This week, the owner of Olympiakos and Nottingham Forest – Evangelos Marinakis – tested positive for COVID-19. He had attended the Europa League match at the Grove 13 days ago and he came in contact with some of the Arsenal players, staff, and other supporters after the match. Out of an abundance of caution, the league has suspended the match today between Arsenal and Manchester City while Arsenal players and staff self isolate (quarantine) for the remainder of the recommended 14 day isolation period. According to the official announcement by Arsenal, the players will return to work on Friday and prepare for the match against Brighton Hove and Albion.
That is if that match goes on. And that’s the big IF. I suspect we are very close to the Premier League and FA cancelling the remainder of the football season. Not even playing behind closed doors but fully cancelling the season.
There are good reasons for this too. I know that some folks feel like “this is just the flu!” and will point out aggressively that “more people die of the flu!” I have one of these people at my work – where we have canceled all classes. But it’s simply not true that this is “just like the flu!”
First the death rate is significantly higher. Even if it’s 2% that is well beyond the death rate for seasonal flu which is 0.1%. And while I am aware that the death rate is skewed by age (14% for over 80, etc) and by underlying health problems that doesn’t mean that their deaths don’t matter. For example, Marcelo Bielsa is in the target age group and health category (smoker) of people who are most vulnerable to this virus. His death because we kept playing football and didn’t want to tick off a few braying morons would be absolutely tragic. That attitude – it only kills X – is one of the more vicious and ugly sides of humanity.
Second, there’s no shot to immunize against COVID-19. That means that the ONLY way to stop the spread of this virus right now is quarantine or what people are euphemistically calling “social distancing”. If the virus is allowed to propagate it could infect 40% or more of the total population. The flu infects about 8% of the population and of that 8% only 1% require hospitalization. Even if we take a conservative infection rate of 15% the problem with COVID-19 is that we believe the rate of severe symptoms to be significantly higher than with flu, at nearly 14% and the rate of critical cases almost 5%.
Third, that means that if we don’t contain the spread of this virus, hospitals will be overwhelmed with dying people in search of a respirator and other life-saving technologies. And there are already horror stories of that happening in Italy and other places where they simply don’t have enough respirators to deal with an outbreak of this magnitude.
Those places aren’t even hitting high infection rates, yet. It’s important to know that we don’t have any herd immunity to this virus. That’s the reason why people are sounding alarm bells and talking about huge infection rates of 40 and even 60 percent. We are still in the “few thousand” infected zone and hospitals are already overwhelmed. Turning a blind eye to this possibly deadly virus or dismissing it as “just another flu” is dangerous and unethical.
As for the football, playing games behind closed doors is a bit of a help but we have also seen that playing games behind closed doors doesn’t stop the fans from gathering at the stadiums. So it looks like some leagues, especially Italy, are close to just canceling the season.
I fully support cancelling the football. It’s a game. It’s a nice distraction as well and can even be entertaining at times but it’s just a game. We healthy people owe it to our fellow humans to protect them from this sort of outbreak. Our compassion and logic is supposed to be the difference between humans and animals.
If we abandon the rest of the season the question then turns to what do we do with the titles and European places in the League table? What do we do about relegation and promotion?
Apparently, the Italian FA are mulling over three options (via Gabriel Marcotti’s twitter):
1. Declare title vacant, assign Euro spots based on current standings, no relegation
2. Season over, title/relegation based on table
3. Playoffs for title/relegation
In Italy, the third option is probably the best. Though how they would be able to play a playoff system without fans gathering is a big question. In England, handing the title to Liverpool is probably fair – given how far ahead they are but the relegation battle and battle for Champions League and Europa League places is very close. So, it would feel harsh on a lot of teams to just call it now, with many teams having 9-10 games remaining.
For example, Arsenal are 8 points off Chelsea in 4th place but only 5 points off Man U in 5th. And 5th place should be enough to get into the Champions League next season if City lose their appeal (which they absolutely should do). But even if Arsenal can’t get into the Champions League, they could get a Europa League spot. Those are totally up for grabs still and worth a bucket load of money.
Additionally, calling for no-relegation means no promotion. And that means that teams in the Championship and lower leagues get royally hosed. I would only advocate for that situation if we have one season where 2 teams from the Championship are promoted and we played a 42 game season. That would mean either 5 relegations next season or some sort of easing back into a 20 game league.
