On Topic Discussion 2019 Coronavirus (COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2)

[cityboy-stl]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

^ Maybe not a nice thing to say but my first thought is, if they're that stupid let them all drink the stuff and win the Darwin Award.

 

[rareboy]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

https://www.healthline.com/health/r-nought-reproduction-number

Do you even read what you post?

If R0 is more than 1, each existing infection causes more than one new infection. The disease will spread between people, and there may be an outbreak or epidemic.

It is clear you don't understand what is happening. You seem to think that this should only be taken seriously if thousands and thousands of people are already dead.

And yet Kara explained above that the real danger here is having health care systems overwhelmed and effectively paralyzed by treating people infected with the virus....in this case, on top of the crippling year we are already experiencing from the flu season.

We don't have to have piles of dead bodies in the streets to justify the seriousness of this apparently new mutating virus. It is so clear that you and the other skeptics are coming at this from no real knowledge of virology or disease management. This kind of casual disregard would be dangerous under certain circumstances. I imagine that if you were one of those living in Wuhan right now you'd be shitting your pants, but you have the luxury of distance and a public health system that is doing its best to contain and eradicate the cases before there would be the remotest chance that you or your family could contract it.

 

[KaraBulut]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

The new Coronavirus was first detected at the end of December... a transmission factor of 3.8...

That R naught didn't look right to me based upon the statistics that we're getting (which admittedly are likely underereported since not everyone who has contracted the virus will be tested).

Sure enough, the British researcher that estimated R[SUB]0[/SUB] of 3.8 has revised their estimate to 2.5 which seems a more reasonable rate of reproduction.

Ed Yong has a good article in The Atlantic that explains the importance and limitations of R[SUB]0[/SUB]:

The Deceptively Simple Number Sparking Coronavirus Fears [The Atlantic]

First, the R[SUB]0[/SUB] estimates for the new coronavirus are in line with those for many other diseases. They’re similar to those for SARS (2 to 5) and HIV (also 2 to 5), and considerably lower than those for measles (12 to 16).

Second, a bigger R[SUB]0[/SUB] doesn’t necessarily mean a worse disease. Seasonal flu has an R[SUB]0[/SUB] that hovers around 1.3, and yet it infects millions of people every year. SARS had an R[SUB]0[/SUB] of 2 to 5 and infected just over 8,000 people. The number is a measure of potential transmissibility. It does not actually tell you how fast a disease will spread.

 

[belamyi]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

Summary of the thread:

mikey: the Corona news is all hype as long as it doesn't bring about World War Z.

the rest: a global health crisis, with dentings in the global economy, would be bad enough already.

 

[mcbrion]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

The gay community didn't take AIDS seriously, either.
At least, not in 1981, when it was first announced.

It took until 1983 for many people to realize it was serious. Even, then, many people (in San Francisco and in the gay community in general) thought a cure would be found within a year or two. They were still not taking it seriously. I remember warning my friends - who were still going to the baths - "You have GOT to stop. This is going to come back on you." They scoffed at me. Every last one of them is dead. ALL.OF.THEM. I still miss my friends. I thought we'd grow old together.

32,000,000 deaths later...

Draw your own conclusions. The ignorant always sneer first. Until it happens to them.

 

[belamyi]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

The gay community didn't take AIDS seriously, either.
At least, not in 1981, when it was first announced.

It took until 1983 for many people to realize it was serious. Even, then, many people (in San Francisco and in the gay community in general) thought a cure would be found within a year or two. They were still not taking it seriously. I remember warning my friends - who were still going to the baths - "You have GOT to stop. This is going to come back on you." They scoffed at me. Every last one of them is dead. ALL.OF.THEM. I still miss my friends. I thought we'd grow old together.

32,000,000 deaths later...

Draw your own conclusions. The ignorant always sneer first. Until it happens to them.

 

[Yooper]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

Hmmmmmmmmmm...

I'm scheduled to attend a large trade show next week (Wednesday-Friday) in Denver where there will be a great number of vendors from China.

I'm considering not going but will assess on Wednesday.

I'm going but not going to eat any of the free snacks. Don't know where the previous hands have been...

I'm considering wearing a giant Ziplock baggie over my clothes, though.

 

[rareboy]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

770 cases and 170 deaths in China as of this morning. Unless there is a rebound, it seems that the rate of new cases has slowed over the last couple of days.

 

[KaraBulut]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

...Kara explained above that the real danger here is having health care systems overwhelmed and effectively paralyzed by treating people infected with the virus....

To that point...

'We'll admit them if they're dying': Virus outbreak pushes China's stretched health care workers to breaking point [CNN]

...The virus has spread to every Chinese province and region, across Asia and as far away as Europe and the United States. It has infected more than 7,700 people and killed at least 170. Wuhan has been placed on an effective lockdown, almost entirely sealed off from the outside world...

Over the past few days, CNN has spoken to patients, medical staff and experts who have told of delays in testing for the virus, in telling the public the true nature of the virus' spread, and of an already overburdened health system creaking under the enormous weight of a rapidly expanding outbreak...

According to a nurse in Wuhan who asked not to be identified for fear of professional repercussions, staff are overwhelmed, resources are running low, and there are no beds. There are so few hazmat suits that staff disinfect them at the end of their shift to wear again the next day, she said. Around 30 of the 500 medical staff at her hospital are now sick and admitted to hospital, and others -- including her -- have self-quarantined at home....

Similar things are happening in other Wuhan hospitals. On Sunday, a nurse from Wuhan Central Hospital told CNN that at least a dozen medical staff had been infected with coronavirus...

 

[rareboy]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

^ And this is why we should believe the 'hype'. Added to a bed flu season that already has some hospitals holding patients in meeting rooms in Ontario, another respiratory illness affecting children and elderly would mean that the system would be brought to a grinding halt and that we would be quarantining people as well.

