A reminder why we can't risk exposure to Covid 19

[Guest]

A better analogy would be this is why you do not cross the street without looking. It is the without looking part you are ignoring.

Maybe, or perhaps the better statement would be “this is why we wear masks and wash our hands to avoid getting Covid”

 

as you know, covid exists and the very act of living causes us to risk exposure. Therefore, Just like looking both ways to cross the street, it’s about mitigating risk, not eliminating it.

 

And BTW, for six of the last eight weeks, on the busiest Multi lane roadways in my city, I didn’t need to look both ways to cross any street...There were no cars...

[marylander1940]

Bigjoey thanks for the thoughtful suggestions. The problem, for me, is that I want back the life I have spent years developing, building, and loving. Certainly I can change to meet the current circumstances it is just that I DON'T WANT TO.

 

@Epigonos your life will be back after the vaccine is created. In the meantime just like with HIV there will be a way to know within minutes if someone has the virus or not. Stay safe!

[Beancounter]

Are you speaking of idiot Dan Patrick? If so, I elect him to be on the frontline first.

 

Gman

The one and only!

[Beancounter]

I couldn't possibly be drawn into commenting on anything of the sort!

LOL...you needn’t comment. Your reply to my post is comment enough. Just remember that drink coasters are in fashion at PS pool parties.

[Guest]

@Epigonos your life will be back after the vaccine is created. In the meantime just like with HIV there will be a way to know within minutes if someone has the virus or not. Stay safe!

Seriously? if you’re holding your breathe waiting for a vaccine, you will die of asphyxiation.

[+ Gar1eth]

Sorry. Maybe another thought. I started a thread on personal medical factors and Covid19 because while political and social factors are being talked about, personal medical factors are not.

 

The article I read made it clear that we are not all equally at risk due to factors like blood type, genetics, obesity, etc:

https://www.livescience.com/amp/why-covid-19-coronavirus-deadly-for-some-people.html

Using the factors listed plus a few others like your vitamin D level (not in the article for some reason), general physical condition, you could make an actuarial calculation of your risk beyond age. If you score a low risk for infection or serious results if you do get infected, you might feel more at ease about resuming at least part of your old lifestyle.

 

You would certainly need to be careful like hand washing and avoiding large groups. However, a low risk score could let you have a few select friends over for dinner as a start (if available, an outdoor setting would be best). A low risk score may make you more comfortable in accepting an invitation to a small group dinner or a museum visit (but chose hours that are not normally busy).

 

I hope you get a low score and then start to feel safer in starting to resume your old life.

 

While scores are great for studies and actuarial tables, they provide no comfort when you are the outlier.

 

Gman

[marylander1940]

Seriously? if you’re holding your breathe waiting for a vaccine, you will die of asphyxiation.

 

I'm aware the vaccine won't come till at least 2021.

 

In the meantime we should limit our exposure to the disease and some are even suggesting a Covid-19 social bubble but till the vaccine is here life won't be normal. Hopefully there will be a way to know within minutes if someone has been infected just like HIV before PrEP. Lack of testing is what makes this so different. People my generation understood they had to wear condoms but that's different then keeping yourself from being within 6 feet of other people.

 

Considering 80 y/o @Epigonos was just talking about not enjoying life the way it is I don't think it's appropriate to make a joke about suicide but as posted by @Beancounter this thread with your help has already descended to some nasty name calling.

[MikeBiDude]

Seriously? if you’re holding your breathe waiting for a vaccine, you will die of asphyxiation.

Got it, oops it mutated

Got It, oops it mutated

[marylander1940]

Got it, oops it mutated

Got It, oops it mutated

 

Silly to be making stupid jokes about a deadly disease that is keeping most of us from our families and friends, and specially our hobby of hiring younger men for companionship.

Edited May 24, 2020 by marylander1940

[Guest]

Silly to be making stupid jokes about a deadly disease that is keeping most of us from our families and friends, and specially our hobby of hiring younger men for companionship.

Silly to be putting out false hope that a vaccine is the solution too!!

Where’s THE vaccine for the flu?

Where the vaccine for herpes?

Where’s the vaccine for HIV?

 

We don’t tend to find viral vaccines quickly. Better look to coping mechanisms than to hold out false hope waiting!

[Guest]

Silly to be making stupid jokes about a deadly disease that is keeping most of us from our families and friends, and specially our hobby of hiring younger men for companionship.

