Damn Coronavirus!

[Garn]

Damn this stupid coronavirus! I was scheduled to come out to Orlando the first week of April for a work conference. I was staying two extra days so I could get some coaching from Matt Rini. I just received an email that the conference has been cancelled because of the coronavirus scare. I am pissed!! Personally I think this is being blown way out of proportion. Now it is affecting my ski plans!

[LoopSki]

no conference means more time to ski !

[thager]

Don't tell wife! Just go!!!!

[skialex]

@Garn yes Damn coronavirus! I have plans too, I hope it will not affect my plans.

I have booked a long week at the Boarding School in mid March, first in 12 years. So far here in Greece we only have 7 people affected, no death and it has been contained pretty well (same number for the past few days).

This is a dream skiing trip for me.

Hope nothing will change dramatically in the next 10 days that would put businesses and flights to a halt.

[MickeyThompson]

@Garn at lest it’s only affected your ski plans instead of the death of a family member.

[6balls]

No one talks about the thousands and thousands who die from influenza EVERY SINGLE YEAR. No headlines, no scare, no panic, no stock market crash.

 

Not changing any plans I may have, due to panic...I hope that it doesn't prevent me from travel due to airlines etc. As for the market...this too shall pass. Might be a buying opportunity.

[aupatking]

@skialex let me know when you’re going to be at the boarding. I’m going to be down there taking my daughter to Disney World. I will probably only get 1 morning to ski, maybe an afternoon if i’m lucky. I’ve already talked with the Fred and he’ll be there, barring any travel shutdowns coming from Australia. That guy has never had problems with travel to Australia, right?

[Than_Bogan]

I am not aware of any situation in which panic is a useful response.

 

Nevertheless, I claim it is a good idea to take very seriously a virus that (so far!) has a truly extraordinary mortality rate and a long gestation period. That's the key combination that can allow a disease to do some serious damage.

 

Panic: No. React: Yes.

[The_MS]

Just another in a long list of a dangerous Fake News fueled hoax. The Corona is real and needs attention but the way the media has pushed the narrative is disgusting and very dangerous.

[2Valve]

Leaving for the Caribbean on Friday. If they pass out masks when boarding the ship, I'm gonna bail.

[skihacker]

I'm on a ship in the Caribbean right now, no masks, a few questions regarding recent travel and health during boarding but that's it. We're having a blast and honestly not worried,

[2Valve]

@skihacker good to know.

[rfa]

@The_MS, You say "The Corona is real and needs attention". Just trying to understand, what is the "hoax"?

@6balls, isn't it the same reason why "No one talks about" 30,000 yearly car deaths, but 24/7 coverage when 200 people die in a plane crash? I like your personal response to the situation, but it doesn't reflect how society reacts to the unknown and uncommon.

 

[The_MS]

@rfa the “hoax” is the media filling us full of mistruths. The scariest thing about Corona is the fact that lots of people who don’t think it is serious due to the recent history of the media failures and lies.

 

[Keith_Menard]

I own and operate motorcoaches...I just lost out on $25k of work because the seafood convention in Boston cancelled. That sucks for me...but I also now have a whole bunch of drivers with no work.

 

Maybe I should take that flight down there while we are slow :)

[MattP]

We had 2 upcoming conventions/shows canceled this week. I'm sure there will be more to come...

[ForrestGump]

I was supposed to spend 22 of the next 30 days in Vietnam and Malta on business starting this friday. Cancelled! I have a meeting that 18 people from around the world are coming to next month, that I don't know if it will happen now. The Italian has already backed out due to the travel restrictions.

[HSL]

I was working in and traveling throughout Asia in the early 2000's. The SARS outbreak was during my stint in Asia. The frenzy caused by SARS and the fear people had about the virus was simply incredible. The problem was exacerbated by the PRC's failed effort to control media coverage for months after the problem developed within the PRC -- leading to high levels of uncertainty and distrust about about SARS related morbidity and mortality reports. On one occasion, upon arrival at the airport in Manila, I found myself in a huge line of arriving international passengers (maybe 20 lines with 75-100 in each line). Everyone was getting assessed for symptoms with temps taking before allowed entry. While in line, this poor young woman coughed, maybe twice. What followed was a mad panic with military personnel running in to grab this woman while everyone in line starting running and tripping over each other trying to get as far as they could from her. It was totally insane.