 

[mikey3000]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

The gay community didn't take AIDS seriously, either.
At least, not in 1981, when it was first announced.

It took until 1983 for many people to realize it was serious. Even, then, many people (in San Francisco and in the gay community in general) thought a cure would be found within a year or two. They were still not taking it seriously. I remember warning my friends - who were still going to the baths - "You have GOT to stop. This is going to come back on you." They scoffed at me. Every last one of them is dead. ALL.OF.THEM. I still miss my friends. I thought we'd grow old together.

32,000,000 deaths later...

Draw your own conclusions. The ignorant always sneer first. Until it happens to them.

The big difference is AIDS isn't an airborne disease as Corona virus is. Having unprotected sex is much different than just passing a host on the street.

 

[rareboy]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

Well....the World Health Organization has declared the Corona Virus to be a global Health Emergency.

"The main reason for this declaration is not what is happening in China but what is happening in other countries," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The concern is that it could spread to countries with weaker health systems.

Source Link: Coronavirus declared global health emergency by WHO (BBC; January 30, 2020)

It now joins Swine Flu, Zika, Ebola(twice) and polio.

So. Not so much hype is it?

 

[jayxx2]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

h1n1
sars
h1h2
ebola
zika
etc. etc. etc.

The cold facts are that corona, and all the above diseases kill 100 x's fewer people than the common yearly cold strain. They do however get over 1000 x's the media coverage because media outlets LOVE LOVE LOVE to play up fear. Fuck fear and fuck them.

 

[belamyi]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

The cold facts are that global epidemics will strain the healthcare systems, the economies, and even put to test the social stability and the resilience of political systems of some nations, and the consequences of different sorts that will ripple onto other nations but, hey, we will not die from it.

It's like saying: hey, there are more people dying from whatever shit than in the wars in Syria or Africa or wherever else, so why should we care about that... you know, about people massively migrating to the West, about people getting pissed by that, and other people calling them fascists... and such sort of crap, you know.

We are in level 4 terror alert, but there are more people dying from taking stupid selfies or other domestic crap, than by suicide bombings in Israel or Europe or the US, so why the fuck care about terror jihadism, right.

 

[rareboy]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

h1n1
sars
h1h2
ebola
zika
etc. etc. etc.

The cold facts are that corona, and all the above diseases kill 100 x's fewer people than the common yearly cold strain. They do however get over 1000 x's the media coverage because media outlets LOVE LOVE LOVE to play up fear. Fuck fear and fuck them.

I think you might be referring to the flu virus. And you are also someone who doesn't quite understand of appreciate that the reason why some of these more exotic disease don't kill millions of people these days is because of the massive attention they receive from a globally co-ordinated effort to contain and then treat them. Left to ignorance and indifference, they could easily devastate populations around the world...and as has been noted repeatedly now in this thread....would cripple the health care systems in even the most advanced countries. It was only the scramble and extreme measures to contain SARS in 2003 when it landed in Scarborough that helped prevent it from escaping into the general public and minimized the spread and number of deaths.

But you imply a good point about people getting their flu shot. And washing their hands often. And self-quarantining if they have the flu. Because flu every year unleashes costly havoc into the health care system in Ontario and causes needless deaths and without prevention and containment could be far, far worse.

By the way, the Spanish flu that killed between 60 - 100 million people in 1918 was h1n1. So when a strain comes back that is particularly virulent....you should be very, very, afraid.

As for the coronavirus, 9700 reported cases, 213 deaths in China as of this morning.

 

[mikey3000]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

As of right now there is no treatment or vaccine for this strain.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/prevention-treatment.html

 

[Alnitak]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

Not enough people are taking this seriously. Well my neighbor who returned from Wuhan last week asked me to hang out.. I think I'll wait another week meanwhile he's back to work and he's a resident at St. Agnes Hospital

 

[Kahaih]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

@ no-one in particular

Seriously.

What is "talking this seriously" supposed to look like?

I next-to-never look at videos posted on line, but if any of you would like to post one of yourself "taking this seriously", it might be useful to the rest of us who, according to you, appear not to be in compliance.

 

[KaraBulut]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

...What is "talking this seriously" supposed to look like?

In the case of the example that Alnitak cited, it brings up two common problems, especially in American workplaces: that people are afraid of missing work when they're sick and that employers care more about regulating "sick leave" than they do about the welfare of their workers (and in the case of Alnitak's example, the welfare of their patients).

All of us have been in a workplace where someone shows up with a red nose and a cough.... usually sneezing and coughing into their hand instead of a tissue or the bend of their arm. Those employees should not be at work.

As far as other "taking this seriously" measures for any infectious disease:

• Get immunized and keep your immunizations current.
• Wash your hands*. Often. And not just after you go to the restroom.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth with your unwashed fingers.

*How to wash your hands:

1. Wet your hands thoroughly prior to applying soap.
2. Apply soap to the palm of your hand.
3. Rub the soap everywhere from your wrist to the tip of every finger.
4. Scrub for 20 seconds - be sure to apply the scrubbing to the pads of your fingers, between your fingers and on your thumbs.
5. Rinse your hands, dry them with a disposable towel and use a towel to turn off the water.

Next time you're in a public restroom, notice how terrible guys are at hand-washing.

 

[KaraBulut]

Re: Coronavirus. Are you buying the hype?

Seven cases in the US. The US federal government just declared a public health emergency.

HHS declares coronavirus a public health emergency in the US [CNN]

The novel coronavirus is now a public health emergency in the United States, Alex Azar, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, announced at a White House press briefing today.

The World Health Organization on Thursday declared coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern.