Quote from: S'mon;1123321Twitter has certainly killed many more people in the UK than Coronavirus, and has ruined countless lives.

I don't really accept the idea that suicide is a free choice while dying of a virus is not. Cartesian Dualism isn't real, the mind is an emergent process of a physical organism, and when vulnerable people are driven to kill themselves, those who harassed them into suicide deserve blame at least.

That is why the UK has their police chasing after "hate speech" offenders rather then the obviously less dangerous to your mental health knife attackers that prowl the streets of London.

All because no one ever told young UKers that "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me".  Sad.

Quote from: Shasarak;1123360That is why the UK has their police chasing after "hate speech" offenders rather then the obviously less dangerous to your mental health knife attackers that prowl the streets of London.

All because no one ever told young UKers that "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me".  Sad.

He he he

Quote from: Spinachcat;1123309BTW, if you or anyone you know is crapping themselves about the Coronavirus, please visit the Johns Hopkins website and read the Lancet article. The media is so laughably full of shit, and intentionally so. So in that respect, it's just like DnDTwitter.

Fortunately Johns Hopkins has real data, real facts and real science.



OMG, that's awesome! I am totally spreading this information!

Real Data, and Real Facts, and Real Science: Coronavirus kills about 2-3% of those infected (flu kills 0.05-0.10%) and transmits at roughly double the rate of the flu. Which means if it spreads at just the same rate as the flu, you have a pandemic which exceeds the 1918 pandemic.

I am not saying panic. I am however saying this "I am too cool to worry and all of you are suckers if you are concerned" attitude will look like shit if it spreads like the flu. There is a rational position between "Panic" and "Meh no worries".

No matter how bad it is, panic will not help, it will always make things worse.

Quote from: Mistwell;1123371Real Data, and Real Facts, and Real Science:

Source?

Death rate is higher for people with cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes. Also higher the older you are. As a 48 year old with cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes, yeah I'm worried. Am I panicked? Nope. But I am working from home, stocking up on shit, and taking precautions.

Also, every info source is saying that we don't know exactly the current spread, nor will we know the current fatality rate until we know the rate of infection, nor will we have a vaccine soon, nor do we fully understand how the virus works. Yet. So, I would be skeptical of any "news" reporting that someone now magically knows all this.

I'm also pretty sure Jim Baker's magic Jesus juice won't prevent infection.

Some useful information sources that I've seen:

World Health Organization report on Joint Mission with China:
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf

China CDC paper on the outbreak (with estimates on mortality):
http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9a9b-fea8db1a8f51

Quote from: trechriron;1123375I'm also pretty sure Jim Baker's magic Jesus juice won't prevent infection.

Certainly not with that attitude.

Quote from: trechriron;1123375Also, every info source is saying that we don't know exactly the current spread, nor will we know the current fatality rate until we know the rate of infection, nor will we have a vaccine soon, nor do we fully understand how the virus works. Yet. So, I would be skeptical of any "news" reporting that someone now magically knows all this.

Yup.

Quote from: trechriron;1123375Death rate is higher for people with cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes.  (snip)

Imagine the coronavirus hanging out with other viruses and looking at pictures from gaming conventions in the USA, in particular: "That's where I'm going! That's the promised land!"

Quote from: Mistwell;1123371Which means if it spreads at just the same rate as the flu, you have a pandemic which exceeds the 1918 pandemic.

LOL. It's not 1918. I'm sticking with "meh no worries".

By the summer, the MSM will be telling us of a new, dire world ender BUT THIS TIME ITS 4 REALZ!!!!!

Sorry, just too many vested political interests in promoting panic, with the MSM being the first and foremost culprits. "If it bleeds, it leads" is not just their motto, its how they pay their salaries. Keeping viewers scared (and dependent) is good business.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1123406LOL. It's not 1918. I'm sticking with "meh no worries".

By the summer, the MSM will be telling us of a new, dire world ender BUT THIS TIME ITS 4 REALZ!!!!!

Sorry, just too many vested political interests in promoting panic, with the MSM being the first and foremost culprits. "If it bleeds, it leads" is not just their motto, its how they pay their salaries. Keeping viewers scared (and dependent) is good business.

