McMokka wrote:First 2 deaths in Germany with over 1200 confirmed cases. Don't know a lot more, only that they occured in the region that has the most cases.
Also out of roughly 115000 cases more than 61000 are confirmed cured. So that is something at least
Indeed, the amount of people recovering is good although almost all of those cases are still in China that has more or less stopped the epidemic in their country.
Other Asian countries have also done an amazing job at preventing the spread. Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong for example have all had it under control despite being so close to "ground zero" and having cases early.
South Korea also appears to have managed to halt the exponential growth and reverse the trend.
Unfortunately I don't see anything like that in Europe or the west in general though. Our countries have hardly dealt with any pandemics lately while the former Asian countries built their experience dealing with SARS and other outbreaks in the last 2 decades.
I don't think we (as in Europe) will be able to handle it nearly as well as this is our learning experience.
The one comfort is that the US is likely more fucked than us, because with their healthcare system people with symptoms will still avoid getting tested as the fees they'd have to pay are already enough to kill a healthy person.
I'm still not in worried in the slightest for my own sake, there aren't many cases in Finland currently and even though I see a gradual growth and then explosion Italian style as inevitable not just here but in all of Europe I know that I am safe even if (or rather WHEN) I contract the disease.
I worry because my mother and her fiance of multiple years have been planning to hold their wedding in a little over a month, a time when the virus will be much more widespread in my country but probably not enough for them to ban such events yet.
And I have a LOT of elderly family as I have been lucky enough to get through the first 30 years of my life soon without losing any family members.
I have 4 grandparents all beyond the age of 75 and a great-grandparent at 99 years old. Furthermore my living great-grandparent is one of 5 sisters all still living with an average age over 85.
Add to that multiple older uncles, aunts and relatives of my grandparents and I have at least ~20 relatively close family members that are at EXTREME risk if they get the virus.
But... not much I can do about that. I've tried to tell the rest of the family to be careful around the elder members in the coming months but it's not like any of our precautions can keep them safe indefinitely.