It’s a difficult choice that the League has to make and I’m sure that they will want to get it right. This isn’t over, not by a long shot. The virus is out in the wild and will almost certainly return even if we do our best to “flatten the curve”. As we head into summer, the fears and exposure to the virus will probably taper off but by this fall this could all come back again. We should be considering this period a test run. A time to get all of our processes worked out before the big push in the fall.
Stay safe everyone. And I wish all infected a good recovery.
Qq
Source: Arsenal.com, https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html,
alphabetical order is the only fair solution.
btw theres no real agreement on the average mortality rate, 1% is the minimum, but other estimates area as high as 4% and the numbers detected are not 100 times the number of mortalities, but in any case it’s much more dangerous than common flu, and these are the figures for patients with full access to medical facilities; when the hospitals are overwhelmed we can expect far higher rates, and UK is in a vulnerable position with the NHS decimated by years of Tory cuts, and currently with one of the lowest bed ratios in Europe.
I quite agree, that in the event of the league being declared “no contest”, then surely we should revert to the opening day of the season when the teams are put in alphabetical order. Arsenal win every time. The only thing that worries me is AFC Bournemouth. Are they A or B? Its got to be B. AFC is just a prefix, after all. What will VAR make of it, I wonder?
On another, but related matter, Arsenal Football Club have just sent me the renewal forms for next season. Not cheap. I had to think twice about signing on the dotted line. Who’s going to want to fork out a few grand, when there is a distinct chance of getting nothing for your money in the foreseeable future?
Read the fine print, see if there’s anything that covers you there.
I’m assuming there’s fine print to read, to be fair.
Highly unlikely. Arsenal would go bankrupt. You’ve got about as much chance of getting US medical insurance to pay for your coronavirus treatment and medications. Two hopes. No hope and Bob Hope.
Just heard through from Stockley Park. It’s a B, by 3mm. Phew, that was close!
Apparently, Bournemouth are going to employ an expert on English grammatical form and will make an appeal.
Do Arsenal players still get “appearance money”, “win bonuses” etc? One of the Mercs might have to go.
Sponsorship money? Rwanda will rapidly go back to being a country nobody has heard of, let alone visiting. I don’t suspect their president will be overly thrilled.
Arsenal are potentially going to lose a small fortune on “catering”. A nice little earner. Think of all those prawn sandwiches sitting in a fridge in Club Level that are going off and will need to be chucked out.
Have to admit I’ve changed my tune on COVID 19 since first hearing about it. I tend to come down on the side of not panicking about stuff because I think that has never helped anyone but this is a bigger deal than I initially credited it and Tim does a nice job of discussing some of the implications. I’ve come into contact with patients being ruled out for COVID so maybe I’m trying to protect my own sanity by downplaying it. Either way, I needed to let you all know. I still think it’s not going to be this massive pandemic that kills millions of people but I have to admit there’s a higher chance of that than with previous iterations of this virus and other public health scares like Zika. The one thing I still don’t get is the run on loo rolls. COVID Doesn’t cause diarrhea!
I also feel the need to reinforce that sniffles are not COVID symptoms; most of you probably already know but it presents with fever, dry cough and shortness of breath. The asymptomatic transmission rate is quite low based on the data we have.
So like Tim says, be careful out there.
Thanks Doc. Stay safe!
The one thing everyone should read today then share on your social media.
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca
TLDR: social distancing now will save lives
For my fellow physicians: review your notes on how to run a vent because you will be pressed into service…. Buckle up
Ahternoon. May i draw your attention to a book written by Dan Koontz titled ‘Eyes of Darkness’. Fiction, author writes about a virus man made, attacks the respiratory and bronchial tracts. Affects only humans. Virus dies when host expires. Created in the labs of a Chinese city called Wuhan. Oh and book was written in 1981.. interesting?
And as an add on although the book was indeed written in 1981 the author expresses that the virus named Wuhan 400 will take its effect on humanity in the year 2020
what??? Is this true? What a weird coincidence.
True. Been all over social media (but mainly whatsapp) for a month plus
Coincidence is being generous. It’s a side note with healthy dose of Nostradamus-like, post facto rationalization mixed in…
The universe is a strange place. Interesting and “unlikely” things happen all the time.
Thanks for the primer. Didn’t realize the infection rate was so much higher than other viruses. Yikes.
The hospital availability is really the scary thing. Ms. LA and I were discussing this and we were only half joking that we should deliberately get infected now so we could be the first to get treated in hospital while there were still beds available. There are apparently a handful of cases in our local hospital – friends of friends who were skiing in Italy and contracted it. Stay healthy and safe everyone!
