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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

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, however: > Most patients were men, with a mean age of 55·5 years (SD 13·1; table 1). 50 (51%) patients had chronic diseases, including cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, endocrine system disease [and some others] The findings conclude: > In general, the characteristics of patients who died were in line with the early warning model for predicting mortality in viral pneumonia Also the group was s…

>50 years is not old. I don't know what is considered old but I know that >75y has a two magnitudes higher mortality rate with the flu. I doubt that the 50 years old Hospital doctor who died had any serious per-existing health condition. In fact, you could argue hat most doctors have a stronger immune system than average since they are exposed to more germs due to their profession. So this 50y old professional droppi…

>I doubt that the 50 years old Hospital doctor who died had any serious per-existing health condition.

If you are referring to the doctor in Wuhan - Liang Wudong - he was 62-years old.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#412
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. China’s medical system is primitive by comparison. They have shiny highways and trains, but hospitals are overcrowded and underfunded.

> China’s medical system is primitive by comparison. Comparison to what? Isn't US hostpitals notorious in that regard? Getting flu and either dying or being bankrupt.

At least you have options. Some countries only have the first.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#413
post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, in what world is wiping out half a population not that bad??

One could argue that thinning the population of the older demographic with pre-existing (and expensive) conditions could be a net benefit to governments with socialized healthcare. See Taiwan which has repeatedly had to refund their system because of an aging population and the related growing costs.

I'm not disputing your point, but with respect to Taiwan, the fact that visiting a doctor is almost a sport certainly doesn't help - An average of 14 visits per year per person:

>There is a high level of health seeking behaviour in Taiwan. It is part of the Taiwanese culture to take medicines or to seek medical help frequently, even for minor ailments.

>The average outpatient department visit rate is 14 times per year per person.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3960712/

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#414

Stupid question: is it possible that hygiene practices contribute to outbreaks like this? I remember reading or hearing that one input to recent wildfires was the fact that decades of controlled burns to limit the spread of wildfires left a lot of available fuel that otherwise would have burned naturally. So in that vein, do we have humans with compromised immunity thriving but susceptible to inter-species mutations…

Back when we didn't have good hygiene, we had Spanish Flu and Black Plague. It's hard to imagine such massive outbreaks these days in developed countries.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#415
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any idea what the rates are for the corona virus?

Ignore the people telling you it's 2-3%. The case fatality ratio is between 9 and 56% according to proper epidemiological methods, such as using the formula "deaths / (deaths + recoveries)": https://mobile.twitter.com/zorinaq/status/122242770872387993... Disclosure: no I'm not an epidemiologist. But for a reference to a paper by actual epidemiologists see https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ebf2/48c9fc0a1a23d1778b9408..…

It taks longer time to confirm recoveries than death.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#416

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…

Seeing current situation, what positive things that can be gained from faulting China?

Imo it may cause china to become hostile and turn off cooperation.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#417
post #284
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Last Update: Jan 30, 2020 11 am EST. It is not a real-time map, I find it bizarre that people believe that we can track the population's wellbeing in real-time. Are you ready to be hooked up to such a system?

This comment and the replies to it really give a glimpse into the psyche of the more pedantry-prone members of HN. For me, if someone says X, and a literal interpretation of X would be impossible/ridiculous, I naturally assume the more generous interpretation Y. I would find it bizarre to believe that X was intended. Some people however cannot escape the interpretation X, and find the statement bizarre fullstop.

> For me, if someone says X, and a literal interpretation of X would be impossible/ridiculous, I naturally assume the more generous interpretation Y. I would find it bizarre to believe that X was intended.

I naturally assume it either doesn't know what it is talking about, or is trying to be manipulate through intentional misuse of words.

Words have meaning. You don't get to arbitrarily decide to change that meaning. I'm not defending the extreme pedantry, but at some point word use is just flat wrong, and that is the case with the original post.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I saw an interview with a German virologist. Her estimate was to have fatality rate of around 2%. Also stated the issues of calculating these number during the outbreak as not all cases are known, not everyone is either cured or dead. She also hinted at a bias towards the severe cases as most minor ones, symptoms like a cold, aren't reported yet and most likely not admitted to a hospital.

As she said, we will only know once the thing is over.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On timeline of events, there was a week or so of delay between first death + ICL paper and the city lockdown. It can be argued the lockdown was very late. The OP might also mean poor containment within China - which is only relying on other countries right now.

Very late relative to what? Certainly later than one would hope, but is there a real world benchmark for the handling situations like this that they fell short of? Have similar viruses crossed over in other countries and been handled better?

International Conventions on Quarantines were basically established at a time when the most common global transmission of viruses was by sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarantine#International_conve...

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#420

We all seem to be talking about guesstimates and data we can't be sure of, but I see little talk of what we can do . If this were a tech problem - a big problem that seemed insurmountable - I would break it down into chunks as best I could, look at all the parts of the chain, and ask myself which I could be most effective in tackling first. Treat it like a sprint. Which part of the chain would that be? With the cavea…

If true, it's mainly because nCov can spread before showing any symptoms. And if true, that testing before 1 week after infection showing negative sign makes it worse.

Now imagine how to prevent a net virus from spreading, where it doesn't show any symptom and scanning it before 1 week shows negative result, while during that time it can easily infect other.

Testing in real people isn't cheap, and currently there is no proven cure either (afaik).

Vaccine is the best solution but it hasn't been found yet.

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