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WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

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61–70 of 465 posts

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#61

For those who are referencing the flu and it's mortality rate here are estimates from the CDC for 2019 * 15,000,000 – 21,000,000 who had the flu * 8,200 – 20,000 deaths from the flu The morality rate ranges from 0.03% to 0.09% or 3/10000 9/10000 https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-e...

Any idea what the rates are for the corona virus?

It seems to be too early to tell. There are most likely a lot of undocumented infected cases as well as the incubation period for the virus might be different than the flu. Which can move mortality rate both ways.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#62
post #4

WHO spent the majority of the press briefing in very eerie and artificial sounding praise of China. Also, despite declaring a global emergency, they advise against restriction measures for international travel, which personally boggles the mind. At some point they vapidly ask "Where is the science behind this?". The science behind this is the discovery of viruses and the impossibility of teleportation.

> WHO spent the majority of the press briefing in very eerie and artificial sounding praise of China. This was my favorite: > "The main reason for this declaration is not what is happening in China but what is happening in other countries," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Obvious cautious tip-toe is obvious.

What about the next line?

"Our greatest concern is the potential for this virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems which are ill-prepared to deal with it."

I'd call it simply stating their reasoning rather than 'tip-toeing' or 'artificial praise'.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#63
post #54

How is this worse than your normal influenza cycle with 3-5Mio infections and 290k-650k death to warrant such an emergency?

> 290k-650k death Where are you getting that number? It a magnitude of 10 off

Global.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p1213-flu-death-esti....

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#64
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many variables when it comes to travel restriction. "Travel restriction" is simply not a binary category which you either have or do not have. Hence, I'm unconvinced by a universal conclusion of "travel restriction does not work" from a few retrospective studies of a few heterogeneous cases of past travel restrictions. I maintain that we should not give in to the conclusion that global spread of infections…

While it's true you cannot prevent with certainty every possibility of the virus coming here, but by implementing travel restrictions you do inhibit and create barriers of it's spread. This can mean The difference between multiple cities being ravaged by a disease instead of smaller groups of infected individuals.

>This can mean The difference between multiple cities being ravaged by a disease instead of smaller groups of infected individuals.

That sounds nice in theory, but there's no literature backing this up.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#65

This is (imo) the right course of action to (at minimum) alert countries wrt the gravity of this outbreak; however, I was disappointed to see the tiptoeing around potentially offending China. From the press conference, it seemed that Dr. Tedros made it painfully (maybe even unnecessarily) clear that this action wasn't faulting China for their handling of this situation. It's just weird to see that global politics is…

It's not just politics. This is matter of trying to placate China so that they don't hide numbers from international/outside health organizations to save face.

My understanding is that China was less than forthcoming about actual infection/death rates when SARS was making it's rounds.

Disclaimer: I do not have a source for this. This is heresay from the hubub around the current crisis so take it with a grain of salt.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#66

For those who are referencing the flu and it's mortality rate here are estimates from the CDC for 2019 * 15,000,000 – 21,000,000 who had the flu * 8,200 – 20,000 deaths from the flu The morality rate ranges from 0.03% to 0.09% or 3/10000 9/10000 https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-e...

Any idea what the rates are for the corona virus?

Well 170/~7000 is ~2.4% which is about 8x deadlier.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#67

The way all global superpowers and, by extension, their organizations have to babysit China's government has gone from ridiculous to ridiculously dangerous. Politicans pretend not to notice human rights abuses, ignore the fact that the regime is repressive and a danger to its own people, and now try to act like saying 'Hey, the virus originated in this country, hope they contain it' is some horribly offensive thing.…

[deleted]

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#68
post #54

How is this worse than your normal influenza cycle with 3-5Mio infections and 290k-650k death to warrant such an emergency?

> 290k-650k death Where are you getting that number? It a magnitude of 10 off

Global deaths due to seasonal influenza are in that range.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#69
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keeps saying things like, "Yeah, well last year way more people died of the flu!" Yeah, well that was an entire year . This is a few weeks. The goal is to get ahead of things, not to wait until it's too late.

I'm still not sure I understand this. If US alone has ~60k deaths from the flu a year, that still works out to be much more (1153 deaths per week).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_function

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#70

For those who are referencing the flu and it's mortality rate here are estimates from the CDC for 2019 * 15,000,000 – 21,000,000 who had the flu * 8,200 – 20,000 deaths from the flu The morality rate ranges from 0.03% to 0.09% or 3/10000 9/10000 https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-e...

Any idea what the rates are for the corona virus?

The official figures in China are 8,163 cases 171 deaths which is 2% right now, but take these with a big grain of salt. They could go up (some of those confirmed cases will be very recent and may get worse) or down (more cases might have happened but be unreported). Its really hard to tell what it will look like in a month or two.
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