COVID-19

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jacob
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jacob »

SK doubles again to 433. Iran is also going up fast.

Today's sit-rep focuses on the degree that the virus can be food borne (on meat products). It survives longer in the cold (5C refrigerator) but dies during cooking (70C). Worth reading. The virus is believed to have bats as the natural reservoir but rely on another unknown animal for the transfer to humans. So don't eat that animal ;-)
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source ... vid-19.pdf (page 2)

ToFI
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Re: COVID-19

Post by ToFI »

If this virus can transmit without symptoms, then it's pretty much impossible to contain it. We already have 4 corona viruses in circulation. Maybe this will be the 5th one. I've read somewhere the infection rate is from 0.5% to 15%, multiple that by 1% death rate. The risk of death is extremely low from contact with the virus. It's like a seasonal flu. I got sick many times already working in the cubicle where people get sick regularly. I think I am much safer now that I F.I.R.E and stay home most of time.

tonyedgecombe
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Re: COVID-19

Post by tonyedgecombe »

ToFI wrote:
Sat Feb 22, 2020 10:24 am
If this virus can transmit without symptoms
We don't know whether that is the case yet. The early reports that it was came from a Chinese administrator rather than an academic or medical source. The WHO said it was unlikely.

black_son_of_gray
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Re: COVID-19

Post by black_son_of_gray »

tonyedgecombe wrote:
Sat Feb 22, 2020 11:13 am
We don't know whether that is the case yet. The early reports that it was came from a Chinese administrator rather than an academic or medical source. The WHO said it was unlikely.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chin ... SKBN20G00J
A 20-year-old Chinese woman from Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, traveled 400 miles(675 km) north to Anyang where she infected five relatives, without ever showing signs of infection, Chinese scientists reported on Friday, offering new evidence that the virus can be spread asymptomatically.

tonyedgecombe
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Re: COVID-19

Post by tonyedgecombe »

That's still anecdotal, an isolated case doesn't prove much other than it is possible.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: COVID-19

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Spreading asymptomatically only becomes problematic depending on how often it happens. Again the goal is not to get every case. It's to put R0 below 1. The paper I linked earlier said only 1% of cases are completely asymptomatic.

black_son_of_gray
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Re: COVID-19

Post by black_son_of_gray »

Fair point, the doctors have "presumed" it.

jacob
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jacob »

Italy rising fast, now reporting 62^H^H79 cases, 2 dead. Some secondary infections. A few towns in northern Italy on lockdown.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/wor ... 841539002/

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Ego
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Ego »

Today two tenant who do not know one another have simultaneously submitted instructions on what to do and who to contact if they happen to suddenly die. The seniors at Soylent Towers used to give me these every so often but I've never gotten one of them here.

The infection itself is interesting. The contagion of fear, far more so. Which is more dangerous?

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: COVID-19

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

The contagion of fear has been one of the most interesting and concerning aspects of this entire outbreak. I don't remember there being nearly this much panic for 2009 H1N1 flu, even though at the beginning of the outbreak, it looked much scarier. (H1N1 being the same flu species as Spanish flu, being a zoonotic combination of many flu strains, the fact pandemic influenza is scary, etc)

I really feel like social media has distorted this outbreak and lead to weird disinformation and panic floating around compared to earlier outbreaks.

thrifty++
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Re: COVID-19

Post by thrifty++ »

Mind you - if you look at the timeline of H1N1 though - it took about 6 months to reach the level of reported and recorded death toll that it has taken the coronavirus to reach in less than 2 months. It was only much later that they estimated the death toll to be abut 300,000 people. So by comparison - it seems the death toll for this one could be in excess of a million - when all is said and done and estimates are done in retrospect. I have no doubt that there is significant under recording and under reporting. Just like there was with H1N1.

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Ego
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Ego »

https://www.psandman.com/col/swineflu2.htm

Some lessons from H1N1 and communication...
As the pandemic H1N1 swine flu virus spreads around the world, governments face some fundamental early decisions regarding two response strategies, containment and mitigation:

number 1
Should they try to “contain” the new virus in an effort to stave off the day when it will reach and infect their populace?
number 2
Or should they resign themselves to the inevitability of local transmission, and focus on “mitigating” its effects?
number 3
If they decide to focus on containment at first, when should they throw in the towel and switch to mitigation?

These decisions regarding containment versus mitigation are usually seen – and rightly so – as public health decisions. But they are also risk communication decisions. When a government decides to make strenuous efforts to keep swine flu from crossing its borders, and to keep imported cases from spreading locally, it is signaling something to its public about whether the novel H1N1 virus is stoppable and about whether it is severe.

And there is a fourth decision governments must make that is explicitly about risk communication:

number 4
How should they explain the goals and endpoints of containment to their publics?

