Tag Archives: coronavirus

I Choose You

In the midst of this novel coronavirus outbreak, if being in the high risk group, I must isolate, must choose between my right to go anywhere and to do anything, and my healthy neighbor’s right to work and earn an honest wage- I choose for my neighbor.  I will stay home voluntarily or take my chances.  If I leave our property, I will wear a mask to be kind to the other fellow.  I will contribute to our shared economy in whatever way I am able from my weaker position.  If I am sick, I will stay home.

Why ?

Because I choose you.

Where do we- the American government- get our money? We take it from ourselves- the workers:  The common laborers, the tradesmen, the producers, the service providers, the professionals, and small business owners, large privately owned companies, corporations owned by a board of shareholders.  The workers.  The money that we provide to fund the government is paid in the form of taxes; therefore, if these individuals and groups- the workers- do not earn money- neither will the government.  The government will have no money.  No one will have anything.  Now, I will be first to state that our tax system is in constant need of reform- and that need should be consistently addressed, but that fact does not change the former truth.

If our stronger brothers and sisters are not allowed to work, they cannot carry those who are weaker.  The abled must be given opportunity to provide for the disabled.  Younger adults must have a way to provide for children, and the elderly.  We the people, must have a way to provide for the expense of our common government.  It’s only logical.

I choose you.

Copyright 2020.    L.L. Shelton.

 

Contagious!

REPORT FROM LOS ALAMOS:

An RO of 6! Yikes! Is it time to panic?!?

  1. Regarding public health and disease, what is an R0 (r-naught)? It is a label for an infectious disease that tells us that each person with that particular illness will possibly-even probably- infect a certain number of other people.
  2. Why is it important to know the actual RO of SARS-cov-2; to know the rate at which it would spread if we were not practicing social distancing? Because the original number, before mitigation, in other words before we practiced social distancing, tells us what would happen if we were NOT practicing staying apart from one another.
  3. What is the ACTUAL RO of the virus that causes COVID-19? According to the report and Vice-President Pence’s confirmation of it, yesterday at the White House briefing, the task force has known from the beginning that SARS-cov-2 has an RO of six.  THAT is why the mitigation, in other words- staying apart from one another- has been extremely important.  Also, they knew less then about the effects of the virus and though more is known now, there is still so much more to know.
  4. What is the RO of SARS-cov-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) with mitigation, in other words because we are practicing staying away from one another? The RO with mitigation in place was at 2.28 and has dropped to between 1 and 2.
  5. Is there any more good news?  Yes.  When the test that will count the evidence of a person’s anti-bodies to the virus is available, we will test a large population of those who have been exposed but did not appear to become sick or seriously ill. Then we will know approximately how many people catch the virus and do not get sick, or contract COVID-19  and are only mildly affected.  This is important because a high RO such as six would be much less dangerous if it applies to a disease that is often only mildly experienced.  The need for drastic mitigation may be reduced in the future when this particular strain of Coronavirus returns.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.20021154v1.full.pdf

        L.L.  Shelton, 2020.