#and people would say they were given an unfair advantage to curing cancer because of affirmative action or some shit

[reddbuster]

I cannot believe people are STILL complaining about Leah Sava Jeffries being cast as Annabeth. And also pretending as if theres any explanation other than straight up racism. I mean I can believe it but also jesus fucking christ

[rizzoli-is-queen-of-sarcasm]

All Danish borders are closed as of today noon 14 March 2020.

Found this interesting article about the Corona/Covid-19, writen by a Danish medical doctor, Iza Alfredsen, Ærø. (For international friends reading it; this represents a Danish perspective with unusually high confidence in government.)

***

COVID-19 has broken out in Denmark. The outbreak is so massive that, contrary to other countries around us, we have given up on containing it. The battle is lost even before the horrors start. We know that we have to slow down the virus. We know that we are going to see more deaths that we can accept. We could maybe accept 6,000. However, if the virus continues at the current rate of infection, the death toll will be even higher. Unacceptably high. Inconceivably high.

STAGE ONE:

At first, all is well. No deaths. It is primarily the “young, rich, and beautiful” who have brought the disease home [from skiing vacations] that are being tested and taken care of by the health authorities – and who report that Corona is “just a cold.” And it is. For the most part. Snot, fever, and a sore throat. On Instagram and Facebook, we can follow a twenty-year-old’s unfair struggle against loneliness under quaranteen. Missing mommy and daddy and the unfairness of having to struggle both against the cold and the urge to drink beer with friends. The struggle against vaginal fungus seems tougher than Corona, and many young people are instigating rebellious anti-movements where they party and gather as a rebellion against the apocalyptic prophecies (those old assholes like me who have read books and not had an honest chlamydia infection in years). That was stage one.

STAGE TWO:

This week, we are entering stage two. We assume everyone who has a fever and a cold has Corona. And if they are otherwise reasonably normally intelligent and immuno-competent, then they are asked to stay at home and take care of their fever and snot, and otherwise stay indoors. It works fine in rural Denmark. But, the tabloid news papers are flooded by the Capitalist elite, that cannot cope with having a runny nose and not get tested. Be different! Wipe your nose, watch Netflix, stay away from others. Don’t go out among others until you have recovered. Actually, wait until 3-4 days after you have recovered. It is not because the health authorities not would like to send you a packet of kleenex and determine precisely the cause of the runny nose. It is because others are dying from what you are perceiving as annoying. Fever is annoying. Coughing is annoying. Snot is annoying. But, if you are young and healthy, the risk of getting severely ill from Corona is comparable to that of the Flu. Endure.

Everyone will get Corona, but we hope and pray for two things:

– that the number of ill does not exceed the capacify of the health care system; and

– that the really ill do not contract Corona before we have an effective cure.

The third hope is the vaccine.

The second stage is uncomfortable. Many will experience fever, coughing, snot, and general discomfort. One worries. Will I survive? If you are young, below 65, and otherwise fit, the answer is yes. Just as likely that you would survive a case of the Flu. The statistics are on your side. The numbers are working for you.

STAGE THREE:

Here, we, the health care personnel, and the patients will face hell before the onset of death. The time for stage three is soon. Two weeks after we reach 5,000 infected, we hit the abyss.

There are no more intensive care vacancies. Every day, we remove people who we would otherwise have saved from the respirators, because of the sheer number of people arriving. So many, so fast. Prioritization (the most important medical competence: who should we kick out) becomes number one. We put people to die just because their survival chances are a mere 25%, but the new ones arriving have a 50% chance. We sedate them a bit. It is very uncomfortable to suffocate in ones own secretion fluids.

But more are pouring in. Patients in the emergency units are beginning to remove their facial masks, they receive upon arrival, because they can’t breathe. They have been there for hours. Some for days. They have seen people collapse on the floor. Without anyone coming to help. There are no doctors. 20% have Corona and the numbers are rapidly increasing.There are no more facial masks for the medical personnel, so we go to work every day carrying the risk. A few infected patients fight their way to the uninfected unit, desperate for help. There, where infected cannot go. There lies traffic accident victims with open wounds, children with astma, and young people with appendicitis. And some of them will die. The twenty-year-old woman with the inflamed appendicitis. It burst without anyone noticing. All doctors were busy with those who were even more ill. But now it is too late. She has bacteries in the blood and there are no one to operate. She receives anti-biotics, but the intestines have stopped. Finally, she gets operated on, but can’t come out of the respirator again. She ought to. But it’s too late, because she contracts Corona in the chaos and Corona preys on the weak. And today that was her. Before hell broke loose, no one would have imagined it possible to die from appendicitis at the age of 20. But today is not any day. All illnesses one curable now carry a high death toll. But it gets worse. 40% of the doctors are now infected. And the ill are arriving so fast. At a nursery, 40 out of 66 residents have died from Corona. But they weren’t admitted, because there wasn’t room and it was hopeless. They were left dead for a week, before there was capacity to remove them. The smell on that warm morning in May 2020 was unbearable. So many, so fast. Two doctors have committed suicide. That is rather common for doctors, but two from the same unit is more than we are used to. The nurses are at 50% infected. They have closer contact with the patients. Everything is chaos. A few doctors and nurses have collapsed under the pressure. They are being put into the linen deposits to sleep. After two or three months it dies out. As sudden as it all started. 75,000 dead.

