Because people use it as an excuse for a couple days off.

I know, not everyone does, too many don’t.

But because some don’t doesn’t mean all don’t and the point is those that do have a positive impact on containment.

No one disputes that.

On one end of the spectrum we have people who want to punish China for not taking the virus seriously:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/1055192-can-we-hold-china-responsible.html

And on the other we have Americans who think people who take it seriously are paid fear mongers.

They are all quite adamant that they are right and there is something sinister going on.:eek:

ah, the binary thinker... Certainly there can be nothing sinister, or even remotely off color, during a crisis. --is that what you would have people believe?

And would you also have us believe that there is no way to over react to this? --we are either taking this seriously or we are not?

This is just like the drivers on the road... anyone driving slower than me is a stupefied idiot, any faster are insane idiots. :rolleyes:

The reality is that some ARE over-reacting to this. And some ARE over-blowing this situation for their own gain.

Disclaimer: I don't claim to be smart about this topic

I do have some personal data points which could be relevant and helpful. The firm I work for has offices in Asia (~120 people, mostly located in Hong Kong). The Hong Kong office instituted flexible working arrangements as of February 3, and at that time all the schools had closed. The folks I am in regular contact with there are getting on with it, and I've not heard of any of the staff falling ill with the virus. As of yesterday, the internal reports from our APAC management team is the spread seems to be controlled in Hong Kong and Singapore.

This is the first "Social Media" pandemic. We've had others of course but there are more people online now than ever before.
A big part of that was China boasting at how fast they can build a hospital and then the media reporting it. That one event set things in motion IMO.

And everyone has an opinion. :rolleyes:

BTW: I haven't had the flu in over 10 years. Not even a cold or the sniffles. (touch wood) With a bit of luck I'll dodge this one as well but for most of those years I worked from home. Rarely did I ever go into the office. Maybe once every 6 weeks or so and even then not for very long. I went out and met up with friends and all that but if people are sick they generally don't go out and socialise.

There is the key assumption.

One thing about the Chinese, they do NOT see face masks a fashion faux pas. The Italians otoh..

Anyway, clearly people modify behaivor when life & death situations arise.

So true.

Once such a program of individual movement and behavioral tracking is established, it never goes away. Let's hope that program is confined to China.

Yes! It is quite scary what can be done with the cellphone.

Best article read on spread to date: https://medium.com/@Jason_Scott_Warner/the-sober-math-everyone-must-understand-about-the-pandemic-2b0145881993

This is utterly contrary to my experience

Note to self... make sure location is turned off on my phone... SmileWavy

Probably need to just take the battery out Nick

Like

Yup, last I checked only 12 new cases in a country with 1.4B

Which of the sinister plots do you believe is afoot?

No need to put words into my mouth for me, wdfifteen. Nowhere did I say anything sinister was going on and nowhere did I even say I was right. You're welcomed to your own opinions, but you're not welcomed to mine. I can speak for myself, thank-you very much. :rolleyes:

Wayne, infected people (who survive) will develop antibodies to the virus; and after some weeks will no longer shed the virus to infect others

There is also so-called "Herd immunity" - here is what it really is:
If few enough people are infected and interact below some critical level with susceptible people, then it will die out.
There are rather complicated mathematical models involving encounter rates of infected with susceptible people, transmissibility from one person to another, time course of the infection and other things that are used to predict whether a disease will continue or die out. They often involve systems of coupled differential equations and solutions usually have to be simulated.

Instr. 41 - not sure I understand your question, but we will know it is flattening out by testing people

Mmmm... "Paid fear monger" is not sinister? Okey Dokey. :rolleyes:

Yes, I had a conversation with a friend (doctor) about this, this morning. We both agreed it might be heading in this direction. Unfortunately, this scenario is very bad with 1.5M deaths in the US alone, required for us to reach this "herd immunity" level. Absent a vaccine, that seems to be the likely scenario. There's no way this genie is going back into the bottle without killing a whole bunch of people and potentially overwhelming our hospitals.

I hope I'm wrong.

-Wayne