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On March 16 2020 08:53 Firebolt145 wrote:![[image loading]](https://healthblog.uofmhealth.org/sites/consumer/files/2020-03/Coronavirus_flattening_curve_1.jpg) This picture is probably the best way of showing why we prefer people to only enter shops five at a time.
I see this "graph" almost everywhere. As the concept seems sensible, there are a number of very big problems with it, and it should never be used to justify that we have to fight this virus with any means possible:
-It contains no number nor time indications, but is rather a purely theoretical illustration. When was the last time a graph like that was used to justify important desicions?
-It says nothing about which precautions are needed to achieve the desired effect. There is a big difference between washing your hands and arresting the entire population in their homes and shutting down all industry.
-It indicates that what we try to avoid is a massive peak where would have needed double the capacity of what we need. It also indicates that we will have the same number of infected no matter which precautions are taken. Is this even close to the truth?
As argued earlier, the death toll of the virus should not be a concern, at least not at this point.
Acording to this curve from wordometer the number of serious cases globally has been qute stable around 6k since March 7th, as the recovery rate in China is very accurately matching the growth in cases abroad. The number itself also seems very maneageble, even though some areas are hit much harder than others.
Most places, the hospitals are nowhere close to being overrun, I read today that only 38 is in hospital in all of Norway, for example. All I have seen is an extremely rapid change of mentality that anything makes sense and is important as long as has "covid" in the motivation, and it scares me! When is the discussion going to start if we are buring the house to get rid of the rut?
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+ Show Spoiler +
Shitty for a ton of my friends that work in the service industry. The Governor of California recommended that restaurants and bars close but the Mayor of LA went a step further and actually closed them all down. Sucks since my Birthday is this month and I can't go out for it anymore. :/
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On March 16 2020 14:44 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2020 08:53 Firebolt145 wrote:This picture is probably the best way of showing why we prefer people to only enter shops five at a time. I see this "graph" almost everywhere. As the concept seems sensible, there are a number of very big problems with it, and it should never be used to justify that we have to fight this virus with any means possible: -It contains no number nor time indications, but is rather a purely theoretical illustration. When was the last time a graph like that was used to justify important desicions? -It says nothing about which precautions are needed to achieve the desired effect. There is a big difference between washing your hands and arresting the entire population in their homes and shutting down all industry. -It indicates that what we try to avoid is a massive peak where would have needed double the capacity of what we need. It also indicates that we will have the same number of infected no matter which precautions are taken. Is this even close to the truth? As argued earlier, the death toll of the virus should not be a concern, at least not at this point. Acording to this curve from wordometer the number of serious cases globally has been qute stable around 6k since March 7th, as the recovery rate in China is very accurately matching the growth in cases abroad. The number itself also seems very maneageble, even though some areas are hit much harder than others. Most places, the hospitals are nowhere close to being overrun, I read today that only 38 is in hospital in all of Norway, for example. All I have seen is an extremely rapid change of mentality that anything makes sense and is important as long as has "covid" in the motivation, and it scares me! When is the discussion going to start if we are buring the house to get rid of the rut?
1. The people making the decisions aren't looking at the graph. They are looking at case numbers, expected cases and what they need to do to make the situation managable.
Again, infection rates are exponential and the incubation time means there could be several weeks before you see the true extent of how serious it is. Italy's current deathrate reflects the people who got infected somewhere between 1-3 weeks ago. Even if the lockdown was fully effective, which I doubt, it's going to continue to worsen for a several more weeks before improving.
2. That's also not for the graph to explain. Go check your local health authority for what they recommend. In lieu of that, just wash your hands, don't touch your face and avoid big groups of people for a while.
3. Assuming the virus dies out when we gain herd immunity, yes. Containment is no longer an option in a lot of countries as secondary and tertiary infections have outpaced testing to such a degree that no hard numbers are available. The only alternatives are either test like Korea and track the shit out of every single case so that it doesn't spread, or else quarantine every single person in the country for a month to let it burn out.
