So I'm a man of facts! Let me toss some on you. The Coronavirus has killed less than 100 people in the United States!!!!!!!!!!!!!

During the 2010 swine flu, it killed 15,000 American's!!! Yet there were not running to the store and buying all the TP and food that will go bad in a week!!!

So I asked why? Let's see the fear of the apocalypse drove down the economy and stock market!! Who do you think the donkey is going to blame? We all know who because if a Clinton was in the office this would have been only a few lines!!

Fact 30,000 people this year have died of the common flu! The one you might have caught and taken a week off for! In the worst flu year, 2017-2018 60,000 people died from the common flu!!!!!

Yet we have maybe 100 people who were above the age of 60 and most had health problems that died! Sounds a lot like the people who die of the common flu!!!

I have seen grocery store stockers be jumped for toilet paper also be stabbed for toilet paper in my area and we don't even have anyone less than a 5-hour car ride who has the virus!

We prep right? We were talking about being crazy during the swine flu of 2010 when the Obama administration was in! I'm I wrong? I know I was looked at as a crazy for stocking up more on canned food and buying a water purification system! Sure most of you saw the same BUT the old times who have gone through are many times before!

No flame to people starting out with prep work! Just picked a $hitty time to start or want a lot more stuff!

Remember this "A person is smart and can think rationally about what needs to be done!"

Yet " People are dumb stupid and irrational!"

Mob rules! Don't be a sheep or feed into the sheep!

.

My issue isnt the Virus, but the ppl that are clearing out the shelves of every day things.

You're not my supervisor.

I think we should have three new threads every day about how to start long term food storage

Hope is not a course of action. But when you lack skill, knowledge, and materials, hope is all you have.

What you are seeing is a panicked populace. Same thing happens on a smaller scale when a storm is coming. Same result....just on a more localized scale than this.

This is human nature. You are seeing it in action.

Wow, you have contributed to the false data just by posting this. Let's take them one at a time, shall we:

1 - So I'm a man of facts! Let me toss some on you. The Coronavirus has killed less than 100 people in the United States!!!!!!!!!!!!!

During the 2010 swine flu, it killed 15,000 American's!!!

OK, data man, here we go.
- Yes, less than 100j.  SO FAR.   Your false logic is comparing a finished epidemic with one that is just starting.  That will double every 5 days or less for months - do the math
- This virus is 10 to 20 times more deadly than flu.  15k Americans die out of several millions infected.  Let's do some more math.  350 Million Americans x 80% infection rate = 330 million infected.  330 million infected x (let's go low) 2% CFR = 6-7million DEAD in the US alone.  Some countries are actually experiencing much higher than CFR than that.  Yes all this is probably worst case, but to say it is less worrisome than swine flu is, I'll be kind - ignorant of the reality.

And as far as ripping people for warning others, well part of a global emergency is communication to warn people so they can pre-empt and plan and help themselves/rest of the world.  So sorry that doesn't fit into your "let's not warn the sheeples" model of survivalism.  As someone on this site once said "you are trying to survive this...you need to LEAD this"

And ripping people for beginning their preps is counter to everything most of us stand for - creating a community of like-minded folks. Being an ass and capping on folks is not constructive at a time when we need constructive behavior.

And guess what? During emergencies unpredictable shit happens.  Groceries go dry, people freak.  Sounds to me you are countering the freak with a freaky-anti freak.

I'm happy if you just go do your business and not worry, hey, hit the bars and have a party, I don't care.  But don't tread on me my friend.......

RW

EDIT:  Sorry, that was a bit harsh and I apologize...but my points still stand.  Follow the facts and data, help others, expect the unexpected.

It's another 'culling operation' of the human population on a planetary scale by one of the various species of alien overlords.

Smart cookies they are too. Notice how they foresaw viral spread through international air travel as the perfect delivery system.

The upside is, those of us who survive will have stronger immune systems and therefore will be able to gift such viral immunities into the human gene pool.

Well, at least until someone upstairs decides it's time for the herd to be culled again.

^ Reality checks can be harsh at times. For a numbers guy, OP hasn't kept current or done the math.

I agree we shouldn't be spreading fear but that doesn't mean distorting the truth. I think it's a good thing to have a community here that shares info and helps each other understand different ways of being prepared. Keep it up, guys!

