weatherpruf

Thank you . I wanted to point that out. And quite a few doctors around here went to med school in the Caribbean or Mexico. Most of mine were trained in countries where they issue a bachelor of medicine. it is more like professional training than the kind of education a scientist with a PhD in epidemiology gets. Some of the experts on these viruses are zoologists, not MD's.

More likely she is trying to calm her patients down. Panic isn't really going to help. The flu infects some tens of millions each year, and all of us have been exposed to flu viruses. This virus is novel. However, the only way we will know if the death rate is lower is if a lot more people get infected and survive. And that means testing, which we are way behind other countries in. There is support for that theory, but we don't know that. Even so, a shocking 20% require hospitalization, and it has now been shown that the disease causes pulmonary fibrosis. This is incurable and could mean many people will become permanently disabled. A vaccine is not on the horizon, at least not in time to make a difference for this outbreak. My wife worked in vaccines at Sanofi. By the time the vaccine comes out the virus will either have done its damage or petered out. Once again, experts do not see it winding down in warm weather. It is NOT like the flu other than superficial symptoms. How do we know? COVID-19 can actually cause mild symptoms in people ( who can than spread it easier ) but the flu will knock you out, every time. This is a real threat to many people. People who have common, co-morbid ailments are dying from this, not just the immunocompromised. Oh, and if it peters out in warm weather ( it could, but they don't think it will ) it will likely return in the fall. I am only saying what the experts are saying. Let's hope they are all wrong. However, mass panic is never a good thing. People should stock up on nonperishable items they can eat in case they have to self quarantine for 14 days, and should have backup supplies of needed medicines for blood pressure and such. Hoarding sanitizer will not do much. Again, only reporting what I have heard from experts that I have listened to; they could all be wrong. That possibility exists. Oh,most young people today live with and work with older people with chronic conditions. So they need to be just as vigilant. And the pre-existing conditions? Asthma. Diabetes. High BP. These are extremely common conditions. People have every reason to be concerned, especially with the level of incompetence that has been demonstrated thus far by the people in charge. But panic is not warranted.

It was a fine day. I''ll say thatmuch.

It varies by year. This year's was only 30%, because both A and B strains were circulating, and the shot offered no protection against one of the B strains. You can try hard not to catch it, but it's not likely to succeed. For instance, my 17 year old daughter went to work, where a colleague is sick and came to work. This is what happens in a society that doesn't mandate paid sick leave. I work with school children from k-12. Parents send the kids to school sick on a regular basis. i have had the flu, as have both my adult children, this year, despite the shots. I also had walking pneumonia after a bad cold. Many people have had nonspecific viral fevers this winter, and it is possible some of this was COVID-19. we simply don't know. But, it was a fine day outside, even if the local Aldi was out of water and Walgreens had no alcohol....not sure why people are stocking water. i don't think the tap is under any threat.

Thanks. I hated math so avoided heavy sciences in college ( if you can't do math well forget about chemistry classes ). But I can read and understand information, and can relay it. I wrote articles on fisheries for years.

A vaccine is years away. Further, companies don't want to invest in vaccines for novel viruses since it may not pay off.

How true. The cat's outta the bag already; the virus was not contained here, likely from incompetence by those at the top but in the end it may be something that was impossible to do.

Most of the precautions are for keeping others from getting it. Listen to what they are saying. Stay home. CALL the doctor, don't go to the office. Call the hospital. Stay home. In other words, nothing can be done for you. Stay home and don't spread it. But the idea it was made in a lab, c'mon dude. Next you'll be telling me the Patterson bigfoot film wasn't a guy in an ape suit....

Umm no. Coronaviruses are common. One researcher has identified over 500 in bats in China alone. There's no need to manufacture one. And when this one is dealt with, another one will pop up. According to one zoologist, our proximity to animals is the reason for these outbreaks. All our measures are reactive; vaccines, quarantine etc. He thinks we need to re-examine the proximity issues. How we would do that I have no idea.

