"Coronavirus and the US" or "We are all going to die!!!!"

[southernhybrid]

Oh no! Not dogs too!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2020/03/05/coronavirus-dogs-cats/

A pet dog in Hong Kong has a “low-level” infection of the coronavirus that causes covid-19 in people, in what may be the first known human-to-animal transmission of the novel coronavirus that has sickened more than 90,000 people worldwide.
The case has raised the specter that dogs might be swept into the epidemic, which, even now, public health officials say does not appear to infect or be spread by pets. But experts say much remains unknown about the dog’s infection, including whether it causes disease in dogs, and they emphasized the lone case is not yet cause for alarm or reassessments about interactions with pets.
The dog is owned by a person who was hospitalized with covid-19, and it has been quarantined since Feb. 26, according to Hong Kong’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department. The department said last week that the dog’s “weak positive” test results, from nasal and oral swabs, might have been the result of “environmental contamination,” not infection. But positive tests since then suggest the dog does have a low-level of infection, the department said Wednesday. The animal has shown no symptoms, and a second dog under quarantine in the same facility has tested negative for the virus, the department said.

That's it. I'm making my dogs do a 20 second paw scrub whenever they go outside.

On a more serious note, it's going to be impossible to do all the things that are suggested. I just went out for lunch. The restaurant is usually packed at 12, but today it was half as busy as usual. I washed my hands before and after I ate. I used a napkin when I needed to touch my face. I used a paper towel to open the rest room door and turn off the water faucet handles. I'd be happy to just hibernate inside, other than when we need groceries. I do feel bad for the local restaurant owners and staff if people are going to stop eating meals out.

I have long already used the paper towel technique at public restrooms, but now I'm considering not eating out at all anymore. Maybe I'm panicking, though I will still let my dog deep kiss me.

I'm starting to feel the same way. We ate out for lunch yesterday and the place where we went is usually packed, but it was less than half full. My neighbor is taking. us out to lunch today as thanks for all the things we do for her. The place where we're going is never crowded, so hopefully, nobody will breathe on us. I'm not really worried about myself, but my husband has mild asthma, and men seem to be getting much sicker than women who get the virus.

I might stop eating out after this weekend. My dogs can always kiss me, but no tongues. I always tell them, no tongues.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I might stop eating out after this weekend. My dogs can always kiss me, but no tongues. I always tell them, no tongues.

Mine goes straight for the mouth every time. Bitch!

 

[barbos]

Italy has overcome China in per capita deaths

 

[barbos]

Dead 3,600
Infected 106,211

 

[skepticalbip]

Dead 3,600
Infected 106,211

I googled "number of flu deaths this year" and found this:

CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 34 million flu illnesses, 350,000 hospitalizations and 20,000 deaths from flu.

It seems to me that the media have excessively hyped this new virus without comparing it to the typical flu to give it some perspective and have created a panic.

 

[barbos]

Dead 3,600
Infected 106,211

I googled "number of flu deaths this year" and found this:

CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 34 million flu illnesses, 350,000 hospitalizations and 20,000 deaths from flu.

It seems to me that the media have excessively hyped this new virus without comparing it to the typical flu to give it some perspective and have created a panic.

Scientists quietly see a best-case scenario of tens of thousands of deaths; 10 million over two years is the worst case

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-ma...rus-epidemiologists-model-answers-11583538443

 

[skepticalbip]

Media hype maybe? I didn't see that media source cite the source where these "scientists" made the claim. The CDC is an actual medical group that gave the flu statistics.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I googled "number of flu deaths this year" and found this:


It seems to me that the media have excessively hyped this new virus without comparing it to the typical flu to give it some perspective and have created a panic.

Scientists quietly see a best-case scenario of tens of thousands of deaths; 10 million over two years is the worst case

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-ma...rus-epidemiologists-model-answers-11583538443

https://www.who.int/news-room/detai...ory-diseases-linked-to-seasonal-flu-each-year

Flu lowest estimate is about 250000.

 

[barbos]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-ma...rus-epidemiologists-model-answers-11583538443

https://www.who.int/news-room/detai...ory-diseases-linked-to-seasonal-flu-each-year

Flu lowest estimate is about 250000.

It's less than 10mil estimate for Covid-19

 

[skepticalbip]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-ma...rus-epidemiologists-model-answers-11583538443

https://www.who.int/news-room/detai...ory-diseases-linked-to-seasonal-flu-each-year

Flu lowest estimate is about 250000.

It's less than 10mil estimate for Covid-19

I still have to ask if this 10mil isn't media hype. I am leery of blank claims that some unspecified "scientist" said so. "Undisclosed sources" is a piss poor authority to rely on.

Covid-19 should be a concern but when compared to a known death rate of a half million flu deaths/year the question of comparatively how much more we should be concerned with flu has to come up.

Seasonal flu kills 291,000 to 646,000 people worldwide each year, according to a new estimate that's higher than the previous one of 250,000 to 500,000 deaths a year. The new figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other groups were published Dec. 13 in The Lancet medical journal.

 

[lpetrich]

COVID-19 can easily spread. Many people can carry it while having only mild symptoms or none at all. Sort of like "Typhoid Mary". Meaning that large numbers of people can become Coronavirus Carries and Garies. Humanity's population is currently 7.8 billion, and 2% of that is 136 million people.

 

[bilby]

COVID-19 can easily spread. Many people can carry it while having only mild symptoms or none at all. Sort of like "Typhoid Mary". Meaning that large numbers of people can become Coronavirus Carries and Garies. Humanity's population is currently 7.8 billion, and 2% of that is 136 million people.

But if there are a very large number of "silent" infections, then the mortality rate is FAR lower than current estimates.

