It cost $26 to fill up a car from empty today. That’s insane. I wasn’t even old enough drive a car the last time gas was the cheap. The lowest in three decades.
I literally had to log in for the first time in 3 years just to express my outrage on this nonsense. This is the town I grew up in and now live in the next town over. The community is very upset over this and the sheriff's department will do nothing. We are within 2 hours of new orleans and they are having to send patients everywhere in the state and this assclown is having huge services and giving zero fucks. I am normally a very libertarian person but these idiots are going to take up precious hospital beds.
I'm normally a very libertarian person as well and all for people expressing their religious freedoms to the extent that they don't harm others. I think there are exceptions to every rule, and COVID is most certainly an exception. I know a lot of people right now who are screaming "my rights!!!" and all that nonsense when the government is telling them to stay inside. Well, rights are great. But your right to throw a punch only extends so far as to not interfere with my right to not get hit in the face. In my opinion, that pastor should be thrown in jail. Just call it "making terroristic threats" and say that's what he did when he said he could heal others. Also, calling himself a first responder is beyond words.
Posting as a follow-up, only because we just had to deal with this on another message board recently - the squirrel girl above this post is my wife, so it should show up as different users from the same IP address. Some message boards are funny about people having one person using multiple usernames ( "alters" ) and posting from them. She posts a lot on another message board I visit daily but rarely post on but after I did I got temporarily banned due to their policy on alters.
Since we have people who are experts on the subject matter, can some of you answer a few questions. Since South Korea has done a really good job at containing the virus thus far, and their mortality rate was extremely low, how has their infection rate not continued to exponentially grow like it's predicted to do here? I understand they practiced social distancing and were under lockdown as well, but the virus shouldn't have stopped spreading if the infection rate is that high everywhere else? Besides staying at home, which is what I've been doing besides a few trips here and there for groceries, are we mostly just doomed to get this virus and we have to hope for the best? I understand most of the people who have died are part of a certain group of people, but there are a lot of people who are in serious condition without underlying conditions. With how many people are projected to recover from this, what is the likelihood if you are just an average person, you will get this virus, but it won't be a big deal for your health? If you are a person who doesn't normally get sick, for this particular virus, is this a good thing or a bad thing? I never get the flu vaccine and I can honestly say, I don't think I've ever had the flu in the past ~20 years? I know one virus is not like another, but how similar is the mechanism of the flu to this virus? Is having a seemingly good immune system a benefit even in the face of a novel virus? What are the thoughts as to why a few countries seem to be much harder hit then others?
Couple of things on other countries: 1. History of outbreaks. SK, Japan and China are not new to the outbreak game, and mounted an extremely effective response early. 2. Effective countermeasures and testing. SK, Japan & China have far stricter rules, a more cohesive society, and a lot more faith in their government/science/leadership, so they largely obeyed instructions. 3. Data quality. Per my buddy at CDC, a few weeks ago, their Chinese counterparts just ghosted them: no communication. So, it's hard to have complete faith in their numbers. 4. Waves of outbreaks. They may have contained or slowed the first, but remember folks can be contagious for almost a month. So, it's likely that they will be facing outbreaks in waves, as opposed to one single epidemic sweeping the country. 5. Differences in data, lag, etc. SK has done really well with testing, and their tests don't seem to lag behind. That may not be the case forever. 6. Differences in health systems. No one in SK, Japan or China is facing a 30K bill if they get this virus, so there's no disincentive to getting treatment or tested. Also, SK has a surplus of doctors and their medical system is one of the best in the world, and they didn't face extreme runs on healthcare system the way NY and Italy have. 7. Differences in culture: social distancing is easier in SK, for example, because they don't have a culture of going to people's homes like we do. I also have a sneaky suspicion their numbers aren't as accurate as ours, because the emphasis on "face-saving". I frankly don't believe the Chinese numbers at all, but I do believe the spread has slowed to a trickle. Also, these countries generally are healthier than we are from a food/smoking/exercise perspective. You are not doomed. This virus is extremely contagious, but it can be contained. That said, it is dangerous. 1.5 in 100 is the most commonly accepted death rate I have seen for a general population. It's much better if you're young, and much worse if you're old, but there are plenty of folks with no issues that are dying from this in their 30s and 40s. It's a big deal for your health, as if you recover you can have lasting lung damage. I've heard anecdata about heart issues and nervous system issues as well. Your normal antibodies aren't worth shit, because this is a brand new virus. No one is immune. Google immune support, and wade through the wasteland of bad advice. My doctor said to keep it simple: eat healthy, sleep well, stay hydrated. Probiotics (yogurt, kombucha, etc.) and natural immune-supporting foods (garlic & onions are naturally antibacterial) are as far as my doc would go. The best thing for most folks to boost their immune system is just to get more sleep. I think the hardest part of this is the instructions we're provided aren't really a call to action. We're staying home and not DOING anything, and that's simply not how we're wired to respond to a crisis or a threat. There's no more magic bullets, no secret on how to keep safe from what I can see. It's simple: stay home, stay clean, and stay as healthy as you can. This is a Pandora's box situation, where Coronavirus is now a thing we deal with on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis and we're just praying to a pantheon of Gods that it doesn't mutate into something worse.
It’s a little more on the normal station pumps here, but I go to the Native reserve where is currently $0.55 a litre. That’s 1991 prices.
