The Divine Mr. M

With coronavirus cases continuing to rise in more than 100 countries, the COVID-19 outbreak has been officially declared a pandemic, according to the World Health Organization. As many have pointed out, most people who contract the disease will experience “mild symptoms,” which is good and bad news. On the plus side, the virus is not deadly for the vast majority of those infected. On the other hand, the large number of mild or asymptomatic cases makes the pandemic harder to track and contain.

This is why it’s crucial to pay attention to mild symptoms you may be experiencing and take precautions to protect your health and safety ― and the health and safety of others. HuffPost asked doctors to break down what exactly “mild” means when it comes to coronavirus and what people should know about the symptoms.

What Are Mild Symptoms?

“Mild symptoms refer to similar symptoms that you may experience with a cold or mild flu-like illness,” said Kristin Dean, a board-certified physician and medical director at the telemedicine service Doctor on Demand. “Most people experience a mild form of coronavirus with these symptoms being the most common: cough, body aches, runny nose, sore throat, nasal congestion or diarrhea. In some cases, people who are infected will not exhibit any symptoms.”

Indeed, coronavirus can present as a common cold in mild cases. People may develop a low-grade fever, chills, headache, fatigue and malaise as well.

The incubation period for COVID-19 indicates that it takes 2 to 14 days for an infected person to actually exhibit even mild symptoms. Research suggests that on average it takes about five days.

“An individual may think nothing of these symptoms because they do not significantly change or impact their daily lives,” said Eudene Harry, a board-certified physician in emergency medicine and medical director for the Oasis Wellness & Rejuvenation Center in Orlando, Florida. She noted that people could tend to be dismissive of symptoms that may be early signs of coronavirus.

“It includes symptoms that one may be denying to themselves or others because no one wants to be sick ― that’s human nature,” said Daniel Berliner, a physician at the virtual health platform PlushCare.

“Mild” cases of coronavirus can also be more severe than people imagine, however. Bruce Aylward of the WHO told The New York Times last week that “mild” cases in China were not necessarily like a mild cold.

″‘Mild’ was a positive test, fever, cough ― maybe even pneumonia, but not needing oxygen,” he explained. ”‘Severe’ was breathing rate up and oxygen saturation down, so needing oxygen or a ventilator. ‘Critical’ was respiratory failure or multi-organ failure.”

When Should You Seek Medical Care?

Due to the mildness of many early symptoms, it can be difficult to know when to seek medical care for a potential case of coronavirus.

“One symptom that does raise a ‘red flag’ is shortness of breath and/or difficulty breathing, although many people do not have this symptom as early as the other symptoms,” Berliner noted.

A high fever and worsening cough can also indicate a bigger issue that requires medical attention. If you have a history of medical conditions that can decrease your immune system’s response, you’ll want to be extra cautious as well.

“Decreased immunity may be caused by some of the following conditions: being older than age 65, diabetes, heart disease, chronic lung disease, chronic kidney disease, cancer, HIV or taking immunosuppressive medications,” Dean explained.

If you fall into one of those categories and are experiencing any symptoms, contact a health care provider via phone or a virtual video visit to talk it through and discuss the next steps. This is especially important if you have traveled to areas with high community transmission or been in contact with someone diagnosed with the COVID-19 virus (even if you aren’t exhibiting symptoms, it is advisable to self-isolate for 14 days after contact).

Conducting initial consultations through telemedicine networks can help reduce the spread of the virus by allowing health care workers to take protective measures to prepare for a visit from a potentially infectious patient. If you’re experiencing severe symptoms, however, call 911 to get immediate medical care.

What If You Don’t Need Hospitalization Or Medical Care?

Due to test kit shortages in the U.S., people who show mild symptoms but haven’t been in contact with confirmed coronavirus patients or visited high-risk areas may not be able to get a diagnosis. But it’s still important to stay home if you aren’t feeling well to help reduce the spread of illness.

