Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–460 of 465 posts

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#451

Post by inferiorhuman »

bosie wrote: post #441
inferiorhuman wrote: post #271

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. I wouldn't even go that far. I've been using this as an excuse to figure out the D3 v5 API using the Johns Hopkins data. Most provinces outside of Hubei are not reporting deaths yet. It's possible nobody's died outside of Hubei, but that seems suspect to me. There is almost certainly strong federal…

> I don't believe for a moment that China would've attempted to quarantine 60 million people so quickly if the case fatality rate were only 2%. 2% is bad but SARS saw around 15% in many countries and things weren't locked down this tightly. presumably fatality is only one of many factors here. 15% of 100 infections is a different beast than 2% of 1M. And if it takes up to 14 days to see symptoms...

15% of 100 infections is a different beast than 2% of 1M.

There were roughly 8,000 SARS infections and currently about 10,000 nCoV infections so the comparisons aren't quite as absurd.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#452

Post by Jamwinner »

_-___________-_ wrote: post #388
mirimir wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd expect that death certificates would specify the specific cause, if it's known. But I don't know if that's true. Either way, it makes the data far less useful.

How is "viral pneumonia" not the specific cause of death?

Thats like saying the person died form lack of blood after being shot. Its technically correct, but actually useless.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#453

Post by gastlygem »

DarthGhandi wrote: post #319
tenpies wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is locking down an entire city "poor containment". Because it followed a week of ignoring the issue and then another week of arresting people who were reporting on the issue. This has been an issue since December 28th, but China and the WHO are pretending it began just recently. It's "containment" in much the same way that the Soviet Union just couldn't stop lying about Chernobyl because people miles away were…

Can you find me what the 8 people arrested for actually wrote? 5 have been arrested in Malaysia and 2 in Thailand also, have read the viral fake news they wrote and have no problems with their arrest at all. In the shadier parts of the internet I'm already seeing services for ruining your competitors with viral social media fear campaigns. r/Australia has a big sticky of all the nonsense being peddled in the country…

> Can you find me what the 8 people arrested for actually wrote?

One of the doctors saw the initial cases before they were officially confirmed. He told the news in WeChat groups to their friends who were also doctors about a SARS-like virus that's being identified and warned their doctor friends to beware. The other 7 just spreaded the message and they are also doctors. They weren't arrested though. They were warned by the police and forced to promise that they won't do it again.

The one who originally wrote the message were also later found to be infected by the virus. Here is an interview in which he told the story: https://m.mp.oeeee.com/a/BAAFRD000020200130255882.html?&laye...

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#454

Post by teknologist »

me_me_me wrote: post #401
ttul wrote: 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.

Well it might be partially due to culture. Large parts of population is skeptical to the modern western medicine, and rather use traditional Chinese medicine practices.

I have to wonder at what point "culture" becomes an excuse for being ignorant and/or under-educated about what science is.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#455

Post by mantap »

netsharc wrote: post #402
mantap wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way the central government is handling this is impressive, quarantining a city of that size is unprecedented and has bought the world extra time to prepare. Yes the WHO are playing politics when they focus on the good things China is doing and ignore the bad. But personally I think they are closer to the truth than those who present an entirely negative version of events. China's response has been 70% good :)

Huh, I would say you're in the wrong thread to claim it's "impressive", if this guy's video is to be believed, it's a whole lot of chaos and lack of supplies...

We have gone from the first confirmed human-to-human transmission to tens of thousands of cases in something like two weeks. No amount of preparation will prevent chaos and shortages in a situation like this.

I watched the CDC press conference today and saw nothing but fear written on their faces. And that is with far more advanced notice than the Chinese had.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#456

Post by _-___________-_ »

Jamwinner wrote: post #452
_-___________-_ wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is "viral pneumonia" not the specific cause of death?

Thats like saying the person died form lack of blood after being shot. Its technically correct, but actually useless.

Medically it seems much more specific though. You could die from numerous things after a gunshot wound, so naming the specific cause of death is more accurate.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#457

Post by _-___________-_ »

mirimir wrote: post #448
_-___________-_ wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is "viral pneumonia" not the specific cause of death?

Doesn't say which virus. If they don't know, fine. Albeit sloppy, given the context. If they do know, and don't say, it's deceptive.

I'm not sure that it's deceptive; generally the "cause of death" is just one part of a larger report that can give further detail.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#458

Post by brigandish »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #425
brigandish wrote: post #379

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…

Well, as far as throwing pasta at the wall - it sounds a little bit like Engineer's disease to think that we can come up with a solution by thinking hard on the problem https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10812975 Obviously I'm as arrogant as the the next guy, but I think that arrogant next guy is probably already working on this issue and has a bunch of background in domain expertise and specific knowledge of the l…

Throwing pasta at a wall implies that the idea of coming up with an idea is unlikely, thus not being arrogant, but also points out that it is possible, which it is.

As it is, I'd prefer the focus moved to solutions from speculation, at least it's an attitude I'm more comfortable with.

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#459

Post by hatenberg »

me_me_me wrote: post #401
ttul wrote: 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.

Well it might be partially due to culture. Large parts of population is skeptical to the modern western medicine, and rather use traditional Chinese medicine practices.

Yea those damn antivaxxers. Oh wait

Re: WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

#460

Post by Waterluvian »

sudosysgen wrote: post #260
Waterluvian wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it like 0.09% of deaths vs 2% of deaths? I certainly could be misunderstanding the data!

0.1 vs 2 is slightly over one order of magnitude.

Oh my. Yes. My bad.
Post reply on HN