Sorceress 21

I agree. However, the "mob" isn't listening.

There are hundreds of different viruses from dozens of different viral classifications that cause the "common cold." A "cold" isn't a single type of infection. It's mathematically impossible to create a vaccine for this.

Please remember it's not only your life that's in danger !. Sadly, we are fighting more against human psychology and human nature right now then we are fighting against the virus. What you posted here is science. That'll pass right over the heads of folks that can neither think nor process this Pandemic specifically in scientific terms. People are faced with hard choices, go out, do what they want and hope for the best. Or follow the guidelines to protect themselves, help protect others from something that may never touch them. That's the "Normalcy Bias." "It hasn't happened to me or anyone I know therefore what they're saying on TV must be exaggerated!"

I don't see that I side-stepped anything at all. I gave you an answer, you just didn't agree with it and that's totally fine. Bold is as bold does....it is my friend...it so is.

Dibs on the Night Vision!

The death rate being low, is ineffectual towards the civil security worse case scenario for a large simultaneous illness percentage. That's why I'm not addressing it. It's completely irrelevant to my point. I'm speaking only on the the possibility of, not the probability, of a worst case scenario and how critical it is for us to do everything we can to avoid that which we can easily do as long as we admit it's possible. Dismissing that as an possible outcome is exactly what will make it happen. Your feeling that there is no evidence that simultaneous illness could get out of control as of today (which I disagree with considering the numbers coming from NYC) "seems" to be making the statement you feel there is no point in making active efforts to prevent that from happening. Am I misunderstanding you? The biggest problem with your view, numerically speaking, is that none of the domestic numbers can currently be relied on for modeling likely outcomes. This is true because we just stated testing large numbers about a week ago. In a word, we haven't tested a large enough percentage of the US population to have any real understanding of what the infection rates and simultaneous illness projections will actually look like. You are assuming best case scenario based on today's data. That is a mistake. Even if your view ultimately (and hopefully) pans true, planning for that to be the case is an extremely irresponsible position to take on behalf of authorities. My job, by it's definition, makes me an expert on understanding and executing "threat and error management." Aviation is safe because when we plan a flight we always plan "worse case scenario" outcome. That's why we so rarely crash planes anymore compared to the past. Planning "best case scenarios" with Covid-19 is simply ridiculous at this point.

I'm in same boat. I'll get about $200. I am mad about it, and here's why: My first gripe is that anyone who is still at present getting a full-time paycheck should not be eligible, period. That makes zero sense. People who aren't working, while we should be subject to some kind of means test, the govt making an assumption that someone who made what I did automatically has piles of money sitting in a savings account is absurd. There is a reverse bias here too, some people will get a bigger check from this then they got while they were working! WTF? Why not make the check half of what your monthly income was averaged by your reported annual income? We don't need to incentivize people to not work once work becomes available again but at that same time the checks should be enough to meet at least half of your monthly financial norm. The legislative stupidity in this bill is piled so high I can see it from Kentucky!

Boom! Dazzz what I be talkin bout peoples! Ya'll need to listen to this man!!

