness was one way the old world was kept in check. What you said reminds me of what Clemenza said to Mike before he went and blasted Sollozzo. Basically a blood letting must occur every so many years to weed things out.

[Gryson]

It's the other way around, over half the people on ICU are the old ones, and they are telling mostly the young people with mild symptoms to go home and weather it out with honey and tea. This virus mostly affects the older people.

That's not accurate. As has been heavily reported in the news (including the link in my original post), Italy is rationing care in favor of younger, healthier patients. Here's another article about it. Quote:

For now, the marching orders are: Save scarce resources for those patients who have the greatest chance of survival. That means prioritizing younger, otherwise healthy patients over older patients or those with pre-existing conditions.

People seem to be misunderstanding the risk here. Yes, there are a certain number of people who are 80+ years old with pre-existing conditions who might die from the coronavirus, just like they would die from the flu, regardless of treatment. They're not the issue. The thing we should be worried about are all of the otherwise healthy, younger people who will require treatment to survive or to avoid lifelong negative consequences. The problem in Italy is that they are no longer able to treat all of the patients who would otherwise survive, due to lack of ICU units and ventilators.

In the entire US, there are approximately 45,000 ICU beds. Some of the top epidemiologists in the world are now estimating, based on rate of spread, that it will require 60-70% of the world population to get the virus before it begins to dissipate (remember, the virus is spreading at an exponential rate, so just because not many people have it yet doesn't mean anything in a month or two). If the spread continues at an exponential rate, those 45,000 ICU beds will VERY soon be full, and then you're going to have patients who would otherwise survive dying due to lack of treatment.

And that's not to mention that a lot of those ICU beds are already in use for patients with unrelated conditions, so the lack of resources is going to affect a lot more than just coronavirus patients. Plus it's expected that all health care workers will get it, so doctors are going to be in short supply as they self-quarantine.

At this point, none of this is speculation - it's already happening in Italy. The thing to learn from Italy is that drastic measures have to be taken to slow the spread so that the health care system is not overwhelmed. Italy didn't have a good initial response, while Taiwan and South Korea did, and Italy is suffering now for it.

So, yes, you're probably not going to die from the coronavirus unless you're over the age of 70 or 80, but the reason people are taking this so seriously is that our health care system cannot handle such an overload whatsoever.

This article provides a great, non-sensationalist summary of the risks.

[Blades]

I work at a hospital, so I'm definitely getting it. Oh well.

[cleeg]

I work at a hospital, so I'm definitely getting it. Oh well.

Me too no doubt. What do you do?

[Thierry Henry]

It gives an excuse to the anti social crowd to keep doing what they're doing but this time label it as "good health practice".

[Lync]

[Wesker]

[Blades]

Me too no doubt. What do you do?

Research, radiology.

[zyrobs]

Both Iran and China have dead young people. Doctors, nurses and football players in their 20s and 30s.

Yes, but the statistics show that elderly are significantly more likely to die from this. Death rate is something like 0.5% for 0-30 year olds but 25+% for 60+ year olds, as the virus exacerbates other health problems and overtaxes their weaker immune systems.

[Team Andromeda]

I work at a hospital

I work in the NHS, so does my partner; Both Staff nurses for over 10 years but on the wards. One's who work in A&E and GP's are really in the front line, more so when people don't follow GOV advice and stay at home

[cleeg]

I am also a nurse. It's going to be fun soon I reckon!

[Leynos]

In my 30s but have heart disease so yeah. I'm scared. My mom is elderly and some health issues so I'm scared for her. She doesn't leave her building that much tho. I'm a hermit. So we might be safer than some but I don't have good enough judgment when in full fear mode to know.