Thank you very much for writing all of this.
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I mostly want to understand why the USA is doing so badly, and I’m currentl ynot sure if people there are actually following any guidelines or taking any precautions.
There is also the problem we were talking with @yebellz earlier. That there are a lot of people that do not take this seriously and while there is the illusion that those people are a minority, the internet is starting to prove otherwise. Check this thing that a friend of mine sent me to have some laughs at my facepalms. This is a video of a hardline US pastor that is taking the virus seriously, so he made a video for his congregation to adress the most common conspiracies that he heard within it. Usually that dude can claim any absurd thing and his mob in the comments will go “yaaaaay pastor, you are so right!” , but this time he got this (I erazed all the names and put blanks in people that had their own photos, I am not here to “name and shame”, but to share some actual data):
As you can see only one response in the images is positive. The rest of them, well, you can read for yourselves. Out of the 1311 comments, around 99% are like that. That might give a different insight why they are having issues with making people follow any kind of social distancing.
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Yeah, Gia’s post (#526) essentially said all that and predicted all the right-wing “its just a flu bro” shit. Not being American, it feels a bit like a movie when it comes to things like that. The denial about the severity of the situation and how bad the near future will be is surreal to me.
At this point, most countries are seemingly looking to use other countries’ results from relaxing restrictions as a form of immediate feedback or “lessons learned”. For example, Austria is currently looking to reopen shops and restaurants next week, and Denmark will re-open schools and daycares. Governments are trying different approaches to relaxing restrictions, which will give everyone else real data on what the best practices are for relaxing mobility restrictions during a pandemic.
Right now, I’m thinking about the small scale restrictions. Stuff that can be easily implemented and followed, like imposing the 2m distancing at grocery stores and bus stops or providing hand washing stations at the entrances of buildings. Provincial/state and even federal level planning can take months to develop, so right now the push is to try and get a lot of directions out that people can follow right away. A lot of policy focus is on implementing what the general populace can’t do, but hardly anyone is focused on promoting what they can do. Constantly bombarding people with “do not go out on Easter” or “do not go see your friends” tends to make people want to break the rules. All of the pamphlets I’ve received in the mail from the government about COVID-19 have all been fairly negative and not something I want to read per se. There’s nothing about “definitely start a garden or plant some flowers” or “take up outdoor painting” or even “go for a walk”.
Anyway… unfortunately, it seems like gloves don’t do anything productive because, people are still touching their faces, touching other objects, etc., and not changing gloves in-between customers or interactions with people. There is no difference between gloves and bare hands at that point. It’s also the same with masks. I see people wearing them at the bus stop, but then touch them with their hand/glove or leave them on for so long they get damp rendering them useless.
To me, the biggest issue appears to be that different guidelines are being issued to people, and governments are not doing a proper PSA campaign to ensure quality information is being disseminated.
Edit: @S_Alexander 100% agree.
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I keep forgetting it’s Easter in a week. It’s starting to feel eerie, this reality of a pandemic lockdown and the sun shining.
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This is the first time in my life where I’m living somewhere where the snow is gone before May, and I don’t even get to enjoy it 
I probably won’t even get to go see the museums and other cool things before I have to move back to snow land in June.
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Easter is in a week? I guess Greek Orthodox uses a different calendar? In the US, people are generally observing it tomorrow.
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All of the pamphlets I’ve received in the mail from the government about COVID-19 have all been fairly negative and not something I want to read per se. There’s nothing about “definitely start a garden or plant some flowers” or “take up outdoor painting” or even “go for a walk”.
and @Gia
I keep forgetting it’s Easter in a week. It’s starting to feel eerie, this reality of a pandemic lockdown and the sun shining.
I think that the messages we receive are so negative that we forget that we were told to “social distance”, and not necessarily bunker in our houses as if there is some kind of fallout outside. The sun is shining and as long as there isn’t anyone around that you could interact with, then it is perfectly fine to go out and enjoy the perfect day 
For example, this was my afternoon working on my basketball moves with noone around 
And as I was walking home in the sunshine I was like “hey, maybe it is time I try baking a pizza”, which is something I have been saying for years and never had the energy/time to actually sit down and bake … and so I did that :
Sure, the crust is pita for gyros, but hey, it was fast, fun and delicious 
I think that perspective is crucial in difficult times and imho it is imperative that we see some of the good aspects of having our lives suspended for a little while. The treadmill has stopped so unless we are in a dire economic situation that makes our sudden loss of income actually dangerous for us, then I do not see why we shouldn’t enjoy some quality time off. We are not lazing it out. EVERYONE is in on it, so there is no need for guilt 
This is what I want to become during this pandemic:
Scratch that. This is what I want to become - period hehehe
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Usually we are a week later, sometimes it’s on the same date, but not often.
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I don’t know what’s going on where you live but here it’s exactly what we’re told to do. By the order of the mayor people are required to not leave their living place. Exceptions are medical emergency, working (if you’re essential), buying supplies, throwing out trash and walking your pet (walking pet within 100m of your place).
I assume you own an actual full blown house so you can go out without meeting anyone. But in densely populated Russian cities people live in anthill-like buildings, and elevators/stairs are used a lot even in self-isolation times so going out is a risk.