This is incorrect.  Please see this 2009 study from a reputable virology source citing multiple studies showing the CFR of influenza is more like .45%.  This rate is accepted by WHO.  I have seen several studies that range from .01 to this number, which is probably the highest but way, way less that the emerging CFR from coronavirus.

Virology page

EDIT:

This NIH study evaluated global flu empidemics in 2017.  It contains a region by region and country by country analysis....none of the findings show anything higher than a CFR of 30 per 100,000 people. That is .03%

NIH study

Either way you cut it, nowhere near this current bugger.

Happy to keep going providing as much data as possible.

+1 That is supposed to be what this place is all about.

The wife and I thought the same thing. Now as we sit here with one roll of toilet paper on hand we are left with a panicky feeling.

Also the CDC has a budget of $12 billion dollars a year. Now that we need them they are not prepared and need money. What are they doing with 12 billion dollars a year?

Lessons learned:
1) There is no government agency to "save you"
2) Planning for the worst and hoping for the best saves you a very frustrating day at CostCo
3) Be creative - it won't be long before people will be willing to barter for things they need.  What do you have that others might want?
4) You will probably alway have running water during this - just wash yourself instead
5) Use your down time to start a real plan, learn, and make changes

The CDC works on long term, mass-oriented stuff, not individual rescue.  And if you need that, you are in a world of hurt.

They work on detection, prevention programs, vaccines, treatments...bioterrorism and biological incidents (to a degree).

The people who will save you are (in this order):
1. YOU
2. Your immediate family
3. Your extended family and friends
4. Your neighbors
5. Strangers
9999. The CDC

Not harsh at all.  You have been a wealth on information from day one on this topic.

I was once told if I don't have something nice to say not to say it, so I wont...  I have immediate family in self quarantine right now.  I will leave it at that.

None of this is happening because of fun.  Take a look at Italy: their health care system is overwhelmed.  God help our elderly and immune compromised.

This is going to be an ongoing economy crusher.  We just have to deal with it best we can.

I'm sick..... to death of hearing about the bullshit virus. Evidently lots of people here have nothing better to do than post &panic. Panic &post. Chicken little , the sky is falling, the sky is falling. Stop the fear mongering, find something else to do, get a life. The mods should shut down every thread about the subject.

Its not a people killer like Ebola, but then again Ebola burns it self out.  This is an economy killer, a panic creator.  I am no more in fear of getting COVID-19 than I am the flu.  What I am fearful of is everyone I work with and supervise getting it all at the same time severely hindering public safety.  You ever get a real bad case of the flu and try to be functional or make split second life and death decisions while sick with it?  I have had the flu but wouldn't want to try to be at work during the worst of it.

ETA/ I am sick of all the additional threads being created because of it, this one included.

On the contrary...I learn here and have gathered important information from my interactions here.  Without this site I would never have found Dr. John Campbell or MedCram, two of the best.  I have never once posted anything I think of as fear-mongering or geared toward creating a reaction, and I never will.

Do I have better things to do?  I've done them...now one of my most important tasks is making sure my like-minded friends here have real data and the power to make their own decisions.

Panic and fear are the reactions of those unprepared, uneducated and untrained.

I wish you nothing but great times...maybe it would be good for you to unplug for a while.

RW

@thederrick106

Good luck man, you know you can PM me if you have Q's

I appreciate that -thank you.

I don't know what your situation is, but wanted to follow up with some practical suggestions:

There are tons of info here on what you can stock up on, but you might consider:
- flu medicines, mucinex, ibuprofen, stuff like that...there is a thread on medical preps here somewhere
- get whatever you can, whenever you can - during hurricanes down here, we keep going to the store to get lucky during a restock
- barter is always an option
- pooling resources is another - if you have adult kids, relatives or friends who are in similar circumstances, try pooling your resources... it can be testy, but it's possible.
- consider having some cash on hand.... a lot of indivuals might be willing to sell stuff for cash in a week or two, but they won't take a check or cc

If the local stores are empty, you may want to call around and see if there are spots of supply.  I talked to a guy yesterday that said he had no problems at all at his grocery on Friday, while mine looked it was ransacked.

@hotbiggin42  TP  In stock as of right now.  Order quick. Not sure if they have overnight shipping.

Clean out your inbox! Where in WA?

I'm in south Eastern Washington. The wife scored TP tonight at Walmart. She said there were 2 employees protecting the TP stash and you are limited to one pack of 6 rolls. We scored 2.