[dthate]

I quit drinking mexican beer, turns out could be very dangerous.....

[The_MS]

@dthate Exactly

[thager]

@ForrestGump Thanks for not going to Vietnam. That war is supposed to be over!

[aupatking]

I’m SO HOPING my convention in St Louis in May gets cancelled. That’s 4 days of my life I won’t be able to replace. If the fear and hysteria will just last 2 more months.

The fear should be reserved for the people who understand genetic mutation of a virus. The rest of us, it’s just a fear of the unknown that is selling in our “ratings week” tv industry. Even from the numbers published so far from reputable sources (not China), the mortality rate is lower than flu.

[chris55]

If you want to know the numbers.....John Hopkins University

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

[Than_Bogan]

@aupatking At the risk of veering way off the skiing topic, where are you seeing lower mortality rate than flu? Everything that I can find suggests a MUCH high mortality rate than flu. Of course, this can be misleading in the early days, because a new type of sickness initially picks off the least healthy. But misleading is one thing, whereas you appear to be saying you've seen credible numbers that it has a lower mortality than the flu. If that is true, then it significantly changes my understanding of the situation.

[liquid d]

It's a much higher mortality rate...approaching 3%. The mortality rate for flu is about 1/10 of 1%. It's just that tons more people catch the regular flu each year.

 

It Corona spreads to as many people as normally catch the flu...holy crap. That's the worry.

[UWSkier]

WHO said yesterday the mortality rate is around 3.4%. That's pretty high compared to the flu which is around .1%

 

Vast majority of those folks are immunocompromised already though.

[unksskis]

They don't yet know what they don't know on this virus, I wouldn't brush it aside as just another flu or virus. Took them a while to realize the impact Zika had on pregnancies and the offspring of those infected.

[6balls]

@rfa exactly. Sensationalized is every small, general aviation accident that takes two lives of the pilot and a passenger...but do we care about motor vehicle accidents that take countless lives daily? I happen to fly a four seater...and I drive cars, too :smile:

 

Do we care about an ANNUAL influenza virus that kills thousands upon thousands in the U.S. alone ANNUALLY? Apparently we don't. I happen to be a physician.

 

My point is that this is disproportionate panic if we are not in panic about influenza each year simply because it occurs every year.

 

What if each year during the influenza season we shut down the domestic travel industry and the international business industry? How about the recreational travel industry? Close schools?

 

Not saying I'm right, this is just a thought experiment.

 

I'm curious to see the actual US impact--meaning the impact given our healthcare system. I was trained to donn a hazmat style suit with respirator when the panic was Ebola---never put it on and no one in the US died of Ebola. SARS also came and went with a whisper in the US. Swine flu? Whisper.

 

Corona-virus may be different, we will soon know. I hope it turns out no worse than flu season...though that in itself is an annual tragedy uncovered by the media.

 

OK this is a ski site: masterline pro-locks are cool, radar skis rock, stokes wetsuits and vests are the bomb, the bubble butt Nautique rules, my dad is bigger than your dad and all that stuff...

 

 

[Horton]

I do my best to avoid drinking Corona

[aupatking]

I stand corrected. The rate is higher. 3.4% of reported cases seems pretty significant. Numbers alone are difficult, but flu is often under reported, which would reasonably skew the numbers even lower.

[Bongo]

Reasons for significantly heightened concern:

1. It has been named; COVID-19 or Coronavirus

2. It originated from an exotic place most of us never had on our radar; Wuhan, China

...which leads to endless media coverage, but on opinions of the concern and not fact-based or medical experts.

 

My laymans understanding: More contagious than seasonal influenza but not quite as contagious as the common cold. About as severe as a tough strain of influenza.

 

Remember H1N1? Avian flu a year or two earlier?

 

With a nod to @6balls, what condition caused over 32 million illnesses and over 18,000 deaths over the past 12 months in the US? That's the low end of the flu estimates from the CDC.

[eleeski]

Corona beer is the only vaccine available currently. It tastes like - medicine - even. The lime you must add to make it palatable has vitamin C. Proven efficacy.

 

Of course if you take too much of the Corona medicine, you will get the "Corona flu". Won't kill you but...

