Is the Coronavirus beginning the breakdown of our society?

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Doesn't it feel like this might be a very rocky time for humanity? Our healthcare system already felt like it was stressed to the max, and then this virus came along to bring it to its knees.

And now the general economy is becoming unraveled. The intricate web of the global economy seems to be quickly falling to pieces.

I hope a societal breakdown isn't on the horizon.

On 4/21/2020 at 7:03 PM, Emergent said:

Doesn't it feel like this might be a very rocky time for humanity? Our healthcare system already felt like it was stressed to the max, and then this virus came along to bring it to its knees.

And now the general economy is becoming unraveled. The intricate web of the global economy seems to be quickly falling to pieces.

I hope a societal breakdown isn't on the horizon.

Dangit my response got erased and I'm not putting it together that cohesively again, so here's the short of it. Never thought we'd REALLY have another modern civil war to where we'd be physically fighting each other like others have believed. But seeing lots of protesters with ridiculously over the top firearms and vests has made even me consider purchasing a gun AND conceal carry. But I have the forethought to not trust myself with my depression issues to own a gun. I do not have the faith that others have such perspective and insight, and think people who probably shouldn't own a gun will be purchasing them.

I'm not living in fear of it, but I am going "? *** might actually go down. Yikes."

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
9 minutes ago, Orion81RN said:

Dangit my response got erased and I'm not putting it together that cohesively again, so here's the short of it. Never thought we'd REALLY have another modern civil war to where we'd be physically fighting each other like others have believed. But seeing lots of protesters with ridiculously over the top firearms and vests has made even me consider purchasing a gun AND conceal carry. But I have the forethought to not trust myself with my depression issues to own a gun. I do not have the faith that others have such perspective and insight, and think people who probably shouldn't own a gun will be purchasing them.

I'm not living in fear of it, but I am going "? *** might actually go down. Yikes."

It would certainly be nice if politicians were not encouraging the rebellion against the mitigation.

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Specializes in Primary care.

I am with you. It is such a divide in our country. I think the media plays a big factor in this. Who do we believe anymore? What even is the correct information/statistics? We have already witnessed several large news outlets apologizing for putting out skewed data and pictures on their broadcasts. We are living in scary times.

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7 minutes ago, realnurse13 said:

I am with you. It is such a divide in our country. I think the media plays a big factor in this. Who do we believe anymore? What even is the correct information/statistics? We have already witnessed several large news outlets apologizing for putting out skewed data and pictures on their broadcasts. We are living in scary times.

also one of the major networks, whose primary demographic is the highest risk population we have (older folks with medical conditions) was actively convincing their viewers it was all just another hoax - all the way up to about the 3rd week of March, iirc

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I do worry though about the civil unrest that would eventually result if society as a whole crumbles. The potential for violence and looting. I'm scared about that.

The economic unraveling is happening to almost everyone except the ultra rich 1%. Case in point, a Canadian socialite posted on her social media public account about how her husband gifted her with some crap from Hermès to help cheer her up about being confined to their mansion during the pandemic. It certainly looks really "horrible" how she has to resort to UberEats from high end restaurants and having to lower herself to doing online pilates instead of private pilates?‍♀️. People are literally dying, losing their jobs, losing their homes, starving, etc....Private Message me if you'd like to know who this filth, garbage human is.

A part of me would enjoy to see the scumbag 1% lose their fortunes. Let the vultures who pick off the bones of society feel the struggle... they're all currently looking for bailouts to maintain their comfortable standings. Disgusting.

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On 4/23/2020 at 5:47 PM, Emergent said:

And I just posted that it doesn't matter how it got here, it's here.

It does to me and I know I keep harping on the wet markets, but this is at least the THIRD lethal virus to come out of there and the most contagious by far, there is no reason to believe it is the last whatsoever. Even the Chinese government has finally at least tried to put some restrictions on the wet markets.

Therefore if we can't do a retrospective analysis to see what failed ranging from cancelled contracts to maintain the national stockpile of ventilators, to disregarding warnings from our own experts, to major weak links in our supply chain, than HOW ON EARTH are we prepared for the next round? If we can't even SAY the truth about the Administrations failings HOW does this happen?

That's my reasoning and while I don't want to speak for him or her, I believe it is also the motivation of toomuchbaloney, who is obviously well informed and well educated. After all if his or her objective was to merely fling poo at the President for partisan objectives, there are at least 100 other places s/he could be specifically intended for that sort of partisan ***.

sidebar: sorry for the "marathon" and I'm moving on for a while myself.

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I do think there will be "unrest". As in, people getting cabin fever, or protesting, or believing wild conspiracy theories.

