OT : The Coronavirus. Has it reached you yet? How are you?

Totally emotional argument. If it feels nice to label people names then it's fine but I will still let you know  how it works.

If i want t know the average number of people who would die of cancer then I can look at previous 50 years stats. I will get a range. An average. Things will not deviate from range, average when I look at the numbers at the end of the year. Do I post on that on a daily basis. N0. May be once in a year if I start a topic on that.

If I want to know the average number of people who would die of Corona then I can not look at previous 50 years stats. More than that I cannot measure the economic impact of Covid-19. 

Does being assured of one problem and not assured about the other seem the same to you. No, the later case is a cause fro greater concern.
 
 

You can't be clueless and condescending at the same time, so give it a rest.  You've made up hypotheticals, feigned concern for potential victims while ignoring the plight of others with similar issues affected by a different virus, and aped the argument of another poster while you were at it.  You've posted hollow statistics without context.  None of this disproves my earlier argument, that the high risk demographics have been identified and that's where society should focus.  Not a catch-all overaction of shutting down public gatherings because the elderly and those in poor health may be at risk, which is also true of the flu every year with absolutely no precaution whatsoever.

Do you have any genuine arguments beyond hypotheticals and admitting your own ignorance?  Your argument in this latest post equates to, "I don't know how bad it is so we better shut everything down until we can get 50 years (or even 1 year) of data on Covid-19."  That is the definition of a panic reaction, especially considering there is plenty of raw data already available.  The recovery rates are established, the high risk groups have been identified.  If it's chaos in northern Italy or any other isolated area due to poor living conditions, than by all means quarantine them if it makes you feel better.  If you're elderly or have health issues to begin with, avoid crowds and everyone in general should practice common sense cleanliness.  Canceling public gatherings worldwide due to an illness no worse than those we already have (and the data is there whether you want to admit it or not) is insanity.          

That's really the thing.  While I scratch my head at the dismantling/de-funding of the CDC and other federal agencies under the guise of trimming fat, the US economy, and really the world itself is just a house of cards and it always has been....and it always will be.  It doesn't matter who is in charge because when that microbe, massive earthquake/hurricane, flood, famine, drought, whatever it may be comes, it will be catastrophic.  You can prepare all you want for catastrophes, you can educate people, you can build better sea walls, better buildings, better medicines, but at the end of the day, you can't stop people from coughing on you, from panicking, from buying all the antibiotics in the pharmacy and leaving everyone else with nothing.  In the end, humanity is doomed one way or another.  

I look to Hurricane Sandy as something that I lived through as a microcosm of what could be.  Where I lived then, Long Beach NY, was totally fucked.  Our apartment was high up so our home was fine, but the building itself, the streets, the infrastructure of the town, was basically gone.  And as terrible as the physical devastation was, and despite the pre-programmed rallying cries of "Long Beach Strong," people still got into fist fights waiting for gas for their cars, people would rip bottles of water out of people's hands at grocery stores, merchants started gouging for propane tanks to heat people's homes, etc.  That was one bad storm that badly effected a relatively small area (Long Beach, a handful of other towns along Long Island's south shore had substantial damage) in the grand scheme of things.  Multiply that by just one order of magnitude and now you're talking anarchy in the streets, with dwindling supplies and desperate people doing desperate things.  It's only a matter of time.  

Tell me another story about made up cases of Covid-19 in Italy in 2018.  

Naturally I will avoid Mass*, public transport, and other communal places, even though I'm certain it is just a cold.

Will still walk dogs, and do necessary shopping, etc. until recovered.

Getting a cold is so awkward in the current climate.

*pretty sure I caught it at Sunday Mass, person behind me was coughing and sneezing.

That's not true. Half of the people who get the Coronavirus show no symptoms. And of the other half, most of them just have the symptoms of the common cold. Neither of those to groups need a hospital.

Of those who died in Italy, were they old or already sick with some chronic disease?

Because that is what's being reported of those who die from it.

Young healthy people don't suffer much. At least that's what's being reported.

1 in 18.

Think about that number... That's a lot of old and people with underlying health conditions you are dismissively throwing under a bus.

I hope they are never people you love.

Another big jump in deaths in Italy today, 198 in last 24 hours... hospitals collapsing, ambulances having to travel up to 100km to answer emergency calls.

So this is turning into a story about Italy's failing infrastructure.