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Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

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Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#61
post #45

When is it time to start freaking out? I have a friend who may be starting to unhinge a little bit. Whereas I have some sort of stoic “this is completely out of my control and will happen or it won’t” response that is probably not that much more rational.

Never. However the time to take it seriously as something that has already transmitted throughout communities in the US, has passed, and you should do that starting now.

Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#62
post #42

One person has died in the US. It's not time to panic. I expected more logical comments here.

The concern is people have not been taking this seriously for the past two months. This has resulted in the US being on the back foot and only acting in a reactive manner. The CDC has fallen flat on its face and now state public health departments need to try to pick up the slack. I hope they do. Other countries are already trying to slow down spread via cancellation of events and closures of schools. The same needs…

> The concern is people have not been taking this seriously for the past two months. This has resulted in the US being on the back foot and only acting in a reactive manner. The CDC has fallen flat on its face and now state public health departments need to try to pick up the slack. I hope they do.

Oh please. There's likely absolutely nothing the CDC could have done to prevent it from entering and spreading within the US, given the nature of the virus. What would have been an ideal situation in your mind, have the CDC order a complete halt to domestic/international travel early January?

Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#63
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if this “temporary alteration” will impact the way business is conducted long-term. Instead of choosing between conference calls or flights, choose VC.

Given the impact airline travel has on global warming I hope it results in fewer companies using air travel in place of video conferencing.

These comments are being voted down. But I think it warrants some justification. These actions are just and rational, however in the wake of the climate emergency they are just as just and rational. I do believe governments and companies should answer for why they haven’t taken them before, and if they revert after this outbreak is over, they should have to answer for why.

Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#64
post #27
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if this “temporary alteration” will impact the way business is conducted long-term. Instead of choosing between conference calls or flights, choose VC.

Having ubiquitous, reliable access to good VC doesn't eliminate the need to travel. Humans communicate so much better face to face. Source: I work in Google, spending up to half of my working time in VC. Still need to hop in a plane when something is important enough.

Exactly. We’ve had long-distance telephone for a long time, and it actually works much better than the audio of most internet teleconferencing I’ve experienced. It’s not a complete substitute for face to face communication.

Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#65
post #43
post #36

Is it possible that the virus has been circulating in the states since Christmas or earlier? I live in the states, though not in Seattle. My wife's best friend teaches ESL at a major university. She has several Chinese students in her class who went home over the semester break in December and January. In mid-to-late January, the teacher, her husband, my wife, and I all came down with the "flu" in swift succession, w…

My brother's wife is also an ESL teacher. She had multiple students who traveled home to Wuhan during the winter break. Shortly after school starting she came down with a cold, gave it to my brother, and he had a pretty bad cough for a month. He's just now getting over it.

Last winter in Cambridge, UK, both me and my wife went through something labelled the Queen's Cough. In theory, that was an adenovirus: apart from the brutal cough that got worse if you rested and layed down, it regularly resulted in inner ear inflammation.

We suffered from it for nearly a month, we had to take mild tranquilizers - valerian extract - to fall asleep, only to get up coughing for 10-20 mins non stop in tge middle of the night.

There are loads of nasty chest infections out there.

Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#66
post #36

Is it possible that the virus has been circulating in the states since Christmas or earlier? I live in the states, though not in Seattle. My wife's best friend teaches ESL at a major university. She has several Chinese students in her class who went home over the semester break in December and January. In mid-to-late January, the teacher, her husband, my wife, and I all came down with the "flu" in swift succession, w…

Considering how contagious it seems to be, I think if it had been circulating in the U.S. for months under the guise of flu, there would have been a mysterious number of deaths of young, healthy people from flu that would have been recognized in hindsight as Covid-19.

Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#67
post #45

When is it time to start freaking out? I have a friend who may be starting to unhinge a little bit. Whereas I have some sort of stoic “this is completely out of my control and will happen or it won’t” response that is probably not that much more rational.

When is the point at which freaking out will help?

Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#68
post #36

Is it possible that the virus has been circulating in the states since Christmas or earlier? I live in the states, though not in Seattle. My wife's best friend teaches ESL at a major university. She has several Chinese students in her class who went home over the semester break in December and January. In mid-to-late January, the teacher, her husband, my wife, and I all came down with the "flu" in swift succession, w…

Same thing with our family here in the Bay Area, although it happened in mid-February so we're still recovering in some degree or another. Everyone had flu tests across multiple days and all came back negative for both type A & B.

Doctors thought about a coronavirus, but since we didn't travel to or have direct contact with anyone who did travel to China, they knew the CDC wouldn't approve the test.

Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#69
post #50
post #36

Is it possible that the virus has been circulating in the states since Christmas or earlier? I live in the states, though not in Seattle. My wife's best friend teaches ESL at a major university. She has several Chinese students in her class who went home over the semester break in December and January. In mid-to-late January, the teacher, her husband, my wife, and I all came down with the "flu" in swift succession, w…

FWIW our family got hit with the same thing. The cough was... different than anything we’ve experienced in recent memory. I assumed it was the flu (we stayed home and didn’t get tested, but it was pretty brutal.)

I think it was also around December when me and a number of coworkers at the cafe I was working at got sick like this too. I don't know what they did, but I was out for a few days to recover and never went to see a doctor since I don't have any health insurance or provider. I recovered after about a week or so of rest.

I no longer work there and am looking for a new job now, but these are tough times. I couldn't have picked a worse time to be looking for work. I wonder how things are gonna go for people such as me who work in jobs that inherently need people at a physical location interacting with people. We can't just remote into work and make coffee for people.

Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#70
Personally, I believe most people should just accept that they are going to get COVID-19. It's going to get spread around, and it's not containable. You're likely going to get it. That's the bad news, but the good news is that we have immune systems and we know how to take care of each other and ourselves. Yes it's going to kill some people, no it is highly probably not going to kill you. People will be sick and going on with their lives and doing their jobs.

It feels like we're teetering on the verge of hysteria, but a little acceptance about the situation would go a long way.

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