so.. we had plan to go on cruise this summer over in Europe. My family and another. We already purchased the airline tickets. I told my wife to hold off on the cruise tickets. If this does clear up soon... the cruise industry is likely to take a very big hit from all the people who booked cruises but who did not have to pay until this spring. I would also imagine similar issues are happening right now for all sorts of summer time activities all over.
Exactly, it has the capacity to overwhelm medical resources in an area, not even touching the economic stress you mentioned. Hospitals here in the US max out during peak flu season. This bug is twice as contagious, they will not be able to meet the onslaught of patients needs if we have an outbreak here, and we probably have the highest accessibility to doctors in the world. China has had some success in fighting this through huge draconian measures, big brother on steroids. I’m not sure Europe and especially the US are ready or willing to combat it in those terms. Hopefully as things warm up we will see a slowdown in transmission, that will give them time to get a vaccine in place before next cold/flu season.
I was talking to a friend who runs medical trials and she said that trumpvirus 19 has the possibility of becoming a "forever virus" like the influenza virus. Never being cleared and always coming back with slight mutations. She suggested that if a slightly lower mortality variant arises (in the more Goldilocks zone) we can expect this and influenza to take out a lot more people seasonally. Something to consider.
I once watched a cat plunged into boiling water alive and fight for a minute (even with it's eyes already cooked white) to survive. I would have broken the neck of the cook but she was about fourteen and I figured once started it had to finish as the cat had to die fast. Just it was not that fast. Kind of left a mark though I have a lot worse in my head. I know as bad or worse happens in the west just to other animals however I've never underestimated human indifference after that.