DOES IT HAVE TO COME TO THIS?

No. The Prime Minister gave us a unique opportunity to stop it. A unique opportunity to stand together, each of us. In a safe Corona distance of two meters. Most of Denmark have shut down. And life cannot continue as before. Nothing is as before!

WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

We need to obey. Say “yes sir.” And take orders. It is estimated that the curve we are entering is too steep. It rises so fast, that we in no time will consume all available resources in the health sector, if it continues. The country does not shut down for two weeks because we are scared of a couple of hundred deaths and a snotty cold. The collapse of the entire health care system and the ordered conditions we have in Denmark are right around the corner. Number crunchers are calculating how much infection we can cope with (because we cannot stop it) over the course of a week, how much we need to shut down in order to achieve a slow down, that will yield just enough to make us make it. The guestimation landed on a total shut down of the public sector exceping safety-critical functions, a recommendation to stay at home, hasty legislation on increased mandates to uphold quaranteens, and, not least, the recommendation to stay at home.

Translated this means that in three weeks we will be in so much trouble that a twenty-year-old will die from appendicitis or a swollen finger, if we don’t obey. Not to mention all the cancer patients who will lack treatment. The ill children that will suffer.

We have to listen. Now.

And we are told: stay indoors. Avoid gatherings. Stay calm.

If all this Corona is too hard to understand, then memorize: Listen to the authorities.

STAY AT HOME

Even if you feel like visiting your friends, so that you can have a beer and discuss how wildly exaggerated all of this is, don’t. You can cause a chain of infection. You are young. You will live. But, you will contribute to many people suffering. Even if it only happens in three weeks. So, be responsible. Stay at home. Clean your halo. Play Counter-Strike or FIFA. It is healthy. Find fun things to do without visiting each other physically. Limit encounters with others. If you have to, go shopping at odd hours or order food online. It is almost like Robinson. Survive. Alone. But, with Netflix and modern toilets.

WASH HANDS, APPLY ANTI-BACTERIAL GEL, AND RELAX

If you do this, you have done what you could to contribute. Be introvert. Learn to avoid the attempts of contact from others. I, for one, hate when people want to hug. Normally, I just put out my hand, but in these Corona-times, I would consider a round-house kick, if someone initiated those kind of greetings. Ew.

YOUR PARENTS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR WORK

Stay at home with your family. Your parents are in the risk group. They should get into the first wave of infected. Spare them. And if you get layed off by your work? Then they are fools.

GO TO WORK

IF, you are part of safety-critical personnel, then, yes, it is your damned duty to come to work and contribute what you are able to. There are advantages and disadvantages for everything. While all others are at home, I sit and read directions from the authorities and are in phone conferences. These are hours I will never get back. And there is a risk by doing nothing about the Corona apocalypse. But, it is not so high, if you are under 65.

CANCEL EVERYTHING

Parties, family dinners, football practise, walks in the city. No. Just no. The curve is too steep. We have ONE chance. Cease it.

ORDER ONLINE

Easy, convenient, and breaks the chain of infection.

KEEP DISTANCE. SHOW CONSIDERATION

Put a note under the door of the old person living next to you. Should I shop for you? Help your friends who have contracted a cold to get the right amount of sympathy. Via the phone!

USE MEDICAL SERVICES CORRECTLY

Do not call upon the medical services, if you are neurotic about Corona and your runny nose; call your friend instead. You probably have Corona, but your doctor has other things to do. Everybody has a runny nose. Call if you are ill or have serious illness and have concerns. Do not use the doctor-on-call servicesas your personal psychologist who can help you endure a runny nose, sore throat, or joint aches. The health services are mustering and focussing on the really ill.

THE END

We write the end ourselves. What we are doing right now will be what we will harvest in two weeks and the deaths are in three. Choose wisely. Be heroic. It is the time for heroism. Never before. It is us between 15 and 50 who are propulsing the infection. We have a responsibility to stop it. Even if it does not hit us so hard, it will hammer the ill and old. Be the one who socially responsibly declines social gatherings. Be the one who obeys. Use social media. Spread the message. Start the wave now.

Even if I don’t know the end and can only see the contours, I will say “Never. Never. Again.”

Next time, we will have the experience. It is now that we are writing history. And we will. From today.

***

[I didn’t agree with the derogatory references to the “young, rich, and beautiful” or “capital elite”, and didn’t like the oversimplicity word “number crunchers”, but I found it exceptionally well written.]