Thank you for a by the numbers perspective Tim *thumbs up
It really puts things in a clearer light that this is more dangerous than other viruses with similar symptoms and the effect shouldn’t be downplayed
Hey IMOTHYT.. No such thing as coincidence..art imitates life or does life imitate art. Stay safe and blessings to you, your own and all the 7 am family. Great guys 1 an all and when i was on my uppers late 2019 you chaps helped me thru.. never forgotten
The problem with any reported mortality rate right now is that we don’t have a baseline infection rate with which to measure it against (no reliable denominator). I would encourage everyone here to take a listen to Sam Harris’ interview with Dr Amesh Adalja (Johns Hopkins) in today’s episode of “Making Sense.” He bases his mortality estimates (0.6%, so six times worse than flu) on data from South Korea, which has had the most aggressive testing program of any country in the world (including drive-through testing). This is not a “nothing to worry about” episode, by the way, but it did put some things in perspective in a way I hadn’t heard before.
Seems like my rates might be slightly off or out of date. South Korea and Italy are reporting “just” 0.6% death rates so far and the total number according to WHO is closer to 0.4% which is only 4x as deadly as the flu. The baseline dual problems of
1) zero herd immunity
2) inadequate emergency services
Are still the problem. If we get large numbers of infected, we will see the mortality rate skyrocket, simply because we don’t have enough respirators. And our current government literally just closed a “loophole” allowing American hospitals to buy respirators. That’s why China’s response to the virus was to literally build hospitals in a matter of weeks. They needed more beds. I don’t believe America has anywhere near the capability of China to do that.
So, while the lower mortality rates are more reassuring, I’m still strongly in favor of mass shut downs.
*and by “He bases…” I mean “Dr Adalja bases…” (not Sam Harris).
First you recommend “Zero Hedge,” now Sam Harris…
Dude.
Every contrary voice shouldn’t be given credence simply because they are contrarian.
This novel Coronavirus is quite dangerous…nothing at all to be discounted or otherwise trifled with.
And nobody’s discounting anything. Except for people who immediately dismiss any opinion based on a name or identity (Sam Harris) rather than what’s actually said or discussed.
I think it’s important to evaluate sources and their biases or agendas. I don’t mind discounting certain sources that I find either have a bad reputation (The Sun) or a history of poor editorial standards (The Daily Mail) or even a history of disinformation and obfuscation (Fox, and the other two listed above).
Sam Harris definitely has an agenda but in this case I feel like the one fact you reported from that podcast does check out.
Yes, everyone has an agenda. I read Vox and occasionally listen to NPR, for example. Plenty of agendas out there. I feel comfortable listening to and engaging with people I sometimes disagree with. Sometimes they say things that make sense.
I don’t understand this comment. What is “Zero Hedge”?
I recommend that particular episode. I don’t recommend Sam Harris, per se, though I tend to be fairly wide-ranging in what I listen to in terms of what might be considered progressive / left and conservative / right. I enjoy debate. I don’t particularly care for an echo chamber, but to each his/her own!
I cannot believe that the cheltenham festival has been allowed to take place this week. 250,000 people and there for many hours socialzing more hours than a footie match.
In our family of four, 3 of us have chronic asthma which puts us at higher risk than the general population. Long-suffering wife-of-1-Nil used to joke that we should mount a Ventolin dispenser on the wall with 3 masks for me and the kids. I would be especially bad after a gig in the days when people smoked in oubs , clubs and bars. Advair and Flovent help but I carry my rescue puffer with all the time in the same pocket as my guitar pick with special crack in it.
If me or one of the offspring were to get Covid-19 it would be bad I’m sure, but we have to live our lives. No other choice and no sense in panic beyond being sensible. When I was a kid in Nova Scotia I learned this one from the son of a lobsterman: “Life’s a bitch and then you die.” No sense in bitchin’ about it.
Dr James Lawler MD, MPH(1) gave a webinar for the American Hospital Association, telling us what to prepare for.
