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People say some astonishingly stupid things sometimes. This is from Italy last month:
“We must not change our habits. Our economy is stronger than fear: let’s go out for an aperitivo, a coffee or to eat a pizza.”
Can a country's economy prevent disease infection? Or has he really got it so backward that he doesn't understand the fragility of modern economies is the reason consumerism is encouraged so much?

You've linked a newssite, boston.com. I've linked cdc.gov directly. The fact that they differ reflects the essence of the problem with fake news.

The rate is not going anywhere. It is specific to a certain disease. It tells how many people of the infected are likely to die. If anything, then the number of infected people might explode if people don't keep the quarantine. The whole point of limiting social connections and keeping quarantine is to avoid that in the first place.

Sorry to hear. And again, this topic is not about them, not about doing nothing to slow down the pandemic.

This topic is about the consequences of the drastic measures govs are using, and what they might do when people realize how much govs messed up economy while doing so. Why is it so hard to understand, this topic is about the possible aftermath and not about the cause?

The economy? Most certainly no. Health-care and smart moves from the govs can.

Cheers,
bzt

Your OP, the topic of this thread, was a picture of a policeman testing the temperature of a driver together with a picture of a nazi holding a gun to someone's head. The implication being that policemen are so unintelligent that holding a life-saving device will inure them to the idea of killing people.

To conflate these two concepts - life saving and life threatening, in the way you did is the fodder of the worst kind of right-wing conspiracy group. It is reprehensible to slander those who are helping us. Sure, this is not yet a big problem in your country. It will be; just wait until you are in the situation that Italy is today. Further suggestions that trying to slow the spread of the virus, allowing it to be treated more effectively, should be abandoned are equally moronic. You are pandering to the most outrageous fears in a way that could be really dangerous.

Try to show a little empathy. You should be ashamed to show your face here.

Thanks. I was tired enough, and have heard enough genuine horror stories about Russian authorities in the last 3 years, that I thought the policeman was holding a gun. Horrifying!

Prison Guards Beat Five Brothers in Orenburg, Russia
Officers Torture Brother Vadim Kutsenko in Chita, Russia

I don't want to look for the ones involving Russian police of some sort bursting into private homes of people devoted to peace, and pointing automatic weapons at pregnant women and elderly people, forcing them to lay face-down on the floor. Under international pressure, Vladimir Putin guardedly admitted that wasn't right.

At first, I found it hard to believe a civilised nation could do these things.

No, it's a hand-held remote thermometer (a pyrometer) - and I think it's Hungary as I think that's where bzt lives.

bzt's argument is that pointing these life-saving devices at people will inure the police to the idea of pointing guns at them. Clearly ridiculous; as I pointed out elsewhere, after many decades of pointing radar speed guns at cars I've never heard of a policeman going amok and shooting at cars because they had become so used to doing so.

The argument then seems to morph into one about the economic damage done by measures against coronavirus being worse than the collateral damage of thousands (or possibly millions) of deaths. This seems, to me, to be more in keeping with the picture of the Nazi pointing a gun at someone than that of a policeman trying to save lives.

It all makes sense now, thanks. And bzt's argument is so ridiculous, I can't help laughing! I hope it was meant as a joke.

As much a joke as concentration camps and millions loosing their job can be. Not to me.
It is actually pretty sad that you are unable to comprehend how serious the situation is. You'll realize sooner or later, no doubt, let's just hope it won't be too late.

Cheers,
bzt

Police are trained by a different method to be prepared to shoot people. This is a necessary part of their job in any country, and has been going on for more than half a century, possibly a lot more. Where have the rampaging policemen been all this time?

The present-day United States may be an exception to this training, but their police are so poorly trained, the bullets go everywhere. It wasn't always the case; I know about this from the decades-old remains of a US police training facility.

Nobody talked about any kind of rampage.

If nothing changes and govs are keep doing what they are doing now with the economy, then within a year from now there'll be millions of hungry, unemployed and angry people on the streets. You can bet on that.

And what do you think, what will be the govs' response (knowing that they have policemen practicing head-shots and ready-to-use concentration camps in the backyard)? It's the order they might gave to the police what I'm concerned about. And unfortunately this is not an impossible scenario nor a paranoid fantasy as some wish it to be, but sadly a well-educated guess learned from history. As a matter of fact, it only happened ONE TIME in modern history that the police was ordered to protect the rioting factory workers (and we all know what happened to the president who gave that order).

Cheers,
bzt

Pretty much everywhere, really, but that only undermined bzt's point further: in any police force, there have always been a handful of officers who abuse their power, and a much larger percentage who are incompetent in wielding it, even where the majority of officers being both honest and capable (which is certainly not always the case, though it is more often so than one might think based on popular news articles - "if it bleeds, it leads", after all).

Any time there is a chance to wield coercive force over others, there will be some who are drawn to that out of socioopathy or some other malignant personality issue. This doesn't mean that most cops are sociopaths (there have been times when that was the case, but usually not), but it does mean that there are always a few who are. Similarly, there are always some who end up in law enforcement who aren't suited to it for other reasons - ones who are too panicky, too careless, too reckless, whatever. Again, this isn't a police problem, it is a human being problem.

