It infected between 11-21% of the world population, most competent government had reserves of tamiflu and plans already set up to deal with influenza pandemics.
People underplay swine flu because it didn’t kill as many people as a bad influenza pandemic could but it unlike seasonal flu and coronavirus it killed mostly of young healthy people.
It’s interesting because they (the U.S.) don’t have that infrastructure as you say, that systematic country wide health care to track and constrain it since health care is comparatively a little bit everyone for themselves, you get your health care via your job and whatnot, a friend of mine who spent some time there said in his experience they might struggle immensely compared to say us with getting a grip of the situation if it starts spreading uncontrollably (ye it’s in the word but you know what I mean).
Also wonder if it becomes a thing this could end up affecting the universal health care politics ahead of the election, wouldn’t surprise me. All depends ofc, maybe it just dies down.
If the virus isn’t bad enough to stop everyday people from using transport etc going to work, then it shouldn’t be stopping sporting events either.
If I get paid to stay home because of it, then I’ll get behind sporting events getting binned.
they’re not really taking it seriously. It’s a real shame, and it’s like a watching a car crash in slow motion as you know it’s about to happen.
But then, maybe it won’t survive in this climate, or until the summer. There isn’t much we do know tbh.
well only two things to do, download a full season of Doomsday Preppers and get some inspirado and pointers on how to store 25000 pounds of canned baked beans, and watch some Bear Grylls on yt and learn how to drink my own piss. I knew this day would come.
Well. They know what it is, they mapped the genome inside 3 days, they already have a head start on a vaccine from the existing Coronavirus family and they know how it’s spread.
But other than that I suppose it’s a mystery 
Cmon this isn’t the emergence of HIV in mid-1981 that took 2 years to even isolate as a virus
As someone else said, imagine if this were Mers taking out 20% of victims and with little age discernible age bias in the fatalities
According to John’s Hopkins:
COVID-19 : Approximately 3,995 deaths reported worldwide; 22 deaths in the U.S., as of Mar. 9, 2020.
Flu : 291,000 to 646,000 deaths worldwide; 12,000 to 61,000 deaths in the U.S. per year.
Edit also John’s Hopkins:
The COVID-19 situation is changing rapidly. Since this disease is caused by a new virus, people do not have immunity to it, and a vaccine may be many months away. Doctors and scientists are working on estimating the mortality rate of COVID-19, but at present, it is thought to be higher than that of most strains of the flu.
Well HIV spread through intercourse mainly which takes a bit more effort than a sneeze or a hand shake (at least where I live). But if you’re just trying to stop me from drinking my own piss that’s sweet of you 
I appreciate that. But I already watched Bear in Sahara and downed a bottle of mineral water waiting for nature to do it’s thing. There’s no stopping this now.
i guess in terms of how far this outbreak will go. they’re probably already getting sone antivirals ready that will take the edge off, but if people are being stupid then they could overrun healthcare systems.
Especially when it seems the issue with this virus is how contagious it is.
That’s just it. The flu is a known entity. Covid-19 is a complete unknown. We’re just now starting to see what the long term effects are and it doesn’t look good. Pulmonary fibrosis and inability to produce antibodies are the two main concerns. I guess we will see. Until we can produce a vaccine, we’re at the mercy of people who carry it.
My boss had it absolutely dead on in my opinion. He said we’re all going to come in contact with it at this point. They didn’t do enough to contain it at the source. So now the WHO and CDC are playing defense and not doing a good job of it.
Well you look a little like Andrew Lincoln so can I be on your team when this mutates further and everybody starts turning? 
The entitlement of people is crazy. The west has no hope to contain this.
So many threads from people in affected countries such as the ones below. I agree you shouldn’t cause panic but that doesn’t mean sitting on your hands and basically waiting for the hospitals to be overflowing with patients until any action is taken.
As per reports, most cases are not imported and are community spread.
I think it’s time to stockpile toilet paper and wotsits.
If this measure shows results I imagine other countries will be doing it sooner rather than later
You could always use newspaper. Before bog rolls became mainstream you could sit on the khazi, have a read and then express your opinion accordingly.
Think of the boost in circulation for The Sun, etc.
Back to my youth. We could also go back to using tracing paper again. I guess it’s not as bad as I thought after all.
Unfortunately, the generation of the Blitz and WW2 have sadly passed away now, but they’d have been able to give us some advice as to how to ration- toilet paper was right up there as one of the things they had to be sensible with.
They ate less food so they had less shits. Pretty simple.
You guys could use water and then tissue.
You Europeans can’t be born with friction less butts that mere wipe of a tissue paper is enough to clean your butt.
I’m extremely wary of Twitter in cases like this.
I think there’s going to be a lot of people that will use this situation that will try and look like they’re “in the know” and have an “inside scoop” and deeper understanding than they do to get more followers and their 5 minutes in the limelight.
Gonna be a lot of shysters and chancers chatting absolute shit out there.