Best Guess Epidemiology
R0= 2.5, doubling time 7-10 days, expect the wave to hit in 2 months
community attack rate 30-40%, expect 96 million cases
cases requiring hospitalization = 5%, expect 4.8 million admissions in US
cases requiring ICU care = 1-2%, expect 1.9 million ICU admits
cases requiring ventilatory support = 1%, expect 1 million
case fatality ratio = 0.5%, expect 480,000 deaths
This assumes we successfully flatten the curve and don’t face a spike in cases that overwhelms the healthcare system. Although we lag in hospital beds per capita , we lead the world in critical care beds. There are probably 70,000 vents in the US, but there’s another 100k of outdated vents in reserve. The limiting factor will be personnel. The academic papers I’ve read suggest we could probably run on the order of 130,000 ventilators at a time with all hands on deck. But this assumes we have enough PPE to protect health care workers so that they feel safe coming to work. My hospital is woefully underprepared. Theoretically we could tap the National Strategic Stockpile, but it only has supplies to meet 1% of the estimated need. Hopefully that will buy us time to manufacture more. Sadly, our country has hollowed out its industrial capacity and I’m not sure how long it will take us to spin up production.
If we fail to flatten the curve then we’ll get something like China’s 3.5% CFR, or Lombardy’s 8% CFR, perhaps even Wuhan’s 20% CFR. That means millions and millions of dead.
Harvard epidemiologist Dr. Eric Ding has said the Sea-Tac area is looking like Wuhan 2.0. Over the next month we’ll see the consequences of our failure to aggressively test-isolate-quarantine and whether our essentially voluntary social distancing is good enough. Thankfully we won’t have to wait for that disaster to play itself out in order to focus the minds of our leaders, it looks like the discounting function of the stock market will do that for us.
(1) Associate Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Director, International Programs and Innovation, Global Center for Health Security at University of Nebraska and Director, Clinical and Biodefense Research, National Strategic Research Institute
This is incredibly alarming.
That’s the idea.
Voluntary social distancing requires that people take it seriously enough to sacrifice something they care about.
You can wait and scare people when people they know die or you can be proactive and scare them in the media. We’re 11 days behind Italy. Everyone will be concerned soon enough.
Unfortunately, humans have real trouble understanding exponential functions. If you want to see what kind of difference a few weeks makes see
https://datasciencewithdnola.wordpress.com/2020/03/10/a-detailed-analysis-and-simple-model-of-santa-clara-county-covid-19-cases/
The latest stats supplied by BBC News for China are:
– 8 new Coronavirus cases in the Hubei region where the virus first emerged
– this is the first time the Hubei tally has been single digits
– outside Hubei China reported 7 new cases of which 6 had been contracted abroad
– the total number of confirmed cases in China now stands at 80, 793
It’s extremely early to surmise but the pattern China is reporting this week intimates a reducing rate of the spread. I’ve not see data for hospitalisation or fatality rates.
Additionally BBC News is reporting there are 1,135 confirmed cases in the US and 38 deaths at present.
And of course, the man who 2 weeks ago was saying that Coronavirus was nothing more than flu and would “disappear” in a very short while, has now banned flights coming in from Europe, because those pesky Europeans didn’t act quickly or strongly enough. So there you have it. Teflon Don deflects the blame yet again! Of course, it’s election year. How silly of me to forget. Of course the great and wonderful trade is still happening. Phew! That’s a relief. Mr Dow Jones will be pleased.
So you can now add Europeans to the list. Moslems, Blacks, Hispanics, Dems, Commies, Liberals, Gays, Women.
Cmon, you don’t trust the gang that’s been waging a war on science to use said science to save the day?
The best part of Trump’s address to the nation speech, which sounded like a hostage video, was when he asked the country to unite and not point any fingers.
I thought that was a nice touch.
To be fair, I think western countries and cities have a few advantages in stopping the spread of COVID.
1) Temperatures now are above 8 degrees Celsius. Chinese researchers have noticed that new cases have dropped off once this threshold is hit, even in Wuhan itself. Tropical nations tend to get hit less hard. Singapore is an outlier because if you’ve been there, you’ll notice how the entire island likes to turn the airconditioning all the way down to 18 degrees.
2) American cities are generally less dense, minimize rate of infection.
3) My impression is that US medical facilities are great, amongst the best in the world. The problem lies with the poor medical insurance and high hospitalization costs. Chinese proverb: Any problem that can be solved with money is not a real problem.
The question is whether liberal democracies are willing to enact what is the equivalent of martial law, and curtail social liberties and freedom of movement to deal with this unprecedented outbreak. It’s Day 8 of my 14 day quarantine in Beijing. Trust me, it’s not fun.
Wishing you guys the best of health!
Sorry for the personal question – are you an extrovert? Because the idea of not having to go to work for two weeks, telecommuting, and other voluntary social distancing measures fills me with a sense of massive relief.
