Flu cases ‘drop’ 95% compared to last year

[2thDoc]

and i've never been on the tweeter except to click on the hundreds of tweets bigtimber posts.

a lot of what you are basing your opinion on is political. I was hoping we could talk science.

[Bigtimber2]

Thanks for reading.

[everlast]

wait...were you calling out my parenting bc my kids believed in santa? holy hell. I never thought it if that way. Oh well....I cant go back.

Haha. Nope. I'm pointing out contributing factors to why people my be inclined to do as they are told and believe without question things from people they recognize as authority figures. Between around ages 2 and 7, there is no filter. What kids are told as fact become their truth. So if they are told they have to do things "because i say so" vs reasoning the why, and are taught to believe things that don't make logical sense, whatever that might be, then that's who they become.

[everlast]

a lot of what you are basing your opinion on is political. I was hoping we could talk science.

forthcoming. split focus today, so may be delayed

[Glenn]

i know for a fact that the virus doesn't vote.

wait...were you calling out my parenting bc my kids believed in santa? holy hell. I never thought it if that way. Oh well....I cant go back.

I've met your kids. Your crappy parenting obviously didn't take. Either they're hard headed or you suck at sucking. Bullet dodged I reckon.

[2thDoc]

maybe i dont suck enough?
or my wife's genes and parenting skills outweigh mine? That's probably not it because she cried when the boys admitted they didnt believe in santa.

I still cant quite grasp why we are talking about santa when I want to talk about viruses.

[Remy]

I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I do believe if there would have been no reporting on the new virus, not many people would have noticed we had a new virus. Sure, some folks would have lost family/friends unexpectedly, but not enough to make a connection on a pandemic type virus.

[2thDoc]

thats even beyond stupid. and you seem so normal. wtf? Do you realize the US isnt the only country on earth?
I'm pretty sure sweden may even have told us about this one.
its a GLOBAL pandemic. and the world is NOT flat.

ugh. I just need to stay off the internet.

[Remy]

thats even beyond stupid. and you seem so normal. wtf? Do you realize the US isnt the only country on earth?
I'm pretty sure sweden may even have told us about this one.
its a GLOBAL pandemic. and the world is NOT flat.

ugh. I just need to stay off the internet.

So if you hadn't heard on the news that we had a new virus, you would have been able to tell just by looking around at your local surroundings? I'm sure the hospital folks would have known something was up, but to the average joe, I really believe life wouldn't have been any different.

[everlast]

I still cant quite grasp why we are talking about santa when I want to talk about viruses.

Non-linear thinking. Its a challenge for some.

[2thDoc]

So if you hadn't heard on the news that we had a new virus, you would have been able to tell just by looking around at your local surroundings? I'm sure the hospital folks would have known something was up, but to the average joe, I really believe life wouldn't have been any different.

yes, i think it would be quite obvious when 200,000 people died for "unknown" reasons.

my point was that we all say "media and politics" are to blame...but the virus doesnt give a shit....ergo, the media arent to blame for the science. granted, I get to weed through whatever everlast posted next....and hopefully we can remove the virus from the political rhetoric.

plus, other countries are dealing with the exact same virus and we arent blaming [I]their[I] media. So, yes, we would know there is a virus coming bc other countries would tell us.

NOTICE i havent spoken about our REACTION to the virus. That is a totally different discussion that is likely political.

[everlast]

yes, i think it would be quite obvious when 200,000 people died for "unknown" reasons..

you mean 200,000 minus the ones whose death would have been classified as something else if not for the concerted effort to classify deaths as covid-related? Three million people die every year in the US. How difficult would it be to classify a few deaths from something else to this, report on it 24/7, and convince the public that this is something more dangerous than it is?

[2thDoc]

ugh/
never mind
like i didnt see this coming when i posted.

yes, I still think we would be aware of the GLOBAL PANDEMIC even if we didnt have FOX or CNN.

its incredibly important to separate science from the media.

[Glenn]

ugh/
never mind
like i didnt see this coming when i posted.

yes, I still think we would be aware of the GLOBAL PANDEMIC even if we didnt have FOX or CNN.

its incredibly important to separate science from the media.