And BTW, while death is possible, to characterize it as a deadly disease is a huge overstatement. Pancreatic cancer is deadly. Covid doesn’t compare. The only thing that I know is 100% deadly is living!

[marylander1940]

Silly to be putting out false hope that a vaccine is the solution too!!

Where’s THE vaccine for the flu?

Where the vaccine for herpes?

Where’s the vaccine for HIV?

 

We don’t tend to find viral vaccines quickly. Better look to coping mechanisms than to hold out false hope waiting!

 

There will be a vaccine next year, how long will it get to us and who will get it first is another serious subject.

[marylander1940]

And BTW, while death is possible, to characterize it as a deadly disease is a huge overstatement. Pancreatic cancer is deadly. Covid doesn’t compare. The only thing that I know is 100% deadly is living!

 

it also depends on age, and preexisting conditions like obesity, diabetes, etc. I'm aware of that and I have only compared Covid with HIV because of how it has changed our lives.

"People are dying all the time"

Jair Bolsonaro

[Guest]

There will be a vaccine next year, how long will it get to us and who will get it first is another serious subject.

I sincerely hope you’re right and I’m wrong. However, if I were a betting man, I’d be putting money on my prediction.

[+ bigjoey]

While scores are great for studies and actuarial tables, they provide no comfort when you are the outlier.

 

Gman

All activities in life carry risks. We subconsciously calculate risks and act accordingly. I know someone who does not fly in an airplane because he is scared of the risk so he takes a train (which has a risk as well). Young gay men (pre-Covid19) seem to be having a large amount of unprotected sex because they assign the activity as low risk due to drugs.

 

My point is we all do these mental risk calculations as we engage in different activities. All of these activities have the outlier chance of a person dying. That is just part of normal life.

[+ WilliamM]

it also depends on age, and preexisting conditions like obesity, diabetes, etc. I'm aware of that and I have only compared Covid with HIV because of how it has changed our lives.

 

"People are dying all the time"

 

Jair Bolsonaro

 

Yet the Broadway actor

All activities in life carry risks. We subconsciously calculate risks and act accordingly. I know someone who does not fly in an airplane because he is scared of the risk so he takes a train (which has a risk as well). Young gay men (pre-Covid19) seem to be having a large amount of unprotected sex because they assign the activity as low risk due to drugs.

 

My point is we all do these mental risk calculations as we engage in different activities. All of these activities have the outlier chance of a person dying. That is just part of normal life.

 

We are in a pandemic concerning novel coronavirus. That is the same as children and their parents very concerned about polio especially during Summer before the vaccine. Activity can be limiting during a polio epidemic and during a coronavirus pandemic, no matter how careful one might be.

[+ bigjoey]

Yet the Broadway actor

 

 

We are in a pandemic concerning novel coronavirus. That is the same as children and their parents very concerned about polio especially during Summer before the vaccine. Activity can be limiting during a polio epidemic and during a coronavirus pandemic, no matter how careful one might be.

 

I remember being terrified during the Polio epidemic because of the pictures showing children in iron lungs. We did as told because of the fear of ending up in am iron lung?. The swimming pools were closed but we did not complain because we did not want to be confined to those dreaded iron lungs.

[+ Charlie]

Maybe, or perhaps the better statement would be “this is why we wear masks and wash our hands to avoid getting Covid”

 

as you know, covid exists and the very act of living causes us to risk exposure. Therefore, Just like looking both ways to cross the street, it’s about mitigating risk, not eliminating it.

 

And BTW, for six of the last eight weeks, on the busiest Multi lane roadways in my city, I didn’t need to look both ways to cross any street...There were no cars...

I would still look both ways if I were you. Because of the lack of trafffic, many drivers are traveling much faster than the speed limit.

[+ purplekow]

Maybe, or perhaps the better statement would be “this is why we wear masks and wash our hands to avoid getting Covid”

 

as you know, covid exists and the very act of living causes us to risk exposure. Therefore, Just like looking both ways to cross the street, it’s about mitigating risk, not eliminating it.

 

And BTW, for six of the last eight weeks, on the busiest Multi lane roadways in my city, I didn’t need to look both ways to cross any street...There were no cars...

