COVID-19

[Seppia]

My boss asked me to cancel my trip to HK tomorrow.
I tried to push back a bit but to no avail.
What I personally cannot reconcile is the dichotomy between the “it’s so much worse than what’s in the news!” and the fact that there seems to have been very few cases (and most importantly, not increasing dramatically in numbers) in countries that have free press.

If this were the bubonic plague we would see some inconsistencies between the Chinese numbers and the rest of the world
ie many more cases, and increasing rapidly, of deaths elsewhere

[jennypenny]

It could be that the longer incubation period is worrying authorities because the virus could be widespread but still under the radar until people show symptoms.


Did anyone read this in The Atlantic? A Historic Quarantine: China’s attempt to curb a viral outbreak is a radical experiment in authoritarian medicine

I was struck by all of the references to authoritarianism and the tone of the article overall. I don't think China's actions are too drastic and I don't relate them to China's political bent at all. I'd hope all countries would act quickly to contain any medical threats to the global community and I assumed that most places had this sort of plan in place. Am I wrong? Do others agree that China is being too heavy-handed in its response?

The only way China's politics affects this IMO is that they are much more practiced at shutting people down and would have much more effective quarantines than more open countries. I can't see quarantines working in the US beyond shutting down air and rail travel. Enough Americans are obnoxious enough to travel just because someone told them not to that I think any quarantine would be only marginally effective.

[Sclass]

No I don’t think you’re wrong.

I was kind of wondering how one would “control” this without quarantine. Seriously, there is no vaccine. Spreads like the common cold.

How is it supposed to stop otherwise? I think people on their own are too undisciplined to handle it by themselves. Look at all the foreigners being allowed to flee in the last few days. How responsible is that? Like “get out now while you can Americans!” No mention that you might be infected.

I’m hoping the virus will just mutate into something that is harmless or doesn’t hop anymore. I’m no biologist. Isn’t this how these things burn out? (As opposed to something like Ebola that just wipes out its hosts too fast).

SARS was treated with a heavy hand by the Chinese government. But late. I had a coworker with friends and family in Hong Kong who gave me news during the outbreak. They were slow at first then when they did act, they hushed it up like their AIDs problem. Apparently they created a town for the infected. They also didn’t disclose that the disease resulted in permanent crippling disabilities in the survivors.

Judging from the construction site videos on the news it looks like they are getting ready to build a concentration camp.

[ertyu]

Yeah. The fact that they're building it tells me this is just the beginning. They expect things to get much worse.

[Seppia]

@jp I think in general the issue with China is that the officIal news can’t be trusted at all.
Rumors I hear from HK suggest that people believe government officials initially underreported on the magnitude of the issue, and when the situation got out of hand (meaning: it’s too late) they set up these seemingly drastic measures to give the impression they are on top of everything.

I also have zero issues with the travel bans and quarantines, it seems like the logical thing to do and would like european institutions to do the same should the issue appear here.

[jacob]

https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease ... on-reports (updated daily)

[ertyu]

cnn link - updated closer to real time

https://edition.cnn.com/asia/live-news/ ... index.html

[Lucky C]

I don't think anyone posted this cool map from Johns Hopkins yet?
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps ... 7b48e9ecf6

Here's hoping we get some updates with lots of recoveries soon so we can improve on that 56 to 52 death to recovery ratio.

[ZAFCorrection]

What if it became mandatory for everyone except people having some infrastructure-critical jobs to stay inside for two weeks? Seems the virus spread would basically stop. Would society fall apart in that amount of time?

[thrifty++]

Has anyone found any clear scientific analysis/medical opinion as to whether the elderly are much more at risk? All I can find its reports that almost all the people who died were elderly, but that one 36yo male who had no pre-existing conditions died, but not medical opinion on the matter.

[jacob]

@ZAFCorrection - I don't even know ... where to begin.

@thrifty++ - Infectious diseases tend to kill those with weaker immune systems as the infection(*) develops into pneumonia instead of a recovery. It's (lung infections) still the most common way of dying in non-first world countries. Weaker immune systems means elderly (65+), the young (5-), and those with pre-existing conditions that weaken the immune system (like maybe someone who is on cancer drugs). If people were otherwise weakened (hunger, famine), this would be far worse.

(*) Upper respiratory -> bronchitis -> pneumonia (one sided, double sided) -> lungs fill up with snot (patient gets intubated, possible death from lack of oxygen -> brain failure) -> sepsis (disease makes it through the lung tissues and into the blood stream resulting in general systems failure).

This is the standard pattern. The Spanish flu was unusual in that it tended to kill people in the prime of their life. An overreaction in the immune system (a so-called cytokine storm) has been speculated to be the reason. Consider that the Spanish flu was much more virulent. People could catch it in the morning and be dead by the afternoon. Of course the general health in 1918 was much worse than it is today in 2020.

[thrifty++]

I wonder how this compares to the Swine Flu.

