Hacker News Reader

Comment by blhack | Hacker News Reader

It's been a very difficult, helpless feeling watching this all happen. A lot of people were watching from afar what occurred in Wuhan, then saw it spread to SK, Japan, and eventually Italy. When Disney and Starbucks shut down in China it was extremely concerning, and when FoxConn shut down it was terrifying.

I've been telling my friends and family that they should be gathering extra food, medications, etc. if for no reason other than the coming supply chain disruptions. At first they laughed, but at this point they seem like they're actually mad at me, and in some senses blame me for the currently bare shelves in supermarkets. It sucks.

View on HN

I’ve been told I’m inciting panic just for dispassionately commenting on friends and acquaintances Facebook posts.

Because of the distrust in our government and institutions, people won’t believe anything until it’s way too late.

I’m also frustrated with the “happy talk” people, who think if we just stay positive, everything will be fine in the end.

I’ve must have explained a dozen times the difference between what happens when a virus has a mortality rate of 0.1% like the flu vs. Covid19 (on average) at 1–3%, which means it’s 10–30 times more deadly.

I was typing it so often that my iPhone was autocompleting chunks of my sentences!

I’ve already been invited to a less public discussion group on Facebook for people who get it and are sharing tips, strategies and information on getting through this.

I’m thinking about getting my cousins on a conference call to check where their heads are at.

I don't believe the gov't when officials say don't panic and it's just a cold. Then they or somebody close to them got it along with the wakeup call.

Same.There are people quite furious at me for having warned them in January when this was just a Chinese blip on their screens. I have fallen out with colleagues over nothing more than taking banal, sensible precautions which don't harm anyone. Eyes are rolled, I am a hysteric. That's going on even now, after my country has gone on unprecedented lockdown. (I am in Denmark, public sector shut down, borders closing today at noon).

Same here. Tried to alert people in Italy. Laughed at me. Now mad at me.

The human mind is indeed fascinating.

Still if only one person was saved because of this, it was worth it.

It's the same from me. I've been trying to talk people into worrying & caring about this for the past 3 weeks in my social group. From the standard "This is just a flu" to the brainless "I don't share your opinion" to now people not caring because they are not in the age bracket that gets affected the most.

We're at "just" 2 deaths and slightly over 30 confirmed cases, but we had the gates open for way too long and just this week people coming from Europe is "asked" to quarantine themselves, but the government doesn't want to suspend classes.

The feeling I have is like being tied to the railway line and watching the train coming around the bend.

Nobody has started to blame me for the situation, but plenty laughed at me at the time when I tried to warn them what is coming. They have stopped laughing.

Yes. I sometimes feel like the Sarah Conner character in Terminator 2, telling friends and family about judgement day and being derided.

The problem is probably that they lumped you up with all the doomsday predictors.

I have a certain friend who, for years, have been trying to tell everyone that normal food is bad and imported "superfoods" are the way to go.

Same goes for scaremongering of every other kind. I feel for everyone who warned about the corona virus in January there are 5 or 10 who warned about everything else which turns out to be a significantly smaller problem.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com