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

611–620 of 840 posts

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

#611

Post by Gene_Parmesan »

boring_twenties wrote: post #526
dahdum wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean, if it hits here in a big way something is going to have to happen with this. Whether you're in a hospital for a 2 week quarantine, or laid up in bed for 2 weeks because you're sick -- either way you're going to have 2 weeks where you aren't working.

Beyond that, if it REALLY hits here, you're going to have entire businesses shut down temporarily. I saw a CDC estimate that if it goes pandemic, we should expect 40% - 70% of the population to contract it. Imagine your place of employment, but with half of its employees out sick.

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

#612

Post by wbl »

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…

You really have no idea of the power of a municipal health authority in the US. They can order people confined to their homes, businesses shut down, etc. etc.

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

#613

Post by billfruit »

netheril96 wrote: post #167
nostromo wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

COVID-19 is unlike anything before (in modern times). Especially HIV. You don't catch HIV by boarding the subway, eating in a restaurant, or running a marathon. For most people, avoiding unsafe sex is enough to avoid HIV. But if COVID-19 spreads to their country, people's daily lives will be significantly disrupted. SARS, MERS, Ebola, Zika are a little more like COVID-19, except they never propagate that far.

Yes, but in the early days oh HIV no one was sure how it was transmitted, a lot of people got infected before scientists understood how it spread.

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

#614

Post by bart_spoon »

trengorilla wrote: post #587
baq wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2% may be still too high, it might even be high sub 1% (e.g. .7%), but the big problem is how many of cases require hospitalization and especially intensive care. if number of ICU patients grows 10x in one month, we're all in trouble and that's seemingly what happened in China.

I don't understand how this figure keeps getting quoted. Out of cases that have been fully resolved we're now at an 8% mortality rate. 2% is counting ongoing cases, that's not the figure you should be looking at.

Because the 8% mortality rate is based on resolved cases, and it generally takes people longer to fully recover than it does to die, so it is skewed upwards. A couple of weeks ago, the same mortality figure was near 30%, because most people with the disease who were not going to die hadn't had time to recover yet. Things are still early enough that the 8% figure will continue to go down.

Additionally, it is widely acknowledged that the actual number of cases is undercounted, with the mildest cases less likely to have been tested and included in those numbers, again resulting in overly high numbers.

And finally, it would appear that Wuhan in particular is skewing the numbers higher, as being the site of the outbreak it was caught off guard and has struggled to manage the number of cases. Elsewhere in both China and the world, the death rate is far lower.

The estimate of 8% is unquestionably much too high. Exactly what the mortality rate is will still take more time to discover.

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

#615

Post by el_cujo »

trengorilla wrote: post #566
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because you're angry over not getting a free face mask is a bit disrespectful toward the many people their working their asses off in times like these. my partner is a health care professional and there aren't enough masks for them (this is central Europe btw). but yeah tell me about how hard they work and how I don't appreciate them.

From what I understand the masks are utterly useless against this anyway.

The common surgical face masks you'll often see people from Asia wear in public are only useful if YOU have the virus by reducing the chance of people catching the virus from you. There are, however, N95 respirator masks that are useful for protecting the uninfected from catching the virus.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/respirator-use...

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

#616

Post by billfruit »

ck425 wrote: post #302
bamboozled wrote: post #177

Earlier 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.

HIV is an incredibly manageable disease these days. The day to day effects are on a similar scale to Diabetes ie take regular medication and watch for specific symptoms that could imply it worsening. Otherwise there relatively little day to day impact other than the stigma. I should caveat that I'm referring to countries with a modern and available health system.

But in the early days in the 80s the case was different. Especially I think, in those who contracted it through blood transfusions, the progress of the disease was swift, with toxoplasmosis infection.

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

#617

Post by [deleted] »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #359
_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…

> 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.…

[deleted]

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

#618

Post by conanbatt »

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…

> entire families in Wuhan being wiped out.

I thought that the virus had mortality rates for high-risk groups. This implies healthy adults/infants also have lethality.

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

#619

Post by brutt »

Hoasi wrote: post #451
brutt wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't looks so. Chinese scientist did research and found that virus was originated outside of Wuhan. It just became wide spread in Wuhan. IMHO, it's from Koltsovo.

> IMHO, it's from Koltsovo Why do you think it comes from Koltsovo, in Russia?

If explosion can break all windows in the lab, then it can break some vials too.

Koltsevo-Harbin route was used regularly by tourists.

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

#620

Post by billfruit »

nostromo wrote: post #122
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…

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.

Also the 1994 plague epidemic in India, centered at Surat.
Post reply on HN