I have to ask, what's in it for you to downplay the severity of it when hundreds of people are dying every day, and tens of thousands more are getting infected.
I fully expect Canada to be locked down by the end of this week, as gyms are closing, and sports leagues are suspended, and my workplace is going to be work from home soon
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On March 16 2020 02:01 Nevuk wrote:
Well, these images are pretty terrifying.
Those are terrifying, but they seem to be taken at the worst possible moment; I was at O'Hare today to pick up my mother and it honestly felt like a ghost town. She said the plane was 1/4 full (a Sunday morning flight, but still...), and I saw very few people while waiting for her. Hopefully I wasn't seeing the best, but rather the new normal!
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i dunno if this has been covered already but for the countries that have entered into lockdown, is there any news from the respective governments on how they plan on dealing with the economic damage?
australia isnt in lockdown yet thank god (im a owner of multiple restaurants) but the government has announced stimulus packages to combat the economic damage. unfortunately, very dissapointingly, the stimulus packages are completely shit and are worthless to any business that doesnt somehow have massive cash reserves saved up to make use of the packages. the businesses that dont have money to spend dont really get any help
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Again, infection rates are exponential and the incubation time means there could be several weeks before you see the true extent of how serious it is. Italy's current deathrate reflects the people who got infected somewhere between 1-3 weeks ago. Even if the lockdown was fully effective, which I doubt, it's going to continue to worsen for a several more weeks before improving.
You still don't explain why the amount of serious cases has been so staple for the last few weeks, despite the constant fear of overburdening the hospitals. How do you explain this kind of reaction when the status in Norway is 38 in hospital and 3 dead out of more than 1000 infected in Norway?
2. That's also not for the graph to explain. Go check your local health authority for what they recommend. In lieu of that, just wash your hands, don't touch your face and avoid big groups of people for a while.
That is fine, but many countries go WAY further than that!
I have to ask, what's in it for you to downplay the severity of it when hundreds of people are dying every day, and tens of thousands more are getting infected.
Because elderly die from respiratory illnesses ALL THE TIME, it is just not reported or made a big fuss about. In Europe, it is the 2nd most common cause of death amonge people 65+. We should all know it could be a big deal when great grandma sneezes.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On March 16 2020 17:17 evilfatsh1t wrote:
i dunno if this has been covered already but for the countries that have entered into lockdown, is there any news from the respective governments on how they plan on dealing with the economic damage?
australia isnt in lockdown yet thank god (im a owner of multiple restaurants) but the government has announced stimulus packages to combat the economic damage. unfortunately, very dissapointingly, the stimulus packages are completely shit and are worthless to any business that doesnt somehow have massive cash reserves saved up to make use of the packages. the businesses that dont have money to spend dont really get any help
Well in the US the story just seems to be a colossal amount of money spent in a futile effort to try to stop the stock market from tumbling via monetary policy. Generally seems to be where Europe is going as well. Beyond that, nothing seems too concrete or sufficiently funded to make a difference. Vague talk about supporting industries that are particularly hard hit, such as airlines, but it will get worse before it gets better.
Curious what you’re referring to in Australia though. Seems like the major measures involve large tax breaks, which I’m guessing are problematic if your business doesn’t have the capacity to eat cash losses right now? I could definitely see that as ineffective for aiding small business survival.
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On March 16 2020 17:35 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2020 17:17 evilfatsh1t wrote:
i dunno if this has been covered already but for the countries that have entered into lockdown, is there any news from the respective governments on how they plan on dealing with the economic damage?
