Harbaugh field trip has been cancelled
- Thread starter westender
- Start date
There may not be any exposure to human-hosted viruses if you are off the grid, out in the wilderness all by yourself. But there are still plenty of pathogenic bacteria, eukaryotic parasites, and fungi, as well as the rare coronavirus (technical name for a animal-hosted virus that can infect humans) that can do you in. Bubonic plague, anyone?
https://www.livescience.com/54372-bizarre-diseases-you-can-get-outdoors.html
And of course if you pile exposure to these nasties on top of things like lack of shelter, lack of sleep, malnutrition, etc., along with complete lack of antibiotics, you are pretty much doomed.
Edit: and the link above doesn't even hit the more common ones: malaria, dysentery, cholera, Lyme disease and the handful of other tick-borne illnesses, e. coli, toxoplasmosis, salmonella, rabies, etc..
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pythagoras
Well-Known Member
I fear some of you should go back to school and take microbiology.......4x over......
Wasn't forced to take that one. Was not going to be in my line of work.
KCHawkeye
Well-Known Member
Yeah, especially that show where no one wears their skivvies. I'd think they'd catch their death of cold.
Ree4
Well-Known Member
I'm not the paranoid type, but I've realized that I'm not prepared at all for an epidemic. I'm going to the store after work and buying a couple hundred dollars of canned food, no reason not to have it at this point and even if nothing happens, the fam can always eat it later. I'd rather do it now than after grocery store supplies start to dwindle and they jack up prices. I followed MERS, SARS and ebola - and this is already spreading worse and has less containment than any of those did. Anyone else doing any preparation? I'm sure a lot of you older folks have a ton of supply built up already.
Let's keep in mind: this is basically just another influenza-like virus. It is new, so no one has built any immunity, and there is no vaccine yet, but it is not like this is some unstoppable killer. So far about 810,000 have been infected world wide, and 3% of those have died (almost 2800).
For influenza in the US alone, there are generally 20-50 million people infected per year, and between 20,000-60,000 deaths per year (about 0.1% of those infected).
So if you had the choice between getting influenza or coronavirus (SAR-CoV-2), pick influenza. But you are much more likely to die from influenza than you are to die from SAR-CoV-2 just because your chance of contracting it is orders of magnitude higher.
SAR-CoV-2 will run its course like every other novel resipiratory virus that has come before it.
For influenza in the US alone, there are generally 20-50 million people infected per year, and between 20,000-60,000 deaths per year (about 0.1% of those infected).
So if you had the choice between getting influenza or coronavirus (SAR-CoV-2), pick influenza. But you are much more likely to die from influenza than you are to die from SAR-CoV-2 just because your chance of contracting it is orders of magnitude higher.
SAR-CoV-2 will run its course like every other novel resipiratory virus that has come before it.
okeefe4prez
Well-Known Member
Now that I have a decent sized house, I keep 2 weeks of water at home. Flood of '93. Never say never. I also have close to 2 weeks of food. I'm far enough inland that even a giant hurricane won't inflict massive damage, but Charlotte got walloped by that one in the '90's and Columbia got nailed with a major flood a couple years ago and they both had logistics issues for weeks afterward. Unless you live somewhere where there is absolutely 0% chance of a natural disaster, you should probably keep at least a 5-7 day minimum additional food, fuel and water stock. When the event manifests itself, the grocery stores will be picked over. It was a bit unnerving when that 2018 hurricane was coming and seeing empty grocery store shelves.
My wife's parents live in Tokyo and they had major food shortages after the earthquake in 2011 so her parents now have an entire food room that looks like a small convenience store. It's really unsettling when the systems we rely on get taxed to the limit.
okeefe4prez
Well-Known Member
I totally agree. The problem with this one is the impacts it is having on supply chains, which are heavily reliant on China.
Here is a documentary about how these things can spread from Asia:
There better be many lessons learned coming out of all of this.
Get some of that Spam. Started buying the Lite spam with reduced sodium and damn that stuff fried is pretty damn good. don't know how I never was taking that stuff on camping trips in the past. Stuff keeps forever in the can.
Oh and the old song, Country Boy Can Survive. Can still fish and hunt for food as needed. Around here you do what you gotta do if it got right down to it.