That ended up getting spread really far and lots of people. I am actually almost certain I got it. Was horrible. I very rarely get that kind of sickness. I don't get the flu. It was over in 4 days. I went to the doctor then and he just said it was probably swine flu but since its run its course he wouldn't bother with diagnostic tests, blood tests etc.

[Ego]

The Spanish flu was unusual in that it tended to kill people in the prime of their life. An overreaction in the immune system (a so-called cytokine storm) has been speculated to be the reason. Consider that the Spanish flu was much more virulent. People could catch it in the morning and be dead by the afternoon. Of course the general health in 1918 was much worse than it is today in 2020.

On the other hand, people in the west are far more susceptible to immune system overreaction (autoimmune diseases) today than they were in 1918 and far more so than people in Wuhan. Wuhan Coronavirus is causing cytokine release syndrome in some otherwise healthy people. While autoimmune reactions and cytokine release syndrome are not exactly the same, the underlying cause may be (untrained, overreactive immune system). If it gets a foothold here we will need a lot of immunosuppressive drugs. I believe there are only one right now that works.

[Gilberto de Piento]

Anyone doing any "prepping"? I bought new cartridges for my respirator as I needed them anyway. Same with a new giant bottle of hand soap I needsd. I have some other survival stuff from camping. If I wanted to get serious I suppose I need to stock a lot more food. Usually I ignore potential calamaties but for some reason this one has a little of my attention.

[ertyu]

I have, but inadvertently. We got given a gift card to a fancy import foods grocery store by employer for christmas. Spent that on dry chick peas and beans. Also have dry spices and curry and some packs of quinoa. Fish oil + multivitamin. I didn't stock up specifically for this, but it did occur to me that in the theoretical case of a serious outbreak of something like this, one'd best avoid crowded grocery stores where one is likely to encounter infected people and where food could have been handled by ill underpaid employees who can't take time off. Spending a couple of months eating boiled, seasoned chick peas isn't the worst that can happen to a person in contrast.

A weakness I identified in my set-up: I have a water filter installed on my sink for drinking water. If the cartridges are exhausted, I would have to go out for bottled water or drink poor quality tap water. Thus, keep spare cartridges.

It's been an interesting thought experiment. ERE could literally save your life. Having the freedom to tell one's employer, "no, i'm not going into work regardless of what you say" can be the difference between life and death.

Update: 80 dead, 52 recovered. May we all stay safe.

@Ego re: immunosuppressive drugs: beijing hospitals are trialling giving aids medication to patients. The "they're all goners, might as well" vibe is terrifying, but still I hope it works.

[bostonimproper]

This may be a dumb question, but I'm curious how fatality rates are estimated for coronavirus outbreaks? It seems that the recent past instances (most prominently SARS) were considered quite fatal, lingered around in the population for many months, had reproductive rates similar to a common cold, but caused quite few deaths relative to the seasonal flu. How does one know whether they are 4% likely to die from it once contracted versus a bunch of false negatives floating around dismissing being asymptomatic or mild symptoms?

[ertyu]

Good point, @bi. It's quite likely that only people with severe symptoms report. I encountered somewhere - don't remember where so take number with grain of salt - that about 30% of the confirmed cases had severe symptoms. But it seems to me it's too early in the game to tell, and China is keeping a lot of that info under wraps. Let's hope it's not as fatal as it seems.

[jacob]

Anyone doing any "prepping"?

We topped off all our food containers specifically because of this. See viewtopic.php?p=135933#p135933
Water storage was replaced last month. Utilities need to stay on (not self-sufficient(*) on heating and cooking fuel). Now I wish I had some N95 or 99 masks. We do have respirators for painting and playing with chemicals, but while better than nothing, I don't think these are ideal for this particular situation compared to disposable ones. I do know some woodworkers use N95 masks to handle the dust instead of fancier systems.

In terms of staying home from work, I think it's harder in practice. I remember when Ebola came to Chicago in 2012. I think we even had a thread very similar to this one. I saw a few people with N95s on the L-train. I did consider staying at home, but I didn't want to be "that guy".

(*) So while we could stay at home (DW could even work from home) we do need a few critical others to stay at work.

Overall, at this stage, it's more convenient simply to avoid others raiding the supermarket shelves (by being first out of the burning theater). We don't have very much in terms of specific "prepping supplies". All this [food] is in normal rotation. It's what we eat on a regular basis.

[fiby41]

Peak prosperity has made 5 videos on this topic so far https://youtu.be/X2GZg1qzohY

[Ego]

This provides a good example of how fast the world is changing. In 2002 China kept SARS quiet for three or four months and the response was defensive for a long time after that. This time they sequenced the DNA of the virus within days of the outbreak and posted it on a public database. Within hours of the posting, two companies and an Australian university began work on vaccines, approaching the problem from three different directions. With the help of gene editing and machine learning they expect to have enough vaccine to test on animals within a month and could have a workable inoculation before winter in the Southern Hemisphere. A relatively new entity, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, is funding the work.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01 ... y-come-too