Many governments doing intense swine flu containment are signaling that the purpose of containment is to prevent local spread of the virus – not just slow it or reduce its impact, but actually prevent it. Many of these governments explicitly tell their people that this is the goal; some just signal it without actually saying so. In all cases, these signals and messages are misleading, since containment will eventually fail.

Thus governments are setting themselves up to be blamed, and setting their people up to be shocked and unprepared for imminent domestic epidemics.

naturelover
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Re: COVID-19

Post by naturelover »

I'm wondering if death rates are higher in china due to pollution and heavy smoking. Not sure if someone mentioned it yet. Also, I'd agree that social media probably is upping the hysteria factor.

Looks like Japan got raised to level 2 CDC travel advisory. I doubt this will die down in a few months so I'm going to try to get a refund for my tickets or go somewhere else.

ertyu
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Re: COVID-19

Post by ertyu »

naturelover wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 9:32 am
I'm wondering if death rates are higher in china due to pollution and heavy smoking.
And due to the health care system getting overwhelmed and not having enough resources to support all patients properly.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: COVID-19

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

That's some interesting stuff on H1N1 flu. I am seeing a somewhat similar thing play out now. There seems to be quite the disconnected between the public health understanding of epidemics/pandemics and the public reaction.

I was also thinking today how different the public reaction is to COVID-19 vs the obesity epidemic/opioid epidemics are. Obviously there are some very important differences between these things, but the future for obesity/opioids are quite grim. By 2030, the CDC says 1 out of every 2 Americans will be full on obese. Additionally, we're at about 70k deaths a year from drug overdose. So obviously these things are quite serious public heath issues.

I suppose the difference in public reaction is that we know how to avoid drug addiction/obesity. I can avoid using opioids and I can avoid eating sugar, but it's much harder to avoid a deadly novel airborne pathogen. And if you want to be cynical, you can say the difference is opioids/obesity only affect poor people whereas COVID-19 could affect rich people too, therefore it's a perceived worse threat. :lol: :?

jacob
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jacob »

Agency and familiarity is a big factor. Same reason why people accept traffic deaths at the tune of 35000/year (US) but will ground an entire fleet of aircraft over a couple of a crashes with a few hundred deaths.

ToFI
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Re: COVID-19

Post by ToFI »

Maybe I am optimistic, the true fatality rate should be lot lower than the "2%" in China among the reported cases. The reason is there are many mild cases not being reported. I doubt all people infected went to hospital. It's possible some people stayed home and recovered on their own. Then if taking into account of 15% infection rate if it develops into pandemic, the true fatality rate among the whole planet in that case is still low.

This whole event has too much fear-mongering. A perfect opportunity for a distraction from political conflict?

"Coronavirus: 81% of cases are 'mild,' study says

A new paper by the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC) finds that the majority of coronavirus cases are mild, with older adults and people who have other conditions being most at risk."

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articl ... study-says
Last edited by ToFI on Sun Feb 23, 2020 11:26 am, edited 2 times in total.

Lucky C
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Lucky C »

I've started watching Dr. John Campbell's videos the past few days. Good daily summaries. https://www.youtube.com/user/Campbellteaching/videos
He posted about pulse oximeters today and I'm thinking of getting one since they're only $20 but there's not much we could do about low oxygen currently if things get extreme and hospitals are overloaded. Oxygen concentrators are in the hundreds of dollars, hmm...

Went to Walmart and picked up the last bags of Great Value 20 lb. rice (x2) and Great Value 8 lb. pinto beans (x5), at least what they had out on the shelf. The shelves could have held more but maybe they only have a few of each out under normal circumstances anyway. There were plenty of other rice brands and sizes and 1 lb bags of various beans looked fully stocked.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: COVID-19

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

I ended up buying a pulse oximeter, but I'm not going to bother getting oxygen. If only because I am personally in the low risk group, and the family members I would be concerned about have comorbidities that are FAR beyond my "First-aid certified once in 2009" abilities to treat. I do think stocking up on a few months of food is the best thing you can do because locking yourself in your house for months would stop you from getting it. (Even if that ends up being impractical in practice because epidemics can last months.) But the pulse oximeter lets you know when you're truly dealing with a medical emergency.

Dr. John Campbell's videos are pretty good. I do personally think he's just a tad alarmist, but he's by far the best YT resource out there right now. Peak Prosperity I'm skeptical of because they try to make of money off their prepper-type courses, which of course biases them toward making it seem worse than it is. It's good to be prepared, but overreacting isn't helpful.

CS
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Re: COVID-19

Post by CS »

Those Campbell videos are great.

@Jacob, this one made me think of you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkdPFCStA38
He talked about staying warm to keep your nose warm and to keep the number of white blood cells in your nose high to prevent infections (how you can get a 'cold' from being cold). Any thoughts on modifying the thermostat on your house based on this?

@Seppia
What is it like in Italy for you? The lockdown is to the west of you, I believe, but it sounds like they are taking it very seriously.

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