And that 3% rate is in countries with much lesser health care systems. It won't be 3% in the US.
Ree4
Well-Known Member
Yes, this is more what I'm worried about, not necessarily getting sick, although my kids are young, my parents are old, and my grandparents are very old. More about supplies running out and grocery stores being picked clean, similar to that of a hurricane. There are warnings out there that it's possible that schools may close as well as businesses, though that might be a long shot. I work at a bank and am interested to know how that would work for us.
I have well more than a week or two of food currently, but it's more stuff that I've had for a long time that wasn't good enough to eat yet and just got pushed to the back of the cupboard. I should probably pick up a giant jug or two to fill with water just in case I need em.
Thanks for the input, I feel it's better to be safe than sorry
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Ree4
Well-Known Member
Hate to tell ya this but this US has pretty shitty healthcare compared to many other developed countries. Singapore, Chile and Saudia Arabia are almost always rated better than the US in quality of health care. Granted China's is pretty terrible, yes, so theoretically the US should fare much better. Italy is one of the best so it will be interesting to see how they do against it.
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Ree4
Well-Known Member
I realize that flu is more deadly and more rampant that CoV-2, but I have some concern of the stress that an outbreak, however unlikely it may be, would place on our healthcare system. China is incredibly committed to stopping this and making a massive investment. Are we willing to do the same, in a country that puts profits above lives? I fear that looking at numbers in China might give us a false sense of security. As I said above, I have more concern of supply chains than getting sick, however.
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Haha I will have my health care in the US any day every day. And if you have Canadian friends as I do, they will say the same when something critical comes along. I ain't going to Chile for my healthcare. NFW.
Ree4
Well-Known Member
I'm just saying don't overestimate the quality of care we have in the US, it isn't that great. I live in Iowa City, so of course it's good. Other parts of the country, rural areas - not so much.
okeefe4prez
Well-Known Member
A whole bunch of those rankings use some amorphous "equality" metric as part of their formula, as well as life expectancy. Japan has universal healthcare, but aside from a handful of elite hospitals in Tokyo or Osaka, the hospitals are super old and run down and they are years behind the US on drugs because they won't pay for the newest stuff. We had some friends from Chicago move there. Wife was Japanese, husband was a naturalized US citizen who had grown up in communist Poland. They had a 2 year old daughter. A few weeks after they moved there, the daughter got an ear infection. The guy who grew up in communist Poland was so appalled with the hospital that they moved back to the US.
When I lived there the healthcare regime cost $800 per month for the lowest income tier. I got private insurance since I was a foreigner and could opt out of the system and had I gotten sick, they would have flown me to India or Thailand for treatment. Our system is ungodly expensive, but unless you are willing to dictate 80-100 hour weeks for doctors and nurses and wage caps at $100k or something way lower than they make now, you ain't gonna be able to move the needle materially on the price. The cost sucks, but there is no hospital system in the world I would rather be in than the US other than the medical tourism hospitals in Thailand or India that are specifically designed to cater to westerners looking to get out of their nation's health care morass.
Fryowa
Administrator
Can confirm.
My company has 12 sales reps in Canada and they unanimously say the same thing.
Every single one of them has said they’d gladly pay US insurance rates for what we get here. Just because something is “free” (which is myth) doesn’t mean it’s any good.
I have a high deductible plan with an HSA, my insurance costs me $62 a month and my employer matches up to $625 per year in the HSA. My deductible is $2K and it’s also my out of pocket max. Yearly check ups are included and a full physical with bloodwork is included every three years. $2,119 is the absolute most I will ever have to pay for health care in a year out of my own pocket (premiums + deductible - employer match), and as long as I’m healthy I only pay $119 per year after you take into account the HSA match. No waiting lists, no mandated providers, no mandated anything. If I decide my knee is bothering me and I want to have it fixed, I can get it done a week from now at the surgeon I want, and the PT provider I want afterwards. All for $2,119. Then if I want to get some other shit done, no more money from me. Just over two thousand bucks a year (less than two hundred if I don’t get sick or have an injury) for the freedom and benefits of choosing what I want to do?
F Canada’s not “free” bullshit.
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