“If you suspect you have COVID-19, please do not go to work, school or out in public places until you are directed to do so by a health care provider,” Dean said. “Mild COVID-19, just like other colds you have experienced, will typically resolve on its own by taking care of your health.”

She advised people who are exhibiting mild symptoms to get plenty of rest, stay hydrated and remain isolated from others.

“You can take over-the-counter cold remedies to help treat your symptoms, such as acetaminophen for fevers or headaches, and cough medications to alleviate coughing,” she added. “Since this illness is due to a virus, antibiotics are not effective. Stay in touch with your doctor about changes in your symptoms, and when it’s all right to return to your usual activities.”

Doctors still aren’t certain about how long patients infected with coronavirus are contagious, but one study suggests that those with mild cases are probably not infectious by about 10 days after they first experienced symptoms. Pending more conclusive research, however, it’s best to exercise caution and stay in touch with your doctor.

Avoiding high-risk places, washing hands, disinfecting surfaces, keeping a safe distance between people, not touching your face, and coughing or sneezing into elbows instead of hands are all measures everyone can take to help slow the rate of infection ― even if you aren’t experiencing symptoms. Taking care of yourself is one of the most selfless things you can do in the time of a pandemic.

“If everyone with a sore throat goes to hospital, resources will be used unnecessarily,” said Jake Deutsch, a physician specializing in emergency medicine and co-founder of Specialty Infusion. “Statistically speaking, most people won’t need an intensive-care level of treatment, so make sure those resources are available for people who clearly are more at risk. If you don’t have underlying medical conditions, I’d recommend staying home until you’re not sick. Judge your symptoms and put them in context of your medical problems.”

Ultimately, it’s important to follow guidance from reputable public health leaders like the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The best treatment we can provide is making sure people have correct information and can process everything,” Deutsch said.
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/mild-coronavirus-symptoms-235401563.html

~I went to check the numbers on school shootings in 2017 to make a point about the number of gun deaths in Chicago, about half of which are Drug War related. I was honestly surprised. 650 people were shot to death in Chicago in 2017, so let's say about 300 Drug War deaths. In Chicago.

Fifteen people died in 'school shootings' in 2017. That's right, fifteen...in the entire country.

Four of them where the shooters themselves. One was an estranged husband who there went to kill his ex wife and then shot himself. One was a random shooter who didn't manage to kill any students, but all his five off campus victims were listed anyway, so the real total is actually ten, but we'll stick with fifteen.

So school shootings are not the 'new normal', but Drug War killings most certainly are, because we do not even notice them. Maybe because they happen in poor Black and Brown neighborhoods, and not in the mostly White Middle Class suburbs.

See how easy racism is, kids? You can be racist without a second thought and feeling full of Moral High Purpose. God Bless America.

...I wrote this five and half years ago..I think it more relevant than ever...

"All politics is local." ~'Tip' O'Neill

~Which is why, in the end, democracy fails. Because humans are, as a rule, 'provincial', which is a socio-cultural way of saying that they are primarily concerned with their own immediate sphere of interest, tend to ignore everything outside of that sphere and react with fear/anger whenever the larger sphere impinges. That prevents most humans from thinking 'globally' or even 'nationally'. Now hold that thought...

"Why should I concern myself with how many die? Even the Christian Bible says what is man that God should be mindful of him? For me men are nothing but a brain at one end and a shit factory at the other." ~Aurelio Peccei, founder and first president of the Club of Rome

In 1972 The Club of Rome published a historical document, “The Limits to Growth,” described by Wikipedia as a “book about the computer modeling of unchecked economic and population growth with finite resource supplies.” I remember at the time it generated a lot of speculation and controversy, but for the general population, like so many things before it, it went down The Memory Hole, eclipsed by Watergate and then the Fall of Saigon. [see "All politics is local."]

Aurelio Peccei was one the authors of that report and his sentiments are fairly clear.

