ABSORBER posted:CollegebaseballInsights posted:ABSORBER posted:Sorry, Collegebaseballinsights asked me the same question a couple of days ago on a different thread and I answered. I figured he asked me again because he wants to make some sort of point regarding NYC's crisis. I live in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.
It is good to bring where you live into context on this particular thread as for it help provide a potential rationale for one's perspective.
Next simple question, how many people that you know have passed or have been impacted from the virus?
Note, my friends and family are directly in the hot zones from every angle, so they will definitely give you boots on the ground perspective.
Note, my brother is a captain in the FDNY, many friends are EMS, NYPD, 1st responders, etc, my mother lives 5 minutes from New Rochelle, thus when you put a face or names to a situation, numbers are not as important.
Opening up businesses and schools does not make sense.
NYC and the greater NYC metropolitan area is not the entire country! New Yorker's like to think they are the center of the universe but they are not. Stay shut down! Nobody is arguing that you shouldn't.
That's the problem with some people. As soon as they are directly affected by something they think they are the only ones who understand. That's simply not true. Do you think you are the only person in the world to see someone die? Or have or know loved ones who have died? Please!
I've said it before and I'll say it again. So far we've had fewer deaths than what we experience in a typical flu season. And again, I'm not saying it's harmless and that we won't surpass flu numbers (it definitely is replacing some of those numbers) but we need to have more perspective. Who were the people who lost loved ones to the flu in all previous years? Don't you think it affected them just as much? Did they lose their jobs because of it? And yes, we'll never know to what degree the shutdown helped prevent more death. It may have and it may have not. Nobody will really know for sure. But COVID-19 is certainly not the first virus to affect the planet and it won't be the last.
I served 28 years in the military and deployed to combat zones in two separate conflicts. Do I think everyone in this country should have served overseas and watched their friends die while people back in the old USA continued their happy lives living in oblivious freedom? People were and are still dying for us; perhaps we should all share in that responsibility. But we don't. Life goes on. But please don't think other people haven't experience death and hardship.
And no, I don't know a single person who has had (knowingly) the virus so I definitely don't know anyone who has died. That's the point. I live in the sixth largest metro area in the country and we don't have the numbers NY has. The curve has definitely flattened here, so much so we are not much further than where we were when this whole thing started. We are just as susceptible to the virus. So how long are we going to wait it out? As I posted earlier, H1N1pdm09 is still killing people. For more than 10 years straight. And we have a vaccine. And we have treatments. And herd immunity. So, at least 10 years? If we continue to run around in fear (like people I see in their cars on the interstate wearing diving masks and gloves with their windows rolled up), we will get nowhere.
1st, thank you for your service.
Secondly, I do understand.
Third, I've seen many posting trying to compare this to the flu.
Note, flu death are a different percentile.
H1N1 is a different infection rate.
Note, in a couple of months more will be known about coronavirus as for the federal government has not been as transparent as they should be.