601–610 of 840 posts
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There’s ample evidence “going to church” is one way, and that’s not much different than the others.
Maybe participation in the holy communion by drinking from a cup of wine shared with the entire congregation isn't the best idea right now.
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Seems worse than the average flu AND unlike the flu, there's no vaccine (and there probably won't be one in time to make much of a difference).
Can anyone just explain how in hell it takes so long to develop a vaccine? Vaccine creators aren't supposed to have billions of USD to make their job? What's the real problem here?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_vaccine#Manufacturin...
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> Their extreme quarantine efforts happened more than a month and a half after the first case was detected I do agree that China and especially Wuhan could have acted faster - perhaps by 2 weeks though not month and a half. 1st December there was a case of pneumonia admitted to a hospital - that happens probably more than millions times a year. After 3 days it was clear that it's a viral pneumonia. That's more severe…
They should have done something - but then again, what? Well, arresting the doctors that were comparing cases in a group chat seems like a good start. /s
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> It's a tropical region disease Europe and the U.S. used to have Malaria. The name -- bad air -- is Latin, the Romans thought it originated from bad swamp air. Shakespeare mentioned it time and time again in his plays.
Yes, but malaria isn't transmitted between humans but requires a certain mosquito to spread. So unless that mosquito reappears (which is an actual threat due to climate change), the malaria isn't randomly spreading to other countries. But the corona virus doesn't have these bariers as it spreads from humans to humans.
2) Limiting chance of mosquitoes biting people (aircon)
3) Limiting the population with malaria (the fewer people with malaria, the less chance of a given mosquito biting someone with malaria and thus becoming a carrier)
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I’m in Tokyo and having a very different experience than you, nearly everyone on the trains are wearing masks and all customer facing staff I see now. Someone hit the emergency button on the train a few days ago because someone was coughing without one (there was a PSA asking people not to do that). It’s mostly foreigners I see walking around without masks now, but I agree it’s still ramping up. I honestly don’t see…
In the US we have an additional problem that 2 weeks of hospitalization means certain bankruptcy for many people (myself included). So it might be rather difficult to get people to voluntarily show up for tests and such.
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”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…
I see you’re still hard at work spreading the falsehood that “it’s just like the flu, unless you’re old or sick”. 1. I find the lack of concern about dramatically higher mortality rates for the old and the sick to be reprehensible. They’re people, even if they’re older or sicker than you. 2. It doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense for China to shut down the economy over something so minor. 3. The hospitalization r…
0) In the case of the parent, I was saying that the virus spreads and infects people in the same manner as other upper respiratory viruses. It does, this is a fact, and fatality rates are not relevant.
1) I’ve never said that I have no concern about old or sick people. I said that young healthy people should not panic. You’re simply virtue signaling to stoke fear.
2) It would indeed be concerning if hospitals are overwhelmed. Currently, they are not (anywhere) and therefore, again, people should not panic.
3) Comparing tiny ratios with large error bars and freaking out over a “20x” difference in relative risk is pointless; the risk is still quite low.
It also overlooks the far more relevant fact that you’re thousands of times more likely to get the flu than covid-19. At this point, you should not panic.
Get the idea? Regardless of your obsessive-compulsive downvoting of factual information, the relative risk to most people is lower than...well, most things in life. That’s why my argument is, and continues to be, that most people, in most places, should not panic.
As 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…
The dumb part of all of this is how the gov. and the IOC handled the summer olympics up to this point. For instance there was the discussion around the marathon, where runners would be at serious risk when running outdoors in the middle of the summer in Tokyo. Yet it took months and months of discussions, stupid alternatives (including "let's change Tokyo's time during the Olympics so the marathon starts at the plann…
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> 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…
I would have had to go to a convention/trade show in Paris next week, but luckily it got postponed for two months. So far people are getting more cautious.
Between the two standard criticisms "too little, too late" and "unnecessary panic" there is very little margin, especially in public opinion.
Here in Germany, people are starting to stock up on supplies, which is reasonable unless they completely plunder the supermarkets. Otherwise, it's all wait-and-see over here. Of course it doesn't help that Europe is also in the midst of flu season...
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 o…
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…
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.