But I bet if you would have crossed them you would have looked, because it was the prudent thing to do. Similarly, I would bet you are not visiting any South Dakota meat factories, because it would not be the prudent. Why not do the prudent thing rather than the expedient thing. Why not put people first, especially those people who are at the greatest risk.

If Mr. Trump wants to open the country, why not start with resuming tours of the White House. Perhaps because it is nice and safe not to have hundreds of people clamoring through. If he did, even he might have to wear a mask.

 

If masks and hand washing was enough, I would not have to put a full gown and face shield and gloves every time I went in.

[+ purplekow]

And BTW, while death is possible, to characterize it as a deadly disease is a huge overstatement. Pancreatic cancer is deadly. Covid doesn’t compare. The only thing that I know is 100% deadly is living!

You can't catch pancreatic cancer. It can be cured but usually isn't. You can catch Covid. It can be deadly, it usually isn't except when it is.

100000 Americans can't attest to that. Many more worldwide would do the same if they could. And tomorrow there will be more.

Again. spin it all you want. The bottom line is you can say it is not deadly but there are plenty of people dead and more coming. .

Just out of curiosity, have you changed your life because of this pandemic or is it for you just as it was last year at this time?

[Guest]

You’re right @purplekow, you’re in a special situation (and I think we all appreciate what you’re doing and how you’re doing it) and masking up is crucial. But here’s a little math: in my city, after two months about .5% of the urban (not MSA) population has a confirmed case. Therefore, if they were all out milling around today (they’re not), I’d have a 99.5% chance of not encountering any of them in casual passive interaction. But you’re right, I still wear a mask because it’s the right thing to do and there’s limited downside...and does perceivably mitigate the high R-naught value associated with non casual active interactions.

 

I’m not sure why you asked about life insurance, but no, I’ve not purchased any additional coverage. I have however updated my Will so my ex-wife wouldn’t become the “happy widow” upon my untimely death.

[+ stevenkesslar]

My new number is 4.5 %. I wanna see how small businesses and corporations are gonna deal with that. It's gonna be a complete fucking train wreck for the total US economy. So that's what I want to see. I want to see how every large corporation and small business in America deals with the train wreck that completely fucks up their bottom line.

 

4.5 % is the percentage of 50 to 65 year olds who have to be hospitalized when they catch COVID-19. That's based on the new CDC data. So if the idea is that we'll just let the virus come roaring back, I want to see how every business in America deals with 4.5 % of their middle-aged workers having to be hospitalized. That is going to fuck their bottom line up real bad.

 

The fatality rate the CDC is using now is 0.4 %. (Or maybe 1 %, worst case.) Do the math and 0.4 % is still well over 1 million Americans. But one reaction is basically, so what? Life goes on. And once you tell me those are mostly 70 and 80 year olds, you want me to stop the global economy over Granny, who is sick anyway? Or some Gay nurse who got unlucky because he got a big whopping dose of COVID while he was saving someone's life? Who cares!

 

Granted, the polls are clear. Depending on how you ask the question 2 in 3 or maybe even 3 in 4 Americans don't feel this way.

 

But you have a very small group, which @BnaC is not part of, that says it is their God-given right to not wear a mask and ignore any rule anyone establishes for a pandemic. 6 feet? Why not 12 feet? Up your ass, buddy. That's the attitude.

 

Then there is a much larger minority, like @BnaC, that will go along with the rules. Partly out of social contract, and partly because they do get there is some danger to people they love. And to themselves. But they still think the whole thing is overblown. Obviously 100,000 deaths hasn't changed their mind.

 

With good fortune, it may be that the problem takes care of itself. Over the last few months is we had massive public education. The main reason almost every affluent Asian country has about 99 % fewer deaths per million citizens than the US or UK is they fell in line immediately. because they'd been through this shit before. So they all got behind a whole bunch of steps, including masks and "test, trace, treat." We were clueless. We're not any longer.

 

Now everybody got the memo on masks, and social distancing. And the testing part is coming together. 100 % of cases in Washington are now contact traced. I know California is putting an army of 10,000 contact tracers together. So there are some things the public will do on its own. Nobody wants two more months of lock down - now or in the Fall or ever. And at least in many places, like California and Washington, there are these back stops to find and kill the virus where it hides. Texas, true to form, calls them "SWAT teams". They just sent a viral SWAT team to some meat packing plant where they found COVID hiding out.