“The Limits to Growth,” was also, I have come to believe, a warning to the population of Earth from The Western Financial Elites; “Since you are obviously incapable of controlling your own affairs and managing your own resources, we are going to gather up as much of them as we can lay our hands upon, build ourselves safe havens and let the rest of you drown in your own shit. In fact, we plan to expedite that by making things as bad as possible in order to get this over with as fast as possible.” In other words, a Culling.

I suspect they made that decision not so much because they are evil – though there is certainly some sociopathic reasoning in the mix – but because, seeing that “All politics are local,” they already knew that the solutions required to head off Global Catastrophe would be impossible to implement. Keep in mind that at the time The Cold War was still going strong, America was socioculturally unraveling and China had just wrapped up The Cultural Revolution.

In that context, I really cannot fault the logic, even if I am one of those likely to culled.

I have imagined snippets of conversations such as these, uttered not at secret meetings in darkened rooms, but at bright social gatherings over cocktails:

“Let it all got to hell.”

“They will rebel.”

“We'll make Consumerism ubiquitous and fund their social hatreds.”

“But we cannot control something like that.”

“No, but we can guide it and we can survive it. We'll surf the apocalypse.”

If I were in their position, I'd do much the same thing, though as those of you who know me will understand that my 'grand scheme' is of a somewhat different design. And because of that, while I expect this Culling will more or less succeed, I have my doubts that it will play out at all close to what The Elites hope for.

But the die have been cast and now what shall be, shall be...

~I keep reading endless numbers of articles and essays about how Trump became president. And none of the them really seem to get it. Chris Hughes comes close, but he seems to have lost his mind. Can't blame him really, as everyone is dancing around the elephant in the room; we are in fact already IN Collapse, eg, The System is in Terminal Failure.

We are in Late Stage Capitalism. What that means is as the profit margins get narrower, The Owners need to squeeze harder to extract said profits. This has been going for a few decades now, but for the general public, the 'balloon went up' with the Crash of '09, which was the direct result of The Big Squeeze. Wall Street et al created a Housing Bubble of insane proportions via all manner of shady and even illegal marketing and accounting games.

When the shit hit the fan, they got their political lackeys to use Tax Payer Money to 'reimburse' them for their loses and left said Tax Payers out to dry. Roughly 40% of the American Middle Class Wealth was lost. FORTY PERCENT. That meant eroded tax bases, gutted pension funds, wrecked state and municipal bond portfolios.

That is what Obama inherited. And, being the Corporatist he is, he bunted economically. The perfect example is the ACA [which originated with The Heritage Foundation, a very right wing think tank]. He'd promised a Public Option over and over and over again on the campaign trail. Withing a month of his Inauguration, it had vanished, forcing thirty million Americans into the clutches of the Insurance Industry. [see The Big Squeeze]

Eight years later, after more and more of that kind of betrayal from the Democrats and the insane slavering obstructionism of the GOP, the American Electorate had come to hate the establishments of both parties. And two Insurgent candidates emerged from outside of each party; Bernie and The Donald.

We all know what happened. The 'undisciplined' Dems suddenly became Very Disciplined and sandbagged Bernie. And the infamously disciplined GOP fielded a slate of total buffoons and got its clock cleaned.

Even then, Hillary should have won. She did in fact 'win' The Vote. But her ground game sucked so badly [arrogance], and the Dems had alienated so much of their own base [more arrogance], she lost four states by roughly 120K votes in total.

And that boys and girls, is how Collapse works. The System becomes so rotten that a Black Swan like The Donald can end up in the White House. Now The Deep State has to game The System [delegitimatizing it even more] in order to fix the problem and do a reset, eg a Pence White House, which while ugly, will at least be relatively stable.

But we are still in Late Stage Capitalism and Collapse is still underway and no one has any real idea what to do about that ...except, of course, More Of The Same, which is a well known definition of insanity.

