
Social distancing is the only way to stop the coronavirus - Townley
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/coronavirus-cancel-everything/607675/
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opwieurposiu
We have three septuagenarian candidates for the next president. CFR for this
age group is around 15% (1/6). Roll three dice and you get a 42.13% chance of
at least one six.

Odds are pretty high we are headed for the next William Henry Harrison
situation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Harrison](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Harrison)

~~~
votepaunchy
Note that this is effectively now two septuagenarian candidates. Sanders is at
the point where he will not automatically be nominated at a brokered
convention if Biden is unable to run.

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didibus
I'd say I'm in the camp of cancelling everything right now, instead of waiting
till the last minute. Seems doing so now would also have less of a social
impact.

That said, what I've yet to hear about is what the end game looks like?

Do you cancel everything for a month or two, and then go back to normal?
Wouldn't the virus just take hold again? So do we go on a routine monthly
quarantine every quarter?

Do we cancel everything until we find a vaccine?

Do we quarantine the "at risk" and actually have everyone else interact even
more so that all the healthy people get it quickly and recover to develop
immunity?

If anyone knows, I'd be curious, what kind of end game are we looking at here?

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jshevek
If they make the test cheap enough, convenient enough, and in sufficient
quantity, we can bring everything back online in a low risk manner long before
we have a vaccine.

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AstralStorm
The test has enough false positive rate to make it annoying to use in general
population. It's being improved.

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jerome-jh
There are only two ways to stop the virus: vaccination, and everyone having
been in contact with the virus and having built immunity.

Everything else is only trying to slow the spreading. It is not useless
though.

And keep in mind that without a vaccine, there is a fair chance for the virus
to come back another winter (assuming it stops spreading in the summer).

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blackrock
I really don’t believe that washing your hands is the way to stay safe. I
don’t touch my eyes, nose, or mouth with dirty hands. I’m not a kid that puts
things in my mouth.

But yet, I have always gotten sick during the winters at work, in an office
setting. Always.

The only winter where I didn’t get sick, was when I stayed home all winter,
and avoided most public contact. And miraculously, I didn’t get sick that
season.

So the flu virus or whatever I caught, was likely, always via airborne
transmissions. Either I was in the same room as someone that sneezed or
coughed, and the virus diffused through the air inside, or it got transmitted
through the ventilation system.

Keeping your hands from your eyes, nose, and mouth, is important, but so is
the usage of a face mask. If anything, it should at least try to stop or slow
down some airborne viruses. And face masks will work better, when everyone is
using it, so their germs stay localized to themselves.

~~~
jerome-jh
Certainly washing hands is not the end of everything, but it cuts about 20% of
the total number of transmissions, for flu at least. So it is significant,
when you have a pandemic with a virus for which nobody has immunity.

The second point is that the less you have fat on your hand skin, the shorter
lived is the virus when it lands on it. That is the rational behind "wash your
hands often" messages.

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seibelj
I live in Boston, I'm in my 30's, and I've decided I won't cancel anything. If
I get the virus, so what? I firmly believe it's unwarranted panic. I'll enjoy
the empty metropolis and remember this event for the rest of my life, like I
remember 9/11, the financial crash, and how my parents remember the JFK
assassination and the Blizzard of '78\. Strange times

EDIT - Let me clarify. If I get the virus, I will quarantine (of course), but
I'm not going to prematurely ruin my life in fear of this event, which is in
itself not a death sentence - _only 0.2% of those under 40 die at worst case_
[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-
se...](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-
demographics/)

Everyone needs to _RELAX_

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Sebguer
You're incredibly selfishly increasing the risk to everyone else around you,
but I get it. I was in the same camp just a few days ago.

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seibelj
Nope - I wash my hands. You want me to self-quarantine already? I'm not going
to be afraid of 0.00001% of my state being infected.

~~~
Sebguer
Ah, yes, washing your hands. The completely infallible way to prevent the
spread of a disease.

I don't want you to be afraid - I want you to minimize the risk that you get
coronavirus and become another infection vector, endangering the at-risk
populations around you.

I want you to do that because it is the socially responsible thing to do, and
it will decrease the chance of someone who is far more at risk of serious
complications from the disease catching it.

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seibelj
I took the subway today, and it was about 1/4 full for the time. But everyone
there wasn't pulling their hair out in abject terror. Last night my wife and I
ate dinner at a Thai restaurant, and it was pretty full. I'm just going with
the huge portion of society that doesn't choose to be afraid.

~~~
droidist2
That's good that you're patronizing Asian businesses, a lot of them have been
hit hard by people avoiding them due to virus fears.

