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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

#321

Post by jacquesm »

snackematician wrote: post #303
jacquesm wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's not outside the reasonable range of what a flu pandemic could do. By about 3-4 orders of magnitude, it is. The flu tends to kill about 60K people annually and most of those are old or very young or already had a compromised immune system. This is with the figures known so far and before there is a vaccine around 2-3%. If left unchecked it would overwhelm available health care capacity pretty quickly. The Chine…

> This is with the figures known so far and before there is a vaccine around 2-3%. There's still a lot of uncertainty around the fatality rate here. For cases outside China, the fatality rate so far is about .2%, compared to about .1% for seasonal influenza. By contrast, in Hubei the reported fatality rate is around 4-5%. (Numbers are as of last week so might be slightly outdated now). My guess is that the 2-3% estim…

> My guess is that the 2-3% estimate is too high.

I sincerely hope you are right. Those are numbers that when extrapolated to global scale are too horrific to even contemplate.

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

#323

Post by tomohawk »

jacquesm wrote: post #260
platz wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do 29 year old doctors typically die from the flu?

Typically not. But that's not how this stuff works. It is bell curves all the way. So your old, very young and vulnerable people will make up the bulk of those that die but there will be plenty of regular people in the prime of their life that will die as well.

The 1918 flu particularly affected 20-40 year old healthy people.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-did-1918-flu-kill...

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

#324

Post by jacquesm »

tomohawk wrote: post #323
jacquesm wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically not. But that's not how this stuff works. It is bell curves all the way. So your old, very young and vulnerable people will make up the bulk of those that die but there will be plenty of regular people in the prime of their life that will die as well.

The 1918 flu particularly affected 20-40 year old healthy people. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-did-1918-flu-kill...

That was an anomaly in many other ways too. Keep in mind that a good chunk of the world was still recovering from WWI. Being exposed to some other disease earlier in life can give a similar effect to vaccination.

This is one of the reasons why HIV spread was not as bad as it could have been in Western Europe where exposure to a disease still gave some benefits many centuries later:

https://www.nature.com/news/2005/050307/full/news050307-15.h...

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

#325

Post by Freak_NL »

jacquesm wrote: post #247
Freak_NL wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was another planet in another time. We (Earth) are the descendants of the B arc.

Ark. Besides that, I wonder how many people missed that bit of circular reasoning in thhg.

Argh! Yes, ark of course.

That bit really drives the joke home, it's a shame if people missed that.

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

#326

Post by blub »

dis-sys wrote: post #31
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 have: 1. n95 masks, e.g. 50 of them. technically, each mask can only last several hours 2. UVC light for cleaning up used n95 masks so they can last a few days each 3. protective eyeglasses if you need to visit hospital for any reason in the next few months 4. ethanol (not for your masks) 5. medical gloves

N95's not bad, but N99 (FFP3) is what you probably want for viruses. In theory these are designed to last a "shift" (8h). The manual should explain how to use it safely.

I'm not aware of the possibility of cleaning used masks. Just because the outside is clean, it doesn't mean the filter's still good.

If you want something cleanable get a full face mask with a cartridge filter. These look like (and actually can be) a gas mask. It also clearly communicates that you're serious about this, unlike the peons with those silly normal masks.

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

#327

Post by jacquesm »

DanBC wrote: post #320
jacquesm wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. But COVID-19 isn't influenza related so all these flu comparisons are moot as far as I'm concerned. The mortality appears for now - with all the figures that I've seen - to be much higher. If this thing keeps going like it has for the last couple of weeks then it will make the last H1N1 pandemic look like a walk in the park. The final count on that was 100's of thousands dead in 199 different countries. And it…

But new pathogens always look much worse than they are because we haven't got testing sorted out yet. We test the very serious cases, we don't test the mild cases.

Yes, that's a good point. Especially valid because there is a very real limit on the number of test kits available. That's also a risk in case of asymptomatic spreading.

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

#328

Post by peanut_is_yum »

Frost1x wrote: post #224
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…

Following a few comments from experts in the field and looking at some of the data being presented, it's fairly obvious this pandemic case was reasonably high. There are of course lots of unknowns models used can't account for but that's no reason to discard the potential risk entirely. Keep in mind, many of these decisions to avoid "pandemic" talk try to take most holistic views in regards to public safety/health. T…

Thanks for the tip!

Since I hadn't lived thru anything that threatened my society, I never believed in stocking up on non-perishables.

However, the fact that I'm living thru a potential pandemic convinces me that we as a race aren't nearly as resilient as our modern amenities and high QoL suggest.

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

#329

Post by OrgNet »

Quiark wrote: post #257
OrgNet wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes it can. I think it's unrealistic to expect that some ordinary gear is going to save you when you get exposed to it. The focus should be on not getting exposed.

if you need supplies, what are you going to do?

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

#330

Post by DevX101 »

sgt101 wrote: post #319
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…

Nuclear war could kill hundreds of millions in a few hours. Why are you less concerned?

I think mutually assured destruction works well enough to prevent all out nuclear war between multiple nuclear armed states. Riskiest scenario there is a nuclear state attacking a non-nuclear state that cannot retaliate in kind.

With a pandemic there's no one to negotiate with to come to an armistice.

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