Please Remove Housing Timers During the Covid-19 Epidemic

[Packetdancer]

COVID-19 has roughly 10x the average case fatality rate that influenza does, at least based on the known numbers. (Based on unreported cases or things that were diagnosed as unrelated respiratory deaths, that could be higher or lower; some medical sources estimate 20-30x the case fatality rate.) Now, the thing is that the flu has an average case fatality rate of around 0.1%, which would make COVID-19 have a 1% average case fatality rate (and potentially as high as 2 or 3%). That seems low, but it's still phenomenally high for something that transmits this easily. This case fatality rate is skewed by how deadly it is to older patients, though. Folks in their 20's have a case fatality rate of 0.09% (about the same as the flu's average), those in their 30's have a case fatality rate of 0.18%—slightly more than the flu's average, but still not much—and folks in their 40's have one of about 0.4% (so about fours time more likely than the average flu case fatality). But it spikes quickly; 60-69 are 4.6%, 70-79 are 9.8%, and 80+ is a frighteningly high 18%.

The reasons for isolation and quarantine aren't that a younger person might die—though if you have a condition like asthma, your chances of it being serious go way up—but that you could get it and either be asymptomatic (never even know you caught it) or have a mild case, and pass it along to someone else. Including parents, grandparents, mentors, etc. A barista at a Starbucks downtown here in Seattle tested positive; they were apparently not seriously sick, but before they knew they had it, they'd spent however long handling people's cups. Tamping down the travel lid that people sip through. Etc. This is why folks are being urged to stay home, and why even those who aren't being given the time off are often isolating if they have parents or grandparents they might transfer it to, especially if those older folks have any existing autoimmune or respiratory issues. Would you want to be potentially responsible for accidentally killing your parent or grandparent?

The problem is, with folks being sent home and some stores/shops being closed if it's confirmed someone there had a case of it, not everyone can work from home. And not everyone is salaried. Folks on hourly wages are simultaneously being put in a position where a) each time you venture out to get groceries there's a chance of infection and then transmission to others, so it's sensible to buy as much as you can all at once rather than spreading the expense out, and b) their money is now going to be tight as it is because as an hourly worker, if they aren't working hours, they aren't getting money.

Traditionally, SquareEnix has paused the demolition timers when there's massive disruption to internet infrastructure and so players are not guaranteed to be able to log in in order to reset the housing timers. That doesn't apply here, but there's still the potential for massive economic disruption for some of their playerbase, and I can well imagine a number of people will have to cancel/pause their subscriptions as a result of this when money gets tight. Which will, of course, make it so they can't log in to reset the housing timer; if they have to cancel the sub for even just 2 months, that's a guarantee the house will be gone when they get back.

It honestly does make sense for them to pause the housing timer here; otherwise, I imagine it feels like a punitive "insult to injury" scenario to anyone affected in that way.

[RitsukoSonoda]

You people realize the Corona virus is essentially just a variant of influenza. Some studies so far have even given indications that normal influenza is actually more life threatening. The thing that's making everyone lose their bloody minds is that they can't just go to the nearest pharmacy and buy a placebo vaccination for it. At this point there's likely been countless undocumented cases of people catching the virus and recovering from it without even realizing they had it in the first place. Given the statistics of how it's able to spread all these quarantine measures and isolation being put in place now are too little too late. It might have worked if it had been exercised when it was first found in a small area of China. However at this point now these "containment measures" are doing nothing but fueling the paranoia contributing to the stupidity that results from mass mob mentality. I've been exposed to far more threatening things in my life that didn't generate near as much panic even in the community it occurred at and a few of these things actually disqualify me as a blood/organ/tissue donor after recovering from them. If you're of that 10-15% that is normally at high risk for severe or fatal health complications from influenza then I can see wanting to go out of your way to avoid it. However the rest of the world should still be operating as normal rather than behaving like this is the zombie apocalypse.

[ToniRomo]

Most people who get it will just get flu symptoms or not even notice. It’s mostly really bad for the elderly who have bad immune systems. I don’t see this as stopping people from logging in once every 45 days. And if it is you got bigger problems then your virtual house.

[Mixt]

From what i understand, if you catch it you have about an 80% chance of only mild symptoms, or wholly asymptomatic (But still able to infect others)

The other 20%? Not so lucky, intensive care is needed.

And when one in five infected need hospitalization? That will easily overload the medical system, it's just not built to handle that many people in need of threatment at the same time.
Which leads to disaster.

Those in most danger are the elderly, smokers, asthmatics, diabetics or immuno-compromised individuals. If you fit one of those categories then the risk of being one of those one in five who get utterly wrecked by the virus goes up dramatically.

Total death ratio of infected appears to be around 2% on average, though it appears to vary by country, going as low as 0,5% in some places and as high as 5% in others. Final numbers are still up in the air obviously as it is still in progress, but that seems to be the ratio so far.

This is with hospital care by the way. Overload the hospitals with more patients than they are able to deal with? Nooooooot good. Gotta slow the spread. Quarantine everything, avoid any non-mandatory contact with other people, wash your goddamn hands!

As for it being "Just a flu"? So was the Spanish Flu, and look how that turned out.

"But we have much more advanced technology than back then!"

Yes, and the population is also much larger and the world much more interconnected, which is kind of a bad thing when there's a extremely contagious disease on the loose. Makes it a whole lot easier for it to spread, which can end up cancelling out any tech advantages we would have had through sheer infected body count. Which brings us back to the need for quarantine to throttle the spread.

It's not the end of the world, but it's still going to hurt, don't go making it worse.

[HeyMcFly]

This is officially a pandemic now. Google it. We should all be concerned. This isn't just some random death in the family.

Right, because a death in the family (I didn't say random, not sure why you'd add that.) is so mundane compared to an over blown virus that hasn't killed more than the Flu, Ebola or Tuberculosis. You hear of the deaths of Covid- but not all the people who have already gotten over it.
The bonus thing that will happen is it will free up housing slots

[Packetdancer]

And when one in five infected need hospitalization? That will easily overload the medical system, it's just not built to handle that many people in need of threatment at the same time. Which leads to disaster.

Seattle's medical infrastructure is already showing cracks; existing services unrelated to COVID-19 (like my mother's cancer treatments) have been disrupted. Even within the COVID-19 outbreak, people can't get tested; I've been exposed and have flu-like symptoms, and I'd love to be able to get tested so I know whether I have COVID-19 or whether I have a normal flu. More specifically, if I'm going to potentially spread it to others if I leave my house to, I dunno, pick up a bottle of Tylenol Cold and Flu or whatever, or if it'll be okay just putting on a face mask to avoid coughing on anyone and heading to the drugstore like one might with normal flu. Unfortunately there's a shortage of tests, and as my symptoms are minor—the fever's gone, all I'm left with is aches/fatigue and a cough I can't shake—I'm unable to get tested. If it were the flu, vaccines and herd immunity mean that a trip to the drugstore is unlikely to have major ripple effects; there's no such guarantee with COVID-19 yet.

So without that information, my choices are "do I go about life and still run errands, potentially exposing the elderly and immunocompromised to COVID-19 if that is what I have, or do I quarantine myself to avoid potentially exposing others?" I've gone with the latter, personally, because I would prefer not to be the one who ends up contributing unwittingly to the death of someone's parent or grandparent.

Thankfully, Seattle has Amazon Fresh... though how long the delivery drivers want to keep this up, even just leaving things on people's porch, is anyone's guess. At least I got my cough syrup?

[Kewitt]

Quarantined to the house so you can't play FFXIV? come again, please.

Also, people are very very much overreacting about this.
It is here, you will likely get it.
If you aren't a smoker and old or have a compromised immunize system you are very likely going to live through it.

The number of phone calls I got today ask will our bussiness phones who if we take them home can we rent 10 laptops and setup remote access for our admin staff was crazy.

It made me think of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA_CndlBu0g

[Packetdancer]

Quarantined to the house so you can't play FFXIV? come again, please.

I think the concern for some folks is less "I am quarantined at home, which means I cannot play FFXIV", and more "I am quarantined at home, which means I cannot go to work, which means I do not get paid, which means I cannot afford my subscription next month, which means I cannot play FFXIV."

It is here, you will likely get it. If you aren't a smoker and old or have a compromised immunize system you are very likely going to live through it.

These are both true. The problem is that it transmits frighteningly easily (see: "you will likely get it"). The fact that people are so dismissive of it does not help that transmission rate go down.

So you get it, but you don't get seriously sick. Yay! Clearly it was no big deal, right?

