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Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by bcrosby95 on Friday February 28, 2020 @12:53PM (#22444685)
I'm not sure why officials haven't come out suggesting things like this. And to avoid non-mandatory travel.

It's probably a bit late for this stuff from a containment perspective. But it would help reduce the r0.

Speaking personally, I have to decide by mid March if we should take our trip to Legoland in San Diego. Right now I'm leaning towards "no". And I don't imagine the outlook will be much better in just 2 weeks.

Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by yodsanklai on Friday February 28, 2020 @01:20PM (#22444981)
> I'm not sure why officials haven't come out suggesting things like this. And to avoid non-mandatory travel.

Maybe because it's not needed yet? We are talking about a few cases in a country of 300+ millions inhabitants. Even if we assume that there are many unreported cases, we can still assume that the risk is extremely low.

It's notoriously hard to assess probabilities of low events, so I would simply follow recommendations from experts, and so far my government hasn't emitted any specific restrictions (besides avoiding traveling to China and a few other places).

Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by moultano on Friday February 28, 2020 @01:36PM (#22445118)
> so I would simply follow recommendations from experts, and so far my government hasn't emitted any specific restrictions (besides avoiding traveling to China and a few other places).

You are in a better position to assess your personal cost of WFH than the government is.

Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by mc32 on Friday February 28, 2020 @01:05PM (#22444823)
Anecdotally, companies are sending communication whereby company-related travel is restricted and requires approval from the chief health officer in the company/HR.
Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by SpicyLemonZest on Friday February 28, 2020 @12:59PM (#22444754)
Officials have to calibrate their guidance against how the general public will react. If they announce that you should try to stay home and cancel your travel plans, but the average Joe looks around and says "nah it's not really spreading in the US right now", how do you get him to actually stay home if/when it's absolutely necessary?
Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by throwaway55554 on Friday February 28, 2020 @01:24PM (#22445020)
> I'm not sure why officials haven't come out suggesting things like this.

Because they're being told it is "contained in the U.S."

Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by nostromo on Friday February 28, 2020 @01:10PM (#22444871)
Because they're balancing being extra-cautious with the serious risks of overreacting.

The worst case scenario right now is that some people might lose their grandparents a couple years early -- which is obviously incredibly sad, but also not something worth crashing the world economy over.

Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by tkahnoski on Friday February 28, 2020 @01:24PM (#22445015)
Ouch. I have this opinion of my dog. An extra year or two... not a big deal.

I do not have this opinion of my parents or any other immuno-compromised individual. Your worst-case-scenario is absolutely the worst-case scenario in many individual's minds.

If the greater good is not the extension of the life of those around us what exactly are we trying to do here?

There are many things worth crashing the world-economy over. Slavery was one. Climate change probably another.

Asking for a 90 day slow-down to prevent real-world deaths is probably one of the more concrete and predictable things we could do compared to most other altruistic choices facing us today.

Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by nostromo on Friday February 28, 2020 @02:13PM (#22445417)
Please don’t put words in my mouth.
Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by tkahnoski on Friday February 28, 2020 @03:53PM (#22446267)
I apologize if I misunderstood your intent. I can see other ways of interpreting what you said.

I originally took your point to be that the current risks, although sad, are acceptable and we face greater peril from slowing down economic activity.

Although I see trade-offs to everything I see economic activity fundamentally as in service to the quality of life of a person and would rather take the sadness of losing greater economic gains to the sadness losing significantly more people.

There is always a balance to this and I could interpret what you said as having a different perspective on what the current risks are but without additional context, I took it as I did.

Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by pvaldes on Saturday February 29, 2020 @03:58PM (#22453054)
> The worst case scenario right now is that some people might lose their grandparents a couple years early

"Colleagues mourned the death of Peng Yinhua, a 29 Yo doctor who postponed his wedding to fight the COVID-19 outbreak"

"Liu Zhiming, the director of Wuhan Wuchang hospital, died at 51 Years old"

"Dr. Li Wenliang died at 33 Yo.

"Xia Sisi, 29, was a digestive physician working at Hospital in Wuhan. She died Sunday morning"

"Huang Wenjun, 42, deputy chief physician at the department of respiratory medicine at Xiaogan Central Hospital also died Sunday".

Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by tobltobs on Friday February 28, 2020 @01:19PM (#22444970)
> The worst case scenario right now is that some people might lose their grandparents a couple years early

Any sources for that theory?

Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by nostromo on Friday February 28, 2020 @01:20PM (#22444975)
Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by tobltobs on Friday February 28, 2020 @01:40PM (#22445150)
I am looking for

"The worst case scenario right now is that some people might lose their grandparents a couple years early"

in those numbers, but I can't find anything like this.

Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by anonAndOn on Friday February 28, 2020 @02:12PM (#22445412)
As cavalier and apathetic as your assessment is, that is far, far from the worst case scenario.