I certainly appreciate you and your colleagues very much and everything the professionals are doing to save our f’ing asses here.
Partly why staying realistic and accurate and communicating like this article does is important to help keep from overloading our medical system as much as we possibly can.
I really hope that 2.3 rate turns out to be much lower as we prepare, test more and learn more.
It sounds like a joke, but if you’re at the point where it’s that or starve…
Scientists I trust, retweeted this summary about the current state of community transmission:
Also a realistic, rational, important read to share:
We are all in this together and we are all pretty much only as strong as our weakest links. We help ourselves and everyone we love by making sure everyone is being helped in this pandemic to the best of our abilities.
I guess I wasn’t clear making my point - I’m not worried about myself. That’s hardly a scalable solution for 200 million people to be calling their insurance companies for exceptions.
Our healthcare “system” virtually guarantees that this will be far worse here in the US than in other countries because of the following:
No guaranteed sick days so people go to work while sick - infecting other commuters and co-workers (and shoppers, diners, patients, etc. if that is their job)
A culture of avoiding health care till the last moment because it costs so damn much and is complicated
An insurance system that rejects any claim that is slightly out of the ordinary, leaving people broke or avoiding seeking care in the first place
A (currently) completely dysfunctional central government who seem more concerned about the stock market and their re-election than the health of 350 million people
Do the countries with the lower mortality rates have universal healthcare and paid sick leave?
Asking for a friend
City people: take off your shoes when you get home and put it the shoes closet or something similar. You would not believe the number of people who spits on the street.
Wow - wtf? Is this the end? Like in the movies? Nah…time to get a discount on index funds and get in the market.
Don’t do index funds. Put everything into a money market until the first up tick happens. Then throw it all in either an IT or Retail fund.
Biotech if you’re feeling super frisky. 
@docosc - The general public has no idea just how Little leeway is built into our current system. A bad concert at the local stadium can overwhelm all the hospitals in our city with drunks and injuries, and we often have “warning” status for admissions bc the hospitals can’t staff what beds they have. Profit goes up as the hospitals lean out staff, so they’ve cut staff to minimums for maximum profit. And of course, so much of our PPE is made in China, and every company has embraced “just in time” stock levels…
I doubt even our nation’s DMAT teams will be able to make up the difference if there’s a large enough sick populace and if the ICU days required are higher than 2-3. But the people I know who have joined DMAT are pretty smart and pretty astounding, so I won’t write them off!
There’s also the option of finding out how good your pets taste.
It seems to be a shame there isn’t an Amazon Shopping list for 2 weeks up to a month worth of supplies (with affiliate codes of course, may as well make some bank on the upcoming tragedy)
That is our penny-wise system in a nutshell, No redundancy, as that’s “inefficient”.
Our lack of fallback is going to get us at some point. This corona thing, “just in time” manufacturing of emergency goods, energy shortfalls, and/or a complete lack of foresight planning is going to nail some aspect of the extremely efficient/profitable global supply chain system, or my name isn’t Frederick Winslow Taylor!
I know. It is frustrating how little the public understands how thin that margin is. We had a school bus accident involving 6 critical kids. We had to spread them across 3 PICUs because none of the universities could take them all. That’s 6. We shall see, but I remain worried. No, not panicked. That is never productive. But definitely worried.
NOT AIRBORNE - that is not true.
It is droplet based, so coughing, sneezing, nose blowing. There is a difference.
Airborn protections are taken, especially with folks on ventilators as those machines can make a fine mist of bodily fluids.
Here is the difference: http://kanehealth.com/Documents/Diseases/Ebola-infections-spread-by-air-or-droplets.pdf
As far as we know as this point, the covid19 is droplet based, like other corona viruses.
Also, as has been pointed out by experts, increases in case numbers are from increased testing, but they will feel like something is changing in the spread.
It is not, we are learning more and more through testing and that is a positive thing.
All this panic talk is not going to help and will cause more harm. If that is your goal, it could be what do I know, then have at it.
if you goal is to reduce harm, to yourself, your loved ones etc. You will stay calm and focus on things we can do to deal with this (because there are a lot of things, like hand washing and staying home when you can) and fact based information.
And leave hyperbole, emotion, speculation, etc out.
ETA: Those of us who think we have a good sense of the serious nature of the situation we face as a society have an obligation to help keep things calm and help people prepare, physically and emotionally.
Stock up on ketchup and mustard.
Or how good you taste to them.
I understand what you are saying and appreciate the explanation but the thing is that people who are in the same general area but zero contact with the infected source are getting infected
The people on the cruise ships and the US citizens flown back with the infected person behind layers of plastic shielding (how insanely stupid was that administration decision) some of those on the same plane but zero contact got infected.
If it’s purely droplets, they are REALLY traveling unlike a cold or flu sneeze.
We should take everyone out of the private insurance field and train them to be field medics/respiratory therapists. When I talk to them, they certainly seem convinced they know everything about medicine, so they shouldn’t need that much training,
/s
