Coronavirus: When should we be concerned?

[Nodack]

1100 new cases in AZ yesterday setting a new record set two days earlier.

[Cap]

1100 new cases in AZ yesterday setting a new record set two days earlier.

A couple of weeks ago the record was 562. If we keep doubling every two weeks...

[Superbone]

1100 new cases in AZ yesterday setting a new record set two days earlier.

A couple of weeks ago the record was 562. If we keep doubling every two weeks...

What do you think is going to happen when you re-open the state too soon?

[Indy]

1100 new cases in AZ yesterday setting a new record set two days earlier.

A couple of weeks ago the record was 562. If we keep doubling every two weeks...

It is almost like it is exponential.

[Mori Chu]

One day we may look back at this urgency to "re-open" as the dumbest of many dumb moves made by the USA during this COVID-19 crisis. We haven't gotten through the worst of it yet.

[Indy]

One day we may look back at this urgency to "re-open" as the dumbest of many dumb moves made by the USA during this COVID-19 crisis. We haven't gotten through the worst of it yet.

agreed, but it is a lot easier for those of us that got to keep our jobs and can work remotely and still care for our kids and feed our family.

[JeremyG]

We still have fewer deaths in Arizona than from the 2017-18 flu season. Not to mention that the lockdowns and unemployment have a way higher death rate. Taking away people's fundamental liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights is not the answer. The Bill of Rights has no exceptions for pandemics. Liberty is worth dying for. If you don't believe that, you can hide in your house.

[specialsauce]

It’s that attitude that makes it so hard to go to work everyday and come home and isolate from my family including my newborn. To protect idiots that ignored the advice of the medical community because “they aren’t sheep, my liberties bullshit bullshit bullshit.” Or to tell the family of a loved one they’re dying because kids couldn’t just not go out and party for a few months and they passed it off to him at the grocery store or doctor’s office, etc. And that’s all I’ll say. Delete my post for flaming if desired.

[Superbone]

Not sure I knew about your newborn, Saucy. Congrats!!! Is that your first?

[AmareIsGod]

We still have fewer deaths in Arizona than from the 2017-18 flu season. Not to mention that the lockdowns and unemployment have a way higher death rate. Taking away people's fundamental liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights is not the answer. The Bill of Rights has no exceptions for pandemics. Liberty is worth dying for. If you don't believe that, you can hide in your house.

Wow. Okay Boomer.

[Nodack]

I believe in the Bill of Rights but, if by exercising your rights you are risking harm to others then I am ok with limiting those rights. People thought they had the right to smoke wherever they want and now that is not the case. Some people like driving 110 mph exercising their rights but, there are laws limiting that too. You can’t yell fire in a crowded theatre. The list goes on. If society says you can’t do something because you might hurt others then I am ok with that. Leaders have to make hard decisions. Most of the world shut down, not to limit peoples freedoms but, to save lives. It’s not that hard to understand.

[specialsauce]

Not sure I knew about your newborn, Saucy. Congrats!!! Is that your first?

Thanks ‘Bone! Yes it is. He also wants Oubre traded I got to enjoy 5 weeks off with him. Back at work now so I’m staying in a different area of the house now than he and my wife until this pandemic is over.

[specialsauce]

I believe in the Bill of Rights but, if by exercising your rights you are risking harm to others then I am ok with limiting those rights. People thought they had the right to smoke wherever they want and now that is not the case. Some people like driving 110 mph exercising their rights but, there are laws limiting that too. You can’t yell fire in a crowded theatre. The list goes on. If society says you can’t do something because you might hurt others then I am ok with that. Leaders have to make hard decisions. Most of the world shut down, not to limit peoples freedoms but, to save lives. It’s not that hard to understand.

First of all, the bill of rights doesn’t say shit about pandemics and businesses. So that argument is dumb.

Second, when your actions endanger thousands of other Americans, your liberties can kiss my ass. They just can. You deserve to be incarcerated.

A man tested positive that I saw for corona. He continued to go out and about to buy goods without wearing a mask. He was proud of it. He should be incarcerated and charged with attempted murder. Just filth of a human being.

Just got takeout at a restaurant. Bar was packed, not a single vacant seat. Not a single soul wearing masks, employees included. Some older. Sigh. They all deserve what’s coming to them, but I feel sorry for anyone they come into contact with in the next several weeks.

[Superbone]

Not sure I knew about your newborn, Saucy. Congrats!!! Is that your first?

Thanks ‘Bone! Yes it is. He also wants Oubre traded I got to enjoy 5 weeks off with him. Back at work now so I’m staying in a different area of the house now than he and my wife until this pandemic is over.

That is so awesome! It’s the best thing ever. So happy for you. I hope it’s not too long before don’t have to stay separated.

