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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

#211

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.

More importantly, the flu has a vaccine. New versions of it are released each year according to what health organizations think will be the dominant variants. The new virus has no vaccine.

I think you mean 1 strand of the flu has a vaccine that only a small percentage of the public administer.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#212
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...

> All early characteristics of the novel coronavirus indicate it's far more dangerous than SARS Would you consider fucking off? This is your third or fourth bullshit post on this thread combining a sensationalist falsehood with a link to your Twitter feed.

What a nice way to add to the conversation ...

If you have something substantial to post, then do it, otherwise please respect the guidelines of this site ...

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I recommend everyone to watch this on-site commentary from the chinese human rights lawyer Chen Qiushi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AI3R41dGnU Any numbers we've seen so far seem very tame to me, compared to the pictures out of Wuhan.

I watched the whole thing. It was riveting. Don't forget to turn on CC if you need translation. It is a volunteer transalation.

The reporter, Chen Qiushi, describes his observations in Wuhan, a city of more than 10 million.

His preamble:

"My name has been flagged in China."

"If the content contains 'Chenqiushi' or 'CQS', or my face, it will not be sent on Wechat. ... if you [share on wechat], your wechat account will be deleted, like mine.""

He describes visits he made to hospitals in Wuhan and the general state in the city.

It is well worth listening to / reading.

Some points that stuck with me:

People cannot get to hospital because there is a critical lack of transportation.

There is a critical lack of test kits, so residents do not believe they will be diagnosed, so they stay home.

The original (not translated) is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXozpbomAns

(thanks Roritharr)

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#214
post #163
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People mistakenly calculate %2 and %50 simultaneously because they assume that when a case is confirmed the death or cured status is also determined at that moment. In reality, though, people who are going to die don't die at the moment of infection confirmation and people who are going to live do lag in the log because it takes time to confirm if someone has recovered and virus-free. Some will suggest to simply comp…

« assume that when a case is confirmed the death or cured status is also determined at that moment » This is why epidemiologists (ref: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ebf2/48c9fc0a1a23d1778b9408... or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22195827 for my comment on the paper) prefer instead this formula which only counts patients for which the eventual outcome is already known: deaths / (deaths + recoveries) With thi…

Patient timelines still matter. It takes longer to recover than it does to die, so it would make sense to compare current recoveries with the number of deaths from several days ago. But without knowing the patient timeline, I couldn't tell you how many.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All early characteristics of the novel coronavirus indicate it's far more dangerous than SARS Would you consider fucking off? This is your third or fourth bullshit post on this thread combining a sensationalist falsehood with a link to your Twitter feed.

What a nice way to add to the conversation ... If you have something substantial to post, then do it, otherwise please respect the guidelines of this site ...

Some actions warrant uncivil responses, and trying to induce the pain of unnecessary panic in other people to shill a social media account is among them.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#216

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...

Are the symptoms about the same as the flu? Does having it feel like a flu?

It's like a worse version of the flu. The way that you'll die from the flu is getting a secondary pneumonia infection from Staph aureus or Steptococcus pneumonia, the virus just makes you more susceptible and weaker.

The major lethal consequence for this virus in the Coronavirus family is Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). A strong outcome for this is we knock you out, put a tube down your throat, and have you breath via mechanical ventilator. It's intense to say the least.

Source: Medical student

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#217
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rates for Chinese provinces except for Hubei seem inconsistent with 20-56% mortality too. The ten provinces outside Hubei that have the most confirmed infections are: * Zhejiang: 428 confirmed; 0 deaths; 4 recovered * Guangdong: 354 confirmed; 0 deaths; 10 recovered * Henan: 278 confirmed; 2 deaths; 2 recovered * Hunan: 277 confirmed; 0 deaths; 2 recovered * Anhui: 200 confirmed; 0 deaths; 2 recovered * Chongqing…

That's a very good observation on these 10 provinces. But I would apply caution when interpreting a cherry-picked data subset. Nitpick: I don't claim "20-56%" death rate, but "9-56%", thus your observation of a 10% CFR is in line with my claim.

One other observation, for what it's worth. According to the John Hopkins site, between 29th Jan and 30th Jan updates (that's the data I happen to have access to), we have worldwide:

* 29th: deaths 133, recovered 126

* 30th: deaths 171, recovered 143

But for Hubei, we get:

* 29th: deaths 125, recovered 88

* 30th: deaths 162, recovered 90

Which looks like the death rate is going up in Hubei.

Subtracting Hubei though, for the rest of the world (but mostly China) we get:

* 29th: deaths 8, recovered 38

* 30th: deaths 9, recovered 53

* difference: deaths 1, recovered 15

Of course these numbers are too small to have real significance, but they're worth watching over the next day or two. It looks like outcomes are very different outside of Hubei from in Hubei.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#218

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...

Are the symptoms about the same as the flu? Does having it feel like a flu?

Basically, yes - it's an upper respiratory infection. Indistinguishable from seasonal influenza or a cold, until symptoms are severe.

There may be some slight differences, but even seasonal influenza and a cold frequently present differently.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#219
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assigning 50% chance of death to any patient remaining in the hospital when calculating mortality rate would be nuts, I can only thank the epidemiologists for not publishing the number.

Not 50%, you misunderstand me. I edited my comment to clarify. What I meant is out of those who came out of the hospital (either dead or recovered), 26% died. So those remaining in the hospital are assumed to have a 26% chance of dying. Another way of looking at probabilities, out of the 57 patients left in the hospital: If 0 die (ie. all recover), the CFR is 11% (11 deads, 88 recovered) If 15 die (26% of 57 still ho…

Looking only at hospitalized populations creates severe selection bias when applied to the question people want answered here, namely "If I get nCOV, what's my chance of dying?" Only the most severe cases a physician sees end up hospitalized, and only the most severe cases within the general population end up being seen by a physician and confirmed as nCOV. You've already got two levels of selection bias (with an unknown percentage passing through each filter) before reaching the denominator in your numbers.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#220
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).

As an exercise in understanding exponential growth, for one month would you rather receive $20,000 or 1 penny on day one, 2 on day two, doubling each day until the end of the month. Try it with a calculator or program.

People are concerned because this has a high growth rate that, unless contained, would cause large number of deaths

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