It's pretty much the same everywhere nowadays friend.

In my part of the world, pretty much everything is closed. Some people work from home if possible. Most people sent home.

Driving around nowadays is weird, there's barely anyone outside. Witch is a good thing, but really weird.

Tbh in these times if I were in that boat i'd hold off until after this was over(the lockdowns, I mean)...weddings(in many cases) can wait, after all.


Speaking of antibiotics, people overusing them(now or at any time) will likely also eventually lead to problems down the line....that is another thing we have to worry about.

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One problem that might arise is that people packed into the same building might spread it to each other by being stuck so close to each other/etc(especially if the virus CAN spread through ventilation systems as some think).

its an old virus you numpty - and can only be transmitted via direct contact with rats

Note to all....the below is posted for humor purposes only, and isn't me making a dig at anyone...that said:
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As for the proposed cash aid: Hopefully it will help more than it'll hurt, and it'll go more to small businesses and poorer folk than rich people and large corporations

Reality, certainly is sometimes counterintuitive, especially in the behaviour of complex systems, since the group differs from the mere accumulation of parts in a non-linear relationship.

The more one learns, the more apparent the gaps in what is known: more known unknowns. If knowledge were a forest, the more trees seen reveals more gaps between the trunks, through which, indistinctly, even more trees can be seen.

+1

The unknown unknowns are the lottery.

That is a callous, self-defeating and short-sighted attitude.
And the people who will pay the price for this ignorant selfishness are the medical professionals —— thirty Italian doctors, so far, have died from the pandemic. That's thirty people with a lifetime of education and training who have died because the medical system was unable to cope with the strain, who would otherwise be still with us because people "let the virus work its way through."

OtOH, out of the approximate 2000 people who have the virus in Australia, currently, there have been only eight fatalities so far.

Precisely.

Further, to understand how dangerous this is to society, understand that grandparents provide $billions of free childcare, allowing their children to work full time. There has been a lot of unhealthy generational disdain.

Not to mention the pain and misery inflicted on the most vulnerable of society, those with existing medical conditions that rely on social distancing already, and who live under constant threat of death from normal colds and 'flu. Those with no defence will be protected when the new vaccine is produced.

Finally and hopefully now, because fewer people will be exposed (and therefore fewer die), the economy will be able to recover quicker when the contagion has passed.

That's essentially what some countries are doing though, with lockdowns.....letting the virus work it's way through the population...albeit to a lesser extent and slower, so medical infrastructures can handle it better.

Also we cannot shut down the world forever, lest others suffer(actually suffer, not just "suffer" as in sitting at home) or die due to the shutdown.

A hard choice to make, I think, and I am glad I don't have to make it tbh.

Well, it's still better than everyone running around, I think.

There's no perfect solution in all of this.

The problem here is that we still have snow now, and it's a bit cold at times. But once weather is good and all, people will be going out like crazy, after a long cold winter. No army will stop us. :D
Yeah I know it's old.

But my point is that, after covid-19, our immune system may be weaker and vulnerable. And there's possibility of it not able to fight the old viruses. Or at least not as well as before.

Anyways, I din't mean to scare anyone. Just overthinking I guess. Sorry!

Hopefully you're right.

This

Speaking of the army, they are deploying the national guard to set up med tents/etc or guard some places in a few states.

Also the LA sheriff or some other official said guns/ammo aren't essentials and ordered all gun shops in LA to close......because no one would likely need protection during such an event and it's aftermath & it's not as if people don't own more guns than there are people in the US *rolleyes*

People are scared. And many today are in panic mode. Since we have never seen anything like this with our own eyes, except in the movies. And the media, makes everything ever so dramatic, and that creates even more panic.

But guns wont help in any way. Unless things go really bad. But I don't think that's the case.

I think everything will be fine, just a matter of time. For as long as we help one another. One country another country, mother earth will never get rid of pests like us. :)

This, but I still don't think it's a good enough excuse to take too many of our rights away for too long, or to say to those who want protection and don't own any(legal) means of doing so "no, you can't exercise your 2A rights atm....better luck next time".

I mean what do they want.....other people turning to "not so legit" guns?

Because it's likely some others(not me, I don't use them at all) would due to this in some places.

I lean more that way atm as well, but imo it's still likely better(for others) to be more safe than sorry in case they DO need such later on.

Eh, I am more leaning towards what George Carlin said on this....i.e. that the planet will likely outlive us(for one reason or another). ;)

That's not so much out of pessimism, though, but just common sense/logic(earth will be habitable for another 1 Billion or so years, and I don't think mankind will survive that long...though it'd be nice to be wrong on this).
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Now for some good news:

Some scientists believe due to data gathered that we'd only need one vaccine for the corona virus/covid 19

From the above article:

"Peter Thielen, a molecular geneticist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, told The Washington Post that the strains of the virus infecting people in the U.S. have only about four to 10 genetic variations between the strain that emerged in Wuhan, China.

