I have had no discussions with any one other than my immediate family about the Cvirus.
Two family members are in healthcare. Their opinion is that this is going to be in our lives for AWHILE. Not 3 weeks, not 6 weeks. Longer.
They are also skeptical as to the severity, comparing it to other health issues, past influenza, other influenza.
They are very sobered by the effect on the future of the economy.
Would anyone like to share what they know others are thinking, or what you are thinking?
I am wondering what potential customers would be have in their minds.
Thanks.
Replies
By the end of this week I plan to make a decision to withdraw from shows applied to, reschedule one with 2021/22 refund offer and wait for one in May to cancel. I only do 5-6 shows in Colorado resort areas. This is where current virus hotspots are at, as people are still traveling to ski. Vail and Crested Butte are the worst, and none of the resort towns have medical facilities to handle lots of ICU cases. They are better at fixing broken limbs and altitude heart attacks. I have been studying China and Korea statistics on apexes and times to minimal cases, and the rolling apexes we can expect in US. That looks like about 3 months, add on to that the psychological recovery time to gather, and possible recurrence in the fall 2020. For me, I am writing off the entire rest of 2020 and will plan on 2021. Hopefully there will be a vaccine or antiviral developed and tested by then. The sooner I get started on Plan B, the better.
Actually, what Don presented was far from the worst case.
I don’t see why the US mortality rate should be any different than the Italian or even Lombardi rate, which is close to 10%. Even in Lombardi, local doctors say the real rate is probably higher than the official statistics because the official count is only of people dying in hospitals, missing elderly people who are dying at home. I also noticed that a German statistician opined that Germany’s relatively low rate would catch up to Italy’s over the next few weeks.
At the current growth rate in the US, the number of infected will hit 260 million between April 18 and May 12. A 10% mortality rate would mean 26 million dead. This thing is serious.
For people in my age group or older, the best survival strategy is to hide until there is a vaccine (hopefully sometime in 2021). That will be true for both us artists and our primary customer demographic set.
Bear in mind that we have no idea how many people are infected and asymptomatic. The mortality rate in Italy is based on the people who are ill enough to be hospitalized. There may be ten or twenty times as many who are infected and uncounted. If there are 10 times as many uncounted people, than the mortality rate is around 1%.
I have been mildly ill for almost 3 weeks. If there was a test that was available I would take it, but until there is, or I get much worse, I can only guess whether I have Covid 19 or not.
That is not to minimize that this is serious. A 1% mortality rate will kill over a million Americans if half our residents get infected. But a month of shelter in place will preclude the infection numbers you anticipate, as long as we can figure out good testing protocols in the interval. There are a lot of very bright well-trained people working on tests and protocols all over the world.
Franklin:
Sorry to hear that you may have Covid 19.
I agree with your optimism - I was just trying to describe the worst case.
Did you contact a doctor and were told that no test is available yet?
Reid
Thank you for your concern. Whether I have had Covid 19 or not, I was not very ill. I had a mild fever for a couple hours and some sneezing and coughing and nasal congestion. i have had allergy seasons when i felt worse.
I did not try to get tested. Lots of people much sicker than i am have been denied tests. The irony is that the main value of the tests is epidemiological. The treatments available are symptom alleviation that apply irrespective of the underlying disease. So if I were in charge, my highest priorities would be getting production of masks and ventilators and mass production of tests. We ought to be planning to test everyone, and repeatedly. Even people who have recovered from the virus ought to be tested again, because there are reports of reinfection. If those prove to be correct, the long term outlook is much more dire.
I hope that you are doing better, Franklin.
I have become quite strong on social distancing, and have been home with my husband, seeing no one. When we leave in the car, we see several people out, and when we go to the parks, they are stuffed with people. We have been searching for less populated trails to walk. My state, Ohio, seems to have been one of the first to shutdown.
Thank you Judy. At this point I am still coughing and sneezing occasionally but no more than I normal would at this time of year. I have spring allergies.
I'm thinking this will have consequences well into the year and perhaps beyond. As suggested by a health care related specialist (okay I don't remember everything that comes across in 10 sec bites) only some of China was infected so when the virus goes to the southern hemisphere (their winter) and returns to the northern hemisphere (our winter again) there may well be new outbreaks of this virus in areas previously untouched both here and abroad. Also, we don't know much about this virus and if exposure now means that you have the antibodies to protect you from subsequent exposure, assuming it doesn't mutate which virus' are very good at. I'm not being an alarmist just a realistic observer of possibilities. Being "skeptical" at this point is not being a very good observer.
I think much of the skepticism is the result of how the news does it's reporting. Many no longer trust.
Lately it has been big on playing on emotion and panic. Not helpful.
For anyone like myself that has no science mind but can connect with visual-- this made it easy for me to understand social distancing. Just follow the dots: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/
At this point I stopped thinking about what customers may be thinking, and am going into a mode similar to post 9/11.
I appreciate so much all of the responses. I have been socially distanced from everyone and not having any conversations about this, except family.
My one family member in the health field seems to think that the virus is here to stay but that the medical establishment will figure this out eventually, and that we will be continually living with the virus, but that it will be the same way that we exist with other diseases. Younger people may tend to be more optimistic?
As Sonja says, the economy is a big factor, and I hear more concern from family members about this than I do the illness. They also don't like or believe in all of the panic.
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