Apple Plans to Start Reopening Retail Stores in First Half of April

[Baymowe335]

and if we’re very smart about this, it might stay that way. Maybe.

so you want to wait until they are alarming before we act? Because between incubation period and slowly developing symptoms, by the time the gross numbers are “alarming” (whatever that means to you), it’s going to be too late. There will be two weeks of growth already coming that can’t be stopped


No. It WILL get there. It’s a highly contagious disease with no vaccine and no herd immunity. It will spread until it’s stopped. That can either happen with a 70% infection rate, a vaccine (no time soon), or distancing. That’s it. Those are the options.


No one cares? That’s the whole ballgame right there.

No, no....let's act. In fact, I think it should be A LOT stronger. Like police tell you to go home if you're out and no exceptions. None. Governments pays your salary if employer doesn't. But it lasts 14-21 days and then we re-evaluate. Currently, the quarantine is not nearly strong enough.

Let's just be thoughtful and reasonable about it in the longer term and have some perspective.

I am more optimistic about treatments/vaccines and really don't fear the virus as much as many people do.

Let's be serious. We all have the facts. I'm just not concerned about it because it's not Ebola. It's a respiratory virus that is killing the elderly and people with compromised immune systems. Not great, but the flu kills the same people and has done so at a far greater rate.

 

[Analog Kid]

No reaso not to get the flu shot, but do know that it will most likely have no effect for you with covid-19.

Yes. That is obvious. Dead influenza virus won’t immunize you against live sars-cov-2.

It seems like half this discussion is about the flu. Flu is bad. I agree people should get their flu shot. If it’s not a choice between slowing down the flu and slowing down covid-19 though, it seems irrelevant to the discussion.

I get my flu shot and I look both ways before crossing the street, because different methods best protect me from different dangers.

 

[CarlJ]

Those that are at risk should take precautions to shield themselves from it, real simple.

One, everybody is at risk.

Two, a big part of the problem is people getting the virus, not knowing they have it, passing it on to others, and then one of those people goes to their home, where someone who IS at extreme risk (immune-compromised, very elderly, whatever) also lives, and that at-risk person gets the virus and gets sick and dies.

Do you want to help other people die? It doesn't matter if you're "super healthy" or whatever, you can still help spread the virus to others, and eventually it gets to someone who is at extreme risk.

This thing doesn't work if people who feel they are okay, or feel that they're not at risk, keep going out. We need everyone - EVERYONE - to cooperate. If you're not working at a declared-essential job (like doctors and nurses), or out getting food, go home and stay home.

STOP this damn "(only) people at risk should take precautions" (but it's okay for me to keep doing things) nonsense. It's not just wrong. It's not just unhelpful. It's a way to get people killed.

 

[Baymowe335]

This whole post seems to say, “don’t react until the gross numbers exceed the flu” and “don’t trust science, epidemiology, doctors, or the other countries dealing with this.” Same tripe being broadcast on Fox News.

The strain on hospitals has occurred in places that failed to act quickly enough. The projections you distrust are not absolutes—they are extrapolations of data currently available. Without a crystal ball or a time machine, that’s the best we can do. Maybe you’ll be right someday, and it won’t be that bad. Maybe that’ll be because of measures taken to flatten the curve. Maybe not. In either case, I hope you’re right.

But right now, you seem to be advocating for relaxed mitigation measures. To what end? If we lock down the country, the economy suffers. If we don’t, the data we have suggests many people will become seriously ill, and many of those will die. Removing consumers and workers permanently will also severely damage the economy. So both choices have negative economic effects. So it seems it’s a decision that comes down to saving lives or not. Let’s stay home.

First of all, I stay at home. I can work at home and do not have any desire to go out. I'm doing my part. I also don't watch Fox News.

I actually like the stay at home and even stronger measures would be supported by me. I'm asking for people to have some perspective about something that is literally much worse by the measure that people are ultimately afraid. Death. Who cares if we all get it and no one dies? People are scared about dying. I don't see it killing on any mass scale because it's just not killing healthy people, which most people are, at least by this measure.

1) It's far and away disproportionately impacting the elderly and weak. Irrefutable.
2) It's killed far fewer than the flu does every year. Not even close.
3) We are staying at home and the efforts should be helping
4) There are some promising leads on treatments/vaccines that could be real sooner than the 1 year people keep quoting.
5) Distancing/closures are in place all around the world so the infection/death numbers should eventually come down, particularly if China is a measure...even if we don't believe their numbers and their quarantine was better.

