One of my relatives-- a basic Trumpublican's outlook on COVID-19

[eilen]

"It is absolutely ridiculous. The media is evil causing people to panic. People who are elderly and sick die from it. The media is in a frenzy like sharks. I tune out. The flu kills a lot more people."

Incidentally, she lives in Florida and is over 70 but is a healthy, functional working person who is also works in healthcare/mental health.

[beachbumbob]

1. too bad she may be victimized by her own ignorance

and could be one less trump vote in FL, so I really don't sympathize one bit

[CaptYossarian]

5. But she may infect innocent people.

Typhoid Nurse Ratchet.

[beachbumbob]

14. unfortunate consequence

[CaptYossarian]

19. If she's cold and heartless, it's also collateral damage.

[VladmireTrumpkins]

2. Any Trumper who dies of flu should have this on their tombstone

Here lies XXX ..killed by a Democratic hoax....Loyal Trumper even in death..

[Wounded Bear]

3. Hate to tell you, but a person's idea of what "old" is changes with age...

[babylonsister]

4. Ha! Yes it does! nt

[G_j]

6. They all got the same memo

almost word for word

[Midnight Writer]

20. Yes. Yesterday I flipped through the AM radio dial, and every station was "on script".

[snowybirdie]

7. In seeing posts

that H1N1 was worse during Obama Administration. Lord, these folks are fools!!!!!

[LonePirate]

8. Tell her to look at the situation in Italy. That is likely to happen to us in the weeks ahead.

We have no vigorous testing to identify potential cases. Large swaths of the population here think it is a hoax despite hundreds of deaths in Italy. The rest of Europe is scaling back events and performing massive testing to find carriers. The US is not. Thousands if not hundreds of thousands of US residents are going to die with Florida likely to be hit especially hard.

[Baitball Blogger]

9. "but is a healthy, functional working person who is also works in healthcare/mental health."

I am getting that same reaction from someone who works in the health industry. And I think the problem is that we're not getting a unified message from up top.

[eilen]

17. I am appalled at the lack of planning by my employer (inner city hospital)

They should be rallying direct care employees to sign up for on-call shifts by weekly calendar. They should be preparing some floors they had closed to reopen as isolation wards for Corona virus with a satellite Respiratory Therapy station & equipment room. Of course it wrecks their goal of eliminating OT. They should also be preparing a wing in the dormitories of the school for employee call rooms so people who sign up for extra shifts can go there to sleep for 6-8 hours til their next shift.

Additionally, ramp up training on respirators....

[mackdaddy]

10. The overall Covid19 death rate is 34 times higher than the Flu.

It is much higher for people in their 70's.

Those numbers seem to never be put in simple terms. Death rate for flu 0.09%, for Covid19 3.4%. That is a 34 fold difference.

The flu transmission rate is also less than 1 so it will slowly fizzle out. For Covid19 it is greater than two so number of cases will double every week, and we are just a few weeks into this. CDC estimates are 70% of the world population will end up with it over the next 18 months.

With this spread, and death rate, We will see hundreds of thousands of deaths in this country alone. Maybe more.

I think of this a a slow moving hurricane or blizzard. It is not here yet in full force, but it is coming. Panic does not help, but neither does not being prepared. We are going to ride through this storm either way.

https://rentry.co/covid-19-is-not-like-the-flu

[dawg day]

11. I realize that the GOPers suddenly don't care about senior citizens ("Let 'em die! They're old!")

But the next group most likely to get sick is... health care workers.

and they are younger, and live out in the community, and have families.

Not to mention we NEED them to be healthy to take care of us.

When half the staff of a hospital is quarantined, maybe this lady will start to panic.

[virgogal]

15. LOL,a lot of GOPers are senior citizens.

[Turin_C3PO]

16. Exactly,

which is why I don’t know why the GOP isn’t taking this seriously. A large block of their voters will potentially be affected by this virus before all is said and done.

[winstars]

12. She is wrong. However we will know in very short order how wrong these people are...

And when lots of people are sick and many are dying, will it be the media thats killing them?????

This won't take long

Either it happens or it doesn't.

We won't be arguing about this next year...


I WISH SHE WAS RIGHT, but unfortunately I have a functioning brain and know how to read so I am wary about the near future for all of us...

[Renew Deal]

13. You are not obligated to convince people to be worried.

Everybody has to make their own decisions.

[eilen]

18. Well, I advised her to be cautious.

I said the conservative response is to be cautious and practice discernment in regard to going places where there may be large crowds or tourist destinations that attract people from disparate regions.

For example--- I would avoid any and all theme parks, popular beaches, and busy hours anywhere (including Mass) if I were over 60-- I am pretty close being in my mid-50's.

My son is graduating this May and I wonder if they are going to cancel the ceremony. She is supposed to fly up to attend. I wonder if retail flights will be suspended by that time.

[Vinca]

21. You should ask her if you're mentioned in her will. That might wake her up.