I'll just keep my eyes open for TP in stock, we have food and I will be fishing n the weekends.
We have a big ole river full of fish.

lol I don't need it overnight but thank you for the link!

Tayous, your post is quite the stretch, are you watching what's going on in Europe?

Do you understand it's started popping here and we're a few weeks behind, hopefully?

I wish this weren't so, so much...

Ibuprofen [and one other] is recently said to not play well with this virus.

! ? .

You're also using false logic.  The denominator of the flu is the population, but you're only using the denominator of "known cases" for the mortality rate of COVID-19 and extrapolating it to the entire population of all ages and health conditions; it's faulty math and faulty logic.  Add in the other factors such as the "at risk" population and those numbers are even less threatening than the common flu.  You also can't necessarily compare country mortality rates such as the living conditions, medical infrastructure, and considering most European countries have much higher populations who smoke (resulting in more respiratory illnesses), it's not an apple vs. apple comparison.

We just can't compare mortality rates yet with an undetermined denominator.  H1N1 didn't have a huge mortality rate, as estimates of 60 million were infected and I've seen  totals range from 17-18,000 died.  The more disturbing aspect for H1N1 was the much wider spectrum of deaths; over 1,600 infants died from H1N1.

Sorry, but COVID-19 is a manufactured crisis with a very, very narrow sector of the population that is affected.

I do think what is pretty amazing is how well this virus has traveled and been tracked.  If they did the same thing every year for the common flu, the mortality rate wouldn't be the topic, it would be the massive spread and actual deaths.  It's easy to manipulate data to support a crisis.  If anything, being prepared allows you to avoid the madness, but ultimately this is a hyped "pandemic" that is relatively benign to 90% of our population.

ROCK6

Attached File

When you see governments both local and larger tanking their economies to prevent people from spreading it to each other, it's time to take notice.

We didn't shut schools down for a month over H1N1, nor did we cancel large sporting events entirely.

They know it's bad news.

Or are they just testing a response to their power...

Maybe, but I doubt it.

They are running scared too right now.

Or the media didn't want to make they're political savior look bad.  Death-wise, and the age-spectrum of those killed was far worse.  When the media hypes or over-reacts to anything, I'm always highly skeptical.  As the democratic saying always goes, "never let a crisis go to waste".

ROCK6

I get it, but it took the media a long time to jump on the bandwagon.

Look at the big thread in GD, those guys have been talking about this and following it for weeks, and even before the media really touched it was looking pretty scary based on that thread alone.

Once China started shutting down production it became pretty clear we were going to see at least some economic impact from this.

Had H1N1 or even the common flu got this much attention, we would be in a perpetual state of panic.  I don’t want to discount the severity of this viral spread as that is really the story here.  How quickly it spread world-wide is what is worth noting; a side-affect is the economy and how vulnerable our supply chain is (which most of us already know).  I still think the threat is minimal but this viral transmission means (proven airborne) and voracity of this virus is pretty incredible to.  I’m surprised it’s not spread more than is reported as I think the majority of those who likely contracted it didn’t have any major symptoms for them to think otherwise.

I also agree.  I remember hearing about this outbreak at the end of December.  There was plenty of “warning” and this is another reminder for all of us.  We all had a month or two of calm and quiet with no disruptions or shortages in supplies.  That was more than enough time to budge and build a buffer even if you weren’t exactly prepared.  I would hope these “events” regardless of how minimal or severe, drive us to a continue assessment mentality to stay prepared.  We are seeing the effects of “crisis-buying” and how fragile our supply system, or at least how limited shelves really despite a very robust transportation system to keep those shelves stocked.  It really doesn’t take much.

This virus is causing more than a mortality fear, it’s turned into an economic-panic threat.  It’s not over and maybe I’m wrong and the mortality rate will jump or the deaths will start to include healthy people under the age of 50, but right now, that just isn’t the case and the symptoms for healthy individuals are very minor and short lived.

I hope this isn’t just another forgotten “pandemic” like H1N1, the Bird Flu, Ebola, MERS, SARS, etc.  I hope a small portion of those over-reacting now will build up a few weeks of supplies.  I hope people in general will take similar precautions every year during flu season to mitigate transmission of flu virus that kills a wider spectrum and larger number of Americans every year.  Hopefully more take note when something pops up in the news about something bad happening in some foreign country and doesn’t take the attitude of “why worry, it’s not in my town or backyard?”

