27 Comments - Fighter of Foo - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 2:39 pm: https://www.dph.illinois.gov/covid19/covid19-statistics look at deaths by age and someone argues this is anything but politics. - Oswego Willy - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 2:49 pm: === look at deaths by age=== Which deaths aren’t political? Tell that to families who lost… like yours. - Fighter of Foo - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 2:52 pm: OW… Working-age people are not dying. We need to get people to work The other states are open and are and were in alleged “worse” shape. Blue against red, that’s all it is now. - Oswego Willy - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 2:54 pm: === Working-age people are not dying.=== One is too many. How many in their 40’s, 50’s… Your treating life frivolously, especially fur someone who lost an uncle to Covid-19 It’s… wow. - Fighter of Foo - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 2:55 pm: https://www.kurtzmemorialchapel.com/obituaries/Roger–John-Griggs?obId=12685876 Thanks, OW .. His only problem was the same disease some of you have. Sox fan! - Ron Burgundy - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 2:56 pm: –OW… Working-age people are not dying.– Except for the roughly 1,000 or so people below age 65, that are, you know, dead. - Fighter of Foo - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 2:57 pm: OW. If we took that argument for one is too many for drug overdose, gun violence, or pick one.. I can agree. This is too political now is all. - Oswego Willy - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 2:59 pm: === drug overdose, gun violence=== It’s a global pandemic. It’s a disease/virus A vaccine hopefully can be found. Your examples are ones that don’t address the medical, true medical, remedies to stop the spread. - Fighter of Foo - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 3:00 pm: Have a great weekend OW…. I will convince you of something, someday! - Confused - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 3:07 pm: I thought conservative folks were pro life? Any loss of life should concern them and you’d think they’d be doing everything possible to save every life rather than sacrifice people at the alter of capitalism - Interim Retiree - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 3:10 pm: Foo - what about all of the children who have suffered from Covid-19? Are they political? Those that were on ventilators for weeks? Seriously? - @misterjayem - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 3:22 pm: “Working-age people are not dying.” One in seven of today’s deaths are people under the age of 60. Stop being daft. – MrJM - muon - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 3:34 pm: OW - I have an honest question. We know from medicine that many of the annual flu deaths are preventable due to the lack of good public health practices by the general public. We could reduce the number of annual flu deaths by mandating flu vaccines for everyone. And since the vaccine is only partially effective, we would also have to require testing and self-quarantine for individuals who are contagious for the flu to most effectively reduce the number of deaths. Do you feel that the state should impose those known medical and public health techniques to reduce the number of deaths due to the flu? - Oswego Willy - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 3:45 pm: === Do you feel that the state should impose those known medical and public health techniques to reduce the number of deaths due to the flu?=== As far as global pandemics go, and to answer… it’s critical to recognize that this isn’t the flu, or anything like it… So… “ Do you feel that the state should impose those known medical and public health techniques to reduce the number of deaths due to the flu?“ Vaccines? I’m for vaccines, and like kids with schooling, the mandatory vaccination to enter school, yep, I’m on that. Adults? Maybe a mandatory for seniors in assisted living, those in the medical profession… I’d be more inclined to have those things mandatory as well. The thing about freedom, and wrestling with the necessity to fight a once a century virus that is now a pandemic… my hope is smart public health policy in the vaccine realm, I’d look at how, say, polio, was done, but here with different types of vulnerabilities. How’s that for a start, if you need more. :) - Oswego Willy - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 3:50 pm: - muon - Also, and it goes without saying… Listening to medical professions within the administration… and seek those outside too… not group think outside scientific rationale. :) Stay well. - Trapped in the ‘burbs - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 3:53 pm: Today, one of these deaths is a friend of mine. He was a husband, father and community leader. To listen to people want to make a disease political is maddening. Doctors and scientists tell us that wearing masks and washing our hands help slow the transmission. We’re not asking you to storm the beaches in