b/c old people will be the last to get a ventilator, unless you want to be in a hallway gasping for your last breathes. The people in denial are the ones that are causing this outbreak! We have flat earth deniers of covid and then we have logical people that know the earth is a sphere and are taking proper precautions to avoid this pneumonia. Make sure to study 1918’s flu pandemic. Bad in spring, HORRIBLE in the coming fall. So right when all the duffusses call hoax, they will be offed in the 2nd round.
I did not write this but it’s all very logical: Up until this weekend, I felt there was too much media hysteria scaring people around Novel Covid-19 into hoarding TP. Then a doctor personally explained to me this is a “novel” coronavirus that requires learning how to treat and the time involved to create a vaccine. It is also more deadly than a standard flu to anyone within the list of risk factors or increased age. Currently, this is a fully TREATABLE disease, HOWEVER, to treat everyone successfully we DO NOT enough medical equipment, personnel, facilities, and medication available in the US and globally if large numbers of people become sick, hence the concern and focus on infection curve.
Standard medical practice in situations like this would be to first identify those carriers and isolate, quarantine, them to reduce spread. Unfortunately, governments around the world, ours included, delayed widespread testing along with a rapid spread of infection and now this virus is widespread. So to the second method is social distancing, total shut down of countries, businesses, and travel, to keep the infection curve down and not overwhelm the medical system. And here is the key concept, “not overwhelm the medical system”. This doctor was very clear, the US and nearly every country in the world does not have adequate bandwidth to care for large numbers of critically sick people. This virus so far requires a ventilator for treatment, and there is already an acute shortage of ventilators here and globally. If large numbers of people come down with acute Covid-19 the medical system will be forced to implement triage and decide who will and who won’t get respirator treatment.
This doctor was very clear the shutting down of countries and activities is not about hysteria or politics but FIRSTLY to protect the medical system from being swamped, collapsing, and to reduce deaths. They said if social distancing is fully implemented here in the US, which they said is pretty much required now given the numbers estimated to be currently infected, to prepare for everyone being confined to their home for several weeks or more. Italy estimates 5-6 six weeks of whole society isolation.
It is now time for the middle, left and right media, the government, and social media influencers to stop sowing disinformation and be completely clear and transparent. To explain and educate us to stay calm, the reasons and benefits for shutting down business and activities, why hunkering down at home is important to the overall health os everyone. And when it passes and/or the medical system is strong enough to handle mass illness, grocery shelves will be restocked, concerts will return, and we will go back to the normal of criticizing what was done calling it all a hoax