What Does A Quarantine Due To Coronavirus Mean For Truckers?

(posted on my friend Randles blog)

Historical Context with Hope for the Future

By

Randle Finley

3/28/2020

We stand at a great crossroads, not only for our nation but for the entire world. A new reality is upon us. One which even the most ardent fans of apocalyptic fiction never actually foresaw as a possibility. When this ‘Wuhan Virus’ is past, it is doubtful that our world will return to the state it was in. And perhaps, just maybe, that is a good thing. This is the second time since 2001, we have had such an occurrence. But this time, we should not miss the opportunity we had after 9/11. We have a chance to hit the reset button. We have, out of brutal necessity, received a wake-up call which we should have seen coming. One that took place to a very limited degree and only in certain parts of the country after 9/11 but seemed to dissipate after a few years. It is a humiliating kick in the crotch that hopefully, once again has awakened the sleeping giant.

First, however, we need to understand a few things with stark and bitter clarity.

In the early 1970s, our collective souls were sold primarily to China, but also to India, Mexico, and other ‘developing’ nations all in the name of cheaper labor and no real rules to inhibit manufacturing. America and its burgeoning Middle Class were the envy of the world and yet apparently despised and damned in our own backyards by our politicians. Nixon went to China, making arrangements with Chairman Mao which were destructively anti-American. He did this with no consensus from the American people. Neither he nor his toadies had any real understanding of what would happen. Play stupid games with a Communist regime and get stupid results. So, within twenty years, this led to the obliteration of the US Automotive industry (given away in whole or in part to China, Mexico, Japan, Argentina, Canada, India, et.al), the impotence of US Steel production (given largely to Japan), the dangerously increased and unchecked monopoly of the Pharmaceuticals industry (China and India), a disappearance of the once great US Textiles industry, etc, etc. The list includes virtually every aspect of American Industry. As a Nation, we caved to OPEC in the 1970s when instead, we could and should have simply steamrolled them. We allowed them to dictate oil prices while we sat upon massive reserves of our own. We had options for developing more of our domestic supplies and dealing with other trading partners with whom we could have made better and more intelligent agreements. All the while, our politicians were too foolish in their arrogance and in the watchfulness of their own bank accounts to want to use one drop of the national reserve. Not even if it ensured our completely national independence from foreign petroleum. Instead, our livelihoods and futures were auctioned off to the highest bidders in the Middle East in the name of the almightly dollar. Politicians and industrialists lost sight of the fact that the American people needed those jobs. America needed those jobs.

We need them today.

Since the late 1970s we have forgotten, or rather, we have chosen to ignore, that the farmer, the plumber, the auto mechanic, the welder, the grocery clerk, those so-called ‘great unwashed’; in toto, the people who can work with their hands, are just as important as the lawyers, the accountants, the executives and all those professions who cannot move one inch without the laborer and his work. In light of the current crisis du jour, perhaps even more so.

If a doctor needs a ventilator for his patient, who is going to make it? Who is going to repair it? Who is going to replace it when it cannot be mended? Where is their real representation in Congress for those ‘lower IQ voters’? We have hundreds of lawyers, doctors, millionaires in Congress. Where are the farmers? Where are the small business owners? Where are the people who truly are the salt of the earth? They are not represented in either our House or Senate. They are in-fact, looked down upon by the elite. They are mocked and labeled ‘deplorables’ by people who are so clearly out-of-touch and who do not understand how vital those human beings are to the well-being and survival of virtually every single person in this nation.

In the late 1990s, we were told that computer programing was the only way to earn a living. Go get that degree in programming? What good is a computer if you have no power to run it. What good is the ability to code if you have nothing in your refrigerator?

(part 2)

So, with the history lesson behind us, we now have to answer important questions.

In the past few weeks, we have been asked, in most cases, ordered, to give up some of our freedoms. It has been done so easily! Worry people about the disease and magically, they surrender their rights to any political whim. How, when this is all over, will regain those freedoms? Once power is seized, those who grab it are generally, and historically shown to be loath to release it. Politicians have blithely invoked all sorts of powers to ensure that Americans are tightly controlled. We do not respond well to this and I pray we never do. I never dreamed that in the United States one would require travel documents authorizing passage from one’s home to one’s place of business. National Guard units are being deployed to ‘contain’ communities. All of course, for their own good. Martial law has been discussed. But for whose real benefit?

