Posted on 02/27/2020 9:24:11 AM PST by Vermont Lt
As the person who posts the daily Live thread on COVIOD-19, I am often pointed at as a ring leader for the "hype" and "hysteria". I don't think its fair, but I get it.
I want to make a couple of over arching statements based on my life experience working in hospitals, emergency management and along side municipal and federal emergency preparedness organizations and departments.
My work experience in hospital emergency planning and working with local, state, and federal officials provides me with a perspective that is different than most. The planning for these is things is pretty unemotional and clinical. My specific experience was in logistical communications systems, support operations, and overall planning of patient flow through the care process.
I am not a doctor. But I've spent way too much time in the clinical setting dealing with them on setting up things like communications, escalations, triage systems, emergency communications with local, state, and federal officials.
So, those are my bona fides...here are my comments.
First...More than 99% of the people reading this are NOT going to die from this virus. Most of you will barely get sick.
Please let that be your overall mind set. If you are elderly or have respiratory or heart issues...take care of yourself. You have a greater risk. Do some reading on it.
The normal flu precautions are the key thing. Hygiene is critical. Wash your hands. In the hospital setting the phrase is, "Wash in, wash out." Nurses and others will wash their hands when then come into a room and when they leave. This is their protocol and should be your guide.
Second, throughout the rest of your life your primary goal should be: STAY OUT OF THE DAMNED HOSPITAL. If you can avoid going to the hospital on any given day of the week--avoid it. If things get sketchy and the system gets overwhelmed...stay away. Don't visit unless you really have to. Aside from the fact you are not going to die...your chances of dying skyrocket if you dismiss all of the guides for staying healthy and you have to go to the hospital.
Now...onto the "hysteria".
The danger of this whole thing is not that you are going to die. You aren't. If you do, write me and I will send you an apology.
The danger is cultural and economic.
We have already seen the start of the disruption of the supply chain from China. Just in time inventory should start showing some impact. We buy lots of parts and materials from China. China exports are down to the tune of millions of containers every month. Container companies are writing off refrigerated containers by the thousands as they sit on the docks in China--filled with rotting food and meat.
The inventory for most stores is less than a week. The inventory for factories is about a month. We are eating up the stocks we had. About 2/3s of what we normally have shipped to us are stopped. Even if the factory is working, the ports are not working in China. Soon Korea and Japan join that list.
In the US, when this starts breaking out in communities stuff is going to shut down. It will shut down over "abundance of caution ." You are all familiar with that phrase. Usually it means "we don't want to get sued." This time I think the concern is genuine.
Schools, sports, movies, factories, etc will start postponing or shutting down. This will range from your local high school to things like "The Final Four" or other large events. Think Church services.
So, will your school, office, factory get closed? Even if virus is not in your department, family, or class?
Now think of everything associated with shutting a complete economic system (local to national). Who is getting paid? Who isn't?
This is not going to be fair or make sense. It is just the way people act when their fears exceed their expectations.
This virus moves quickly and is pretty contagious in enclosed spaces. So, many people might get "sick." A few will get really sick. That is going to scare the crap out of people in your are. And they are going to react like a pack of wild animals.
Their fear is going to exceed their expectations.
So, think about what this means to YOU.
Worst-case probability is that you are going to have your school or place of business shut down for a couple of weeks. Can you live as you normally do without your kids in school, or cooped up in your apartment for two weeks?
Can you go with your current level of pills during this time?
Can you pay your bills?
You will not lose power. The natural gas lines will run. Your cable will run. The internet won't go down. Those systems run well with no one managing them.
Many stores will be open...but they may be disrupted as well.
In my area we get blizzards. Everyone has enough back up stuff to live through a blizzard. This would be twice that. That is my expectation.
This is the first social media pandemic. We know what is going on in China, partially through twitter. Is it real? Is it fake? How do you know?
They recently showed a video of a car being stopped at a check point in China. The driver tried to run the check point. Eventually, he was stopped and eventually subdued.
It was not real, as it had been suggested (and as it was presented and caused all sorts of Twitter-panic.). How did I know it was a drill....because as anyone who has every manned a containment or military check point like that will tell you...the person and car would have been shot the second it started moving through without stopping. I've drilled those--but I know plenty who have done it in real life.
My point is you have to think this stuff through and apply a reasonableness to it. You have to find sources you trust and respect. But, when a source is feeding your bullshit, you have to consider the source as well.
In the big picture expect the masses to freak out. I don't mean the people on FR, I mean the people who do not pay attention to anything but "The Bachelor." They are going to start screaming about the stuff I am telling you and the echo chamber of social media is going to amplify that by orders of 100.
Be prepared for that.
If you wash your hands, pay attention to your food stuffs; have enough to eat and drink for a while; make sure you have money to pay your bills if you are not able to work for a while...you will be fine. Consider it an early spring break.
Set your expectations! Have reasonable and educated expectations.
1. Social Media is going to go ballistic. Be prepared and understand what is real and what is "apocalypse" stuff.
2. If you normally take prescriptions that might be subject to disruption call your health care provider and ask for a refill. If you have enough...don't horde.
