Corona Virus

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
  • Hope everyone has a wonderful and warm Thanksgiving!
  • Super Cedar firestarters 30% discount Use code Hearth2024 Click here
Status
Not open for further replies.
M

MTY

Feeling the Heat
Jan 9, 2019
499
Idaho
Who is worried? I mentioned today that I was not, but at the first hint of ugly I was heading to Costco for a truck load of grub and going into hiding. The spousal unit said that we might have to hide out for 30-40 days. I said I was good to go for a year. However, I just cannot grasp things getting as bad as they were with the Spanish Flu.
We as a lot are probably more independent, stubborn, and self reliant than the greater portion of the population, but does that cause us to downplay the significance of this bug?
 
The death rate is about the same as the Spanish Flu so there is reason for concern. It's very contagious, but at least it is nothing like Ebola which was 50%! Thank goodness we reacted quickly then. The main concern is that politics will get in the way of quickly protecting Americans. This already appears to be happening. We need the CDC firing on all cylinders right now.
 
I would question the Spanish Flu statistic. Its source appears to be the Chinese government which needs to be taken with a big grain of salt. Ideally now that the cat is out of the bag, I expect the Chinese state is ill equipped to test for the number of people who caught it and had minimal symptoms, while counting fatalities is pretty easy. There is reportedly a major respiratory component to the CV-19 virus. Chinese cities are notorious for very poor long term air quality and that means a lot of the population has compromised respiratory systems to begin with. The Chinese military owns the cigarette companies and use it as source of revenue. Cigarette smoking has exploded in the last few decades which also leads to compromised lungs to begin with. Someone with COPD and other long term lung issues are probably the ones that really need to worry. Sadly I have a few friends that are chain smokers and already are on the cusp of COPD that I worry about. One of the them is big listener to conservative talk radio so he is lapping up folks like Rush spinning "alternative truth"

Some of the data trickling out is large number of the fatalities are elderly with other significant medical issues. I am not particularly worried about myself as I don't have any pulmonary issues, but expect its going to hit some elderly portions of the population. The biggest issue I see is the paranoia of folks. The current administration has been steadily cutting public heath funding so the CDC and had a war on science in general so a lot of the resources that were there have retired or left government service. The media loves it as it get eyeballs on the screen and that also leads to paranoia.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Seasoned Oak
It may be the cure for the monetary woes of Social Security. And I agree that it is difficult to extrapolate the effects on the Chinese population to the rest of the world. Pollution literally can be seen to fall from the sky in China. Not having seen it first hand, most of our citizens could not begin to grasp the differences between our health care system and China's.
For a health statistic think of this. China consumes very little ice cream. This is due to the poor quality of oral care. I just plain hurts too much for them to eat ice cream. We now know that anyone with dental health issues pretty much has a compromised immune system.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Seasoned Oak and Ashful
How crazy will it get? Some poor filipino guy got beat up in a supermarket in Italy after being mistaken for a Chinese national. Some twisted sense of retribution over italys Corona virus outbreak. And this is just the start. Now the news is warning 70% of the US population is likely to get it at some point,not sure where the other 30% would be hiding. Not sure whats worse ,powering through the virus or spraying public areas with all kinds of chemicals as they seem to be doing in china.
 
Last edited:
This yrs regular flu is particularly severe. My teenage daughter, and several associates all quite young and healthy, had 4-6 days of severe symptoms. What scares me is my daughter had this yrs flu shot a few months ago. Seems to be selective though , no one else in my family has contracted it ,or no symptoms if we did.
 
quarantine the country now, not later. shut down the borders, ban traveling in and out of the continental united states, ban travel in between state lines. affected states should ban travel between counties and townships. all of this until an effective vaccine is found. stay home!!!!!!! the markets are getting hit hard already and im sure will continue to do so, so implementing these protocols sound like a good idea to me
 
I think we just watch to see how things go. Not freaking out yet. What is weird is the 2 week incubation time. Some folks speculate that this is man-made :(
 
  • Like
Reactions: JimBear
Seasoned Oak said:
How crazy will it get? Some poor filipino guy got beat up in a supermarket in Italy after being mistaken for a Chinese national. Some twisted sense of retribution over italys Corona virus outbreak. And this is just the start. Now the news is warning 70% of the US population is likely to get it at some point,not sure where the other 30% would be hiding. Not sure whats worse ,powering through the virus or spraying public areas with all kinds of chemicals as they seem to be doing in china.
Click to expand...
I would say the scariest part is how woefully unprepared the US is for a pandemic. The administration shut down the US pandemic response chain of command a year ago. Today's hearing on this topic with the DHS head was mind-boggling. The fellow was totally unprepared. He gave very wrong answers to some questions and had no clue for others. In the meantime based on today's numbers, it appears the mortality rate is rising. I get 3.33% if I did the numbers right. (2700 deaths, 81,000 reported infections as of this morning)

tadmaz said:
I think we just watch to see how things go. Not freaking out yet. What is weird is the 2 week incubation time. Some folks speculate that this is man-made :(
Click to expand...
There has been a boatload of dumb speculation and innuendo about this disease. Expect there will be a lot more to come.
 