How, when this is over, do we regain our rights?

We must change our ‘leadership’. Neither side of the House or Senate provides honest support or clear, truly representative leadership. I have never had great faith in our politicians, but I never thought I would see the day when our ‘public servants’, those ‘elected representatives’ of our nation, would conspire so mightily, in a great moment of crisis, to fund pet projects and senseless programs when people are out of work, sick, and in mortal fear for their lives, families, and livelihoods. These career politicians are a cancerous tumor in our Republic and they must be excised. The Founding Fathers did not envision such a world and would not approve of the current situation where Senators and Congresspeople ‘reign’ for years on end. This has to change. For us to move forward, it must change. Who do we bring forward to replace these patsies? How do we bring forward men and women who can honestly represent the people of their towns, their cities, their counties and their states?

How do we as a nation, get back on our feet financially? The economy, which was chugging along very nicely, has been eviscerated by the current crisis. We need money to feed ourselves and our families. We need funds to ensure the survival of even the smallest of businesses. But politicians would rather make sure airlines have money to adopt sustainable fuels. They would provide cash for Cruise Ship Lines that are not US Flagged and are not so specifically so that they avoid US maritime and other taxes. Why would we give them a single penny? We need medical supplies and equipment. But Congress and the House want to try to make Congressional pay raises a priority. We should be attending to our Seniors and our Veterans, but a sitting US State Lieutenant Governor has publicly suggested that Seniors are completely expendable. Another Governor has opened to doors to prisons, releasing inmates who might be in danger of contracting Wuhan while in Prison, yet threatening to arrest people who dare to venture out of their homes without proper authority and holding them in those same prisons.

This should be a proud moment for America. Instead, it has reflected the rot and insidious self-service of the people elected to represent us. It is a shameful, disheartening, disgusting moment. There are no statesmen in our political houses. Our Polity is populated by drones who serve some master that does not have the interest of the average US Citizen at heart.

When this is all done, I am hoping for a new America in the old fashion.

I want no manufacturing done abroad. If you are going to sell in this country, you are going to manufacture it here. I want no financial chicanery in the Stock Market. No more foreign influence by artificial inflation or deflation to suit another foreign government. I want not one single career politician left standing. I want the ‘profession’ of lobbyists to be eliminated and outlawed. We need new blood and new ideas in Washington. We need to forget Republican, Democrat, and all other definitions that divide us, generally artificially and unnecessarily, as a people. I want to be able to voice an opinion without automatically being branded a racist or a nazi simply because I fail to, or chose to, follow the herd mentality. I want us to stop being hysterically sensitive to all manner of things. If you don’t want to see something, don’t look. If you don’t want to hear something, don’t listen, if you don’t want to be part of something, then don’t. I want us to stop pretending that if one person in ten-thousand objects to something, all the rest of us have to accommodate that one person and their objection.

(part 2)

This is madness.

I want the United States to concentrate on its people. Charity begins at home. I want not a single dime given in any kind of foreign aid until the following requisites are fulfilled: Not a single Homeless American Citizen. Not a single unemployed American Citizen. Not a single senior citizen living in fear of not having a meal or a home. Not a single legitimately disabled person living without hope. Not a single US military Veteran living in need. Not a single illegal alien allowed any funds until every single American Citizen has what they need. Not a single American citizen without proper, affordable medical care. Not a single underpaid teacher, police officer, fire-fighter, EMT, Paramedic or Nurse.

No more social or political indoctrinations of our students at any level of education. Education programs to be well-rounded and all-encompassing. Junior Highs and High Schools to reintroduce shop classes for wood, metal, and stonework. Classes for tradesmen-to-be. Electricians, Plumbers, Welders, Mechanics, etc, right alongside the computer programmers.

Arts and Sciences to be hailed as important as sports programs.

