I don't know if anything is wrong with my health...but I'll take a chance with getting back to normal. As for "chronic" I'd say "acute" underlying illness seems to be the issue with covid19.

No, chronic.

No,acute...otherwise they'd be millions dead in the UK alone...

No,acute...otherwise they'd be millions dead in the UK alone...

But only 220,000 people have been tested positive in the UK. Maybe if there were 50,000,000 infected there might be a million dead, but we're not there yet. The infection rate in the UK has been about 3,500 per day, it's not dropping, even in lockdown. As soon as the lockdown is relaxed that number will start to grow, in hotspots it will grow really fast.
Do you know that the experts told Johnson on 23rd of March that unless he locks the country down immediately there could be 500,000 deaths. Then suddenly he changed the policy and locked the country down the same day. Thank God he did, otherwise we would be at about 500,000 deaths by now. Along with economic chaos, social unrest and food shortages.

Aye. I'm hoping that in the wake of it wage repression stops. I'm also hoping that the demand shock prompts that. But I don't think it will happen much.

It's likely to be another huge covert wealth transfer and another run through of the austerity/defecit bollocks; now that the bailouts are on the public balance sheet as debt by fiat of accounting. — fdrake

Well, think about it positively: If we have a serious economic depression, the likely outcome is that income inequality decreases for a short while.

No,acute...otherwise they'd be millions dead in the UK alone... — Chester

COVID19 is an acute infection. Diabetes is a chronic condition that renders one more likely to die of COVID19.

This disease is dangerous for some of those that get it...but it's hardly the black death.This lock down looks like a massive over reaction, Sweden seems to indicate that. — Chester

You do realize that the reason why the death toll remains so low is that the distancing measures have curbed the spread of the disease, don't you?

:lol: Another candidate for the Presidential Medal of Freedumb.

The move towards lifting the lockdown, even partially, proves, beyond doubt, that money is more important than life. Perhaps people would rather die with a full belly than perish from starvation.

Perhaps people would rather die with a full belly than perish from starvation. — TheMadFool

Except that food production and distribution has not shut down. Millions of people are dying around the world from a lack of foreign holidays, football deprivation, and amateur haircuts. Not. What one ought to learn from this crisis is how extraordinarily trivial most economic activity is. That the economy can shrink by a staggering amount without doing more than oblige people to change their habits a little. That if most people never work again, it really doesn't matter much as long as we can still feed and look after them, which is a matter of will and organisation, not of economic luxury.

Seeing all kinds of news about places opening up today and the Bundesliga has restarted: https://www.bbc.com/sport/live/football/52637204

News just in. The people down the road, that have the children Mrs un used to tutor, and who rushed up to hug her a couple of weeks ago, have tested positive for covid. So this increases the probability that the bug we have been suffering from the last couple of days is also covid. We don't merit a test because we are not care-workers, merely old biddies, and the contact tracers have unaccountably not contacted us. Meanwhile the government thinks children are 'probably' not big vectors of the spread because otherwise it would damage the economy. I will probably not be giving daily briefings on the situation in the street because you probably don't care very much.

I hope you don't have it and if you do that it is mild. If you do need to contact the authorities you have to sharpen your elbows, I have heard stories of people with symptoms being ignored by Covid doctors until the symptoms are severe. Or people having to beg to be taken into hospital.

The move towards lifting the lockdown, even partially, proves, beyond doubt, that money is more important than life. Perhaps people would rather die with a full belly than perish from starvation.

I think that people would rather face life on their own terms than on the whim of some politician and state health official.

I think that people would rather face life on their own terms than on the whim of some politician and state health official. — NOS4A2

Let me translate:

"I think science-denying schmuck-faces should be set free to spread pestilence in our nation and our top health experts should be ignored."

You're a child.

Translated by a moron. Just perfect.

I think that people would rather face life on their own terms than on the whim of some politician and state health official — NOS4A2

Neil deGrasse Tyson: "Notice that every sci-fi horror flick begins with people ignoring scientists"

That's because scientists in horror movies are insane.

Neil deGrasse Tyson: "Notice that every sci-fi horror flick begins with people ignoring scientists"

It’s fiction for a reason.

That's because scientists in horror movies are insane. — frank

Doesn't that still mean scientists were/are right.

It’s fiction for a reason. — NOS4A2

No other plot device would be more convincing.

Doesn't that still mean scientists were/are right. — TheMadFool

Every generation of scientists does the best it can. Degrasse would do well to be satisfied with that.

Every generation of scientists does the best it can. Degrasse would do well to be satisfied with that. — frank

Hand washing was advocated as a highly effective preventive measure against infection in 1847 (173 years ago) by Ignaz Simmelweisz (1818 - 1865). Simple hygiene rules discovered and advocated nearly two centuries ago were ignored and broken. Result: coronavirus pandemic, 180,000 dead and counting.

I think Jews advocated washing up to the elbows when Noah's dog was a pup.

I think Jews advocated washing up to the elbows when Noah's dog was a pup — frank

Coincidences do occur.

I suppose. But if the Chinese guy who gutted that penguin had washed up to the elbows afterwards, we would all be bitching about something else.

I suppose. But if the Chinese guy who gutted that penguin had washed up to the elbows afterwards, we would all be bitching about something else — frank

I might want to start a thread on this. Thanks for reminding me.

@frank has a medical qualification and is working in a hospital treating covid patients. If he says chronic, it's probably chronic.

I think we can start to forecast what is going to happen:

- The Trump administration has no strategy to tackle the pandemic other than it will refrain to the most bizarre wishful thinking (an miracle drug is just around the corner) and will continue to disrupt any kind of actions taken against the virus on the national level (one example the watering down of the CDC guidelines) because the President fears "it will look bad" and hurt him in the elections. What this means is that Trump has utterly incapacitated the federal government of any coherent leadership or action on the issue.

- The incapacitation of federal leadership and guidelines will assure that NOTHING will be prepared in the time now for the future and every response taken will be performed at a substandard level compared to other OECD countries.

- The majority of Americans will draw the correct conclusions from this and if possible, will stay home and continue social distancing. A minority won't and this will keep the pandemic strong.

- The above likely assures that the pandemic won't just fade away and this assures an economic depression in the US. No V-shaped or U-shaped recovery.

- The economic depression in the US will guarantee a global economic depression. Even in the countries that have successfully contained the pandemic will suffer from this.

- As the US has already basically lost it's leadership position in the world thanks to Trump, it will also lose it's clout in fighting pandemics and in the health care sector as everybody now understands how US institutions like the CDC or NIH are totally open to the whims and delusions of totally ignorant ideological politicians.

At least that's what I think. Counterarguments?