The significance of the 2020 Olympic games cannot be overstated. All of Japan has been preparing for this for far more than a decade. Just look at stuff from early 2010s regarding topic such as 8K TV and 5G networks. They have been working towards this singular event where Tokyo will be center at the world stage. It would be tragic (but understandable) to see it cancelled. I hope they can do it a year later instead or something like that.
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
#352As someone tangentially attached to the sports community, the olympics is already a bit screwed up anyway, simply because the sports seasons (and thus the qualification pathway) for many events in the games have been significantly disrupted by the coronavirus. Many athletes who were in touching distance of qualifying will not be able to, and other athletes will be sent in their stead (if it happens at all) Olympic qu…
It is not your humble opinion. Sports are just entertainment nowadays. Lowest priority.
What a strange way to say "I agree".
Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
IIRC the SARS outbreak in 2003 was "contained" within that year.
We're already at 10x the reported infections of SARS and countries aren't even really testing for the coronavirus. Most countries' policy seems to be asking if you think you're infected and willing to be quarantined for two weeks, and writing it down as a "not infected" if you decline. Or in Japan's case, quarantine people in a mismanaged way to maximize new infections, then let the infected people out to freely ming…
The third option is that people you think should be infected are not infected.
Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
”COVID-19 is unlike anything before” It’s almost exactly like every other respiratory virus, except that the case fatality estimates for old and sick people are higher. There’s nothing mechanistically new about the infections we’re seeing. It’s a pretty bog-standard respiratory virus, in terms of its transmission and overall virulence. ”But if COVID-19 spreads to their country, people's daily lives will be significan…
How do you know that it's just fatalities in old and sick? If that's the case, I don't understand why many younger people in Wuhan are dying including the whistle blower doctor who was only 33 years old. We don't even know what the disease will do in terms of long term damage to survivors or the possibility of poor immunity and reinfection. I haven't seen any good statistics on the fatality rate vs age.
Because that’s what the numbers published say:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas...
Look at the mortality by age table.
Also note the mortality rate outside of Wuhan seems to be 0.7%, a bit more than the common flu which I think is around 0.1% but not really a massive deal.
I don’t know where these numbers will land ultimately but I can think of many reasons why people with mild symptoms that are similar to a cold wouldn’t want to show up in a hospital full of infected people, or would think they just have a cold, so I would expect the denominator of the mortality rare in Wuhan to be understated.
For the moment the panic this thing is creating, fuelled by medias eager to make some money by crying wolf, looks like the real threat to me. Lots of people will loose their job as a result of the economic impact of the panic.
Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, because it infects so many millions. Covid-19 right now looks a magnitude more deadly with significant long term health consequences for many who survive.
> a magnitude more deadly Probably not. Case fatality rates don't accurately show the "deadliness" since many people have likely been infected but been asymptomatic or had mild illness that didn't cause them to seek medical advice. > significant long term health consequences for many who survive There is no evidence for that, and it doesn't make sense given the available data. Some number of people have long-term hea…
I agree that exact rates are difficult to determine, will change over time and one should not overreact, but there is plenty of evidence for what I said. If this virus would be just like flu, then Wuhan wouldn't have much problem coping.
Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained
#356I'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…
It's worth reflecting on how many novel pandemics a 40 year old person has experienced in their lifetime. HIV, SARS, MERS, Ebola, Zika, COVID-19... For some reason it feels like a "only in the history books" event -- and yet it's actually quite common. The average-aged American (38) has lived through multiple epidemics -- including one that has killed 30 million people (HIV) -- and yet we barely talk about it.
And diseases like this must have been forming and quickly dying off throughout history. It wasn't until the advent of globalization and intercontinental travel that they've become pandemics.
Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained
#357Earlier 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…
Why yes; cities / counties in Italy are on lockdown, a hotel in Tenerife is quarantined, the biggest mobile conference, Mobile World Conference in Barcelona was cancelled (a move which will affect the sector for months / years), etc.
I'm not sure if you just haven't heard of these things or if you're intentionally ignoring them to make a point.
Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you really think getting HIV is even slightly comparable to having HIV though? Sure you can catch COVID-19 more easily, but it seems like having HIV is a far worse outcome.
And having Ebola is a even worse outcome. But few in developed countries worry about Ebola at all. Why? Because it is not easy for them to catch Ebola at all.
This is a disease with a high spread rate, medium fatality rate. That's far more of a public threat than low spread rate, high fatality rate. Spread rate is far more relevant than death rate, and to top it off someone can be spreading it for weeks with no symptoms.
Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained
#359I'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…
> 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…
> those same authoritarian governments are the ones who played down the threat, lied, covered up to save face, imprisoned whistle-blowers, and refused to let international experts in.
I'm scared that it will become a lot worse than that. The pandemic gives them a real-life stress test and lessons to harden the surveillance state and further improve technical controls and tweak the technology to become more effective. It's another step on the road to integrating and normalizing intrusive and outrageous ideas for government to retain control. (-> both in China and the West!)
From the videos I watched from Chinese pigs (aka LE) in uniforms beating old people not wearing a mask and welding the doors shut of giant apartment blocks where people live like ants (or slaves), I tell myself this will not happen in the West. Then I look at our current research and Europe's own ambition to create a central biometrics database (along with tweets from the UK LE which ask you to report anything people see online that may look like terror and all I think is "STASI!" neighborhood watch. These days I see a uniform and my first reaction is disgust mixed with fear, the sort of claustrophobic feeling normally only Orwell brings up in me.
I get that quarantine laws (locking people in their homes, issuing a curfew, rations etc) can be harsh but important to combat a deadly problem. But looking at the authorities in charge in the West I wouldn't trust them for a second and think it's also a play with fire. There are lots of edge-cases everywhere for this to be a massive human rights violation (elderly care facilities, prisons, migrants, the homeless, and more power to the rigged justice systems and corrupt EU institutions and generally everyone already wielding lots of power)
The CDC and WHO have utterly failed. Why are there no hand-outs of free face-masks and other PPE - oh because there are no stocks! - instead the problem is downplayed (by both WHO and the dear leaders). Why is there no transparency (constant news) about how many people an individual country is testing? Oh because we don't have adequate testing right now. Instead medical professionals were arguing on France24 yesterday whether the game between Juventus/Lyon should go ahead and they felt that they're not qualified to make a statement on a complex subject like this. Instead Italy and other countries are reminding us not to press the panic button just yet and media should be "more responsible in their reporting".
Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
IIRC the SARS outbreak in 2003 was "contained" within that year.
We were able to essentially starve SARS out of new people to infect. It had a 2-7 day incubation period, was not contagious before symptomatic, and spread by bodily fluid (coughing up water droplets, spread by touch to another). COVID-19 has a 21+ day incubation period, is contagious before you're symptomatic, and is possibly airborne (I haven't heard strong confirmation of that yet, but it's definitely more virulent…
> COVID-19 has a 21+ day incubation period