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WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

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Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#141

Post by wyldfire »

steve_musk wrote: post #50
UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #21

Coronavirus: -5,974 confirmed cases -170 deaths [1]For comparisons the SARS outbreak of 2003: -8,098 people worldwide became sick -774 died [1] https://www.cdc.gov/sars/about/fs-sars.html

Just to put it in better perspective: Coronavirus: -5,974 confirmed cases -170 deaths -143 recoveries -5,661 still sick SARS: -8,098 cases -774 deaths -7,324 recoveries

Virulence versus pathogenicity. Perhaps you contend that SARS' pathogenicity is greater than this coronavirus'? But virulence demands our attention, too. Why? Because public engagement can help prevent its spread.

When AIDS/HIV was near its peak, folks would often compare it in a similar fashion to cancer. If we ignore the fact that cancer is a big diverse bucket, most/many cancers really don't have any 'virulence' so getting public attention to drive best practices to mitigate spread just don't make any sense.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#142

Post by Symmetry »

wyldfire wrote: post #131
slumdev wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hygiene practices can prevent the spread of diseases like this. Wash your hands, don't touch your face, etc. Wear a surgical mask and limit interactions with others if you're sick. But this virus spreads via droplet transmission, so just being within 6 feet of someone who's infected (and coughs/sneezes) is enough to spread it. If you're referring to the overuse of hand sanitizer and other disinfectant agents, it migh…

> If you're referring to the overuse of hand sanitizer and other disinfectant agents I'm thinking more generally: I was thinking along these lines because the news report I heard [1] described 'wet markets' as a place where disease spread. I'd never heard of it before. But it occurred to me that centuries ago, this kind of thing might have been more common. Processes and regulations for handling of animal products ar…

Oh, eating of bushmeat is certainly how this made the jump from bats to humans in the first place. But it doesn't really have anything to do with its spread among humans.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#143

Post by makomk »

arkadiyt wrote: post #47
guiomie wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you add the timeframe of each pandemic? I believe the coronavirus is 1-2 months old, but how long was SARS to get to 774? I feel like the comparaison isn't great without timeline.

Here are some graphs showing exactly that: https://ncov.r6.no/ It's also worth noting that the ~8k confirmed cases are bottlenecked by how fast China can perform tests. Here's an article guesstimating that there were up to 100k infections a few days ago: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/26/coronavirus-...

Yeah, China's healthcare system does not seem to be coping well with this: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/30/asia/chinese-health-care-...

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#144

Post by merpnderp »

2019-nCoV wrote: post #83
hanniabu wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any idea what the rates are for the corona virus?

It's currently 171 deaths, 8,288 confirmed infected, which is 2% dead. However, what needs to be taken into consideration is that infected individuals don't die the day they are confirmed infected, there is a lag of several days. Assuming the average time from symptom onset and diagnosis to death is 7 days, we're looking at at 20% death rate (830 confirmed infected 1 week ago). Even a 5 day lag between symptom onset…

7 days is too short. In the 2 Lancet studies (the 41 person cohort and the 99 person cohort), the time from diagnosis to the first recorded death is 11 days later, but most happened sometime after that. It's likely safe to say that diagnosis to death is 2-3 weeks.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#145

Post by avip »

hanniabu wrote: post #59
cheeseblubber wrote: post #43

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?

Short answer: seasonal flu Long answer: wait a week or two.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#146

Post by goblin89 »

klhjweoiru wrote: post #123
goblin89 wrote: post #24

Running the official numbers, mortality rate is less than 3%. If we plug in estimative models claiming 25000+ unrecorded infections, mortality is less than 1%. Unless you are in a sensitive age group or have other health problems, data suggests you're most likely to get over it as a regular flu. It's not all perfect and is worse than a regular flu, but especially now after the announcement some people may way over-st…

The 3% number is with severe cases (aparently 20% of the cases) treated in ICU. What happens when you ran out of ICU beds?

I am ready to change my position on this, but not until I see any proof that only deaths in ICUs are reported by China as part of the statistic.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#147

Post by goblin89 »

ecneladis wrote: post #74
goblin89 wrote: post #24

Running the official numbers, mortality rate is less than 3%. If we plug in estimative models claiming 25000+ unrecorded infections, mortality is less than 1%. Unless you are in a sensitive age group or have other health problems, data suggests you're most likely to get over it as a regular flu. It's not all perfect and is worse than a regular flu, but especially now after the announcement some people may way over-st…

These calculations assume that no one else infected dies. Seems overly optimistic, especially given that ~1200 patients are in serious or critical condition.

I try to keep that in mind, but I also keep in mind that many people do not report to the hospital when sick.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#148

Post by WilTimSon »

segmondy wrote: post #108
WilTimSon wrote: post #26

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.…

Grow up. WHO is not an organization to talk about human rights or other things. It's HEALTH, that's what the H is in. China started of slow, but they have really stepped up in doing their part to help contain the virus. Nothing wrong with recognizing their effort. Let's not forget that the scientists working around the clock in that country are not "China" but individuals like you and me.

a) 'Grow up' is not useful discourse, please leave that stuff on social media.

b) Recognizing their effort is fine and the right thing to do. Saying 'oh, we don't need travel blocks' when the virus seems to mainly be spread from one province is dangerous. And this following part is just wildly misleading and a clear attempt to babysit the Chinese government's feelings:

"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.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#149

Post by throwanem »

staticautomatic wrote: post #136
diffeomorphism wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because now they have to go through all the paperwork, waiting and hassle to document that they "clearly" are essential... several times. Bureaucracy is never, ever frictionless.

That may well be the case. I don't have any firsthand knowledge of the process. Do you?

Do you have a strong prior for large bureaucracies, especially at their interfaces with one another, not being sluggish? If so, how do you come by it? If not, whence comes the doubt whose benefit you seem so anxious to give?

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#150

Post by el_benhameen »

mrb wrote: post #35

It's about time... All early characteristics of the novel coronavirus indicate it's far more dangerous than SARS/MERS/seasonal flu (which kills 30-60k/year in the US) so, unless a cure is found soon, we should expect it to kill more people than these other diseases combined : https://mobile.twitter.com/zorinaq/status/122263149332482867...

I don't know enough to directly question your numbers, but you should be upfront that 1. you're quoting your own twitter feed from another username, and 2. you're not an expert (at least in the standard sense of the word) in epidemiology or a related field.
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