[specialsauce]

Not sure I knew about your newborn, Saucy. Congrats!!! Is that your first?

Thanks ‘Bone! Yes it is. He also wants Oubre traded I got to enjoy 5 weeks off with him. Back at work now so I’m staying in a different area of the house now than he and my wife until this pandemic is over.

That is so awesome! It’s the best thing ever. So happy for you. I hope it’s not too long before don’t have to stay separated.

Much appreciated my friend

[JeremyG]

It’s that attitude that makes it so hard to go to work everyday and come home and isolate from my family including my newborn. To protect idiots that ignored the advice of the medical community because “they aren’t sheep, my liberties bullshit bullshit bullshit.” Or to tell the family of a loved one they’re dying because kids couldn’t just not go out and party for a few months and they passed it off to him at the grocery store or doctor’s office, etc. And that’s all I’ll say. Delete my post for flaming if desired.

This makes zero sense. The "preemptive quarantine" was never meant to reduce the total number of infections. At best it could only "slow the spread" to give hospitals time to increase capacity. That was the goal, remember, to "flatten the curve" (same number of infections, but over a longer period of time). The virus doesn't just disappear, the same number of people will end up infected no matter how long you drag it on, until you end up with a decent level of herd immunity like New York seems to have reached now.

The only deaths it was intended to prevent were those that might result from hospitals reaching capacity limits (which most states have not gotten close to).

This is why it makes more sense to protect the vulnerable (nursing homes [governors did the opposite!!], the elderly, those with underlying conditions, etc.) and let the rest of the population reach herd immunity. This would likely result in the least amount of deaths and is what many epidemiologists and immunologists recommended.

I believe in the Bill of Rights but, if by exercising your rights you are risking harm to others then I am ok with limiting those rights. People thought they had the right to smoke wherever they want and now that is not the case. Some people like driving 110 mph exercising their rights but, there are laws limiting that too. You can’t yell fire in a crowded theatre. The list goes on. If society says you can’t do something because you might hurt others then I am ok with that. Leaders have to make hard decisions. Most of the world shut down, not to limit peoples freedoms but, to save lives. It’s not that hard to understand.

First of all, the bill of rights doesn’t say shit about pandemics and businesses. So that argument is dumb.

Second, when your actions endanger thousands of other Americans, your liberties can kiss my ass. They just can. You deserve to be incarcerated.

A man tested positive that I saw for corona. He continued to go out and about to buy goods without wearing a mask. He was proud of it. He should be incarcerated and charged with attempted murder. Just filth of a human being.

Just got takeout at a restaurant. Bar was packed, not a single vacant seat. Not a single soul wearing masks, employees included. Some older. Sigh. They all deserve what’s coming to them, but I feel sorry for anyone they come into contact with in the next several weeks.

Someone who knows they are infected should not infect others. But to quarantine healthy people is to declare guilty until proven innocent. It is not American and it was not done for previous pandemics.

Thanks for making my point--the Bill of Rights does not mention pandemics. It contains zero exceptions. The authors of the Constitution had just lived through the North American smallpox pandemic of 1775-1782, which was way more contagious and way more deadly than Covid. They fought for our freedoms during the deadly pandemic, and they did not shut down public assembly. Instead, they guaranteed our right to it in the First Amendment.

Also, do you not care that experts are saying that way more deaths will result from the shutdowns than from the virus? How is it worth it to (supposedly) save lives if it kills more than it saves?

[specialsauce]

It’s that attitude that makes it so hard to go to work everyday and come home and isolate from my family including my newborn. To protect idiots that ignored the advice of the medical community because “they aren’t sheep, my liberties bullshit bullshit bullshit.” Or to tell the family of a loved one they’re dying because kids couldn’t just not go out and party for a few months and they passed it off to him at the grocery store or doctor’s office, etc. And that’s all I’ll say. Delete my post for flaming if desired.

This makes zero sense. The "preemptive quarantine" was never meant to reduce the total number of infections. At best it could only "slow the spread" to give hospitals time to increase capacity. That was the goal, remember, to "flatten the curve" (same number of infections, but over a longer period of time). The virus doesn't just disappear, the same number of people will end up infected no matter how long you drag it on, until you end up with a decent level of herd immunity like New York seems to have reached now.

The only deaths it was intended to prevent were those that might result from hospitals reaching capacity limits (which most states have not gotten close to).

This is why it makes more sense to protect the vulnerable (nursing homes [governors did the opposite!!], the elderly, those with underlying conditions, etc.) and let the rest of the population reach herd immunity. This would likely result in the least amount of deaths and is what many epidemiologists and immunologists recommended.