"That's a relatively small number of mutations for having passed through a large number of people," he told the newspaper. "At this point the mutation rate of the virus would suggest that the vaccine developed for SARS-CoV-2 would be a single vaccine, rather than a new vaccine every year like the flu vaccine.""

and this bit

"Small viral mutations leading to outsized effects in clinical outcomes are not unheard of, the experts said, but there has been no indication of such an outcome for coronavirus thus far, with death rates in places such as Italy likely the result of situational factors rather than mutations."

More good news:

Congress agreed on the 2 Trillion dollar aid package for all americans....hopefully that means aid will soon be on the way for many of my fellow US citizens.

Covid-19 or not, people has immune system issues because they didn't care about being healthy in general. The local stores where I live were full of antiseptic spray and other personal hygiene products. Also people here didn't care much about doing physical exercises until now.

No, whenever you make something illegal, it's the black market that will profit, and the politicians that made it so, more often than not.

I love George Carlin and his way of thinking. But I think, our planet and us, humies on it, are not really two different things/creatures, but one. As in interconnected. So in that sense, one can't be without the other.

Well, the immune system can be even more weaker then it is today, as you say, so many people not taking care of their health. But at least now, we're starting to think. Sometimes it takes something serious to make us think for a second and change our life-style.

We need to learn from covid-19, not waste our time/energy to hate it.

That's part of what I meant.

I must respectfully disagree somewhat....I think we are just another life form inhabiting this planet(same as the dinosaurs and such before us, albeit with intellect-the ability to use it).....the planet likely did fine without us and if we go(for some reason or another...either by dying out or moving on to the stars) it'll do fine enough(as in still exist) without us.

(Although of course I want humanity to stick around as long as possible :))

Agreed 100%

You claim there is something that can be called common sense and that it is useful.

What are your proofs how it ?

Mathematics show that "common sense" can be blatantly wrong on many, many things.
Quantic mechanics, theory of relativity are just so more true than common sense and just go against so many things that common sense would lead anybody to say it's true.

I will give you some example :

- Is it possible to sum an infinite number of strictly positives numbers and still have a finite sum ?

- Is it possible for 2 events (A and B) to happen at the same time for me, but for A to happen before B in your point of view, and B to happen before A if the point of view of someone else ?

- in void (but with gravity) does a ton of lead fall faster than a single feather ?

- If I'm on train (100 miles/hour for example) and, neglecting frictions), let fall an object A) inside the train or B) by the window, where will the object touch the ground (outside the train) : behind/before/at my feet ?

- SAme train, facing its direction, I throw a ball in front of me, initial speed of the ball : 10 miles/hour. What is the speed of the ball from A) my point of view ? B) from the point of view of someone standing still outside the train ?
- same train, now I'm sending a photon : speed of the photon in A) and B ?

- double-slit experiment : electron is a wave or a particle ?

If you can answer to those questions according to what science has to say about, you clearly didn't use common sense to do so. If you need to google to answer, you clearly will see blatantly false claims and/or need to be confident in experts. Do you think people will have YEARS to study mathematics, economics, physics... How will people make the experiments to be really sure by themselves ?

And even so, many of them would:
- not find how to handle just the beginning how those;
- have to rely (believe) on experts to teach them how to, get to some advanced science

Alone with google/qwant... without having to rely on expert, you'll need years just to get to the level in mathematics that is needed just to begin to understand what scientifics are talking about when they speak the science of the 19th century. Not even speaking of the 20th !

To quote (from memory) a Field medal owner (Jean-Louis Lyons, 1992 or 1996 I think) :
- from 2 to 15 years old, people at school try to learn what ancient greek (2500 years from now) made in maths;
- from 16 to 18 (graduate ? I'm not sure of the terms USA use for school levels) : trying to get to 18th centuary (at least for those who specialize a bit in math, staying to 17 at most for the others)
- 18-21 : 19th centuary
- 22 - 24: until world war 2
- preparing to be a doctor (25-28 and more) : from WW2 to nowadays.

Most of the people don't have the tools to understand the tools needed to understand the tools you require to begin to use the tools needed to understand what a scientific really talks about and really means. (for myself I'm somewhere beetween the 2nd and third "tools").


And just understanding a bit of the 19th centuary mathematics, with more than 20 hours a week at school + home working on it, only a fraction of the population is ABLE to.

Look how many people just have hard time (cannot) understand just negative numbers (14th centuary), basic arithmetics (14 th centuary).
Look how many people doesn't make a diffence between :
A) If it's raining then I take my umbrella and B) If I take my umbrella then it's raining

Or how many people are able to say the correct contrary of : "Every cat are grey"

How do you want people who don't understand fractions/negatives to just have an idea of what can be true/is strictly bullshit about economics/ medicine... and can make a difference between an expert and a charlatan ?