Today COVID-19 Hit Close To Home

Stan Cooper

Stan Cooper

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Stan Cooper
This evening I received word that my friend, Dale Alan Fiala, a retired Continental Airlines captain, age 72, died from COVID-19 infection. He had been hospitalized at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs for a little over a week in ICU and on a ventilator in an induced coma. In retirement, Dale flew as first officer in another friend's Dassault Falcon right up until his hospitalization. He was the picture of health for the twenty years I knew him.

This is personally devastating. Dale was a good man. R.I.P.

Damn. Stay safe everybody.
 
Very sorry to read this and condolences to you, the deceased friends and family. Many of us on POA are over sixty, consider ourselves in perfect health, and think we are bullet-proof to this virus. But there is something with Covid-19 that puts our age group at risk, even without pre-existing medical circumstances. Again, everyone be smart.
 
Very sorry for your loss, Stan. I'm sure many of us will lose someone we know to this epidemic.
 
My condolences Stan.
 
Very sorry to hear. I'm afraid this thing is going to touch each of us personally before its over.
 
Thanks, all. We had a "heads up" a few days ago, so it wasn't a big surprise. We had all hoped for the best, but it wasn't to be. It has affected me more than I thought it would.
 
My condolences... hang in there.
 
Very sorry to hear this.
I'm afraid, given the spread of this thing and the age of many of us on these boards, this won't be the last of these messages.
 
My condolences, Stan.

I do suspect that by the time this is over that we will all personally know someone who dies from it, or at most no more removed than a friend/family member of a friend/family member.
 
Stan Cooper said:
This evening I received word that my friend, Dale Alan Fiala, a retired Continental Airlines captain, age 72, died from COVID-19 infection. He had been hospitalized at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs for a little over a week in ICU and on a ventilator in an induced coma. In retirement, Dale flew as first officer in another friend's Dassault Falcon right up until his hospitalization. He was the picture of health for the twenty years I knew him.

This is personally devastating. Dale was a good man. R.I.P.

Damn. Stay safe everybody.
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Hello Stan, my name is Oliver Green and I'm a student studying Journalism at Northeastern Univerity. For my final assignment, I am writing an obituary on someone who has died of COVID-19 in order to humanize the death toll of the pandemic and to celebrate the life of the deceased. Through a mutual connection, I was put in contact with Jim Gabbert who I interviewed about Dale last night. I would like to interview you as well about Dale if you'd be willing.
 
Oliver Green said:
Hello Stan, my name is Oliver Green and I'm a student studying Journalism at Northeastern Univerity. For my final assignment, I am writing an obituary on someone who has died of COVID-19 in order to humanize the death toll of the pandemic and to celebrate the life of the deceased. Through a mutual connection, I was put in contact with Jim Gabbert who I interviewed about Dale last night. I would like to interview you as well about Dale if you'd be willing.
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PM sent, Oliver.
 
I am sorry for your loss. This is hitting close to home for over a quarter million Americans.
 
Sorry for you loss Stan.

Pilawt said:
Arizona has comparatively few cases, but we learned a couple of days ago that one of the residents in our 149-unit condo building tested positive ...
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Be careful. Arizona is number 18 on the list of states for average daily cases, averaging 77.7 cases per day. As I've posted before, the numbers are scary if you're over 60. Over 70 and over 80 get really scary.

Arizona deaths:
<20y - 11
20-44 379
45-54 468
55-64 1094
65+ 5018
 
I was in my oncologist's office yesterday for a checkup (all good :) ). Y'know how doctors' waiting rooms have TV screens that blare nothing but corny medical-related public service announcements over and over and over and over?

I did a double-take when a series of slides came on the screen, all with the logo and imprimatur of our exalted CDC. One said, "Consult your doctor if you have recently visited China and are experiencing respiratory symptoms." The next, "Maintain six feet distance from anyone who has recently visited China and is experiencing respiratory symptoms." And the clincher, "There is very little likelihood of contracting COVID-19 in the United States."

How quaint. :rolleyes:
 
Pilawt said:
I was in my oncologist's office yesterday for a checkup (all good :) ). Y'know how doctors' waiting rooms have TV screens that blare nothing but corny medical-related public service announcements over and over and over and over?

