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

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

#311

Post by jiggawatts »

asiachick wrote: post #272
distantaidenn wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Tokyo and just returned from Seoul yesterday. It's striking how differently the countries are handling this issue. Korea is pretty much on lockdown -- the government and the population are being quite proactive. Masks everywhere, thermal guns at junctions with high human traffic. Water fountains shut down, etc. Even the airport staff at the eateries were undergoing temperature checks before interacting with…

My favorite thing in Tokyo (I wrote sarcastically) is being on over crowded trains in the winter and their policy of not running the ventilation systems "because it's winter".

My favourite thing is trains and buses heated to 30C (85F) because it's "winter", so that you nearly have heatstroke even if you strip down to just a shirt and whatever pants you are wearing.

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

#312

Post by Cookingboy »

simonh wrote: post #285
asiachick wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think it will be any different in the USA or Europe? Will the governments ban conventions? Close restaurants and bars? Shut down shopping malls? Or will instead, in the interest of "the economy" (ie, money) keep too light a hand on things. Basically I don't expect the west to be able to react to this any better if it gets big. Their populations are uncontrollable (for mostly good reason) but in this par…

The point is that if doctors had been free to investigate and alert the existence of the disease very early on, it might have been contained to a small number of cases right from the start, and never gained any traction in the population in the first place. The first few weeks of an outbreak are absolutely crucial, and the Chinese authorities actively obstructed efforts to address the issue in that period precisely b…

Well from what we've seen in Japan and South Korea, that seems to be far from guaranteed. Those countries had all the warnings they needed, and knew much more about the virus than the earlier days, yet they still failed to contain the initially small outbreaks.

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

#313

Post by littlestymaar »

asiachick wrote: post #268
_nkl1 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think when this all comes to an end, China will be one of the countries that dealt with the virus the best. Countries without authoritarian governments likely don't have the means to effectively quarantine major cities and shut down massive portions of their economy immediately without major problems arising. Given a couple weeks, sure, but by then it will be too late. It may well seem that way in retrospect. Whe…

Do you really think it will be any different in the USA or Europe? Will the governments ban conventions? Close restaurants and bars? Shut down shopping malls? Or will instead, in the interest of "the economy" (ie, money) keep too light a hand on things. Basically I don't expect the west to be able to react to this any better if it gets big. Their populations are uncontrollable (for mostly good reason) but in this par…

> Do you really think it will be any different in the USA or Europe? Will the governments ban conventions? Close restaurants and bars? Shut down shopping malls?

Look at Italy right now.

> Or will instead, in the interest of "the economy" (ie, money) keep too light a hand on things.

Sure, but this has nothing to do with authoritarian states vs democracy. You'll find a ton of authoritarian states doing exactly the same. It's just a matter of who's the ruling class, and in most places in the world (100% of liberal democracies but also most authoritarian states), it's the business owners, so of course they will try and save their business before their people.

> Basically I don't expect the west to be able to react to this any better if it gets big. Their populations are uncontrollable (for mostly good reason) but in this particular case that feature will turn out to be bug.

Western people aren't uncontrollable. The one who are, are the one who are pissed of by their plutocratic governments and have lost all faith in them. I'm pretty convinced that Switzerland will be fine, and I'm not surprised Italy is in the same kind of shit than Iran.

I'm French, and we've been lucky so far, but I expect chaos when it's going to start. The government has long lost all political legitimity here, and people absolutely distrust them, so I don't think they will not peacefully comply to government attempt to limit the propagation.

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

#314

Post by im3w1l »

thwer234324 wrote: post #30
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #8

This may seem silly but this is one of my first confirmations about how serious this is.

Is this a good time to flag HNs self-conceited hive-mind ? Two days ago, HN was full of - 'LOL this is some Alex Jones level conspiracy'. Warnings by Harvard epidemiologists ? No. Virologists ? No. China quarantining half the population ? No. Only the tech 'wizards' from SV, have a monopoly on truth don't you know. The Orwellian censorship that has been unleashed by these idiots will do the world much more harm in th…

I've read a few stories on HN over the last month, and people took it seriously.

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

#315

Post by tony101 »

dillondoyle wrote: post #188
adrr wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current antivirals work on it. Shown effective in animal models and now in human testing in China. A US based test, the patient made a recovery and showed significant improvement one day after dose. This is just antivirals that are already out there that being manufactured. There will be vaccines on the market in 6 to 9 months and antibody treatments shortly after.