Toss the now inevitable Catastrophic Climate Change into the mix and one can be certain that the next century or so is going to be 'very interesting times' indeed.

You can kill yourself now if you wish....

~First, the term 'useless' is not meant to be an insult, but a literal description, Beta Males for whom society and its economy really have no use. Of course, it is actually far worse than a insult; it is a term of existential annihilation. And regardless of their degree of education or intelligence, most of these Useless Beta Males are aware of that on some level.

Not all that long ago there was a series of uses for these men. There were jobs in factories, work in the fields, and wars to fight and die in. But Modern Technological Civilization has reduced that need drastically and now there are tens of millions of mostly young males for whom said civilization has almost zero use and will likely never have one again.

Automation has replaced them in the factories and the fields and even the militaries of the largest nation states are much smaller than they once were. This is a trend that will continue apace.

As I said, these Useless Beta Males understand that somewhere and that scares them. Most of them will never have even marginal employment and because of that they will will find it almost impossible to find a mate and reproduce...and that is where the real trouble starts.

Reproduction is where Males achieve Immortality, by passing their genes on to the next generation. Most would not think of it in that fashion, but it is programmed by evolution into the reptile portion of our brains.

And that is what I mean by ' existential annihilation'. Faced with the above, these Males 'know' on a fundamental inchoate level that they are utterly doomed. That generates an unthinking terror, which all too often turns into a blind unthinking rage. Such emotions require an outlet. That leads to alcoholism, drug addition and suicide.

But it also leads to Terrorism, Mass Shooting, Rape...and Men's Rights Activism, which is merely a sophistic justification for the latter behaviors. I included MRA as a kind of joke, but its underpinnings are genuinely dangerous in that it IS a 'social and political justification' for Beta Males to act out violently against Women.

When we are dealing with such basic biologically hard wired instinct, social engineering and legislation are largely ineffective. Gun Control and 'Don't Rape' campaigns are not only ineffective, but generate anger at those they are primarily aimed at; those legions of Useless Beta Males. These things tell them 'we don't trust you' [we don't] and to 'sit down and be good boys' [they can't]. In essence, they are dismissive and that only fires the Useless Beta Male's fear and rage.

So what is the solution? Given the nature of our Modern Technological Civilization, there is none. We really have no realistic ways to make them 'useful' again. It is no longer socially or politically possible to cull these Useless Beta Males. And logistically I'm not sure it would even be possible to actually kill off tens of millions of mostly young males – they'd fight back, you know – though that would provide employment for a few million of them in the process.

No, we're just going to have to ride this out until 'organic processes' – the aforementioned addictions and violence – cull them over the long run, inefficient as that may be.

That said, in time The Sisterhood will have use for some of them, to wit: "Based upon past experience with the BDSM community, it is fairly clear that a goodly number of Beta Males will seek to submit to Sisters within the context of Gynofascism. Once inside The Sisterhood, Beta Males will fall into three general categories;

One, those who are Collared and left physically 'intact'. They will be In Service as The Sisterhood requires, each depending upon their particular skills and talents. This would include physical labor in the actual building of Sororal facilities, going out into the wider world to earn money to help fund The Sisterhood and as Pleasure Servers for those Sisters who still desire The Cock.

Two, those who are Collared and Feminized. These would not necessarily be TG/MtF's as much as males who wish to more strongly identify with The Sisterhood by becoming proto-females. The Feminization of young Beta Males is a crucial step on the path to the New Matriarchy. This will begin with Transvestism and proceed through implants and hormone treatment, but stop short of sexual reassignment surgery. Therefore they are *not* women [e.g. Sisters], but only Feminized Males. They too will also be In Service as The Sisterhood requires, though it is expected their particular skills and talents would be utilized by our Domme Sisters in 'fishing' operations for valuable Alpha Males.