Pretty much an introvert. But I do like freedom of movement. I can’t even go downstairs for a walk or to throw my thrash. But worse of all, it’s the people enforcing the quarantine. So how it works in Beijing (and I am guessing the rest of China) is this:
The quarantine is enforced not by the police or the authorities or even your condo management. It’s enforced by official residents committees. ie your neighbourhood Karens, Billy Bobs and Old Man Wang (Common name in China)
I touched down at the airport, hailed a private hire car ( mask wearing driver had cellophane the entire front seats. ) Reached my gated community. There were the usual security Guards who knew me by face who were friendly enough; but they looked terrified of a guy in normal civvies sitting by a foldable table.
This guy took a look at my luggage and then asked me for my plane tickets and passport stamps. There is also a WeChat app that the telcos work with which we all have to download. This app reveals the cities where your phone has had cellphone pings in the last two weeks. Basically, it’s impossible to hide your last locations.
Then he said yeah sorry buddy, but you are quarantined for two weeks because of my recent travel to Tokyo. He gave me a slip of paper and told me to fill in my temperature twice daily. At the end of my two weeks, I will be given a little card with a QR code which I can use to enter and exit my own main gate.
So, I thought it was no big deal. Could probably go down for a walk. But turns out that say if I ordered groceries or a food delivery, the delivery guy would pass the stuff to the security guard at the main gate, and then someone at the gate would bring me the food to my door step.
I tried going down to get my own food (and to test the system）but the residents committee guy recognised me (and I didn’t have a pass) and bloody yelled at me. Said that if I kept coming down, they would have to send me to a state quarantine Center. So fine, point taken. I went back up.
Then, couple of days later, a Nancy from the residents committee called me and told me I have two choices. Either paste a massive quarantine sign or tape on my door or let them install a camera facing my door to make sure I don’t leave the room, because i am a foreigner. She also tried threatening me that I should have reported to the police station like all foreigners upon landing (she didn’t know that work permits are exempted) . Well. I got pissed off here and threw up a stink. Then they relented but said if they catch me downstairs they will proceed with “further action”.
Basically. It’s like prison but with internet and the food ain’t free. Don’t get me wrong, I agree that it takes a societal effort to stop this and everyone should pay a price for the greater good. But if there is a quarantine, someone has to enforce it. And it’s gonna be dickheads on a power trip.
This story is incredible. I’m totally sorry for what’s happening to you.
Sorry ImothyT, my use of the word d13khead must have alerted your spam filter.
Pretty much an introvert. But I do like freedom of movement. I can’t even go downstairs for a walk or to throw my thrash. But worse of all, it’s the people enforcing the quarantine. So how it works in Beijing (and I am guessing the rest of China) is this:
The quarantine is enforced not by the police or the authorities or even your condo management. It’s enforced by official residents committees. ie your neighbourhood Karens, Billy Bobs and Old Man Wang (Common name in China)
I touched down at the airport, hailed a private hire car ( mask wearing driver had cellophane the entire front seats. ) Reached my gated community. There were the usual security Guards who knew me by face who were friendly enough; but they looked terrified of a guy in normal civvies sitting by a foldable table.
This guy took a look at my luggage and then asked me for my plane tickets and passport stamps. There is also a WeChat app that the telcos work with which we all have to download. This app reveals the cities where your phone has had cellphone pings in the last two weeks. Basically, it’s impossible to hide your last locations.
Then he said yeah sorry buddy, but you are quarantined for two weeks because of my recent travel to Tokyo. He gave me a slip of paper and told me to fill in my temperature twice daily. At the end of my two weeks, I will be given a little card with a QR code which I can use to enter and exit my own main gate.
So, I thought it was no big deal. Could probably go down for a walk. But turns out that say if I ordered groceries or a food delivery, the delivery guy would pass the stuff to the security guard at the main gate, and then someone at the gate would bring me the food to my door step.
I tried going down to get my own food (and to test the system）but the residents committee guy recognised me (and I didn’t have a pass) and bloody yelled at me. Said that if I kept coming down, they would have to send me to a state quarantine Center. So fine, point taken. I went back up.
Then, couple of days later, a Nancy from the residents committee called me and told me I have two choices. Either paste a massive quarantine sign or tape on my door or let them install a camera facing my door to make sure I don’t leave the room, because i am a foreigner. She also tried threatening me that I should have reported to the police station like all foreigners upon landing (she didn’t know that work permits are exempted) . Well. I got pissed off here and threw up a stink. Then they relented but said if they catch me downstairs they will proceed with “further action”.