3. Don't horde more than you need to be prepared. My wife is a cancer patient and she has been wearing masks outside for months because people are nasty. She has three more months of chemo and a month of masks. Stupid people hording are putting us in a bind. Don't do it.
4. Question everything and understand what you can.
In the one of the Star Trek movies they use secret codes to remotely control their ship. At that point,one of the new crew is told, "You have to know how stuff works on a Starship."
I used that example in every training session and lecture I've given in the past 20 years.
People do not understand how their "starship" works. They accept what they are told. They do not pay attention to details.
"Learn how your stuff really works--not how its supposed to work."
Understand how a virus works. Understand where people are getting their information. Listen for incorrect or out of date information--and recognize it when it circles around next week in the form of a statement or rumor. It happens all too regularly. It will literally make you laugh or shake your head. Maybe both.
People will be late to the party. Help them.
Do not be so stuck in your ways to acknowledge when the person you thought was nuts two weeks ago, all of a sudden makes sense. Some have.
Finally, in the end this is about managing expectations. If you have none--you are going to be constantly surprise and caught unprepared.
In my opinion, on a range of expectations from the normal flu to a world ending apocalypse...this situation is this about 1.5 x the flu. Which is concerning, but not horrifying.
If you read to the end of this, question your expectations and why you have them. If you don't have expectations, you should start making some.
(And I am going to go donate to the Freepathon. I urge EVERYONE who has been reading these threads to make a contribution. FR has provided an amazing amount of balanced, not-crazy, information along with some good-natured and well needed humor. YOU owe it to Jim to support the effort.
This thing has ‘tentacles’; Election this year, census, hostile congress to the president, etc. The chances for politicians to incite social disorder is quite large, IMHO.
Ack...wall of text.
Read it, do not just pass over because you think you know it all.
Having fun storming the castle.
I know you are old and expect to this is about how you are going to die. But its not.
Unfortunately, you will live to give other people on FR grief for years to come.
The short read: Wash your hands. A lot. Have three weeks worth of food. And if it appears in your town, stay the hell away from the hospital if you want to live.
If its bad...they won’t be able to help and your bed at home is more comfortable.
200 cases of vodka
400 cartons of Winston
1500 cans of Ranch beans
And. ...two Red Handled machetes. ..
Too long/Didnt Read. (TLDR)
1. You are not going to die.
2. You WILL be impacted, but not how you think.
3. Social Media and the uninformed are going to go ballistic.
4. SET YOUR expectations NOW. Don’t ALLOW yourself to be surprised.
5. Your primary health goal is to stay away from the hospital.
I have internal green houses growing my basil.
Pesto and ? two time a week for for three weeks!
Cilantro for the salsa and spanish rice the rest of the week.
Small fresh stuff is the best.
So basically, you cite some “credentials” to boost your credibility and set yourself up as an expert who should not be questioned.
And CERTAINLY should not be sassed, oh no.
Gotcha, Doc. You’re the boss, yep.
I am a doctor (or was) and I don’t know what’s coming. At this point I do think what’s coming isn’t Captain Tripps. Here we are weeks in and the Rats want to argue whether we’ve reached triple digits (in this country). So whatever the “R0” or “communicability” is it ain’t end of the world stuff. We don’t really need an impenetrable barrier which is unrealistic just enough of a barrier to blunt the force of the wave. A lot of people may get sick. There may be a bunch that even die. Maybe even thousands. But I do think if it was “Capt. Tripps” we would know by now.
LMAO.
Now...onto the "hysteria".
Hysteria? This preceding paragraph was hysterical enough. Your bona fides are herewith rejected.
Really.
I have to get shoulder surgery and I want nothing to do with going to a place I worked with surgeons I know and respect.
They are just really horrible places to be if you are not going to die.
If I plan for the apocalypse, then I should be ready for anything less than that... No?
Well sure.
Don’t you know the mortality rate for hospital employees is 80%?
/sarc
Ok believe it.
Go to the hospital today. Take a walk around.
Honestly, I do not care if you live or die. Well, I would prefer you to die, but thats not very Christian during lent.
I would be happy if now that I have stated my peace, you just went away and crawled up in a hole.
In the time you have been around in this iteration and your previous one, I have never seen you express a positive comment or a constructive comment based on anything other than the smell of your finger when you take it out of your asshole.
This will be the last time I address your...or any of your crap. I welcome the rest of FR to join me.
You are a cancer and a danger to any community in which you are member.
No it isn’t, the text has nice paragraphs.
Can I assume you’ve never read anything longer than, say, a Tweet? Certainly not Tolkien or Dostoyevsky?
CHINESE COVID-19 QUARANTINE RULES
by Matt Bracken | Feb 27, 2020
https://www.americanpartisan.org/2020/02/chinese-covid-19-quarantine-rules/
WILL CHINA WIN THE PANDEMIC WORLD WAR?
by Matt Bracken | Feb 26, 2020
https://www.americanpartisan.org/2020/02/will-china-win-the-pandemic-world-war/
Almost as bad as ‘dem bloggers’...almost.
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