My suspicion is that vast numbers of people have already got this disease, and are experiencing so few symptoms that they are completely unaware of it. The mortality rate being reported is the rate for only that subset of the infected who have symptoms sufficiently acute as to inspire them to be tested for Covid-19. If that's a small fraction of the actual number of infected people, then this would have a big downward effect on your calculation of total expected mortality if, as, and when all humans eventually are infected.

If, on the other hand, "silent" infections are uncommon, then the currently reported mortality rates are likely fairly accurate - but we have an excellent chance of containing the spread of the disease, and many people will never be infected at all.

Either way, the total expected deaths would be dramatically lower than 136 million.

 

[Copernicus]

People under 70 face little risk from this epidemic, unless they have some underlying illness or a compromised immune system that would complicate recovery. So the panic that has accompanied it is largely the creation of social media hype and a news media that tends to mirror the trending news on social media. In the US, it is exacerbated by an administration that seems to have no idea how to handle epidemics and is afraid of contradicting or angering the president. So people aren't quite sure where to get reliable information, let alone how to prepare themselves.

The panic buying in the Seattle area has become absurd, as people are hoarding bottled water. On Sunday, I watched people coming out of Walmart with shopping carts full of boxes of bottled water. One young family wheeled their loaded cart up to the back of their SUV. They opened the hatch, and I gawked at the back of it, which was literally half full of previously purchased boxes of water. They stuffed the boxes from their shopping cart on top of those. Why? In another grocery store, I stopped a man with a box of bottled water in his shopping cart and asked why everyone was buying so much water. He told me that he wasn't sure, but he thought that they wanted to be prepared for staying indoors and not going out for supplies. When I pointed out that the tap water was perfectly safe to drink, he laughed and added that he just preferred to drink bottled water. A store clerk told me what she thought was going on. She said that seeing everyone rushing to buy water made people so nervous that they were feeling they had to buy it too, before supplies ran out. Nobody could give me a rational or coherent explanation of why one would need to hoard bottled water.

See You Do Not Have to Stock Up on Water to Prepare for the Coronavirus

 

[bilby]

Stockpiles of drinking water are a good idea, if, AND ONLY IF, there's a likelihood of an interruption to, or contamination of, the municipal supply.

It makes sense in a severe drought; or following floods or a tsunami that might overwhelm treatment plants; or as a response to a chemical spill upstream of the treatment plant, for example.

As a response to a pandemic, it's just nuts.

 

[George S]

Media: "Everybody Panic"
Governments: "Everybody Stay Calm"
3blue1brown: "Be Sufficiently Worried"*

[YOUTUBE]Kas0tIxDvrg[/YOUTUBE]

*a comment on this vid by Mate Egyed

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

"Coronavirus and the US" or "We are all going to die!!!!"

Stockpiles of drinking water are a good idea, if, AND ONLY IF, there's a likelihood of an interruption to, or contamination of, the municipal supply.

It makes sense in a severe drought; or following floods or a tsunami that might overwhelm treatment plants; or as a response to a chemical spill upstream of the treatment plant, for example.

As a response to a pandemic, it's just nuts.

Yeah, water shortages are based on distribution or source issues, not personal mobility. If you can walk to the sink, you’ll have access to water. And if things went The Stand bad (they won’t), you’ll be unable to buy enough bottled water to survive it anyway.

The fear is nuts, though the lack of Fed level prep might be something to worry about. In general, this disease doesn’t kill, but it could overwhelm some medical centers in ‘hot’ areas.

 

[skepticalbip]

I did a little search to see what prediction the CDC was making for our future with this virus. As opposed to the hyperbolic coverage in the media, I found that they are, unsurprisingly, a bit more pragmatic. They freely admit that they have no idea what will actually happen but:

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-cdc-has-a-prediction-for-how-the-coronavirus-will-affect-the-us

"There are only three possible endings to this coronavirus story: The outbreak could be controlled via public-health interventions and disappear (as SARS did), a vaccine could be developed, or the coronavirus could become a permanent part of the repertoire of human viruses, perhaps like the seasonal flu."

I dunno but this seems to me much more sane than a claim that 10 million are going to die or that...
WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE ...

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's less than 10mil estimate for Covid-19

I still have to ask if this 10mil isn't media hype. I am leery of blank claims that some unspecified "scientist" said so. "Undisclosed sources" is a piss poor authority to rely on.

Covid-19 should be a concern but when compared to a known death rate of a half million flu deaths/year the question of comparatively how much more we should be concerned with flu has to come up.

Seasonal flu kills 291,000 to 646,000 people worldwide each year, according to a new estimate that's higher than the previous one of 250,000 to 500,000 deaths a year. The new figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other groups were published Dec. 13 in The Lancet medical journal.

Look at the reported death rate and apply it to the world's population. It could easily add a 0 to that 10 million number.

 

[skepticalbip]

I still have to ask if this 10mil isn't media hype. I am leery of blank claims that some unspecified "scientist" said so. "Undisclosed sources" is a piss poor authority to rely on.

Covid-19 should be a concern but when compared to a known death rate of a half million flu deaths/year the question of comparatively how much more we should be concerned with flu has to come up.

Look at the reported death rate and apply it to the world's population. It could easily add a 0 to that 10 million number.

The question is how much care should be exercised by the average American today or next week? Your 'math' needs to include the chance of being infected by this virus... that chance is almost zero for the average American today and yet I see people wearing masks and taking other precautions. The chance of the average American contacting seasonal flu is several orders of magnitude higher since there are flu carriers in every community in the country. Fortunately, the precautions people are taking to avoid the corona-19 will also help protect them from the flu. Of course, if this virus spreads significantly then the chance of running into someone infected will become significant.

 

[barbos]

Dead 4,027
infected 114,422

And they link severe cases to high BP, explains why children don't seem to suffer much.


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-says-high-blood-pressure-is-major-death-risk