This is a site for discussing roleplaying games. Have fun doing so, but there is one major rule: do not discuss political issues that aren't directly and uniquely related to the subject of the thread and about gaming. While this site is dedicated to free speech, the following will not be tolerated: devolving a thread into unrelated political discussion, sockpuppeting (using multiple and/or bogus accounts), disrupting topics without contributing to them, and posting images that could get someone fired in the workplace (an external link is OK, but clearly mark it as Not Safe For Work, or NSFW). If you receive a warning, please take it seriously and either move on to another topic or steer the discussion back to its original RPG-related theme.

Author Topic: Is #DnD Twitter Worse Than Coronavirus?  (Read 21142 times)

Shasarak

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4032
Is #DnD Twitter Worse Than Coronavirus?
« Reply #90 on: March 13, 2020, 04:24:06 PM »
Quote from: Omega;1124078
if only those did any good against real threats. There is a difference.

If there even is any real threat to begin with.
Who da Drow?  U da drow! - hedgehobbit

There will be poor always,
pathetically struggling,
look at the good things you've got! -  Jesus

Brad

  • Semper Qvantvm Potes
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3628
Is #DnD Twitter Worse Than Coronavirus?
« Reply #91 on: March 13, 2020, 04:41:29 PM »
Welp, market back up 10% after Trump gave a strong statement and had a bunch of business leaders talk instead of slimy bureaucrats.

The US will be fine, but I am starting to wonder about countries with large populations and bad healthcare like India, Nigeria, etc...
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

Mistwell

  • Smarter than Arduin
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5289
Is #DnD Twitter Worse Than Coronavirus?
« Reply #92 on: March 13, 2020, 05:23:48 PM »
A whole lot of denial going on in this thread.

That's OK, we all cope differently.

yancy

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 141
Is #DnD Twitter Worse Than Coronavirus?
« Reply #93 on: March 13, 2020, 08:10:09 PM »
Quote from: Mistwell;1124118
A whole lot of denial going on in this thread.

That's OK, we all cope differently.

Well we'll just see if that denial is still helping the deniers 'cope' in 33 days, when 100% of humanity is infected, and they didn't even bother to stock up on toilet paper.

Me, I'm stocking up on toilet paper.
Quote from: Rhedyn
if you are against this, I assume you are racist.

HappyDaze

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • H
  • Posts: 5337
Is #DnD Twitter Worse Than Coronavirus?
« Reply #94 on: March 13, 2020, 08:59:52 PM »
Quote from: yancy;1124123
Me, I'm stocking up on toilet paper.

I'm just buying stuff from Best Buy and getting all the warranties and rebates...which gives you just as much paper to wipe your ass with.

Shrieking Banshee

  • Narcissist Undead
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2507
Is #DnD Twitter Worse Than Coronavirus?
« Reply #95 on: March 13, 2020, 10:13:27 PM »
Quote from: yancy;1124123
Me, I'm stocking up on toilet paper.

Not water and canned goods or propane or fuel or medicine?
Or would eating food make your toilet paper run out faster?

The disease isn't airborne nor is it fatal in most cases. Get over yourself.

spon

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 344
Is #DnD Twitter Worse Than Coronavirus?
« Reply #96 on: March 14, 2020, 07:03:28 AM »
Quote from: Brad;1124112
Welp, market back up 10% after Trump gave a strong statement and had a bunch of business leaders talk instead of slimy bureaucrats.

The US will be fine, but I am starting to wonder about countries with large populations and bad healthcare like India, Nigeria, etc...

Hope it holds (the stock market rebound, that is), but it's been trending badly down and very volatile. Trump's comments haven't been consistently helpful either! Fingers crossed the worst of the losses have happened. On the health front, I doubt the US will be "fine". I suspect most people will be (most people get no/mild symptoms), but there will be a rush of very ill (mostly older) folks that will overwhelm the hospitals (temporarily). Although the numbers aren't settled yet (and won't be for ages), it's looking like it's 10-20 times more lethal than the flu. (Mortality 1.0-2.0% vs 0.1%). That's a lot of people requiring urgent care in ICUs and the like. It's not the EOCAWKI, but a lot of people will lose a loved one.