begreen said:
I would say the scariest part is how woefully unprepared the US is for a pandemic. The administration shut down the US pandemic response chain of command a year ago. Today's hearing on this topic with the DHS head was mind-boggling. The fellow was totally unprepared. He gave very wrong answers to some questions and had no clue for others. In the meantime based on today's numbers, it appears the mortality rate is rising. I get 3.33% if I did the numbers right. (2700 deaths, 81,000 reported infections as of this morning)


There has been a boatload of dumb speculation and innuendo about this disease. Expect there will be a lot more to come.
Click to expand...
that, and the fact that there are so many people who just think its no big deal because its too far away from them now now, like you can stay the f home for a few months dont need to be going on any vacations to other countries like chilll and lets figure this stuff out. i swear without a mass travel ban this thing will keep spreading like wild fire
 
  • Like
Reactions: fbelec
Hopefully not. So far the US and Canada are doing better that many other areas. Good time to head to S. America, none there.
 
Will Smith - movie " Legend" - the parallels in the beginning of movie. Current flu shots only 45% effective. I ended up in the other 55%. haven't had any flu bugs since the mid 70's. likely over due- past tense
 
Jan Pijpelink said:
Never had a flu shot. Haven't had the flu in 45 years. I don't see the purpose injecting yourself with last year's flu virus while not knowing which strain will come this year. My wife's BIL gets a flu shot every year and gets the flu every year.
Click to expand...
I had the opposite experience, got the flu every yr until i started getting the shot and havnt had it yet in 15+ yrs since getting the yearly shot. Everyone is different though.
 
Eightball1313 said:
quarantine the country now, not later. shut down the borders, ban traveling in and out of the continental united states, ban travel in
Click to expand...
Not easy to do ,but yea waiting until its already here is not an effective strategy.
 
  • Like
Reactions: fbelec
The current adminstration is probably far more concerned with impact on the election than the number of bodies that pile up. Generally a crisis is good for the current administration but we will all see.
 
The big question for me, and I do not expect an honest answer, is how long can this bug survive without a host. Say a person puts everything on auto pilot and hides out, but receives mail, how long can the virus remain active if someone has coughed on the mail. Travel bans may not be very effective if commerce continues.
 
  • Like
Reactions: fbelec
peakbagger said:
The current adminstration is probably far more concerned with impact on the election than the number of bodies that pile up. Generally a crisis is good for the current administration but we will all see.
Click to expand...
Based on the hearings I have watched today, they are woefully underprepared. The entire pandemic response chain of command was shut down 2 yrs ago. HHS and CDC people didn't even know about the 2016 govt. guidelines for pandemic response. The head of DHS today was scary in his lack of knowledge. At times he just made up (completely wrong) stuff. Add to this the stupidity coming out on the airwaves and from the recent medal of honor recipient and on social media. We could be in for a world of hurt if this turns pandemic in the US and it becomes a political football. Some things need to stay completely outside of politics.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: bholler, fbelec and Jan Pijpelink
begreen said:
Based on the hearings I have watched today, they are woefully underprepared. The entire pandemic response chain of command was shut down 2 yrs ago. HHS and CDC people didn't even know about the 2016 govt. guidelines for pandemic response. The head of DHS today was scary in his lack of knowledge. At times he just made up (completely wrong) stuff. Add to this the stupidity coming out on the airwaves and from the recent medal of honor recipient and on social media. We could be in for a world of hurt if this turns pandemic in the US and it becomes a political football. Some things need to stay completely outside of politics.
Click to expand...
Wait for it......and BTW the Earth is flat.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • Like
Reactions: bholler and AlbergSteve
At the least they didnt call the virus Captain Trips. *


(* Stephen King's The Stand.)
 
begreen said:
Some things need to stay completely outside of politics.
Click to expand...
Completely agree ,now if they can avoid calling everyone involved a racist for travel restrictions that would be a good start.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JimBear
peakbagger said:
The current adminstration is probably far more concerned with impact on the election than the number of bodies that pile up. Generally a crisis is good for the current administration but we will all see.
Click to expand...
Your bias is showing. Doing exactly what your blaming others for. If you want the full story , watch some news outlets that give the full story. Must be frustrating to get only one bias side 24/7.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JimBear
After watching the speech last night sure sounds like they have no effin clue what to do, wish they would just be up front instead of just saying "yeah so we might have a vaccine in the next two years and theres def gunna be more case BUT WE HAVE IT UNDER CONTROL because we have the smartest people in the country working on it.." what happens when those people get it and die?! Idk sure doesnt sounds good to me...
 
With such a wide range of opinions on the subject as usual the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Even with all the critcism they got for the initial travel ban i didnt think it went far enough. Still dont think it goes far enough . Classic no win situation.
 
  • Like
Reactions: EODMSgt, Grizzerbear and JimBear
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom