Global Pandemic Lockdown

Started by Snarky, Sat 14/03/2020 11:38:17

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KyriakosCH

For me the main issue is financial. I mostly get pay from online lit seminars, but if people don't have money, they won't pay for those...

I go out for a walk for 1-2 hours a day. Obviously can't meet anyone, but I am very introverted and even if things were normal I would keep away for some time due to getting ill just before all this started and healing.
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Laura Hunt

#201
Quote from: Blondbraid on Sat 11/04/2020 10:16:51
I know many have criticized the Swedish policy for not shutting everything down and having straight up curfews,
but being able to go outside and doing something as simple as buying a treat from the store have been one of the few things that's helped me stay sane.

There's a lot of room for a huge variety of measures between the almost-complete lockdown of Italy or Spain, and Sweden's "I dunno, just try, like, not to cough on anyone I guess?". Germany has imposed a series of restrictions but you can still go for a treat or a walk if you feel like it. And as someone with actual skin in this game (immunocompromised + chronic respiratory issues), I am far more terrifed of the restrictions being lifted too early (as they no doubt will) than of spending another month or two in this situation. It sucks to have to see my friends only on Skype, but if I die from this, then it's no more conversations, ever. People in my situation have every right in the world to criticize ableist policies that so blatantly disregard the lives of the vulnerable.

KyriakosCH

#202
Germany already has over 2700 deaths (even in the way they count the dead), so they will likely not lift measures very soon.
In Greece, on the other hand, we have fewer than 100 deaths.
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Blondbraid

Quote from: Laura Hunt on Sat 11/04/2020 17:57:39
Quote from: Blondbraid on Sat 11/04/2020 10:16:51
I know many have criticized the Swedish policy for not shutting everything down and having straight up curfews,
but being able to go outside and doing something as simple as buying a treat from the store have been one of the few things that's helped me stay sane.

There's a lot of room for a huge variety of measures between the almost-complete lockdown of Italy or Spain, and Sweden's "I dunno, just try, like, not to cough on anyone I guess?". Germany has imposed a series of restrictions but you can still go for a treat or a walk if you feel like it. And as someone with actual skin in this game (immunocompromised + chronic respiratory issues), I am far more terrifed of the restrictions being lifted too early (as they no doubt will) than of spending another month or two in this situation. It sucks to have to see my friends only on Skype, but if I die from this, then it's no more conversations, ever. People in my situation have every right in the world to criticize ableist policies that so blatantly disregard the lives of the vulnerable.
I can very much understand your feelings, while not in a risk group myself both my parents are, and my mom especially have worried greatly over getting infected.

Personally though, I don't feel a global lock down is a feasible or sustainable solution, and I feel that it would be better to focus entirely on protecting the risk groups rather than trying to make everyone isolate themselves,
especially since in Sweden at least, there's a shortage of proper masks, made worse by charlatans and otherwise healthy people hogging them all for themselves, when they should go to medical staff and people who
really are at risk. It just seems like a better strategy to try and give just the risk grops the most extensive protection possible rather than spreading it out to people who aren't at risk.

But this situation also highlights just how vulnerable a global society is, and there will always be risks for new pandemics, and there needs to be more solutions than just trying to put everything on pause like a Sims game.


Mandle

It is sobering to think that, in America, the amount of people dying per day is getting close to the total amount that died on 9/11.

KyriakosCH

Meanwhile, back in the Eu, the crisis led to yet another forced loan to a lot of countries. Instead of a common euro bond.

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Slasher

#206
I've spent the last 10 years alone...I like being by myself but i am not unsociable...

It has recently been reported that one teenager in the UK has already committed suicide through the isolation period, though he was unstable even before the outbreak..

Those that don't need constant attention and are happy being alone have no worry... They will get through this hokum of miss-information that is causing mass hysteria..

However it works out i really hope everyone gets on with their lives...




KyriakosCH

Hm, that is pretty unexpected, imo. I mean the isolation plan in the Uk has only been in force for... less than two weeks?
But yes, obviously it is good to be able to be by yourself now. It reminds me of Franz Kafka's note when ww1 started. He wrote that "now I am being rewarded for being as I am" etc.
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Blondbraid

Quote from: Slasher on Sun 12/04/2020 16:31:24
It has recently been reported that one teenager in the UK has already committed suicide through the isolation period, though he was unstable even before the outbreak..
I'm not surprised, take someone already suffering, and then add the massive stress factor about hearing about the pandemic killing people everywhere
combined with being unable to keep most of your daily routines and what little social life you have left...


Babar

Quote from: Blondbraid on Sun 12/04/2020 13:53:10
I can very much understand your feelings, while not in a risk group myself both my parents are, and my mom especially have worried greatly over getting infected.

Personally though, I don't feel a global lock down is a feasible or sustainable solution, and I feel that it would be better to focus entirely on protecting the risk groups rather than trying to make everyone isolate themselves,
especially since in Sweden at least, there's a shortage of proper masks, made worse by charlatans and otherwise healthy people hogging them all for themselves, when they should go to medical staff and people who
really are at risk. It just seems like a better strategy to try and give just the risk grops the most extensive protection possible rather than spreading it out to people who aren't at risk.

But this situation also highlights just how vulnerable a global society is, and there will always be risks for new pandemics, and there needs to be more solutions than just trying to put everything on pause like a Sims game.
It's not just about risk groups vs non-risk groups, because all the groups only have access to the same resources. So as a over-simplification, if a hypothetical country only has 10 hospital beds and 20 medicines, but a population of 100, of which 50 people are older and 'at risk', aside from all the spreading and such, even if one of the younger, not at risk people sick to the level that they need to go to the hospital, they're using resources others could have been using (and not just other people infected with the virus, but people who need to go to the hospital for other illneses, chronic conditions, accidents, etc.). The point of the social isolation is that along with attempting to stem the spread of the virus, it would slow it down and stagger the infection among the population.

