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Iran lawmaker says 50 dead from coronavirus in city of Qom

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Re: Iran lawmaker says 50 dead from coronavirus in city of Qom

#191
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could have stopped it completely with total travel bans but the WHO advised against it because it could be damaging to the world economy. Why is the WHO concerned about the economy? Well I have no idea. And is this virus going pandemic going to be more or less economically painful than the travel bans might have been? My guess would be we will feel significantly more pain from a pandemic.

> "Why is the WHO concerned about the economy?" Don't you see that this is always a tradeoff? If the economy tanks, people lose their jobs, which could result in a lot more social unrest than if a virus spreads around the world. I think it's tough to contain a virus like that with such a long incubation time. But the early efforts might have slowed the virus down somewhat at first, giving us more time to develop vacc…

There's no tradeoff if you never actually trade, is there?

There's not actually any wise balance and other mumbo-jumbo fart-heads in the WTO like to spew out, if under no circumstance do you ban travelling or take any meaningful action.

It's just words for the idiots to feel secure while all it really matters is economic growth.

I'd love to be proven otherwise, but then, under what circumstances would WTO advice a full ban on travel to/from China?

Perhaps never?

There you have it.

Just words after the fact, rationalizing inaction to two year olds -- "there's nothing to worry about", "the chinese are taking outstanding measures", "maybe there's something to worry about, but mah economy", "perhaps its too late to contain this"

Re: Iran lawmaker says 50 dead from coronavirus in city of Qom

#192
post #59
post #32

Around 99% of the patients developed a high temperature, while more than half experienced fatigue and a dry cough. About a third also experienced muscle pain and difficulty breathing. Research from the Chinese Center for Disease Control suggests that around 80% of coronavirus cases are mild. Around 15% of patients have gotten severe cases, and 5% have become critically ill. Here's how symptoms progress among typical…

> Stay vigilant, stay careful, but most importantly, do not spread mass hysteria and panic. In the last month almost 1% of the current population of the earth quarantined in China [0]. What exactly worries you about mass hysteria and panic? Why would that be worse than what is likely to happen as Covid-19 spreads outside of China? I'm all in favor of not overselling the danger; but this virus is a real concern. I mea…

> If 2% of the people I know died this year, that would be the worst disaster in my country in my lifetime.

Not trying to downplay the seriousness of this virus, but it's very unlikely to kill 2% of the people in any country — it kills (maybe, approximately) 2% of the people who are infected, but far less than 100% of the population in your country will ever be infected.

Re: Iran lawmaker says 50 dead from coronavirus in city of Qom

#193
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because no health system in the world would have the capacity to put more than about one in thousand people in intensive care. Try one in ten thousand. And that's in the most developed countries with the best healthcare.

On the other hand diseases don’t reach 100% of the population on the same day. Quarantine has been surprisingly effective in China, though at significant economic cost. That seems to be a much larger concern than the capacity of heathcare systems. If this becomes a true epidemic it’s going to be bad, but societies have been dealing with epidemics for a long time.

> On the other hand diseases don’t reach 100% of the population on the same day.

That's absolutely true, even in Wuhan the %age of infected people on the total population is relatively small, but much larger than the # of ICU beds that existed.

And the virus had a long time to spread around there before any countermeasures were taken.

Even so, ventilators and ICU beds are not normally all available either.

> Quarantine has been surprisingly effective in China, though at significant economic cost.

It would have been a lot more effective if they had done it sooner.

> That seems to be a much larger concern than the capacity of heathcare systems.

Yes, and I'm sure that at some level that's the right trade-off, I'm just not sure what that level is and whether or not we are already past it.

> If this becomes a true epidemic it’s going to be bad, but societies have been dealing with epidemics for a long time.

In Italy they went from 0 dead and a handful of cases to 7 dead and > 200 cases. Most of them are old people and people that were already ill.

Historically the way we deal with epidemics is by developing medication. That takes time and in the meantime the damage could be substantial.

Re: Iran lawmaker says 50 dead from coronavirus in city of Qom

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's an option. I lot of people cannot call in sick. Being sick means being unpaid, and many people cannot afford to go unpaid.

> Being sick means being unpaid, and many people cannot afford to go unpaid. In Germany being sick means full payment by the employer for 6 weeks, after that you'll receive around 90% of your last net income by your healh insurance company for 72 weeks , after that slightly lower unemployment payments for another 12 month. So around 2.5 years of being sick are required until you're actually unpaid.

