[jwi]

Strangely, Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death seems not to have had the same boost 

https://www.naturalthinker.net/trl/texts/Kierkegaard,Soren/TheSicknessUntoDeath.pdf

There you go

also
http://existentialcomics.com/comic/204

[mrjonathanr]

Okay, that's a find, cheers.

[tomtom]

This article (albeit sky news) has some really good graphs showing ocurrences and death rates amongst different age groups - as well as for those with existing conditions.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-reality-check-how-worried-should-we-be-11948003

[tommytwotone]

My sister in law (NHS nurse) has (been) volunteered to be a "swabber" - sent is a photo from earlier when she was being fitted for all her protective clobber. Full hazmat, mask, the lot! 


FWIW, her take re: being worried etc was "nah, just wash your hands well and don't panic. More people die of seasonal flu. 3.5k globally from Corona and 17.5k from seasonal flu..."

[teestub]

More people die of seasonal flu. 3.5k globally from Corona

To date...

[petejh]

I've been following the worldwide stats on here, it updates every hour or so: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html?fbclid=IwAR3IgaBUvTEKarHvo-1vZMAQ0ncJb5NJZtkvASQndO75eRYHlxOT9QNzQyU#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Feels very bond villain's lair:

[Offwidth]

FWIW, her take re: being worried etc was "nah, just wash your hands well and don't panic. More people die of seasonal flu. 3.5k globally from Corona and 17.5k from seasonal flu..."

That's a daft attitude as the mortality rates are estimated as at least  ten times greater and for the majority who recover the proportion with long term health effects are much higher.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/03/yes-worse-than-flu-busting-coronavirus-myths-covid-19

It seems retired NHS workers are not so keen to return to help as the government implied.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/04/majority-of-retired-nhs-staff-dont-want-to-return-to-tackle-covid-19-crisis

[nik at work]

That's a daft attitude

Rude...
And...
No it’s not. It’s exactly the attitude (albeit expressed in a slightly more refined way) of every medical professional I have spoken to.

Employ sensible effective strategies that can be readily and willingly implemented by the population and have an appropriate cost:benefit. And crack on.

[TobyD]

That's a daft attitude

Rude...
And...
No it’s not. It’s exactly the attitude (albeit expressed in a slightly more refined way) of every medical professional I have spoken to.

Employ sensible effective strategies that can be readily and willingly implemented by the population and have an appropriate cost:benefit. And crack on.

I'd agree. Unfortunately people will get, some will die from it. Obviously best to try to minimise this as much as possible, but not at the expense of trashing the economy and bothering with jumping up and down getting frightfully worried and panic buying toilet paper

[petejh]

We have a stores full of FFP3 face masks here.. willing to negotiate a good price for bulk orders... will even chuck in a free bottle of hand sanitiser for orders over 100..

[highrepute]

More people die of seasonal flu. 3.5k globally from Corona

To date...

The 18k figure for flu is also to date... this season

[Steve R]

We have a stores full of FFP3 face masks here.. willing to negotiate a good price for bulk orders... will even chuck in a free bottle of hand sanitiser for orders over 100..

Get 'em on ebay!  The sales figures for last few days are startling eg. this
Depending on the size of your storeroom, you could be retired by June?

[teestub]

The 18k figure for flu is also to date... this season

Apologies to TTT I should have checked

[tommytwotone]

I think the other thing, in terms of perspective is looking at historical cause of death. Being a sad man I found the Office Of National Statistics lets you download data on causes of death.

Sadly the most recent they have is 2018, but - taking for example Males, aged between 5 and 50, leading causes of death:

- Suicide: 2403
- Accidental Poisoning: 2057
- Land Traffic Accident: 450

A reminder that Covid-19 has (yes yes, so far) resulted in 1 UK death.

Did you worry excessively about your morning commute (assuming you drove in) this morning?


NB: Influenza and pneumonia killed 21,955 80+ year-olds that year alone.

[petejh]

We have a stores full of FFP3 face masks here.. willing to negotiate a good price for bulk orders... will even chuck in a free bottle of hand sanitiser for orders over 100..

Get 'em on ebay!  The sales figures for last few days are startling eg. this
Depending on the size of your storeroom, you could be retired by June?

Holy shit that's crazy! We have literally hundreds ..

