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

 
 
 
southernhybrid said:
PyramidHead said:
China's response to this crisis is nothing short of exemplary and is a model for the rest of the world.
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I take it that was meant to be sarcasm?
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No, I am being completely sincere. Entire hospitals were built in under a week, vaccines were developed and deployed, millions of people were quarantined, volunteers and medical officials are working around the clock to stem the spread of the infection, and all the while, Hong Kong "protesters" are literally torching the facilities that are needed to save lives and contain the outbreak. China should be aided by every first world nation in this matter.
 
Here's an article about how quickly scientists are working on a vaccine for the new virus.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/health/coronavirus-vaccine.html

I almost had to laugh when I read about the efforts to develop a vaccine, because while the mortality rate from influenza is around 1.5%, only half of Americans even bother to get a flu vaccine. Believe what you want, the last time I had the flu was almost 35 years ago. I've gotten my flu vaccine every year since. So, I believe tha, the flu vaccine is usually very effective, but a high percentage of people would rather risk being sick or dying. Plus, even those who get the flu after being vaccinated, almost always have a milder case.

A CDC doctor that I saw on the news two days ago, said that it appeared as if the mortality rate for this new virus was likely to be about 3%, but people are acting like it's 90%, My neighbor said she saw three people in the grocery store wearing masks. yesterday. :rolleyes:

Most of the people who have been infected are recovering. Considering the shortage of medical supplies and lack of adequate hospital care, as well as the over crowded conditions in China, I think there's a lot of overreacting going on in the first world countries.
 
southernhybrid said:
Here's an article about how quickly scientists are working on a vaccine for the new virus.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/health/coronavirus-vaccine.html

I almost had to laugh when I read about the efforts to develop a vaccine, because while the mortality rate from influenza is around 1.5%, only half of Americans even bother to get a flu vaccine. Believe what you want, the last time I had the flu was almost 35 years ago. I've gotten my flu vaccine every year since. So, I believe tha, the flu vaccine is usually very effective, but a high percentage of people would rather risk being sick or dying. Plus, even those who get the flu after being vaccinated, almost always have a milder case.

A CDC doctor that I saw on the news two days ago, said that it appeared as if the mortality rate for this new virus was likely to be about 3%, but people are acting like it's 90%, My neighbor said she saw three people in the grocery store wearing masks. yesterday. :rolleyes:

Most of the people who have been infected are recovering. Considering the shortage of medical supplies and lack of adequate hospital care, as well as the over crowded conditions in China, I think there's a lot of overreacting going on in the first world countries.
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I agree it's been overblown, mostly because of how thoroughly China is handling it. But you originally thought I was being sarcastic about my praise for their response, and this reply doesn't shed any light on why that is.
 
southernhybrid said:
PyramidHead said:
China's response to this crisis is nothing short of exemplary and is a model for the rest of the world.
Click to expand...

I take it that was meant to be sarcasm?
Click to expand...
The hospital is a bit of a thing, though, I have to wonder what in the heck excavators that are so tightly packed could possibly be accomplishing.
5e301f7f24306a167f1042a2
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/22/mapping-spread-new-coronavirus/?arc404=true

China5,985
Thailand14
Taiwan8
Japan7
Singapore7
Malaysia7
United States5
Australia5
South Korea4
France4
Germany4
Vietnam2
Canada2
Nepal1
Cambodia1
Sri Lanka1
Last updated: Jan 29 at 12:44 pm

So, as of this morning, there were five known cases in the US. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Wash your hands and put on your hazmat suit. /s

I also read the that two who were infected in Viet Nam are recovering without complications. One of them was 65 years old.
 
They are testing two students at Miami University of Ohio. So, if you want to live, avoid Ohio.
 
Quora thread on Chinese response to the virus.

During the Western African Ebola virus epidemic in 2014, the CDC rushed in to try to find the virus. It took them 2 months from getting the 1st patient sample to identifying the complete genomic sequence, and then another 6 weeks to publish it. This is Top Urgency, with a virus that has a 90% case fatality rate.

The 2009 Swine Flu in the US, which ended up infecting 55 million Americans and killed 11,000 of them, the first cases started to appear in late March, the CDC identified it on April 17, and the identification kits were not generally available until mid-May. And that was 250 people working 100+ hour a week! 2009 flu pandemic in the United States And this is the CDC, the best infectious disease research agency in the world, with $11 billion a year budget and 11,000 employees!

