171–180 of 186 posts
It's now officially named COVID-19 by the WHO.
Despite that, I think it’s too late to rename this virus. People have called it “coronavirus” for weeks now and the name will likely stick, correct or not.
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Could you please flesh out your comment on Ding's skill in regard to infectious disease epidemiology ? I don't doubt you, I just like to know why people say things.
Sure thing. First, note that Eric Feigl-Ding is a nutritional epidemiologist, not an infectious disease epidemiologist. Infectious diseases are weird for a lot of reasons, and require something of a different skillset. For example, in a Tweet of his he has now deleted: "never seen an actual virality coefficient outside of Twitter in my entire career." about the estimate for R0 for this novel coronavirus. Similar R0 e…
For those not aware of the drama, he suggested that the virus was mixed with HIV and invented by ... ;-) He removed the tweets after that. We all know it' a touchy topic.
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Singapore also has a lot of air conditioning. Perhaps the transmission is occurring primarily indoors, away from the 30ºC heat.
Exactly. The comparison with Indonesia is interesting, which has a similar climate, but isn't as rich or developed as Singapore. Air conditioning is actually very conducive to colds and the like. When you go from outside to inside you're usually sweaty and the air conditioning tends to make you too cold until you dry out. I've caught way more sniffles in the tropics than in the freezing climates.
Is there any betting market that is taking bets and has good volume on whether there is going to be a novel coronavirus pandemic? That seems like the only way to get some clarity on this.
I bought some put options on the S&P index a couple weeks ago.
I hope there is a dip as I want to put more in.
I don't think this Coronavirus thing will be the trigger though. Flu still far worse.
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Despite that, I think it’s too late to rename this virus. People have called it “coronavirus” for weeks now and the name will likely stick, correct or not.
What's super-weird in all that coronaviruses are already an entire class of viruses that are the second most popular cause of the common cold , behind rhinoviruses: > "The common cold is a viral infection of the upper respiratory tract. The most commonly implicated virus is a rhinovirus (30–80%), a type of picornavirus with 99 known serotypes. Other commonly implicated viruses include human coronavirus (≈ 15%), influ…
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Despite that, I think it’s too late to rename this virus. People have called it “coronavirus” for weeks now and the name will likely stick, correct or not.
It's to help coordinate a cure and containment if everyone (e.g. researchers, doctors, public officials, reporters.) knows it by one official name. Also COVID-19 is neutral, so it doesn't generate negative bias like the Spanish Flu. (Which didn't originate in Spain.)
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Despite that, I think it’s too late to rename this virus. People have called it “coronavirus” for weeks now and the name will likely stick, correct or not.
What's super-weird in all that coronaviruses are already an entire class of viruses that are the second most popular cause of the common cold , behind rhinoviruses: > "The common cold is a viral infection of the upper respiratory tract. The most commonly implicated virus is a rhinovirus (30–80%), a type of picornavirus with 99 known serotypes. Other commonly implicated viruses include human coronavirus (≈ 15%), influ…
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Drink tonic water. Quinine’s close enough.
I now have a good explanation for the boss why I'm drinking gin & tonics at work.. James Burke covered this in Connections² : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yLa_IrAj-o
Also made me realize that originality and ownership of ideas is way more complicated than i'd thought.