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[andrea]

The seasonal flu hospitalizes million of people, but it does so across several months.

COVID-19 peaks rapidly and has an higher hospitalization rate. People won't die just because of the virus. People will die because hospitals are flooded and are forced to give sick people the boot and leave them to die. The reason for those extreme quarantines is to flatten the peak. Completely unmitigated, the potential death toll is significant, concentrated in a short time span, and it happens in a very bad way. (people dying despite care is one thing. corpses massing at hospital doors because there aren't enough beds is another)

[Frumple]

My primary point of comparison was seasonal flu. Hundreds of millions of infections, millions of hospitalizations and hundreds of thousands of deaths every year worldwide. We take the virus apart, create the vaccine, distribute it, weep for the lost, and get ready for next year. This is a routine, not a reason for panic.

Slowing the spread of infection is important, but far more has been done to do so for COVID-19 than for any other disease in recent history. I'm not saying we should do less; I'm asking why we didn't do more for the others.

Like covid's actively more dangerous than the seasonal flu? Routine going into at-minimum 5-time overdrive is reason to panic in most situations, nevermind situations that kill people.

You would expect doing less for things less likely to kill people. Other stuff's also tended to be spread out more than this thing's been so far -- vaccines exist for seasonal flu, and took hecka time to develop, its whole shtick is over several months rather than several weeks, etc.

Add in more capabilities, more awareness, and so on, and you've got most of your why.

[mko]

Going back somewhat further in history the obvious comparison is Spanish flu.  Chances are that Covid19 won't be as severe, but part of that decision is down the the mutation (faux-)RNG.

https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=228841

There are many reason why death ratio will be lower.

World is not just after worldwide war, with collapsed countries, malnourished population etc.

Spanish flu predates discover of flu virus, during 1918 pandemic source of illness was not fully known.

Medicine moved really forward in last 100 years.

My primary point of comparison was seasonal flu. Hundreds of millions of infections, millions of hospitalizations and hundreds of thousands of deaths every year worldwide. We take the virus apart, create the vaccine, distribute it, weep for the lost, and get ready for next year. This is a routine, not a reason for panic.

1) Yes, we are far, far underreacting to flu

2) Covid19 is far more deadlier than flu, especially in case of older people.

3) See Wuhan and Italy - Covid19 has potential to spread rapidly and overfill hospitals. "It may become necessary to establish an age limit for access to intensive care" (from official recommendation, there are reports that in some places it was necessary and only patients most likely to recover were fully treated among seriously ill ones - see https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/who-gets-hospital-bed/607807/ )

4) panic is not a solution for anything

I'm not saying we should do less; I'm asking why we didn't do more for the others.

Depends on specific illness. In some cases we really should do far more (for examples ones caused by air pollution).

[TamerVirus]

Apparently nowadays, any sort of preparation or deviation of the established norm is consider panicking.
Trying to build up a two week buffer of supplies? No that’s panicking.

[Reelya]

Right now I just want to buy some extra toilet paper, because I haven't seen any in the shops for a while. I don't count that as panicking, but planning. You gotta take into account what everyone else is doing, and sometimes that unavoidably means you jump in and get some of the in-shortage stuff yourself, because wiping your ass with newspaper isn't pleasant.

And you're right, people should have a buffer in case things go pear-shaped, but they don't. Lack of planning. Then, everyone decides to go and get that sorted. The problem is that everyone is doing it at the same time, not that everyone is doing it.

[dragdeler]

-

[IcyTea31]

Apparently nowadays, any sort of preparation or deviation of the established norm is consider panicking.
Trying to build up a two week buffer of supplies? No that’s panicking.

Less the request, more the tone it was in. The overall idea in my father's message was "you're not going to be able to go to the store in a week" more than "it's a good idea to have some extra supplies for emergencies".

[ChairmanPoo]

There are rumors about constription  here

[McTraveller]

There are rumors about constription  here

Was that supposed to be "conscription" or "constipation"?

