This epidemic is hardly an ”apocalyptic event”!
Airborne_Again wrote:
This epidemic is hardly an ”apocalyptic event”!
Yet.
“There is literally no mountain high enough from which to adequately express my contempt for all this”
The Mooney M20C should have a nice ceiling 
This epidemic will be with us around for one or 2 years and will be forgotten after and life carry on, actually, I forgot what we had in 2016 & 2017 ??!!
The Mooney M20C should have a nice ceiling
ROFL! Good answer.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Yet.
An epidemic which has a mortality rate of less than 1%? It wouldn’t be apocalyptic even if everyone got it. Horrible, yes, but not apocalyptic.
Airborne_Again wrote:
An epidemic which has a mortality rate of less than 1%?
Direct mortality is only one criteria, however, we are still blissfully unaware what this thing will do in the end. Looking at the permanent damage it appears do be doing, that mortality may well rise quite sharply once those who suffer from after effects will succumb to them. This may well take years but someone who dies of heart problems he got via Covid in 5 years will contribute to the mortality never the less. When I read figures that up to half of the people who have had Covid, including some who did not even realize, now suffer massive heart and lung problems then it is not difficult to see a very different scenario. Someone I heard has actually compared this part of the story with AIDS which will kill slowlier but quite effectively too. And how many decades did it take before that got under control? Apart, death may in many cases not be the worst variant…. looking at the aftereffects this thing has all the potential to create millions to billions of handicapped humans.
I would agree that if only mortality was taken into account then the term may be overbearing. However, the damage Covid does goes far beyond the simple question of how many people it will kill. One part is what it will do to society, to our political landscape. The other is what it does to us individually.
The former scope of destruction of society is well under way. Society is not coming together, it is splitting up in those who take this disease seriously and do their best to prevent its spread and those for whom panem and circenses are more important and won’t believe it anyhow until they get it themselves. Even now we see violence between people being considerate and protecting their fellow humans by wearing masks and those who refuse up to the point where they will attack those who want to make them wear a mask. Once there is a vaccine, there will be huge problems with people who will refuse to take it and keep that virus alive.
In the political landscape, Covid will wreck total havoc, particularly in countries where response has caused chaos, misinformation and insecurity to the point where people will be very willing to follow any sort of rat catcher who claims to know the way out. Looking at the inability of our societies and political systems to adequately deal with Covid will cause a lot of governments to fall, civil discord and possible revolutions.
Once it becomes clear that Covid is here to stay and that the current modus vivendi with quarantines, thousands of deaths and millions affected will be the new normal from which there is no escape, mortality by the Virus proper will be the smallest concern. It is the sociological consequences which are scary.
I do take Covid seriously, but I don’t share the apocalyptic view. IMHO the moment a vaccine is available, this is going to be over pretty quickly. Yes, there is the anti-vaxer brigade, but they then only kill themselves. Nothing wrong with that, it’s called natural selection. I’m pretty sure this time next year we won’t be talking about Covid anymore.
172driver wrote:
Yes, there is the anti-vaxer brigade, but they then only kill themselves.
Finally, someone gets it.
There’s no need to hate the antivaxers, they are the control group (for medical purposes).
172driver wrote:
Yes, there is the anti-vaxer brigade, but they then only kill themselves.
Herd immunity via a vaccine will take only about 70-80% of the population to be vaccinated, so I’m not sure that’s much of a concern. My wife at some time in the past bought the typical German ‘vaccines aren’t natural’ kool-aid and getting her to get vaccinated would be tough. I would on the other hand get vaccinated twice if it would protect us both – nature here is the problem, not the solution.
The political issue with Coronavirus is the taste of power that government has had, one that they aren’t going to like giving up. That may prove to be a bigger problem than Coronavirus itself, as will a fearful, cowering population. The best thing about a vaccine is that it would cut new government powers off at the knees without legal battles, so especially with that in mind I’m rooting for technology over nature.
It remains fact that nobody I have ever met in my lifetime has had Coronavirus. We’ll see if that remains true forever.
IMHO the consensus of opinion would appear to be that this virus is going to be around for some time without a proven vaccine.
Even if a vaccine is proven we have no idea of its effectiveness over time. We have for instance a flue vaccine, but every year people still die of influenza.
Then as @Mooney_Driver points out we don’t know much about the long term effects of this virus. Could it be that a young person who recovered from the virus quickly may suffer heart or lung problems in the future?
Over this last month and particularly this last week I have given these factors some serious thought. I have 2 elderly and sick parents, one in a rest home the other in hospice care at home and for whom I have become the sole carer..This state has nothing to do with the virus but the virus is making things damn difficult
These factors coupled with Eurostar cancelling trains at the last minute and sudden imposed quarantine plus seat availability on those that do exist are making things even harder. And then of course there is always the thought that the more one is in contact with the general public the more likely you are to catch the virus or something else.
But unlike Mooney Driver I do see a bright side I have a licence to fly a plane, which means I can fly from my home base near La Rochelle to the South West of England in 2 to 3 hours.
Cancellation will be more under my control, for instance I can wait out the weather and go.
As a renter these days I cannot keep the aircraft parked up doing nothing in the UK for weeks on end. Neither would I want to with the parking charges at UK airports and exterior parking.
But I have friends who would be delighted to come with me and fly the aircraft home and bring it back again when I need to fly home. The hours I would be flying I would be flying anyway just for fun so the cost is limited to the paying for the aircraft when someone else is relocating the aircraft (as long as I don’t pay the pilot this is perfectly legal, I’ve checked).
So I don’t have to come into contact with the public at large.
And as to the future, if there are after effects d to the virus I would hope this would reflect in a less formal, less bureaucratic medical regime for private pilots. After all I find it difficult to believe that many would be daft enough to fly non pilot family and friends if their health might put them at risk. Oh I just re read this and realised I could be wrong, here, after all many drink and drive with their family in the car
So I see the future in private aviation, I just hope I can turn my plans into reality. And if I do maybe I will continue doing things this way long after the virus is gone, whenever that is.
