Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Insertnamehere]

@ceez

You have to be extra careful then. You might have caught swine flu back then though, I've heard it can cause similar symptoms (from a few people I know that caught it back in 2010).

I would not be surprised if some versions of these related coronaviruses have been roaming for a while though, as could be evidenced in Spain (apparently, haven't followed through with that bit of news).

MERS-CoV was certainly widespread in camels for at least a decade before it attacked these ungodly primates we call humans (this is from their probably primary source in horseshoe bats). At any given point many different viruses are probably making the species jump but are not all are set to go on full pandemic mode. Until they are set...then they spread.

On another topic, the case in the US you describe seems eerily similar to what has been done here. Many companies are stretching what it means essential and there is little to no incentive by the government to control this. The economy was elevated over lives and we are where we are. Of course the whole economy argument was stupid. If you let a novel virus spread with little to no control in a population, it will wreck havoc on the economy anyway because you'd be forced to bleed money into the health sector when it becomes stressed and you'd also be forced to take the same harsh lockdown measures you refused to do before, except they will last longer because you have an exponentially greater infection rate to overcome. It was nonsensic.