Panic/Don't Panic

Some good perspectives on the pandemic from NeoNeo, in an open-comments session. In the don't-panic line:
I’ve been watching this topic for the last several weeks. There’s still very little known and some of what is known is suspect. Just on general principles, I don’t believe the Chinese numbers, and I really would not be at all surprised if various Western nations are holding back information – it’s already clear how incredibly stupid people are when stampeding in panic.
It’s been my stance from the beginning – once it was clear that direct human-to-human transmission was possible, and apparently fairly easy (eg, the Webasto case in Germany) – that the actual number of people who have been exposed to the virus is vastly higher than numbers indicate. You can reasonably assume at this point that virtually all of the millions of people in the densely populated Chinese cities initially hit have been exposed. (You can also assume that every person on the Diamond Princess was exposed.) If they actually are counting deaths in the low thousands, it means it’s really not much more deadly than seasonal flus which kill tens of millions every year anyway.
Logically, you cannot have a virus which is on one hand easily transmissible and on the other hand, not rampant in a closely packed urban setting. Thus all of the original counts are skewed sharply toward people sick enough to seek medical care, omitting huge numbers of people who aren’t and never were. It is not reasonably possible anywhere to test every one of millions of asymptomatic people, or people who have minor cold/flu symptoms during cold/flu season. It’s not as if the normal cold/flu viruses politely took the season off so this new virus could have the stage to itself.
The latter is the second thing I wonder about. Since everyone is obsessed with testing for a new virus, are they assuming every sick person who tests positive for this coronavirus can only be sick because of it, not because of other viruses in circulation? It’s been hard to get an answer to that, as in, “We tested for the flu A, B and C variants that are common this season in our area, and got a negative result, and then we tested for COVID-19.”
Since so much is unknown, the situation has to be watched with caution. There’s ample evidence that older people and those already ill need to be particularly cautious; what we’ve seen so far suggests that COVID-19 is more likely to kill in that group, vs the young and healthy, as was the case with the 1918 Spanish flu. But after saying that, I do think coverage so far has been needlessly over-the-top and hysterical.
On the other hand, preparing for panic itself is not a bad idea, because believing something is irrational is not at all the same as believing people aren't likely to act that way:
It’s a bit like the point I made earlier about panic buying. You might be all reasonable and superior intellectually and *not* panic buy because that after all is the unreasonable herd doing what the herd does. But that attitude won’t feed your children after the herd has stripped the shelves. The Reasonable Thing to do is get in there and get shelf-stripping yourself Stat. (Or prepare in advance of the Herd).
* * *
For all your Reason, humans are mimetic apes. You work with that… or you get nowhere.
And:
Stock up on basic essential supplies. We have no idea how fragile our logistics and other systems are until it’s too late. Is all very well to laugh at panic buyers… But if said panic buyers stripped the shelves and you can’t eat, well where’s your intellectual and moral superiority then?
Make contingency plans for relatives who need regular medical care: Things like outpatient chemotherapy, dialysis, insulin supplies. I am pretty damn sure that a lot of people died in China because [they] could not get to their dialysis sessions because their block was quarantined and/or the hospital they usually went to was chaotically overloaded with Coronavirus cases.
I hope it turns out to be a fizzer. But even a fizzer can be the straw that broke the systemic over-complexity camel’s back. A little preparation is a good thing. Official pronouncements will aim to avoid mass panic. This is good too. But it also means that official pronouncements *could* be understating the problem. So be smart and make some simple preparations.

30 comments:

  1. Ymar Sakar7:51 AM

    Pluto in capricorn means the end of world governments.

    All is going as planned from the divine counsel
    Finally.

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  2. Thanks for this - it echoes what I was trying to explain to someone yesterday. I've made a long (but not panicked :+) grocery list. I figured I'll want to stock up for hurricane season anyhow so I may as well do it a little early.

    I was goaded into action by someone on Twitter saying, essentially: If this turns out to be not a big deal and you stocked up, you got some extra stuff to eat. If this turns out to be a big deal and you didn't stock up, you're completely unprepared and in deep Adidas.

