I personally know someone who caught COVID-19 and (pick the most serious):
Displaying poll results.12846 total votes.
Most Votes
- When will AGI be achieved? Posted on April 24th, 2025 | 21865 votes
Most Comments
- When will AGI be achieved? Posted on April 24th, 2025 | 49 comments
Do the hop math (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
That's how I decided we should measure the spread of the virus.
N degrees of Coronavirus
Seriousness increases as N approaches 0. And if Kevin Bacon gets it - game over.
Re:Do the hop math (over time) (Score:2)
They should run this poll again in about a month...
Re: (Score:3)
They should run this poll again in about a month...
If it's like other questions it *will* be up for a couple of months.
Was there a Ron Paul bump? (Score:2)
If we could see the time profile of the answers to this poll, I wonder if Ron Paul caused a bump in the data. As a professional politician, he "knows" LOTS of people. He also is highly regarded by Libertarians, and I think there are a lot of them around here, including some who would have gone out of their way to meet Rand Paul and can therefore claim to "personally know" him. It's different in the case of movie stars like Tom Hanks or most of the other celebrities who have been diagnosed with Covid-19.
Rela
Re: (Score:2)
There's one (practical) problem with that: You can't answer if you're dead.
So, someone who answered the first poll, and didn't answer the next, do you assume they're dead, or just didn't answer the poll?
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like a troll response. Or do you have some substantive reason to believe the mortality is higher or that Slashdotters are at greater health risk?
I just think that the results will look quite different after a few weeks of exponential growth.
Re: (Score:2)
That the mortality is higher than what?
I am quite certain the mortality percentage is into the double-digits, so that's probably a yes.
I agree with you, that the result will look much, much different in a few weeks.
https://www.worldometers.info/... [worldometers.info]
is keeping track of the number of infected, recovered, and dead, of each country, and globally.
While some numbers may be slightly inaccurate or not quite up-to-date, I believe that site gives a fairly realistic overview of the pandemic.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm... So far only a few places seem to have relatively high rates of mortality, and I think the demographic profiles of those locations are quite different from Slashdot (as a virtual location). In particular, social distancing seems to be quite difficult for most Italians.
Re: (Score:1)
Missing options (Score:2)
Regarding your [AHuxley's] hop-math comment, you needed to mention the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon to get the funny mod. Maybe could have been worded in an insightful way, too? Anyway, some approach to the FP that would have generated some sort of discussion...
What struck me were the missing querulous options: "Do you think anyone you know has Covid-19 but isn't talking?" and "Who most deserves to catch Covid-19?" Or maybe the questions deserve their own polls. I'm not saying that anyone deserves to die, or ev
Re: (Score:1)
The many ~100 with a wuflu related issue vs ~2800 in the tech sector that reads slashdot and who did the vote.
Re: (Score:2)
All those slashdotters are in their parents' basement and have no friends anyway so of course they say they know no-one who has it.
Was exposed to someone who has it and is sick but (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/he... [dailymail.co.uk]
Some good news re testing.
Re: (Score:2)
>Daily Heil
Re: (Score:1)
Heres the same story in the guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
I haven't seen the original study the two articles are based off tho
The problem has always been: (Score:2)
That 1. it spreads very fast, and 2. weak people, can't handle it and would die if not treated. Aka a hospital capacity problem.
Otherwise we could just let it spread naturally, like we did with any comparanble disease in the past. (Like every influenza season.)
The ones dying from it, from what I could tell, all almost exclusively had obvious pre-existing conditions, were usually old and weak (likely with exceptions), and would have died from the next flu or cold anyway.
(Not that it is OK to let them die if
Re: (Score:2)
language is a virus from outer space
Re: (Score:2)
Otherwise we could just let it spread naturally, like we did with any comparanble disease in the past. (Like every influenza season.)
Actually, a lot of the preliminary evidence is--concerningly enough--that the flu in a bad flu vaccine year may actually have a worse death rate, because the handful of places we actually do have the necessary data set to properly calculate just how deadly COVID-19 is are showing that we've got high rates of asymptomatic carriers (who are capable of infecting others but just plain not showing any symptoms) and mild cases. If those data sets are any indication, a significant percentage of cases are going un
Re: (Score:2)
That was what I thought, too, until Italy. So far, 6,820 people have died in one month. The worst flu in recent memory, H1N1 2009, had an Italian death toll of only 260. That means this is killing 26 times more people in Italy than in the worst flu season in decades. Even if you go back to the 1978 flu season or the 1968 flu season, after adjusting for population growth, those would still be only 3,000 – 3,500 deaths per year. The coronavirus is still worse by a factor of two so far, and the dai
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, but what percentage of the population is actually "healthy" in this sense?
