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Originally Posted by Alligator
Appalachian Trail Conservancy Asks Thru-Hikers to Postpone Hikes The Trek
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alligator
Appalachian Trail Conservancy Asks Thru-Hikers to Postpone Hikes The Trek
More...
My guess is Baxter is going to get flooded in June with SOBO's. Hopefully the country will be in better place by then.
<a href="http://wlos.com/news/local/plenty-of-space-on-appalachian-trail-but-hikers-also-taking-coronavirus-precautions" target="_blank">Plenty of Space on Appalachian Trail, but Hikers Also Taking Coronavirus Precautions</a> <font color="#6f6f6f">WLOS</font>
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<a href="https://www.backpacker.com/news-and-events/appalachian-trail-coalition-postpone-your-thru-hike" target="_blank">Appalachian Trail Conservancy: Postpone Your Thru-Hike</a> <font color="#6f6f6f">Backpacker</font>
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<a href="https://www.bpr.org/post/appalachian-trail-hikers-asked-leave-trail-due-covid-19" target="_blank">Appalachian Trail Hikers Asked To Leave The Trail Due To COVID-19</a> <font color="#6f6f6f">BPR / Blue Ridge Public Radio</font>
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Just to add the Camino de Santiago is also shut down. No it was not a suggestion there, it was a 'get off the trail now and go home' order.
Read the article; listened to the tape.
The National Park Service has lifted all entrance fees to encourage people to exercise in remote areas. It appears the ATC has decided it knows better. From their website:
We at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) are now asking you to do the same: please postpone your section or thru-hike. Instead, consider alternate ways of connecting to the Trail and to the outdoors.
What the hell does THAT mean? Watch a video of it on Youtube? The ATC described trail towns as "vulnerable rural communities". What makes them vulnerable? NYC has a much denser population and is therefore seeing the highest rate of infection. Really all a thruhiker absolutely needs is a grocery store and laundromat. What every resident of a trail town uses anyway.
We've gotten to the point that organizations, like the ATC, are now just virtue signaling to show they are hip and in the know.
Remember, whatever you do this weekend, the most dangerous part remains the drive to get there.
Hike your own Hike
That's the point. Everyone in that town goes to the same supermarket, laundromat, post office, church and so on. If just one clerk at the supermarket or gas station gets infected, the whole town could catch it in no time. And that person bringing it into town could be you. Or you could leave with it and infect other hikers, who go on to the next town.
I live in a popular tourist area. Thankfully we are now in the off season when there are few tourists up here. So long as they stay away, we'll be pretty safe. But once the weather warms up and the tourist start showing up in numbers, which they will, the virus will make in roads here in this rural community. We have a lot of old people and a total of 27 hospital beds in the immediate area. It could become a problem.
Thank you, Slo-go'en. Well said!
Agreed. The ATC has a strong point in favor of avoiding long thru and section hikes right now. Calling it 'virtue signaling' is absurd.
We'll see how absurd all this is at the end when fewer people have died of it than the flu, car accidents or cancer.
Math isn't your strong suit, is it? You're clearly looking at this as if today's numbers are the only thing that matters rather than seeing the broader picture of infection and mortality rate. There's a reason people are trying to be proactive here.
Comparing a new-to-human virus to car accidents or influenza is a false equivalency. Both auto accident and influenza avoidance have baseline mitigation techniques specifically designed to avoid fatalities like defensive driving and vaccination. Curiously absent in these comparisons are deaths from guns, which were 39,770 in 2017, the latest year figures are available, which are higher than auto accidents. Go figure. New-to-human viruses however, once free of any constraints via testing and quarrantine as witnessed in the US this year, do not have a vaccine and can move through populations incredibly fast, overloading medical services, making the first weeks following discovery very, very important, as we are seeing now.
Apparently the notion COVID 19 is some kind of hoax or overblown by media is still around. Were this to have been handled capably by career professionals at the start we would likely be in a far different place right now. But it wasn't and we are stuck with paying for inept inaction with lives and trillions in debt.
This is a very real thing, killing very real people, and should be of real concern.
(sharply executed nod to spectators as I step off the soap box)
<sharply executed="" nod="" at="" spectators="" as="" i="" step="" off="" the="" soap="" box=""></sharply>
I hope fewer people die of this virus and it will all be due to our heroic medical professionals. This virus is far more contagious than anyone under the age of 100 has ever experienced. The virus has already mutated and the more hosts it gets the more it can mutate. There is currently no cure other than common sense. Ignoring the threat from COVID 19 is not just absurd but foolish and dangerous.
<a href="https://www.backpacker.com/news-and-events/pacific-crest-trail-association-asks-thru-hikers-to-cancel-their-trips-due-to-covid-19" target="_blank">Pacific Crest Trail Association Asks Thru-Hikers to Cancel Their Trips Due to COVID-19</a> <font color="#6f6f6f">Backpacker</font>
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We're all gonna die!
At least it has pushed the re-election campaigners to the back burner.
A lot of the pols look like the deer caught in the headlights not knowing what to do, while the lower echelon officials at CDC, the Surgeon General, and local emergency management people are doing the real useful work.
