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

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#161

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 6:53 AM UTC

tristanj wrote: post #157

allovernow wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The WHO has been reporting numbers almost identical to those out of China, which are unquestionably and severely underreported and can only represent a distant lower bound. I don't think anything coming from the WHO can be trusted. I honestly think it hugely irresponsible for the WHO to report these numbers without clear disclaimers. In fact, there are clear politics at play here, as the WHO has only come out with ma…

I believe it goes further than this. WHO and China are both trying to downplay the severity of the pandemic because they know if they publish more accurate estimates, it will cause mass panic. Panic is not helpful in any situation, and leads to an unstable society, hoarding, and destructive behaviors.

> WHO and China are both trying to downplay the severity of the pandemic because they know if they publish more accurate estimates, it will cause mass panic.

Transparently dishonest minimization itself risks causing panic.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#162

Post by baxtr » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 7:02 AM UTC

cycrutchfield wrote: post #135

ekianjo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its been several weeks already people are infected in several countries. Yet no sign of pandemic outside of China. I dont know what other facts you need.

First recorded patient in Wuhan was December 8. It’s been 2 months since then. Even exponential growth takes some time.

Don’t you think there is a difference when no one is aware (back in December) and the way it is now?

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#163

Post by dang » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 7:12 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]

Please stop taking HN threads on generic ideological tangents. It's tedious, explicitly not what this site is for, and we've already had to ask you this repeatedly.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#164

Post by topmonk » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 7:33 AM UTC

oxymoran wrote: post #134

not_a_moth wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should add their discussion of cytokine storms in healthy people, which appears to have a more rapid timeline > Some experts argue that the virus triggers a cytokine storm, which ravages the stronger immune system of young adults > Based on my observations, a third of patients exhibited inflammation in their whole body. It was not necessarily limited to young adults. The mechanism of a cytokine storm is about whole-b…

Look, you say inflammatory response science says steroids. But what about CBD? Maybe even THC? Let’s experiment at least,

I always found a shot of straight whisky was good for a cold.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#165

Post by dang » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 7:33 AM UTC

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…

Would you please stop breaking the site guidelines? Going on about downvotes is explicitly against them, and guarantees further downvotes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#166

Post by yspeak » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 7:37 AM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #154

torgian wrote: post #144

My wife is mainland Chinese, and she has been saying that it a worse than what the government is saying. Also, since Li Wenliang died, well, frankly a lot of people are pissed at the CCP. Anyway, I feel like it’ll be an epidemic ( it already is, I believe ) in China, and be much better controlled outside of China. Unfortunately my wife is also stuck in Chongqing; Taiwan is essentially closing up its borders and we do…

> Also, since Li Wenliang died, well, frankly a lot of people are pissed at the CCP. This is a pretty irrational reaction if you ask me, the CCP is actually the more open, quasi-democratic side of Chinese government and politics. There are loose 'factions' as part of the CCP that are cautiously pushing for more openness, and the Chinese should be aware of them and be supportive. Frustration and anger are not helpful.

[dead]

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#167

Post by tsimionescu » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 7:42 AM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #59

tsimionescu wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's why capitalists drive on private roads only, and go to private courts when they get in trouble with private police forces. They also honk to honor their private armies and thank them for their service. The private fire service is of course a pillar of most capitalist communities as well.

...And we're writing about this on an internet that was developed by privately funded defense researchers and private universities. You can use this internet to get driving directions via privately funded geolocation satellites.

No, the internet originally was funded almost exclusively by public money (US military and CERN being some of the biggest contributors), and there is basically no such thing as "privately funded defense researchers" - almost by definition, defense research is funded by public money, or at least by private investors looking to get their money back by selling to the state. Universities also tend to do research funded by outside grants, which in the early days of computer technology were, again, almost exclusively public US military budgets.

GPS is a public utility, as are GLONASS and Galileo, so I'm not even sure what "privately funded geolocation satellites" you are talking about.

Regardless, your claim was a universal (the state is worse at providing ALL services) so showing some services which the state is much better at providing is enough to prove you were wrong.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#168

Post by hkt » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 7:43 AM UTC

eindiran wrote: post #43

> Doctors there were running "naked" as they knew they were set to be infected given the shortage of protective gear. They still worked there nonetheless. That is so rough, especially since some healthcare workers are now among the dead: specifically, I saw that Li Wenliang had died. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/chinese-doctor-w...

I'm reminded of the people who went into Chernobyl to begin containment. Hard to call them anything but heroes.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#169

Post by sterlind » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 7:53 AM UTC

not_a_moth wrote: post #130

forgingahead wrote: post #119

Great article all around, worth reading as it's one of the only I've seen that are actually talking about disease progression and timeline. Some key info from the article: ---- Caixin: Based on your clinical experience, what's the disease progression of the new coronavirus? Peng: Lately I've been spending the daytime seeing patients in the ICU, then doing some research in the evenings. I just wrote a thesis. I drew o…

Should add their discussion of cytokine storms in healthy people, which appears to have a more rapid timeline > Some experts argue that the virus triggers a cytokine storm, which ravages the stronger immune system of young adults > Based on my observations, a third of patients exhibited inflammation in their whole body. It was not necessarily limited to young adults. The mechanism of a cytokine storm is about whole-b…

the 1918 flu pandemic caused a cytokine storm, which is hypothesized to have caused so many otherwise healthy people to die. if there's cytokine activity that's another parallel to the Spanish flu.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#170

Post by blackrock » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 7:59 AM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #5

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

That was a good read. This is what should be shared.

The entire world is going into a freaking panic over this. And they’re spewing out nonsense that the China government is lying, and their numbers cannot be trusted. Which doesn’t really help the situation, and it clouds the scientific understanding of this incident.

Then the 2 moronic scientific papers that were published whipped everyone up into a frenzy.

(1) The German paper said that people can transmit it asymptomatically, which means this is some kind of Frankenstein virus that can transmit over 14 days, and infect others when not showing any symptoms.

(2) The Indian paper that suggested that this virus was man-made, and thus fueled the conspiracy theories about it being a bio weapon. And this fed more fuel to the fire for #1.

Two scientific papers that were both terribly wrong!

And what was the result? It created mass panic.

So there you have it. Fake news that created real mass panic in the real world.

Some good highlights from this transcription were:

* This is like SARS, but less deadly. Yes, it is infectious and contagious, but it is also less deadly than SARS.

* The virus will likely burn out in May, because it doesn’t do well in warm and humid weathers. So Australia with its hot wildfires will be spared. Go take a vacation in the hot and dry outback of Australia everyone. You’ll be fine out there.

* The 2.2 reproductive R0 number is a perfect theoretical scenario, but it will likely not happen in this case, since China mandated the quarantine. And the entire country is a ghost town, with people wearing face masks in public, and avoiding any outdoor activities. This should help to slow the spread, and kill off the virus, like how SARS mysteriously disappeared.

So, governments around the world, need to be vigilant, and do what they can to contain the spread of the virus, but we should be ok. There is no need to panic right now. The fear is worse than the disease.

The leaders of the world needs to step forward and make regular public health announcements about this. And to calm the public down, and stick to known scientific facts and evidence.

Unfortunately, we have morons as our elected leaders.