Visiting audio stores?

I agree you have to be cautious , this  virus is by far worse for the elderly 
Orr people with health issues,the young have been mainly ok .
what people don’t realize is over 35,000 people died from the flu in the US last year but nobody gave it a second thought , and I doubt very much ,that  it will come close to that ,mainly because our country has been dry  pro active since Jan putting a ban on travel  and getting high precautions involved.

@geoffkait call your Friends in Europe and see how real it isn’t. Ask them about the hospital beds in the bunkers and in the hallways ask him about the people falling like dominoes. This is definitely serious. It’s that kind of cavalier attitude that ends up getting people sick.  Just wait till the kids get home from spring break..... 

There was, not a group exactly but a cohort, a number of otherwise unrelated people who had but one thing in common, an utter and complete inability to comprehend. Anything.

There ya go, that sums up this administration in a nutshell.

Perhaps our most significant conclusion is that mitigation is unlikely to be feasible without emergency surge capacity limits of the UK and US healthcare systems being exceeded many times over. In the most effective mitigation strategy examined, which leads to a single, relatively short epidemic (case isolation, household quarantine and social distancing of the elderly), the surge limits for both general ward and ICU beds would be exceeded by at least 8-fold under the more optimistic scenario for critical care requirements that we examined.In addition, even if all patients were able to be treated, we predict there would still be in the order of 250,000 deaths in GB, and 1.1-1.2 million in the US.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College...

And yet Carl Sagan in his novel Contact was going to have Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster in the movie) reach Vega via a black hole until Kip Thorne later of LIGO fame disabused him of that idea and suggested a worm hole instead. Hel-loo!

One day back in the late 70’s one of my astronomy club pals said hey did you hear? Carl Sagan giving a talk at the UW! When? Tonight! So we all piled in the car and drove from Puyallup to Seattle, making it in just before the monster hall completely filled up.

Sagan gave his then standard talk about the number of intelligent civilizations in the galaxy. Nobody really knows of course. The probability, I mean. Turns out its a gag: How many? One. Maybe. Hung jury. The talk was mostly a run-down on things like how many stars, how many of those with planets, how long the stars last based on mass and the rate fusion turns hydrogen to helium, just the kind of thing your way above average geeky teen has studied to death and yet still goes ga ga over.

Little did we know however the best part was the QA. Mostly the questions were pretty standard stuff. But a few grad students had some impressive if hard to follow ones, even a few that seemed almost impossible to answer. Incredibly, one after another he not only answered them all but in a way that enlightened everyone including the questioner. By enlightened I mean even if you didn’t understand the question to begin with you did by the end, and you understood why the answer was correct as well.

Well, with one exception. There was, not a group exactly but a cohort, a number of otherwise unrelated people who had but one thing in common, an utter and complete inability to comprehend. Anything. Quite a few different people but yet they all sounded exactly the same. No matter how eloquent the answer, or how pointed the barb, it was like water on a duck.

Yes, Millercarbon, that is a model/projection number that uses the base input of “no effort to stop the spread”. The model is a worst case scenario that we are long past with our social distancing and other efforts already being implemented.  Please do not project information that is hysterical and outdated as current fact.  Out goal is to make the rate of the ongoing spread of this corona virus manageable by our health providers and facilities.  To this end we should conscientiously place ourselves in our system’s sweet spot and play music.  Possibly add some medicinal wine or spirits for good measure.

Two months ago this nut was posting links to conspiracy theory sites where this was a " manufactured virus". I think we, that is people who listen to scientist 
knew what could happen when this first popped up in China. If we,  that is us who listen to scientist would have sent experts to China like we did in Africa a number of years ago and tried to stop this there we wouldn't be in this mess but of course we, including us who listen to scientists are  at the mercy of dingbats who listen to conspiracy theories and don't give a flat f@#$ about science thought it was a good idea to do away with science and all that uppity elite stuff the black president started. 

Yeah, I'm kinda sorry I started this thread. I'm not making light of anything. I'm sheltering in place, too. Just thought I'd open it up, especially about the impact on the dealers and manufacturers. All the other stuff is almost 90% of what I read, every day. I go to audiogon to take a break.

Multi-trillion dollar stimulus package....looks like their feeling the Bern!!

