LukeS7
Well-Known Member
There are going to be the 2 cycles that make this particularly bad for the US:
1. Person gets sick, infection is discovered
2. Self-quarantine is issued
3. Self-quarantine is violated, either due to the need to work to cover medical expenses or due to the person not wanting to inconvenience themselves (we've already seen this with a patient in New Hampshire)
4. Infection spreads, rinse-and-repeat
1. Person gets sick, does not see doctor either due to high costs or lack of PTO (or even any time off at all)
2. Person goes about their life as usual
3. Infection spreads, rinse-and-repeat
We're also not equipped to really handle measures that other countries have taken. If public transit gets shutdown, there would be massive issues. If schools shutdown, people may not be able to skip work to care for their children and/or can't afford childcare even if they do go to work.
Couple that with the distrust in information being provided by actual health officials and we're woefully unequipped to handle something like this. I get that many people will not be affected severely by it, but you can still aid in the spread of it to those who will be. Taking the 2% mortality rate at face value, that's 6 million+ Americans potentially dead from this if we see it become widespread. I'm not saying we should panic, but at the same time we should also not treat this as "oh, it's nothing" or "oh, it won't affect me" instead of viewing the impact this could have on our communities as a whole.
1. Person gets sick, infection is discovered
2. Self-quarantine is issued
3. Self-quarantine is violated, either due to the need to work to cover medical expenses or due to the person not wanting to inconvenience themselves (we've already seen this with a patient in New Hampshire)
4. Infection spreads, rinse-and-repeat
1. Person gets sick, does not see doctor either due to high costs or lack of PTO (or even any time off at all)
2. Person goes about their life as usual
3. Infection spreads, rinse-and-repeat
We're also not equipped to really handle measures that other countries have taken. If public transit gets shutdown, there would be massive issues. If schools shutdown, people may not be able to skip work to care for their children and/or can't afford childcare even if they do go to work.
Couple that with the distrust in information being provided by actual health officials and we're woefully unequipped to handle something like this. I get that many people will not be affected severely by it, but you can still aid in the spread of it to those who will be. Taking the 2% mortality rate at face value, that's 6 million+ Americans potentially dead from this if we see it become widespread. I'm not saying we should panic, but at the same time we should also not treat this as "oh, it's nothing" or "oh, it won't affect me" instead of viewing the impact this could have on our communities as a whole.
. One trip we all got ill 3 days into trip, airplane germs, and stayed in our hotel room ordering room service until our fevers broke and we were feeling better. Thank GOD it was my only extended trip of 10 days so all in all I did not miss the majority of what I wanted to do...but sure we passed on some germs before we KNEW we were sick..... 