Umm not "elderly" but middle aged with diabetes or high BP. Which is millions of people. The virus is much worse than the flu as no one has immunity. Kids do not get the disease, but they carry the virus. Probably because their systems are set to be exposed to new viruses; adults are not. Health care workers are also dying because of viral load. How serious is this? Every school system in NJ is expected to close within the next two weeks. Plans have been made to deliver lessons at home. The days do not have to be made up. Attendance policies for both staff and students have been suspended. My wife is a researcher in pharma and they have been told to be ready for long term closure. In 31 years, through the brutal winter of 94, and weeks long closures due to Sandy, districts have never been told they don't have to make up days. And requests to do online lessons in lieu of snow days have been denied by the state. Not this time. I expect this will ultimately change the way things are done moving forward; snow days will be a thing of the past, and it is setting a precedent for cyber learning. It's going to be one big experiment. Universities are telling students they can stay there on break, but if they go home be ready to continue lessons online. I have never seen anything like this. We were called in the other day with administrators and told this is not if, it is when....let's hope to God this is all hype and comes to nothing. Because frankly, our medical system is a mess and cannot handle this. There are not enough respirators, masks, hospital beds, or health care workers. The current mortality rate is around 3.4%. It could be lower if it turns out far more people are infected with milder disease, but with not enough testing kits, hard to say . If, as expected, 60-70% of the population becomes infected, do the math. And around 20% of nonfatal cases are serious and require hospitalization. The only hope is that the virus peters out in warm weather, but experts do NOT expect that to happen. And even if it does, they expect it to be back in the fall. Now, I am not a scientist. I am trained in social sciences, but I am married to a biotechnologist engaged in muscular dystrophy research. We talk. And I read. A lot. And I know we have a few PhD's here who are better able to delve into the particulars, and if they have some more reassuring data, please post it.

That's the projection of the number dead if this performs as feared....in the USA alone.

Trout season is short down here; we need mild weather to get a shot at them before it turns too warm; stormy weather and flooded streams aren't good. Essentially, once winter is over I only care if it rains enough to avoid drought. Otherwise, I am happy to never see a T-storm, hurricane, nor'easter or ocean groundswell the whole season. Need enough rain for the garden, that's it.

Spent the day in Binghamton with my daughter who is thinking of attending ( I'm pushing Rutgers for both tuition and and tradition ) and we ran into several bad snow squalls in the Poconos, saw some areas with snow cover ( but not much ) and had flurries all day on campus. But even they said there wasn't the usual amount of snow this year. However, after enjoying mild temps all winter here, it was cold AF up there, like 21 degrees in the late morning. Not used to it.

Yup.But you can't keep any of the fish anyway, so its kinda bogus. Also, as NMFS itself once wrote to me, artificial reefs don't help fish populations, they just concentrate them. They said it, i didn't....

Seems like there are a number of baseball fans here ( not me ) and i'm wondering what the connection is; generally it isn't that big among the younger population. Thought it was more a thing for the older crowd who grew up before other games became more popular.

No but crap winters are not uncommon either. This one is exceptionally bad ( or good if you hate snow and cold )but there have been plenty that were bad, but not this bad. Come on, we saw years of them in the 80's and 90's. Now, sometimes areas in the subforum got hits while others didn't; so that didn't change the fact that IMBY years like 89, 90, 91, 97, 98 were pretty bad. Even 92 would still be considered bad, just because we got two events in late March doesn't make up for a poor winter. i'd say under 20 inches for the season is bad.

Well, who has been right more? There are seasons like this. Sometimes several in a row. Sometimes more than that IIRC ( I listed some years in another thread ). It would be the smart bet to go against any additional snow the rest of this year, but of course no one can say for sure.

Well Lyme is certainly both a mid and long term threat, and it is most certainly related to the weather....now back to your regularly scheduled upcoming cutter/rainstorm/ inland sleet slush / cloudy drizzle and mid 50's temps in the middle of Feb....and watch out for those ticks!

Only managed 8 here. Every storm that winter skirted my area. But was still epic by this years standards; the 12/09 storm gave us 10, 2/6 gave us 3, 2/10 gave us 11, 2/26 gave us 8. Though some sources in nearby towns had12-13. I didn't measure. Who really cares right?

Apparently epidemiologists predicted an increase in Lyme cases a few years back based on the numbers of acorns....more acorns, more places for mice to nest, more ticks, if my understanding was correct. had a Lone star tick ( not native to this region ) hanging out on my back side for a couple days, though it was a scab ( they are tricky ) I was lucky I do not show signs of meat allergy, which this tick can trigger. This winter has probably been warm enough that both ticks and mice remained active ( I know the mice are; they got shocked the few cold days we had and I saw a few frozen in the shed, don't get me started on hantavirus...)

But that year had already featured a nice blizzard earlier. This year has been as putrid as they come. I guess we get our few storms early on now and then nada for the remainder with a possible shot in March, when the snow can melt as fast as it falls....

Well, most folks who move there don't like snow, so I don't think it will make them very happy.....in fact NC is a retirement destination for "half backs" people who went to FL but decided the heat was too much, and they'd rather have four seasons with no or very little snow. Course, they could get that right here this year....

Agreed Don, but will say that we are experiencing extremes right now....again, spring like weather with flowers blooming and insects flying around outside....and grass that has remained green ( some of which is growing ) and herbs and wild plants that are green and growing. I'd call that extreme. This should be our best time of year for snow.

You couldn't even afford to waste money on bloodworms today....I used sandworms because they were cheaper ( when I had a boat ) but in my youth I used earthworms I could dig in the backyard...

An education is never wasted. I too am fast approaching the autumn years, and have dodged major bullets already.