I cannot imagine how awful it might get in India - but apparently viruses prefer colder weather, so maybe that might mitigate the effect in warmer countries?

Panic buying of toilet paper, though. WTF? I can understand hand gel, acti-bacterial spray & face masks. But toilet Freakin' paper!!!

HappyDaze

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • H
  • Posts: 5337
Is #DnD Twitter Worse Than Coronavirus?
« Reply #97 on: March 14, 2020, 07:38:01 AM »
Quote from: spon;1124140
Panic buying of toilet paper, though. WTF? I can understand hand gel, acti-bacterial spray & face masks. But toilet Freakin' paper!!!

It's definitely a CYA approach.

Vile Traveller

  • Dreamscape Designer
  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 487
    • Dreamscape Design
Is #DnD Twitter Worse Than Coronavirus?
« Reply #98 on: March 14, 2020, 08:11:22 PM »
Quote from: spon;1124140
Hope it holds (the stock market rebound, that is), but it's been trending badly down and very volatile. Trump's comments haven't been consistently helpful either! Fingers crossed the worst of the losses have happened.
It's only a loss for people who sell. The rich are getting richer, as in any disaster.

Spinachcat

  • Toxic SocioCat
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • S
  • Posts: 14805
Is #DnD Twitter Worse Than Coronavirus?
« Reply #99 on: March 14, 2020, 08:16:01 PM »
Quote from: Luca;1124083
In Italy, we're seeing what the virus can do. If you think it's just a slightly nastier flu, you're in for one hell of a rude surprise.


The only "rude surprise" is how cowardly the Western world has become.

Italy has lost less than 1500 people. How many does Italy lose each year from the regular flu? And you have the second oldest populace in the world, aka the second most old people per capita behind Japan.

The USA death rate is an average of 36k each flu season...any nobody blinks an eye during even a bad flu year. Back in 2009, the swine flu (H1N1) killed 12k in the USA and it was barely a news story. We certainly didn't shut down the country.

And who mostly dies each year? The old and the infirm. Why? Because that's how being human works. Winter kills. That's been a maxim with humanity long before the first spoken word.


Quote from: Pat;1124091
While the chance of any particular person dying is small, the fatality rate is maybe a 100 times higher than the normal flu, so the potential death toll is very large.


Who hacked your account?  

South Korea has 7300 active cases with 1% severe. 72 dead vs 8100 total, so less than 1% fatalities.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-korea/


Quote from: SHARK;1124092
It is mind boggling how our entire country is on the edge of societal collapse. While it is always good to be prudent, the hysteria that is being pushed in this country is not good.


In the USA, over 100 people each day are killed in car accidents, but we haven't banned cars. Oh why oh why haven't we forced car makers to limit engines to a maximum of 10 miles per hour???

While the media hysteria is disgusting, what is FAR worse how the alleged "home of the brave" are shitting themselves. What happened to "Nothing to fear but fear itself"???? Oh, wait. The generations of our fathers are gone. What we have left can't walk and chew gum at the same time without someone changing their diaper. "Home of the bitches" is more like it.

My fun question is whether a terrorist organization or China weaponizes this knowledge first.

You're a historian Shark. Tell us how long a nation of cowards lasts.

GameDaddy
BANNED

  • BANNED
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2931
Is #DnD Twitter Worse Than Coronavirus?
« Reply #100 on: March 14, 2020, 08:29:43 PM »
Quote from: Spinachcat;1124174
My fun question is whether a terrorist organization or China weaponizes this knowledge first.

My bet is on the Chinese. The original outbreak was in a city Wuhan in Shenzen province, a place well known for its Bioweapons Research Laboratories. a coincidence this outbreak originated there? ... mmm well, remotely possible.