 

So add all that up and maybe it will work. The lock downs were supposed to stop a virus that was totally out of control. They did stop the exponential growth. Maybe that will be enough to keep the virus under control.

 

Then again, maybe not. Maybe we're just going to head into Round Two.

 

The New York Times is saying if the lock downs had started one week earlier, 36,000 fewer people would be dead. I buy that. The first case of COVID-19 in New York was on March 1. On March 16, the day the first city - SF - went into lock down, there were 18 dead of COVID-19 in New York. Now there are 29,231. So one less week of exponential growth in infection at the peak could have made a very big difference in NY alone. This is exactly what Tomas Pueyo and a bunch of experts said in an essay called Act Today Or People Will Die on March 10: shutting town today, not tomorrow, will save thousands of lives. San Francisco and California listened. They were right.

 

So my point is that this could all happen again. All it took is a month until it turned New York into a morgue with almost 30,000 dead. Lucky COVID-19. Now maybe it will get its chance in all 50 states. Yum! Lots of lungs to eat in California and Texas.

 

Now, get the chorus ready. If it's Granny and Grandpa's lungs, repeat after me: "I DO NOT GIVE A SHIT! WHO CARES! I HEARD THIS SHIT! THE WORLD NEEDS TO GO ON! GET A LIFE!"

 

That's where your delicious 50 to 65 year old lungs come in. Maybe not quite as tasty as your Gay bodybuilder nurse lung. But cell for cell, those middle-aged worker lungs taste pretty damn good to COVID. And there's tens of millions of em out there. Yum! Yum yum! COVID just can't wait! You can do a lot of great lung eating while a middle-aged worker is in a hospital bed for a week or so, until the immune system or some asshole doc like @purplekow busts up the party.

 

So if 4.5 % of these 50 to 65 year old workers have to be hospitalized, that's at least a few million potential nutritious lungs for COVID to feed on through a hospital stay.

 

It's not clear to me how corporate America or just about any small business in America with middle-aged workers is gonna deal with that. In a typical flu season fewer than 100,000 people that age end up staying in a hospital with the flu. And having a worker in a hospital with the flu doesn't mean your factory has to shut down. Or that every other waiter in your restaurant has to isolate for two weeks. So this is all new. And it is all gonna fuck up every business and every corporation and every factory in America completely.

 

You wanna work? Ha ha ha. Spare me the bullshit. COVID has got some great lungs to feed on. Get in line.

 

This isn't some crazy theory. This is reality. I keep bringing up South Dakota. Smithfield Foods and Sioux Falls were totally fucked. A meat packing plant that employed thousands had to shut down. 8 % of the 3000 or so infected needed hospitalization. And 85 % of that group were NOT seniors. I don't know the exact ages. But 4.5 % of them being 50 to 65 sounds about right. That was the age range of the workers who died.

 

A Ford plant that just reopened in Michigan shut down a few days later and sent everyone home for two weeks. So IF we let the virus do what it did in March for a month, this will happen state by state all over America starting in June. We don't know how it will play out. Because it all happened the first time when most businesses were shut down. It's a whole different thing when you are trying to stay open. And your middle-aged workers are not only sick, but needing to go to the hospital in droves.

 

I was screwing around on Washington's COVID-19 website, and it works that way there. To put this in perspective, there's just under 20,000 confirmed cases in Washington state, 3,287 hospitalizations, and 1,061 deaths. So everyone under 40 is 36 % of the cases, 12 % of the hospitalizations, and 1 % of the death. Cue up the chorus: WHO THE FUCK CARES! Everyone over 60 years is 30 % of the cases, 63 % of the hospitalizations, and 90 % of the deaths. Cue up the chorus: THEY'RE OLD! WHO THE FUCK CARES! But that leaves your 40 to 60 year olds, who are 34 % of the cases, 26 % of the hospitalizations, and 9 % of the deaths. If middle-aged workers are 1 in 4 of everybody that needed to be hospitalized, I have no problem believing that at least 4.5 % of all the middle-aged workers that catch COVID are going to need hospitalization.

 

So that's your success story, or that's your next shut down. One of two things can happen. If Washington truly got the memo (they have about 250 new cases a day these days) between an informed public and "test, trace, treat" they won't have a big explosion of cases like New York or New Jersey did. But if they do, it will be like what's happening to Ford and Smithfield and many others right now. Except in Seattle, it will be Amazon, or Microsoft, or Starbucks. And God knows how many small businesses. It will be impossible to keep them open with all those sick middle-aged workers in the hospital. Not to mention all those great lungs for COVID to infect and feed on.

