Opening Day and The Coronavirus

[dougdirt]

I can understand your concern and if I was in your situation I would be also. What concerns me is how this is being sold as a crisis to all people regardless of their health or chance of contracting it. I fear the real crisis here is that the problem will be the over reaction. I have lived long enough to see the false crisises manufactured by the media and government. Remember Ebola just a few years ago? How about Y2K and the failure of all computers and our society being sent back to the Stone Age? The Aids crisis of the 80s that created a campaign to terrorize middle America that wasn't participating in risky behaviors? I am even old enough to remember Jimmy Carter addressing the country from the Oval Office while wearing a sweater and telling the nation to set their thermostats down to 65 to conserve energy because the world was running out of oil. I could go on but I am not going to drink the media Kool Aide and subscribe to panic

What?

And I can't state this enough.... WHAT?

[TNRED]

What?

And I can't state this enough.... WHAT?

It's called a panic stirred by the media

[dougdirt]

It's called a panic stirred by the media

I think you drastically overstate several things in your "the media is the devil" post. Most notably what y2k was about and how real that actually was if not fixed, and the absolutely ridiculous take on the midwest and AIDS.

[NebraskaRed]

What?

And I can't state this enough.... WHAT?

I'm not sure I understand your reaction to this. You can reasonably disagree about the extent that the media has created a panic about this, but do you really not think that this panic is overblown?

Again, if you're part of the group that is at risk, then I totally get the concern. That is not the majority of the population, by any means.

Edited to add: to stay on topic, I'll say that I agree that Opening Day is a concern for a lot of people. MLB, with the offseason they had, did not need this to be hanging over their heads as the season begins.

[dougdirt]

I'm not sure I understand your reaction to this. You can reasonably disagree about the extent that the media has created a panic about this, but do you really not think that this panic is overblown?

Again, if you're part of the group that is at risk, then I totally get the concern. That is not the majority of the population, by any means.

The majority of the population not having concern is how a whole lot more people die from things like this. It won't be the majority that pay the price, but it'll definitely be their fault.

[NebraskaRed]

The majority of the population not having concern is how a whole lot more people die from things like this. It won't be the majority that pay the price, but it'll definitely be their fault.

Yes, and practicing basic good hygiene is what the majority of people should be doing (and always should be doing, but we all know how gross a lot of people are).

Refusing to go anywhere and staying isolated is not necessary for most people.

[NachoMan]

Yes, and practicing basic good hygiene is what the majority of people should be doing (and always should be doing, but we all know how gross a lot of people are).

Refusing to go anywhere and staying isolated is not necessary for most people.

That's a bit of a strawman, isn't it? We're talking about huge gatherings of people -- in France, as we speak they have banned gatherings over 1000 people. And it is public health officials raising the alarm bells here, not the media.

[TNRED]

The stock market is tanking based upon global fears. Grocery stores are actually starting to ration products because of hoarding. There is even a shortage of toilet paper on the shelves in Australia because of hoarding. See what will happen when schools and businesses close out of pure fear. The over reaction will be much worse than the virus. So far around 3600 people have died of corona. 80% of those have been in China. To put that in context the blob all population in 7.7 billion. Powerball odds look better

[NebraskaRed]

For a little context, around 4800 people have died from the flu in the U.S. since the first of the year.

If you are at risk, definitely, 100% do what you need to do to stay healthy.

For everyone else, keep washing your hands.

[TNRED]

The stock market is tanking based upon global fears. Grocery stores are actually starting to ration products because of hoarding. There is even a shortage of toilet paper on the shelves in Australia because of hoarding. See what will happen when schools and businesses close out of pure fear. The over reaction will be much worse than the virus. So far around 3600 people have died of corona. 80% of those have been in China. To put that in context the global population is 7.7 billion. Powerball odds look better

[NachoMan]

The stock market is tanking based upon global fears. Grocery stores are actually starting to ration products because of hoarding. There is even a shortage of toilet paper on the shelves in Australia because of hoarding. See what will happen when schools and businesses close out of pure fear. The over reaction will be much worse than the virus. So far around 3600 people have died of corona. 80% of those have been in China. To put that in context the global population is 7.7 billion. Powerball odds look better

Two weeks ago, Italy had 150 cases. Look at them now.

I agree that panicking is bad, but burying your head in the sand -- with abundant evidence in other countries of what this virus can do -- is much worse.

[Bob Sheed]

What a polarizing time we live in.

Either bury your head in the sand and pretend nothing is wrong, or panic like the world is ending.

As usual, the wisdom is somewhere in between. But in this case, exactly where in between is unknown to me at this point. Too little and too volitile information to make educated decisions.

Erring on the side of caution has served me well in my life, to this point though, so I'm rolling with that. YMMV.

[OhioRiverBarge]

I am aware of media reports and how they can overblow things.

I’m also aware of career professionals and experts at the CDC and WHO who are deeply concerned about this.

What makes this different from other outbreaks is that it is at least doubly transmissible as the flu. It’s growth is more than exponential, and it is much more deadly than the flu.

The true danger is that it is proving to swallow cities, overwhelm hospitals, kill medical workers (in the first month 3 doctors under 40 years old died in Wuhan), and knock out supply chains.

Even if you’re under 60, you still have a reasonable chance of developing pneumonia and requiring hospitalization. You might say, sure, 80% present with mild to moderate symptoms, but think of a city of 20,000 needing hospital beds for 4,000 people. 1 hospital, 4,000 people. This is when the case fatality rate jumps through the roof.

Another reason this is concerning is that while they say a vaccine will be around in 12-18 months, this is an RNA strain like HIV, which can prove very difficult to create because of how quickly it mutates.

I don’t think we should panic, but we should be ready for something like enforced social distancing, which is frankly the only measure that has show so far to work.

[RedsfaninMT]

I can understand your concern and if I was in your situation I would be also. What concerns me is how this is being sold as a crisis to all people regardless of their health or chance of contracting it. I fear the real crisis here is that the problem will be the over reaction. I have lived long enough to see the false crisises manufactured by the media and government. Remember Ebola just a few years ago? How about Y2K and the failure of all computers and our society being sent back to the Stone Age? The Aids crisis of the 80s that created a campaign to terrorize middle America that wasn't participating in risky behaviors? I am even old enough to remember Jimmy Carter addressing the country from the Oval Office while wearing a sweater and telling the nation to set their thermostats down to 65 to conserve energy because the world was running out of oil. I could go on but I am not going to drink the media Kool Aide and subscribe to panic

I'm old enough to have not voted for Carter in 1980, the year I graduated high school. I agree, the hysteria is over-the-top for MOST people. Younger and healthy likely have nothing to fear, but folks like me and Dabvu cannot make such a claim.

[Bacon]

I think reality sits somewhere in the middle within this thread.

Relatively, Coronavirus is a mild disease. Most who have it won't even know they have it. It's not going to prove to be even close to as lethal as influenza. That said, there is cause for concern because it's just ANOTHER virus that can potentially kill elderly and immunocompromised people.

So, if you're immunocompromised or elderly, you need to be taking extra protective precautions, but you're already doing that because of influenza. Everyone else should just be more vigilant with their own interactions and hygiene. Wash your hands with soap and hot water for at least 20 seconds. This can't be stressed enough. Hand sanitizer is fine, but not as effective as proper hand washing. Limit social interactions, maybe don't shake hands or hug for now. Coronavirus isn't going to kill healthy adults and children, but we should take measures to slow the spread.

Things you shouldn't do: Panic. Add to panic with fear mongering, wear masks if you're not infected, and spread false or questionable information.

We're going to make it through this. It's not an "end of days" virus.