Beyond normal sympathy for the bereaved and their families, big picture, I don't care and it doesn't matter. You are zeroing in on the death rate. Its not about the death rate, that's much less important to the outcome of this Pandemic then people realize. I've been trying to explain that on numerous threads and you aren't hearing me. Not trying to be hostile I promise as you've been really cool to chat with! You keep gravitating to the death rate and I have on numerous threads explained why that's irrelevant. I don't want to get frustrated and be rude so last time, we're cool - this is just getting old, know what I'm saying? - I'm not demanding you agree with me, I'm asking that you understand my opinion. If we hit a certain percentage of simultaneous illness nationwide that is so excessive it directly and substantially impacts the stability of essential services, our long term freedom and liberty and national stability will be in dire jeopardy. How those individual cases resolve just doesn't matter in the end. If too many people on the same day , at the same time, are too sick to go to work or are in self isolation with mild symptoms then we will have a major problem. I think that number is about 25% as mentioned by the few healthcare professionals and officials brave enough to discuss it, so around 82 million people. The 25% threshold is the only number that matters now. We must do everything possible to ensure we don't go there! The first and most important benchmark to prevent that is doing everything we can to prevent the Healthcare system from hitting critical mass. If we surpass that, then hospitals will be forced to go into "triage" mode, turning many hundreds and thousands of people nationwide away that actually are suffering the illness severe enough where today they would be admitted. That creates a domino effect of even more spreading of the virus. Every American needs to understand if too many truck drivers, food packagers, critical supply logistics workers, utility workers, healthcare providers, first responders etc. are ill all at once, the government will have no choice but to impose draconian measures that make what they are doing now look like a picnic. Civil order WILL break down. Again, it doesn't matter how ill they are, it matters how many are sick at once. People aren't listening and cooperating with the voluntary measures currently in place in large enough percentages to stop the direction of the trend. They were also told, mistakenly in my opinion, that there was a good chance after the two-week evaluation period was over we'd be able to move towards going back to normal. That was a huge blunder on the President's behalf I think. People are getting agitated and suffering from cabin fever. The angst is starting to have very disturbing effects as more and more people seem to be throwing up their arms in disgust and are demanding the return of normality as if there was no real threat still out there. We are teetering on the brink of very dangerous territory as no one is being honest about how bad this may yet get. Americans are fickle. We are strong when faced with a tangible threat like terrorism , war, hurricanes, earthquakes etc. and come together with great unity to help recover from disastrous events, but we are not an inherently proactive people. We struggle to understand a threat like a Pandemic because we can't see the threat physically. Collectively we have a bad habit of being driven by both confirmation and normalcy bias. Until we see and feel things directly on our lives or person individually, that goes well beyond the trivial inconveniences of the business closures we are seeing, we have a very bad habit of practicing communal denial and apathy towards a given threat. We have lived for so long with excess and high standards of living with next to zero real threats against that condition many Americans are now literally demanding we drop restrictions and go back to work consequences be damned. There is a growing, widespread and a potentially catastrophic belief that the end of the Covid-19 story will be a positive one if we re-start the economy now and just wash our hands more. I'm seeing this all over social media and with my own eyes when I go out for essentials. Today, March 26th, we are a long way away from a "worse-case" scenario outcome and it's still highly preventable. However, the level of denial collectively regarding our current course which is taking us in the direction of a worse case scenario is in point of fact, actually making that the more likely outcome. We need a national wake-up call and collective acknowledgment that yes, I'm afraid this can get really really bad if we don't listen to the experts and follow the guidelines and take them very seriously. To date, that simply isn't happening. Because of that, at present, this situation is simply going to come down to math. We can turn this around and fix it. But we MUST admit to ourselves and to each other that this is an existential threat to America on every level not just a death toll. This CAN change this nation for the worse for decades or even permanently. Anyone today who believes that is impossible (understand I am not talking about likelihood, just possibility) is the biggest part of our problem.

In normal times roughly about 1 million people per month depart China via air carrier and that's just Chinese Airlines. Add in foreign air carriers and it's well over 1.5 million.

But...but...it's just sniffles and sneezes they said!?

Did I say we were? Nope! I'm speaking of where this could go if we don't get a handle on the health situation. Any person believing that end is impossible is practicing absolute stupid nativity of the highest order. (That's not addressed at you Bush, just a generalized statement.) The fact is that people are not heeding the CDC guidelines adequately, they just aren't. The richies are bugging out of NYC left and right via private jet, I can report that as fact. These A-holes believe their money somehow insulates them from risk. It's insane. So one must consider at least the possibility (probability is a different talking point entirely) of this devolving into a full SHTF scenario. I'm making zero statement on that likelihood, only the academic possibility and how important it is for America's future that we collectively acknowledge that. because that acknowledgement is the only thing that will drive us away from going down that road. There's way too much denial in progress over the severe outcome potential for the illness. WAY TOO MUCH. It's dangerous and over anything else is what actually is placing our civil liberties at risk of being permanently impacted.

My feeling is the tipping point would be if we pass a simultaneous rate of infection where a large enough percentage of Americans are ill at the same time and unable to go to work. That is a HUGE problem that no one is talking about. What the severity of they're individual case is or what the mortality rate of those infections is becomes irrelevant. If too many people get sick at once then essential services, water, power, food availability etc. may be disrupted. There is a percentage out there and I promise you the Govt. has studied this and has a defined "red line". If we hit that number people are going to loose their shat and we'll see widespread civil unrest and they will claw and kill each other for cans of cat food. I can't know what that "red line" number is but my guess is that it's somewhere around 25%. Too many people are looking at this with a "fluffy bunny slippers and rainbows" level of complete nativity. They are placing too much value over the socioeconomics of it vs. the scientific and medical side of the problem. That is a mistake. Favoring the "economy" and the COTUS over scientifically controlling a pandemic is insane. What good is a job or freedom going to do for you if it all falls apart? We're obviously a LONG way away from it being that bad, however, that's the current trend. Just putting America back on the rails and sending her down the tracks of normality with ..*ahem* voluntary "guidelines" isn't likely going to end well in my opinion. I truly and honestly hope in a month or two you all can say.."see Sorceress, you worried over nothing! You can take your tinfoil coat and hat off now!"

You hit on something important there. At what point will front line Police Officers individually or in groups throw out the rule book and/or the COTUS to act swiftly and decisively to restore order in a very serious SHTF scenario? Will they just follow the COTUS straight into oblivion? It's thankfully fully hypothetical right now and we'll hopefully not have to find out the answer but think about that. Some of them may face the quandary of having to follow their oaths or watch the world burn around them. If things got bad enough they'll have to make life and death decisions on the fly that may or may not exceed their mandate. Man I hope not. I hope none of them ever have to face that. That's a helluva responsibility.