Live data from Hacker News

MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

theverge.com

51–60 of 195 posts

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#51
post #30
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…

China only had 144 flu-caused deaths in an entire year ( https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1177725.shtml ), meaning the Wuhan virus has already killed 7.8 times as many people as the flu kills in an entire year throughout China.

It's mostly a classification thing. Most who die from diseases associated with the flu, like pneumonia, are not recorded to have died from the flu.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#53
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…

How much can we trust the numbers coming out of China who have retaliated heavily against whistle blowers including one of the original doctors to highlight this crisis, who is now dead?

[1]: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/07/8036804...

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#54
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…

For flu, each sick person infects 1 person. So Ro is 1. This means no quarantine needed. But for covid-19 estimated Ro is around 2.5. So containing this virus requires quarantine. Also this is a novel virus which means this strain is new and may be unpredictable. Mutations may occur. We even not sure about source of the virus. If it spreads all over the world it could logarithmicly grow in number. Especially for undeveloped counties with weak healthcare infrastructure pose a real threat.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#55
post #30
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…

China only had 144 flu-caused deaths in an entire year ( https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1177725.shtml ), meaning the Wuhan virus has already killed 7.8 times as many people as the flu kills in an entire year throughout China.

Hilarious, your source is an article that's criticizing China's statistical methods on flu deaths reporting.

From your own source:

"The statistical methods used by the Chinese CDC should be revised, as deaths from pneumonia caused by the flu, for example, are not counted, the observer said."

If you ignore death by pneumonia, the deaths for coronavirus are very low too.

"An analysis led by Chinese scientists published in The Lancet Public Health in September 2019 found that there were 84,200 to 92,000 flu-related deaths in China each year, accounting for 8.2 percent of all deaths from respiratory diseases."

Oops.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#56
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…

MWC is a 100,000 person French ski chalet... it makes total sense to cancel it. “Show flu” is a thing... so if just the booth workers come back through customs with even so much as an elevated temperature, it will unnecessarily crowd the quarantine facilities for weeks. You may have math on your side but you’re not winning this one.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#57

While I feel sorry for the people that put the energy to make this happen and also for the people that may lose their jobs this month over this, as a native inhabitant of Barcelona, I can only celebrate the news, even if it is for this terrible reason. When MWC is ocurring in Barcelona, public transport (subway) goes on strike (because of the maximum impact). But usually this only fucks over non MWC attending people,…

#agree and have you ever asked yourself why no politician charges these guys (organizers) so at least locals could take something back from it

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#58
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 this is less about MWC or Barcelona having health fears and more the domino effect of big exhibitors pulling out. It seems a lot of those pulled out because their Chinese companies, and presumably impacted by travel restrictions meaning they couldn’t get key people prepared in advance and then out to the event.

Once the big exhibitors pull out you then see attendees doing likewise as meetings they were travelling for get cancelled, and finally smaller exhibitors deciding it’s not worth the effort.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#59
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…

For flu, each sick person infects 1 person. So Ro is 1. This means no quarantine needed. But for covid-19 estimated Ro is around 2.5. So containing this virus requires quarantine. Also this is a novel virus which means this strain is new and may be unpredictable. Mutations may occur. We even not sure about source of the virus. If it spreads all over the world it could logarithmicly grow in number. Especially for unde…

I'm not a doctor or a public health expert, but it seems to be that unqualified uncertainty should not be used as justification for any action other than pursuing more information to qualify that uncertainty. Otherwise we would maximally quarantine any illness for which we are at all uncertain of an upper bound on its basic reproduction number or mortality.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#60
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…

> Serious cases and mortality (2%) will be adjusted downwards safely in the coming weeks, as the detection of mild cases increases.

There are factors that could move that number in both directions.

Yes, presumably there are many mild cases that haven't been counted. But unfortunately coronavirus deaths are probably also undercounted -- for example, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/as-families-tell-of-pne...

This point I'm not sure about, because it seems bizarre that everyone would make such an obvious mistake, but: as far as I can tell, the death rate is simply calculated as [current total of recorded deaths] / [current total of recorded cases]. But when the fatal cases take quite a long time to kill (from what I've read, it tends to take a week or so from the onset of symptoms for them to become severe, and up to another two weeks for death to occur -- see https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/reporters-notebo...) and the total number of cases is rising dramatically, surely that skews the figure toward a significant underestimate?

Post reply on HN