    Oh, and I put cold/flu OTC meds on the list, too. It turns out almost all of ours have expired - which is nice since it means we haven't been really sick in a while. :+)

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  3. raven3:36 PM

    This is quite likely to snowball into "here today, gone tomorrow" vis-s-vis supplies- the tip of the US iceberg was showing at costco and Fred Meyer- hand sanitizer on huge pallets stacked right inside the main door, TP and bottled water prominently displayed, double the amount of rice and beans stacked up, a few patrons wearing masks. By this time next week, supplies may be getting short- also, besides water, food and shelter, if a quarantine goes into effect, it is going to be really nice to have some hobby supplies on hand so one does not go bonkers sitting around.

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  4. My wife did her shopping a month ago. That's when I learned about N95 masks; you may remember the post here.

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  5. Huh- was that an inadvertently put up draft? It's not there now?

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  6. No, right here:

    https://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2020/01/masks-selling-out.html

    It was just about a month ago today.

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  7. Looking for entertainment while avoiding other people? I saw someone recommend the movie Contagion (2011) as appropriate (scare ourselves half to death) viewing. I haven't seen it but I'm going to.

    I recommend John Ringo's The Last Centurion - discusses supply chains and disease spreads and it's a lot of fun to read.

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  8. For the outcomes of a technology-dependent society dealing with the complete failure of its infrastructure, I recommend William Forstchen's trilogy One Second After, One Year After, and The Final Day.

    Eric Hines

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  9. I thoroughly enjoyed The Last Centurion, and I've just ordered some jigsaw puzzles. I may stock up on a few things, as if planning for a hurricane.

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  10. I think I started One Second After (although it's possible I have it confused with a different book) and it reminded me so strongly of Pat Frank's excellent Alas, Babylon that I dropped the former and re-read the latter. I'll have to try Forstchen again and see if it is the book I'm thinking of.

    Luckily, my husband and I have given each other jigsaw puzzles as gifts recently. And we have lots of crossword puzzle books.

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  11. I liked "Alas, Babylon." There are a bunch of John Ringo series, some of which I liked better than others. I enjoyed the Hot Gate series, good technical science fiction.

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  12. It's funny - I really, really like The Last Centurion but I've never read anything else by Ringo. It's like Rumor Godden - In This House of Brede is one of my all-time favorite books but I've never read anything else by her. Maybe I figure other books by these authors can only be worse. :+)

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  13. And to follow up on where I started...

    My husband took my list (I have a miserable cold) and shopped. The only thing he had trouble finding was hand sanitizer - none at our local WalMart but Publix had it. A friend blames the shortage on Mardi Gras; he says parents probably bought it by the case to wipe down their kids after the parades.

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  14. Ymar Sakar9:33 PM

    I was mostly stocked up for the apocalypse 10 years ago.

    I finished gearing up. If or when power goes out for 3 weeks in freezing temps.. i got mine.

    As for zombies... amis already elected em to usa power. Not my problem.

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  15. Ymar Sakar9:39 PM

    I got quartz, amethyst, geode for feet grounding, tourmaline, obsidian, septarian, germ fighter blend better than hand sanitizers.

    And my all useful oil, peppermint.

    Reading the only planet of choice. Wonder why the counsel set that need to know so late. Read most of law of one. David wilcock s voice from the sixth density felt true as verified by source

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  16. raven9:41 PM

    If this really takes a turn for the worse, post apocalyptic fiction is going to be low on my personal reading list. It's fun, when it's not actually happening. Like reading about burn care VS having to de-bride your skin.

    I am still having cognitive dissonance trying to align massive international spread and government response like canceling the Haj and locking down huge populations, with a reassuring "only a few people will show symptoms and a few of them will get sick enough to die, so it's no worse than the flu". I am inclined to believe what people do, and not what they say.

    No shortage of things to do if in quarantine in the home- clean the shower, paint the walls, oil the woodwork, start taking on line courses at Hillsdale, play the guitar, make some cool stuff on the lathe and mill and read some good books. Assuming social order holds. The side menu worries me more than the main course.

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  17. After reading one of Trent Telko's posts at ChicagoBoyz I think a lot of the lockdown reaction is a mistaken idea that somehow COVID19 can be contained and sone areas kept uninfected. The evidence is that it's far too contagious for that to be realistic. I think people are making too much of the general overreaction. It's not happening because those governments know more but probably because they are less confident in being able to respond.

