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Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

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Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#211

Post by luckylittle »

mantap wrote: post #78
istorical wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond the actual mortality rate or possible sequelae (which seemed to occur in post-SARS survivors), the real danger lies in what the actual percentage of cases requiring hospitalization due to severity of pneumonia is (serious + critical condition). Some believe it to be a much higher percentage of the total # of cases than something like the flu, meaning if the infection spreads as much as the normal flu, we may s…

The corollary of this is that you don't even have to be infected with the coronavirus to die because of it. This coronavirus acts as figurative denial of service attack against hospitals. Anybody with a medical emergency is going to have an incresed risk of mortality if hospitals are swamped with an epidemic.

I wonder if it would be better to get infected now (on purpose), while hospitals are not under heavy load yet. You probably have higher chance of survival now, comparing to many weeks from now. Also the virus might mutate and become more deadly, so having antibodies now would also help down the line.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#212

Post by hef19898 »

thedudeabides5 wrote: post #31
0xebfc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

You made two nice points:

1) In complex problems outside your domain, trust the experts.

2) These experts should go out and sell the truth in way laypeople understand them. Which is incredibly hard as everyone prefers dooms day scenarios it seems.

Just kind of sad even HN doesn't get that as this thread clearly shows.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#213

Post by dmos62 »

tomatocracy wrote: post #209
dmos62 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people who went into Chernobyl to begin containment I'm not an authority on the subject, but I was under the impression that those were soldiers and conscripts and they were ordered to go.

Many were, and many were volunteers (or at least volunteered for that specific duty). I don't think that makes them any less heroic.

I would like to discuss the definition of heroism (which might easily be culture-specific); however, I suspect that it is a highly sensitive subject in this context, so let's leave it at that.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#214

Post by oefrha »

blackrock wrote: post #174
aphextron wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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." The absolute definition of heroes. It blows my mind to imagine ever having that sort of selfless dedication to helping others. For all the crappy things in the world these days, it's stuff like this that gives me hope for humanity.

> 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. This was one of the most tragic things in that article. The doctors, nurses, and health workers are the front line soldiers in this fight against the virus. And they don’t have the protective gear that they need to stay safe, and to keep the population safe, as wel…

According to a medical professional in my family who have close friends that have worked on the front line of epidemics, the high grade protective gears are like space suits, it takes close to an hour just to put them on and make sure they’re airtight, and taking them off takes even longer due to the significant risk of inflection (compared to when you put on a clean set) if you don’t take extreme care. Then there’s shower and stuff. You can’t eat or drink anything during the entire process, including the four to six hour shift in between putting on and taking off, and not surprisingly it’s extra taxing to work in the suits. Therefore, even if there are enough protective gear, fully equipping them basically cuts the available labor force by half, which is already heavily strained.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#215

Post by osteele »

microcolonel wrote: post #143
perlwle wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try Caixin https://www.caixinglobal.com/news/ the english version. I have closed friend work there and speak highly about the integrtity of their reporting and the content I am reading seems aligned to that.

Caixin is based in Beijing, no amount of personal integrity will give them the freedom to report sufficiently on any matter that has the potential to embarrass the CCP.

Interestingly the article under discussion here begins “WUHAN (CAIXIN GLOBAL)”, ends “This story was originally published by Caixin Global”, and links to the original publication https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-02-06/reporters-notebook-w...

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#216

Post by hef19898 »

Spare_account wrote: post #179
chvid wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand what it is that the Chinese authorities are supposedly misreporting? The mortality rate of 2% is consistent with the number of cases and deaths reported by other countries. Is it that there are a large number of undiagnosed cases? That is kind of a given and is probably also the case in other countries. The timespan between first case and until it gets reported to who and quarantines start is less…

Presumably they could be under-reporting the number of infections and the number of deaths, to keep the mortality rate consistent. I don't know why they would do that, but they are accused of doing this kind of thing frequently. If they sat on the news of the virus for an extended period they might have known the mortality rate they needed to align with long before the rest us.

If Chinese authorities are under reporting both, death and infections, inorder to drive "true" mortality up that would mean there more unreported people dying in relation to people being infected compared to the reported numbers. And yet every real expert out there is telling us the opposite is more likely because only the more severe cases tend to be reported. And mortality is expected to be lower if the unreported cases are considered. Not sure why laypeople prefer to believe the contrary of what experts are telling us.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#217

Post by hef19898 »

rorykoehler wrote: post #194
chvid wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand what it is that the Chinese authorities are supposedly misreporting? The mortality rate of 2% is consistent with the number of cases and deaths reported by other countries. Is it that there are a large number of undiagnosed cases? That is kind of a given and is probably also the case in other countries. The timespan between first case and until it gets reported to who and quarantines start is less…

Lots of undiagnosed cases and under reporting of deaths is a possibility.

Which, from what I read so far, should drive mortality down. Reason is that unreported cases trend towards less severe cases with an overall lower mortality rate. And nobody is disputing that kind of underreporting in any way. So I'm not sure why everybody is making such a fuss about that.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#218

Post by yorwba »

microcolonel wrote: post #143
perlwle wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try Caixin https://www.caixinglobal.com/news/ the english version. I have closed friend work there and speak highly about the integrtity of their reporting and the content I am reading seems aligned to that.

Caixin is based in Beijing, no amount of personal integrity will give them the freedom to report sufficiently on any matter that has the potential to embarrass the CCP.

Caixin does excellent reporting even on major scandals. As the name (财新) indicates, they specialize in financial news. That means they're not widely read except by businesspeople, which is likely how they can get away with their riskier stories. Also, you need to distinguish between embarrassing the party leadership in Beijing vs. some local cadre who thinks that gagging the local media is enough to keep his dirty laundry under wraps.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#219

Post by hef19898 »

tristanj wrote: post #152
allovernow wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't but if you do you have a huge opportunity here to spread critical information to the world, if you are willing and able to post translations.

I shared the story of a Wuhan coronavirus survivor here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22272264 It’s an account from a 23 year old healthy male who contracted the virus late December. He was hospitalized with fever and developed pneumonia. Within a week he was in critical condition with near fatally low blood oxygen (claimed 60%) and digestive issues. He would have died without medical treatment. There are seve…

And all these cases are anecdotal data. Reporting or not reporting them doesn't change anything regarding the Corona virus and the overall number. Quite the contrary, these stories are totally in line with official reports and thesis / papers by doctors, virologists and so forth. Because is disputing that the severe cases are ugly and, well, severe.

Re: Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU

#220

Post by Laforet »

oefrha wrote: post #214
blackrock wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This was one of the most tragic things in that article. The doctors, nurses, and health workers are the front line soldiers in this fight against the virus. And they don’t have the protective gear that they need to stay safe, and to keep the population safe, as wel…

According to a medical professional in my family who have close friends that have worked on the front line of epidemics, the high grade protective gears are like space suits, it takes close to an hour just to put them on and make sure they’re airtight, and taking them off takes even longer due to the significant risk of inflection (compared to when you put on a clean set) if you don’t take extreme care. Then there’s…

You are probably thinking of hazmat suits and it's not the most common type.

Medical staff in Wuhan wear disposable protective overalls that are made of a thin layer of polypropylene (as intended so it would be light and cheap) and easily torn. Thus it's necessary to avoid taking them on and off between shifts because the act will probably rip it beyond repair. Some also took the additional step of strapping plastic bags to their feet and forearm to protect against rupture. None of this would have been necessary if they had enough to go around.

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