Just this week police arrested Jesus (what a name) for walking his dog wrong. Even though it’s unclear what exactly he did wrong.
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I don’t know what’s going on where you live but here it’s exactly what we’re told to do
The rules here are the same, with the addition of “going of from home for a walk or personal exercise” which is the rule I am using now to go out for 1.5 hours in the evening, have a walk, play in the court and walk back.
In the first ten days of those measures I stayed indoors because there are always some over-eager people like the ones you mentioned that will use any excuse to throw the hammer on you (how can you walk a dog wrong anyway 
), but usually after 10 days everyone gets in their lanes. The police knows how to act and we the citizens know what to do/expect. So now I am going out daily and I think that in countries that it is permitted that is a good idea, as long as everyone goes in places that are empty (here in Greece in larger cities everyone went to the beach, so they shut them down nationally).
I assume you own an actual full blown house
Ehhm, that makes it sound like I live in a mansion, but the truth is that I live in a small village with no hospital, decrepit roads and we have been in the news a couple of times for transporting patients through the mountains in the back of roofless 4x4 pick-up trucks. Two months ago someone fainted in a bus and there was no ambulance to take him anywhere. Eventually the bus driver drove to the health station and they found out that the fellow had not fainted. He had died.
Years ago, one of my teachers in highschool took his wife to the local health station because she had a cold. While waiting in the health station he had a stroke where he was sitting and died. The health station is just a couple of doctors with no equipment. Think of it like a soldier station with no guns. You have any health emergency here, you die. Covid-19 will eventually be gone, but we will still die here of totally stupid causes for the rest of my life. Maybe I’ll have a heart attack one day in court, like another school teacher did, and die there while everyone else is scratching their heads on what to do, because there is no hospital.
Now I could mop about such things or go out enjoy the sunshine, play basketball and make pizza. As I said it is a matter of perspective and I think that we have to focus on the good things in difficult times. (looking on the bright side of life, if you like that phrase better)
So, we might be in the middle of nowhere, but there has to be some redeeming quality to living in the countryside and this is it. If the sun is shining, it is nice to live here.
I do not know what the redeeming quality of each other town/place is, but I am proposing that we should focus on finding it For example I find Athens a depressing cement anthill, as you said. If you go on the Acropolis and look down you will see a grey monstrosity tainting the landscape. I’ve seen a whole mountainside of burned forest and it was a better sight than Athens.
But it has hospitals, and good schools and universities and nice places to have fun and so forth. There is always something good to be found … I could be wrong, but that is what I try to do and so far it works nicely.
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And now a lot of cities in the world are in this situation too. Because hospitals are overloaded.
Decessi e cause di morte: cosa produce l’Istat (If I understand data correctly, I don’t know Italian)
part of Italy
from 1 to 28 march 2019 - died 14603 total in part of Italy
from 1 to 28 march 2020 - died 29565 total in part of Italy
from 1 to 28 march 2020 - died 9994 because coronavirus in full Italy
so at least increase +4968 deaths that are not because coronavirus in part of Italy
EDIT: incorrect interpretation changed
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Our people in power can’t win in this regard. They did take action. They locked down our country, and did not pretend things are better than they are.
And now they are under fire because of it “how dare they stall the ecconomy like that???”
FFS, you can’t have it both ways…
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Previously I mentioned I wasn’t that worried about hospitals in NYhitting capacity, but I’m reading a lot of reports (not just from the news) that the military medical aid is either being under-utilized, doesn’t have the equipment or staff to act as an ICU, or hasn’t even been set up yet. I haven’t seen any plans for support for nurses / doctors / support staff, so the other point about the stress on medical care providers might worsen…
I’ll have to retract my “not worried” statement, as it looks like hospitals aren’t getting the support they need (at least in New York). Hopefully this changes soon…
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FFS, you can’t have it both ways…
Well, a lot of the times politicians reap the harvest of luck and circumstance, so it is only natural to eventually face a curveball like that.
For example, the local mayor did some good things about flood prevention before the rains begin, but regardless of that a lot of places flooded and we even lost a very important bridge (estimated year of re-opening ? around 2032 ) so he claimed that:
“my predecessor left me a mess and there was no way to complete all that work in time”
Had it rained less and there were no significant floods he would have claimed: “see? The work was done efficiently and in time, but my predecessor was a slacker that never did anything right, so I am the best choice for this place”
To top off the “two way” is the fact that most of the rain fell from one side of the mountain, so in the flooded parts the mayor goes and says claim no 1 and in the unflooded parts he goes and says claim no 2 … isn’t that wonderful ?
So, it was high time the politicians had it “both ways”, but from the opposite end of the stick
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Coronavirus has claimed David Saunders (dsaun, on KGS). Many of you will remember his shape lecture. May perpetual light shine on him.
Consider leaving a tribute message here:
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SMBC made a nice comic about COVID-19 models:
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United Kingdom keeps number of recovered secret?
It didn’t update since 303 on any service I know about
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/worldwide-graphs/#active-cases
So world graphs of active cases are disturbed, UK is on 6th place on number of total cases
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