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MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

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Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#31

Post by keanzu »

CydeWeys wrote: post #24
jbay808 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suicide is a big problem, buy it's scary in a different way. I'm not personally worried about a suicide epidemic, or catching suicide from someone.

And yet there are actually suicide clusters, with people essentially "catching it" from their friends or loved ones who've committed suicide.

A copycat suicide is defined as an emulation of another suicide that the person attempting suicide knows about either from local knowledge or due to accounts or depictions of the original suicide on television and in other media.

A spike of emulation suicides after a widely publicized suicide is known as the Werther effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide

Unbelievably you are correct. You can "catch it". Amazing.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#32

Post by ericb »

inglor wrote: post #12
merqurio wrote: post #9

It doesn't make sense from a medical point of view. China, and specifically Hubei Province and its capital Wuhan, suffer an epidemic that they are trying to control with titanic efforts. 99% of cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) infection, today more than 40,000 with a thousand deaths, have been registered in China. Of them, almost 70% in Hubei. Only 1% of cases have been registered outside China, in 24 countries (inclu…

Was waiting for this. The flu kills 10000 people a year in the US and pneumonia kills 45000. Suicide kills 47000 a year which makes you wonder why we aren't spending more effort on mental health given it's a bigger cause of death. CDC ref: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

Why not? Because math.

This is a contagion. Read about the Spanish Flu. This looks to be both more contagious, and more deadly in most of the published studies. We hope they are biased and overly pessimistic, but whataboutism isn't helpful here.

Your argument is like if the rug in your living room is on fire, and you say "why worry about that rug--we should really invest in fixing that roof leak." I agree roof leaks are also bad.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#33

Post by ghaff »

electriclove wrote: post #29
merqurio wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MWC was going to be attended by 100,000 people, 75% of them from Europe and the US, 10% from Asia-Pacific (excluding China) and 9% from the rest of the world. Only 6% of visitors were going to be from China, and less were expected much less due to the COVD-19. Can any of them come infected by the COVD-19? The probability is very low. Almost all of the participants will come from areas where the presence of the CO…

What is the harm caused by MWC being cancelled?

A lot of money is wasted. Presumably sales at a lot of companies take some incremental hit. Some startup that planned this as their launch event is screwed. A lot of people in Barcelona don't make money they were expecting to make. (Other Barcelona residents breathe a sigh of relief.) So, yes, there's harm even if the decision was probably the rational one.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#34

Post by downerending »

merqurio wrote: post #23
downerending wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people are worried about the unknown unknowns. IIUC, it's infectious for a considerable period of time (one or two weeks) before the infected person becomes systematic. Plus, it's possible that some infectious persons never develop symptoms. Also, the case count is still in exponential growth mode. Plus, information coming out of China might be incomplete. No idea whether the conference should be cancelled, b…

The MWC was going to be attended by 100,000 people, 75% of them from Europe and the US, 10% from Asia-Pacific (excluding China) and 9% from the rest of the world. Only 6% of visitors were going to be from China, and less were expected much less due to the COVD-19. Can any of them come infected by the COVD-19? The probability is very low. Almost all of the participants will come from areas where the presence of the CO…

> where the presence of the COVD-19 is nil or extremely low

I don't think this is known or knowable at the moment. Hence the worry.

You are right that airports are probably a greater risk. Perhaps they should be closed. On the other hand, that would be far more disruptive.

As for basic hygiene, yes, we all should. At the same time, we all know that a significant fraction of the population can't or won't do this.

Edit: Here's the proper method: https://www.who.int/gpsc/clean_hands_protection/en/

A significant caveat is that the sink/restroom must allow proper handwashing. Many lack paper towels, for example. If you have to touch the faucet handle or the door after you start washing (which takes two minutes), the method has not been followed. It's harder than it looks.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#35

Post by Razengan »

jbay808 wrote: post #20
inglor wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was waiting for this. The flu kills 10000 people a year in the US and pneumonia kills 45000. Suicide kills 47000 a year which makes you wonder why we aren't spending more effort on mental health given it's a bigger cause of death. CDC ref: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

Suicide is a big problem, buy it's scary in a different way. I'm not personally worried about a suicide epidemic, or catching suicide from someone.