[sheavi]

I think the other thing, in terms of perspective is looking at historical cause of death. Being a sad man I found the Office Of National Statistics lets you download data on causes of death.

Sadly the most recent they have is 2018, but - taking for example Males, aged between 5 and 50, leading causes of death:

- Suicide: 2403
- Accidental Poisoning: 2057
- Land Traffic Accident: 450

A reminder that Covid-19 has (yes yes, so far) resulted in 1 UK death.

Did you worry excessively about your morning commute (assuming you drove in) this morning?


NB: Influenza and pneumonia killed 21,955 80+ year-olds that year alone.

Comparisons are intersting but not necessarily relevant - yet.  Unlike the flu there is no immunity to Covid 19 - hence many people are likely to get it en mass.  A proportion will need hospital care, not to mention mass absence within the NHS, schools, businesses, policing etc.  Worst case scenario the government is working on is 80% infection rate in the UK with 1% mortality (approx 500K deaths).  Unlikely I know. Even at a 20% infection rate that's approx. 130K deaths.  The lack of adequate healthcare across the board will also likely trigger other preventable deaths.

[SA Chris]

taking for example Males, aged between 5 and 50, leading causes of death

Statistically it's unlikely that when most of us get it it will kill us / do long lasting harm (even though I will shortly be outside of the demographic provided above). Elderly relatives, on the other hand, are a cause for concern..

[tommytwotone]

Indeed - back to the Sky News article T2 posted above.

I'm more worried about my nearly-retired Mum working in the NHS, and her older partner than I am about me, my other half, the kids etc.

TBH my missus has had 2 kids with no pain relief, and nearly carked it due to Sepsis a couple of years back when she was adamant it was "just a cold". She is clearly hard as nails, and has some mad level of immune system that I've never seen before.

[galpinos]

3 cases in my wife's hospital and she is currently being fitted for a mask. It now feels a bit real (especially with a 4 yo with persistent lung issues).

[Offwidth]

That's a daft attitude

Rude...
And...
No it’s not. It’s exactly the attitude (albeit expressed in a slightly more refined way) of every medical professional I have spoken to.

Employ sensible effective strategies that can be readily and willingly implemented by the population and have an appropriate cost:benefit. And crack on.

I guess we will know who is being rude here by this time next week.  I think this is serious and people need to take much greater care than with flu. Populations don't tend to do sensible in the face of a novel epidemic and the secondary effects because of that may be as bad as that of the virus. Finally your anecdotal medical pofessionals don't seem to fit the pessimism in the survey data I linked above (copied again).

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/02/coronavirus-just-eight-out-of-1600-doctors-in-poll-say-nhs-is-ready

[spidermonkey09]

It can simultaneously be a cause for concern (for elderly relatives, family in health service etc) and also think that its being massively overhyped to the point of ridiculousness. Just wash your hands and crack on; all you can do in any case.

Edit: I suppose actually the more interesting question to pose is what do people who are very worried about it expect everyone else to do? Short of cancelling everything and going into Camus-esque Plague style lockdown (and even that might not work) I don't see what else there is to do but carry on as normal and keep your fingers crossed.

From Private Eye:

1,666 - Deaths recorded as result of new coronavirus by last Sunday, according to World Health Organization

290,000–650,000 - Deaths from respiratory diseases linked to seasonal flu each year, according to World Health Organization.

and from its medical correspondent:

https://twitter.com/rolandmcs/status/1233463414367956996

[tommytwotone]

I should add that I'm not being naive here - for the majority of us I'm assuming the prognosis here is you'll get it at some point, it'll be pretty horrible, despite your best efforts you'll probably pass it on to a few people, but ultimately you'll get better.

As Nik (and others) have said, the strategies are about ensure that the above doesn't happen to millions of people all at once, and that when it does people don't overreact.

I'm not sure that the media reporting about "killer viruses", panic buying and hand sanitiser shortage is particularly responsible in this context.

[spidermonkey09]

I'm not sure that the media reporting about "killer viruses", panic buying and hand sanitiser shortage is particularly responsible in this context.

This is the key issue for me. In Australia people are panic buying toilet roll for christs sake!

[SA Chris]

Well the recommendation is to use tissues to sneeze into. Bogans use it for that..

[Lopez]

The vietnamese got it all worked out