Re: The problem has always been: (Score:2)
Especially in the US, the majority of people is not healthy. A very large share of people had diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity or heart/ vascular disease. Somebody all people that died from COVID-19 had one of these. We have not seen what COVID-19 does in a highly obese population but you can be sure it won't be pretty; obesity makes ventilation much more difficult, especially when on stomach ventilation is required...
Re: (Score:2)
The actual number was 99%. https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com].
Of those, 75% had two or more pre-existing medical conditions.
Among those who died, 75% of them had hypertension (high blood pressure) as one of their conditions. Given that number, it stands to reason that there were a large number for whom high blood pressure was the ONLY pre-existing condition.
There's a link to the actual study in the article, not pay-walled, and worth plugging the raw data into google translate for anyone interested.
Re: (Score:2)
Given that number, it stands to reason that there were a large number for whom high blood pressure was the ONLY pre-existing condition.
This is what worries me. Pretty much everyone has moderately high blood pressure. Pretty much everyone is slightly overweight. If you look hard enough practically everyone has some minor health problem. It's what they do to old people who die. Noone anymore dies of natural causes, they always look at their medical record and can find something to blame it on. Even worse, they might be saying they had high blood pressure because they had high blood pressure when they checked into the hospital because t
Re:Was exposed to someone who has it and is sick b (Score:4, Informative)
Daily Mail links have (at best) zero value. It's not a source.
Having said that, a single +ve test has about a 9% chance of being correct due to the small number of people that have the virus - basically, false positives are flooding the true positives.
Re: (Score:1)
Heres the same story in the guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
I haven't seen the original study the two articles are based off tho
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That depends on the test used. The original tests suffered from a lack of specificity, but newer tests have been developed that are better, albeit not perfect. Further, although in most areas a tiny percentage of the population is infected, this is different in infection hotspots where 20% may already be (or have been) i
Re: (Score:2)
So it didn't happen? There was no testing?
It might have; it might not have. If it's in the Daily Mail then there's a good chance that the reporter made it up in order to start a conspiracy theory, as a bet, or because s/he was drunk. The online DM is really one of the very worst sites to get news from.
Re: (Score:1)
That question makes no sense. If the person was not tested then there's no way anyone can see he has/had it. The only way you can know if someone is/was sick with COVID19 is if they were tested for it and the results came back positive.
If you get sick with a fever, and terrible dry cough for 2 weeks after being exposed to some one who has tested positive you have it. It's like getting hit by a bus. You will definitely will know when it happens.
Re: Was exposed to someone who has it and is sick (Score:2)
Severe cases include pneumonia. It is really is hard to miss that one. It also hurts a lot.
I think most people have mild symptoms and you have to hope the severe cases are in healthy individuals.
Re: (Score:3)
I think that's saying "Alice tested positive for COVID-19. Bob was hanging around Alice. Bob now has a fever, dry cough, and fatigue, but has not yet been tested. I know Bob, but not Alice."
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder how many that selected this actually refer to POTUS
Re: Was exposed to someone who has it and is sick (Score:1)
..YET. Don't know anyone with it, YET. (Score:3)
Even The Rich aren't immune, and that's unheard-of.
Even high-ranking people, congresspeople, they're all getting it too.
Re: (Score:3)
Here's the thing. I don't know anyone who has it. My county of 60,000 people has zero cases.
But...
My kids are home from school for 4 weeks (and probably more). My retirement fund is down, what, 20% at this point? Half my company has been laid off and I probably will be too by tomorrow COB. The state governor has declared it a crime for more than 10 people to assemble. Grocery store shelves are empty. Local small business are failing.
This is really looking like a situation where the cure is worse than
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
an army of gun-toting fox news mind-slaves would form a militia
So far the only person to take up arms for politics was a Bernie Sanders campaign worker shooting Republican senators and representatives [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Well... if you ignore all the black folk murdered by cops and cop-cosplayers.
