Conservative Political Forum

I am my family are practicing social distancing.

That said, spring break started mid feb. Two most popular destinations in us - Panama City beach - 1 case reported. South padre island - 2 cases reported.

We should watch these areas closely. With the tens of Thousands of people visiting those areas, with all the locals working in the service industry, bars restaurants hotels all close proximity. We should expect to see a massively disproportionate increase amongst the local population, relative to areas that practice social distancing.

Here in my county, extremely low density of people, and all restaurants and bars closed in very rural Maine, we have 4 confirmed cases.

We know we do not shut down the us economy for the flu season each year - 40,000 deaths annually conservatively. In fact, it’s never been a consideration.

We know who shut down business. And we know who stayed open. And we know the areas where tens of thousands visited and partied

This will all be revealed as a very economically damaging but necessary health move. Or the biggest scam of the last two centuries.

We shall see.

Part 2 Coronovirus lesson....

You are all doing a great job, and I appreciate the feedback, and your continued interest in learning about the virus causing this.
 
One issue to consider:
We are being asked to stay home to flatten the curve (and slow the progression).  We are (in most locations) still allowed to go on runs for essentials.  However, make sure you are buying normally, not in bulk and not for hoarding.  My brother-in-law is a buyer for supermarkets.  He sent me a message yesterday to make sure folks know that there is no supply shortage. If we shop normally, the shelves will look normal.  If you go to the store, and shelves look bare, it is because individual consumers have changed their buying habits.  Stores can only receive so much supply on one truck, so they can only stock what they can stock.  If you buy normally, the stores will go back to looking normal with normal supply.  This is just one of the many reasons not to panic.  Panic buying leads to shortages.

Back to class, friends:
So, we left off with HOW the virus is transmitted.
Trixie has done her damage, and now there are viruses replicating inside your own cells without your knowledge… for now.
What are the stages of illness, and the causes of those stages?
Well, I referenced the “incubation period” yesterday.  That is the period of time where you are infected, and virus is replicating inside you, but you aren’t showing any symptoms.  It is likely that at some point in this period, you will become contagious, but we aren’t totally sure at what point this happens. 
Our current understanding is that this period lasts between 2 and 14 days, with an average of 4 days. 
During the initial, replication stage of infection, our immune system notices.  It does this, because our cells have a process inside of them where if any individual cell detects an invader inside, it will display a “flag” of sorts on the outside of the cell, alerting our immune system.  At this point, there are a number of things that can happen to put a stop to the progression of illness.  However, in an infection that is different enough than infections that have passed through the population in the past, we won’t have a way of containing the illness before it becomes a full-blown infection.  The initial steps our immune system takes will become overwhelmed and fail.
During this stage, relatively mild symptoms can occur, and these symptoms are usually due to direct effects of the virus on the cells as well as chemicals released by our immune cells. The symptoms are usually fever, cough (non-productive), and malaise (a fancy way of saying “I feel crappy”).  The symptoms are so mild during this stage that patients rarely feel bad enough to seek care.  They will, however, sit at home cursing the name of Trixie.
After this early phase, we start to see more symptoms. This pulmonary phase results in more respiratory symptoms due to invasion and damage of the lung cells that are involved in holding our smallest airways open and mediate exchange of gasses from the air we breathe into the blood that flows through the lungs to collect oxygen.
We also see an increase in the body’s immune response resulting in inflammation.  This is when we see patients begin to feel worse and seek care.  They are short of breath, and not able to maintain adequate oxygenation.  If they continue to deteriorate, this is where the paths diverge between those who experience mild or moderate disease who can recover at home and those who require hospitalization.
On average, if a patient is going to develop severe disease, they will get to the point where they are short of breath at 6 days after exposure.  They require admission, on average, at 8 days after exposure and require intubation or ICU admission at about 10 days after exposure.  Remember that these are averages, and can’t really predict the clinical course of any one patient who gets sick.
If a patient progresses farther to this severe stage, this is where a storm of immune chemicals causes inflammation and immune response all over the body, even though the amount of virus in the body is falling.  Remember that only a small percentage of folks enter this severe stage of illness, and most make a U-turn in one of the first stages and progress back to recovery. 
I don’t teach you about these things to frighten you at all, because my goal is always the opposite.  However, I can’t educate you about just PART of what happens.  That wouldn’t be very genuine.  Trixie might do that, but not me
The small percentage that progress to severe disease are usually the elderly or the at-risk folks.  We protect them, by learning about this disease, and taking measures to protect them.  We all know someone who is at-risk, and we want to keep them safe!
The photo today is my poor, at-risk Tatiana.  This girl is scared of everything, including Coronavirus, but it's ok.  She prefers to "shelter in place" all the time, naturally social distancing
You’re all doing great, and I appreciate all of you!
Keep up the good work, stay tuned, and STOP BUYING IN BULK YOU ANIMALS!
See you tomorrow!

More like. "Never let a good crisis go to waste".

In retrospect, he literally threw water on the Dims fire before they could get started. That's why his poll numbers are at their highest approval point to date.
The man is a damn genius!!!