What are the drone pols doing? Just follow the money!
<a href="https://www.wjhl.com/local-coronavirus-coverage/trail-days-2020-cancelled-due-to-covid-19/" target="_blank">Trail Days 2020 cancelled due to COVID-19</a> <font color="#6f6f6f">WJHL-TV News Channel 11</font>
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Don't around 4,000,000 folks die in the U.S. every year?
By all means, let's double it. It's only a few million more. Small potatoes.
NPS is waiving fees so they don't have to expose their employees to virus-laden visitors. They are also closing campgrounds and otherwise discouraging overnight stays so as to minimize the number of close interactions within the parks. While they do believe (I think) that exercise and sunshine are healthy, they are hoping you will be smart enough to use the parks responsibly. And if not, at least their employees won't have to pay the price.
Discrete nod of gratitude y respect to Traveler, as he drops the mike and makes his Exit Stage Left. Well said as always.
On he Diamond Princess 3,700 people were exposed, 712 infected and 7 died or about 20% infected 0.2% dead, probably about as worse case scenario as you could get, so 62,000 dead. Ordinary flu around 60,000 dead/year.
That's some bonkers math.
If you use those percentages, it's 65 million infected and 650,000 dead. Not counting all the ones with long term issues related to the disease, something which has been common so far.
If there's about 300,000,000 people in the U.S., everyone was to catch it, and 2% died, that's 6,000,000 dead.
But that 2% is based on a percentage of people who were ill recover based on medical aid... such as using a ventilator until your body can recover.
But if everyone gets sick at once and overwhelms the medical community, there's going to be a large number of people who won't be able to get the medical care they need (that's the whole thing about "flattening the curve everyone is talking about").
So if practically no one is getting the medical care they need, I could see that 2% number jumping to closer to 10%. That's as many as 30,000,000 dead (not just 30,000).
But if the virus spreads unchecked, the number is more likely to be something like 60,000,000 when EVERYONE
since we are doing math here, how about these numbers - population of the earth, around 7 billion - long term sustainable population of the earth 25 - 30 million(fossil fuels would be used at a rate similar to that at which they are generated)
so that means for every 280 people there needs to be only 1
we would not be able to sustain the same level of technology (including fast world travel) and of course lighter population density would greatly decrease the transmission of viruses etc
so there is a simple way to prevent c19 type epidemics
just line up at your local soylant green production facility (social distancing not required)
<a href="https://wcyb.com/news/local/trail-days-in-damascus-canceled-due-to-coronavirus-concerns" target="_blank">Trail Days in Damascus canceled due to coronavirus concerns</a> <font color="#6f6f6f">WCYB</font>
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They are all false equivalency arguments. The only reason I cited gun deaths is the numbers exceed many of the other false equivalency statistics commonly cited. One can also bifurcate auto accidents similarly to gun deaths by driver fault - hit by another driver or driver hit someone/something. Point remains, both are false equivalencies and not applicable.
I used 30,000 because the OP and others are always comparing this pandemic's mortality to flu deaths. I agree that this virus has the potential to kill many more than 30,000 but let us hope it doesn't and the social distancing most folks are practicing helps slow down the spread.
One reason I think people down play the seriousness of the coronavirus and compare it to the flu is that they probably have had the flu at some point, gotten over it and have never known someone who has died from the flu so those flu mortality numbers are just statistics without a real world impact on their lives. Once some person they know in their neighborhood, softball team, church or work place dies from the coronavirus it will become all too real to dismiss as just like the flu. Unfortunately, that is likely to happen.
<a href="https://www.nj.com/entertainment/2020/03/14-nj-hiking-trails-to-cure-your-coronavirus-cabin-fever.html" target="_blank">14 N.J. hiking trails to cure your coronavirus cabin fever</a> <font color="#6f6f6f">NJ.com</font>
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<a href="https://wcyb.com/news/local/trail-days-in-damascus-canceled-due-to-coronavirus-concerns" target="_blank">Trail Days in Damascus canceled due to coronavirus concerns</a> <font color="#6f6f6f">WCYB</font>
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With all due respect to everyone in this forum,why do the lives of those 18,000 plus seasonal flu deaths seem to be less valuable than the 285 people who have died so far of corona virus?
Not saying we shouldn't take the corona threat seriously,just saying we should not be nonchalant and accepting of all those seasonal flu deaths that happen by the thousands annually.
The idea that no one cares about the flu is both a bizarre unrelated train of thought and patently false.
What on earth does this have to do with the flu, other than both are viral? Are we heartless because we have not discussed the, what, 50,000 deaths due to auto accidents every year in this discussion?
Influenza spread was ultimately basically unstoppable, and the medical community gave up on trying to stop it, which was semi-ok because at least we have an effective inoculation against it, though the many thousands of death are tragic.
The danger of this CV19 pandemic is the death RATE, of course, being much higher than that of the flu. As said below, IF CV19 was ultimately unstoppable that's MILLIONS of deaths in the US. The initial repost showed something like overall 2%, 20 times higher than the flu, maybe it's lower, later reports suggest that.
PLEASE try to watch something other than FOX news for your "information". The mind absolutely boggles.