What Does A Quarantine Due To Coronavirus Mean For Truckers?

I'm enjoyin' the intelligent debate. Y'all do a nice job of keeping it civil--better than F.B.! Some of my colleagues have seen people with actual diapers on their face! LOL. Personally, I'm just spraying alcohol between customers on the credit card machine and door handle. I have some really sick people come in, though. I'm pretty sure I've caught it already, but I'll be fine. I do feel like I have OCD with all this cleaning and sanitizing, tho.

I dont see this as just the flu, it's something else entirely. Flu doesnt spread this fast and kill this amount of people ina short amount of time.

Regular flu doesnt mutate from bats to humans either.

I'm sure there is a statistician's view, and a trucker's view....either or / neither nor .... et al.

Could we JUST get back to ... TRUCKING ...... truth?!?!?

Anne ~

Excellent Idea!

I've volunteered to not take loads this week. Let the guys/gals that need them to support their families take them.

However, reportedly, my carrier is down about 2/3'rds of its normal weekly loads. We service restaurants (among many other things) so this isn't too surprising.

They are telling us 2 weeks before things start to return to normal. Not sure this will pan out. Any other thoughts on this?

JC Trucker, please look at the data from the CDC:

CDC Seasonal Flu Data

Moe,

i have searched for flu data similar to what is available for the Coronavirus, but it is not out there. At least not the daily detail.

The link above shows an estimated 61,000 deaths from the flu for 2017-2018. For a three month flu season (90 days) that's 677 deaths per day. During a four month flu season (120 days) that's 503 deaths per day. But the flu season peaks during a particular month. So following a normal Bell Curve, you would have AT LEAST twice the number of deaths during the peaks month. So that's 1,354 to 1,006 deaths per day during flu season. According to the data link I have been following, there were 913 Coronavirus deaths yesterday in the U.S. Based on that same data link, at peak, the Corona virus deaths will exceed 2,000 deaths per day. So is it worse than the flu? Yes, but not by much.

Also, as far as spreading as fast as the flu, there were 45,000,000 estimated flu cases in 2017-18. As of yesterday, there were less than 200,000 estimated Corona virus cases in the U.S. So the flu does spread quite significantly every year.

To Brett's point, they have NEVER, reported the flu impact the same way they are reporting the Corona virus impact, on a DAILY basis.

Nor do they report the 438 deaths every day from chronic lower respiratory diseases, the 1,773 deaths every day from heart disease, the 1,641 deaths every day from cancer, or the 465 deaths every day from accidents.

CDC Leading Causes of Death

Only time will tell as to the total impact of the Corona virus.

JCTrucker, yes I deleted your post again like you knew I would, and I'll thank you for going elsewhere with this. You're too emotional, you're not presenting helpful facts, and you're attacking me for doing so. Here is the stat from the CDC website about the flu, which I remind people again is not deadly. It is only deadly for the 1 out of 1,000 most fragile people, normally the very elderly in nursing homes who are on their deathbed already:

Here are the stats from the CDC website:

Moe, I totally understand that you're panicked right now, and I get it. My 74-year-old mom had it and she's fine. I almost certainly had it and had no symptoms. Millions of Americans have it right now, though they have no way of testing for it so they won't give that figure, and 995 out of 1,000 of them will be just fine. In fact, most won't even have symptoms. But I totally understand why you're upset. You said:

Flu doesn't spread this fast and kill this amount of people in a short amount of time.

Actually this is considered a "flu-like virus" because of its symptoms and yes, the flu does spread this fast and it does kill this amount of people in this short of time. I'll demonstrate this with facts:

According to the article I'm linking to below, about 59,000 people died from the flu in the United States in 2018. If you use that number and divide it across 10 weeks you have an average of about 842 deaths per day, 7 days a week, for 10 straight weeks with peak days of 1,200 - 1,500 - none of which get reported in the news.

The coronavirus is only now beginning to reach death rates near that of the flu in the United States. The past three days have been an average of 832 deaths per day. It would have to maintain this pace for the next 10 - 12 weeks to reach the numbers we have from the flu.

Here is a quote from an article written yesterday: As NYC Nears 1,000 COVID-19 Deaths, How Does Pandemic Compare to Typical Flu Season?

On the world scale, it is tougher to compare COVID-19 and influenza, as the latter's death toll isn't always so clear. However, the WHO says that between 300,000 and 650,000 die each year from the flu or flu-related illnesses. That would put the projected global total for coronavirus (360,000) toward the lower end of that estimate, but the two would likely be comparable.

The estimate they're making right now is about 360,000 deaths from Coronavirus worldwide. Keep in mind that doctors were saying just a few short weeks ago that 2 - 3 million could die in the U.S. alone!

How many people have died worldwide from coronavirus at this point? 42,534

So for coronavirus to get to the low end of the flu statistics, it would have to kill 10 times as many people as it has so far. Think about that. All of this panic, all of these pictures on the news of rows of coffins, hazmat suits, and exploding red charts of death cases and we're only 10% of the way to killing as many people as the flu does on average every single year. 10% of the way. Just stop to think about that for a moment. 10 times as many people would have to die from coronavirus just to reach the lower end of the spectrum of deaths by the flu every single year.

Seriously, how many of you would have guessed that 10 times as many people would have to die in order to reach even an average flu season?