Basically. It’s like prison but with internet and the food ain’t free. Don’t get me wrong, I agree that it takes a societal effort to stop this and everyone should pay a price for the greater good. But if there is a quarantine, someone has to enforce it. And it’s gonna be dkhds on a power trip.
Great post Tim.
I agree with all of your sentiments. This is scary stuff. Thanks for writing about it and helping to raise awareness.
Check out this actual expert (I know, we’re in the era of hating experts). Very sober and convincing, and makes the point about how the embedded inequality in the USA will play out here too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcJDpV-igjs&feature=youtu.be
I missed your previous post about Arteta vs Emery. You are basically saying the same thing I have been banging on and on about. The real problem is the basic talent level in this squad is not where we need it to be. Arteta has done a good job reversing the mental degradation and the hopeless attitude but we need to rebuild the squad before he or any manager can make any real progress. I have never tried to say that managers don’t matter but there is only so much they can do when the talent they have is limited.
No, I said something different but I could see how you would want it to prove your point. You have absolutely always and consistently said that managers don’t matter.
I’m certainly not wishing for the worse case scenario but maybe this is what this country needs to get its priorities right.
The US defense budget -650b and growing each year.
The CDC budget -11b and even now on the verge of major cuts by this administration.
Bet your defense budget increases after this to keep jonny foreigner and his dirty germs out. It wouldn’t have reached the US if he’d been allowed to build his bloody wall (LOL)
Yea, the wall.
When China was going through its first wave of casualties and started implementing preventive measures Trump was actually bragging that this could be very good for the US.
No joke.
He thought this would strengthen his bargaining position with the Chinese in the ongoing trade agreement talks.
This guy makes W Bush look smart.
I think it’s tragic that the media was too busy China bashing (looking at you Washington Times and New York Times) and using the outbreak to score political capital, rather than training the spotlight onto the amazing under-preparedness of the world’s most powerful nation to dealing with the outbreak when it inevitably hits US shores.
Places like South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore were already preparing in early January.
Meant to say Washington Post. My bad.
From what I’m reading America is way behind most countries in having a plan or proactively testing its citizens. Having a goon in the white House really isn’t helping you guys.
The United States is the only developed country in the world, which does not have universal health care. With that firmly in mind, how on earth do they expect to have a “plan”, let alone act on one? Difficult. As far a testing is concerned, Donald’s premise has always been that it’s “someone else’s problem”. Once you introduce testing, that little theory goes up in smoke. It’s election year. Why would he want that?
My daughter’s club team just suspended all training, games, and affiliated events through 3/22 (at which time they will reassess).
Am I a bad parent for anticipating a longer hiatus???
Arteta has tested positive for Coronavirus. Just been announced on the BBC. Squad now in self isolation
Arteta has just tested positive for coronavirus.
stay safe please..
mikey too? nuts!
So’s Trudeau’s wife. Not many social circles away from Trump for reality to hit home.
Entire first team is in quarantine…
Best thoughts to Mikel and all others affected.
I’d be very surprised if they don’t cancel other matches besides the Arsenal one.
And I will accept full responsibility for this…clearly as both an Arsenal and a Utah Jazz fan, there’s some sort of hex involving my teams getting things first.
there seems to be a disproportionate amount of famous people and celebreties catching this virus.
I am not sure we are being told the truth.
We are not being told the truth
Wealthy/powerful can afford to get tested and can grease the skids to get tested.
There are a lot more cases out there than we even know.
Agreed. Full testing will just reveal the scale of the problem.
If you live in America, then you can bet your sweet life you’re not being told the truth! It doesn’t please me to say this, but it’s been that way for the last 4 years or so. Lies and misinformation are common currency, now. You would have thought, seeing as we are basically talking life and death, the powers that be would come clean. Apparently not. As someone else has pointed out, if Trudeau’s wife is infected, then who next? It goes without saying that if anyone in the White House became infected, expect a major change in attitude from the top. Yes, the wealthy and well connected will always find a way to survive. Not so the ordinary bloke in the street, living from paycheck to paycheck.
The other sad fact is that if you happen to think that the “bloke in the street” has a life and deserves care and consideration, then you’re classified as a “commie”. Is this crisis a wake up call?
Apart from anything else, when you’re making your way to the country club for lunch, do you really want to be tripping over dead bodies in the street? Very unpleasant.