australia isnt in lockdown yet thank god (im a owner of multiple restaurants) but the government has announced stimulus packages to combat the economic damage. unfortunately, very dissapointingly, the stimulus packages are completely shit and are worthless to any business that doesnt somehow have massive cash reserves saved up to make use of the packages. the businesses that dont have money to spend dont really get any help Well in the US the story just seems to be a colossal amount of money spent in a futile effort to try to stop the stock market from tumbling via monetary policy. Generally seems to be where Europe is going as well. Beyond that, nothing seems too concrete or sufficiently funded to make a difference. Vague talk about supporting industries that are particularly hard hit, such as airlines, but it will get worse before it gets better. Curious what you’re referring to in Australia though. Seems like the major measures involve large tax breaks, which I’m guessing are problematic if your business doesn’t have the capacity to eat cash losses right now? I could definitely see that as ineffective for aiding small business survival.
yeah in australia aside from small payments to those on welfare, the rest of the population has to try and make do with an increase in tax deductible purchases. the governments logic is that these tax breaks will incentivise people to spend cash on assets in order to benefit from said tax breaks and therefore stimulate the local economy. the flaw in this logic is that it assumes small-med business owners, low-middle income earners etc. have cash to spend at all. the biggest beneficiaries are in reality the larger corporations that do indeed probably have some funds available to purchase whatever assets they require. the businesses that are going towards insolvency dont look like theyre going to be able to stop that at the moment.
just today the government did announce that they are planning for a 2nd stimulus package immediately, but hardly any details provided on this so in the interim i expect a lot of people to lose their incomes.
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opterown
Australia54784 Posts
On March 16 2020 17:23 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +Again, infection rates are exponential and the incubation time means there could be several weeks before you see the true extent of how serious it is. Italy's current deathrate reflects the people who got infected somewhere between 1-3 weeks ago. Even if the lockdown was fully effective, which I doubt, it's going to continue to worsen for a several more weeks before improving.
You still don't explain why the amount of serious cases has been so staple for the last few weeks, despite the constant fear of overburdening the hospitals. How do you explain this kind of reaction when the status in Norway is 38 in hospital and 3 dead out of more than 1000 infected in Norway? Show nested quote +2. That's also not for the graph to explain. Go check your local health authority for what they recommend. In lieu of that, just wash your hands, don't touch your face and avoid big groups of people for a while. That is fine, but many countries go WAY further than that! Show nested quote +I have to ask, what's in it for you to downplay the severity of it when hundreds of people are dying every day, and tens of thousands more are getting infected. Because elderly die from respiratory illnesses ALL THE TIME, it is just not reported or made a big fuss about. In Europe, it is the 2nd most common cause of death amonge people 65+. We should all know it could be a big deal when great grandma sneezes.
Critical cases may appear stable since a large proportion die, and that there are only so many ICU beds available for these critical patients.
Remember it's been less than a month since the COVID has hit Europe properly, and it's only getting worse.
The elderly die from respiratory illnesses a lot, but COVID increases that many times over. Really, it just sounds like you don't give a shit about the elderly people most affected.
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France12886 Posts
Work from home is mandatory for me since today, it was time. Should have been done weeks ago, but my company waited for the government to act before allowing remote work.
The bars / restaurants are thankfully closed since yesterday (https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-france-bars-restaurants-closed/), but many people were gathering in parks...
It's gonna be difficult weeks coming ahead.
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Critical cases may appear stable since a large proportion die, and that there are only so many ICU beds available for these critical patients.
With the number of new infected detected, that does not explain it. As mentioned, Norway has 39 Corona patients in hospitals and 3 dead out of a bit more than 1000 cases (after vigorous testing.) That does not qualify as a crisis in my book. The situation is similar other places.
The elderly die from respiratory illnesses a lot, but COVID increases that many times over. Really, it just sounds like you don't give a shit about the elderly people most affected.
It barely increases at all so far, please check the numbers before making arguments like that. Respiratory diseases killed 384 per 100.000 elderly in Europe in 2016, which is the most recent year I found data from.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Causes_of_death_statistics_-_people_over_65&oldid=445493#Frequency_of_the_main_causes_of_death_in_the_EU_for_the_elderly_and_for_younger_people
Yes, it is THAT common.
Of course I care about the elderly and vulnerable, but those numbers of deaths need to be seen in the context they belong.