But maybe you have a grandparent who you pass it on to before you even knew you had it. Maybe you have a friend who is a smoker, and you pass it on to them before even knowing you're sick yet. Maybe you have no grandparents or friends who are smokers, but you pass it on unknowingly to a friend who does, and now their grandparent or their brother who smokes or whoever gets very sick. And I imagine to those affected by those deaths, it seemed a pretty big deal.

That Starbucks barista here in Seattle who got a positive diagnosis? How many drinks do you think they served before they even knew they were sick? How many lids did they put on coffee cups, which people then sipped from as they hurried on to work? How many people got sick from that one point of transmission? If they'd not cancelled Emerald City ComicCon, how many people would've come here to Seattle to attend, and then gone to restaurants—or a Starbucks!—where someone else was unknowingly sick? Sure, young attendees... probably no risk to them. So they catch it and they'll be fine. But they take it home to Montana or wherever else, and now someone else there gets it, and then—for instance—an employee at a nursing home, who then heads to work... After all, it has an incubation period of about two weeks. Meaning if you catch it, that's about 14 days where you could be spreading it to folks you interact with before you even start to think you might be sick.

This is why "social distancing" is important. Not because you might die, per se, but because you might spread it onwards in a ripple effect, helping to spread it to others who are high risk.

If you're judging only by your own health, yes, this won't be too serious for most folks below a certain age.

[Nedkel]

Without having done in-depth reading (I don't have time to research right now) I was going from what I read this morning.

https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-...tions/12042318



As I understand it, the normal flu (also a coronavirus) can have similarly severe effects, we just have more immunity and vaccines.

Perhaps the rate of severe cases is different. As I said, do your research but from reliable sources.

First of all, ABC news is not reliable or trustworthy source of information, first better article i found and they already spreading fake news regarding that Italian lady, which died from seizure not from coronavirus https://bestpractice.bmj.com/topics/en-us/3000168
Sars-cov-2 is not your regular influenza virus, humans never had a contact with this kind of disease before our immune system does not have any antibodies to fight with it, hence why most of people develops more than 2 symptom and big part of them gets pneumonia which is dangerous on its own.
Your regular Flu is caused by coronaviruses but only in 10% of total cases and those coronaviruses are different kind, coronaviruses is just a name for family of viruses which has protein spikes on their surface. Your normal influenza type of flu does not affect as big % of patients with complications such as sarscov2, in fact according to this study
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2002032
16% from all cases had a serious illness including pneumonia, arythmia, kidney failure, respiratory failure, septic shock etc.
Do you want to know how big % of people having flu need a professional medical care? 1.3%
This virus we are talking about is far more deadly and we already have 3 mutations from which 1 is even deadlier than one china experienced and is right now in italy.
I follow this disease since january, the scale of disaster that is going to happen is waaay above our public health care capacity.

[Iscah]

These are both true. The problem is that it transmits frighteningly easily (see: "you will likely get it"). The fact that people are so dismissive of it does not help that transmission rate go down.

[...]

If you're judging only by your own health, yes, this won't be too serious for most folks below a certain age.

I think this debate is trying to be two different arguments at once.

Yes, it is a potentially serious disease.

But the question here is whether they would pause the housing timer as a result - and the criteria established by previous "pauses for disaster" have been things that impact everyone in a region in a way that would mean the majority of players are unable to log into the game for an extended period.

I don't believe the virus fulfils that state.

It could get worse, of course. But let them make that decision to suspend the timer if and when a considerable amount of the population is severely affected, not on the speculation that it might.


Also I'm not meaning to be dismissive of the disease itself, but if you're not actually sick then I think a lot of people just aren't able to worry about it exactly because it's too vague and you can't account for every single person you come into contact with during your day. You can be sensible - wash your hands, keep away from people who are obviously sick and avoid doing optional activities that put you near a lot of people... but if you're not personally sick and unless either your employer or the government chooses to bring things to a halt, you still have to turn up for work. That can mean crowded trains, busy streets, offices full of people, talking to co-workers, making a cup of tea with the same hot-water tap and milk bottle that everyone else has handled... you can't hope to avoid it unless you wipe down everything every minute of every day. Sooner or later you'll forget - or someone who isn't showing symptoms yet will breathe on you.

(Edit: I got kind of ranty here. Paranoia/frustration really because... well, where do you stop fretting if everything you touch could have been handled by someone who has it? And my workplace hasn't even put soap in the kitchen.)

First of all, ABC news is not reliable or trustworthy source of information

"ABC" here is the Australian Broadcasting Commission, our public broadcaster, not a commercial station.