This Coronavirus in China? From 1st patient sample to complete viral identification and sequencing, 1 week. Immediate publication / deposit in the genomics library for all people in the world. Then based on this sequence, the Chinese biotech companies jumped in and produced validated assays within a week.
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This is all happening during the Chinese new year holiday, which lasts 15 days. If this outbreak happened anyplace else it could have wiped out countless people by now. China's unique capacity to be responsive (due to a planned economy centralized around a party apparatus with millions of members throughout the country) is literally saving thousands of lives if not more, and deserves every bit of support we can provide.
 
southernhybrid said:
I almost had to laugh when I read about the efforts to develop a vaccine, because while the mortality rate from influenza is around 1.5%, only half of Americans even bother to get a flu vaccine. Believe what you want, the last time I had the flu was almost 35 years ago. I've gotten my flu vaccine every year since. So, I believe tha, the flu vaccine is usually very effective, but a high percentage of people would rather risk being sick or dying. Plus, even those who get the flu after being vaccinated, almost always have a milder case.
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Actually, vaccines are not always that effective because of the time to get them to market and whether they guessed right on which strain to protect against. I always get the most potent vaccine for old people, but I still caught the flu a few years ago, and it developed into pneumonia. I had also had my pneumonia vaccine and booster. The problem with the Wuhan virus is that it seems to develop into pneumonia a lot more than influenza does.

southernhybrid said:
A CDC doctor that I saw on the news two days ago, said that it appeared as if the mortality rate for this new virus was likely to be about 3%, but people are acting like it's 90%, My neighbor said she saw three people in the grocery store wearing masks. yesterday. :rolleyes:
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Yep, I've seen a few folks in the Seattle area wearing masks. They were young folks with healthy immune systems and probably a crate of those masks at home. You can't buy them in the Seattle area anymore. They have sold out.

And there is some doubt that masks do anything much to prevent infection from sick people. They are mostly useful for keeping those infected from contaminating others, but they may help keep wearers from touching their face as much and infecting themselves that way. The best defense is washing hands thoroughly with warm water for about half a minute. And alcohol-based sanitizers may also provide some defense.

southernhybrid said:
Most of the people who have been infected are recovering. Considering the shortage of medical supplies and lack of adequate hospital care, as well as the over crowded conditions in China, I think there's a lot of overreacting going on in the first world countries.
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Well, I'm headed for a cruise there in two weeks, so we'll see how well that works out. We leave out of Taipei now and travel down the coast of Vietnam to Singapore. Coronavirus cases exist in all of those places, because Wuhan residents, like so many Chinese, are very avid tourists. Hence, we expect the tourist venues to be the most dangerous for us. We are hoping that it doesn't make it onto the ship, which will be taking extreme precautions (having already moved the disembarkation port from Hong Kong to Taipei), but regular influenza is sure to be resident, not to mention the common cold.
 
Looking at the jhu dashboard, the new cases rate seems to be currently linear, which is good news, I think? But it has not yet plateaued, as I expect it to do as soon as the city quarantine date becomes longer ago than the incubation period. And for now, the interesting data about only 110 or so being counted as “recovered” meaning that to date, more people are dead than recovered. That seems like such a huge piece of news that I wonder about the real data and what is missing.


Interesting stuff, from my relatively safe position (we do have a very large number pf travelers from China in our town, currently under quarantine, though only 3 days.)
 
I think that far more people recover than are dying. Most of the deaths are elderly people, and there are plenty of recovery cases that might not make it into the statistics.

There is a case in Vietnam of a fairly young man living south of Saigon. His family was visiting from Wuhan, and he went to share a hotel room with them for three days. He contracted the virus from his 65 year old father. The latest I have read is that the father is still in the hospital, but the son has recovered. IOW, if you have a sturdy immune system, your chances of recovery are very good. If you are old (like me), not so good. But the real significance of the Vietnam case is confirmation of the human-human transmission. The son's only possible exposure was from his Chinese family.

I am seriously pissed that I cannot buy face masks before we depart for our Asian cruise. We have a supply of them, but I wanted to buy more. Unfortunately, all stores are sold out of face masks from people who absolutely do not need them right now. We have seen a few people wearing them in stores, all of them being young people who likely have healthy immune systems to fight off infection. We actually need masks, given that we are going to areas where there are higher concentrations of the virus.

Luckily, our neighbors are actually Chinese citizens, who travel there frequently. They have offered to give us some of theirs, if we need more. So we will have access to more from them, as a last resort.

Mask Hoarders May Raise Risk of a Coronavirus Outbreak in the U.S.
 
I wonder how long virus stay active once it was coughed out and got to let say door handle, does anyone know?
 
bilby said:
barbos said:
I wonder how long virus stay active once it was coughed out and got to let say door handle, does anyone know?
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36 hours, 18 minutes and 25 seconds.

Or no.
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OK, that was not helpful.
have to do it myself
https://www.health.com/condition/cold-flu-sinus/flu-virus-live-on-surfaces
looks like up to 48 hours which is long.
Trick is to wash hands before touching face.
I wonder if public transport surfaces can be UV lighted every hour or so.
 
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