Anonymous wrote:Have any children died yet?

Gentle reminder that people ages 10-17 are children. So, yes. Definitely.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:India just basically closed their borders to all foreigners. All visas have been suspended.

Isn’t it just Europe?

Just looked on Times of India- no, it's all visas, and also OCI (which is like a green card sort of) also suspended until April 15th- basically only citizens can come in. We were supposed to go visit family in April- glad we didn't. I have an OCI and my child has a tourist visa, we decided to postpone a few weeks ago. Good decision, clearly.

Yes, thanks. I’m also an OCI holder and just finished my kids’ applications for a visa yesterday. Glad I didn’t pay anything.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:India just basically closed their borders to all foreigners. All visas have been suspended.

Isn’t it just Europe?

Sorry - never mind. Just saw the update. My FIL will be shocked; he is a citizen and was planning to go next month, come hell or high water.

Yea I did a double-take too. Yesterday it was just Europe. Today it's everyone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm getting mixed messages about regular facemasks. The govt has been saying regular masks won't help the general public but now they say it's ok for healthcare workers to treat covid19 patients with regular masks

Of course, the masks help and were sold here to the general public for use in public health emergencies and approved by the FDA. The N-95 masks say that on the package.

Urging people not to buy them is more of a calming (reduce panic) and conserving (save for hospitals, drs) measure.

That said, the masks aren't foolproof and are subject to user error. And even health care workers have contracted COVID-19, so one cannot have a sense of false security.

"Regular" masks without the respirators would be less helpful but reduce the droplet spread in the sick and maybe help the well a little. NOT FDA approved for that.

The masks were already sold out back in January when people were not paying attention. Other countries took them so the US does not have them. Even the regular surgical masks were cleared out of Walgreens warehouses over 2 months ago. Those 3M masks were approved for exactly this scenario so US citizens could wear them in a pandemic when needing to go to a grocery store or something important. What the US did not do was make sure there was a supply available for US citizens. So now they tell people just wash your hands and forget about masks. Such a failure!!! I wonder how many masks the elites have stacked in their homes. Not enough for healthcare workers either. The government should have stockpiled these masks and be distributing them now to everyone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:India just basically closed their borders to all foreigners. All visas have been suspended.

Isn’t it just Europe?

Just looked on Times of India- no, it's all visas, and also OCI (which is like a green card sort of) also suspended until April 15th- basically only citizens can come in. We were supposed to go visit family in April- glad we didn't. I have an OCI and my child has a tourist visa, we decided to postpone a few weeks ago. Good decision, clearly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:India just basically closed their borders to all foreigners. All visas have been suspended.

Isn’t it just Europe?

Sorry - never mind. Just saw the update. My FIL will be shocked; he is a citizen and was planning to go next month, come hell or high water.

WHO gives COVID-19 the pandemic label. Not surprising.

I had to go to a medical office yesterday for tests, and was wearing a mask (I'm expecting) and gloves. The older people in the elevator (one of whom was in a wheelchair) made fun of me for wearing both- it made me so sad. I saw one of them later in the doctors office and she had grabbed gloves and said sheepishly maybe its not bad to be careful.

People are acting on deep seated panic instincts, one of which is denial.

Anonymous wrote:India just basically closed their borders to all foreigners. All visas have been suspended.

Isn’t it just Europe?

I saw Germany warned 2/3 of its population could get this. I’ve heard similarly high numbers for the US. That seems totally plausible to me, given that likely almost everyone has suffered from other coronaviruses like the flu or the common cold.

If the death rate on this thing comes down, say, all the way to 1%, that still seems like a crisis of Biblical proportions. 1% of half the world dying is 40 million people deaths—over half the number who died in WWII. Is that truly what we’re up against? Seems hard to fathom, but I guess I don’t know where the eject button from that scenario is

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm feeling so hopeless about this. Like no one cares about anyone over age 50. I mean, even for 40 year olds, this is 4x more deadly than flu. Any of us over age 19 could die. We need to buy time for the healthcare system. We need to buy time to develop treatments. We need to buy time to protect our elderly communities.

My 85-year old father moved mid-February to a retirement community. He had been safely isolated and now is at much greater risk. I was looking forward to him settling in and making friends and now I just want to tell him to stay in his apartment. He won't, by the way, and is making friends and having a grand time. Happier than he's been in years, in fact. Why can't we agree that we have to take action and implement social distancing NOW before it gets to these communities? I'm so confused. Do we think it won't get there? Do we just not care that 15% of them will die??

Hes 85. Let him do what he wants, basically. !

But he will expose others.

Have any children died yet?

Anonymous wrote:This may or may not be helpful but the # of cases in the USA is proportionally similar to the # cases in Canada, where widespread testing is occurring. About 4000 people have been tested in Ontario and around 3000 people have been tested in BC.

In Ontario, only 1% of people tested are positive so far (they are still waiting on 400 tests).
https://www.ontario.ca/page/2019-novel-coronavirus

Ontario lab can test 1000 samples per day, and turnaround time has been reduced to 6 h.At-home testing for the virus will now be made available.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-provinces-start-offering-in-home-testing-for-novel-coronavirus/

The US has roughly 10x the population in Canada.
There are 99 cases of coronavirus infection in Canada and 1016 cases in the US. So there are about 10 X the number of cases in US compared to Canada, which would be expected.

The only difference right now is proportion of deaths - 1 person has died in Canada (1%) while 31 have died in the US (3%). The fatality in Canada was a gentleman in a nursing home in BC. That either says something about the proportion of high risk individuals as cases in Canada versus USA - more high risk people in USA cases, or what stage people are being detected as being positive and/or how quickly they receive treatment.

But how do we know that's true if we're not testing?

This may or may not be helpful but the # of cases in the USA is proportionally similar to the # cases in Canada, where widespread testing is occurring. About 4000 people have been tested in Ontario and around 3000 people have been tested in BC.

In Ontario, only 1% of people tested are positive so far (they are still waiting on 400 tests).
https://www.ontario.ca/page/2019-novel-coronavirus

Ontario lab can test 1000 samples per day, and turnaround time has been reduced to 6 h.At-home testing for the virus will now be made available.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-provinces-start-offering-in-home-testing-for-novel-coronavirus/

The US has roughly 10x the population in Canada.
There are 99 cases of coronavirus infection in Canada and 1016 cases in the US. So there are about 10 X the number of cases in US compared to Canada, which would be expected.

The only difference right now is proportion of deaths - 1 person has died in Canada (1%) while 31 have died in the US (3%). The fatality in Canada was a gentleman in a nursing home in BC. That either says something about the proportion of high risk individuals as cases in Canada versus USA - more high risk people in USA cases, or what stage people are being detected as being positive and/or how quickly they receive treatment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, if you guys aren’t also reading the travel thread you should - everyone over there still wants to take their spring break trip!

So many idiots. The cavalier “it can’t touch me” is born out of entitlement and self-importance with zero regard for the well-being of others.

Nope. It’s called listening to our government and the “experts” that everyone says we should defer to. CDC website only advises limiting travel to impacted areas. Quote: “CDC does not recommend canceling or postponing travel to destinations with level 1 travel notices because the risk of COVID-19 is thought to be low.” https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/faqs.html.

I can't do the stupid.