 

Eric

[MillerTime38]

I am currently living just outside of Tokyo, it’s crazy over here, entire cities are cancelling public events and trying to restrict any large gatherings. All the schools in the country have closed until the second week of April. Last I checked there was 250 cases here, considering a population of 125 million that is 2 people per million. Yesterday on the train i was the only person not wearing a mask, they were probably thinking stupid American ??‍♂️

 

The dangerous part of it is that you could be infected but not show any symptoms, so it doesn’t put you in any danger but people surrounding you could be at risk.

[jcamp]

Yeah, that darn media needlessly stoking fear and spreading false information.

[The_MS]

Human Petri dishes is right. If it were me it would be a full contact body condom.

[teammalibu]

@MillerTime38 don’t think the were the first people to look at you and think that! Miss you bro!

[MichaelWiebe]

 

[Wish]

 

[BraceMaker]

@MichaelWiebe those sorts of memes are quite misguided. Fatalities due to viruses expand as a percentage of those infected. Typical flu is less than 1% fatality rate. Indications for this sound like possibly 2 to 4% with uncertainty largely due to where the data comes from and no real good way to screen for how many persons are actually infected with few to no symptoms.

 

So yes relax and wash your hands be cautious etc. but to correlate I to other causes of death is silly all those people still die but then these people also additionally die. Consider that what kills many of the people in these categories are other illnesses like pneumonia after getting a virus. So you can just double your deaths due to cancer because what kills them isn't always cancerous cells... Can be the sneeze of some kid who was on vacation last week.

[eleeski]

@BraceMaker Due to the virus's high mortality rate in older people, @MichaelWiebe 's input has validity. People that the virus kills are typically older people with underlying issues - exactly the people dying from the other causes. While their lives are cut short, the virus does not seem to strike to take away a bright long future. The virus doesn't really directly add much to the overall total.

 

My healthy 94 year old mom is at risk from this virus. Even if she survives this scare, something is likely to get her before the next decade. (Of course, when we bought her new car last year, the dealer said "see you in 10 years!" )

 

My son might be at more risk from the reaction to the threat. He works for Universal Studios in Japan. But they closed. At a time of high productivity in his life, he's stalled. Very few his age get seriously ill from the disease.

 

Japan has the oldest population in the world. So the government level of concern perhaps should be more cautious with this disease.

 

This is a complex problem with many reasonable options. Time will determine which actions are optimal.

 

In the meantime, I'm going to live and enjoy my life - realizing that there are lots of risks to manage. No one gets out of life alive.

 

Eric

[skialex]

They say that of the 100.000 recorded, 3.000 died. This is 3%, but also estimate that for the 100.000 there are 10 times that number of people with light or no symptoms that have/had the virus that didn’t seek medical attention and never been recovered.

Still the impact globally is very big.

[EFW]

I'm just curious - but does anyone remember from school reading about the 1917 Spanish flu epidemic? I think it was 675,000 dead in the US and worldwide the estimate was 40 million to 50 million. How much smaller was our population then in the US? I don't even think I've heard this mentioned at all with all this hysteria in the news about this daily. Could you imagine what the news would do today with a epidemic with those type of proportions.

[BraceMaker]

@EFW - yup the so called "spanish flu" - of importance, it was called the spanish flu because Spain was accurately reporting the spread and deaths where as most of the rest of the world was suppressing figures due to the war effort and moral amongst troops. Whereas one of the theories that is well regarded is that this flu may have started in US military camps.

 

There are parallels for sure - in the spanish flu world travel was largely due to the troop movements for the war, tight quarters, global food shortages etc. But something strikingly different was that the H1N1 flu disproportionately killed young healthy people.

 

[rawly]

Not too concerned , the big orange guy in his big White House has a hunch that this is nothing. Makes me feel a lot safer ?.

[liquid d]

Run to your safe place demwit.

[ejj]

I was hoping that BoS could avoid politicizing the pandemic, but alas, nothing is safe these days.

[MuskokaKy]

Political talk on here will wake horton mid sleep...be careful :)

[Mateo_Vargas]

What is the recommended rope length that will put a skier at a safe distance from catching the Corona virus from the boat?

[thager]

Just wear Corona Screen and you'll be fine!

[mfjaegersr]

@Mateo_Vargas "Zero...Off..." ?!?