The upside to coronovirus!

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I've been watching and reading about the flu pandemic of 1918. It's like the ultimate footnote of history. Mentioned with a death total and walk right passed it. Nevermind that WWI kills less people and is seen as a massive event.
But I see how it's true. This odd artificial event happens, does it's damage and we recover.

If you haven't seen this documentary, it's very good. PBS had an American Experience called Influenza 1918, and this was released in 1998. They bring it out on occasions like this. What's good about this doc is that they interview a handful of the survivors who were children at the time this was happening, and they had first-hand accounts of how they were affected.



I think the Coronavirus will actually have lasting impact. The 1918 flu was unusual, in part because so few people travelled, and impacted a world that was still relatively rural for many people. With the highly mobile and urbanised world we live in, and whole generations (including myself) who have never really known hardship or fear, then the impact on our collective psyche will be massive.

A few things different about the 1918 pandemic were, at the time, we were very distracted by World War I, and that dominated the news coverage. There was a lot of censorship in the news media at the time, and back then it was only by paper. Radio didn't exist, Films were still silent movies and the war had slowed production of them anyway. And the event was FAST--it was a rapidly spreading pandemic that peaked in October 1918.


So that's it. Lockdown.

This won't last, at least in practice. How can it be enforced?

Society, as it stands right now, is finished. People may not want to get political, which is fine, but fundamentally there is no recovery for our current economics from this.

"Lockdowns" (I use that in quotes since it's not like a lockdown where the military comes in and enforces curfews) wouldn't be sustainable long term--this is all to flatten the curve.

I certainly wouldn't say "Society is finished". People used to say "it will never be the same" after 9/11 and while a few things have changed, life went on. I think the economy will be weak for a time, but then recover in a manner.

What I think the biggest effect will be is that this is sort of a fire or storm that goes through an aging forest and gets rid of the weaker or older plants. Things like you mention, comic stores and game stores, were already on a sort of life support as more and more people went online and bought from massive retail chains, and the comic book itself is an outdated periodical that has only survived due to the direct market. What I suspect will happen is you'll see businesses close that were weaker to begin with economically. It's not pleasant of course, I hate to see any business go under, but I think this could happen with any economic contraction.
 
If you haven't seen this documentary, it's very good. PBS had an American Experience called Influenza 1918, and this was released in 1998. They bring it out on occasions like this. What's good about this doc is that they interview a handful of the survivors who were children at the time this was happening, and they had first-hand accounts of how they were affected.





A few things different about the 1918 pandemic were, at the time, we were very distracted by World War I, and that dominated the news coverage. There was a lot of censorship in the news media at the time, and back then it was only by paper. Radio didn't exist, Films were still silent movies and the war had slowed production of them anyway. And the event was FAST--it was a rapidly spreading pandemic that peaked in October 1918.




"Lockdowns" (I use that in quotes since it's not like a lockdown where the military comes in and enforces curfews) wouldn't be sustainable long term--this is all to flatten the curve.

I certainly wouldn't say "Society is finished". People used to say "it will never be the same" after 9/11 and while a few things have changed, life went on. I think the economy will be weak for a time, but then recover in a manner.

What I think the biggest effect will be is that this is sort of a fire or storm that goes through an aging forest and gets rid of the weaker or older plants. Things like you mention, comic stores and game stores, were already on a sort of life support as more and more people went online and bought from massive retail chains, and the comic book itself is an outdated periodical that has only survived due to the direct market. What I suspect will happen is you'll see businesses close that were weaker to begin with economically. It's not pleasant of course, I hate to see any business go under, but I think this could happen with any economic contraction.

Given how long this will have to last before we see the curve flatten (hopefully it will) the consequences will be dire for the economy. People still haven't been guaranteed their finances and businesses will be protected. It will be longer than 3 weeks.

Diamond Comics has shut down for the foreseeable future. I don't know about Esdevium Games, they have releases for this week but people wn't be able to buy or collect them.

We really don't know the consequences, but I simply don't see how these businesses can just be parked for months on end, which realisticaly is what we're talking about. I'm not even sure lockdown can be sustained for that long. But if it's lifted then the virus risks spreading again. The only real solutoin to this is vaccine and that's years off

So yes I stand by my comment. Things will not be the same after this. How can they be? The economy is going to take an enormous hit over this, and that's in concert with economies worldwide.

It may be that online retailers, Amazon for instance, will thrive in this environment. That of course is furthering the devastation of the high street. It's not even clear if online retail is permitted under these conditions. Are deliveries allowed? Is the post sverice operational?

It's a huge mess.
 
I think the Coronavirus will actually have lasting impact. The 1918 flu was unusual, in part because so few people travelled, and impacted a world that was still relatively rural for many people. With the highly mobile and urbanised world we live in, and whole generations (including myself) who have never really known hardship or fear, then the impact on our collective psyche will be massive.