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On March 16 2020 18:55 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +Critical cases may appear stable since a large proportion die, and that there are only so many ICU beds available for these critical patients.
With the number of new infected detected, that does not explain it. As mentioned, Norway has 39 Corona patients in hospitals and 3 dead out of a bit more than 1000 cases (after vigorous testing.) That does not qualify as a crisis in my book. The situation is similar other places.
Norway had its first reported infection 20 days ago. From symptoms to death it usually takes between 2 and 8 weeks. To get a rough estimate go back 2 weeks and look at how many have been reported infected at that time. Which was 25 cases. Of those plus those that have been infected by that time but not reported which I assume will be like 100-500 cases, you now have 3 dead and more of those 100-500 to die within the next 6 weeks.
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On March 16 2020 18:38 Poopi wrote:
Work from home is mandatory for me since today, it was time. Should have been done weeks ago, but my company waited for the government to act before allowing remote work.
The bars / restaurants are thankfully closed since yesterday (https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-france-bars-restaurants-closed/), but many people were gathering in parks...
It's gonna be difficult weeks coming ahead.
Lucky you.
I am still expected to be at the office everyday and so are my colleagues.
Could call a doctors office and get a week off but I also don't wanna bail on my employer. Not sure what to do
The first states in Germay have officialy announced a state of emergency to have better control and get things done faster.
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On March 16 2020 18:55 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +Critical cases may appear stable since a large proportion die, and that there are only so many ICU beds available for these critical patients.
With the number of new infected detected, that does not explain it. As mentioned, Norway has 39 Corona patients in hospitals and 3 dead out of a bit more than 1000 cases (after vigorous testing.) That does not qualify as a crisis in my book. The situation is similar other places. Show nested quote +The elderly die from respiratory illnesses a lot, but COVID increases that many times over. Really, it just sounds like you don't give a shit about the elderly people most affected. It barely increases at all so far, please check the numbers before making arguments like that. Respiratory diseases killed over a million elderly in Europe in 2016, which is the most recent year I found data from. That equals ~2700 per day. Yes, it is THAT common. Of course I care about the elderly and vulnerable, but those numbers of deaths need to be seen in the context they belong.
Why do you continue to downplay corona? Have you noticed you're one of the only people in the thread who doesn't take it seriously?
Multiple countries are locking their borders, closing schools etc., but they're all wrong right?
Those 39 corona patients in Norway might be in the hospital for at least 2 weeks (assuming they're in the hospital due to pneumonia. Most corona treatments require 2 weeks in hospital + aftercare so 2 weeks is an optimistic estimate), during those 2 weeks 100s of new cases will require hospitalisation. Without drastic measures your country will run out of available intensive care hospital beds and then you get in a situation like Italy were 368 ppl die in one day due to lack of resources in hospitals.
You should be grateful that your government is taking swift action instead of trying to downplay all this.
As for Belgium, we have 1900 intensive care beds, which doesn't sound like a lot considering we're still on Italy's curve. Almost 400 new confirmed cases over the weekend and I believe less testing is done during the weekend so today's numbers could be a lot higher. 252 patients hospitalized, 31 on breathing equipment. (stats in Dutch here https://www.hln.be/nieuws/buitenland/live-172-nieuwe-coronagevallen-vijfde-dode-in-ons-land-meer-dan-1-000-besmettingen-in-totaal-volg-hier-de-persconferentie~a4d58282/)
My employer has told us to work from home full-time now, so me and my gf are staying at home for probably at least 3 weeks. I went on a shopping trip at 9 AM this morning and it looks like a lot of ppl are hoarding. Hand soap and frozen food were mostly gone, toilet paper and pasta aisle already half empty at 9 AM, crazy times.
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France12886 Posts
On March 16 2020 19:07 Harris1st wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2020 18:38 Poopi wrote:
Work from home is mandatory for me since today, it was time. Should have been done weeks ago, but my company waited for the government to act before allowing remote work.
