How Did The Coronavirus Spread So Quickly?

[BFritz21]

And how does it continue to spread?

If it only spreads through sneezing, coughing, or respiratory droplets, then how does it continue to spread with people wearing masks?

I don't know a lot of people that coughed or sneezed on other people before this all started, or even that didn't cover their mouth or nose when they did, so how did this spread like wild fire?

There's still not many people in the area that I've heard about that have it.

In fact, my friend MIGHT have had it, and that lady that pulled over and talked to me said she had it at one point, but then I haven't heard of anyone else that had it, much-less died from it.

How does it continue to spread?

Or is it all propaganda?

[BmorePat87]

You can spread respiratory droplets by talking and breathing.

Masks decrease the spread, but they don’t eliminate it.

It spread because it’s airborne and people don’t always know they have it. Some know and don’t care. Some people didn’t take proper precautions and helped spread it. Some did but still spread it. Some environments, like nursing homes, are just set up to spread it.

It’s highly contagious.

As revealed today, Trump in private acknowledged it was worse than the season flu but didn’t want to cause a panic so he down played its seriousness

[CKwi88]

Ask Herman Cain.

More seriously. I'm no epidemiologist, but I'd wager that the lack of a nationwide response, coupled with mixed messages from all levels of government as we were learning more about it were the biggest shortcomings in the US.

Add in the hyper politicization of the virus and preventative measures, like people refusing to wear masks or avoid large crowds, and it's a perfect storm. Just look at the Sturgis motorcycle rally held in South Dakota.

And asymptomatic carriers.

If I had try and explain it in a word? I'd be between stupidity, selfishness, and stubbornness.

As for why it continues to spread, see above. Plus general fatigue over something that didn't have to be this bad.

[*Nately120*]

I don't know anyone who has even had much less died from Covid....or terrorist attacks...or rampaging illegal immigrants. Hmm, as far as I know damn near everything the government and media have been threatening me over is just a bunch of propoganda.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

It didn't spread that quickly.

It has been traced back in Ohio all the way back to January 7th, but originally it wasn't confirmed to have reached here until March 9th.

That's two months of not knowing it was actually here for it to spread about. Presumably other states/countries had the same situation. By then it's already a done deal considering how our country is built around States handling their own business in matters like this. Response/ability to handle this has been a huge display of how good your local/State government is.

Hopefully people will now realize how important it is to have competent local government.

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Last I heard (end of May), 70% of the deaths in Ohio were in nursing homes. So unless you know a lot of people in various nursing homes in Ohio, it's unlikely you'll have personally known anyone who died from it.

Also 77.4% of all people who died from Coronavirus in Ohio were 70+ of age, so again, unless you know a huge abundance of old people, you again are unlikely to have personally known anyone who died from it.

There have been about 133,000 cases in Ohio (both symptomatic and asymptomatic, I don't know if anyone keeps track of the numbers separately). It is a state of 11.7m people. That is 1 case for every 88 people, and one would imagine that cases come in clusters since they're people they have interacted with. So if your social circle is 70-100 people (or less), it's not really strange to not personally know someone who's had it.

My county has about 206,000 people in it and there have been ~1,400 cases (1 for every 147 people) and only 15 deaths in a span of 6 months (8 if you count how they traced it back to Jan). While 15 people dying is terrible, over a 6 month span it's statistically almost nothing. It's one extra bad car accident per month.

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Just so people don't think this is me completely dismissing Covid-19, it is still a serious thing because it can wreck our elderly/medically compromised population. I am just saying that without 24/7 news and the internet shoving macro numbers into our faces at all times (hey there food/toilet paper shortages awhile back), a lot of people's lives would be a whole lot brighter. They would just wear a mask, socially distance, and their life wouldn't be particularly impacted in any other way until this blew over with a vaccine.

[BigPapaKain]

I'm not gonna quote all of LeonardLeap's post just to say I know 2 people who have died from it, and at least 5 who have caught it. Of the 5, 3 of them lived together and ran the gauntlet of symptoms (one had loss of smell/taste, one had a fever and cough, the third got hospitalized). All of them my age (mid-30s).

The two fatalities were parents of friends. One was in the high risk age group, the other was not.