From the perspective of history rather than politics 9/11 re-shaped the world in many ways. I think C-19 could have similar wide- and long-reaching impacts. Ebola was ‘over there’ and HIV ‘for them’. This is ‘here’ and for ‘us’, by which I mean it is impacting the broadest and most wealthy sections of global society rather than the poor or minority elements.

I am confident humanity will get through this, I’m just not sure exactly how global society will look when it does...
We're also incredibly connected - due to the nature of modern supply chains and concepts like Just In Time scheduling, pretty much every business is reliant on global trade and distribution at some level, unlike in The Past where countries were more self-sufficient. One or two countries drop off the grid for a while, it'll have an impact - like when there's a natural disaster in Taiwan and RAM prices go up, frex - but it's manageable. Shutting down the grid entirely... it's going to take a long time to get back up to speed, and everything where it needs to be for businesses to get functioning again. And that's assuming that the container ship companies don't go under, because if they do, we're fucked.

We're going to be feeling the effects of this for quite a while. For one thing, expect food prices to rocket by the end of the year, as this is going to impact growing season for a lot of agribusiness.
 
The only thing that fucks a world almost beyond repair is banking. The shipping companies can go bankrupt and someone else will come in and buy their corpse for a discount if they can borrow or have enough money. No one forgot how to steer,load, unload a ship. That's why you see so much concern when lending appears to freeze up in a crisis. If banks don't lend even to people who can pay the economy stops.
 
While I keep hearing "shutting down the grid", all of these "lockdowns" leave a lot of things open.

For instance, here's the Massachusetts Lockdown order. Note that any shipping and delivery is allowed to be open. Home Depot is open. HVAC and Plumbers are open. Farms are open and most of the manufacturing jobs. The Post Office is not shutting down.


I'm not saying I'm not concerned, but I am not going to predict an apocalypse either. After cases peak in one area, we'll probably see things open again on the individual state level--New York may open businesses again in a month, while another state shuts down later and re-emerges later. China has already started getting back to normal.

The realistic thing is that most of us are going to get this virus--they are mostly trying to prevent it from overloading the hospitals all at once for those who have a serious reaction to it.
 
My company has an exemption because we supply so many essentials to so many businesses and even if the Apocalypse happens, I’ll still get my 40 hours a week. Sure, I might get depressed seeing everything around me, but I’ll have job security.

As they said at the U.S. press briefing last night, this will last about 8-10 weeks depending on their area and how dense the illness is and these stay-at-home advisories and business closures will end. You have to get back to “normal” sooner rather than later.
 
The Georgia Department of Public Health has a website that's been tracking the number of confirmed covid-19 cases, broken down by county, updated twice daily. Last night the total for the state was an even 800. Today it's over a thousand. That may just be a matter of having more testing available, but it's still not a good sign.
 
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Vader is old and on a respirator, he's in a high risk group.
 
Speaking of signs of the time...


Apparently its politics AND plagues that make strangebedfellows (no pun intended)
 
Taking it back to the original post, I did, indeed, stock up on new gaming stuff to prepare for Illinois' shelter in place order. I haven't learned any of the new games I got yet, but on Monday & Tuesday, I did finally learn Warfighter: The Tactical Special Forces Card Game, which I've owned for a few years but had never gotten into.
 
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It is somewhat odd how many people don't seem to understand (or have much sympathy for) the people that the needed kind of social isolation is emotionally taxing too, and that's coming from me: a socially awkward introverted geek boy. :grin:
 
Oh man. My dream would be to locked in a house with a bunch of gamer buddies for two months. We'd need a beer/alcohol room and at least a freezer per person.

Man I sense a whole New thread coming after I put the kids down.
 
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Oh man. My dream would be to locked in a house with a bunch of gamer buddies for two months. We'd need a beer/alcohol room and at least a freezer per person.

Man I sense a whole New thread coming after I put the kids down.

And more than one bathroom!
 
Well we are going into partial-lockdown here in Australia. State borders shut. 80% retail closed. Grocery stores open, a few other bits and bobs but thats it. Everyone is advised to get their essiential shopping, and get off the streets. Social Distancing Behaviours education is in force, working well in some areas, and almost ignored in others.

Lots of people worried about employment over the next 3 - 6 months, and the government is actually being unusually generous with it's financial stimulus package (which makes people pretty nervous)

I can see a more comphrensive community lock-down looming, with enforced home isolation on the near-horizon, maybe next week.

I wouldn't mind having a month or two in home isolation, given the sheer tidal wave of work pressures coming my way.
I'm a clinician in community healthcare, so I'll be working through it, although I am on a list to be re-deployed back to the hospital setting as a nurse if things get overloaded.

I am lucky that my employment is secure, but it is a double-edged sword, to be sure. I could easily be in ground zero with this pandemic.
I will be in a much higher risk of actually getting COVD-19 due to my role, so that is always heartening...

We are all hoping that the Social Distancing policies have an impact.
Otherwise it's very challenging days ahead for Australia & New Zealand (as we start moving into cooler/cold weather after Easter) :worried:
 
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Mankcam Mankcam - did the summer weather there seem to suppress the virus at all? North of the equator there was some speculation that things may naturally improve as the weather warms up.
 