France to save the world. Wearing a mask isn’t a loss of your constitutional rights, it’s a minor imposition to save lives. Grow up, you share this planet with others. - Proud Sucker - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 4:05 pm: Trapped, I am very sorry for the loss of your friend. I fully agree with your sentiments. My wife and I wear masks for exactly that reason. - lake county democrat - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 4:05 pm: Foo’s graph at the link seems to argue against him - there are 4 bars within the range of working age, two of them aren’t -that- much smaller than the elderly. Maybe Foo is confused and thinks the retirement age is 35 and not 65? - muon - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 4:14 pm: OW- thanks for your answer. I agree with much of what you say, but I’m not so optimistic that this pandemic won’t become an endemic killer like the flu. The coronavirus isn’t influenza, but members of the coronavirus family cause the common cold. Those cold-causing relatives of SARS-CoV-2 are endemic, so we can’t rule it out here either. There are top epidemiologists who already predict that SARS-CoV-2 has already spread too widely to be eradicated, and will be endemic after the initial waves of pandemic. The RNA database for SARS-CoV-2 already has a number of known mutations. There’s evidence that it is continuing to mutate like the flu, though not at the same rate. But any mutation rate can make a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine subject to some of the same uncertainty as the flu vaccine. If true, then it makes eradication unlikely, even with a vaccine. That’s why I phrased my question as I did. Not for this wave or the wave next winter, but for all the years to come - if epidemiologists are correct and this virus is here to stay, with or without a vaccine. In that way it could be much like the flu. - Oswego Willy - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 4:21 pm: === but I’m not so optimistic that this pandemic won’t become an endemic killer like the flu.=== Right now, all i can do, as a non-medial professional, is recognize the real danger this virus is and will be for a very long time and those willing to infect others for their own selfishness, the importance of doing all we can to stop the spread while finding a new normal is also part of “what’s next” - Oswego Willy - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 4:24 pm: - muon - Stay well. Thanks. Hope all typed gives some insight. - Proud Papa Bear - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 4:24 pm: Trapped - I’m very sorry for your loss. I agree. My ancestors lived through depression and war. I can make adjustments to save my fellow human. - Six Degrees of Separation - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 4:48 pm: For the under-60 contingent who get this disease, we shouldn’t just count deaths and say “they’re OK” when fatalities don’t tell the whole story. What about the working age people who survive with compromised kidneys and lungs, and may have a prognosis for a shorter or less-quality lifestyle in the coming decade or 2? Not every casualty is a death. - muon - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 5:15 pm: OW - It does give me insight about where you stand, so again thanks. It’s probably only fair to give you some of mine as well. I am not a medical professional, but I am a scientist and I have worked on research projects with medical professionals. I have a decent idea where to find the scientific articles about the virus. Our knowledge has changed as the pandemic progresses. That’s why my read of the science suggests this virus will give a vaccine more like the flu then polio. I hope I’m wrong, but until then I’m following the science. Following the science also leads me to believe that at some point we will have to come to grips with the same risk analysis that governs other diseases. That could be now, this fall, next spring, or even later. Again, I’d like to be wrong on this, but that’s not what current science says. - Oswego Willy - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 5:27 pm: ===…science suggests this virus will give a vaccine more like the flu then polio. I hope I’m wrong, but until then I’m following the science.=== My hope to all this is the idea that whatever new normal may exist, or what can be regained, is that new living will be a life where human interaction can exist as close to what we knew before, as soon as that can happen. Until then… we learn… keep ourselves and others safe as best we can… and move forward. - Mama - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 8:29 pm: - muon - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 5:15 pm: “science suggests this virus will give a vaccine more like the flu then polio.” muon, Does this mean there will be no cure for COVID-19? - @misterjayem - Friday, May 22, 20 @ 8:56 pm: “Does this mean there will be no cure for COVID-19?” There’s no cure for HIV-AIDS and they’ve been searching for decades. – MrJM Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.