[Benton]

(09-09-2020, 05:02 PM)BFritz21 Wrote: And how does it continue to spread?  

A lack of preparation at the state and federal level led to a lack of preparedness. Politicians fell back on saying things like 'It's no worse than the flu' and 'Just live your life' which cause people to engage in risky behaviors.

Quote:If it only spreads through sneezing, coughing, or respiratory droplets, then how does it continue to spread with people wearing masks?

Because some people opt not to wear masks. It also exists on surfaces. So someone infected touches his eyes or nose or mouth, then touches something at a store. You pick that item up and it's now on your skin. And with any illness, the one with the infection may not know they have it, which means they may not know they're spreading it.

Quote:I don't know a lot of people that coughed or sneezed on other people before this all started, or even that didn't cover their mouth or nose when they did, so how did this spread like wild fire?

Ever smell a fart? Just because someone didn't fart on you doesn't mean the fart isn't in the air. Sort of the same thing. Just because I don't sneeze into your mouth doesn't mean the things coming out of my nose and mouth aren't in the air.

Quote:There's still not many people in the area that I've heard about that have it.  

Which is 100% understandable. That's how viruses work. They infect people who infect other people. If people in your neighborhood/town/city/state don't go near those with infection, they won't get infected. That's the purpose behind the proposed quarantines. 

We opened up schools last week. In one elementary school with around 100ish kids, three students and a teacher already tested positive after the first three days of class (they all got flagged by the mandatory temp checks). 

Population density and propensity to outside travel has a lot to do with it. Hawaii for example has decent numbers, but a pretty large population density. But a lot of their tourism slowed or stopped, so new cases coming in were low. Montana has stayed low, too, but for a different reason. They have low population density and nobody goes there.  On the flip side you've got states like Florida. High density, lots of travel. And lots of new cases.

Quote:In fact, my friend MIGHT have had it, and that lady that pulled over and talked to me said she had it at one point, but then I haven't heard of anyone else that had it, much-less died from it.

If they weren't contagious when they talked to you, you wouldn't get it. Just like the flu: if you talk to someone who might have had it eight months ago, you're not catching it from them.

Quote:How does it continue to spread?

First paragraph.

Quote:Or is it all propaganda?

Yes, and no. 

Are the current numbers inflated? Most likely. There are mistakes in testing (which happens) and I've read some of the tests can have false positives due to other illnesses. So are the numbers that high? Hard to say.

Are the numbers under-reported? Possibly. When it started, there were no tests. In some states, it took 4-5 months before they could begin testing outside first responders. I've shared before, I had something that knocked me out for nearly a month back in mid-March. My doctor is also an old friend and she was pretty blunt: unless I could say I had traveled to a country with COVID, had come into contact with a person who tested positive (nearly impossible at the time since there were no tests) or was a doctor, I wasn't getting a test 'for the foreseeable future'. I stayed on different antibiotics for three weeks which most likely didn't do anything. and after the fourth week started to feel like normal. In my area, it was another month or so before they started testing people with active symptoms (end of April).

So while there is likely over reported or misreported numbers now, that's offset by several months of not testing anyone. Which is, possibly, part of why it went from "nobody has it" to "crap, thousands of people have it" in just a few weeks. It wasn't that the virus was necessarily spreading any faster, we just started testing for it. The media had fun with it, and I'm not sure if he really understood what he was saying as he didn't defend it, but Trump wasn't exactly incorrect in saying the numbers were going up because we were testing. He probably could have said it better that the numbers should have been expected to go up as tests became more available.

[HarleyDog]

(09-09-2020, 05:02 PM)BFritz21 Wrote: And how does it continue to spread?  

If it only spreads through sneezing, coughing, or respiratory droplets, then how does it continue to spread with people wearing masks?

I don't know a lot of people that coughed or sneezed on other people before this all started, or even that didn't cover their mouth or nose when they did, so how did this spread like wild fire?

There's still not many people in the area that I've heard about that have it.  

In fact, my friend MIGHT have had it, and that lady that pulled over and talked to me said she had it at one point, but then I haven't heard of anyone else that had it, much-less died from it.

How does it continue to spread?

Or is it all propaganda?