I believe in the Bill of Rights but, if by exercising your rights you are risking harm to others then I am ok with limiting those rights. People thought they had the right to smoke wherever they want and now that is not the case. Some people like driving 110 mph exercising their rights but, there are laws limiting that too. You can’t yell fire in a crowded theatre. The list goes on. If society says you can’t do something because you might hurt others then I am ok with that. Leaders have to make hard decisions. Most of the world shut down, not to limit peoples freedoms but, to save lives. It’s not that hard to understand.

First of all, the bill of rights doesn’t say shit about pandemics and businesses. So that argument is dumb.

Second, when your actions endanger thousands of other Americans, your liberties can kiss my ass. They just can. You deserve to be incarcerated.

A man tested positive that I saw for corona. He continued to go out and about to buy goods without wearing a mask. He was proud of it. He should be incarcerated and charged with attempted murder. Just filth of a human being.

Just got takeout at a restaurant. Bar was packed, not a single vacant seat. Not a single soul wearing masks, employees included. Some older. Sigh. They all deserve what’s coming to them, but I feel sorry for anyone they come into contact with in the next several weeks.

Someone who knows they are infected should not infect others. But to quarantine healthy people is to declare guilty until proven innocent. It is not American and it was not done for previous pandemics.

Thanks for making my point--the Bill of Rights does not mention pandemics. It contains zero exceptions. The authors of the Constitution had just lived through the North American smallpox pandemic of 1775-1782, which was way more contagious and way more deadly than Covid. They fought for our freedoms during the deadly pandemic, and they did not shut down public assembly. Instead, they guaranteed our right to it in the First Amendment.

Also, do you not care that experts are saying that way more deaths will result from the shutdowns than from the virus? How is it worth it to (supposedly) save lives if it kills more than it saves?

Your post is so full of false statements I don’t know where to begin.

No, the curve is not flattened. Arizona is on the rise. Our hospitals are at 85% capacity already. I know because I work it. Everything else you try to say from there is based on a completely erroneous argument.

You can stop with the bullshit about the bill of rights. It says nothing that the government can’t put the city on lockdown to protect its citizens. It says nothing of masks. It’s from the 1700s it’s so fucking outdated and irrelevant.

[Cap]

It’s not outdated and irrelevant, but few of the enumerated rights are absolute; they all have reasonable common sense exceptions. And the rights Jeremy is complaining about aren’t enumerated rights anyway.

Falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater
Slander
Fraud
Perjury
Making terroristic threats
Solicitation to commit a crime (Such as offering somebody money to commit a murder)

These are all forms of speech, which is an enumerated right. These activities consist entirely of opening your mouth and making words come out. Unless Jeremy believes that “freedom of speech” encompasses such conduct, his “zero exceptions” line is nonsense that even he doesn’t believe.

[Mori Chu]

I started typing a response to JeremyG's post, but there was so much in there and so many incorrect statements that I became overwhelmed and just stopped and closed the browser tab.

For one thing, his post oversimplifies the purpose and benefit of doing a quarantine; it not only "flattens the curve" (which we still need to do more of, since case/death rates are still increasing in many parts of the country!), but also gives us time to procure medical equipment, hire/train medical staff, work on and learn about treatments and/or vaccines, educate people about safe and unsafe behaviors so that they will reduce their exposure and spread, on and on. Many many people will alter their actions and will not get sick who would have caught the virus; it is not just that they'll still get it, but later.

Jeremy's post also underestimates the danger of what would happen if folks all just resumed their normal activity. There would be a huge outbreak and would result in hundreds of thousands if not millions of unnecessary deaths. The models of what the virus would do to our country without a quarantine are truly terrifying. You know it is bad when even President Trump, who desperately did not want to shut anything down, was eventually forced to do so. That's all you need to know.

He also perpetuates the incorrect "it's no worse than the flu!" argument that has been repeatedly and thoroughly debunked. It is at least 10-20x as lethal as the flu, has a longer potential incubation period where it is asymptomatic but can still spread, and more. And we have vaccines and treatments for the flu, while we don't for corona. It is much much deadlier than the flu. Yes, the flu did kill many people in some years as well, but you're comparing apples and oranges. If the flu with no quarantine kills 30-40k in a year and the covid WITH a complete shutdown and quarantine kills over 100k in two months, then that should tell you that covid is much deadlier. If we behaved toward covid the way we behave toward the flu (essentially doing nothing), literally millions would die in a year. There's no comparison.

And lastly, I don't think it is at all the majority opinion that the quarantine is somehow causing more deaths than the virus itself (?). I get that economic hardship will lead to some suffering, but not on the scale of millions dead that the virus threatens to wreak on our country.

[specialsauce]

Over 80 new COVID positive patients in my hospital network yesterday, by far a high. But hey let’s open up because the cure is worse than the disease!