Calm down, millercarbon. The dire predictions were for the case when nothing was done to stop the spread of the virus. I.e., flatten the curve. The problem is a steep curve of virus cases will lead to overwhelming the health system. Flattening the curve will spread the number of cases over a longer time period, which the health system can handle. That’s why there was such a big response here and Europe and elsewhere over the weekend and today.  As of today there is no change in the slope of the curve for the US. It will take time for the new order to get traction. 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

I am 71, in good health. My wife and I are not leaving home, except to take a daily walk or visit a park, and to get groceries every 10 days or so. I do not wish to be on a ventilator, and now I've assembled a great system, I'd like to live to enjoy it.

The danger is very real, and serious. The reason we just saw a comprehensive multi-trillion dollar stimulus package is this paper by epidemiologist Dr Neil Ferguson and published today by the Imperial College of London showing that merely acting to slow rather than completely stop the spread would "still likely result in hundreds of thousands of deaths and health systems (most notably intensive care units) being overwhelmed many times over." https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College...

In other words exactly what I been saying for two solid months, only now its a prestigious epidemiologist reporting to the White House.

Their projection is for 2.2M (yes, million) deaths in the US.

That said, the Wuhan virus is spread not by speakers but by, uh, speakers. When you talk, or even breathe, it comes out in your breath. If you are infected. Which you must at this point assume that you are, and everyone else as well. Also assume every surface in the area of breathing people is contaminated, since moist breath and particles tend to drift and eventually settle on surfaces.

Wearing a mask interferes with this process. Virus that gets caught in the mask is virus not being deposited on surfaces. So avoid people, especially people so clueless or inconsiderate as to not be masked. Avoid touching surfaces anywhere anyone has been, because they could be contaminated. Above all wash and sanitize your hands like crazy and especially before eating or touching your face.

Do those things, maintain a distance of a good 6 feet, and there’s no reason not to go audition some gear. If that still somehow manages to be so important.

Regarding Covid-19, my main concern is not so much a personal life-threatening illness, but the potential of its consequences surmounting health-care capabilities. 

A spike of folks needing hospitalization that they may not be able to easily, or timely receive, is a definite concern.  Especially when dealing with an-until-now, unknown viral agent. 

We never know when we may need hospitalization & equipment for the Corona virus or the seasonal flu, or for other life-threatening illnesses.  Hence, the recent steps taken by federal, state and local governments in the U.S. to flatten the Covid-19 outbreak curve.

It's good to know that ~80% of the people afflicted with Covid-19 will ostensibly not need specialized care.  But if +/- 20% of people needing medical intervention were to present en masse (so to speak), things could get bad for everyone needing specialized care, very quick indeed.   

The ironic fact that Covid-19 depicts is:  that ~40,000 to 60,000 yearly fatalities are related to the seasonal flu in the U.S.  The news media as sensational as it is geared, doesn't dwell or specifically focus on this striking figure -- the fatalities have simply become "expected".  And with the exception of the annual flu vaccine and the admonition to wash hands et al, the CDC, federal and state government's have never taken the draconian steps that are now being done for Covid-19. 

So, the devil is in the details of leveling-off the outbreak frequency numbers.  Which theoretically will allow the healthcare professionals to handle the influx of those needing hospital/ICU care.  Time will tell whether these steps were sufficient, or in fact, even warranted.  But until that time, to err towards complacency as opposed to action, would seem to be a dubious and even incorrect direction to take.    
    

I'm in Santa Clara county, California and the shelter in place order applies to us. So we aren't holding auditions or going out to visit anyone. But we're still available via our other normal means of communication like email and phone, and we're also doing video calls. So far, shipping companies are still operating as normal and we can still ship things out.

I was at my dealer last Friday getting my preamp re-tubed, imagine being on lockdown with no tunes! Just the store manager was there the owner and another employee out doing a custom install. I ended up spending 3 hours there as my 9 preamp tubes were tested and 6 matching replacements were found, and he answered the phone and dealt with 2 other customers. It was honestly a pleasant distraction.

It will impact all business’.  This will be interesting how this all plays out.  Distance yourself from the public.

This is a good time to be an Audiophile!  Social distancing should come naturally to you, lol, and getting lost in music is most of the time a solo event.

I’m stocked up on good food and “supplies”, good music and good gear.  My other hobby, Mountain Biking, is still another activity I can do safely and away from others.

While I am not saying this is not a serious issue as it is, but I think there are times when people tend to over react.

I would think that there is more to life than visiting an audio store and listening to gear or even purchasing something at this time

I can never understand why members think that the world is going to come to an end if they don’t do something audio related everyday.

stay in your house where you are safe and when this clears then you can visit your audio stores again