Corona virus cases will skyrocket in a week.

Ya know... Fire kills everything.

What if they had applied megatonnage to wuhan in early Jan?

 

That’s another reason I eat a lot of Mexican food! If a virus can handle a Mexican food truck and all the homemade salsa and lard, so be it!

 

We should keep working. But we should also try to prevent a pandemic.

brsims eloquently described the problem. I'm quick to assume a lot of drama is just media hype. But this isn't. People that are "in the know" at GE are extremely worried. GE is our largest Biomed producer, or one of the largest.

A conservative estimate is 50 million dead if this thing breaks out. That's just the first wave. As brsims pointed out, these things don't just go away. They come back. We don't know yet if that is going to happen. We are trying to contain it. And we should try to keep ourselves protected, not "just get the dang thing."

The Spanish flu hit Europe in two waves. The first strand wasn't nearly as deadly as the second wave. And the Spanish flu killed younger and middle-aged people more than the old and the young.

We have things on our side more than they did back then. Technology and ability to communicate to help control, contain, and prevent spread. But for that to work, we have to take it seriously.

 

Well, I'll know tomorrow if my son has it. Two nights ago he got a really bad cough and high fever. He called me and I arranged to get him tested today. The results are supposed to be in tomorrow. He lives with his girlfriend and I haven't seen him in over a month. So either he has the flu or covid-19. The scary thing is that he works in the kitchen of the busiest restaurant in our county which is where he caught whatever he has. If it is the coronavirus, expect the numbers to go up in northern California. He's 29 and otherwise healthy as a horse.

 

Holy ####!!!

Some of you mother####ers are dramatic as MSNBC!

 

I hope that it turns out to just be drama and this thing goes away.

Pandemics are ugly. We haven't had to deal with one, but they cast a dark shadow. Lots of people sick, lots of people grieving because they lost someone. It's no fun.

 

Come on man, didn't you just say 50 Million dead?

Because a bio company who would profit from this says so?

For real?

 

I'm not saying that's going to happen or sure. But it can happen. It's happened before. Liberal estimates of the Spanish flu are at 100 million dead back in 1918, and there were less people on the planet back then.

So yeah, it's for real.

I don't know what GE is profiting, if they are at all. The problem is we cant get raw materials imported to make serums, vaccinations, testing kits, etc. So we aren't getting what need manufactured. There's already a shortage and we don't even have an outbreak yet. Lots of people don't realize we have a delicate supply chain and right now that chain isn't working. This is what is being talked about behind closed doors in their meetings. Not about how they can profit.

We are trying to contain it. But it's looking so far like we are not going to be able to.

I don't know how old you are, but chances are if you or I got it, we would be fine. The problem is those things like to come back stronger. Then they attack people that have already beaten them, but they have weakened immune systems because of the first strand and the virus is then stronger so people keep dying. The Spanish flu did that.

As the days pass containment looks less and less likely unfortunately. Hopefully this all blows over and we can go back to being naïve. We are still holding our breath *fingers crossed*

 

there is a 0% chance of containment at this point. So you can forget that. Whatever this virus is going to do it’s gonna do to us. As truckers we can’t just sit home and ride it out like others can. Company after company is announcing they are closing down and asking their employees to work from home.

 

We have things going for us that we didn't have in the past, like the ability to communicate, which we didn't have back when the Spanish flu was wreaking havoc across Europe. It does count for something.

Containment isn't off the table completely, but you are correct it's not looking good at all. What would be required for containment is drastic measures that we aren't going to take, I don't think. But I'm not saying never, it's just very unlikely. Its mapped and confirmed pretty much everywhere except for a few isolated regions.

We have to keep working and keep goods moving. We can however at least try to not catch and spread it. Use some common sense precautions like using hand sanitizers... if we are even able to find them on the shelves, keep our trucks clean, etc.