Shit, American’s are not going to follow quarantines. And there is no enforcement mechanisim. China quarantined Wuhan, which would be equivalent of quarantining the entire Seattle-Takoma area and all of Washington State. Ya, right, like that’s gonna happen.
First death in the US occurred less than 5 miles from my house.
Probably his having 3 weeks of food is the concern not that stores will be empty, but that he might want to avoid public places where he might catch the virus. That’s very unlikely, too, but it doesn’t really hurt anything to take some precautions.
It’s actually wise to have emergency supplies for a few days. In case of extreme need, you’ll be better off with even a few supplies rather than none. You won’t depend completely on emergency services, and the services that you don’t use will be available for others.
^ This is me.
I live alone. I’m not as young as I used to be. I dread being sick and alone.
Although the prospect of being off work and in my own home for two weeks doesn’t strike me as ALL bad - provided I stay well or only mildly ill - I do have concern about the reactions of other people such as panic, racism, fear, and so on. Not just from the unwashed masses but also from governments.
I have concerns about shortages of various things I want and need.
I dread the longer term economic fallout from this, because after everyone has been through this particular pandemic we’ll still all need to pay our bills, which will be a problem for those who have lost wages or jobs and that will have broad consequences.
There is not talk of cities shutting down, cities actually have shut down. That’s what makes this time around more serious. We don’t do that for regular flu even though flu is dangerous and kills tens of thousands every year. So… yes, it is serious.
Are the reactions to covid-19 proportional to the risk? I think we may have to have to wait on that and let the future decide.
Meanwhile - there is this threat and people want to do something to protect themselves and their family. Recently, the CDC said “be prepared” but then gave no suggestions as to how to do that - which is not exactly helpful. So people flailed around, saw folks in China wearing masks, then ran out and bought masks which turned out to be a hindrance to medical workers. So the surgeon general said “buy hand sanitizer”. So that’s what people did. If the authorities told people to do jumping jacks on street corners you’d see some of that, too. For some reason, governments aren’t very good at harnessing this energy in a positive manner.
Based on working in a glorified grocery store, in addition to buying hand sanitizer people are also stocking up on soap, toilet paper, paper towels, OTC flu and cold medicine, canned goods, dry goods, water, and beverages. In other words, taking to heart the “have two weeks of stuff in your home for just in case” which is good advice in general, to have emergency stores, and if they aren’t used for this particular crisis they’ll either be there for the next one or wind up in a food pantry or something.
(As it happens, I usually have a week’s worth anyway, so for me this is just a quick inventory and topping off one or two items. For other folks it’s more of a production.)
Those people are wrong. This virus is about 10-20 times more lethal than regular flu (there are, of course, exceptional flus, like the 1918 one) based on current data. Which still means that 98% of people who catch this will be just fine in the end, and some of them aren’t even aware they have the disease because in them it causes only mild or no symptoms. The problem is that all of us know someone we care about - it might be parents, a friend, or even ourselves - that would be at high risk of complications or dying from this.
The other problem is that this is a new virus - no one has had it before, no one has any resistance or immunity. Instead of happens with the flu most years - a certain level of illness but not enough to bring a community to a halt - this has the potential to cause a high percentage of an area’s population to all get sick to a debilitating degree all at once. Even if all those people get well and fully recover, the mere fact you have so many people all at once getting sick is enough to seriously impact society. I don’t think that’s happened yet, but it’s one reason why even just slowing down the rate of new infections has some use.
There’s a certain sort of person who engages in panic buying every time we have a frickin’ snow storm. This is just a more widespread instance of the phenomena
In sum:
Yes, this is serious.
Yes, some people are over-reacting
You should be concerned and make sure your emergency stores/plans are up to date, then go about your daily life as normal until you need to do otherwise.
Wow Broomstick. Good posts. Sobering, but good.
I’m in a medium-sized city about 20 km from one of little towns in lockdown and I just want to point out that even when your city “closes down” it doesn’t mean they wall it off and leave the inhabitants to fight for the last remaining scraps of food. No one has gone hungry, they’ve had supermarkets restocked and people within the community have been bringing food to elderly and sick people.
I know it’s slightly strawman-ish to point this out, but I’m in one of those no public gathering zones nearby and I’m not stocking up. My hands are a bit dry from washing and the university course I’m teaching is starting late, but most people not in education or entertainment are working as normal. It’s just that you can’t get any conversation that isn’t about viruses for more than ten minutes.