Three, those who are Collared and castrated. There is a small sub-set of deep submissives who desire this outcome in order to become desexualized. This would be done surgically and would be either partial [just the testes] or complete, depending upon the desires of the individual. They too will also be In Service as The Sisterhood requires, each depending upon their particular skills and talents, as stated above. It is expected that their Service will tend to be more 'extreme'.

These Collared Beta Males will be granted the title Korettes [koor-et-teez]. This title comes from the ancient Greek Goddess Koré, sometimes known as Persephone, Goddess of The Underworld e.g. a Death Goddess. By 'taking The Collar', these males are now dead to their old lives. Koré is also a Triple Goddess, Her Three Aspects being Persephone [maiden], Demeter [mother], Hecate [crone]. Korettes is an ancient term itself, translating both as "Sons of Koré" and "Male Servants of Koré".

All Beta Males outside of this paradigm will considered redundant and disposable."

As ever, more shall be Revealed....

~Back some time in 2012 Vince Lamb said he hoped 2013 would be ''a better year'. I told him, 'no, it would be worse...and so would every year after it for the foreseeable future'. And looking out at the mid-point of 2016, I can see I was right. But once one knows the patterns, one can generally predict the future.

The Dems and the GOP are both ‘owned’ by Corporate Money. Corporate interests nearly always get their legislative needs met, while We The People get shined on.

Each party 'makes the proper noises’ to its respective bases, but their campaigns, and the jobs they get when they either lose or retire from office, are wholly dependent upon Corporate largess. One does not bite the hand that feeds.

So for example, the Dems will 'fight for gun control’ and the GOP will 'fight for expelling the illegals’, but note that almost nothing has happened with either. That is because those are issues that help divide the Electorate and therefore keep each party in power because we’re too busy fighting each other over 'table scrapes’ while The Corporations eat their full.

That was okay when the economy was in decent shape, but for most Americans, the Crash of '09 has never really ended. The average American is still struggling to get by, while The Rich have apx $36 Trillion Dollars stashed in offshore accounts.

So the core base of each party has rebelled.

For the GOP, this has produced Donald Trump. For the Dems, Bernie Sanders. Whatever one thinks of their respective platforms and ideologies, it is very apparent that each party establishment hates them and has done its best to derail their campaigns. That is because they each truly represent the Will of Their Party Base and that is not what The Corporations want.

Trump is pretty much a lock at this point. And Sanders is closing in on an increasingly hapless Hillary. If the GOP does a 'political maneuver’ and steals the nomination from Trump, expect bloodshed. If the Dems squeeze Sanders out, I expect that Hillary will still win in November. The GOP simply does not have the numbers anymore.

But the Democratic party will be ripped open. Too may of us are sick of being lied to by Center/Right Corporatists who pretend to be Liberals [Hillary & Obama] and having a 'social issues' bone tossed to us to shut us up while they feed the Corporations every single thing they want.

Capitalism is in its Terminal Phase where it is now devouring its host. As I Posted/Tweeted a few years ago, “No domestic industry left. Massive unemployment. Crushing personal debt. The bankers still free. Drone strikes. Drug war. Social violence. Paralyzed politics. Diminishing public services. 65 US vets committing suicide every single day. 200,000 homeless children nationally.

I could go on and on. That is what Collapse looks like, not tattooed barbarians racing along the highways. The steady slide downward.”

Hillary talks 'incrementalism', but as we say in AA, “Half measures availed us nothing.” ...and time IS running out.

"All you finger waggers here are called them “thugs” and “ungrateful idiots” and so on. But these kids can read the writing on the wall.

Our schools have become prisons. Our prisons have become slave labor camps. Our Middle Class is being crushed out of existence. Rents and costs keep rising, but wages are stagnant. Unless you come from Money, a collage education makes you a debt slave for life. And even the crap jobs out there are slowly but steadily being automated away.

