Covid-19 - Has seen the effects of COVID-19 yet ??

[MntnMan62]

Whatever number is still much worse than what we have now. Why we don't shutdown everything when somebody had flu? Isn't it more deadly by any measure?

We dont' know if it is more deadly or not. Different countries have different death rates as I think someone stated already. The virus isn't everywhere. If it ever spreads to such an extent that it is everywhere, then we'll know what the death rate is because we'll have more testing and more date to better understand where the virus is active and who is getting sick. Right now it's premature to come to any conclusions about covid-19.

 

[MntnMan62]

Yeah, it's only not premature if you come to the conclusion that it's more deadly than flu: if you say it's less deadly than flu, it's premature; if you say it's more deadly than flu, it's not premature. Very interesting, isn't it?

When you say "...you come to the conclusion..." are you referring to me specifically or people at large? Because if you are referring to me specifically, I haven't come to any conclusions about anything related to covid-19. I think I made that clear when I said "Right now it's premature to come to any conclusions about covid-19." I'm afraid if you're looking for an argument you'll have to see Mr. Barnard, Room 12.

 

[PinkRose]

Checking in to see if anyone has seen the effects of COVID-19 yet. Other businesses in the area are feeling the affects of older guests staying home. I have seen a small dip but others have it bad. A friend works at Grand Lux near the ice arena. There was Jersey being retired and the staff was ready. They always get hit after events like that....nope. It was dead. I know you all know it but Im going to say it anyway...train your staff to wash their hands and keep them away from their faces. Can you imagine if your name was in the news for a case of COVID-19? Oh well, stay hydrated and stay well.

I believe the point of starting this thread was to ask, "Has anyone seen the effects of COVID-19 yet? " As the days go by, we're all seeing how this virus is causing problems in one way or another. Even if (hopefully) none of us get sick, we're all going to feel the "ouch" in some way. I feel bad for the businesses that are going to take a hit because people are opting to stay home.

Has anyone noticed shortages in things that you wouldn't think of?

In the café where I work, we have a soda cooler where we stock bottled cold beverages for sale. The manager announced that we have to switch from Coke to Pepsi because there is a shortage of Coke products. The Coca Cola bottling company is having a problem making the soda, because they get the sweeteners from China, especially the artificial sweeteners for the Diet Coke products. When I was at the grocery store yesterday, the Coke section was bare. The Pepsi section was well stocked. I guess it won't be long before that section is wiped out too.

The UPS driver told me that their business has picked up in the past few weeks. More people are ordering stuff on-line instead of going to the stores.

I know someone who works in a local Bed & Breakfast, and she said this week instead of people calling to make reservations, they're calling to cancel reservations because they're afraid to travel. Many of the people were supposed to attend a wedding this weekend, but they decided to cancel their plans. The hours for the housekeeping staff for the weekend has been cut in-half, and they're not happy about that. People are feeling the "ouch" in all sorts of ways.

So, let's get back to the original topic for this thread.

Are any of you seeing the effects of COVID-19 in your businesses or places that you frequent?

~ Rose

 

[topher]

The bagel stores are seeing a wee dip in business...but it is made up and then some with Uber eats. It is up 35%. Online sales for retail coffee are up 24% to last month. The older people are freaking out here. I watched a guest walk in with blue rubber gloves. The gloves looked like he had worn them for 3 days...and to top it off he consistently was touching his face. SMDH:decaf: ! I understand most people think this is just people panicking. That being said...how much money was lost with the NBA's decision to suspend the season due to Rudy Gobert of the Jazz testing positive to the virus.[FONT=Roboto, arial, sans-serif] They must see something we don't. That being said. I will continue to wash my hands and not touch my face...and avoid NBA players. I should be ok.[/FONT]

 

[MntnMan62]

If your shop is in Chinatown, business usually drops by 50 to 75% (according to local newspaper). If your business is 50 miles away from Chinatown or any Chinese/Asian majority communities, impact is close to zero.

Really? I don't live in an area with a large asian population. I do live in the NY Metro area but my town has an asian population of about 8%. The asian population in the US overall is 5%. Schools are cancelling classes. People are working from home. I know many independent contractors who are seeing their clients cancel all work. One friend said he has no work for at least a month. I'm guessing that will likely grow to much longer than that. This thing is definitely impacting life here. And it should. We still don't know enough about the virus. Unless testing takes place on a mass scale, I fear things will get worse, maybe much worse, before they get better.

 

[MntnMan62]

Covers you and majority of the people in the world. It's a wave that slowly formulated in the last 20 years called blame game. Whatever happened, people have to find somebody to blame. This somebody is usually a government or government official. And because of this, everybody is trying to be on the "safe"/"cautious" side. This is how a competition starts: to compete for the safest and most cautious. But the problem is there is no such thing as "the safest and most cautious", for every safe and cautious approach, there is always something safer and more cautious. Therefore, nobody can stop this wave until it hits a dead end by itself.

I'm just seeing your reply to me and don't know how I missed it. So, you are saying that I am playing the "blame game". Where in this thread have I even peripherally blamed anyone or anything for this thing? All I've been saying is that it is too early to really come to conclusions about the virus, whether it be deadly or whether anyone has acted in appropriately. I find your attacks, to be based upon your own narrow and sheltered view of the world. You speak in generalities yet have zero understanding of statistics related to this virus or the flu. Merely stating that 80,000 people died from the flu last year by itself is totally meaningless. You seem to be flying off the handle at nothing. You talk about "competition". There is no competition. That view is typically reserved for people with little education and a chronological age that doesn't go over 15. And your final statement saying that no one can do anything about the virus is also quite indicative of your juvenile perspective on the world. If Rose wants to ban me from this site for this post I'll be ok with that. But your incessant attacks and cavalier sarcasm is totally uncalled for. More to the point, you don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about.

