Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Coronavirus / Corona Virus

I think the panic over all this isn’t necessarily the death rate which seems quite low, but the fact that if it spreads to large numbers of the population, the health service will be overwhelmed, public transport will suffer as will policing etc. Hopefully we will look back in a years time and wonder what all the fuss has been about but it will at least show us just how ill prepared we are for when the the real “Virus X” arrives.

My thoughts are that there's no possibility of preparedness for the one that gets us (providing this isn't it ) ...... the massive and increasing levels of crowded urbanisation, constant travel and the economic interconnectedness of globalisation means that if a virus pops up that's strongly infectious from day one but shows no symptoms for a month....and has a high death rate....it will crash us back to the 17thC in short order .....that alone will kill off most of those surviving the virus itself ...... ironically we have less resilience as a society and species than we did at the time of the Black Death ....Bunch of hot-house flowers deprived of our greenhouse ....no wonder the PowersThat Be are skittish

K

There's also a great deal of complacency in the general population because of the skewed nature of the seriousness and death rate. Basically if you are under 50 the disease won't have any effect, up to 65 there's only a tiny chance of a small effect but from 65 upwards it gets worse and worse with a >20% death rate for the over 80s.

If anyone does get it, the last place they want to be is a hospital, far too much risk of secondary infection from MRSA or whatever.

It was odd to see my old grammar school on the 10 o clock news.

True, but fortunately for us we have the mechanism of evolution on our side. A virus that kills its host tends not to survive very long as it cannot reproduce enough of itself to get out into the wider world. That's why the common cold rhinoviruses are so successful, they don't kill us and so can happily proliferate.

Yes John, two of our 3 that attended there also saw this whilst they were down for my MIL's funeral on Monday in our village and had a double take.

It came as a bit of a surprise to us all that they now have 1,000 pupils.

massive and increasing levels of crowded urbanisation


In an evolutionary context, humans are living in less dense population clusters (though far larger, granted) than in historic societies and in our herd-living pre history.

A successful (ie extant) virus will have evolved NOT to entirely kill off its human host in greater population densities than currently exist.

Still, I do love all this predictable doom and gloom - gives me some nice volatility to trade.

Yep ...quite possibly the density per square metre of cave dwelling or tribal/early city life might have been higher ....but these dense clusters were tiny and separated from the next (and probably mutually antagonistc) one by large amounts of hard and slow to travel distance....such an infection would be catastrophic to the tribe/group but self extinguishing globally ..... and by doing so join the list of evolutionary dead-ends.....fast forward to a cave/village of 12M people with constant speedy travel between it and all others like it globally and we're in completely different territory from traditional plagues.

Darwinistic evolution is reactive not proactive ...ie,a virus that killed all the tribe and couldn't jump to the next died out....all too late for the tribe .... Through what to our ancestors would seem like instant travel we've made the world one tribe .... VirusX might die out after a profligate destruction of our 'village' ......chalk one up to Darwin ...cold comfort for us though.

And don't get me started on the appallingly fragile nature of modern society and just how little damage could cause a catastrophic failure.

Chin-up ...we'll be fine

K

I agree John but it's the latest media hype and just like Brexit was but now has faded these things are featured and reflected on TM also which is healthy, the rainbow warrior appears to be in the last dying throws on the Brexit thread on TM.

Now we have experts from every area on the Coronavirus it's merely a reflection of what we are exposed to in the media, I suspect in the region of a half of those eligible for the flu jab on here won't have bothered to take it up as they know better even though they are far more likely to die of it than Corona.
As ever one must maintain a robust sense of humour in the virtual world that we inhabit

I don't see it as media hype. I see it as they are reporting. It's good to know how it's spreading and what the numbers are. It's good to take sensible precautions which are really what everyone should have been doing. The disease is new so I think it's too early to lock in death rates.

The alternative is they don't report on it, and then everyone says "Why weren't we told?"