Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 840 posts

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#101

Post by 01100011 »

gibolt wrote: post #96
01100011 wrote: post #42

I'm curious how other folks who work at large tech shops in the valley feel about working from home for a while. There is nearly zero reason for me to show up at work. I can do nearly everything from home, often better. At work, I'm in a large, open building surrounded by thousands of people. Am I overreacting? I know there's a good chance we're all going to get COVID-19, but if I can delay it a bit, I lessen the hit…

I personally am watching others around me do what I consider "overreacting". Once it starts spreading locally though, the response will be reasonable. The biggest gain in working from home is not protecting yourself, but the spread to all of your coworkers and then to all of the next infections beyond them leading to actual deaths.

Exactly. I'm 0% worried about catching* COVID-19. I suspect I'm at much greater risk of dying from my daily commute. The reason to stay home is for others' sake. We in the tech industry often have jobs where we can stay home with no impact, so, why not do it now?

* There's probably a 100% chance I'll get it at some point, I just don't fear severe consequences from it.

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#102

Post by cylinder »

rococode wrote: post #46

I've been checking for updates on the virus several times a day since it first started being reported in Western media around Jan 20 (in part because it's been a fun distraction, in part because I have friends in Wuhan). I like to think I'm generally an optimist, but I think it's been clear for several weeks now that this is going to have a significant worldwide impact. There are just too many factors in favor of unc…

Where do you find how many people the US has tested? I can't find that anywhere.

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#103

Post by vanniv »

Scipio_Afri wrote: post #90
jakeinspace wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems worse than the average flu. Not likely that you'll die from it if you're young and not immunocompromised, but just because you don't die doesn't mean there won't be long term health effects. And if you have anyone over age 70 or under age 2 who you care at all about, their lives could be at risk.

Seems like children under 9 are not effected much at all, not sure about under 2 tho.

For some reason, coronaviruses generally rarely affect children -- and those that get it rarely spread it to others despite children being fucking disease magnets.

This seems not to be very well understood, but it is really interesting.

So far there are no known cases affecting children under 2 (as of two days ago when I read the paper about coronavirus and children)

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#104

Post by rococode »

baxtr wrote: post #91
rococode wrote: post #46

I've been checking for updates on the virus several times a day since it first started being reported in Western media around Jan 20 (in part because it's been a fun distraction, in part because I have friends in Wuhan). I like to think I'm generally an optimist, but I think it's been clear for several weeks now that this is going to have a significant worldwide impact. There are just too many factors in favor of unc…

Almost everything you write makes sense, but “entire families wiped out”? Do you have a source for that?

Here's one of the higher-profile examples:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-kills-chinese-film-...

> Chang's father, mother and sister also died from the disease, Chinese financial news outlet Caixin reported. His father first exhibited symptoms of the coronavirus on January 25, but was turned away at hospitals because of a lack of beds, leaving him to fight the disease at home. He died days later, followed by Chang's mother, who also succumbed to the illness.

> After caring for their parents, Chang and his sister were infected with the coronavirus; according to Caixin, Chang died on February 14, and hours later, so did his sibling. Chang's wife also contracted the virus and remains in serious condition.

I've also heard of some totally unconfirmed posts on Weibo, WeChat, etc. with similar stories of entire families being infected and stuck at home without treatment, but those are of course just rumors.

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#105

Post by cylinder »

tenpies wrote: post #94
01100011 wrote: post #42

I'm curious how other folks who work at large tech shops in the valley feel about working from home for a while. There is nearly zero reason for me to show up at work. I can do nearly everything from home, often better. At work, I'm in a large, open building surrounded by thousands of people. Am I overreacting? I know there's a good chance we're all going to get COVID-19, but if I can delay it a bit, I lessen the hit…

> Am I overreacting? Probably not. Mortality rate aside (anywhere from 2% to 5% depending on source), the biggest issue is hospitalization rate (about 20% based on Chinese numbers). No country on the planet could handle that hospitalization rate all at once. The priority going forward is about managing spread. Keeping spread as slow as possible so the absolute number of people who need to be hospitalized at any parti…

And how are we going to setup temporary hospitals when portable bed factories are probably all in China?

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#106

Post by rococode »

cylinder wrote: post #102
rococode wrote: post #46

I've been checking for updates on the virus several times a day since it first started being reported in Western media around Jan 20 (in part because it's been a fun distraction, in part because I have friends in Wuhan). I like to think I'm generally an optimist, but I think it's been clear for several weeks now that this is going to have a significant worldwide impact. There are just too many factors in favor of unc…

Where do you find how many people the US has tested? I can't find that anywhere.

Here's one source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/25/cdc-coronav...

> While South Korea has run more than 35,000 coronavirus tests, the United States has tested only 426 people, not including people who returned on evacuation flights.

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#107

Post by ihadfun »

kylemh wrote: post #76
Barrin92 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm curious how other folks who work at large tech shops in the valley feel about working from home for a while. Am in the UK and not the US but given that I'm healthy and relatively young I don't really see the point. This disease is scary in the aggregate, i.e it imposes huge economic costs. The average case of it is basically having flu symptoms, and I never stayed at home unless I got sick during bad flu seasons…

At a nearly 2% mortality rate even for younger people, I think the odds are high enough to be worried. It's obviously not as deadly as the bubonic plague, but this disease is very infectious...

This is not true. A recent study from China showed the mortality rate for 30-39 year olds to be .2% I believe. And the rate goes down from there as age decreases.

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#109

Post by PopePompus »

tinza123 wrote: post #12

Containing it? It's hopeless. Just cancel earlier so the economic loss can be contained.

It would be a crushing blow to the athletes, who get just a few chances to do this in their lives. If it looks like holding normal games would be a health disaster, perhaps they should hold the games, but without spectators. Everyone can watch it via TV or streaming.

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#110

Post by LeoPanthera »

chime wrote: post #93

For anyone looking for more, try the subreddits /r/Covid19 (scientific/medical info), /r/CoronaVirus (maintstream news), and /r/China_Flu (social posts).

I'm not sure I trust Reddit, or indeed any social media, for reliable reporting on such an emotive topic. There's already so much misinformation and conspiracy theories about the disease.
Post reply on HN