Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 221 posts

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

#71

Post by diehunde »

camillomiller wrote: post #53
satokema_work wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish wearing hospital masks was more accepted. Out of the listed reactions, it's probably the least overreaction possible, especially if it's a fashionable one and not actually hospital color...

I wear one everytime I fly (which is 8-10 times a month on average) and I just don‘t care about the reactions. Also, keep your bare hands the hell away from your eyes and nose.

I travel almost every week and washing my hands every time I can plus never touching my face have kept me ill-free for a couple of years now. Of course I also take other precautions like avoiding closed spaces with sick people, good sleep, drink water and exercise regularly.

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

#72

Post by sib »

munificent wrote: post #63
glofish wrote: 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 worl…

Great book about this (and, more broadly, the rise of medicine as a scientific endeavor):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143036491/

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

#73

Post by chrisco255 »

taiwanboy wrote: post #18

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...…

The WHO is a policy org. They don't have any power to do anything on their own. They can only recommend things.

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

#74

Post by ping_pong »

satokema_work wrote: post #22
ryanmercer wrote: post #16

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 wish wearing hospital masks was more accepted. Out of the listed reactions, it's probably the least overreaction possible, especially if it's a fashionable one and not actually hospital color...

Hospital masks by itself would not help prevent things like SARS. In Toronto, health care workers were getting infected even after following the strictest protocols.

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

#75

Post by yread »

If you're scared just read the wiki on SARS - the previous coronavirus infection - to refresh your memory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_SARS_outbreak

It was a LOT worse that time - Chinese government basically covering up for the first 6 months, virus isolated only much later, sequenced months later.

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

#76

Post by [deleted] »

yingw787 wrote: post #38

I read on Reddit that Chinese New Year is the largest regularly occurring human migration event in the world. Millions of Chinese people gather on public transport and planes To go home to celebrate. It’s in a few days I think. Also I’m not sure how the CDC is preparing for this under 45, but given the state of the federal government I would guess it’s less prepared than the days of the Ebola scare. Hopefully things…

[deleted]

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

#77

Post by Nothorized »

diehunde wrote: post #71
camillomiller wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wear one everytime I fly (which is 8-10 times a month on average) and I just don‘t care about the reactions. Also, keep your bare hands the hell away from your eyes and nose.

I travel almost every week and washing my hands every time I can plus never touching my face have kept me ill-free for a couple of years now. Of course I also take other precautions like avoiding closed spaces with sick people, good sleep, drink water and exercise regularly.

How did you break the constant need to touch your face? I tried to do that, and in 5 minutes I am back in touching some part of my face.

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

#78

Post by notadoc »

munificent wrote: post #63
glofish wrote: 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 worl…

> We have much better medicine now, thankfully.

Do we? Against a deadly and virulent flu virus causing viral pneumonia? Not really without development of a highly effective vaccine.

You have better life support, but that's about it. Something like ECMO is extremely invasive and limited to maybe a few per ICU.

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

#79

Post by Merrill »

aodin wrote: post #42
tptacek wrote: 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…

>Of the 298 infected, nearly 230 are being treated in the hospital. Among them, around 60 cases are critically ill. Others who are sick have recovered or been sent home from the hospital. And six people have died.

>It’s possible there are many more people with the virus out there who have very mild symptoms or who are asymptomatic, said Dr. Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, a research charity focused on global health. If that’s the case, and there are thousands carrying 2019-nCoV while only a few people have died, this outbreak will look milder.

https://www.vox.com/2020/1/21/21075017/sars-wuhan-pneumonia-...

The actual mortality rate will be determined by how many of the critical ill patients recover or die. Long term disability is another thing that needs to be measured.

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

#80

Post by autokad »

aodin wrote: post #42
tptacek wrote: 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…

Spanish flu was more 20% than 2%
Post reply on HN