The bars / restaurants are thankfully closed since yesterday (https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-france-bars-restaurants-closed/), but many people were gathering in parks...
It's gonna be difficult weeks coming ahead. Lucky you. I am still expected to be at the office everyday and so are my colleagues. Could call a doctors office and get a week off but I also don't wanna bail on my employer. Not sure what to do The first states in Germay have officialy announced a state of emergency to have better control and get things done faster.
Well it's relatively lucky, since my gf who is in the same company (but not on the same location nor doing the same job etc.) still has to work today. There are rumors or lockdown coming in France tonight / tomorrow evening so she'll be able to come work at home eventually as well but it's still dangerous since she has a long commute.
As for Slydie, the first case in Norway was in the end of february and you have less tourism than some other european countries, so of course your country is not hit as hard (yet? since you take the same measures as other countries while still being in the early stage, you'll probably take less of a hit than us)
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On March 16 2020 14:44 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2020 08:53 Firebolt145 wrote:This picture is probably the best way of showing why we prefer people to only enter shops five at a time. I see this "graph" almost everywhere. As the concept seems sensible, there are a number of very big problems with it, and it should never be used to justify that we have to fight this virus with any means possible: -It contains no number nor time indications, but is rather a purely theoretical illustration. When was the last time a graph like that was used to justify important desicions? -It says nothing about which precautions are needed to achieve the desired effect. There is a big difference between washing your hands and arresting the entire population in their homes and shutting down all industry. -It indicates that what we try to avoid is a massive peak where would have needed double the capacity of what we need. It also indicates that we will have the same number of infected no matter which precautions are taken. Is this even close to the truth?
All your questions are pathogen-specific but the graph isn't about the coronavirus specifically, it's an old one explaining general epidemiology to people that might be upset they can't go clubbing during an outbreak.
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opterown
Australia54784 Posts
On March 16 2020 18:55 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +Critical cases may appear stable since a large proportion die, and that there are only so many ICU beds available for these critical patients.
With the number of new infected detected, that does not explain it. As mentioned, Norway has 39 Corona patients in hospitals and 3 dead out of a bit more than 1000 cases (after vigorous testing.) That does not qualify as a crisis in my book. The situation is similar other places. Show nested quote +The elderly die from respiratory illnesses a lot, but COVID increases that many times over. Really, it just sounds like you don't give a shit about the elderly people most affected. It barely increases at all so far, please check the numbers before making arguments like that. Respiratory diseases killed 384 per 100.000 elderly in Europe in 2016, which is the most recent year I found data from. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Causes_of_death_statistics_-_people_over_65&oldid=445493#Frequency_of_the_main_causes_of_death_in_the_EU_for_the_elderly_and_for_younger_peopleYes, it is THAT common. Of course I care about the elderly and vulnerable, but those numbers of deaths need to be seen in the context they belong.
So respiratory infections killed 384 per 100,000 elderly in 2016. How much is that in 2 weeks? About 14 per 100,000.
With some quick google searching, Italy appears to have ~13.5 million people over 65 years. With ~1800 deaths (mostly in the elderly) over the past two weeks (and climbing quickly), that works out to be about 14 deaths per 100,000 as well.
If you narrow the time scale to the past week only, it's 1500 dead = 11 per 100,000 per week versus background rate of 7 per 100,000 per week.
So COVID has just come out of nowhere and by itself DOUBLED the background rate of deaths attributable to respiratory infections (which include all sorts of individual cause). It's only getting worse currently - there are no signs of recovery in Italy right now, and the rest of Europe is not far behind.
This is also not accounting for the unknown post-infection morbidity that people may incur e.g. permanent lung damage. It's also not accounting for all the critical non-dead cases that are using up valuable resources in the ICU, etc.
Imagine if suddenly all deaths due to cancer suddenly doubled, or all deaths secondary to heart attacks doubled. Imagine if car accident fatalities suddenly doubled out of nowhere. There would certainly be a lot of uproar about that too.
