8 minutes ago, Alan_A said:

@eaim - It's a really tough balance to strike.  People need to be informed so they can take steps to protect themselves.  Shutting down information makes things worse, as we've seen in some of the international responses, especially in the early stages.  But you're right, that carries with it the risk of panic and other forms of bad behavior.  Which is why, in the short term, we're probably all going to have to have some kind of enforcement - quotas on buying goods, possibly curfews.  It's not the way any of us wants to live.  But on the other hand, we do want to live... so...

 

I wasn't talking about shutting information down, just the wall to wall news coverage is bad, I know I can't turn back time, but the news media was probably better when we only had 4 or 5 news slots per day, you got the information through to the population, without the hype.

Just now, eaim said:

I wasn't talking about shutting information down, just the wall to wall news coverage is bad, I know I can't turn back time, but the news media was probably better when we only had 4 or 5 news slots per day, you got the information through to the population, without the hype.

Oh, I'll give you that.  All news, all the time is a problem, not a help.  Same might be said of social media - probably doing more harm than good. 

Less gasoline on the fire would definitely be a good thing.

2 minutes ago, Alan_A said:

All news, all the time is a problem, not a help.

As much as it's understandable and important that the news are full of the virus, I'm honestly starting to feel relieved and refreshed whenever I stumble across some news not related to the virus.

3 minutes ago, threegreen said:

As much as it's understandable and important that the news are full of the virus, I'm honestly starting to feel relieved and refreshed whenever I stumble across some news not related to the virus.

With you on that.  I'm a news junkie - I come from newspaper stock, so it's in the blood.  But I'm having to ration my intake.

It really hurts not to have sports at the moment.

I like everyone else here I'm sure cannot wait until FS2020 is released. However the priority has to be people's health and wellbeing.

The Imperial college covid 19 team (the group who advise the UK Government) have come out tonight with some pretty frightening stats. They are now predicting a best case scenario of 250,000 deaths in the UK, and that 30% of hospitalised people will require critical care - half of those will die.

 

I can wait for this flight sim

Edited March 16, 20206 yr by hanhamreds

@Noodle

When we have this event behind us, we are all smarter, I think! The world is witnessing this pandemic for the first time in almost real time! Future pandemics may be better assessed through the experience and data that are now gathered! That's why I think we should give ourselves the chance to make mistakes now than the next time when it may be even tougher!

1 minute ago, Andiroto said:

@Noodle

When we have this event behind us, we are all smarter, I think! The world is witnessing this pandemic for the first time in almost real time! Future pandemics may be better assessed through the experience and data that are now gathered! That's why I think we should give ourselves the chance to make mistakes now than the next time when it may be even tougher!

Unfortunately, we did see this coming.  We knew everything we needed to know.  But we chose to sit around with parts of our anatomy stuck into other parts of our anatomy.

Read this abstract.  Then note the date: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16216644

@Alan_A

I think it's mainly related to the fact that much of the world never really experienced such a pandemic at the time! When the SARS pandemic raged in 2003, I personally had no internet and had relatively little to no notice of this event! The same was true for my environment! Let us assume that the networking of the Internet at that time was as it is today, I believe, that SARS actually had a similar course and scope to that of the Corona Virus today!

@Andiroto - True! SARS didn't touch most of us - partly because it was so deadly that it burned through really fast and didn't spread widely.  And partly, as you say, because there wasn't the internet and social media to spread the word (and the misinformation, and the panic).

The social media impact is definitely worth studying - and it's going to be.

My only point was, purely from the standpoint of controlling pandemics, we knew what we needed to know.  We just didn't bother to do anything with it.

Oh boy.

Edited March 17, 20206 yr by HiFlyer

ok...thanks for the laugh HiFlyer.

but my thought is that this virus will probably lighten up a bit during the summer and that may cause the "you're overreacting" crowd to say "see, I told you it wouldnt be that bad" but then it will come back three times as bad this Fall.

my mom, who I help take care of (she takes care of herself a lot), yesterday stated that if she gets sick, she doesnt want to be taken to a hospital.  I have to talk more to her about that.

 

Edited March 17, 20206 yr by sightseer

On 2/25/2020 at 3:49 AM, Beardyman said:

One of the way to fight against pandemic disease is to prevent panic and stop spreading fear

In other words, Turn Off CNN.

6 minutes ago, Greazer said:

In other words, Turn Off CNN.

Or bury your head in the sand!

13 minutes ago, charliearon said:

Or bury your head in the sand!

There's nothing wrong with keeping informed, people can stay informed without watching news channels 24/7.