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First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

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Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#61

They suspected a man in Australia of having it and were awaiting test results yesterdayish too https://www.smh.com.au/national/first-australian-monitored-f... There is also /r/China_Flu/ for those that wanta centralized location for news. I think this is certainly not a great thing but I urge people not to panic. Any time some sort of new disease starts to spread a portion of the population immediately overreacts and…

I've already started a course of Forsythia.

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#62
post #57
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While SARS does have a longer incubation period, typically 2-7 days compared to the common flu's 1-4 days, the "slow transmission" that you've witnessed is more likely the successful work of national and international public health agencies preventing its spread. Especially by means of contact tracing and quarantine. Seasonal flu variants have a lethality of around 0.1%. The Spanish flu of 1918 was around 2%. SARS ha…

Just according to superficial stats, it looks like the flu kills orders of magnitude more people than SARS and MERS. Is the public health response to these diseases really so effective as to account for most of this difference? I don't pay close attention but also wouldn't off the top of my head be able to describe anything that, say, Washington State does to effectively respond to CoV incidents to keep it from propa…

> Is the public health response to these diseases really so effective as to account for most of this difference?

Yes. The public health response to the common flu is 'You should, like, get vaccinated. Or whatever. Maybe take a day off, if you work a job that gives you sick days.'

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#63
post #17

I feel like it has been so long since the swine flu, bird flu, H1N1 flu, and other flu scares that we are due for one. Like the recessions the flu scares are cyclical.

The Spanish Flu was almost exactly 100 years ago. Recent enough that we think of it as being in modern times with relatively modern medicine and hospitals. My grandmother lived through it, so this isn't the distant past.

Current estimates are that it killed up to 100,000,000 million people, as many as the black plague.

We have much better medicine now, thankfully. But we also live in a much more deeply connected world with millions of people flying every single day.

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#64
post #57
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While SARS does have a longer incubation period, typically 2-7 days compared to the common flu's 1-4 days, the "slow transmission" that you've witnessed is more likely the successful work of national and international public health agencies preventing its spread. Especially by means of contact tracing and quarantine. Seasonal flu variants have a lethality of around 0.1%. The Spanish flu of 1918 was around 2%. SARS ha…

Just according to superficial stats, it looks like the flu kills orders of magnitude more people than SARS and MERS. Is the public health response to these diseases really so effective as to account for most of this difference? I don't pay close attention but also wouldn't off the top of my head be able to describe anything that, say, Washington State does to effectively respond to CoV incidents to keep it from propa…

Just according to superficial stats, it looks like the flu kills orders of magnitude more people than SARS and MERS.

This is the "ratio vs. number" distinction: the seasonal flu, despite seeming to have a mortality rate on the order of 1/1000, killed more people just in the US than estimates of people who contracted SARS at all anywhere in the world.

Flu stats: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

SARS stats: https://www.who.int/csr/sars/country/table2004_04_21/en/

When H1N1 was spreading while I was in college, any people who were confirmed cases would have to undergo two weeks of house quarantine. That's a lot of people saved from potential contact. I imagine Washington State's procedures for quarantine aren't too different.

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we agree that a small (or very remote) village being sequestered in 1918 is not the same as a large nation enacting a travel ban in 2020? Humans now have the ability to travel much greater distances at much greater speeds. That makes it a lot harder to sequester large groups of people. The long borders to the north and south make it nearly impossible to completely shut down US inflow.

"Humans now have the ability to travel much greater distances at much greater speeds. That makes it a lot harder to sequester large groups of people." Most people travel through authorized checkpoints, and such authorized travel can be easily stopped, delayed, or restricted. That would be likely to be effective at greatly reducing most, though some desperate people could still try to get through by other means. But a…

==That said, I have read health experts say that shutting down borders won't be effective at stopping pandemics.==

So what/why are you arguing?

Former CDC Chief: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/cdc-chief-why-i-dont-support...

World Economic Forum Executive Director: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2014/11/why-travel-bans-will-...

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#66

The Chinese government has had difficulties handling the situation. I think we might need WHO to jump in soon. (Chinese New Years is in 3 days and few hundred million people will travel in congested trains and flights. Also people in China usually don’t cover their mouths when they cough) Coronavirus: Chinese hospitals not testing patients, say relatives https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/21/coronavirus-ch...…

I think otherwise.

If there is one government that can tackle this, it will be the Chinese government. It is much more powerful and effective to enforce crowd control than other countries.

And you better hope it succeeds, for your own benefits.

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#67
post #17

I feel like it has been so long since the swine flu, bird flu, H1N1 flu, and other flu scares that we are due for one. Like the recessions the flu scares are cyclical.

Recessions happen somewhat cyclically because imbalances build up in the economy that ultimately cause some sort of dislocation. The same is not true in virology. There is no "pent up" mechanism that needs to periodically release an outbreak. It is entirely random and in these types of outbreaks simply becomes more likely when many animal species exist in close proximity, allowing virus cross-over. It's no coincidenc…

Maybe the mechanism is in the cynicism. After some time people forget why they are freaking out over something that never happened as far as they remember.

A bit like the Y2K bug that was supposed to end the world but nothing happened but nothing happened because we took measures successfully. There are many people out there using this as an example of alarmist to draw parallels with the climate change concerns.

Maybe we as a species need to have people around who remember things and when they are gone we simply re-learn the lessons. Writing seems to be effective on passing the knowledge on how to do or avoid things but not very effective about the reasons.

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#68
post #52
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure we can blame the current leadership for the last 30+ years of issues. That said our current govt will surely follow the path to the most profit for big pharma. Of that I have no doubt.

I'm just reporting on the gist of what was said, that our current leadership is not up to the challenge of something really serious. I mean... it's hard to disagree. This is the guy who rants about windmill cancer, stared directly at the sun during the eclipse and thinks Article II of the constitution allows him to do "whatever he wants".

He also proposed some pretty serious cuts to the CDC last year. Not sure how much of those actually made it out of budget committee, I suspect most of them didn't make it through, but certainly is an indication of his priorities.

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#69
As someone who lives quite close to the hospital in the article, it was interesting seeing reactions this morning at the office. Some people immediately wondered about their immuno compromised friends and family, while others (myself included) just sort of said "huh" and went about our day. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#70
post #42
post #13

Coronaviruses are transmitted in what seems to be the same manner as influenza and generate some of the same symptoms. Why do the worst coronaviruses, like SARS, transmit so slowly, while the flu is practically ubiquitous?

While SARS does have a longer incubation period, typically 2-7 days compared to the common flu's 1-4 days, the "slow transmission" that you've witnessed is more likely the successful work of national and international public health agencies preventing its spread. Especially by means of contact tracing and quarantine. Seasonal flu variants have a lethality of around 0.1%. The Spanish flu of 1918 was around 2%. SARS ha…

SARS has a higher fatality rate than 10%. It's more like 25%. The reason why the numbers are so low is because China underreported the number of deaths. Look at Canada for a more reliable number. And that's not including any long term problems the infected people got even after recovering.

My dad was in China during the SARS time. He said they shut down entire hospitals and basically let people die from it. These are things you don't hear about at all.

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