Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU • Hacker News Board

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#31

Post by thedudeabides5 » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 12:52 AM UTC

0xebfc wrote: post #12

lefstathiou wrote: post #2

I've learned more about the virus reading this article than anything else I've read over the past weeks.

If you want detailed virological and epidemiological research and discussion, please see: http://virological.org/ There are other virology / epidemiology forums which may be of use, but I don't have these links at-hand. For instance, the following link is a highly descriptive, accessible analysis of nCoV-2019: http://virological.org/t/analysis-of-wuhan-coronavirus-deja-... OPs article does have merit, as far as givin…

Ok and what does this mean?

“ nCoV2019 has a furin-sensitive motif at the traditional S1/S2 border fo the spike protein, i.e. RRAR, that was lacking in SARS (which depends on cathepsin cleavage a few amino acids downstream). nCoV2019 lacks the secondary minimal furin cleavage site, i.e. RNTR, that is found in SARS. Therefore, the endoproteolytic cleavage pattern is expected to be different between nCoV2019 and SARS.

Prediction of O-glycosylation sites reveals a cluster of Serine residues, just before and after the RRAR cleavage site, with a high propensity to form a “mini-mucin” patch at that site. It is positioned to protect the putative fusion peptide region in the native or pre-fusion Swiss-Model projection of the probable nCoV2019 structure.”

Not sure how to ‘follow the research’ when the first page has 12 proper nouns/terms I’ve never encountered...

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#32

Post by nitwit005 » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 12:53 AM UTC

lefstathiou wrote: post #2

I've learned more about the virus reading this article than anything else I've read over the past weeks.

I've noticed the English language media has been big on facts and events, but generally provide little context besides the usual unhelpful short quotes.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#33

Post by herpderperator » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 12:53 AM UTC

taneq wrote: post #25

2bitencryption wrote: post #11

I'm curious, for most of the infected, is it obvious from the symptoms whether they have novel coronavirus, or just the regular flu? That is, the tail end is clearly deadly -- but for the average case, are symptoms much worse than the yearly flu, or around the same?

There's a something like 20% hospitalisation rate. That seems kind of scary compared to the flu which is "you have a sniffle, get over it."

As others have alluded to, I think you are confusing flu with cold.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#34

Post by UncleOxidant » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 12:56 AM UTC

notkaiho wrote: post #24

Did you see Eric Raymond having a completely normal one about novel Coronavirus? http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8587

He seems nice.

(wow, what a huge amount of fear mongering and conspiracy theories there)

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#35

Post by jbay808 » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 12:59 AM UTC

syshum wrote: post #14

loceng wrote: post #4

"The most regretful thing to me was a pregnant woman from Huanggang. She was in very serious condition. Nearly 200,000 yuan (S$39,505) was spent after more than a week in the ICU. She was from the countryside, and the money for hospitalisation was borrowed from her relatives and friends. Her condition was improving after the use of Ecmo, and she was likely to survive. But her husband decided to give up. He cried for…

[flagged]

In all cases the worst solution to any problem?

That's not capitalism, that's anarchism my friend.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#36

Post by seibelj » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 1:00 AM UTC

codeulike wrote: post #10

Alex3917 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I submitted this already, but this is worth reading also: https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/puzmZFQGRTiiquwLa6tT-g/confere...

Thanks for that, it was interesting and quite anti-panic.

I have been telling everyone to relax, these mass media panics about some virus happen every few years like clockwork. We are primed as a society to fear China right now so a panic like this is right on schedule.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#37

Post by mindfulgeek » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 1:03 AM UTC

2bitencryption wrote: post #11

I'm curious, for most of the infected, is it obvious from the symptoms whether they have novel coronavirus, or just the regular flu? That is, the tail end is clearly deadly -- but for the average case, are symptoms much worse than the yearly flu, or around the same?

From what I read, the coronavirus reduces lymphocytes and that is what ultimately causes the serious symptoms. For people who can keep their white counts up, they don’t get so sick.

Edit: my thought is that maybe they could use blood counts to separate it from the flu

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#38

Post by eindiran » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 1:03 AM UTC

taneq wrote: post #25

2bitencryption wrote: post #11

I'm curious, for most of the infected, is it obvious from the symptoms whether they have novel coronavirus, or just the regular flu? That is, the tail end is clearly deadly -- but for the average case, are symptoms much worse than the yearly flu, or around the same?

There's a something like 20% hospitalisation rate. That seems kind of scary compared to the flu which is "you have a sniffle, get over it."

Colloquially people talk about the flu as if its like a cold but a little worse. But the flu can be very serious: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/symptoms.htm

Fevers of 5+ degrees F (lasting 3-5 days), chills, aches, chest pain, etc. And complications (eg pneumonia) are fairly common and can be deadly.

I would wager that most "flu" cases people self-report aren't actually the flu.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#39

Post by allovernow » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 1:07 AM UTC

Honestly if there is truth to this article it is reassuring. I've been scouring the darker corners of the internet obsessively for every seemingly reputable bit of data under the assumption that virtually anything official out of China could not be trusted.

This doctor is working on the absolute worst of cases and even they, it seems, have a high overall probability of survival. Also good to see some figures on the progression of the virus - 5-10 days of incubation, 1 week before symptoms either improve or worsen, then one more week before severe cases recover or die.

Regardless, we should all be paying attention to the quarantined cruise ships. In a few weeks or so we'll have much a more accurate mortality rate. I feel for those people but perhaps there is some comfort in knowing that their losses will not be without value.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#40

Post by jessriedel » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 1:10 AM UTC

herpderperator wrote: post #33

taneq wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a something like 20% hospitalisation rate. That seems kind of scary compared to the flu which is "you have a sniffle, get over it."

As others have alluded to, I think you are confusing flu with cold.

I agree with the others, but I think we should note that these sorts of illness are not divided neatly into two categories, cold and flu. Besides the many different viruses grouped under "the common cold", there is a whole spectrum of bacterial infections whose symptoms look similar to, and interpolate between, the cold and flu. So there are other things someone could get that are like less severe version of the flu, but are worse than a common cold, and it's hard to distinguish without a formal test.