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

[barbos]

Dead 565
infected 28,276 (critical 3,863)

Number of dead doubles every 3.5 days. At that rate we will be extinct in ~4 months.
well, 2/3 will survive

 

[steve_bank]

We can debate in on politics. The idea that Chinese media is more objective than elsewhere is laughable.China has been blaming the crisis in China as manufactured by America hysteria over something not really bad.

Where I go for objective news these days is NPR news. NPR also carries BBC world news everyday. Objective sober fact based reporting on global events.

Reporters in China are jailed for coverage at odds with the state.

Foreign reporters are not usually granted unrestricted travel in China. Periodically news does get out of riots and demonstration's. Hong Kpng is problematic, large numbers of foreigners with communications.

Back in the 90s when China was looking for cell phone infrastructure a requirement was that all ground communications had to pass through a controlled ground station. No direct satellite links. I got that from someone at Qualcom.

 

[PyramidHead]

We can debate in on politics. The idea that Chinese media is more objective than elsewhere is laughable.China has been blaming the crisis in China as manufactured by America hysteria over something not really bad.

Where I go for objective news these days is NPR news. NPR also carries BBC world news everyday. Objective sober fact based reporting on global events.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

[steve_bank]

We can debate in on politics. The idea that Chinese media is more objective than elsewhere is laughable.China has been blaming the crisis in China as manufactured by America hysteria over something not really bad.

Where I go for objective news these days is NPR news. NPR also carries BBC world news everyday. Objective sober fact based reporting on global events.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

There are rugs you an take for that.

 

[barbos]

Dead 638
Infected 31,481 (critical 4,824)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Dead 565
infected 28,276 (critical 3,863)

Number of dead doubles every 3.5 days. At that rate we will be extinct in ~4 months.
well, 2/3 will survive

2/3? Look at the numbers for Hubei. We have two possibilities here:

1) The people that left Hubei were healthier than average--very likely, as it would be the young and the travelers that would be more likely to leave than the elderly.

2) The Hubei numbers reflect what happens with little medical care--and the system there is utterly overloaded. Many people aren't even going to the hospital when dying because the care they get from family is better than the care they get from the hospital. And note that the Hubei numbers must be undercounts so we don't know the true dead/recovered ratio.

 

[barbos]

Whistleblower dies:

Li Wenliang, the Chinese doctor who was targeted by police for warning about the threat of a coronavirus outbreak, has died of the illness, sparking unprecedented levels of fury directed at the government on social media

 

[barbos]

Dead 565
infected 28,276 (critical 3,863)

Number of dead doubles every 3.5 days. At that rate we will be extinct in ~4 months.
well, 2/3 will survive

2/3? Look at the numbers for Hubei. We have two possibilities here:

1) The people that left Hubei were healthier than average--very likely, as it would be the young and the travelers that would be more likely to leave than the elderly.

2) The Hubei numbers reflect what happens with little medical care--and the system there is utterly overloaded. Many people aren't even going to the hospital when dying because the care they get from family is better than the care they get from the hospital. And note that the Hubei numbers must be undercounts so we don't know the true dead/recovered ratio.

Whistleblower doctor died in hospital and he was young. So mortality potential of this virus looks significant .

 

[Copernicus]

Dead 565
infected 28,276 (critical 3,863)

Number of dead doubles every 3.5 days. At that rate we will be extinct in ~4 months.
well, 2/3 will survive

2/3? Look at the numbers for Hubei. We have two possibilities here:

1) The people that left Hubei were healthier than average--very likely, as it would be the young and the travelers that would be more likely to leave than the elderly.

2) The Hubei numbers reflect what happens with little medical care--and the system there is utterly overloaded. Many people aren't even going to the hospital when dying because the care they get from family is better than the care they get from the hospital. And note that the Hubei numbers must be undercounts so we don't know the true dead/recovered ratio.

Whistleblower doctor died in hospital and he was young. So mortality potential of this virus looks significant .

It is tempting to make sweeping generalizations on the basis of a single case, but that is a well known logical fallacy. This particular doctor was one of the first medical professionals to be exposed to the virus, and his warnings were initially resisted and suppressed by authorities. So he probably is not a good example of what typically happens when someone his age is exposed to a virus that quickly develops into pneumonia when left untreated. We don't know whether he had any underlying illnesses or even whether he was a smoker.