Yes, it is serious, yes, the efforts to contain it are a good move. No, it’s not the Zombie apocalypse.
I doubt that there will be NO food, but disruption of supply lines is a real possibility.
Remember - international travel is shutting down. Not just of people, but of things. If the borders close then some items are going to be hard to obtain. There are already shortages of stuff that comes from China, not so much food as widgets for industry (although with 70% of the world’s garlic coming from China that might get a bit sparse if this keeps going on). Coca-cola said that making diet soda will be a problem due to most of the artificial sweeteners coming from China, and they aren’t being shipped right now.
Do you like… oh… avocados? A lot of those come from Mexico. If that border closes no more avocados for awhile outside of the California avocado season. Oh, by the way - if California becomes a hot spot don’t be surprised if the government attempts to close that border with other states, in which case people in California might have avocados, but not anyone else. No one is going to die from lack of avocados, of course, but then you’ll have to have something else for dinner.
This sort of thing - stores out of goods and re-supply days away - can happen with localized disasters brought on by extreme weather, earthquakes, wildifires, etc. but in recent decades have been mostly localized events (mostly - there have also been exceptions). This time around larger areas could be affected and the delays in fixing supply lines longer.
Rinse and repeat for a whole lot of other stuff.
A lot of the fresh fruit and vegetables we take for granted these days may become temporarily unavailable due to interruptions in shipping. There will be something to eat, but you might have less choice.
All of which might lead some people to freak out and strip the store shelves on any given day. Which might take a day or three to resupply and meanwhile you’ll probably want dinner. If you have a small stash you’ll have dinner and the supply line interruption will be an annoyance and not more serious than that.
So… yes, two weeks is being recommended. If you have space for storage and funds for supplies you can do more than that, but a moderate approach makes more sense in most areas. Some folks I know have not gone out on a massive shopping trip but have just been picking up a few extra items every time they do their normal shopping which is, in my opinion, a more rational response and much less of a stain on the supply lines.
Only stockpile Spam if you like spam.
I’m not the one you asked, but I’d recommend a variety of canned meats (if you eat meat), beans (if you eat beans), some boxed meals that require minimal additional ingredients, soups, stews, vegetables, and fruit. They keep a long time on the shelf and will provide reasonable meals and variety. Likewise, things like rice, noodles, and so forth. Stocking up on fresh fruits and vegetables is kind of pointless unless it’s something like potatoes which will keep for awhile IF you have a proper place to store them.
OTC cold/flu meds are also a good choice if you don’t have them already. That means pain/fever relievers, decongestants, etc.
If you take daily medication and can get a reserve do so, because, again, there may be interruptions in supply.
True. It would be like herding cats. Agitated cats that very much want to be elsewhere.
The government would have to declare martial law and send in the military. Not likely. Not unless things get really bad and by that time the cat will be out of the bag. (Guess this is the “cat metaphor” post).
Even 50 or so years ago, people were used to it. LEA and the military trained for it and had detailed plans how to effect it.
The populace was mentally prepared for it.
These days, not so much. LEA have no recent experience and no institutional memory. The military probably has plans, anti Bio warfare training is essentially pandemic management after all. Most of the populace has no idea how a quarantine works and little inclination to adhere to it.
I hope I got the coding right for this post.
I’m in Beijing and the city looks almost like a ghost town. There is now some traffic, more than there was two weeks ago. Most of the grocery stores are open. Some of the mini-marts are open. And even some restaurants are open, some even for sit-down service. Shopping malls with grocery stores are open, but only for customers to get to the grocery stores and restaurants in the mall. To enter any of these places, even outdoor shopping areas, you have to get your temperature checked.
Everybody is required now to wear masks when going outside. And you cannot leave your community (think apartment complex, or homeowners association) without showing a pass. You must also show that pass and have your temperture checked. Even one of the larger farmer markets not so far from my apartment is operating, but you have to get your temperature checked on the way in. Life has to go on, and some farmers’ markets have appeared on the sidewalks in a number of neighborhoods. Note that these, of course, are not “wet markets”.
Speaking of walling off, some of the “wall-less” communities now are walled off. But they are not imprisoned! The walls are in place to ensure there is only one entry and exit for each community.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China announced that there will be a further reduction of flights to and from certain areas of China this week, but they have not announced which flights will be canceled. They also announced that some of the declaration forms will be done via smartphone apps.