I blame CNN for over reporting the spanish flu. Buncha BDLTs

[Remy]

ugh/
never mind
like i didnt see this coming when i posted.

yes, I still think we would be aware of the GLOBAL PANDEMIC even if we didnt have FOX or CNN.

its incredibly important to separate science from the media.

Guess we just see it differently. I don’t think people would have noticed old people dying and a few young people dying unexpectedly. The death rate didn’t go up enough for the average person to look around at their LOCAL surroundings and be alarmed. There are tons of viruses or sicknesses that exist that I have no clue about. Doesn’t mean they don’t exist it just means it hasn’t affected me or many other people to the degree that it’s normal to hear about

[2thDoc]

i understand that we use media bias to UNbias all our thinking....but I just have to ask: Are you comparing people dying from normal every day causes to dying from a GLOBAL PANDEMIC? You must realize this is something different when its affecting EVERYONE ON THIS PLANET. Also understand that THE DOCTOR does not make more money this way.

you heard about SARS, right? Remember that? You certainly didnt need to be afraid of it, but you damn sure knew it was there.

We gotta be careful not to go so far the other way (pushing against the media) that we forget basic science and reasoning.

a pandemic is far different than other health issues that affect smaller groups.

[Remy]

i understand that we use media bias to UNbias all our thinking....but I just have to ask: Are you comparing people dying from normal every day causes to dying from a GLOBAL PANDEMIC? You must realize this is something different when its affecting EVERYONE ON THIS PLANET. Also understand that THE DOCTOR does not make more money this way.

you heard about SARS, right? Remember that? You certainly didnt need to be afraid of it, but you damn sure knew it was there.

We gotta be careful not to go so far the other way (pushing against the media) that we forget basic science and reasoning.

a pandemic is far different than other health issues that affect smaller groups.

I'm saying most people wouldn't notice the difference of people dying from a pandemic vs. normal death from everyday events. Old people die from respiratory/pneumonia type things all the time. Heck some of them just die because their body is worn out after 85 years. There hasn't been such an uptick in death in most areas for you to look around and automatically think there must be something extraordinary killing off all of these people.

I boil it down to the individual experience level (and everyone's experience is different). Most people know a fair amount of people that have had the virus at this point. Let's say the number is 50. Out of those, 60-80% were likely asymptomatic or very mild symptoms like a normal cold. Nothing out of the ordinary with that. Friends/family get mildly sick everyday. Let's say 1-2 of them died. You wouldn't think a pandemic virus killed them, you would just think they got sick and died unexpectedly (or expectedly if they're over 80). That is my point, from an individual experience level, nothing would cause you to think there is a pandemic virus out there overwhelming the nation.

ETA: As far as SARS, I would have known nothing about if I didn't see it on the news. I knew absolutely no one that had it.

[WhitewaterDuck]

Guess we just see it differently. I don’t think people would have noticed old people dying and a few young people dying unexpectedly. The death rate didn’t go up enough for the average person to look around at their LOCAL surroundings and be alarmed. There are tons of viruses or sicknesses that exist that I have no clue about. Doesn’t mean they don’t exist it just means it hasn’t affected me or many other people to the degree that it’s normal to hear about

I've worked as a respiratory therapist, RN, and Anesthesia provider for the last 20+ years...as an RT, I took care of soccer dad that had had a sore throat, spiked a huge fever and deteriorated, came into the ER and was on vent the next day. Went into ARDS and died two days later. I remember drawing his blood gas sample in the ER and hearing the ID doc telling him that they were unsure of the cause of the infection, but the good news in he was young and healthy so there was a good chance he could survive it...to the patient that was sitting in a chair looking fairly normal. I've taken care of thousands of vented pt's that had COPD or DM and/or Obesity...most older than 65...that ended up with respiratory and ventilatory failure due to some respiratory infection...and it did them in. The only respiratory pathogen ever tested for in most cases was the flu. If no one said anything about this..maybe the heart of the biggest cities would have noticed a big bump...would they have thought "Epidemic," who knows. I can say with a great deal of confidence that most places...hospitals included...would have never suspected any difference from years past. The only difference I've seen...granted I'm in a small Wyoming town...is that our system is doing backflips and amazing gymnastics to make sure we are complying with ever changing decisions from the powers that be.