Now here is an example from that same article of the type of manipulation that causes panic. We know for a fact that 95% of the deaths from the flu happen within about a 10 - 12 week period each year, "flu season." This article takes the number of deaths in one month from coronavirus, which will also have a short season comparable to the flu, and projects it over an entire year and says, "if the number of New Yorkers who died as a result of COVID-19 in March was multiplied over the course of a year, the state could see more than 18,000 people die as a result"

That is why people panic! That is not how this works. It's not how any virus works. A virus sweeps through the population in a matter of a few months, does whatever damage it's going to do, and dissipates or mutates into something else. So why would you even put that figure out there? Simply to scare people into reading and watching more news. It's incredibly irresponsible, irrelevant, and self-serving.

Ok, more coming up in my next segment.

Brett, It seems like this Covid-19 is causing so much panic because it is has not been seen before. I think that because it is a fast moving flu like virus the panic is compounded by the unknown. Good hygene, common sense and calm will go a lot further than sheer panic.

I bet after the peak of this virus arrives, most people will return to the same lifestyle that was before the Covid-19. If the proper sanitary procedures are followed a whole lot of preventable issues would not exist. Wash your hands with soap and water, cover your face when you sneeze, keep your personal spaces and especially items like cell phones and laptops cleaned will go a long way.

We have survived a whole lot of diseases before and will again. Good common sense and calm will make life better. It is very easy to get caught up in the panic if you let it overwelm you so take the time to take a deep breath, clear your head and go about life the best you can.

How widespread is the virus in the U.S.?

What you'll hear on television is that the virus is beginning to spread across the country, but New York is taking the brunt of it. We must remain quarantined to prevent the spread of the virus.

Is this true?

Not according to the statistics. According to the statistics, the virus has already spread across the country from coast to coast, north to south.

If you look at the top 20 states by population and the top 20 states by the number of coronavirus cases, you'll see that 17 out of the 20 match up from coast to coast and north to south. So what does that say? That says that the virus has already spread nationwide and is distributed almost evenly amongst the population. Naturally, the largest numbers of cases are found in the most densely populated cities, and in the states with the highest populations.

• Here is the list of states in order of coronavirus cases:

  • California
  • Texas
  • Florida
  • New York
  • Pennsylvania
  • Illinois
  • Ohio
  • Georgia
  • North Carolina
  • Michigan
  • New Jersey
  • Virginia
  • Washington
  • Arizona
  • Massachusetts
  • Tennessee
  • Indiana
  • Missouri
  • Maryland
  • Wisconsin

• States listed in order of population:

  • New York
  • New Jersey
  • California
  • Michigan
  • Florida
  • Massachusetts
  • Illinois
  • Washington
  • Louisiana
  • Pennsylvania
  • Georgia
  • Texas
  • Connecticut
  • Colorado
  • Tennessee
  • Ohio
  • Indiana
  • Maryland
  • North Carolina
  • Wisconsin

Has this quarantine slowed the spread? Maybe. It's impossible to know, really. With people congregating in grocery stores, Walmarts, Home Depot & Lowe's, hospitals, and other places of business along with distribution from truck drivers, UPS, FedEx, and the service industry like plumbers, electricians, and auto mechanics it's possible we've slowed it down a little. But this notion that it's only now beginning to move across the country and that we must remain quarantined to prevent it from infecting other areas of the country is completely false according to the statistics. It's everywhere already, folks.

How many undocumented cases are there in the U.S.

According to a report done on China, Substantial undocumented infection facilitates the rapid dissemination of novel coronavirus, the overwhelming majority of the infections were never detected:

We estimate 86% of all infections were undocumented

So far the numbers in the United States are:

188,592 detected cases

4,056 deaths

That would be a death rate so far of 2%. However, if you assume from experience in China that 86% of the cases are currently undetected, that would mean that the United States right now has:

1,347,000 cases

4056 deaths

That would give a current death rate of .3% which is still higher than the flu, but again, the flu is not deadly for 999 out of 1,000 people. If this .3% number is correct, that would mean this virus is not dangerous for 997 out of 1,000 people.

The director of the CDC said yesterday:

The challenge is the older, the vulnerable, the elderly, those with significant medical conditions where this virus has shown a propensity to have a significant mortality.

That's the part the news never talks about. Are healthy people really dying from this virus, or was this virus the final straw that pushed a very fragile and vulnerable person over the edge? We already know the answer to that.

Again, if we would have quarantined the weakest and most vulnerable people in our society from the start, which is something we should have been doing at all times, we would have prevented 98% of the deaths. The rest of us are just fine.

Brett, It seems like this Covid-19 is causing so much panic because it is has not been seen before.

Viruses mutate continuously. We see new viruses all the time. We just don't talk about them 24/7 on the news and show rows of coffins and hazmat suits. They are guessing there are several variations of this one already.

Governor of Iowa holds a daily press conference at 230pm. Without fail every day the media asks her why we don't have a stay at home order. Every day she gives them the same answer about it's not needed. The supply chain will suffer and make this problem even worse. She also points out that Minnesota recently implemented a stay at home order for those not considered essential. Although they implemented that order nearly 80% of people are still working. It's clearly just a publicity stunt. Anybody already out of work can't exactly go out and do much, everything is already closed up.....

In Iowa our population is spread out. Our most populus area is Des Moines metro with 600k people in a state of only 3.1 million. The Twin Cities (Minneapolis/ St Paul MN) has 3.3 million.

reported Italy stopped counting the dead

That makes no sense. They're not going to just throw up their hands and say, "Welp, too many. I'm not counting anymore."

It didnt make sense the FBI cleaned the wrong machines during the anthrax crisis and exposed me and 2000 postal workers for a second time either, having to test and treat us all again.

Well, they have not stopped counting the dead in Italy or anywhere else. I don't know where that came from, but it's simply not true. Here is the chart of new deaths per day in Italy, updated yesterday: