The Corona Virus, COVID-19

Thanks for the link. It’s been difficult to appreciate, let alone to convey to others, the magnitude of change we should be preparing for.

2 Likes

I am very distressed over the coronavirus. I am scared not only for myself but for my child. I wasn’t that worried until everything was sold out at the store, people are panicked. Now it’s all we hear about on the news, and reported cases are steadily going up. Really scared now. :frowning:

6 Likes

Likewise Woolworths supermarkets in Australia.

2 Likes

You are not alone. But remember, generosity and kindness and mutual care will also rise in thoughts and behaviors. Give those your attention and energy, too.

:slight_smile: It’s difficult for me to resist impulses to offer sympathy, comfort, and advice like this. I hope it’s not too unwelcome!

May you and your child and all be safe, healthy, peaceful; may you and all have all that is needed at times of need, and contentment and mutual care.

:anjal:

6 Likes

Thank you, I appreciate the reply. :slight_smile: Hope everything is ok on your end as well.

4 Likes

:slight_smile: Thank you! Fine for now. Catching up on some household projects, doing some studying, reading, …

3 Likes

Indeed the instructions we are following in most countries are determined by people like Taleb who advise governments and who was one of the first to alert us to the possible dangers of this virus, with his paper from last January (which influenced decisions on early travel restrictions).
Conversely the instructions people are following in some places like UK rely on nudge theory (by Richard Thaler) and ideas of herd immunity, which are in total contrast with Taleb’s ideas.
This paper makes us reflect as individuals what course of behaviour to follow in order to be ethical. It is an example of how ethics (defined here as doing what is good for society and ultimately also good for the individual in the long term) has a wisdom component; in this case wisdom includes understanding risk management and fat tailed probability distributions of outcomes.

4 Likes

You’re right, I was asking too much of the moderators of this forum. For that I’m sorry. I understand that moderating is enough of a burden in itself. I should have been more clear in my original post that I was ready to help and that there might also be physicians on the forum who could help out. My apologies to the @moderators. :pray:

And yet, I think @faujidoc1 made a valuable contribution by linking to local trustworthy advice. :slightly_smiling_face:

As Ven @Khemarato.bhikkhu pointed out there was some questionable information present in this thread. We—who are non-experts—are all subject to misunderstandings. It was my hope that a list such as the one above would give some reliable links just in case and would help the discussion to evolve in a wholesome direction.

I agree with you @Gillian. :slightly_smiling_face: My reason for posting was to move on from the facts to open up the space for sharing experiences and discussing what might be a compassionate response, as, I’m happy to say, seems to be happening now. :wink:

3 Likes

Thanks (I do like the BSWA talks). I’ll probably be catching more up on such things over the next while! :slight_smile:

3 Likes

@Lookingforpeace Luis, from what I understand, children can carry the COVID virus, but for reasons not known yet, most do not show symptoms or develop the severe illness that the elderly and immunocompromised can. It’s so normal to worry for your child, but practice good social distancing and hygiene, and have some awareness that this virus seems not to affect kids the way it does adults. In other words, try not to worry, and do what you can to mitigate the risks.

2 Likes

The experts are nowhere near ready to arrive at conclusions regarding the mortality rate for Covid-19. The Governor of the U.S. state of Ohio said publicly on Friday that reliable models suggest as many as 100,000 current Covid-19 infections in Ohio alone. That’s more than the entire country of China. And yet, to date, there are two confirmed Covid-19 deaths in Ohio. I am not good at math, but two deaths out of 100,000 cases is a mortality rate of 0.002%, well below the mortality rate for the seasonal flu (typically around 0.1%). I’m not sure exactly what model the Governor of Ohio was relying on, but he claimed that it was based on extrapolating from statistics used in China. Obviously estimates about infection rates and mortality rates are varying within an extremely wide range.

As a practicing Buddhist, my reaction to all this is to try not to cling to fears and worries and to take one moment at a time. Medical professionals have to plan for the future, but there is a difference between planning for the future and worrying about it.

Edited for spelling.

2 Likes

Have a scientific background and am keeping up with some of the developments. The most interesting paper I saw with regard to death rate was this pre-print here. It is relatively simple in essence. It takes the death rate figures the Chinese gave some weeks back in various age cohorts (and the general pattern of occurrences in time of those deaths) and compares them to one of the few closed sets of infected patients we have available, the 694 positive-testing passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise liner.

The overall conclusion is based on the fact that these rather elderly passengers have not been dying in anywhere near the numbers that the Chinese figures would suggest. When this paper was written this Chinese model would have predicted 15 passengers should have died by that point (7 actually had). The paper basically re-scales the Chinese overall 2.3% Case Fatality Rate (CFR) by 7/15 to give around 1%. Of course, no more passengers have actually died since the paper was written (about 10 days ago) so I suspect a new analysis would push that figure down further (if no more passengers die it would probably indicate something like a 0.5% CFR). 75% of these passengers are over 60 and 40% alone are in their seventies. That fact that 1% have died so far probably indicates a general population death rate of maybe half of that.

However, this all comes with one big proviso. The healthcare that these patients received was presumably excellent, e.g. oxygen support or ventilators readily available if needed. Around 50 of the passengers have been serious or critical at some point (down to 14 now as they are recovering) so in a situation where hospital facilities are overrun or inadequate, outcomes and death rates may look rather different (may have been rather more than 7).

1 Like

A man walks into a bank wearing a mask.

Everyone freaks out.

“Relax,” he says, “I’m just here to rob the place.”

:joy:
Thought some humour might help in this stressful time

19 Likes

Thank you for the reply. Much appreciated. Take care.

1 Like

Would they make a study to measure death and suffering caused by overreacting (assuming that they are overreacting)?

Where i live, the government decided to ban all visits to prisons for two weeks. This caused a riot at one prison yesterday of which two prisoners have died.

At the organization i work for, we have a poor 65 year old woman who is responsible for cleaning the offices and other house keeping duties. The management decided to take some measures to keep the employees safe during the coronavirus hysteria. Of course, the whole load of cleaning and using strong detergents was on the poor old unlucky lady. The pungent smell of the detergents would make a healthy person sick. I noticed that she was stressed and began crying, so i tried to comfort her by telling her that probably soon they will ask everyone to work from home so she does not have to deal with this shit at least for a couple of weeks. To my own surprise, she began crying like hell and said that we want to get rid of her because the rest of the staff somehow believe that she is uniquely contagious!

8 Likes

As Rose said, you’re not alone. It’s scary times, and it’s understandable to be afraid. Don’t worry too much; keep your love in your heart, and remember that whatever happens, life is worth living. Take each day at a time.

Whether or not it is “over”-reacting, certainly the response will itself cause distress and suffering, and in some cases even death. It certainly needs to be balanced out.

Thanks for highlighting the suffering of the cleaners, I had thought of it myself, but to hear a story like that drives it home. I think we can all look out for examples of such suffering around us, and see if there’s anything we can do to help, even as little as a word of appreciation.

14 Likes

Thak you for your words Bhante. :pray:

3 Likes

This isn’t the 5 & Dime kind of Woolworths we had in the US, is it? I got really excited for a minute and almost asked you to eat some french fries at the lunch counter on my behalf as soon as it was safe to do so.

:fries: :drooling_face:

3 Likes

No a different business with the same name, a major Supernarket.

1 Like

A special offering from Bhante Sujato and Ven Akaliko at Lokanta Monastery

https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/7-1-7-chanting-and-meditation-service-on-dhammanet-with-love-from-lokanta/15337

6 Likes