It’s real so still take some precautions. The information msm uses to scare the hell out of people is over the top, but yeah I know people who have had it. I believe my wife and I had it back in Late feb, early March. So, a slight change should be considered. No handshakes and stay away from elderly. But it’s definitely real. 

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(09-09-2020, 05:45 PM)BigPapaKain Wrote: I'm not gonna quote all of LeonardLeap's post just to say I know 2 people who have died from it, and at least 5 who have caught it. Of the 5, 3 of them lived together and ran the gauntlet of symptoms (one had loss of smell/taste, one had a fever and cough, the third got hospitalized). All of them my age (mid-30s).

The two fatalities were parents of friends. One was in the high risk age group, the other was not.

Sorry for your losses and hope everyone else gets fully better.

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[quote]That is 1 case for every 88 people, and one would imagine that cases come in clusters since they're people they have interacted with. So if your social circle is 70-100 people (or less), it's not really strange to not personally know someone who's had it.[quote]


The other side of that while it's not unusual to not personally know anyone who had it, is if you know 1 person who had it, you're probably likely to know multiple people who had it exactly for the example of 3 people who lived together all getting it.


It'll be a lot of people who didn't have any bad experience with the pandemic thus far, and then some people who had really bad experiences like you. You knew 5 people who caught it, so there's statistically (if you're in Ohio) 440 people out there who don't have it according to the rates. That's a lot of people who probably haven't been touched in any significant way by this.


Doesn't make it any less terrible for the people who have been affected, but explains a bit of why not everyone has felt it.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(09-09-2020, 05:56 PM)Benton Wrote: A lack of preparation at the state and federal level led to a lack of preparedness. Politicians fell back on saying things like 'It's no worse than the flu' and 'Just live your life' which cause people to engage in risky behaviors.
- - - 
Because some people opt not to wear masks.
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Hawaii for example has decent numbers, but a pretty large population density. But a lot of their tourism slowed or stopped, so new cases coming in were low.
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I had something that knocked me out for nearly a month back in mid-March.

Ohio managed to do a pretty decent job. Last I saw they were like 14th-15th in cases among US states, despite being 7th in population. A whole lot of the early talk everywhere wasn't about "beating" it because I think the size/free travel/borders/composition of the US just made that unrealistic compared to a small isolated island nation like New Zealand/Iceland. It was all about flattening the curve so hospitals didn't get overwhelmed.

Never understood why more people don't vote in non-Presidential years (more people should vote in those years too). You're deciding the people who will handle all of this, so why wouldn't you want a say in it? If you don't vote, you can't realistically complain about the job those people end up doing.

If there's a small bright side to this, maybe people will pay more attention to their local politics and be more engaged in it. I remember in 2014 when road salt more than doubled in price and a lot of places were kind of screwed from the budget standpoint with a harsh winter expected  after the 2013-2014 winter having that huge extreme cold patch and being rough. While roads elsewhere were terrible due to lack of salt that winter, they were great here because they had planned ahead for both storage and purchasing. Good/smart local government matters.

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AKA... idiots. Even where I am, though it's not been hit hard, I still wear a mask everywhere I go. It's like wearing a seat belt. I might not need it, but why bother risking it?

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Almost like being an isolated island state makes it exceedingly easy to quarantine. 

- - - - - 

I think there was a bad (non-covid) flu that went around at the end of last winter.

[Forever Spinning Vinyl]

(09-09-2020, 05:02 PM)BFritz21 Wrote: And how does it continue to spread?  

Because a certain amount of people are not aware that Donald Trump is a con man that's completely full of shit and, for some stupid reason, they still believe what he says.
You have a choice and it's between two lifelong Democrats. One's a lunatic, the other is not.
I CANNOT WAIT for the debates. Giuliani and OAN's October surprise better be big because Drumpf is self sabotaging his campaign day by day. Losers and suckers, followed by Cohen's book and now Woodward is upending his whole Covid-19 response. What's next? Insulting his Christian base? Calling the NRA frauds? He's got more up his sleeve, this we all know.

[NATI BENGALS]

All propaganda. Totally fake to make the greatest leader the universe has ever seen look bad. Hell some people say he is probably the second coming of Jesus so you know the libs are out to make him look bad and a fake plague is something they would definitely do.

