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Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

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Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#131

Post by OrgNet »

patagonicus wrote: post #7

As Hacker News is usually full of people that can provide good advice: What should I personally do to prepare? I'm living alone and have the ability to work remotely once the virus starts spreading here. My guess is mostly stocking up on food, which I've planned to do for a long time - sounds like a good motivation to finally prepare a list and get shopping. Should I bother with a N95 mask? I already have surgical ma…

I heard that viruses can enter the body by contact with the eye... so some mask with goggles might be safer?

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#132

Post by robjan »

drcode wrote: post #77
robjan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advising people to store food en masses is quite irresponsible. We have had rice, noodle, pasta, bleach and toilet paper shortages for around a month in Hong Kong caused by panic buying triggered by a rumour that there would be a supply disruption. We also went weeks where all of the fresh food was being bought out and frozen.

Sounds like the people who thought there would be a supply disruption were right, and the people who didn't see it coming are blaming the people who did see it coming.

There was no supply disruption, in fact the supply increased. The shops just couldn't keep up with huge numbers of people buying more than they needed because they knew that panic buying was taking place.

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#133

Post by blowski »

tmpz22 wrote: post #93
ttul wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet 99% of the time, the authorities do a great job of running everything here in the west. The 1% of the time they fail, it proves the conspiracy theorists and fear mongers’ point.

Of all the national emergencies in the US since 2000, Katrina, Sandy, Puerto Rico, etc., does anyone know offhand how many were handled properly? Seems like ~20-40% are handled improperly if not more.

How many situations don’t become national emergencies because of good management?

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#134

Post by DevX101 »

This is one case where it's worth overreacting to. Biological epidemics are the only thing that has had the capacity to kill >50 million people in a year. In my risk classification hierarchy I put pandemics above nuclear war and wayyyy above terrorism. Yet we've spent trillions on the war on terror the past 20 years while there's no coordinated plan in the U.S. for this yet. If there's even a 2% chance of this going pandemic in the U.S. we should be allocating at least a billion with apolitical expert driven policy implementations to prevent spread.

My jaw dropped when I read that the State Dept allowed infected Americans to fly with uninfected persons to the U.S. from Japan against the express recommendations of the CDC. This is what we're dealing with and I'm not optimistic.

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#135

Post by the-dude »

johnwheeler wrote: post #49

Before you propagate this information and take action, read this post about the psychology of fear mongering, and ask yourself if you identify with it. 1. Do you tend to mistrust authority? 2. Do you feel powerless to control the course of your life? 3. Do you feel like you have special information and insight the rest of us do not? 4. Do you feel comfort when thinking about the end of the world because once it happe…

Have you seen the spread in Italy?

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#136

Post by dredmorbius »

bpfrh wrote: post #75
est31 wrote: post #30

> One horrible effect of this continued “stop the pandemic” daydream masquerading as a policy goal: It is driving counter-productive and outrage-inducing measures by many countries against travelers from other countries, even their own citizens back from other countries. But possibly more horrible: The messaging is driving resources toward “stopping,” and away from the main potential benefit of containment – slowing…

Closing borders isn't easy. Most of the time there are still ways you can cross, so instead of having known routes where you can test and treat accordingly, you have an unknown number of people crossing the border on unknown points and spreading the virus in unknown regions.

The point of epidemiological containment is to reduce the R value such that Rinevitably, the epidemic will burn out.

Yes, more people will become infected, yes, some will die.

But the level of person-to-person transmission will have fallen below the level necessary for the epidemic to sustain itself, and it will slowly decline and fade out.

Perfect containment, 100% effective vaccines, 100% vaccination rates, (neither of which apply here: there is not yet a vaccine), 100% travel and contact curtailment, 100% sanitation, 100% filtration, are not required. Only sufficiently effective methods to reduce transmission.

Of which, strong, effective, and widespread travel restrictions within or from epidemic zones are a very sensible tool.

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#137

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

0x8BADF00D wrote: post #105
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. And we should be concerned for them. But I sense that many people are scared for their own lives and those of their children, which I feel is not really warranted. Maybe I'm generalizing my personal experience of my own mental state and who I've talked to, but that is what I've been exposed to. And of course the items discussed in the rest of my comment should modulate people's fears as well.

Regardless, it is always a good idea to have some backup supplies in case of a natural disaster. Whether it be an earthquake or pandemic or a storm.

I don't think anyone would dispute that. Certainly I did not intend to do so with my comment. I personally have a stock of about thirty days of non-perishable biscuit that can be used to supply calories in an emergency, and a forty gallon canister that could be filled with potable water ahead of a disaster. It's not enough to live on independent of civilization for more than a few weeks, but if more than that is needed we are probably screwed anyway.

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#138

Post by maxerickson »

contemporary343 wrote: post #3

The lack of testing and testing capacity in the US is deeply alarming. They’ve only run 500 tests so far and criteria still require the patient to have recently traveled from Hubei! By comparison South Korea is running thousands of tests per day, which is why it is picking up so many cases. Absolutely unforgivable complacency and lack of transparency from CDC. There is almost certainly community spreading in the US t…

Your thesis here is that all the layers of the public health system would just shrug their shoulders in the event of an unexplained cluster of sick people. It's unrealistic.

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#139

Post by jessaustin »

robjan wrote: post #126
jessaustin wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This point of view is reasonable only if food disruption is actually very unlikely. If there were food supply disruption in Hong Kong, having a great deal of nonperishable and frozen food on hand would be a good idea for most residents, wouldn't it? The fact that rumors were enough to generate shortages for a month in itself confirms a certain degree of insecurity...

The insecurity was just caused by people literally filling their trolleys with rice as soon as the store opened every day. The government keeps a huge buffer supply which can be released in the event of genuine emergency.

Why didn't the government use some of the buffer to smooth out this apparently artificial demand spike? That is what every other nation on earth uses its agricultural surplus to do.

Re: Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now

#140

Post by dkarl »

The article becomes much less edgy if you know what the authorities are actually saying. For example, the American CDC, in USA Today[1]:

"Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters Friday that U.S. health officials are preparing for the coronavirus to become a pandemic."

"'We’re not seeing community spread here in the United States, yet, but it’s very possible, even likely, that it may eventually happen,” she said. “Our goal continues to be slowing the introduction of the virus into the U.S. This buys us more time to prepare communities for more cases and possibly sustained spread.'"

Sooooo... today's edgy "the media and authorities are keeping us in the dark" blog post got scooped two days ago by the CDC and USA Today.

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/02/21/coronav...

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