So, the world is shut-in due to a global pandemic, and we are getting rakghouls as an event?

Perfect. Thank you BW. I was hoping this would happen.

Go with the flow

#itscoranatime 🍺🍋

Just make sure you use PPE on the fleet

Resident Evil 3 just released, too -- a game where a massive pandemic leads to rioting and the collapse of an entire city until zombies overrun everything.

It's not a big deal.

Is this bait?

Truthfully, I'm unsure.

Of course, there are some people for whom the idea of laughter at something as tragic, horrific, and frightening as the current real world events is anathema, who say with revulsion "How can you joke about that?" in complete honesty - and I've not the least disrespect for them, though I decline to be dictated to by them either, for reasons I'll cite in a moment in the last example.

There are also, unfortunately, the large number of regrettable individuals who infamously seek to be almost professionally offended, who'll revel grossly in the power trip of finding a shortcoming in the publicly acceptable ethics of another and enable "callout culture" as it's called because they enjoy the power and sense of unity they get from being the voice of calling social opprobrium upon others. Those don't really deserve respect; they're merely indulging the same instincts that used to rouse lynch mobs.

However, separate from both, there are also many who will make jokes about the most inappropriate of things because that is how we cope. Humour is, above all, a coping mechanism, a diffuser.

You'll probably find more jokes being made about this current epidemic by healthcare workers, doctors, pharmacy staff (hello), and similar than by any other group. This is not because we don't care. This is because laughing at it is what gives us the power to keep going and try to cope with it.

This third group has no fewer rights than the first one does.

So, the world is shut-in due to a global pandemic, and we are getting rakghouls as an event?

 

Perfect. Thank you BW. I was hoping this would happen.

April Fools was a few days ago, but due to COVID-19 it's been held over for a few days, I guess. 😍

17 million Americans have the flu and 20.000 so far have died. Why is that not a pandemic?

There are 8 covid strains out there all very similar as it is far slower at mutating than the flu.

80 percent of covid deaths are people over 65. Vast majority who have the virus have survived it,

17 million Americans have the flu and 20.000 so far have died. Why is that not a pandemic?

 

There are 8 covid strains out there all very similar as it is far slower at mutating than the flu.

80 percent of covid deaths are people over 65. Vast majority who have the virus have survived it,

You Are So Wrong!!!! https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html Go Read The Stats

Covid 19 Total cases: 304,826 Total deaths: 7,616

Cumulative total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States by report date, January 12, 2020 to April 4, 2020,

And We Are Only. What? Four Months Into This?

Also This https://www.health.com/condition/cold-flu-sinus/how-many-people-die-of-the-flu-every-year

So while the flu has long been considered a dangerous seasonal scourge, new data on the COVID-19 epidemic underscore a frightening fact: COVID-19 is even deadlier.

17 million Americans have the flu and 20.000 so far have died. Why is that not a pandemic?

Because when it's limited to a single area, community, or region it's called an epidemic. The US experiences seasonal influenza epidemics. There have been influenza pandemics (1918 ring a bell?), but there is not currently an influenza pandemic. Pandemic just means that the illness has spread around the world. Being labelled a pandemic says nothing about the severity.

There are 8 covid strains out there all very similar as it is far slower at mutating than the flu.

No there aren't. Covid-19 is the illness caused by SARS-CoV-2, a strain of coronavirus. There are eight known strains of coronavirus and they are one of the viruses linked to the common cold (rhinovirus is actually more common being responsible for ~50% of all colds). Some of those other strains, SARS-CoV-1, responsible for the 2002/03 SARS pandemic (note that even though only ~8000 people became sick during that pandemic it's still a pandemic because it spread around the world), and MERS-CoV, an epidemic, responsible for the MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) outbreak in 2012, which sicked a few thousand and had a fatality rate of ~34%. Just because other coronaviruses are no big deal does not tell you anything about this particular strain. True, most coronaviruses only cause mild upper respirator symptoms (the common cold), but some (at least three known strains) can cause severe acute respiratory syndrome, viral pneumonia, respiratory failure, and septic shock.

