Have you been impacted by COVID-19 yet?

[disneysteve]

I read that in Italy retired medical people are being asked to come staff hospitals to make up for overwhelmed and ill hospital staff. Disneysteve or any other medical people, do you know of any mechanisms by which that request could be made in the USA? Either at local levels or nationally?

It is hard for me to imagine our bureaucratic institutions and legal systems allowing for any such thing, especially if the usual professional accreditations have been allowed to lapse or the person has moved to a state where they were never certified. At least in my state there are some "good Samaritan" laws that might, in emergency, offer legal protection to institutions and individuals who might come out of retirement to help.

I can't imagine this working here. Between licensing, credentialing, and malpractice insurance issues, it would be a logistical nightmare. It took me 3 months to get through all of the red tape to start my new job. There would have to be some major government intervention, an emergency declaration of some sort, for this to be feasible. They'd have to suspend all kinds of rules.

[disneysteve]

All MGM properties in Las Vegas are closing its buffets due to COVID-19. Mandalay Bay, Bellagio, Aria, MGM Grand, Luxor, Excalibur, and Mirage. Makes perfect sense to me. Why risk it.
https://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/news/

As much as I love a good buffet, they are petri dishes under the best of circumstances. I think this is a wise decision especially in a locale that has a large international clientele.

[QuarterMillionMan]

1) UCLA
2) UC Irvine
3) UC Riverside
4) USC

All online classes & no in-person classes until spring break, according to my local news.

[disneysteve]

1) UCLA
2) UC Irvine
3) UC Riverside
4) USC

All online classes & no in-person classes until spring break, according to my local news.

Some schools have cancelled spring semester entirely and are going all online.

[QuarterMillionMan]

New York's governor Andrew Cuomo ordered a containment zone of a 1 mile radius in New York somewhere due to an attorney testing positive for COVID.

[disneysteve]

New York's governor Andrew Cuomo ordered a containment zone of a 1 mile radius in New York somewhere due to an attorney testing positive for COVID.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/new-york-rochelle-coronavirus-containment-zone

The area has the largest cluster of cases in the country. It wasn't because one person tested positive.

[rerod]

What I'm not finding is what chances I have of contracting the virus.

Its feels like it's not a matter of if, but when.

[kork13]

What I'm not finding is what chances I have of contracting the virus.

Its feels like it's not a matter of if, but when.

I don't think that's a foregone conclusion at all. In spite of the fear-mongering, even places like Korea, China, Italy, etc. are still only reporting infections making up a small fraction of their population. Even if you assume cases are severely under-diagnosed/under-reported by a factor of 10, not even a quarter of their totally populations are infected. The vast majority of people infected will be just fine, and may not even realize they're sick (Note: this is all very rough numbers, I'm not actually doing the math on it)

As from the beginning... Wash your hands, follow healthy habits, and avoid sick people to the extent feasible. You'll be fine.

[rennigade]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw

This is an hour and a half...but this podcast will clear up a lot of our bro science. This guy is an actual expert with infectious diseases. Its a really good listen. His name is Michael Osterholm. Its going to get a lot worse before it gets better. 10-15x worse than the flu (in terms of death.) Its not just an "old persons disease." Americans are going to get hammered due to so many people being obese, high blood pressure, (underlying conditions.) He's optimistic of course, but we're just seeing the tip of the spear.

[Like2Plan]

I think the message one should get from all the information out there is that you are NOT helpless and you can do something about this. There is plenty that you can do to prevent the spread of this disease. One quote that I heard was that this virus just exploits our bad habits--so, wash your hands frequently and thoroughly. Always, always always wash your hands before eating! Clean your iPhone (don't be using it while you are eating). et'c. Stay home if you are sick. Avoid large groups. et'c.

We are probably further along in infections in some communities than we might have realized--like Seattle. I think the positive test numbers are going to go up faster than folks are expecting in the beginning not necessarily because it is spreading like wild fire, but because it may have been in the community and they are just now detecting it (which might make the stock market freak out a little bit more).

The information I have seen is that the vast majority of people will have a mild case. But, it seems that some small percentage of folks will get viral pneumonia. If the spread of the disease is slowed down, it can perhaps reduce the stress on the health care system. I think that is what is worrying everyone the most. Looking at S. Korea and China--the number of new infections have come way down. The bottom line is that it is not a foregone conclusion and the earlier steps are taken to control this, the better the outcome will be.

[Like2Plan]

What I'm not finding is what chances I have of contracting the virus.

Its feels like it's not a matter of if, but when.

I don't know what your chances of contracting the virus are, but here is a link to Coronavirus Update Worldometer: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
The last column is the total number of cases per million of population. This is of course--positive cases that have been tested. In some countries not much testing has been done.

[Like2Plan]

This is an excellent article that helps to explain why it is a good thing to slow down the spread of the virus:

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

[rennigade]

WHO declares the coronavirus as a pandemic. Not the band, the world health organization.

[bjl584]

We have a mandatory meeting at work today at 3PM.
I thin they are going to stop people from traveling and allow certain people to work from home.
We shall see......

[cypher1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw

This is an hour and a half...but this podcast will clear up a lot of our bro science. This guy is an actual expert with infectious diseases. Its a really good listen. His name is Michael Osterholm. Its going to get a lot worse before it gets better. 10-15x worse than the flu (in terms of death.) Its not just an "old persons disease." Americans are going to get hammered due to so many people being obese, high blood pressure, (underlying conditions.) He's optimistic of course, but we're just seeing the tip of the spear.

That was an awesome discussion and very informative. It's interesting as I had co-workers listen to it and got even more worked up about the subject. One was even talking about pulling their kids out of school if it gets worse. Packing their camper and going up north, for who knows how long.