There are a lot of positives that can come out of this, but we also don’t need the manufactured panic…it is a threat, but that threat is extremely targeted and minor to the population as a whole.

ROCK6

So, for the factually challenged the truth is starting to leak out.  Comparing apples to apples, the 2019-2020 flu season is far deadlier than COVID-19 in America.  There have been 222,000 "confirmed" cases of flu with 22,000 deaths = 10% mortality rate.  There have been 3964 "confirmed" cases of COVID-19 with 71 deaths = 1.79%.  Granted, this is a snapshot in time (1300 as of today), but if predictions are made based on the current global spread, the mortality rate (estimated by WHO) is 3.4% worldwide it will not likely be as severe as the common flu and the population at risk is still very small.

2019-2020 Flu mortality rate is far greater than COVID-19

ROCK6

Just stop.  This isn’t helpful at all.

How many people get the seasonal flu vaccine?

How many get the seasonal flu and are never a confirmed case?

This is bad, it isn’t Spanish Flu bad but it is worse than the seasonal flu.  Hopefully we get a vaccine sooner rather than later, but at this point I don’t hold out too much hope.

Again, we could go round and round on variations, factors, conditions, etc. and support both sides of the argument.  Is bad?  I don't really know as it's not "over" yet; however, there is a lot of unnecessary panic based on the actual data and that's not very helpful either.

ROCK6

From the same article
So your whole basis for saying the Wuhan virus is less deadly than the flu is because you don’t believe the estimated 36 million infected with the flu.

So instead you believe that not one person more than those who were confirmed to have the flu had it and the death rate was 10%.

I don’t even know why I bother.  Y’all just keep working on convincing yourselves of whatever you already decided on.

There is a thread in GD loaded with people saying they think they have already had Covid....when they likely just got the flu a few months ago when it was making the rounds.

It's very widespread, and most people don't even go to the doctor for it.

If you are intellectually honest, you will consider both things that support your opinion as well as those which do not support your opinion. Ignoring things that don’t support your opinion is foolish.

So, do you believe the only denominator of those how may have contracted COVID-19 is only 4000+ in the US?  I'm not denying that people who have had the flu aren't included in the confirmed number, but I also agree that the number of those with COVID-19 is likely much, much higher than just the confirmed number.

You can't believe one and discount the other, which is why I don't buy the current mortality rate of COVID-19; if you want to believe that, than you need to accept only the confirmed cases of the flu...

I'll be the skeptic not the sheep herded into the pen of media narratives...

ROCK6

You sound like a politician. Just ignore it and it youll be safe, itll go away magically... Your part of the problem sir. If people dont take precautions, Masks, quarantines, ect. Then it spreads, theres no doubt in that fact. You have no point.

thank you!!! i am so sick of people comparing this to the flu!! THIS IS NOT THE FLU.. THIS IS NOT H1N1..PLEASE OP EDUCATE YOURSELF..It is people like you that is feeding into the problems of anxity and panic because of all the false info.. for fucks sake just stfu

The only fact about this virus is that we don't know enough about it to present anything as fact.  All the numbers are estimates, all the predictions opinions.

Virtually every expert at every press conference I've seen has quietly suffixed their bloviation with "... but we don't really know."

That's the part to pay attention to.

This is why we need to be cautions and not jump on one side of the band wagon or the other.  
This is why we need to keep each other informed and updated with what we know, see, and hear.  
This is why we need to keep this civil and constructive.

I come here for updates as much as the media, because at least here I can get first hand accounts of what is actually happening in various places.

There is a big run on the gun stores in my AO currently.

Don't know if you were expecting an argument from me, but you ain't gonna get one.  

Panic is never the answer.

I would add, though, that IMO we could be a little more understanding towards at least some of those who are.  A lifetime of conditioning is difficult to overcome, and the mixed messages being sent out by .gov and the media have got to be confusing to those who aren't accustomed to thinking for themselves.  A lot of folks have been trained this way since birth, and it's hard to hold them at fault since they've never been exposed to anything else.  The best service we can provide them is to help them through this (to the extent we can) and hope that maybe they will start to undertand that dependence is literally the opposite of independence... and self-reliance is part of what makes this country great.  Ultimately it's a net win for us all.

How many "flu" deaths this year were actually untested Covid-19 deaths?