Coronavirus.

[JimiCollins]

Social distancing is here to stay for much more than a few weeks. It will upend our way of life, in some ways forever.

[Draigflag]

You could be right, but then a major health pandemic roughly occurs once every 75-100 years on average, some people will never see it in thier lifetime. We shouldn't let paranoia change our way of life. It's got way too much media coverage for my liking. For my demographic group, my chances of contracting the virus and dieing are lower than dieing "anyway" so if fear of death continued, I'd have to worry myself about heart attacks, strokes, getting hit by a bus, breaking my neck falling down stairs etc, all very highly unlikely events...

[JimiCollins]

We all want things to go back to normal quickly. But what most of us have probably not yet realized—yet will soon—is that things won’t go back to normal after a few weeks, or even a few months. Some things never will.

[JimiCollins]

"We shouldn't let paranoia change our way of life" - exactly! you're absolutely right!

[JockoT]

But what about the thousands that have died. If lockdown wasn't enforced then many more people would be infected. If you catch the virus and survive how many of the four or five you pass it on to will die? And many of the young who do catch it and survive are left with debilitating lung disorders and other side effects. There was a 30 something interviewed this past week who caught the virus in March. She now suffers bouts of terrible breathlessness that takes up to a week to pass.

[Draigflag]

Unfortunately shock stories grab peoples attention and create ad click revenues for online media outlets, but the truth is, those stories of "young healthy" people being affected by the virus are very very rare. A friend of mine was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumour in his 30's, a fit healthy man that wins marathons, someone else I know young and healthy had a major heart attack aged 27. There are examples of seemingly fit and healthy people getting ill and dieing all the time, virus or no virus.

Little is said about the 40,000 smoking related deaths so far this year in the UK, not considered a "pandemic" because of the tax revenue it generates and the pension payouts it saves the government when they die early. I do not believe the government has any interest in saving lives, just capital, and the virus is costing them dearly. It's looking like the virus will kill around as many as air pollution in the UK this year, maybe slightly more.

[Jcp385]

Most of the harshest parts of the lockdown have been lifted in most parts of the US.

I’m sad that it seems to have turned into yet another political football here. That’s shameful.

On the upside, it was good, bordering on fantastic, for me in the trucking industry. My company is largely trying to steer us clear of larger cities. And, for the first few weeks, when everybody was cooped up, transiting through cities was remarkably fast. Atlanta, one of my bugaboos I usually earmark ~3 hours to go through, was behind me in about an hour despite going through on a route with the most miles of contiguous urban buildup. Some number of truckers apparently holed up too, as I could find prime parking hours deeper into the evening than usual. Freight was still moving, especially from personal care giants like Procter + Gamble, and retailers were taking plenty of deliveries. It was effectively a 10-30% pay raise depending on the load. It also bumped my truck’s fuel economy up from the 8.1mpg I had been averaging since they gave it to me brand new last summer to around 8.5-8.7mpg, although I caveat that by saying I’ve had a fair number of lighter loads of late.

[JockoT]

Two children died of Covid-19 this week. One was only 13 days old with no other health conditions. I am a 72-year-old, obese male. If I catch it the odds are I will die. I will never use a pub, restaurant, or small busy shop until after I have had a vaccination.
All this government debt is just paper money. Governments around the world will just write their debt off. It has been done before, it will be done again.

[Draigflag]

That's the kind of paranoia I was referring to. With respect, a gentleman of your age has a 2% chance of dying from anything anyway, with corona, that jumps to just under 3% and remember that's considered "high risk". So to be a glass half full kind of guy, there's a 97% chance you're gonna be just fine. 80 out of 100 people don't even show symptoms so are not affected, and even the 20 that do, it's nothing more than a cold. But anyway, enough stats, we all know the situation, let's just look forward to it being over, we have 2 weeks left then we're allowed to welcome tourists back and we're allowed to travel more than 5 miles so that will be a revelation!

[JockoT]

Good for you. Enjoy your freedom. And all the English tourists.