I am impressed of how SA is dealing with this.

It would not surprise me that a lock down will happen.

ANC may have fucked up a lot of things. They get this right they will start with a clean sheet.

So far it seems that they are doing all possible to get this right.

Full lock down is needed.

Will not help the townships but if the virus does not Get there then things can sort themselves out in few months.

I cancelled all my travel till 2021.

Total lockdown now is the only way. It will be a huge mistake if we wait until the numbers are in the thousands. By then our healthcare system will be stretched to its limits.

Total lockdown, and then return to NO WORK!

I'd like to know what the death rate in Italy is for people younger than 70. We need to differentiate between frail people who might have died from something else at roughly the same time.

I would agree on total lockdown for frail people. But we cannot afford to lockdown the economically active. This is going to end in HUGE DISASTER if all people are locked down!

@Vrik, total lockdown now for a much shorter period to get on top of things versus the unavoidable total lockdown for months if we leave it for too late. Short term pain for long term gain so that we can recover quicker as a country and economy.

On 2020-03-22 18:10:13 Seopesesa said:
@Vrik, total lockdown now for a much shorter period to get in top of things versus the unavoidable total lockdown for months if we leave it for too late. Short term pain for long term gain so that we can recover quicker as a country and an economy.

Hope u r right!
I still think the world had gone bonkers on this! We should just have quarantined the frail and carried on. The economic consequences of this is going to be disastrous.

Btw, even if it works in SA, and the rest of the world does not do the same at exactly the same time, it may simply start again when (re)imported from offshore. Skeptical me.

There are merits for a total lockdown, but if the rest of the SADC don't follow suit, it not going to help much.

We all need to act responsibly, and not act out of fear. I don't think the "millions infected" will realise, and that my opinion just based on what has happen in China.

On 2020-03-22 18:22:02 Kooni said:
There are merits for a total lockdown, but if the rest of the SADC don't follow suit, it not going to help much.

We all need to act responsibly, and not act out of fear. I don't think the "millions infected" will realise, and that my opinion just based on what has happen in China.

I hope you are right and we don't get to millions. I also hope there will be no politics and commercial interests at play with distributing a vaccine. It's time for the world to stand together.

So, let's say that the death rate is only 0.5%, its widely reported by the WHO and various countries as being a bit higher but let's stick to 0.5%

That's just the people who die. That does not include that just get sick enough to go to hospital.

Now let's say that with a common flu you have a transfer rate of 2:1. (every person that gets flu transfers it to two others) Its les than that but we'll go with it for shits and giggles

10 generations of that (1x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2) = 2,048

Our new improved flu is widely reported as having a transfer rate of 1:3.5

10 Generations of that (1*3.5*3.5*3.5*3.5*3.5*3.5*3.5*3.5*3.5*3.5) = close to eight billion. Exponential growth, its is highly contagious, but not everyone will get it

Now lets say that only 50% of the South Africans catches new improved flu.

That's 28,360,000 who got infected = 2,836,000 who require medical attention = 141,800 deaths or around 1 in every 400 of the population. That's nothing right. We shouldn't care about that right?

Yeah f#ckem, lets just talk about the living.

Let's say in "ideal circumstances the outbreak lasts for 12 months and everyone forms an orderly queue at the nations hospitals. That's (2,836,000 divided by 12 months) 236,000 people per month being admitted to hospitals.

Does the country have 236,000 hospital beds? How long before the health system crashes

So you fell off of you ladder, got buried under the 800kg of toilet paper in your garage, or some idiot in a car runs over little Jimmy / Andre / Sipho , well your $hit outta luck.

The reason it is not of the greatest concern that more people die in regular flu epidemics is that vaccines exist that can ultimately control such epidemics and that it does not happen all at once but through the year.

Our new improved flu is happening all at once and there is no vaccine. That's why we have to wash our hands, social distant ourselves, and not cough in each other's faces.

The chances really are that all of us healthy specimens of manhood and womanhood will have a few aches, a sore throat and then get on with our lives. But its not about us. Its about those that get quite a bit sicker and then collapse an already poorly equipped health system that will be taken away from all of us.

The there's my gardener who is HIV+ and I don't want to die, there's Tannie van Nierkerek who doesn't deserve to die because someone wants to party despite being a carrier. And if you want to be just plain selfish there are thousands of Gogos that keep families going that you really don't want to die.