Mankcam Mankcam - did the summer weather there seem to suppress the virus at all? North of the equator there was some speculation that things may naturally improve as the weather warms up.
COVD-19 has only been here a month or so, but things are really escalating now.
It has been reasonably mild in most cases, with quite a low mortality compared to the ravages of China, Europe.
I think we have had only about 10 or 11 people die from it, all of them in the elderly age category (some in their 90s)

One or two local celebrities, as well as Hollywood actor Tom Hanks (on set in QLD) have had it, and it just seemed like a mild flu for them.
Most cases now are starting to be more like a moderate flu, and people getting a bit more worried now.
Watching how it is starting to take it's toll on the USA is certainly spiking concerns as well.

The general consensus in the health sector down here is that COVD-19 is much more severe in cold weather.

So the coming Spring should see less severe cases in the Northern Hemisphere :grin:

There has been a monumental stuff-up with Border Control Services inadvertantly allowing several cruise ships (with suspected COVD-19 cases) to dock in Sydney Harbour, allowing everyone to disembark and return home throughout the country - many of those suspected cases have now been confirmed.

So our rate is now skyrocketing, the number of confirmed cases in the general public is escalating quite quickly since this.
We will likely have more than 3000 cases by the end of this week, with no peak in sight. It's pretty much tripling every week.
Even though we have the land mass about the size of the USA, our total population is only about equal to combining South Carolina and Florida, so the rate is alarming.

So we need to go into full community lock-down by next week, or this curve won't be flattened

It is going to be potentially quite devastating for Australia (financially as well), and this Autumn/Winter we are preparing for the biggest disruption in service delivery since WW2.

The bush fires of December & January are now a distant memory

The only upside is my friend has the current GM duties, so he will have heaps of time to prepare the next part of our campaign.
So that's a good thing! :thumbsup:
 
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That is kind of surreal... or I really need my morning coffee O.O
 
Mankcam Mankcam - ouch, you have our sympathies.

Hopefully the improving weather will have a dampening effect on the virus, but it seems to also have an effect on the numpties who choose to go sunbathe in public spaces at this time...
 
There were a couple of ‘plague doctors’ running around in the back of news outside broadcasts last week. Thankfully the ‘stay at home’ message is being taken more seriously so there are less jokers around At the moment.
 
There were a couple of ‘plague doctors’ running around in the back of news outside broadcasts last week. Thankfully the ‘stay at home’ message is being taken more seriously so there are less jokers around At the moment.
Eh. They're wearing masks and gloves. Probably not spreading much.
 
Actually, it was from a friend in Washington, so probably is Tacoma
Looks like Tacoma. It has lots of hilly streets that dead end into a cliff over a container port and they label some of the streets using the alphabet. If you look close the street at the end is A street.
 
I was reading the paper released by Imperial College London saying that staggered periods of five month lock downs with breaks over a period of 18 months is the optimal recommended strategy for containment.

The major challenge of suppression is that this type of intensive intervention package –or something equivalently effective at reducing transmission –will need to be maintained until a vaccine becomes available (potentially 18 months or more) –given that we predict that transmission will quickly rebound if interventions are relaxed. We show that intermittent social distancing –triggered by trends in disease surveillance –may allow interventions to be relaxed temporarily in relative short time windows, but measures will need to be reintroduced if or when case numbers rebound

 
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Won't you please think of the poor little pouches? Please! THINK OF THE POUCHES!

Jebzuz!

Maybe this should go in the Irrational Love thread but I like some of Leifeld's character designs, when he takes time and avoids 'shortcuts' that some don't notice until they're pointed out then you can't unsee them or just plain slacks off in favor quantity or quality. (Capt. America's chest won't stop staring at me!)
 
New Hampshire is on lockdown after 11:59 PM today. All non-essentials have to close for door front business.
 
Stay safe and get yourself stocked for a several month lockdown if you can.
Thanks. Already pretty well stocked - other than the basics, my needs are fairly minimal, and while cooking for one can be a pain in better times, it means I know how to cook and then freeze leftovers for the long haul.

The county I'm in has only had a handful of confirmed cases... which means not everyone in this neck of the woods is taking the situation seriously. I do worry for the nice ex-hippie married couple that I rent my current domicile from. They're in pretty good shape for their age, but still, they're in their 70's.

The person in the Governor's office has extended schools being closed thru April 24, but hasn't been able to bring himself to do a statewide lockdown, even though Atlanta and many of the immediate suburbs have done so.
 
I saw this and there is a collary to that theory. This is only true for people without kids. Anyone with kids who's spending 24/7 with them is going to seriously rethink whether they want to double/triple down on that shitshow should this happen again.
 
Whole country in lockdown as of midnight. Stay at home except for food, no driving more than 2km.

Exceptions being necessary services and some workplaces.
 
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