 

[barbos]

well, according to chinese:

China's National Health Commission (NHC) says that:

about 80% of those who died were over the age of 60.
75% had pre-existing conditions such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.

It does not say how many were neither >60 nor had pre-existing conditions.
The guy is below 30 and does not look like he had diabetes.

 

[Copernicus]

well, according to chinese:

China's National Health Commission (NHC) says that:

about 80% of those who died were over the age of 60.
75% had pre-existing conditions such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.

It does not say how many were neither >60 nor had pre-existing conditions.
The guy is below 30 and does not look like he had diabetes.

You should not go from what is not said to the conclusion that "So mortality potential of this virus looks significant". One can conclude that the number of reported deaths for patients under 60 were about 20% and that those with no recorded preexisting conditions were about 25%.

The other problem is that you keep reporting numbers of infected people, but the point has been made that the number of infected people in China is likely underreported, since many people do not go to crowded, overwhelmed medical facilities for treatment. So the mortality rate may look a lot higher than it actually is. All we can say is that the vast majority of deaths have been in the Hubei area and that they have been predominantly among the elderly and people with preexisting conditions. It is important not to downplay the dangers of this epidemic, but it is also important not to contribute to hysteria by jumping to hasty conclusions.

 

[barbos]

I did not jump to any unwarranted conclusions. But it all looks like it's going to be much worse than SARS.
I mean in two days number of dead will surpass SARS, that's unavoidable.

 

[Copernicus]

I did not jump to any unwarranted conclusions. But it all looks like it's going to be much worse than SARS.
I mean in two days number of dead will surpass SARS, that's unavoidable.

I think that the number has already surpassed SARS, but I also think that numbers coming out of China and other countries now are more reliable. Not reliable, just MORE reliable. The fact is that we really don't know what the mortality rate of this disease is. It is still too new, and a lot of people simply do not know that they have it. The means of diagnosing it are still being developed rapidly and deployed.

The greater problem right now is the snowballing hysteria, which, ironically, can cause conditions that make the epidemic spread more quickly as people who suspect they have it try to hide their condition and circumvent measures to detect it. People already know to take fever reducers such as acetaminophen (Tylenol in the US) as a means of avoiding detection in airports, train stations, and cruise ships. There is also a tendency to flee areas where an outbreak is reported, causing infected people to carry it outside of that area. This has certainly happened with Hubei, which is now in lockdown. A Chinese cruise ship that docked in Hong Kong disgorged thousands of passengers, after which it was discovered that 108 were from Wushan. The new passengers were largely people from Hong Kong, but some came down with the virus. That ship was refused entry to Taipei and now sits in quarantine in Hong Kong. The incentives to minimize or not report numbers of cases are huge for people, businesses, and governments. In the Seattle area, most stores no longer even sell face masks because a lot of healthy people quickly bought them up and began hoarding them. Healthy people who wear face masks don't know how to handle them and usually don't wear eye protection, even though viruses can enter through the eyes. So face masks mainly just impede infected people from spreading the virus too easily.

 

[southernhybrid]

I just read an article that came out today that said that death rate was only about 2% for this virus. It mentioned that it's believed that many people who have had the virus only have very mild symptoms, so the numbers of the infected is probably much higher. We are mostly hearing about the worst cases. I might post a link to that later.

I came to this thread to post a link about the doctor who first reported the virus and later died from the virus. I apologize if this has already been mentioned. I did not read the entire thread.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/coronavirus-china-live-updates/2020/02/07/0a31cae6-4933-11ea-9164-d3154ad8a5cd_story.html

With the coronavirus spreading around the world, Chinese leader Xi Jinping told President Trump in a phone call Friday that his government is confident about and capable of defeating the epidemic.
Anger was swelling online in China over the death of a whistleblower doctor who tried to sound the alarm about the deadly outbreak but was silenced by Communist Party authorities. On social media, users hailed Li Wenliang as a hero, after the ophthalmologist was reported to have died of the virus late Thursday.
Social media users also began voicing rare fury toward the Chinese government and demanding freedom of speech, echoing the sentiments of the 1989 Tiananmen uprising, as censors moved to squelch the dissent.
Meanwhile, Chinese researchers said they have found evidence linking the spread of coronavirus to the pangolin, a mammal illegally trafficked in huge numbers for the supposedly healing qualities of its scales and meat.

