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

virologydownunder.com

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

#281

Post by droithomme »

SahAssar wrote: post #272
hedora wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s an obvious corollary: > If you want to get away with it, make it indistinguishable from incompetence. Here’s a WWII field manual from “them” on the subject. It actually helped me unlearn some bad behaviors instilled by previous bad management. :-) http://www.simplesabotage.com/

But would you say, in a general sense, that it is better to assume malice rather than mistakes/incompetence/stupidity?

If one is responsible for ensuring security, they won't be very effective unless they realize malicious actors masquerading as the incompetent exist and are active.

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

#282

Post by jcranmer »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #200
jcranmer wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you're mostly counting hurricanes, here's a list of all category 4+ hurricanes that hit the US, although most were not that strength when they actually made landfall: * Hurricane Isabel (5, 2003) * Hurricane Charley (4, 2004) * Hurricane Ivan (5, 2004) * Hurricane Dennis (4, 2005) * Hurricane Katrina (5, 2005) * Hurricane Rita (5, 2005) * Hurricane Wilma (5, 2005) * Hurricane Ike (4, 2008) * Hurricane Matthew (…

And how many of them required anything but the standard response from authorities? I can't think of any aside from Katrina and Maria. But it's when an atypical response is warranted that authorities ability to respond is tested. Based on that metric, the track record is poor. There's also the concern of incentives. The authorities are incentivized to treat every emergency as requiring nothing over and above the stand…

> And how many of them required anything but the standard response from authorities?

What do you mean by "standard response"? It seems to me that you have a working definition that is less an objective standard and more a subjective, circular definition of "anything that didn't fail."

Take Hurricane Harvey for example. The rain Houston received was record-breaking: ~30" in the course of a day or so, when the previous monthly record was 19". Does that require merely the "standard response"?

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

#283

Post by csomar »

platz wrote: post #193
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plans the US already has for a flu pandemic should mostly carry over, no? COVID is probably worse than the seasonal flu, but it's not outside the reasonable range of what a flu pandemic could do.

Do 29 year old doctors typically die from the flu?

Healthy 29 year olds die, regularly, everyday. They are just less likely, though.

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

#284

Post by icegreentea2 »

dkarl wrote: post #140

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 i…

I think part of the article's point was that communications to the overall public is kind of lack luster. One of the key bits of the article is that we need to get the individual citizen mentally and physically ready, and that involves helping articulate (ahead of time) what the types of actions and behaviors may become necessary. What does living through a pandemic actually entail? What are the actions to take now, and what actions will I have to take?

Communities aren't just made of public health organizations and hospitals and emergency workers, they're made of individual citizens and their families and friends. Communities should be made prepared from both the top down, and from the bottom up.

But yes, definitely less edgy and out there.

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

#285

Post by csomar »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #157
DevX101 wrote: post #134

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…

The plans the US already has for a flu pandemic should mostly carry over, no? COVID is probably worse than the seasonal flu, but it's not outside the reasonable range of what a flu pandemic could do.

> COVID is probably worse than the seasonal flu, but it's not outside the reasonable range of what a flu pandemic could do.

I think the issue is that we don't know yet how bad COVID-19 is. China is hiding stuff and it's not clear what is going on over there. There are also some uncomfortable, if true, things about it: like asymptomatic transmission for 2 weeks and ability to survive on surfaces for 5 days on certain conditions.

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

#286

Post by jacquesm »

timbit42 wrote: post #271
jacquesm wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way outlets such as The New York Post deal with this is absolutely irresponsible. They keep on re-posting total garbage that has been debunked multiple times and Google isn't helping by linking to it. This is also worth keeping an eye on: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/locations-confirme...

Perhaps they should be sued.

It's owned by Murdoch and faithfully trumpets the party line:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Post#Influence

Good luck suing them.

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

#287

Post by pmoriarty »

Earlier in the week I went to large university library. There were at least 5 people there severely coughing. Everyone else was sitting around like it was perfectly natural, no masks, no attempts at containment or isolation.

Yes, we're in cold and flu season, so it could be just ordinary cold and flu (which is bad enough, as the flu kills lots of people as is, so spreading it is irresponsible at best), but the US is hardly doing any testing, so for all we know it could also be COVID-19.

The amount of complacency around the US right now is stunning. People are just burying their heads in the sand and acting like it couldn't happen to them, relying on the media or government to tell them when to take it seriously, and both the mainstream media and the government flat failing to get people to prepare or take any measures to slow down the spread of this disease apart from telling them to wash their hands.

The numbers coming out of China are not reliable, but given the numbers we do have (including non-China cases) it seems COVID-19 (aka SARS2) is far worse than the regular flu (for which at least we have a vaccine, though not nearly enough people take it).

We should be doing everything we can to slow the spread of this disease, to buy some time for medicine to study it and come up with treatments, but instead outside of countries that are already obviously seriously affected people are acting like it doesn't exist.

That kind of complacency provides the perfect breeding ground for this disease.

For those of you who want to keep a closer watch on what's going on, see:

https://old.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/ (more lax moderation)

https://old.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/ (more strict moderation)

https://old.reddit.com/r/COVID19/ (science-oriented news and discussion)

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

#288

Post by DangitBobby »

maxerickson wrote: post #138
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.

No, their thesis is "There is almost certainly community spreading in the US that is going undetected," which is based on observations that the US is doing less testing despite having much greater populations and higher incidence of risk factors. Do you contest that statement and its supporting arguments?

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

#289

Post by droithomme »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #157
DevX101 wrote: post #134

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…

The plans the US already has for a flu pandemic should mostly carry over, no? COVID is probably worse than the seasonal flu, but it's not outside the reasonable range of what a flu pandemic could do.

> it's not outside the reasonable range of what a flu pandemic could do

Being both more virulent and having a fatality rate at least 20 times greater means it is definitely outside the range of what flu does.

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

#290

Post by csomar »

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…

If you are young and healthy, staying more than usual at home should be more than enough. Unless you think this virus is going to kill 1bn+ human.
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