[*bfine32*]

Because we are a Nation built on individual freedoms.

[Benton]

(09-09-2020, 07:17 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Ohio managed to do a pretty decent job. Last I saw they were like 14th-15th in cases among US states, despite being 7th in population. A whole lot of the early talk everywhere wasn't about "beating" it because I think the size/free travel/borders/composition of the US just made that unrealistic compared to a small isolated island nation like New Zealand/Iceland. It was all about flattening the curve so hospitals didn't get overwhelmed.

Travel plays a bit of a role there. 

Ohio is a great state. I'm not knocking it. But among US travel, it's middle of the pack on travel. Internationally, it's bottom quarter. Those numbers depend on what metric, but that's a general number based on tourism. 

Less people in from other states and less people in from countries with high covid numbers should translate to lower infection numbers. 

Quote:Never understood why more people don't vote in non-Presidential years (more people should vote in those years too). You're deciding the people who will handle all of this, so why wouldn't you want a say in it? If you don't vote, you can't realistically complain about the job those people end up doing.

Many people don't want bureaucrats any more. The problem is, they do serve a function. When you have a situation like this, do you want someone who knows how to handle it, or a guy who manages hotels?
And that's not a Trump bash. Hes had some positives. But his background isn't in dealing with the 'what ifs' and more in dealing with the 'how do I make more money'. In this instance, he was woefully unprepared. Congress didn't help him out with that McConnell, for instance, has shifted a lot of the resources from PPE from US manufactures to the lowest bidder.  It shouldn't be a surprise, those lowest bidders were in China... which suspended exports of PPE due to their own needs.

Quote:If there's a small bright side to this, maybe people will pay more attention to their local politics and be more engaged in it. I remember in 2014 when road salt more than doubled in price and a lot of places were kind of screwed from the budget standpoint with a harsh winter expected  after the 2013-2014 winter having that huge extreme cold patch and being rough. While roads elsewhere were terrible due to lack of salt that winter, they were great here because they had planned ahead for both storage and purchasing. Good/smart local government matters.


- - - - -

AKA... idiots. Even where I am, though it's not been hit hard, I still wear a mask everywhere I go. It's like wearing a seat belt. I might not need it, but why bother risking it?

- - - - -

Almost like being an isolated island state makes it exceedingly easy to quarantine. 

- - - - - 

I think there was a bad (non-covid) flu that went around at the end of last winter.

We're pretty isolated in this end of the state (think my last county census was around 35k). If I had it, it was probably through traveling (the week before I got sick, my daughter had soccer tournaments 40 minutes north of Nashville, a much denser population). 
Personally, I'm at the point where I think we should go the 'open it all up' approach. We've half-assed things and misreported things and misrepresented things that the only thing left is to hope for the best.

[NATI BENGALS]

Here is a hint.

It’s in the last line of the op.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(09-09-2020, 10:30 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Because we are a Nation built on individual freedoms.

More likely because we’re obligate aerobes. We have to breath oxygen to survive. At the beginning of this pandemic, none of us had immunity to this virus and some people refuse to do something as simple as wear a mask because they’re “not a *****.” Even though the point of the mask is to protect others.

[Benton]

(09-09-2020, 10:30 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Because we are a Nation built on individual freedoms.

The trouble there comes when an individual's freedom infringes on someone else's freedoms..

One individual, matter how I'll, doesn't have to take preventative steps when going in public. But does that interfere with someone else's freedom to go into public no matter how healthy?

[CarolinaBengalFanGuy]

Well I’m no doctor I’m only going from experience at work but at my work area at night we are really spread out and we’ve only had a single person catch the virus, whereas my dispatch all work in a small trailer very close to one another and it went through our entire dispatch like wild fire. I think it’s more prone to spread through sustained indoor close contact with people. Then again there’s a chance I already caught it in February I got mega sick right after my mom came home from San Francisco mega sick. But without a test I would just assume it was a bad cold.

[BmorePat87]

Because for two month after telling Bob Woodward that it was 5 times deadlier than the season flu, the president told people it wasn't as bad as the flu and would just go away.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” the president said.