ALL I'm saying is the hysteria and projections people are doing are totally asinine. I'm not telling you to stop social distancing...by all means, let's do it.

BUT, let's be reasonable about the projecting and speculating while also being mindful of something that is far worse that people doing give a second thought. We do in fact deal with incurable viruses every day, mostly because it's impractical to worry about them like this. We have people getting on TV and saying it's going to kill 30M Americans, more people than all wars combined, and 1/2 people on Earth will be infected. It's ridiculous and unnecessary.

 

[falainber]

Because corona is nothing serious. Only to old people.

And now let's look at the real data:

For those aged 15 to 44, the fatality rate was 0.5%, though it might have been as low as 0.1% or as high as 1.3%. For people 45 to 64, the fatality rate was also 0.5%, with a possible low of 0.2% and a possible high of 1.1%. For those over 64, it was 2.7%, with a low and high estimate of 1.5% and 4.7%.

If we do nothing to stop the spread of the virus, since we do not have any vaccine, 50 to 80% of the population may get infected (the numbers differ). Let's be optimistic and take 50%. Let's take the 15 to 44 age group. This is roughly 129 million people (source). 65 million of them would get infected. Multiple by 0.005 and you get 320,000 dead. That's for young people. Numbers for older folks would be much worse.

 

[sirghost]

One, everybody is at risk.

Two, a big problem is people getting the virus, not knowing they have it, passing it on to others, and then one of those people goes to their home, where someone who IS at extreme risk (immune-compromised, very elderly, whatever) also lives, and that at-risk person gets the virus and gets sick and dies.

Do you want to help other people die? It doesn't matter if you're "super healthy" or whatever, you can still help spread the virus to others, and eventually it gets to someone who is at extreme risk.

This thing doesn't work if people who feel they are okay, or feel that they're not at risk, keep going out. We need everyone - EVERYONE - to cooperate. If you're not working at a declared-essential job (like doctors and nurses), or out getting food, go home and stay home.

STOP this damn "(only) people at risk should take precautions" (but it's okay for me to keep doing things) nonsense. It's not just wrong. It's not just unhelpful. It's a way to get people killed.

With the speed of spread suspected and accounted for, we are not going to stop the spread from happening. Too late for that, governments around the world reacted too late for that.

Now, just because you get it does not mean you are at risk for dying from it.

My issue here is not the restrictions everyone is demanding here for this, but is because everyone is acting like this is the Black Plague that kills everyone.

I said my peace and I am out of this thread.

for those that have it, stay inside if your symptoms do not warrant going to a doctor, and do not spread, for those at risk, stay inside and away from folks.

 

[Analog Kid]

Because corona is nothing serious. Only to old people.

Li Wenliang - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Dead at 33.

 

[CarlJ]

Only N95 masks are of any value and they're needed by health professionals.

Us normal folks should not wear masks unless told to by our doctor's or other medical professional.

Agreed that normal folks should not be wearing (or buying) masks. I've heard that while the N95 are (greatly) useful for healthcare professionals dealing with infected patients, the normal "surgical" masks actually are useful - for a sick person who has to be around others temporarily. Surgical masks are designed to keep things inside from getting out (so one doesn't breathe/drool into a patient). They have some utility, and for healthcare professionals they're better than nothing if N95 masks aren't available (which is a dire situation). But "ordinary folk" shouldn't be buying either kind at this point.

 

[Baymowe335]

And now let's look at the real data:

For those aged 15 to 44, the fatality rate was 0.5%, though it might have been as low as 0.1% or as high as 1.3%. For people 45 to 64, the fatality rate was also 0.5%, with a possible low of 0.2% and a possible high of 1.1%. For those over 64, it was 2.7%, with a low and high estimate of 1.5% and 4.7%.

If we do nothing to stop the spread of the virus, since we do not have any vaccine, 50 to 80% of the population may get infected (the numbers differ). Let's be optimistic and take 50%. Let's take the 15 to 44 age group. This is roughly 129 million people (source). 65 million of them would get infected. Multiple by 0.005 and you get 320,000 dead. That's for young people. Numbers for older folks would be much worse.

This, this right here. You see people saying, "It's just math, bro. Watch me do the math."

This projection doesn't work.