Long term lockdown is indeed probably not sustainable, but something for a few weeks? We've never it done on such a scale before, but I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand.
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ManicMatt

I'm good at being anti social and not going out. Am I doing okay then? No, as mentioned, the stress and fear, and hearing of so much loss of life, is a real challenge on my mental health. I feel like im just waiting for the worst to happen, and I'm helpless to do anything.

I always thought in a time of crisis, I'd be proactively helping people. I'm the guy who doesn't hesitate to break up a fight between strangers, and so on. But the best thing I can do is stay at home. I live with 3 others, and nobody here is exactly what id call very low risk, so i wouldn't like to chance anything by going out unless i really have to.

I've not left the house (except for the garden) in 4 weeks now. Ugh.

Mandle

Quote from: ManicMatt on Mon 13/04/2020 00:06:36
I've not left the house (except for the garden) in 4 weeks now. Ugh.

Well done! I'm coming up on 4 weeks of 99% staying at home. I have to go out now and then to the shop like 1 minute from my house, but am taking all precautions when I do so.

The worst thing I've found is that my sleep cycle is out of whack, but probably because I'm not enforcing the kind of discipline on it that I should be.

milkanannan

Quote from: Mandle on Mon 13/04/2020 02:43:20

The worst thing I've found is that my sleep cycle is out of whack

Ugh. This is so true. For years I would be in bed by about 10, even on weekends. Last night (a work night) I went to bed at midnight and got up at 4am (son needed a glass of water). Just decided to get some coffee and work, but I know this will lead a long nap in the afternoon (which I actually hate doing, but the flexibility in hours has me totally out of routine).

ManicMatt

That's a point, I had that issue during my first ever period of unemployment. There was nowhere to be up for in the morning so why go to bed on time?

i went to bed later and later, until one day i went to sleep and woke up at 4pm.

that was a wake up call (sic) to start going to bed on time.

TheFrighter


News from Italia: lockdown is extended until 3 May. Damn.

_

cat

Luckily, small shops will open tomorrow here. I've been outside as much as possible in the last weeks, going to supermarkets, the post office, doing tours on my bike etc. Restaurants started to sell takeaway food again. However, schools, kindergartens and even playgrounds are still closed  :(

I hate the term social distancing. No, I will not do this! I keep a physical distance where necessary, but recently I've called more people than ever before - relatives, old friends,... so no social distance for me!

People at risk can (and maybe should?) lock themselves away as much as they want. However, the virus is going to be there for the next month and years, with a vaccine coming earliest in a year or so. I will not lock myself away until then.

Snarky

Hmm, I don't entirely agree with your attitude there, cat.

For me there are two considerations that I think call for taking exceptional steps and enduring some isolation, even for an extended period. The first is the risk of infecting someone else who could fall very sick and potentially die. Personally I'm thinking mainly of family members, but of course it goes for anybody else as well. In the contact tracing they've done, they've identified people who only had mild symptoms (or no symptoms at all) who went on to infect scores of people and killing several directly â€" for example one person in Chicago who attended a wake and infected fifty people, three of whom died. That's not something I want on my conscience.

The other is that while the pandemic now appears to be under control in many places, it will only remain so as long as we keep the infection rate R0 below or close to 1. And because of how infectious this disease is, if everybody followed your example, that would probably not be the case, and we'd see renewed exponential growth once again threaten to overwhelm our health system. (And again in personal terms: I have a lot of family members who are health care workers and would bear the brunt of the crisis, and who stand a high risk of infection.)

And I know you dislike the term "social distancing", but I think it makes a certain amount of sense. Of course it doesn't apply to telecommunication, but we limit direct social contact (handshakes, hugs, etc.) and maintain physical distance in social settings. And to me it suggests that while a single individual can physically distance themselves, social distancing is something we, paradoxically, have to do together. It's an expression of solidarity.

Blondbraid

Quote from: Babar on Sun 12/04/2020 16:46:09
Long term lockdown is indeed probably not sustainable, but something for a few weeks? We've never it done on such a scale before, but I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand.
A few weeks can be an infinitely long time for women and children trapped with their abusers (and there's been lots of news reports of an increase of domestic violence in the wake of the lockdown),
and for poor people with rent to pay who barely make ends meet in regular times and cannot work from home, nor afford to stay home from work. And what of the homeless who have no place to go?

I do the best I can to keep my hands to myself and keep them clean, and I avoid going near people in public, but you can't put all of human society on pause and expect said pause to outlast a virus.


cat

Quote from: Blondbraid on Mon 13/04/2020 18:49:20
I do the best I can to keep my hands to myself and keep them clean, and I avoid going near people in public, but you can't put all of human society on pause and expect said pause to outlast a virus.
Exactly that.

KyriakosCH

I wonder if there is some genetic reason for some countries being affected more than others. Not that on the surface of things there would be that many common genetic similarities between (eg) italians and germans.
Anyway, maybe it is just that those countries which had closed schools/businesses etc sooner, had next to no deaths. Eg here schools and businesses closed pretty much when there were no deaths and only 2 cases of (known) infected, and the overall death toll is still just below 100 (99 afaik by today).

I think that the british government should be held accountable for doing next to nothing for so long, and even delaying closing pubs.
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