Re: (Score:2)
Also all Americas' enemies would throw a massive party if we did declare Martial Law nationwide, because it would mean this country is finished. They'd all descend on us like a horde of locusts and rip us to shreds while we're fighting amongst ourselves. Trump may be an idiot but he'd have every adviser he has and the military telling him BAD IDEA. Th
Re: (Score:1)
No, there's not politics behind it
That is so obviously wrong it's an obscenity. China created this hoax in an effort to rig the elections for Biden because they know 4 more years of tariffs means they will again by in a position to dominate us economically. This is the result of the third most powerful nation on the planet throwing their entire power at a hoax pandemic (because their whole economic and political future absolutely depends upon the outcome of it.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My kids are home from school for 4 weeks (and probably more). My retirement fund is down, what, 20% at this point?
People are dying and you're worried about your retirement fund? What is wrong with you??
Chill out, your retirement account will recover. Help flatten the curve, we all need to work together.
Re: (Score:1)
> This is really looking like a situation where the cure is worse than the disease. And I'm really thinking that there's politics behind it.
There are many examples of what different countries have done. You can experiment yourself, or you can check the list what others have done:
- China: Strict restrictions right a way, but because the problem was not understood at first it had time to spread, problem now over, 3200 dead
- Italy: Couldn't care less about the issue, mostly people just stopped visiting Chin
Re: (Score:2)
This is really looking like a situation where the cure is worse than the disease. And I'm really thinking that there's politics behind it.
Yeah, I'm sure Trump was like "You know what will make me look great, causing the stock market to plummet."
I'm glad though that you think the 800 people who died yesterday in Italy from Corona virus, even with a nation wide lockdown are just doing it to score some sort of political points in the United States. That's more civil engagement than most Americans are willing to put in!
Or... here's a stupid idea but I just feel I need to say it. An authoritarian Chinese autocracy decided to kneecap their own e
Re: ..YET. Don't know anyone with it, YET. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
This is really looking like a situation where the cure is worse than the disease. And I'm really thinking that there's politics behind it.
The cure is worse than the disease is currently. You seem to fail to understand what the consequences will be if the epidemic is unleashed. Go look some videos from the Italian hospitals now and then think hard what you've just said.
Re: (Score:2)
Really? Tell that to Princess Joan of England [wikipedia.org]. The fact that her father was King Edward III of England didn't prevent her, or most of her entourage, from dying of the Black Plague in 1348.
Re: ..YET. Don't know anyone with it, YET. (Score:1)
Bigger problems (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
CmdrTaco and a Corona plz.
know people who are sick (Score:2)
Other (Score:3)
A woman my mom knows flew from France somewhere with a confirmed case on her plane. I believe they even spoke, but didn't sit together. The authorities apparently didn't bother with any checks or testing on arrival, but then found her and had her tested later.
Now the news comes back that yep she has it.
And then an hour later she doesn't. Because this was filtered through a friend of a friend who's on location and was told of the results, somehow a "negative" result ended up being the bad one, exactly like in all those dumb jokes.
I thought I had a bit of a cough for a few days but seems like it's nothing. That's my story, thanks for reading.
2% PERSONALLY no someone who died. Really? (Score:1)
Depends on the demographics of the site (Score:2)
If this site was only visited by people in the US who knew no-one outside the US, then each person who died would have to be personally known by almost 40,000 people to get 2%. On the other hand, looking at just Italy each person who died would only have to be personally known by less than 400 people to get 2%. For Europe as a whole, it is less than 4000. That last number doesn't seem unrealistic, given that "personally known" doesn't mean just close friends and family, it also includes all your current and
I am sick but have no way of proving it is COVID19 (Score:4, Interesting)
I have had a dry cough for over a week and had a fever for a few days at the start.
There are three of us in our house and we all have the same symptoms - we all self isolated once the cough started
You don't get tested in the UK unless you have to go to hospital, so , we all presume we have it but have no way of knowing. We are getting better slowly, and our symptoms are not severe, but it is taking a long time to go away.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Me and a friend of mine had the same in January already, so we both think we already had the virus and are now immune. But we stay home nonetheless because we aren't sure and we aren't stupid.
Re: (Score:2)
The recommendation (as I've heard it - I'm not a doctor) for people who develop symptoms is to phone their doctor. Your doctor can do an over-the-phone consultation and decide if getting tested is warranted and, if so, instruct you accordingly. Obviously we don't want everyone with a mild sniffle overwhelming the emergency rooms (which may not be able to test you anyway).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Are you trying to get people to sharpen their pitchforks because you're massively ignorant or because you were employed to do so?