 

So fuck the Gay nurse. WHO CARES! Either people will decide pro-actively that they will do whatever it takes to prevent exposure. Or we will have a middle-aged work and hospitalization crisis. Which will lead right to another shut down. That's the choice. You can't have 1 in 20 of your middle-aged workers sick enough to be in a hospital, and just ignore it.

[+ stevenkesslar]

Coronavirus pandemic cripples Seattle restaurant industry, with more than 50 closures in 2 weeks

March 13, 2020

 

Across the Seattle area, many bars and restaurants are facing a reality that eerily resembles the Great Recession, only on hyperdrive, with lunch crowds disappearing and a flood of dinner-reservation cancellations and catering events wiped off the books overnight, forcing many companies to slash staff and pivot to takeouts and deliveries to make up for lost revenue, several restaurant owners and investors said.

On Wednesday, Tom Douglas, the city’s most celebrated chef, closed a dozen restaurants for at least two months after his management team told him business was down by as much as 90%, informing Douglas that he could not afford to pay his employees beyond March 15. Also, management told Douglas, every single catering event they had booked had been canceled.

 

That's a fascinating story that may be predictive of what comes next. Note the date of the story, and the location. March 13th. Seattle.

 

On March 13th Seattle was still the COVID Capital of America. Washington had 568 diagnosed cases and 37 COVID-19 deaths. New York had 421 diagnosed cases, and 0 deaths. Today, New York has 29,231 deaths. Washington has 1,086 deaths. Why was New York crushed, and Washington spared? Granted, New York is bigger. But even adjusting for population, Washington has 143 dead per million. New York has 1,503 - ten times more. Why?

 

Here's one explanation, courtesy of a New York Times piece on the silent spread that set up the massive death machine:

Unseen carriers of the disease, many of them with mild symptoms or none at all, can still spread the virus. For that reason, by the time leaders in many cities and states took action, it was already too late to slow the initial spread.

 

A few cities with early outbreaks, notably Seattle, are believed to have avoided enormous growth later by heeding the models available at the time and taking action well ahead of the rest of the country.

 

When I first read that, I was skeptical. I checked, and SF was the first city to lock down, on March 16th. That may help explain why California has 3,790 deaths, compared to the almost 30,000 in New York. But Washington state did not issue stay at home orders until March 23rd. Seattle did close public schools on March 12th.

 

I checked around several articles from Seattle in early March. That article I posted above expressed the fear the clearest. Here's another quote from the same article that says it even more clearly:

“We are focused on group dining and catering, and pretty much most of that have gone away,” Kurofsky said.

 

“To be frank, we are flat-out scared right now,” said James Weimann, who owns 11 restaurants in the Seattle area, including Rhein Haus on Capitol Hill and Bastille Café & Bar in Ballard. Weimann is in talks with his landlords to negotiate a rent reduction during the slowdown.

 

“The prediction and forecast of the virus’s growth in the Seattle area could very well force us to close some or all of the restaurants at some point, temporarily,” Weimann said.

 

Again, that was written on March 13th, 2020. There were ZERO lockdowns in America yet. Zero. But you already had the restaurant business down 90 % in Seattle. Business owners were already scared shitless about being able to pay their rent. Not because of some government shut down. Because they had a public scared shitless, about deaths in a nursing home in Kirkland at the time.

 

There's a similar theory about Florida. Mobile phone data shows that weeks before any shutdown, travel in areas where a lot of seniors live suddenly slowed. Many people stopped traveling more than a mile from their homes. There were no orders preventing them from doing anything. Everyone saw the horror unfolding in New York. In fact, some of them actually came from New York, to get away from New York.

 

I terms of what happens next, I think this paints a picture. Something like 2 in 3 Americans have gotten this memo and agree with it. They have little or no intention to go to a restaurant. Regardless of any lock down policy. Just like on March 13th in Seattle, when the best restaurants in town had already lost 90 % of their reservations.