Honest, fair representation for every class of American, from their actual peers, in Washington D.C. No more cries of (insert your particular ‘ism’ here) whenever someone disagrees with something someone else says. This is the United States of America. Disagreement used to be de rigueur. It still should be. It was a necessary part of the process. It still must be. We are still allowed our Freedom of Speech. Political correctness and social justice be damned. They are constructs that have no real meaning. They are tools of a controlling party who use them to shut down true debate. They are a way to deflect without having to respond. If you disagree with something someone says, then, have the integrity and the intellect to debate the point calmly, honestly and factually.

There is far more to be said and done. But it must be said and done by all of us and not just one man, sitting at his laptop on a Saturday morning.

Say what YOU would like to see. Say what YOU want this nation to be when the current crisis is past and we can get back to a new normal. Maybe we can figure a way to make this whole thing work for us as a people.

The floor is now open for questions and debate.

/end

A great read from a good friend...

Rick

But look at the third statistical data summary, which is total deaths of 82,000 (rounded up) through August.

I think it's fair to keep in mind the projections you link to "assume the continuation of strong social distancing measures and other protective measures". There aren't protective measures taken with the flu, so you can't use these projections for comparison.

The closest thing to objective #'s so far comes from places like South Korea and Germany, who have had the capacity of continuously adminstering copious amounts of tests to even people with milder or in some cases no symptoms. They've each administered hundreds of thousands of tests, Germany with 58k of them positive so far, South Korea with 10k positive, a death rate of 0.7% in Germany, and 1.5% in South Korea.

There are enough indications that for calculating plausible worst-case scenarios this virus spreads to twice as many people per infected individual than the seasonal flu.

During the 2015-2016 season there were around 800,000 influenza tests run in the United States, a year with a total of 23,000 deaths.

Since Germany and South Korea have also run hundreds of thousands of tests so far, I'm not certain why we should think the actual mortality rate with coronavirus is going to be so much lower, since the flu tests are also administered in respect to symptomology. If you wanted to throw out the possibility altogether that the coronavirus will spread to twice as many people as the flu tends to, and you shave Germany's 0.7% death rate down by nearly half to 0.4% to be more conservative, that's still four times as deadly as the seasonal flu.

That'd be 244,000 dead Americans compared to one of the most deadly flu seasons. Or 427,000 dead Americans, if you stick to Germany's current mortality rate. Or nearly one million if you account for the likelihood the coronavirus spreads to twice as many people.

But then, the mortality rate is highly dependent on access to proper health care. Those countries have not yet seen anywhere near the strain as other countries have. I don't think Germany and South Korea were sending in nurses in garbage bags trying to hook two patients up to one ventilator. Two million, three million dead Americans, when considering and attempting to plan for plausible worst-case scenarios?

A cost-benefit analysis of the protective measures is a whole different subject, if it's better or worse to let those potential numbers of people die, particularly in terms of hospital capacity and how many other people would die from unrelated causes due to them being over capacity. I don't know how to calculate that even as I'm mindful that it needs to be calculated. Federal agencies calculate the economic value of lives but the # varies depending on the context. I doubt the federal government will act on an actual data-driven analysis even if it did produce one. Easter needs pews full of congregants, after all, and of people's medical needs governors "can’t say, ‘oh, gee, we should get this, we should get that." ”.

I was firmly in the “why are we shutting down the world for a flu” camp a couple weeks ago. Now I’m starting to believe there may be something more to this. No my opinion isn’t from the media hype but from reviewing the numbers.

A few days ago Brett posted a comparison of flu numbers to Covid. Since then the cases of covid have more than doubled to. 127,000 cases in the us and deaths have nearly quadrupled to 2100 deaths. And that’s just in a few short days. Before you think it, I agree it’s Still nothing compared to the flu at this point. But, it seems the difference and the danger is the compressed timeframe and the localized nature of what were seeing so far. The flu stats are spread out over a year and across the country. It spreads slowly. The CV stats are only over a couple weeks and most of the cases are located in a few specific areas. No, the hospitals in Chicago, Minneapolis or any number of other cities aren’t overrun, but, i can see where a 400 bed hospital can get out of control quickly once this thing gets going in an area.