Pool in Twitter (Score:1)
I have it... (Score:3)
The most serious is someone that died (Score:2)
OK. (Score:5, Funny)
As a poll, it's interesting, but what we really need to know is how Cowboy Neal is doing.
Re: (Score:2)
The old traditions. They must live on.
I'd vote but... (Score:2)
"died from lack of toilet paper and blown out anus" wasn't an option. Although I know why, my grocery had lots of red meat but no cans of beans...so I'm certain all the "tp horders" are the "canned bean horders" peppering that anus for not having a real solution to a SHTF situation.
With all the canned beans I've seen emptied at my local grocery over the last few days, I'm sure the world is hurtling towards mushroom sized fart cloud the size the ghostbusters twinkie on crack. At least I have tons of pot and
Hope to know within the next 24 hours (Score:5, Interesting)
My wife has respiratory symptoms.
As a cancer patient, she's at very high-risk, if it is COVID-19.
We are in isolation while we await test results. We would have been in isolation anyway, even in the absence of her symptoms.
Her symptoms might not be COVID-19-related - she's susceptible to all manner of bugs due to her weakened immune system, and doesn't recover very quickly. And she's had respiratory symptoms multiple times before the COVID-19 crisis.
Was supposed to get test results within 72 hours, but the 72-hour mark came and went 4 hours ago, and still no results.
Waiting and hoping!
Re: (Score:1)
Good luck to you and your wife, friend. No one likes the bad stuff happening here.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it ended up taking 6.5 days, but we got the result last night. Negative!
My wife's respiratory symptoms are still present, but at least COVID19 has been eliminated as a cause.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Good luck mate - I hope things work out!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Was supposed to get test results within 72 hours, but the 72-hour mark came and went 4 hours ago, and still no results.
Waiting and hoping!
Did you get the result?
Re: Hope to know within the next 24 hours (Score:2)
Not yet. 6 days so far.
Re: (Score:2)
I dont know anybody with it (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I blame bitcoin. (Score:2)
Folding@home could have cracked this by 2015 if fucking Bitcoin hadn't taken over all our "wasted and idle" cycles. We did this to ourselves.
Re: (Score:2)
Hoping to avoid it (Score:2)
Barrel shaped chest, asthma, A- blood, overweight but not obese.
Not looking forward to it, from what I read I'm in a higher risk group, although 'only' in my 40s. We'll see. I realised in the last decade or two, I'm /probably/ going to die from respiratory issues evetually, although I was thinking 65+.
I'm so glad I'm not a smoker, but my lungs, they aren't exactly top shelf.
Concerned, not terrified but not happy.
Re: (Score:1)
Ditto.. I have marginally high BP, asthma, and A- blood myself. I'm also 'only' in my 40s but with these other factors, you and I may as well be 80.
other should be much higher (Score:1)
I don't know anyone with it shouldn't even be an option yet, since less than 1% of the US population has been tested. In many other countries, it's already so widespread, you don't need six degrees of separation before you find a case. I know sick people waiting for test results. I know that it is still nearly impossible to be tested in the US unless you need hospitalization. So, "I don't know anyone with it," should be "I know sick people who don't know what they have yet."
The numbers probably underrepresent the truth (Score:2)
"I don't know anyone with it" (Score:2)
Dead, but not counted. (Score:1)
Skewed options for answering... (Score:1)
Where's the option for "I was exposed to individuals with COVID19 and did not contract it"?
Multiple Answers (Score:2)
My niece is the wife of a first responder firefighter. She has all the symptoms, but since they are mild has been told by medical professionals to not get tested and just self quarantine for 14 days. The young daughter of a friend was tested positive; a week later our friend also tested positive. Someone in our congregation has tested positive.
Will Change (Score:2)
I initially responded to this poll with "no one", but recently learned that a family friend was on a cruise ship (not the Diamond Princess) that experienced an outbreak and spend a few days in the hospital with the disease. A friend who went on the cruise as well didn't make it.
Voted Other - Quarantined (Score:2)
I think I might have it (Score:2)
But it could also be a cold with minor GI issues. I honestly am unsure. This needs to be an option.
Re: "pick the most fearmongeringest" (Score:2)
By every measure, itâ(TM)s a strong but fast influenza. Perhaps you should stay in your lane as a cult heir and revolutionist and leave the epidemiology to people who spend their lives studying it.
Re: (Score:1)