I've been following reports about how the Chinese government tried to suppress information about the virus in the first few weeks and even punished those who tried to go public with the information.

 

[southernhybrid]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/07/biggest-questions-about-new-coronavirus-what-we-know-so-far/

The good news is that public health officials say the new coronavirus is less deadly than SARS, which killed about 10 percent of people who were infected during the outbreak that began in 2002. But an urgent question needs to be answered as soon as possible: how much less deadly is it? About 2 percent of the reported cases have been fatal, but many experts believe the death rate could be lower. That’s because early in an outbreak, mild illnesses may not be reported. If only people with severe illness — who are more likely to die — seek care and are confirmed as being sick, the virus will appear much more deadly than it really is because of all the uncounted people with milder symptoms.

The bad news is that the new coronavirus appears to spread much more easily than SARS, similar to other coronaviruses that are a cause of the common cold, Adalja said.
A virus that can spread fairly easily and that may already be fairly widespread presents a huge public health challenge.
“To complicate things even more, we don’t know which individuals are likely to spread the virus — is it those with more serious respiratory infections or coughing, or are those who have mild symptoms equally likely to be spreading it? I think we don’t know that at this point,” said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

So far, the risk factors for developing severe illness are thought to be similar to those for other respiratory illnesses. Older people and those with underlying illnesses, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, are at increased risk. Early studies have also suggested men are at greater risk.

 

[steve_bank]

When I called the University Of Washington medical center today an option for coronavirus has been added to the automated menu.

Reports today of cremations. When it is all over we will never know what happened.

The Chinese doctor who first raised an alarm has died in his 30s. Initially he was arrested for speaking out without government approval.In another report there has been a demand for freedom of speech on Chinese social media, which the government quickly takes down. People are scared angry at the dieceptions and lack of openness.

Here in the NW several military's installations have been designated as quarantine centers with some reaction by locals.

Several UW students have been quarantined and tested. Someone died in the Philippines.

 

[barbos]

I did not jump to any unwarranted conclusions. But it all looks like it's going to be much worse than SARS.
I mean in two days number of dead will surpass SARS, that's unavoidable.

I think that the number has already surpassed SARS,

Dead 724
infected 34,878

SARS killed 774, so tomorrow 2019-nCoV will surpass this number.

Healthy people who wear face masks don't know how to handle them and usually don't wear eye protection

What kind of eye protection are you talking about here?
Full head protection (motorcycle helmet) would have been great

 

[barbos]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/08/world/asia/coronavirus-china.html
The first american dies from 2019-nCoV in Wuhan

 

[Copernicus]

...Healthy people who wear face masks don't know how to handle them and usually don't wear eye protection

What kind of eye protection are you talking about here?
Full head protection (motorcycle helmet) would have been great

You probably did not realize this. Most people don't. Virus particles are so small that they can enter through the eyes. You can get filters that stop them from being inhaled, but you need goggles with air-tight seals to prevent infection through the eyes. If you look at teams of people treating patients infected with the coronavirus and other new forms of influenza, you should notice that they are not only wearing hazmat suits, but goggles. That is not just because of the way they film it in movies. Looking at people wearing face masks in public places, you should notice that most people do not wear any form of eye protection, and glasses, not being air-tight, are not much protection. Droplets in the air that contain the virus can infect people wearing face masks, if they do not also wear air-tight eye protection.

Singapore is on orange alert, and people have hit the stores with panic buying and hoarding. The authorities have told them not to wear face masks unless they are symptomatic, because face masks help prevent them from contaminating others. But they are not that useful in preventing wearers from becoming infected. Nevertheless, most healthy people are desperate to get their hands on face masks because of the false sense of security they get from them.

 

[Copernicus]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/08/world/asia/coronavirus-china.html
The first american dies from 2019-nCoV in Wuhan

Any death is regrettable, but Americans are no different from Chinese or other foreigners. This American happened to be in Wuhan. Any of us would have been infected in his situation, and some of us would die as a result. When I had pneumonia in 2016, the hospital isolated me to treat the symptoms. After I was rehydrated, pumped with antibioltics, and fed enough nutrients, I was deemed well enough to be discharged in two days. It took me weeks to recover fully at home. If I had been younger, I would have recuperated much more quickly. When thousands of people are that seriously ill, the system gets overwhelmed, and many people reach a point where they cannot recover.