Yes, SARS-CoV-2 is mutating slowly, which is good news for developing a vaccine. But this viruses mutation rate is irreverent compared to influenza. Firstly, which influenza are you talking about that mutates quickly? Influenza A, B, C, or D? Okay, that's a trick question since influenza D isn't know to infect humans, and influenza C is known to only cause very mild symptoms. Influenza B does not mutate nearly as fast as influenza A and is not known to be associated with pandemics. Influenza B is also only divided into two lineages, Yamagata and Victoria. Influenza A, if there's a flu pandemic it's an A strain, is divided by 18 different hemagglutinin and 11 different neuraminidase combinations (hemagglutinin and neuraminidase are proteins) giving 198 different possible combinations of influenza A (only 131 subtypes has been identified). The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic was caused by the H1N1 strain of influenza A. If you live in the US and got your flu shot this year you received an inoculation for H1N1, along with H3N2, and both strains of B. Why did you get a vaccine for the flu stain that caused the 1918 pandemic? Because it made a comeback in 2009; only then it was called the Swine flu. Coronaviruses and influenza B undergo the slower antigenic drift, which are small changes over time. Influenza A undergoes both the slower antigenic drift as well as the faster antigenic shift, which causes abrupt changes in the virus. Further, SARS-CoV-2's slow mutation rate doesn't say anything about how communicable it is or how fatal the illness is, which, research is showing, is higher, in both regards, than the seasonal flu.

80 percent of [Covid-19] deaths are people over 65. Vast majority who have the virus have survived it,

Yes, people aged 65+ are more likely to experience worse outcomes from upper respirator infections and is the age group that has seen the most deaths from Covid-19. In that regard Covid-19 is similar to the flu in that the elderly are most at risk. Yes, ~80% of people who contract Covid-19 will only experience mild to moderate upper respiratory and other flu-like symptoms. Unlike the flu though, which this seasonal has had a hospitalization rate of ~1% and has a seasonal death rate of ~0.1%, Covid-19 has a hospitalization rate of around 12%, with ~50% of those being elderly. The death rate for Covid-19 varies by region with some places as high as 2.9% and as low as 0.4%. Another factor that makes Covid-19 very different from the seasonal flu is that the flu has an R0 (R-naught) of ~1.3, whereas Covid-19 has an R0 of ~2.5. R0 is an estimation of the average number of people who contract a virus from a single infected person. The flu's R0 of 1.3 means that approximately 1.3 people will be infected by an infected individual. This is mitigated by natural immunity (from prior infection) and immunization. Covid-19's R0 of 2.5 (epidemiologists are still determining the R0 for Covid-19, which appears to be between 2 and 3) coupled with no natural immunity or immunization means that the virus can spread much farther and infect many more people than the flu. All of this means that many more people are needing acute care and it's not just the elderly who are being hospitalized. Being under 65 is not a guarantee that you will only experience mild symptoms, it is not a guarantee that you will not develop severe respiratory issues, and it is not a guarantee that you won't die. And no, not everyone under age 65 who has died from Covid-19 has had an underlying problem or preexisting condition. During the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic one of the age groups with the highest fatalities were people aged 15-35.

Enough of this constant bickering about what the game puts in during this time. I have yet to see Rakghouls running wild anywhere. They are just a pretend creature, very different than what we are dealing with now.

I have a bed-ridden mom that has serious health problems that I have to be careful with but getting upset or throwing a fit about something in the game I am not going to do as it has no bearing on what is going on in real life.

I can separate real life from something in a game and I had hoped most people were smart enough to do that but I guess not.

Have a good night and take care.

Enough of this constant bickering about what the game puts in during this time. I have yet to see Rakghouls running wild anywhere. They are just a pretend creature, very different than what we are dealing with now.

 

I have a bed-ridden mom that has serious health problems that I have to be careful with but getting upset or throwing a fit about something in the game I am not going to do as it has no bearing on what is going on in real life.

 

I can separate real life from something in a game and I had hoped most people were smart enough to do that but I guess not.

 

Have a good night and take care.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Well said Casi

In addition to Casi be 100% correct, I need to recruit Lokin. Bring on the event !

Got him on my main, and a couple of others, but it gets tiresome after a while. would be good if they brought in a system where you could skip the recruiting, and just get the companions, ofcourse, only if you've done all the recruiting at least once already, and only if you've gotten past the story points where you'd get them back. And I'm sure there are probably other provisions too.