Remember that Youtube has a ton of disinformation on it, and there are many many people who drink the Koolaid (and even on one channel someone shared out, pay him to give it to him).

That guy in particular kinda scares me, because his videos are 6+ hours long and people actually share them out thinking someone's going to watch. We already know that TV may make the brain more suggestible -- I didn't watch to see just how he was working his con (he looked stoned more than anything else as I skimmed the video to see the "slides" that ranged from 5G towers to naturally produced DMT -- raises another possibility of what drug he'd just come off of), but six hours of BS is apparently getting donations in the popular live stream so people are buying it.

Will society "break down"? I haven't seen it so far.

I do think we are going to have to deal with the segment of the population who is more afraid, for whatever reason, of government than they are of this virus.

For example, people are already saying "no mandatory vaccines". They're looking at movies like Contagion and saying that since bracelets can be forged there will be RFID chips in the vaccines (and vastly overestimating the range/power of chipping technology while they're at it, claiming it's going to "let them track you everywhere". Sure, everywhere there's an RFID card reader and yes that could be put in a database, but no, not by GPS! Heck, you already carry a GPS device on you, your cellular phone!

... sorry, had to get that rant out somewhere. ANYway....

There WILL be resistance to a vaccine the same way there is resistance to "mandatory testing" (when in reality we can't test *enough* people) -- and whether it's home antibody testing or nasal PCR swabs, some people will make it a conspiracy.

Also, churches cannot remain shuttered too long, or people will start going anyway. What can be done? Arrest the pastor? Megachurches have several, and he'd be a martyr. Arrest the congregants? Any unnecessary arrest potentially exposes essential personnel to COVID-19, and mass arrests would essentially turn what was already bad (people singing loudly, potentially spreading droplets much further as demonstrated by some of the church transmissions) into a real petri dish. (This goes for anti-lockdown protests, too -- dispersing a crowd is one thing, mass arrests are counterproductive.)

Supply chain strain/breakdown? That's what I'm seeing right now, and it's not just from people hoarding.

The people who grow/process food, reagents for testing, basic chemicals to make PPE, etc, are classified as "essential workers" like grocery store workers, etc, but we may not think about them in this, nor long-haul truckers -- who may be able to sleep in the back bunk and spend most of their time isolated, but have to touch gas pumps and use the restroom at least occasionally. People with CHLs will be harder to replace than grocery store workers, as will trained people in various factories making essential gear.

And not everyone in manufacturing can do what one company did -- keep everyone onsite for 28 days while making things, to keep them free of COVID-19.

One final thought, on that note. Prison workers (the way prisons get infected) don't want to live on-site, and that's what it's going to take to keep the virus out of prisons IMHO. Corrections officers do not want to feel like they're in prison themselves, but they too are hard to replace from the currently unemployed pool of workers. The potential results of short-staffing and angry/sick/frightened inmates scares me a great deal, particularly for our nurses in corrections.

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On 4/22/2020 at 9:45 AM, Nurse SMS said:

I went out for a walk last night. There were TONS of people on the street walking. People were smiling at one another. Waving.

Yea, same where I am..

On 4/22/2020 at 2:12 PM, Emergent said:

The hospitals in my region are really hurting since volumes are down because of this. I'm wondering if the whole system is really at risk.

I think this will change when they lift restrictions about who can/cannot be admitted during this pandemic.

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Specializes in Travel, Home Health, Med-Surg.
18 hours ago, HeartlandRN said:

Actually at least 70% of the US debt is American owned with the remaining approximately 30% foreign - with China and Japan at top followed by Ireland.

This easily verifiable on the US Treasury website or the Statistical Abstract of the United States.

30% of: https://usdebtclock.org looks like much to me!

70% US debt (that will be paid back by tax payers) also looks like much to me!

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5 hours ago, Daisy4RN said:

30% of: https://usdebtclock.org looks like much to me!

70% US debt (that will be paid back by tax payers) also looks like much to me!

Happens when you reduce your revenue intake and "only the little people pay taxes".

Also, not to get b/p up too high, but these numbers are before we just spent another 4 trillion sending Americans a 1200 check (which I was suspect more intended to lift the stock market in time for hedge funds to pull out than anything) and billions of dollars w/o oversight , and yesterday *** knows how much to bail out small businesses,...apparently like Ruth Chris and JPMorgan.Hope you weren't expecting Medicare in your retirement btw, because I'm sure the we-just-can't-afford-the-middleclass "entitlements" crowd will be marching the drumbeat louder and louder.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.

You can almost hear the drums now...like a bad jumanji

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8 minutes ago, toomuchbaloney said:

You can almost hear the drums now...like a bad jumanji 

Don't even get me started.

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