I did a double-take when a series of slides came on the screen, all with the logo and imprimatur of our exalted CDC. One said, "Consult your doctor if you have recently visited China and are experiencing respiratory symptoms." The next, "Maintain six feet distance from anyone who has recently visited China and is experiencing respiratory symptoms." And the clincher, "There is very little likelihood of contracting COVID-19 in the United States."

How quaint. :rolleyes:
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Indeed :rolleyes:
 
I'm an AZ old guy. (82) We've got it in the airpark and in our little community. My wife is 80 with heart problems.
We're hunkered down staying clear of everybody. Yet here in the airpark Happy Hour continues and in town, VFW Bingo is packed.
 
pmanton said:
I'm an AZ old guy. (82) We've got it in the airpark and in our little community. My wife is 80 with heart problems.
We're hunkered down staying clear of everybody. Yet here in the airpark Happy Hour continues and in town, VFW Bingo is packed.
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Yup. Sorry to hear it. But we didn't get to 300,000 dead americans by taking common sense precautions. :-(

Stay safe...
 
Pilawt said:
I was in my oncologist's office yesterday for a checkup (all good :) ). Y'know how doctors' waiting rooms have TV screens that blare nothing but corny medical-related public service announcements over and over and over and over?

I did a double-take when a series of slides came on the screen, all with the logo and imprimatur of our exalted CDC. One said, "Consult your doctor if you have recently visited China and are experiencing respiratory symptoms." The next, "Maintain six feet distance from anyone who has recently visited China and is experiencing respiratory symptoms." And the clincher, "There is very little likelihood of contracting COVID-19 in the United States."

How quaint. :rolleyes:
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So they were still running public service announcements from back in Feb? That's not bad. I'll bet the magazines in the waiting room were several years older still.
 
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Sorry to hear this Stan, sorry for your loss. There are a lot of conflicting reports on this disease, but stories like yours should hit home for everyone. Wear a mask in public and work to reduce your exposure to people. Pray that these vaccines work.
 
Thanks for the condolences, all. Dale died in March, so he was an early casualty. Since I'm 78 and at high risk of croaking if I get infected, Dale's death was a wake-up call; I have been extremely careful to practice all of the CDC guidelines for the past nine months. Since I'm retired, it hasn't been but a minor inconvenience. I really feel for those who are losing their jobs and incomes, and can't afford to pay the rent or mortgage and buy food to eat. Health care workers and others who risk their own health by going to work every day are heroes.
 
Pilawt said:
Condolences, Stan.

Arizona has comparatively few cases, but we learned a couple of days ago that one of the residents in our 149-unit condo building tested positive ...
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380,000 cases is "relatively few"? Compared to what?

You must be watching Fox NEWS...
 
172andyou said:
Yup. Sorry to hear it. But we didn't get to 300,000 dead americans by taking common sense precautions. :-(

Stay safe...
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Wasn’t anything common sense available. Even the “experts” still haven’t learned to say “I don’t know” when they don’t.

Lndwarrior said:
380,000 cases is "relatively few"? Compared to what?

You must be watching Fox NEWS...
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Actually it is when compared to a population of 340M. 1% death rate is still 3.4M. Nothing has materially changed yet to change that number.

Some things are closer. But the number hasn’t changed yet.

And it’s still 4X lower than initial linear estimates after “curve stopping”.

People really haven’t gotten the scale of the numbers into their collective psyches yet.

If the WORLD gets out of this at 1% fatality rate overall, we got LUCKY because we completely missed something VERY positive in the estimates and math.

And that’s smoothing it over vastly different geography and population densities. We already know it doesn’t work that way. We also flat out know now that even in the most heavy behavior change locations, that death rate isn’t varying by a very significant margin. It’s just keeping it linear instead of exponential.

Linear growth continues until a peak and reversal until it’s over... 300K is barely into “statistically significant” depending on error margin. Thankfully “deaths” doesn’t have much of an error margin. “Cases” has a large enough error margin to make it barely useable as a metric.

At least we’re seeing more folks who have made that jump to the final grief stage about these numbers and have decided to personally adapt as needed... instead of being stuck at the earlier stages of emotions.

Less and less people stuck thinking modern medicine has answers for everything with a pill.

Seven degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Apply it to this and you’ll know how small the world is and who’s going to know someone killed. This math isn’t that hard, unfortunately.

Nature wants a little rampage. We humans will make only marginal dents in it.

Storm’s a’blowin’.
 
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