You can throw whatever stats you want around but at the end of the day I don't think you have the right perspective on the situation, and you're doubling down when people have shown you to be incorrect.
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currently in moldova there are 23 people
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what the hell is all this talk about that you could have lung damage after you recover? i hope that is misleading, and more along the lines of people already with bad health conditions are more susceptible for this occuring
User was warned for this post.
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On March 16 2020 19:44 opterown wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2020 18:55 Slydie wrote:Critical cases may appear stable since a large proportion die, and that there are only so many ICU beds available for these critical patients.
With the number of new infected detected, that does not explain it. As mentioned, Norway has 39 Corona patients in hospitals and 3 dead out of a bit more than 1000 cases (after vigorous testing.) That does not qualify as a crisis in my book. The situation is similar other places. The elderly die from respiratory illnesses a lot, but COVID increases that many times over. Really, it just sounds like you don't give a shit about the elderly people most affected. It barely increases at all so far, please check the numbers before making arguments like that. Respiratory diseases killed 384 per 100.000 elderly in Europe in 2016, which is the most recent year I found data from. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Causes_of_death_statistics_-_people_over_65&oldid=445493#Frequency_of_the_main_causes_of_death_in_the_EU_for_the_elderly_and_for_younger_peopleYes, it is THAT common. Of course I care about the elderly and vulnerable, but those numbers of deaths need to be seen in the context they belong. So respiratory infections killed 384 per 100,000 elderly in 2016. How much is that in 2 weeks? About 14 per 100,000. With some quick google searching, Italy appears to have ~13.5 million people over 65 years. With ~1800 deaths (mostly in the elderly) over the past two weeks (and climbing quickly), that works out to be about 14 deaths per 100,000 as well. If you narrow the time scale to the past week only, it's 1500 dead = 11 per 100,000 per week versus background rate of 7 per 100,000 per week. So COVID has just come out of nowhere and by itself DOUBLED the background rate of deaths attributable to respiratory infections (which include all sorts of individual cause). It's only getting worse currently - there are no signs of recovery in Italy right now, and the rest of Europe is not far behind. This is also not accounting for the unknown post-infection morbidity that people may incur e.g. permanent lung damage. It's also not accounting for all the critical non-dead cases that are using up valuable resources in the ICU, etc. Imagine if suddenly all deaths due to cancer suddenly doubled, or all deaths secondary to heart attacks doubled. Imagine if car accident fatalities suddenly doubled out of nowhere. There would certainly be a lot of uproar about that too. You can throw whatever stats you want around but at the end of the day I don't think you have the right perspective on the situation, and you're doubling down when people have shown you to be incorrect.
11 isnt double 7.
also, coronavirus is definitely a problem but i think the biggest issue is whether the responses of many governments to this situation is appropriate and proportionate. obviously speaking in hindsight, we can say italy and a bunch of other western countries fucked up and should have taken many prevention measures earlier. however i dont think its reasonable that everyone thinks its an acceptable response to straight up shut down local and global economies in order to combat this. for some countries which acted too late, this may be the only option. still doesnt make it ok
instead of thinking of this as a disease, if we approached this pandemic as we did other natural disasters, you would not see the same kind of response. many countries are repeat victims of specific kinds of natural disasters and you dont see entire countries or even the globe tank their economies in order to deal with damage, or even to set up preventative measures.
at the moment this is looking like the "trolley problem" in reverse. time will tell what the impacts are of this economic disaster but the governments may well be pressing the switch to actually end up killing 5, rather than the 1.
On March 16 2020 20:51 HelpMeGetBetter wrote:
what the hell is all this talk about that you could have lung damage after you recover? i hope that is misleading, and more along the lines of people already with bad health conditions are more susceptible for this occuring
a brief unscientific explanation would be that the lung cells harden as you get pneumonia and that effect could be permanent
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EPT![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/zrlFIl3.jpg)