Going back to the flu analogy, If the 500,000 hospitalized with the flu all checked in within a month of each other, we’d be in big trouble. There are about 775,000 hospital beds in the country. That wouldn’t leave much room for normal hospital admissions like accidents, heart attacks etc. Likewise if everyone in NY got the flu within a few weeks if each other, it would cause a huge problem which it seems like we’re going to experience over the next few weeks. Add to that the problem with the worst cases needing intensive care (again all at once) and I think there’s a case to be made for being cautious.

Sounds like I’m in the minority. But again, I was wondering what all the fuss was about a week or two ago. However, Seeing the exponential growth and knowing it’s only getting started, I think the flu comparison needs some rethinking.

(part 2)

This is madness.

I want the United States to concentrate on its people. Charity begins at home. I want not a single dime given in any kind of foreign aid until the following requisites are fulfilled: Not a single Homeless American Citizen. Not a single unemployed American Citizen. Not a single senior citizen living in fear of not having a meal or a home. Not a single legitimately disabled person living without hope. Not a single US military Veteran living in need. Not a single illegal alien allowed any funds until every single American Citizen has what they need. Not a single American citizen without proper, affordable medical care. Not a single underpaid teacher, police officer, fire-fighter, EMT, Paramedic or Nurse.

No more social or political indoctrinations of our students at any level of education. Education programs to be well-rounded and all-encompassing. Junior Highs and High Schools to reintroduce shop classes for wood, metal, and stonework. Classes for tradesmen-to-be. Electricians, Plumbers, Welders, Mechanics, etc, right alongside the computer programmers.

Arts and Sciences to be hailed as important as sports programs.

Honest, fair representation for every class of American, from their actual peers, in Washington D.C. No more cries of (insert your particular ‘ism’ here) whenever someone disagrees with something someone else says. This is the United States of America. Disagreement used to be de rigueur. It still should be. It was a necessary part of the process. It still must be. We are still allowed our Freedom of Speech. Political correctness and social justice be damned. They are constructs that have no real meaning. They are tools of a controlling party who use them to shut down true debate. They are a way to deflect without having to respond. If you disagree with something someone says, then, have the integrity and the intellect to debate the point calmly, honestly and factually.

There is far more to be said and done. But it must be said and done by all of us and not just one man, sitting at his laptop on a Saturday morning.

Say what YOU would like to see. Say what YOU want this nation to be when the current crisis is past and we can get back to a new normal. Maybe we can figure a way to make this whole thing work for us as a people.

The floor is now open for questions and debate.

/end

A great read from a good friend...

Rick

AMEN RICK!

A-F'ing Men!

The annual flu season is not spread out of over the year:

CDC Flu Season

That's why they call it "flu season."

At this point, based on the data that we have worldwide, most countries are increasing in the number of cases and deaths. Only China's data shows relatively complete Bell Curve data, but the link that I shared above shows the projection of the U.S. Bell Curve after the cases and deaths diminish to very little. Again, that data, which in my opinion is biased in favor of inflating the number, indicates a bad flu season. If the media reported the DAILY deaths from all other causes, it would be way more than Coronavirus deaths. But they don't do that. They never have.

And to Midnight Fox's point, regarding the assumption that the extreme measures will produce a Bell Curve from the link above, of course that is the case. If NO ONE interacts with any person outside of their household since the stay at home orders were issued, you will cease any transmission of the virus. However, is that an appropriate response to the virus? As Brett points out:

Do we eliminate all forms of travel to prevent deaths from crashing cars, planes, trains, and bicycles?

As my Senior Drill Instructor would say in Basic "No Screaming Eagle ****." Of course, if no one ever drives any sort of vehicle, you will eliminate all traffic accident fatalities. But is that an appropriate response to automobile fatalities.

I recognize that this is a serious threat to health and don't mean to sound callous regarding the number of people who have died from this virus.

200,000 people died worldwide from the Swine Flu in 2009-2010. I don't remember shutting the world down in 2009-2010. One Million people died worldwide from the Hong Kong in 1968-1970. I just born then, but I don't remember reading about how they shut down the world.

I had mentioned Y2K. Most Brett and Rick type people knew it was all hype leading up to it. But yet the hype spread across the globe. And after the fact, people realized it was all hype.