 

The other 1 in 3 Americans will not be moved by hearing about a Gay nurse who lost 50 pounds because he probably got a real good dose of COVID trying to save someone's life. Those people will want to blame the lack of business on all the hysterics who want everything locked down forever. Except there won't be a lock down anymore. It will be like early March in Seattle. There will be an economy. But at least at first, most people will be too scared to play. They won't want to risk exposure to the virus.

 

My guess, or at least my hope, is that Seattle won't go into lock down again. They already understood the risk in early March. So between public awareness of the risk, and the government running around testing and treating the virus into a corner, that may actually do the trick. Washington right now has a fraction of the new daily cases that Australia or Austria or South Korea did at their peak. Meaning 200 a day, compared to at least 1000 a day at the peak in each of those countries. And those places are all bigger than Washington. So if they can corner COVID, there's every reason to hope Washington can, too.

 

Case Investigations and Contact Tracing

 

Washington now has a web page up about their contact tracing. They are serious. I went hunting for data on whether it works, following on some very good questions @Charlie asked: How many tracers? How many people do they trace? How much infection do they find? How do they isolate them? Do they actually block more infection? How do they monitor or enforce compliance? I could not find any answers on their website. But I've read lots of articles about the virus detectives in Iceland or South Korea or Germany. Again, if it works there, Washington can probably figure it out. They sound very motivated to do so.

 

Back to my middle-age lung buffet, I think that's Plan B. Assume instead that people in Seattle (or Alabama, or anywhere) are in "That Gay bodybuilder nurse is an exception. I don't give a shit." mode. To the more general point of the OP, they don't need any reminder of the risk of exposure to COVID-19. Because they think it is overblown bullshit.

 

That sets up a lot of dead seniors. Which is what scared the shit out of lots of people in Seattle to start with. That seems to be why, by early March, they were no longer willing to go eat in a restaurant.

 

But if that doesn't work, then you get your COVID-19 middle age worker lung buffet, I suspect. We are starting to see previews of that all over the US - at meat packing plants in Iowa, or Texas, or South Dakota. At Ford plants in Michigan. They are having to shut down. Or there is worker pressure to shut them down. Then add that 53 year old woman who owns the nail salon in Atlanta. Oh, and that other 47 year old Gay nurse - the one that works out at the gym in Dallas.

 

If that starts happening all over the US, it's going to start to fuck everything up for corporate America and small businesses real good. If its "just" 3000 or so people hospitalized in Washington, which is the actual number right now, that's manageable for hospitals. And maybe for businesses. But if every business has to shut down for two weeks every time every one of their workers goes to a hospital to have their lungs snacked on by COVID, that gets real expensive for corporations and small business owners real quick. And they've already been through a lot that hurt their bottom line.

 

Just to extend this to its even more absurd conclusion, corporations and small businesses could say we're just going to have to work through this anyway. So that Gay nurse is checking your blood pressure while COVID is snacking on his lung. Or some waiter is coughing little bits of his lung on your plate while he's serving you at one of Tom Douglas's chic restaurants in Seattle. Somehow, I don't see that happening. More likely then not, the middle-aged sick will be off to the hospital to (mostly) get well. And everybody else will be out of work again for a few weeks. It will be a huge fucking mess.

 

This won't play out as simplistically as I laid out. But it may play out. It's already starting to play out all over America. Corporate America will not like it. They will not like it one bit.

 

If things have to play out this way, which they might, my guess is that Ford and Smithfield and Amazon and lots of others will gradually become the biggest advocates of "test, trace, treat" - or anything else that works - in America. I don't think they can afford to have 4.5 % of their middle-aged workers cycling in and out of hospitals, with all the constant stop/start to workplaces that would involve.

Edited May 25, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[Ajac]

He looks like he aged a whole entire decade ?

 

Still, just one case... most people don't develop symptoms, don't even know they have the virus when they catch it. We can't live our lives in fear just because of this one particular case... which is what fear agents in the media seem to want.

Just hope and pray no one you love is not effected by this.

[Ajac]

It only effects the elderly who cares they have lived their lives.....OK it effects middle aged they will probably survive and most often their kids are grown so who cares, the economy "Trumps" human lives. Now there are cases of ailments in children that are connected to Covid 19 who cares I don't want to be forced to wear a mask if I am shopping at Whole Foods. You have contracted it and the symptoms have become worse, they say you have to be on a ventilator your breathing becomes more difficult. You are informed your chances aren't good and you can't see your loved ones in the last hours on the planet..... Do you care now!