 

[MntnMan62]

You are right, absurdity is real. You are trying to back off from your own belief now.

Explain how I am doing that. I'm all ears.

 

[MntnMan62]

I'd rather talk about effects of COVID-19: where I live, almost none. I have been eating out at Chinese/Vietnamese/Japanese restaurants and watching movies in theaters pretty much every weekends and didn't notice any drop of business. They just confirmed one case in the county I live. Let's see how it goes this weekend...

Wow. You can level accusations at people but when asked to explain yourself, you retreat into your little narrow self absorbed little world. By the way, your little anecdotal observations don't mean a whole lot. As a result. No one cares.

 

[MntnMan62]

I saw this posted in another unrelated (not coffee) forum and thought is was well written and had some good information. The poster is a pulmonary and critical care physician.

Take this seriously. Extremely seriously.

Actions that seem to extreme now will not seem extreme in two weeks time. Everyone I know in health care is profoundly, profoundly worried. We are weeks if not months behind in testing in the US. Leadership at the upper levels of government has been lacking and we've lost valuable, valuable time.

The question we are asking ourselves right now is not will it be bad, but how bad will it be.

Are we South Korea or are we Italy?

My fear is we are already Italy but are so behind on testing and preventative measures we don't know it. I hope, I pray I am wrong.

This is not the flu as you know it. We have vaccines for the flu (yes the effectiveness varies from year to year but consistently, vaccinated patients don't get as sick when they do get the flu) and we have treatments (tamiflu). Does the flu still cause a lot of mortality, yes. Have we already had a bad flu season in the US, yes.

COVID is profoundly worse than the flu. We dont have a vaccine (12-18 months is optimistic), we don't know what treatments work though many are being tried.

Mortality (case fatality rate) increases dramatically when health care systems are overwhelmed. Northern Italy is affluent, has excellent health are, and more hospital beds and ICU beds per person than we do. Yet they do not have enough ICU beds or mechanical ventilators to care for people. Seriously, doctors there having to choose who to treat because they cannot treat everyone.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/who-gets-hospital-bed/607807/

Now is a critical time to try and "flatten the epidemic curve." If we don't successfully do this, some parts of the US will be northern Italy. This is why all you healthy people need to take this extremely, extremely, extremely seriously. Sure, you may be lucky enough to have a mild case. If you are unlucky enough to get COVID I pray that is the case. But others - especially those with advancing age and those with chronic medical conditions - will not be so lucky. They may be your friends, parents, grand parents, etc. If we do not tackle this collectively, we will fail collectively and many, many more people will die.

Is this scary, yes. Preparation is better than panic. I called all my representatives today to advocate for action that will enable us to fight COVID. If you are concerned, I encourage you to do the same. Politicians can do good things, they need to hear their constituents voices to be pushed into action.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

To put this another way, consider this article which is a very detailed look at COVID."With everything that’s happening about the Coronavirus, it might be very hard to make a decision of what to do today. Should you wait for more information? Do something today? What?

Here’s what I’m going to cover in this article, with lots of charts, data and models with plenty of sources:

When you’re done reading the article, this is what you’ll take away:

The coronavirus is coming to you.
It’s coming at an exponential speed: gradually, and then suddenly.
It’s a matter of days. Maybe a week or two.
When it does, your healthcare system will be overwhelmed.
Your fellow citizens will be treated in the hallways.
Exhausted healthcare workers will break down. Some will die.
They will have to decide which patient gets the oxygen and which one dies.
The only way to prevent this is social distancing today. Not tomorrow. Today.
That means keeping as many people home as possible, starting now.

As a politician, community leader or business leader, you have the power and the responsibility to prevent this.

You might have fears today: What if I overreact? Will people laugh at me? Will they be angry at me? Will I look stupid? Won’t it be better to wait for others to take steps first? Will I hurt the economy too much?

But in 2–4 weeks, when the entire world is in lockdown, when the few precious days of social distancing you will have enabled will have saved lives, people won’t criticize you anymore: They will thank you for making the right decision.

 

[PinkRose]

Okay Guys,

It's time to get back to the original question for this thread - which is:

Has anyone seen the effects of COVID-19 yet?

I'm asking you to play nice. No more debating whether or not the virus threat is real. Please !

~ Rose

 

[MntnMan62]

Yeah, we do have vaccine for flu: but 1/3 of the time it's wrong because nobody can predict 100% which one of the three strains will be dominant next year. Now we already have two strains of coronavirus; as soon as they have a vaccine, there could be 20! :images:

BTW, real data has been available for months: there is ZERO reason to use any imaginary curve!
View attachment 10553

I guess the CDC graph is fake according to you. Thanks for the laugh.

As for effects, one of my neighbors said at least a month's worth of work just disappeared as everyone cancelled their jobs. The school in my town is closing. My son's school is not closing......yet. But that could change.

 

[topher]

Weird thing. This morning we stopped at walmart to try and find soap and what not. The place was packed at 5 am and they were mad! They were yelling at the employees because there wasn't any TP. One lady said why aren't you guys ordering more? Turns out they stocked the shelves at 3 and it was all gone by 4(one whole isle stocked and emptied in an hour). Luckily I was able to get everything on my list with no issue. When I arrived at the roastery, our bagel shop next door was packed! Guess they need the carbs for their TP hunt.

 

[topher]

I am shutting this thread down. I was genuinely curious on how it has affected everyone's business. But it seems the thread can't stay on track. IFixJura...your signiture, I am not worried about the virus. I am proactive and if you do not think this is going to hurt business you are severely mistaken. Billions of dollars are going to be lost. That scares me.