Washing your hand is so much more effective than hand sanitizer, right? But if it is a reminder to wash your hands, great.
Yes. As the original tweeter points out - it’s a downright crazy plan if you even spend five full seconds thinking this through. Italy is seeing ~10% of those who are tested landing in hospital, and around one-third of those dying. Even if we’re being generous with the infection rates that the NHS would have to deal with, we’re still literally talking more than a million needing to be hospitalized in a short amount of time, and close to half a million dead.
In short - no one has actually thought about this scenario seriously outside of a pub, and if they have, they ought to be fired on the spot.
And no @aceris - the clip does not misrepresent that. It’s OK for people in here, who don’t have the knowledge about the situation, to suggest something like the above. A head of state - who has all of the data at their fingertips - saying something like this, is an idiot.
It is not only irresponsible - it’s dangerous, because it gives people the impression that this isn’t so bad. And as the WHO have hammered repeatedly for more than a week now - fighting this requires both medical preparedness and political leadership. Otherwise you end up with civil disobedience as has been seen in both Italy and Norway, because people don’t take the restrictions and quarantines seriously (and yeah - I’m doubly annoyed because I live in a country where the government is currently flubbing this in real-time)…
The extended interview that @draxen posts actually shows it even better. Literally all he needed to do in response to the interviewer’s question is say “Yes”.
spiffy
1835
Careful with the hand sanitizer, it’ll destroy your skin. My daughter’s school has them using it all the time and her little hands are red and cracked and angry, which i imagine opens them up to infection… we’re trying some moisturizing cream to compliment her use at school but yeah… I wouldn’t use more of it than you need to out and about, and at home, just use soap and water, it’s more effective. And even then, I remember when we needed to wash and sterilize bottles when the kids were babies, I had started using latex gloves my hands were destroyed from the constant washing.
It’s pretty infuriating how terrible the government has handled this so far. I’m not panicking and I don’t think this is going to be the end of the world, but I do think this is a serious matter that’s worth changing some habits and activities for a few bit of time.
Yet my wife is going with her mom to a Josh Groban concert tomorrow. I brought up the idea that it’s not a smart idea to contain yourself within crowds and she just keeps brushing it off because “Florida barely has any cases”. She doesn’t follow the news so my attempts to explain why that’s the case fell on deaf ears.
Ireland just cancelled its St Patrick’s Day parades and celebrations.
Washington State at 162 confirmed cases, 22 deaths.
Matt_W
1839
Pearl Jam just cancelled their entire spring tour.
Not the anti-bacterial stuff (only if we’re out), but we wash hands often, and have instructed the kids to do so as well (though - being kids, there’s only so much one can expect). I’ve started taking 2 days of home office/week and thinking of increasing that, to minimize the risk of dragging the infection in from work.
Fortunately, my work is very attentive to the situation, and we’ve been told to expect work-from-home orders if there is any spread of the disease to our office vicinity. Not as confident in quick reactions from either the wife’s work (paradoxical, since it’s healthcare, but as I said - government here is flubbing the response) or the school, but they don’t work in a heavily urbanized area as I do, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Kids are going to be a big vector of this, which is why hard-hit nations are closing schools.
The younger ones especially, because they don’t understand how to practice good hygiene or why it’s important to not touch your face. And since they’re barely hit by it, they could be carrying the virus and not know it.
Trashy daily news is now just saying Metropolitcan Transit Authority chief says “avoid the subway”. Previously mayor said avoid subway if you are sick. Stupid clickbait.
Hell, I can’t stop touching my face.
Teiman
1845
I think you guys will do better than spain. I saw the stats recently, and 80% of portugese wash their hands, only 63% of spanish. Italy was like 54% or something like that.
Teiman
1846
This is genocide, basically. Tryiing to get a group of people to get a virus and die.
Too bad I doubt 80 years old are the ones immigrating, so you are going to infect your own people. Not only is evil, is stupid.
Scrax
1847
Virginia finally went from 1 case to 7. Here we go!
Ah, the CPAC test results came in.
JFC people are gonna be EDGY today. And by Friday when higher case numbers come in from commerical labs they will freak.
Enidigm
1849
What’s crazy is all the conservatives i know are mad about coronavirus. It’s not real, it’s not a pandemic, people are taking this way too seriously, it’s just the same as the flu.
Ezra Klein can be annoying in a, i am smarter than you and you should know it, pedantic way, but his recent book noted research, bizarre if predictable research, that showing conservatives “liberal” information makes them more conservative than conservatives never exposed to it. The act of challenging their worldview makes them revert to an even more stringent conservativism. And it’s asymmetric, the reverse is not true.
Hey, coronavirus is Chinese! Who knew?
I see the memo about the plot to blame everything on foreigners has made the rounds.
I don’t think we know this. Children seem surprisingly unaffected by it so far; we’re not at all sure if they’re still carriers despite that, or just asymptomatic.