A few follow up questions, and a thanks for providing some more info. I'm understanding better that just because the countries who have taken precautions to stop the flow aren't immune to there being flare ups in cases in the upcoming months or that there aren't a back log of cases just sitting out there with no data attached to them. I guess for me, it's just difficult to quantify how serious things are when you see an entire country like SK who have done the George Bush aircraft carrier, "Mission Accomplished", and have walked away with a drop in the bucket death toll and barely any new cases coming forward every day. If the virus is super contagious and has a 1.5 in 100 death rate, why isn't this playing out in the numbers in other countries? Is it just a case of don't believe the outlier data because it's probably not being reported accurately, or is their system in place really that much better than anything we've got and it's making a huge difference? I guess the overall question I'm trying to ask is, the virus is the virus regardless of where you live or whether you are getting tested or not, so why the 10% mortality rate in Italy, but a sub 1% rate in SK? Is this just a case of shitty luck where the population in Italy were mostly high risk individuals and in SK the population first hit happened to be people who could better combat the virus on their own? I also understand your normal anti-bodies don't do shit against a brand new virus, but if you have a normally robust immune system, what can you expect from this virus? Also, when people say asymptomatic in regards to this, do they mean they haven't shown signs of having the virus even though they have it, YET. Or do they mean they have the virus but it hasn't affected them at all and they are just carriers and won't get sick at all, or some version in between? I know there are no magic bullets and staying healthy in all aspects is the best measure you can take at the moment, so with that said, if you happen to dance between the raindrops and not catch this for a few months, what should you be doing in the future to limit the potential for exposure, or is this just going to be a new flu virus that comes around every year and has the same effect the flu does? Seasonal, different strains, immunity to the underlying virus because most people have had it and recovered, or is this more of a one and done, once you have it, that's pretty much it you won't get it again or if you do it will be extremely mild and once enough people catch the virus it'll stall out and not really be an issue 2-3 years down the road?
The key thing here is timing. When did they shut everything down, when did they start testing, when did the testing result in a significant and clear understanding, and when did they start monitoring folks who had been exposed? That's how SK is able to claim mission accomplished: they reacted in a timely manner, got a handle on it and can limit it to monitoring. It is playing out in other countries, they just responded immediately, and with a more commensurate response to the risk. The virus is the virus, sure. It affects different populations differently, and the different rates in populations can be attributed to a LOT of factors, nearly all of which would be conjecture. SK having 8k cases, 4k recovered, and 100 or so fatalities is incredible. Italy having an entirely different run of 86k cases, 9k dead and 8k recovered, because it likely spread differently there, the contagion vectors are wildly different (ie, you could catch it from a fountain in Rome, but that same fountain doesn't exist in SK) and their response window and methodology are different as well. It's hard for us to tease out anything useful because there are so many factors. A normally robust immune system doesn't really mean anything, because this is a new threat. It's like asking how a Napoleonic army would fare against ballistic missiles: not great, they have no defense against it. Common symptoms: Spoiler: Image Size Asymptomatic means they have it, and are not showing signs of infection yet. We know there's a certain percentage of the population that is genetically immune to it , we just don't know how big that is. We know it's unlikely that 100% of people get this, but we don't know what that upper limit is yet. If you don't get it in this outbreak, you are susceptible to it in other outbreaks. We simply don't know what happens after this outbreak is contained/over. It's likely there will be other outbreaks in the future, but we don't know anything about them yet. If you don't get it now, that's best case scenario. The longer it takes to contract/spread, the better because the more we'll know about the virus, the quicker we can get to a vaccine (don't believe ANYTHING that suggests a vaccine or cure is less than 18 months away), and the less likely the healthcare system is overloaded.
That the WHO produced that diarrhea graphic is just fantastic. That it looks like something going in rather than coming out is probably from me spending too much time on TiB.
A friend posted on Facebook about how the Spanish Flu Pandemic in 1919 was actually more deadly to 20-40 year olds than to the elderly. The reason was that younger, healthier people had stronger immune responses, which led them to produce an overabundance of cytokines. The data that I have seen suggests that COVID-19 is, like most viruses, still more dangerous for the elderly, but I do keep hearing more and more stories of younger people with seemingly no underlying conditions dying from it. I am still working at Publix this week, but I requested to take a 2-week leave of absence starting next week. I regretted quitting the first 2 times that I did, and it took several years before I was able to get back on, so I can't bring myself to resign. And they did give $50 gift cards to all of their employees who worked when the hoarding started, and they also said that they have company-wide raises coming down the pipeline, so I do appreciate that.
WOW, that is insane. The reserve's here are the same price as in town, but with Status you save 10-15 cents. Never seen a reserve with that steep of a price.
What's most disturbing when correlating this with the Spanish Flu is that the first wave of the Spanish Flu was bad, but the second wave was a knock out punch.
I read this article from an Epidemiologist in Ottawa. http://blog.deonandan.com/wordpress...-P1nKxub5g5CM7DGGC7pgz4YXaCX1vXKQg6t9vkZvA4l4 I think it adds to what Downndirty's been posting regarding to this virus and adds some detail around herd immunity to help understand what why we should continue isolating and doing the things we're doing. Basically it boils down to the only way out of this is by getting enough humans the antibodies to stop the disease from propagating. Immunity comes either from exposure or a vaccine. Welcome to the new world for the next 12-18 months.....
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9nlVtHgGE0/?hl=en For those who are curious- Dr. Peter Attia gives a high level explanation about this virus vs. the flu starting around 2:25 in this video. There are a lot of mechanisms at play, and things are of course evolving with regards to complete understanding.
Cannot recommend Peter Attia’s YouTube page enough. He had a really interesting podcast with Sam Harris Wednesday. He’s also turned his researchers over to the virus data. This virus is more terrifying the more you know about it.