From personal reflection - I've just been on a work trip to South Korea, where I left on February 17th, and got back to the U.S. on March 1st. (I returned 3 days early because of the epidemic.) At the time I went over there, there were only 30 confirmed cases of covid-19 within the whole country, and no deaths yet reported. When I left, there were over 3000 cases with over a dozen deaths.

That's over just two weeks. This is not a world-ender by any stretch, but it's a very serious situation.

I'm fine with ignoring sensationalist media, but in this case it's not just a media thing. The governments of many countries are taking many extreme measures to contain or at least reduce the spread, based on the health agency reports.

Twitter is definitely worse than Coronavirus in the literal sense; one will just kill you, the other will rot your brain and morph you into a blob of stupidity.

That said, cases around here are already cropping up because people are fucking morons. Some lady went to the mall after being quarantined, tested twice for no virus, leaves, then tests positive after she went to the food court. Like, wtf...so now that mall is closed, of course. Also, everyone in my family got sick for a week with all sorts of weird flu-like symptoms that matched up to what the virus was supposed to do, both kids and my wife were on antibiotics (like that'll do anything), and are now finally feeling better. I just drank a lot of whiskey, which seems to have done the trick. Dunno if it's Coronavirus, but there is some serious shit going around.

Yes, this is way overhyped, but overhyped crap causes legitimate problems like runs on food (local Costco was pretty bare when I went, Walmart is barely keeping stuff on the shelves), so I stocked up with a month of water and beans and rice just in case. It doesn't really matter how real the threat is, the perceived threat is what causes issues, so honestly just be prepared. Also, this is a REALLY good time to work on your RPG campaigns. Not supposed to be going outside and mingling so much, work on your game and play with your family.

Quote from: Brad;1123418both kids and my wife were on antibiotics (like that'll do anything).

Assuming that what they had was a viral infection, the antibiotics will do nothing directly to help with that, but they might be used to treat a concurrent bacterial infection that's taking advantage of a besieged immune system. They could even be given prophylactically to guard against potential bacterial issues, but the benefits vs. risk there is somewhat more questionable.

Quote from: jhkim;1123417From personal reflection - I've just been on a work trip to South Korea, where I left on February 17th, and got back to the U.S. on March 1st. (I returned 3 days early because of the epidemic.) At the time I went over there, there were only 30 confirmed cases of covid-19 within the whole country, and no deaths yet reported. When I left, there were over 3000 cases with over a dozen deaths.

South Korea also has cultural habits like communal meals. Sharing a spoon to eat soup out of the same bowl type of communal meals. Takes a lot of government advertising to tell people to stop doing stupid things, especially when everyone understandably considers government advertising to be inherently untrustworthy.

I feel extremely safe in Hong Kong because everyone around me is wearing surgical masks, so there is no danger of them spraying me with bodily fluid. You can buy surgical masks again if you're willing to pay profiteers' prices (and if you are delusional enough to think they will protect you from the virus). The toilet paper panic has now subsided and supermarkets are struggling to find room for their overstock, especially with everyone now having enough supply to last the rest of the year. There is a general fear that your office building or the country you just went on holiday to becomes labelled a "risk" because then you get sent to a concentration camp (a.k.a. recently completed public housing development) with no internet or TV and meals that make hospital food look like Michelin Star cuisine. Nobody quarantined there so far has actually been infected.

I've been working from home since Chinese New Year, which is great because even with having to learn a whole bunch of new software so we can keep teaching online I am saving massive amounts of time by not having my Dean and other hangers-on randomly wandering into my office and wasting my day with pointless discussion and make-work. My RPG productivity has shot up. Not looking forward to going back to campus next week - especially as students are still not coming back, but hey, according to Admin a university runs much more smoothly without all those pesky students getting underfoot. My main take-away from this is that university campuses are obsolete and we should have been doing all this online decades ago.

Covid 19 is bad in the sense of people reacting like headless chickens and causing a zombie-apocalypse without actual zombies, but hopefully it will blow over when the virus inevitably dies out. #DnD Twitter is worse because it will only mutate into an even more harmful form of social media when Twitter inevitably dies out.