Do you have research links? Or this is just internet enecdata? I have been contemplating calling in my Truvada script early and mailing a 30-60 pills to my parents but from my googling seems pointless. that Emtricitabine / Tenofovir most certainly wouldn't help? but I couldn't find much and have no idea

The drug being tested is remdesivir, not tenofovir.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/24/investing/gilead-sciences-cor...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/health/coronavirus-treatm...

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191

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

#316

Post by silvestrov »

jldugger wrote: post #160
antognini wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they only need to be right once.

They kinda need to be right every time?

Why are chickens so scared of everything?

It is because if they miss the fox a single time they are dead.

If they run away 999 times without needing to, it's no big deal. Making a lot of noise so other chickens run away too helps the herd.

You can laugh at the chickens, but the chickens you laugh at, are the kind of animals who survives.

The same are true for wolves: they run away from humans because they are too great a risk of injury compared to the size of the meal.

If you aren't willing to run away when not absolutely required, you will miss the one time you really needed to.

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

#317

Post by allovernow »

pbourke wrote: post #310
allovernow wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That curve is pure bullshit. No real life event fits a polynomial with that much precision when it is sampled so poorly. They're cooked, both intentionally and because of limitations in equipment, personel, and ability.

Interesting data points from today's presser with Dr. Bruce Aylward of WHO[1]: "Aylward pointed to an analysis from Guangdong province suggesting that, at least there, most of the infections were coming to the attention of health authorities. When the virus started to spread in Guangdong — the province where the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak began — worried people flooded fever clinics to be tested. Of 320,000 tests perfor…

>Of 320,000 tests performed, just under 0.5% were positive for the virus at the peak of transmission there, he said — which suggests that only 1 case out of 200 was being missed

These numbers don't make sense. What, are they assuming 100% accuracy for the tests? China is an authoritarian dictatorship with a very personal need to save face - in order to maintain order it cannot show weakness. China is lying. There is motive, circumstantial, and now with the spread in Korea and Italy, empirical evidence that China is full of it.

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

#318

Post by calf »

dlwdlw wrote: post #309
_nkl1 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think when this all comes to an end, China will be one of the countries that dealt with the virus the best. Countries without authoritarian governments likely don't have the means to effectively quarantine major cities and shut down massive portions of their economy immediately without major problems arising. Given a couple weeks, sure, but by then it will be too late. It may well seem that way in retrospect. Whe…

The authoritarianism is a red herring IMO. The real issue is economic incentives trumping everything else. For example in Japan if you test positive the hospital gets quarantined losing tons of money. In the US, you can end up payong huge medical bills. The fear is the same. The lesson from WW2 should have been that people are all the same when pushed to extremes. This includes the people who make up the communist pa…

I often think to the fable of Armus in ST:TNG, an advanced civilization achieved transcendence, but they left behind the black tar creature that gained sentience and represented all of their evils.

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

#319

Post by OJFord »

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…

> since it first started being reported in Western media around Jan 20

It was on Canadian television news just a few days into the new year, at the latest. I'm sure of it because I was away in Canada and that's where I first saw it.

It's been bothering me because every article a British newspaper runs since (and I thought The Times had covered it while I was in Canada, but couldn't say for sure) seems to include a graph of infections or death toll since outbreak compared to Sars, and puts day zero at around Jan 20 (can't remember exactly) like you said.

Surely it's not rampant disinformation, just an unstated definition of 'outbreak' that isn't familiar to me or matching my layman's one, but I don't get it.

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

#320

Post by bad_user »

jmnicolas wrote: post #226
ImaCake wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the links you provide have alarmist titles and big claims and confusing evidence. Which is strange since the twitter authors are clearly well educated virologists/epidemiologists. But the style of language makes it difficult for me to trust what they are saying. So far I am sticking to research papers and This Week In Virology [0], where there is a lot less dramatic clickbait language and a lot more skeptica…

> Which is strange since the twitter authors are clearly well educated virologists/epidemiologists. So when educated virologists/epidemiologists put alarming titles you find it strange, not concerning or alarming ?

Internet is full of quacks.

Alarming titles indicate quacks more than they indicate actual crisis and we don't have time to check the credentials and the work of the people involved to assess their credibility. Also facts speak for themselves, you don't need alarmism unless you have something to sell.

Also in these instances a general panic can do much more harm than the virus can ever do — we already see fears of an economic recession.

So yes, it's a huge red flag.

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