A couple things for you on this. This virus is extremely lethal for the elderly, and it seems to have a preferential target in terms of genetics. I'll let you know more as I learn more. The Chinese government and our government have been lying about the means of transmission, and have displayed a superbly poor response, not even being able to adequately test for the transmission and presence of the virus (Not entirely their fault as every single president since GW Bush Jr. has significantly cut the annual budget for the National Health Service and the Center for Disease Control, the two major american government organizations responsible for controlling the outbreak of contagions).

I'll be very happy if this is a minor blip of an outbreak, or has been over-hyped by the media, however am of the conservative opinion that we should take aggressive action to slow down or minimize the actual health impact of this virus, until we can determine the best course of action to proceed (while not counting on our government or business leaders to be truthful with this, since their credibility is very sketchy with everything else at the moment).
« Last Edit: March 14, 2020, 08:33:35 PM by GameDaddy »
Blackmoor grew from a single Castle to include, first, several adjacent Castles (with the forces of Evil lying just off the edge of the world to an entire Northern Province of the Castle and Crusade Society's Great Kingdom.

~ Dave Arneson

Pat
BANNED

  • BANNED
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • ?
  • Posts: 5252
  • Rats do 0 damage
Is #DnD Twitter Worse Than Coronavirus?
« Reply #101 on: March 14, 2020, 09:34:14 PM »
Quote from: Spinachcat;1124174
South Korea has 7300 active cases with 1% severe. 72 dead vs 8100 total, so less than 1% fatalities.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-korea/
I covered that. Read my post here: https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?41782-Is-DnD-Twitter-Worse-Than-Coronavirus&p=1124036&viewfull=1#post1124036

The WHO's official case fatality rate (CFR) is 3.6%. It's higher in some countries like Italy. South Korea is the exception, with a CFR that was 0.7%, though now it's up to 0.8%. The difference is South Korea was testing everybody, whereas the Europe and the US are being far less aggressive, and only testing people who display symptoms. We've known for months that some people are completely asyptomatic. It was estimated this latter group might account for 20% of those infected, but South Korea suggests that this number might be much larger, several multiples of those who display symptoms.

This is good, because it means the overall fatality rate is reduced by a factor of 4 or 5, but it's bad because it means there are far more people are infected than suggested in the official numbers. And all those people are spreading the disease in their communities. That's one of the reasons why estimates in the last week of the number of people infected have started to really jump. They were talking about hundreds of thousands of people already infected across the US, and some states were using much higher estimates (Ohio is estimating 100,000 in their state alone, which has relatively few confirmed cases).

These are guesses, not solid numbers. Those will never be available at the start of a pandemic. In fact, we might never know for sure. But we still have act in that realm of uncertainty. It's true we tend to normalize and trivialize regular forms of death, and public debate often focuses on trivialities instead of the real killers. But with the higher CFR, we're potentially looking at millions of fatalities in the US alone, though with the lower rate, that might slip under 1 million. Either way, those are still huge numbers, and well beyond even big killers like the 30,000 or so flu deaths per year, or 40,000 or so car accidents. It's far more than 7,000 Americans who died in 20 years of war against Iraq and Afghanistan, or the 3,000 who died in the 9/11 attacks.

It's said that the people who push for stronger action at the start of a pandemic are always dismissed as alarmists, but after the pandemic is passed the question is always why didn't we do more, and sooner.

Spinachcat

  • Toxic SocioCat
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • S
  • Posts: 14805
Is #DnD Twitter Worse Than Coronavirus?
« Reply #102 on: March 14, 2020, 10:45:20 PM »
Quote from: Pat;1124181
(Ohio is estimating 100,000 in their state alone, which has relatively few confirmed cases).

The Ohio clowns already admitted they used moron math in a "guesstimate", and Kent State's Dept of Public Health put out a 1,000 estimate instead. However, Ohio certainly did their share to promote media panic. Or maybe the governor owns stock in toilet paper?

But it's America 2020 where the New York Times's best and brightest tell us Bloomberg's $500 million ad spending could have instead given $1 million to every American...all 350 million of us!!!