That's only for salaried employees. As a freelancer, you're generally out of luck AFAIK. (Unless you are a member of the Künstlersozialkasse or similar.)

Re: Iran lawmaker says 50 dead from coronavirus in city of Qom

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a flu going around in The Netherlands right now, it progresses like this: - Day 1: Fever, fatigue and muscle pain with a dry itchy cough. - Day 2+: Nausea and diarrhea can be experienced as well as the first day symptoms. It takes about a week for the worst of the symptoms to die down however the stomach ache, cough and light tiredness last weeks. My entire family and most of my son's class at school has had…

> My wife is, after 3 weeks, still really ill. Probably because she's working full time In my opinion it’s high time to call in sick. She is neither helping herself nor her coworkers by going to work.

I agree. However it's not possible: she's a pharmacist and because of the flu they're both really busy and low staffed. As long as she can just about handle it she works.

They all get it every year anyway because they're constantly coming into contact with sick people so there's less benefit for staying at home.

Re: Iran lawmaker says 50 dead from coronavirus in city of Qom

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone who had history in high school has historical information about this I don't recall any such information. There's people on this site of all different ages, who grew up in all sorts of different places. How do you know what their high-school history covered? In my school, history was mandatory in the first year of high-school, and I think it might have been in the second year as well. Hardly anyone did it…

What kind of backwardish 3rd world country are you from that you never heard in school terms like 'black death', 'spanish flu'? Even if you didn't, I've noticed it in practically all possible media hundreds of times in all possible topics.

Regarding your second paragraph, I never said that I’d never heard the terms. I said that they weren’t covered in high school history for me.

There’s so many topics that can be covered in high-school history classes, and so little actual aggregate time for those classes - why would you expect those topics be amongst them?

Also, why do you think that criticising such history classes, and the country they're in, somehow negates the point i made?

Re: Iran lawmaker says 50 dead from coronavirus in city of Qom

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That number is still only for extremely at risk segments of the population, and the study has such a small sample size that it should be taken with large grains of salt.

I wouldn't dismiss the entire elderly population of Earth "extremely at risk" population. They are our mothers/fathers/grandparents...

I’m saying that’s what that study accounted for: extremely at risk populations. So yeah elderly, people with preexisting conditions, etc.

It’s not a dismissal to acknowledge the limitations of your linked study; to do otherwise would be fearmongering in my opinion.

Re: Iran lawmaker says 50 dead from coronavirus in city of Qom

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netherlands though, not the US. If they're anything like most of Europe then a doctors note is all you need to still be paid while sick more than 1-2 days.

I think it's even possible to get a sick leave from a business you own in some European countries. But how about if you run the business on your own, and you're concerned that if you take two weeks off the business will lose many customers who won't come back? (I was shocked when I saw the they put the name of the illness on the note. That's so far from my employers business that it should be illegal to even ask. Emp…

You can buy insurance from it. It's generally there to cover you from being unable to work for a period of more than a week. So serious stuff.

As an employee the employer will have insurance but basically have to eat the cost of short sickness.

I'm a freelancer but I've chosen not to buy the insurance. It's very expensive and can survive on her income. I put the money I would have spent into a buffer.

Re: Iran lawmaker says 50 dead from coronavirus in city of Qom

#199

Reminder that WHO publishes a daily situation report about COVID-19, which is calmer and more informative than most headlines/media stories: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...

The WHO has come across as pretty incompetent in my opinion. We could have stopped this disease from spreading outside of China but the WHO consistently downplayed the severity and claimed travel bans were overkill and would be too damaging economically. Now they’re saying it’s likely too late to contain the virus. Well I wonder what will be more damaging to the economy? The proposed travel bans or the catastrophic e…

Anyone that trusts the WHO is a plank anyway. These weirdo globalist fuckers are probably connected to those responsible for its deployment. Don’t trust the WHO or the UN for a second.

Re: Iran lawmaker says 50 dead from coronavirus in city of Qom

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My wife is, after 3 weeks, still really ill. Probably because she's working full time In my opinion it’s high time to call in sick. She is neither helping herself nor her coworkers by going to work.

I agree. However it's not possible: she's a pharmacist and because of the flu they're both really busy and low staffed. As long as she can just about handle it she works. They all get it every year anyway because they're constantly coming into contact with sick people so there's less benefit for staying at home.

Seems like pharmacists, who are constantly in contact with sick people, should be the first to not work if they're sick.
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