Second Travel-Related Case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Detected in United States • Hacker News Board

Re: Second Travel-Related Case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Detected in United States

#41

Post by tinix » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 4:14 AM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #34

dzhiurgis wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The global aviation industry produces around 2% of all human-induced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Aviation is responsible for 12% of CO2 emissions from all transports sources, compared to 74% from road transport. First result on Google...

CO2 is plant food. All organic species are made out of substantial amounts of carbon. The mild warming has not killed anyone and no, droughts are not more common than they were 100 years ago. Only 11,000 people died from natural disasters and weather related phenomenon last year, down from over 1,000,000 per year, 100 years ago.

Comparing death rates per disaster, per capita, between now and 100 years ago, is wholly nonsensical. Biomedical technology is immensely more effective now, than 100 years ago. It is not a 1:1 comparison. What that curve looks like, I don't know, but it's not a fair comparison to draw ratios like that. Don't get me wrong, I'm not supporting the hysteria here, by any means, or at least, that is not my intent... but c'mon, let's be reasonable and think about this.

Diseases aside... to direct some attention to the other part of your message...

Yeah CO2 fuels photosynthesis, but when most of the light is blocked by smog and smoke, what then?

First of all, light is needed for photosynthesis, I'm sure we all can agree. But, when plants are in the dark, they actually release CO2. Actually, they release CO2 in the day time too, because plants also respire, they breathe oxygen, and release CO2, and when there is light, some of that CO2 can be used to make energy; they are efficient that way. Further, about half the CO2 that they consume during the day, is released at night, and the rest is converted to energy, or wasted, etc...

Just dumping more and more CO2 and acting like, fuck it, man, whatever, it's plant food... knowing these facts that I expressed above... Think.

Re: Second Travel-Related Case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Detected in United States

#42

Post by floatingatoll » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 4:22 AM UTC

spectramax wrote: post #39

xvilka wrote: post #11

If you are not a scientist this doesn't mean you can't help fighting this particular or any other infectious and non-infectious disease. It is easy - just help to improve the tools that scientists and laboratories use. For example, something like BioJulia[1][2] and BioPython[3][4] - both have some issues[5][6] that need help with or accepting donations[7]. There are many other tools that are used, feel free to list t…

Does anyone use Julia in production?

Yes.

Re: Second Travel-Related Case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Detected in United States

#43

Post by cjbprime » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 4:23 AM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #30

dzhiurgis wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The global aviation industry produces around 2% of all human-induced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Aviation is responsible for 12% of CO2 emissions from all transports sources, compared to 74% from road transport. First result on Google...

Human breathing produces about 2.5 billion tons of CO2 per year. Aviation is just under 1 billion tons per year. Aviation is one of the great wonders of the modern world. The carbon it produces is essentially inconsequential. Compared to the wealth, knowledge, peace, and prosperity that international travel directly supports, calls to curtail plane travel in order to reduce CO2 IMO are seriously misguided.

The tons produced by aviation are produced in higher concentration in air, and produced nearer to the atmosphere at high altitude, making them more dangerous than the tons produced by human breathing. You can't just compare the total.

Re: Second Travel-Related Case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Detected in United States

#44

Post by handedness » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 4:28 AM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #38

sterlind wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Official numbers yes, but sometimes behavior leaks. What are wealthy/well-connected Chinese businesspeople and officials doing? Maybe there's some insider trading or money moving that could shed light on the real situation?

IIRC people used to look at things like electricity and energy use to determine real Chinese GDP growth, but I would imagine this has become less useful as the Chinese economy transitions away from heavy polluting industry and towards higher energy efficiency.

That transition is still a ways off.

Re: Second Travel-Related Case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Detected in United States

#45

Post by cesarb » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 4:39 AM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #30

dzhiurgis wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The global aviation industry produces around 2% of all human-induced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Aviation is responsible for 12% of CO2 emissions from all transports sources, compared to 74% from road transport. First result on Google...

Human breathing produces about 2.5 billion tons of CO2 per year. Aviation is just under 1 billion tons per year. Aviation is one of the great wonders of the modern world. The carbon it produces is essentially inconsequential. Compared to the wealth, knowledge, peace, and prosperity that international travel directly supports, calls to curtail plane travel in order to reduce CO2 IMO are seriously misguided.

> Human breathing produces about 2.5 billion tons of CO2 per year.

The carbon emitted in human breathing came from the food, and the carbon in the food came from the atmosphere. It's a closed cycle. It doesn't matter if it's a billion or two, an identical amount of carbon had to be captured first.

Re: Second Travel-Related Case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Detected in United States

#46

Post by Fomite » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 4:44 AM UTC

Something1234 wrote: post #40

Fomite wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epidemiology, as a field, has a harder time in infectious diseases not representing things as exponential growth than it does being surprised by it.

Please explain more? What do they represent it as instead?

So the standard type of mathematical model that's used to describe early stage epidemics (such as this one) basically assume exponential growth.

It's hard to get the math to stop doing that when a disease reaches a non-exponential stage. That's why you got some bonkers predictions for Ebola - if you let an exponential model run for a year, it's always going to be bad.

Re: Second Travel-Related Case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Detected in United States

#47

Post by dmix » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 4:45 AM UTC

jostmey wrote: post #10

Exponential growth has a way of catching people off guard. Moore’s laws continually surprised business. Viral spread will catch society off guard. It is my opinion that we must, as a society, go to enormous lengths to stop this virus, beyond quarantining millions in Wuhan.

Shutting down all transit and public gatherings for one of the biggest cities in China plus surrounding areas reaching 20M is quite a significant response, during the busiest and most important holiday of the year, is it not?

Re: Second Travel-Related Case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Detected in United States

#48

Post by trevyn » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 4:57 AM UTC

korantu wrote: post #27

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger problem with aviation is there's no known way to decarbonize it within the foreseeable future. Hopefully most people will be driving electric cars within the next few decades, but with airplanes that won't be possible absent a miraculous breakthrough.

The actual process already exists in electrofuels. [0] . If one has enough hear/electricity, they could generate fuel directly usable in existing jet engines with captured CO2, making overall process CO2-neutral [0] https://karmaimpact.com/jet-engine-makers-cast-an-eye-on-nuc...

CO2 is fungible, so no problem just using regular fuel and sequestering an equivalent amount of CO2 from elsewhere in the atmosphere.

At $100/ton CO2 sequestration cost and 90kg CO2 per passenger-hour, that’s roughly $10/passenger-hour.

Re: Second Travel-Related Case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Detected in United States

#49

Post by mockery » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 5:05 AM UTC

wisdomdata wrote: post #9

on currently published numbers the death rate is around one death per 30 infections. (25th January, 41 people dead from 1287 infections). According to wikipedia the spanish flu had a death rate of 1 in 50 (although the numbers may not be that reliable), so until more is known about transmission it should prompt precautions.

Where on Wikipedia did you see 1 in 50 for Spanish Flu? I'm seeing a much higher number: "an estimated 10% to 20% of those who were infected died' [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#Around_the_globe

Re: Second Travel-Related Case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus Detected in United States

#50

Post by ChrisRackauckas » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 5:36 AM UTC

xvilka wrote: post #11

If you are not a scientist this doesn't mean you can't help fighting this particular or any other infectious and non-infectious disease. It is easy - just help to improve the tools that scientists and laboratories use. For example, something like BioJulia[1][2] and BioPython[3][4] - both have some issues[5][6] that need help with or accepting donations[7]. There are many other tools that are used, feel free to list t…

And an interesting note of Biosequences versus the new Seq language: https://biojulia.net/post/seq-lang/