I concede that we are in the thick of this and that nothing I or Brett say will change the leaders decision to shut down the world. My main concern, as better said by Rick, is after this is said and done, will people reflect on this in a critical way. Or IF the data shows that this was really just a bad flu season, will the majority of our society double down on their convictions and refuse to think critically about any media narrative and government control of our lives?

I'd like to see everyone stop and think back on their own experiences. The average age in trucking is around 50 years old so we have the benefit of experience on our side.

Forget about this virus and think back over the years. Remember how many times 1/5th of your school was absent because of the flu? Remember how many times every single member of your household got the flu or a cold all within a week's time? For those who have worked in offices, how many times over the years were people dropping like flies because "A bug is going around" - an expression we all use regularly.

All viruses spread fast, especially respiratory viruses. When was the last time you remember getting a virus but it took someone else in your household three weeks to get it? Never. Everyone shows symptoms within a few days of each other. None of this is new.

Now think about the symptoms they talk about with coronavirus. They're exactly the same symptoms you get with pretty much any virus.

I can remember times that several family members and friends wound up with the same virus with the same symptoms all within a week of each other. I can remember discussing what stage each of us was at based on the symptoms. Like sometimes it might start with a stuffy nose and headache for a couple of days, then it moves into your chest for a couple of days, then your head would start bothering you again. We'd all cycle through the same set of symptoms in the same order and timeframe.

Again, how is any of this we're hearing about today any different? I'll tell you the only way I know that today is different - we're actually hearing about it! Every second of our lives we're inundated with images of hazmat suits and coffins and lines of people wearing masks. If they did that with medical errors, other flu viruses, car accidents, or heart attacks we'd be in a panic over those instead.

We've had quite a few people in our forum say they were sick, and their experience was the same as any other virus. They felt like crap for a few days, then they were fine. How is that any different?

Some have talked about the rate this is spreading. Take a look at the chart below. That chart shows this year's flu season and the number of people testing positive for the flu. The overwhelming majority happen from late December to mid-March, or about 3 months. Look at the rate of acceleration in the beginning. Look similar to anything you've seen on the news lately?

Up to date summary for the U.S.

Flu:

CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 39 million flu illnesses and 24,000 deaths from flu.

Coronavirus:

So far 128,000 illnesses and 2,221 deaths.

Keep in mind that you can't calculate the death rate based on those numbers because that 39 million figure is just an estimate. Very rarely is actual testing done for the flu. They only estimate that number based on reports of "flu-like symptoms" by healthcare providers. The coronavirus numbers are people who have actually been tested, but only a super tiny percentage of people have actually been tested.

For instance, 155,934 were people tested in New York State out of 20 million. That's far less than 1%

One last tidbit from the CDC: Severe Outcomes Among Patients with Coronavirus Disease

This first preliminary description of outcomes among patients with COVID-19 in the United States indicates that fatality was highest in persons aged ≥85, ranging from 10% to 27%, followed by 3% to 11% among persons aged 65–84 years, 1% to 3% among persons aged 55-64 years, <1% among persons aged 20–54 years, and no fatalities among persons aged ≤19 years.

I'll repost something I had mentioned earlier about the people who died from coronavirus in Italy:

The average age of those who have died is 79.5 years according to the Ministry of Health, who also stated that over 99% had at least one pre-existing health condition.

The reason I'm posting this information daily is that the news won't. I would like people to have a balanced perspective on this. Unfortunately, our politicians have gone off the deep end. Hopefully hearing some of the facts from a broader perspective will help keep people from panicking.

Here are some facts out of China recently:

Youth, in contrast, seems to be protective. The WHO mission reported a relatively low incidence in people under 18, who made up only 2.4% of all reported cases. In fact, through mid-January, zero children in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, had contracted Covid-19.

Even cases among children and teens aged 10 to 19 are rare. As of Feb. 11 there were 549 cases in that age group, 1.2% of the total, China CDC found. Only one had died.

So this unbelievably powerful and potent new virus that has us all running for our lives has no symptoms for the majority of people infected and leaves children almost completely untouched.

I think the reality is becoming far more clear from the actual numbers by age group and physical health. This virus seems to be killing people who are very old and have at least one pre-existing health condition. In other words, they were either on their deathbed already or very fragile. I'm not being insensitive. These are the facts.

So many things happening suddenly because of the Quarantine