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  18. Eric Blair10:19 PM

    People, you are scaring yourselves. Did the country stop in 1918? 675,000 people died then in the winter of 1918-1919. The country didn't stop. I do not think it even slowed down. It wasn't the apocalypse. Not even close.

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  19. I doubt an airborne virus can be contained, but it would help if it could be slowed down enough that not too many people come down with the severe form all at once.

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  20. Eric Blair10:42 PM

    Oh. And if this article is correct, the aspirin regimen prescribed in 1918 actually killed the patients.

    https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/49/9/1405/301441

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  21. There is a pretty good jigsaw puzzle setup online: https://www.jigidi.com/

    Other, less apocalyptic, books, include CJ Cherry's Foreigner series and her Alliance-Union universe. I also liked David Brin's Uplift series. Lots of books to while away the time--all two weeks of it, if we're really to self-quarantine.

    But I'm with Eric Blair: it's a minor flu/bad cold epidemic. The only ones with any risk worth worrying about--and they do need help--are those nations without access to even mid-20th century medical help, which includes the PRC. Others who don't have the access, like rural folks in the US, are unlikely to be exposed.

    Eric Hines

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  22. Huh- was that an inadvertently put up draft? It's not there now?

    Blogger Grim said...
    No, right here:

    https://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2020/01/masks-selling-out.html

    It was just about a month ago today.


    Sorry, I was unclear- I was referring to the link to Neo in the post- apparently that was the case, but she's posted part one of two today.

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  23. Ymar Sakar6:00 AM

    Recent sauce. If wh bio weapon is just to infect, then secondary trigger is the 5g.
    The latter produces thr fatalities.

    Then people will need tinfoil, orgone, and metal grounding anti emf for house.

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  24. Douglas, I didn't realize you were addressing that question to me! My link was to a stub of an article at Neo, but the quotations were from the open-thread comments, not the post itself.

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  25. Ymar Sakar8:49 AM

    I did write that cabal is in panic mode and going to farm some last ditch loosh from human livestock.

    They are trapped. They refuges known and locked down. Some of them use this fear as power source. Others want to take this realm down with them.

    Consider, if cabal was behind the fatalities in china but not the release. They plant evidence that you americans did it. And china launches retalatiation strikes.

    Hha welcome to ymar s world. Not so unthinkable now.

    The alliance using suborning the media in spreading fear. Many think this will impose self quarantine on usa, which is faster than who cdc quarantines.

    The alliance is not afraidnofnsome cheap china man engineered whatever bio wweapon.

    Thry know the cabal will make use of it. Due to national security, the deep state does not inform your president of everything.

    As for why he is not my president and america is not my nation... that has nothing to do with politics. You may take it as granted my kingdom is not on this earth. Nor is my leader or king if you will.

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  26. Ymar Sakar8:52 AM

    I do not take orders from human authorities, deep state, alliance, patriots, or alt right s god savior trum.

    Bug fear not humans, this is merely part of the divine plan to expose human doomsday weapons. Hint 5g not viral.

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  27. Ymar Sakar8:59 AM

    Fear levela here are generally much lower than us average. I can detect. Nothing compared to stocks crashing now


    Maybe conservatives were in prepper land for decades helps. So much fear was felt long time ago, got used to it by now.

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  28. If you can slow the spread of the disease, you might be able to reduce the load on the health care system--spread it out more.

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  29. If this really takes a turn for the worse, post apocalyptic fiction is going to be low on my personal reading list.

    Hey, they're often like '50s and early '60s war movies and TV war dramas. Read them to see what all you're doing wrong in the present Troubles, just like Hollywood was fully involved in telling us all what our soldiers had done wrong in the wars.

    Elise, re hand sanitizer: think about rubbing alcohol, available (maybe still) in pharmacies and in computer stores, followed by Vitamin E-laced hand lotion to remoisturize your hands and mitigate the alcohol odor.

    Eric Hines

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  30. Frequent hand-washing clearly is important, but we'd all probably benefit from learning to curb our unconscious habit of constantly touching our faces, especially our eyes, especially out in public. Some contagion is airborne and inevitable, but we don't have to make it easier.

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