So why not go on a killing rampage? One last orgiastic burst of rage at the system that is grinding you down, and then die, knowing that we'll talk about you for weeks and weeks...until the next nihilist killer comes along to splatter against the windscreen of Modern America."

http://news.yahoo.com/four-california-students-arrested-plotting-mass-shooting-175242672.html


User
What this country doesn't need is more victums like you.

Nebris
Hell, I'm fine. Fat old man on SS tucked away in a trailer park in the middle of nowhere. Got the old lady, the cats and our guns.

PS LOL @ 'victums'.

Michael Varian Daly
Catastrophic Climate Change will handle the issue.

Lordofthemisanthropes
Runaway global warming will end all life on Earth; that is not a solution.

Michael Varian Daly
No it won't. Life is amazingly tenacious. There is Life at the bottom of the ocean and in the bellies of volcanoes. Life has survived asteroid strikes and volcanic 'nuclear' winters.

Hell, CCC won't even kill us off. We're like cockroaches. Yes, things are going to be unpleasant for a few centuries, but we'll survive..and keep our technological civilization, too.

Keep in mind that the total population of the Earth when Columbus first set foot on Hispaniola was apx 480 million. That's barely 5% of today's total. Or two thirds of the US' total.

So, stop being an alarmist and start figuring out how to help us survive, because we're already past the Tipping Point and The Age of Storms is upon us....
http://www.alternet.org/environment/radical-environmental-solution-youve-never-heard

"All politics is local." ~'Tip' O'Neill

~Which is why, in the end, democracy fails. Because humans are, as a rule, 'provincial', which is a socio-cultural way of saying that they are primarily concerned with their own immediate sphere of interest, tend to ignore everything outside of that sphere and react with fear/anger whenever the larger sphere impinges. That prevents most humans from thinking 'globally' or even 'nationally'. Now hold that thought...

"Why should I concern myself with how many die? Even the Christian Bible says what is man that God should be mindful of him? For me men are nothing but a brain at one end and a shit factory at the other." ~Aurelio Peccei, founder and first president of the Club of Rome

In 1972 The Club of Rome published a historical document, “The Limits to Growth,” described by Wikipedia as a “book about the computer modeling of unchecked economic and population growth with finite resource supplies.” I remember at the time it generated a lot of speculation and controversy, but for the general population, like so many things before it, it went down The Memory Hole, eclipsed by Watergate and then the Fall of Saigon. [see "All politics is local."]

Aurelio Peccei was one the authors of that report and his sentiments are fairly clear.

“The Limits to Growth,” were also, I have come to believe, a warning to the population of Earth from The Western Financial Elites; “Since you are obviously incapable of controlling your own affairs and managing your our resources, we are going to gather up as much of them as we can lay our hands upon, build ourselves safe havens and let the rest of you drown in your own shit. In fact, we plan to expedite that by making things as bad as possible in order to get this over with as fast as possible.” In other words, a Culling.

I suspect they made that decision not so much because they are evil – though there is certainly some sociopathic reasoning in the mix – but because, seeing that “All politics are local,” they already knew that the solutions required to head off Global Catastrophe would be impossible to implement. Keep in mind that at the time The Cold War was still going strong, America was socioculturally unraveling and China had just wrapped up The Cultural Revolution.

In that context, I really cannot fault the logic, even if I am one of those likely to culled.

I have imagined snippets of conversations such as these, uttered not at secret meetings in darkened rooms, but at bright social gatherings over cocktails:

“Let it all got to hell.”

“They will rebel.”

“We make Consumerism ubiquitous and fund their social hatreds.”

“But we cannot control something like that.”

“No, but we can guide it and we can survive it. We'll surf the apocalypse.”

If I were in their position, I'd do much the same thing, though as those of you who know me will understand that my 'grand scheme' is of a somewhat different design. And because of that, while I expect this Culling will more or less succeed, I have my doubts that it will play out at all close to what The Elites hope for.

But the die have been cast and now what shall be, shall be...