I'm not sure what either of those things have to do with panic buying of toilet paper.

(My opinion: "everyone trying to build up a reserve of basic supplies at the same time" is pretty much the definition of panic.)

[mko]

And you should have reserve of basic supplies*. To avoid going to shops filled with people, some of them with new fast-spreading illness.

* Big enough so you can skip shopping for about week or two, maybe a month. Small enough that you consume everything before anything will be spoiled.

[JWNoctis]

Right now I just want to buy some extra toilet paper, because I haven't seen any in the shops for a while. I don't count that as panicking, but planning. You gotta take into account what everyone else is doing, and sometimes that unavoidably means you jump in and get some of the in-shortage stuff yourself, because wiping your ass with newspaper isn't pleasant.

Way off-topic now, but sometimes I really do wonder why Asian-style electric bidets are not more common, being way much more hygienic and comfortable et cetera.


But yes...hang on tight, it won't last forever, and at this point rationing what you already have and stay safely at home is probably much better than braving a crowded mart where there might be nothing left for today, even if you do have face masks and goggles - supply chains will catch up: it takes much more than even this to collapse that outright.

[Max™]

Conscriptipation: forced enlistment in the fight against anal leakage.

A vaccine won't even exist realistically until next year, so forget any of the incredibly stupid statements made by assholes like the president about them hurrying one out, hurrying IS doing it in a year.

Nobody has immunities to this, unlike the flu where there is a built up resistance among the population.

The flu is fairly easy to prevent spread, comparitively, normal flu spread doesn't involve: person coughs across room, droplet lands on counter, days later you touch counter and scratch nose, a week later you start coughing. COVID-19 adds that exciting twist where just avoiding being around coughing people isn't enough, simply being where they WERE might end up infecting you, so wash your goddamn hands and sanitize surfaces.

Masks help prevent coughed droplets from getting in/out, but they also make it harder to touch your face and it is far too often ignored that this is a vector to worry about, you touched your face just now without thinking about it probably. It happens a lot, I stroke my beard all the time and have to remind myself constantly to chill that shit out right now.

Flu doesn't have the same number of people drowning in their own lungs as this does, and usually we spread flu cases out over a broad hump so we can deal with extreme reactions easier, but everybody is gonna end up getting this around the same time. For every 100 that come down with it, 2 or 3 may end up needing ventilation or more intensive care. If we had started preparing for this earlier we could have spread out the hump and cycle people in and out of intensive care situations a few a time without overloading capacity.

...if.

[TamerVirus]

(My opinion: "everyone trying to build up a reserve of basic supplies at the same time" is pretty much the definition of panic.)

The idea was to do it before everyone else is doing it.
As a species, we all seem to be more reactive than proactive
nobody could have seen this coming!!

[Reelya]

Right now I just want to buy some extra toilet paper, because I haven't seen any in the shops for a while. I don't count that as panicking, but planning. You gotta take into account what everyone else is doing, and sometimes that unavoidably means you jump in and get some of the in-shortage stuff yourself, because wiping your ass with newspaper isn't pleasant.

Way off-topic now, but sometimes I really do wonder why Asian-style electric bidets are not more common, being way much more hygienic and comfortable et cetera.


But yes...hang on tight, it won't last forever, and at this point rationing what you already have and stay safely at home is probably much better than braving a crowded mart where there might be nothing left for today, even if you do have face masks and goggles - supply chains will catch up: it takes much more than even this to collapse that outright.

Ah no, I should be alright. You see, I have two 24 hour supermarkets within 20 minutes walk, and it's the weekend now so I'm going to trek there around 2:30 am, which is right after they finish stocking. This depends on the extent of the supply problems though, there might be shortages further up the supply chain then I'm out of luck.

[feelotraveller]

The idea was to do it before everyone else is doing it.

Yeah, I should have got Covid months ago...