My school started classes on time, but all online. The kicker is that the Chinese teachers have live online chat sessions with the students following the regular class schedules, while we foreign teacchers are doing our classes via message board. The majority of my students can’t be bothered with doing anything related to English at the best of times, so my time is now spent proving to my department head and the parents that their kids really did not do any homework. Oh, well; such is life.
Or even apostrophe rules! (Sorry, CC. I just felt like injecting some humor since I’m starting to go stir crazy.)
As it turns out, China already had an enforcement measure in place well before this situation occurred. The neighborhood committees (NC) are in charge of the communities in their area of responsibility. This past friday, the NC for my area came by to check on all of us here. It was for health and welfare checks for everyone, but alos concentrating on the number of elderly people here (a lot of families still have grandparents residing with them), but if anyone were found to be violating the rules, they’d be quarantined at a central location, not at home. I appreciated them asking me how everyone in the family was, but I was not thrilled when they informed me that my wife cannot return to Beijing from Korea until further notice.
86,992 confirmed infections
2,979 dead
42,606 recovered
I’m pretty sure it’s too late for that, and I’m wondering I we should be rethinking quarantine, etc., Because of that.
Of course, allowing the spread may help the healthcare system keep up.
I don’t think that’s physically possible in most of the US. Lower population density, sprawling suburbs. I don’t think we have the capacity to make enough concrete to wall off most suburban communities.
The brand new walls are those metal construction site walls used here in China. But, yeah, it’s likely not possible in many places. And, believe it or not, there really are sparsely populated areas in China.
squeegee, yes three weeks. Granted I do not have enough food to have five-course meals every day. I have just enough shelf-stable milk, cereal, soups, rice, oatmeal, dried fruit, and juice to get me through illness and quarantine (self-imposed or otherwise). These are the kind of foods I eat anyway, so it’s not like they will go to waste if nothing should come to pass.
I’m not anticipating that my big-ass city will be shut down (though I’m not ruling it out either). I am just expecting frenzy and pandemonium. I would hate to find myself having to deal with frenzy and pandemonium when I am well, let alone when I’m super sick.
Unless Someone High Up in Gummint thinks that would be the thing to do… :rolleyes:
I’m sure we don’t have enough of those too wall off the suburbs, either.
Although i suppose we could have police check points on major roads. Americans don’t walk.
…
Yeah, Tibet and inner Mongolia are both technically part of China, of course there are sparsely populated areas. But i get the impression a larger fraction of the Chinese population is more densely packed than in the US.
Leaper, this is a good article that explains why COVID-19 is worrisome. It explains that governmental fears aren’t just based on the fatality rate, but on the estimated 20% hospitalization rate combined with the high infection rate. The flu infects between 2 to 11% of the population and has a 0.9% hospitalization rate. Obviously we have enough hospital beds to handle this load, especially since the cases aren’t usually happening all at once. But if we’re talking about 30% (just to throw out a realistic number) of the population being infected and 20% of those cases will be severe enough to warrant weeks of hospital care? We simply don’t have enough beds. I suspect there will be lots of folks who will die not because the virus killed them, but because of complications that could have been avoided if they were in the hospital.
I believe that the current fatality rates may be exaggerated due to the underreporting of infections. But I am also not very optimistic about what’s happening/going to happen in the US when the shit hits the fan. China mobilized in a way that I don’t see Americans doing. Like, I don’t see us building a bunch of hospitals practically overnight like they did in Wuhan. We also don’t have governments that are willing and able to barricade people in their homes for weeks on end. No, Americans have a system that compels people to work even when they are ill and shedding viruses all over the place. And then there is shit like this. So while I don’t think we’ll have the double-digit fatality rates that have been reported in some places (Iran), I don’t think we will have a piddly rate. I suspect among industralized countries, ours will be one of the higher ones.
It seems like the daily totals have leveled off a bit. Is that due to it being a weekend?
Two interesting news items in today’s NYT.
First that the fact that the two cases in Washington state seem to have one bug descended form another which implies something like 300 to 500 people by now infected out there in that region unidentified, including some likely already recovered.
Yes that implies that current fatality rates are overstated by 100 to 200 fold.
Second, we may start to find more of those cases and get a better sense of the true denominator.
My guess from the other thread:
“Final answer:
A lot of people already have it
If I were in Vegas, I would bet around 5,000 in Western Wa”
I know Mr. Science dude did actual science for his number, but I would still put money on it being higher. He probably was conservative and followed that one path, but it seems likely the virus entered Western Wa by more than one path.