I'd rather avoid this conversation beyond this, but there is one more thing I should add: pneumonia is something a lot of people are confused about, and at least one comment here (I forget who said it, but that hardly matters) seemed to reflect that confusion. This is going to be another one of my walls of text, I am afraid, so bear with me.

Pneumonia is not a single infection (and isn't necessarily caused by an infection at all), or a single disease; it is a collection of several related syndromes resulting from several possible sources. The defining characteristic of pneumonia is inflammation the alveoli, usually accompanied by a build-up of bodily fluids (as opposed to liquids from external sources) within one or more areas of the lung.

Most of the deaths caused by lung infections of all sorts - ranging from influenza to pneumocystis, and including the various coronaviruses such as the common cold, SARS, and COVID-19 - are actually caused by the subsequent pneumonia. This pneumonia usually isn't caused by the primary infection, however, but by opportunistic pathogens already in the patient's system. These include Streptococcus pneumoniae (the aforementioned 'pneumococcus'), Haemophilus influenzae, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, Chlamydophila pneumoniae (you may be noticing a pattern here), Staphylococcus aureus, and Histoplasma capsulatum. While there are highly-contagious infections which cause it, such as Legionella pneumophila, several hantaviruses, and yes, several coronaviruses, the majority of cases are from opportunists.

It is also the most common immediate cause of death due to old age, with many deaths listed as 'natural causes' being a result of pneumonia due to senescence. This is why the figures for pneumonia are sometimes listed as being so high - anyone who lives long enough has a high chance that it will be a pneumonia that finally kills them, but in the end, their deaths were inevitable simply because of their age, and this will remain the case into the foreseeable future, barring some sort of advanced regenerative medicine being developed which halts aging entirely.

While S. pneumoniae is the most common cause of pneumonia, it is actually a common part of the human nasal microflora, being an opportunistic pathogen - while it is pathogenic, a healthy immune system is more than able to keep it in check, normally. This is the infection which most pneumonia vaccines are meant to protect from, though many are combined vaccines with antigen markers for several infections bacteria and viruses.

Now, one thing to understand here is that COVID-19 can both causes pneumonia itself, or weaken the immune system sufficiently to cause other infections to cause it, or both. My understanding - which may be incorrect, but bear with me - is that most of the deaths from COVID-19 are a result of multiple forms of pneumonia arising in people who are already immunocompromised, whether from age or from pre-existing illnesses. However, this is only a statistical trend, not an absolute - from what I've heard, a significant percentage of deaths (sorry if I don't have any figures) have occurred in otherwise healthy adults under 65, with a third cohort arising in those who had previously diagnosed illnesses which made them more susceptible to the resulting pneumonia.

One more time, this topic is NOT about the virus.

Let me quote myself (again):

All about your other non-sense on rouge police, I must quote myself (yet again):
Capisi?

I kindly ask all of you who are incapable to understand what this topic is about, don't be a keyboard warrior troll. Thanks!

Cheers,
bzt

You're still talking out of your arse, pardon my French. You have only a very fragile understanding of the subject you're talking about. Perhaps tune down the overconfidence with which you're making far-reaching claims here.

Whether you die from a specific disease is in no way or form specific to the disease alone, but to the kind of treatment you will get. Take a bacterial infection. Is the mortality specific to the infection alone? Or does actually getting antibiotics make a difference?

When you're coming down with acute pneumonia due to a COVID-19 infection, whether or not there's a mechanical ventilation device free for you makes all the difference in the world.



Because it severely affects the mortality.



Because your basic assumption is that not taking these measures were any kind of viable alternative. Hundreds of thousands, probably millions, would have died.



About 95% of Germans believe that what the government did was a smart move.

Dear Solar, you're off-topic again. And you're mixing mortality with mortality rate. I was talking about the rate. Here's a definition for the latter (check out the links at the bottom of the page for medical definitions). And I'm not overconfident, by no means, I'm just well-educated because I always do a background check before I post something. The biggest difference between you (plural) and me that I can always back up my claims by evidence, at least with a link to an authentic source. On the other hand you have provided only one link so far, which was a newspaper link you falsely labelled as an "official" CDC information.

You're delusional. I have never said that, I said quite the contrary. This is what I wrote (and here we go again, I have to quote myself AGAIN):
Please, learn to read, all of you.

Now can we go back to the topic? Thanks.
What do you think, what will govs do when people realize economy has collapsed, and millions of unemployed and hungry people will go to the streets?

Cheers,
bzt

Since you can't figure out how to get the last word here, you want to change the subject?

You are the OP. People will respond to what you post and you can't expect them to do otherwise.

I am not your "dear" anything.



Mortality rate, the percentage of deaths due to a given cause in a population. As relevant to this discussion, the number of people infected with COVID-19 that will actually die due to that infection. Which you claimed was not connected to (over-)saturation of appropriate health care resources.



Overconfident AND arrogant.



You asked who made that estimate. I pointed to just one out of many reputable news channels that reported that number as well as its source, something you could very easily have done yourself instead of strutting your stuff here. Because that is what journalism is for, and about -- aggregating information so it is easily accessible and digestible. When there is no reasonable doubt, demanding first-hand data and dismissing news sources is just another keyboard warrior tactic. The CDC made that estimate, there was nothing "fake" about it whatsoever, yet you try to dodge the bullet by arguing about formalities.



What's your "well-educated" alternative suggestion? Do you have any ideas of your own, or do you just like to stir fires?