First of all, all your numbers are based entirely on data from Wuhan. Second, the number of unconfirmed cases of people 15-44 is everything and is almost completely UNKNOWN. Further, the sample size is simply too small to project that to ANYTHING close to a large number like 65M. That's garbage math and worse logic.

This isn't advocating flippancy. It's saying get off the projections and deal with reality. Your scenario is never going to play out. Even Dr. Fauci has said mortality will decrease with more testing...and it only makes logical sense.
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Li Wenliang - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Dead at 33.

This is sad, but it's one guy. Do you have his complete medical history? The numbers we have don't support healthy 33 year olds being a huge risk factor for death. You have 1 example and are missing his medical history. Do we really need to pump this like the media would to trigger people like you in panic?

 

[falainber]

This, this right here. You see people saying, "It's just math, bro. Watch me do the math."

This projection doesn't work.

First of all, all your numbers are based entirely on data from Wuhan. Second, the number of unconfirmed cases of people 15-44 is everything and is almost completely UNKNOWN. Further, the sample size is simply too small to project that to ANYTHING close to a large number like 65M. That's garbage math and worse logic.

This isn't advocating flippancy. It's saying get off the projections and deal with reality. Your scenario is never going to play out. Even Dr. Fauci has said mortality will decrease with more testing...and it only makes logical sense.
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This is sad, but it's one guy. Do you have his complete medical history? The numbers we have don't support healthy 33 year olds being a huge risk factor for death. You have 1 example and are missing his medical history. Do we really need to pump this like the media would to trigger people like you in panic?

That's the best (and only) data that is available. You seemingly want to make the decisions not based on any data (or data for flu, which is just ridiculous). That would be sort of OK if we were talking, say, about Apple sales numbers but not when we are talking about human lives.

 

[Mw0103]

First of all, I stay at home. I can work at home and do not have any desire to go out. I'm doing my part. I also don't watch Fox News.

I actually like the stay at home and even stronger measures would be supported by me. I'm asking for people to have some perspective about something that is literally much worse by the measure that people are ultimately afraid. Death. Who cares if we all get it and no one dies? People are scared about dying. I don't see it killing on any mass scale because it's just not killing healthy people, which most people are, at least by this measure.

1) It's far and away disproportionately impacting the elderly and weak. Irrefutable.
2) It's killed far fewer than the flu does every year. Not even close.
3) We are staying at home and the efforts should be helping
4) There are some promising leads on treatments/vaccines that could be real sooner than the 1 year people keep quoting.
5) Distancing/closures are in place all around the world so the infection/death numbers should eventually come down, particularly if China is a measure...even if we don't believe their numbers and their quarantine was better.

ALL I'm saying is the hysteria and projections people are doing are totally asinine. I'm not telling you to stop social distancing...by all means, let's do it.

BUT, let's be reasonable about the projecting and speculating while also being mindful of something that is far worse that people doing give a second thought. We do in fact deal with incurable viruses every day, mostly because it's impractical to worry about them like this. We have people getting on TV and saying it's going to kill 30M Americans, more people than all wars combined, and 1/2 people on Earth will be infected. It's ridiculous and unnecessary.

Ah. So I misread/misunderstood you. Glad to see you agree about preventative measures. My only comment about the “worry” is that many people won’t obey or accept stay-at-home orders without some dire consequences presented to them. And there’s still the problem of unnecessary deaths if hospitals get overrun, which should be a big concern. Because then manageable conditions turn into death sentences. New York is almost there.

 

[Baymowe335]

That's the best (and only) data that is available. You seemingly want to make the decisions not based on any data (or data for flu, which is just ridiculous). That would be sort of OK if we were talking, say, about Apple sales numbers but not when we are talking about human lives.

No, I don't. I support social distancing. I don't support your math because it creates hysteria and needs to be tremendously caveated and frankly, not done.

I also support knowledge of other incurable viruses that have far greater impacts on human life.
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Ah. So I misread/misunderstood you. Glad to see you agree about preventative measures. My only comment about the “worry” is that many people won’t obey or accept stay-at-home orders without some dire consequences presented to them. And there’s still the problem of unnecessary deaths if hospitals get overrun, which should be a big concern. Because then manageable conditions turn into death sentences. New York is almost there.

I have tremendous confidence in our ability to adapt healthcare services during this time. We will do better than Italy. I also have confidence we'll make a dent in this and be able to move on quickly, like China has started to. That is our model right now. We have to stick to the facts, be vigilant, and re-evaluate every day.

 

[MadeTheSwitch]

This is a horrible idea. The virus isn’t going to be contained by then and with freedom of movement in the country the virus will just keep reinfecting “cleared” areas.

Haste makes waste. Common sense sure isn’t very common in the United States.
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Why is it insane to do so?

Actual proof, not paranoia would be nice For you to provide.

Again, this is not a death sentence for the majority and those that are at risk know who they are and can take to protect themselves from it.

Then why shut down at all anywhere in the world? 🙄 Obviously people are having trouble protecting themselves from it, else they wouldn’t be dying.

 

[Gasu E.]

It’s crazy that landlords have to collect rent to make ends meet too! Greedy bastards!

No, but if the businesses that are closed by state order go out of business permanently because they have no revenue to pay expenses, let's see how well that landlord does trying to rent out the empty space right now. An intelligent landlord would understand it is better for him to forego some rent now, rather than having to let the place stay idle trying to find another tenant. Obviously, the market for commercial real estate is really, really bad right now. I honestly have sympathy for owners of commercial RE who are about to have a really bad time for the next two years. The smart one will survive by being flexible enough to keep their tenants in business and keep their properties occupied. Any landlord who kicks out commercial tenants right now because they are forced to shut their doors by the state, is going to reap the rewards of their own foolishness.

 

[Analog Kid]

This is sad, but it's one guy. Do you have his complete medical history? The numbers we have don't support healthy 33 year olds being a huge risk factor for death. You have 1 example and are missing his medical history. Do we really need to pump this like the media would to trigger people like you in panic?

No panic here and his medical history is irrelevant to the point. Someone said it's only serious to old people. I don't consider 33 old, so I believe that statement was false.

If you want to start maintaining a list of exceptions, we can do that, but I think people dismissing it as only dangerous to the "old and weak" is minimizing something we don't really have a full profile of.

Saying "we don't know how dangerous it will really be" is different than "we know it isn't dangerous".

 

[MadeTheSwitch]

This, this right here. You see people saying, "It's just math, bro. Watch me do the math."

This projection doesn't work.

First of all, all your numbers are based entirely on data from Wuhan. Second, the number of unconfirmed cases of people 15-44 is everything and is almost completely UNKNOWN. Further, the sample size is simply too small to project that to ANYTHING close to a large number like 65M. That's garbage math and worse logic.

This isn't advocating flippancy. It's saying get off the projections and deal with reality. Your scenario is never going to play out. Even Dr. Fauci has said mortality will decrease with more testing...and it only makes logical sense.
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This is sad, but it's one guy. Do you have his complete medical history? The numbers we have don't support healthy 33 year olds being a huge risk factor for death. You have 1 example and are missing his medical history. Do we really need to pump this like the media would to trigger people like you in panic?

I know a 25 year old guy who died of this. 25. His only “risk factor” if you will, was he smoked. How many young people smoke and vape something these days?

 

[Cycom]

I know a 25 year old guy who died of this. 25. His only “risk factor” if you will, was he smoked. How many young people smoke and vape something these days?

This anecdotal evidence completely swayed my opinion. Thanks!

 

[Baymowe335]

No panic here and his medical history is irrelevant to the point. Someone said it's only serious to old people. I don't consider 33 old, so I believe that statement was false.

If you want to start maintaining a list of exceptions, we can do that, but I think people dismissing it as only dangerous to the "old and weak" is minimizing something we don't really have a full profile of.

Saying "we don't know how dangerous it will really be" is different than "we know it isn't dangerous".

Yeah, but you can't just pull up an anecdotal case and use it as a gotcha. It's not that simple.
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I know a 25 year old guy who died of this. 25. His only “risk factor” if you will, was he smoked. How many young people smoke and vape something these days?

Smoking is a huge risk factor for this. Huge. It's a respiratory disease. Vaping is very, very stupid. Yes, unfortunately, this could be a problem for those people.

 

[DeepIn2U]

This is horribly irresponsible to be announcing this even before the cases of Covid have peaked, which isn't likely to happen by mid-april.

Oddly enough in Japan ... citizens (mostly an elderly populace) has such minimal deaths Today: 1193 cases / 43 cases, Yesterday: 1086 cases / 40 deaths ... any death is sad yet minimal increase for 107 cases more from yesterday. Some social distancing being done by citizens there without mandatory government shutdown seems to be working quite well. Let's just hope Apple and citizens don't get the sting for this.

Good sign some stores will open, I'm sure good precautions are being looked into and will be taken into practice by Apple. it's good to have some positive light in this dark times.

I'm curious if programmers will have new options to work entirely at home now in changes to this pandemic.

 

[Gasu E.]

This, this right here. You see people saying, "It's just math, bro. Watch me do the math."

This projection doesn't work.

First of all, all your numbers are based entirely on data from Wuhan. Second, the number of unconfirmed cases of people 15-44 is everything and is almost completely UNKNOWN. Further, the sample size is simply too small to project that to ANYTHING close to a large number like 65M. That's garbage math and worse logic.

This isn't advocating flippancy. It's saying get off the projections and deal with reality. Your scenario is never going to play out. Even Dr. Fauci has said mortality will decrease with more testing...and it only makes logical sense.
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If you recall, he was posting to counter some young guy who said "it only kills old people". To that young fella: false. It just kills older people at a higher rate. Your quite reasonable criticism doesn't affect his key point, even if the number of total infected was actually significantly larger than what we know. It does affect his projection of the totals; which was done more to dramatize his point than to argue it.

However, to your point about the projections, that was Wuhan. You know another thing about Wuhan? They completely shut it down... 99%... near-zero social interaction. And that clearly REDUCED the number of total infections. And nothing close to that will ever happen in the USA or anywhere else in the West.

As far as death rate is concerned: yeah, more testing will make the death rate seem lower, for sure. But the reason Wuhan is important now is because it is really the only place that has run its course-- there are essentially no new cases there. It's not possible to accurately calculate the death rate while a significant number of new cases are happening, because of the delay between infection and death. So Wuhan is it, for now. In a month or so, we may be able to consider S. Korea and Japan as well, but not quite yet.
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Yeah, but you can't just pull up an anecdotal case and use it as a gotcha. It's not that simple.
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Smoking is a huge risk factor for this. Huge. It's a respiratory disease. Vaping is very, very stupid. Yes, unfortunately, this could be a problem for those people.

I'll bet there's a high correlation between vaping and "FU, Granny" young people. Just throwin' that out there.

 

[Ryth]

Smoking is a huge risk factor for this. Huge. It's a respiratory disease. Vaping is very, very stupid. Yes, unfortunately, this could be a problem for those people.

^^^^^^^^^

 

[I7guy]

That's the best (and only) data that is available. You seemingly want to make the decisions not based on any data (or data for flu, which is just ridiculous). That would be sort of OK if we were talking, say, about Apple sales numbers but not when we are talking about human lives.

Making decisions on wrong, incorrect or data not applicable is just as bad as making decisions on no data.

 

[QCassidy352]

Let's be serious. We all have the facts. I'm just not concerned about it because it's not Ebola. It's a respiratory virus that is killing the elderly and people with compromised immune systems. Not great, but the flu kills the same people and has done so at a far greater rate.

No not at a greater rate. A higher total number, not a greater rate. Covid-19 kills at a higher rate. And it’s more contagious than the flu (by far). And there’s no herd immunity. And there’s no vaccine to blunt the symptoms in individual cases. And there’s no effective antiviral to give to seriously ill patients.

All of which means that the downside risk of covid-19 is orders of magnitude greater than the downside risk of the seasonal flu.

 

[Gasu E.]

Oddly enough in Japan ... citizens (mostly an elderly populace) has such minimal deaths Today: 1193 cases / 43 cases, Yesterday: 1086 cases / 40 deaths ... any death is sad yet minimal increase for 107 cases more from yesterday. Some social distancing being done by citizens there without mandatory government shutdown seems to be working quite well.

Yeah, Japan is interesting. But I believe the Japanese have a social taboo against spreading diseases. If you are in Tokyo during the workweek, you would see everyone with the sniffles wearing a mask. So, I'm extrapolating that to the assumption that every Japanese person would follow recommended covid health recommendations to the letter. It's their nature.

 

[shadowcatz23]

They say the virus can live of surfaces for 14 days. To think it’s able to be contained is a joke.

There is some question though if the virus is able to cause a new infection after being on surfaces. Plus I am pretty sure the longest was like plastic at 3 days, and still then not sure it causes new infections.