Math apparently isn't our national specialty.


Quote from: Pat;1124181
These are guesses, not solid numbers. Those will never be available at the start of a pandemic. In fact, we might never know for sure. But we still have act in that realm of uncertainty.

Americans aren't acting with any rationale. They're panicking like blind mice.

Thanks entirely to a highly motivated media hype machine.


Quote from: Pat;1124181
But with the higher CFR, we're potentially looking at millions of fatalities in the US alone, though with the lower rate, that might slip under 1 million.

Millions dead? Not gonna happen. At most, we'll see the H1N1 numbers nobody cared about in 2009.

Wuhan is at the end of their infection arc, and all of China will be ending their arc soon. Even with their draconian measures, all the realities of China (overpopulation, tight living quarters, large elderly population, bad air quality, poor hygiene) didn't change during the arc so China's numbers give us a good look at a "worst case" scenario.


Quote from: Pat;1124181
It's said that the people who push for stronger action at the start of a pandemic are always dismissed as alarmists, but after the pandemic is passed the question is always why didn't we do more, and sooner.

Most people don't even remember the 2009 swine/avian flu. It had zero impact. As a nation, we didn't blink at 12,000 dead because that's just 240 per state. AKA, most Americans don't know anyone killed by H1N1, or even remember someone who got sick back then.

But now we're shitting ourselves into oblivion over 50 dead.

insubordinate polyhedral

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • i
  • Posts: 352
Is #DnD Twitter Worse Than Coronavirus?
« Reply #103 on: March 14, 2020, 10:53:37 PM »
Quote from: Pat;1124181
It's said that the people who push for stronger action at the start of a pandemic are always dismissed as alarmists, but after the pandemic is passed the question is always why didn't we do more, and sooner.

That old curse: "When you've done [pandemic prevention] right, no one will know you've done anything at all"

Pat
BANNED

  • BANNED
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • ?
  • Posts: 5252
  • Rats do 0 damage
Is #DnD Twitter Worse Than Coronavirus?
« Reply #104 on: March 14, 2020, 11:25:05 PM »
Quote from: Spinachcat;1124186
The Ohio clowns already admitted they used moron math in a "guesstimate", and Kent State's Dept of Public Health put out a 1,000 estimate instead.
The best I can say about your statement is that it's sort of vaguely related to what happened.

Of course it's a "guesstimate". That's not an "admission" or a valid criticism, it's the whole point. We have no way of knowing for sure, but we have to make projections about uncertain future event, so we can plan and take action. We don't know if she's right, but Dr. Acton provided her methodology, and it's reasonably sound. And the second number wasn't from some "Department of Public Health", which implies an authoritative governmental source. A random professor from Kent State said she thinks the number might be too high, though her actual statement was "at least" 1,000 cases. She provided no methodology, though it is in her general field of expertise (she's a professor at their College of Public Health). For what it's worth, the "hundreds of thousands" from the federal government (across the US as a whole) falls in between those two estimates.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1124186
Millions dead? Not gonna happen. At most, we'll see the H1N1 numbers nobody cared about in 2009.

Wuhan is at the end of their infection arc, and all of China will be ending their arc soon. Even with their draconian measures, all the realities of China (overpopulation, tight living quarters, large elderly population, bad air quality, poor hygiene) didn't change during the arc so China's numbers give us a good look at a "worst case" scenario.
China isolated all cases and ended up containing it one region (all new cases outside the province have been "backflow" from other nations), and they did by locking down entire cities, imposing strong social isolation rules, performing city-wide disinfection, and bringing in massive amounts of advanced medical aid, including setting up temporary hospitals. Aside from the slow start, it was close to the best possible conditions, not a worse case scenario.

I hope this does turn out to be fairly minor, but none of that's happened in the West, and doesn't seem too likely. Instead of being contained, we're seeing widespread community infection in Europe and the US, which suggests its spreading unchecked through the general population.