Suicide is a symptom of many other problems.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#36

Post by Aperocky »

downerending wrote: post #15
merqurio wrote: post #9

It doesn't make sense from a medical point of view. China, and specifically Hubei Province and its capital Wuhan, suffer an epidemic that they are trying to control with titanic efforts. 99% of cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) infection, today more than 40,000 with a thousand deaths, have been registered in China. Of them, almost 70% in Hubei. Only 1% of cases have been registered outside China, in 24 countries (inclu…

I think people are worried about the unknown unknowns. IIUC, it's infectious for a considerable period of time (one or two weeks) before the infected person becomes systematic. Plus, it's possible that some infectious persons never develop symptoms. Also, the case count is still in exponential growth mode. Plus, information coming out of China might be incomplete. No idea whether the conference should be cancelled, b…

You’re right, except cases are not in exponential growth for a period of time already if you’ve been following closely. Right now it’s more or less linear

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#38

Post by merqurio »

downerending wrote: post #34
merqurio wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MWC was going to be attended by 100,000 people, 75% of them from Europe and the US, 10% from Asia-Pacific (excluding China) and 9% from the rest of the world. Only 6% of visitors were going to be from China, and less were expected much less due to the COVD-19. Can any of them come infected by the COVD-19? The probability is very low. Almost all of the participants will come from areas where the presence of the CO…

> where the presence of the COVD-19 is nil or extremely low I don't think this is known or knowable at the moment. Hence the worry. You are right that airports are probably a greater risk. Perhaps they should be closed. On the other hand, that would be far more disruptive. As for basic hygiene, yes, we all should. At the same time, we all know that a significant fraction of the population can't or won't do this. Edit…

We have a good understanding of what's happening outside mainland China[1], and China seems (surprisingly) transparent so far. But it is indeed difficult to trust that they have reported 100% of the cases.

[1]: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#39

Post by downerending »

Aperocky wrote: post #36
downerending wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people are worried about the unknown unknowns. IIUC, it's infectious for a considerable period of time (one or two weeks) before the infected person becomes systematic. Plus, it's possible that some infectious persons never develop symptoms. Also, the case count is still in exponential growth mode. Plus, information coming out of China might be incomplete. No idea whether the conference should be cancelled, b…

You’re right, except cases are not in exponential growth for a period of time already if you’ve been following closely. Right now it’s more or less linear

Hadn't looked for a few days. It does appear to be attenuating--hope that holds up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Wuhan_coronavi...

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#40

Post by endorphone »

inglor wrote: post #12
merqurio wrote: post #9

It doesn't make sense from a medical point of view. China, and specifically Hubei Province and its capital Wuhan, suffer an epidemic that they are trying to control with titanic efforts. 99% of cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) infection, today more than 40,000 with a thousand deaths, have been registered in China. Of them, almost 70% in Hubei. Only 1% of cases have been registered outside China, in 24 countries (inclu…

Was waiting for this. The flu kills 10000 people a year in the US and pneumonia kills 45000. Suicide kills 47000 a year which makes you wonder why we aren't spending more effort on mental health given it's a bigger cause of death. CDC ref: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

These sorts of comparisons are, I would respectfully argue, not very helpful because the various causes of mortality are additive, not competing to kill the same victims (generally).

We don't need a perpetual cycle of coronavirus in addition to the perpetual cycle of the flu that we already have, in addition to suicide and every other cause of death. The world's health organizations are trying desperately to curtail it before it becomes a norm.

Which is why saying "Oh, why cancel this it's no biggie" is just so misled.

If the world was in a situation where we could seriously contain and eliminate the flu, we would surely take every possible measure to do so.

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