681–690 of 840 posts
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…
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…
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…
Chernobyl comes to mind as another example of this.
But in this case we'll see. China's problems don't end if they successfully contain the outbreak to Wuhan. Eventually everyone else will get sick too and re-infect the chinese via other roads.
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.
Over decades. Airborne viruses have the potential to large numbers of people in a matter of months.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
”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…
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.
Here in Belgium it's almost impossible to find masks as well, except if you want to pay 70+ EUR https://i.imgur.com/dGd56Ng.png I suspect Asian customers have been plundering online EU shops for a while. Having said that, I don't think it's the responsibility of the WHO to distribute masks to health professionals like your partner.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure if it's just my imagination, but your comment, and especially the “real French” part makes me uneasy. You aren't implying anything racist are you? BTW I way less worried about thugs than about antivax mums and other fakemeds enthusiasts believing about conspiracy theory involving “big pharma”.
What's he supposed to do? He went out of his way to put it in the polite way for you. Unless you want to go into complete incomprehensibility, it's a "rock and a hard place" situation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.…
> Chinese pigs (aka LE) This sort of editorializing immediately makes your whole opinion moot. If this is how you talk about people you don’t know it’s unlikely your opinion is valid or even remotely unbiased in any other regard.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like yes, but not because it mutates, it's just that the immune response can be weak. Probably more of a risk for people with weak immune systems to start with. Everything I've read suggests that Coronaviruses are more stable, genetically speaking, than the flu. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/its-possible-...
> Coronaviruses are more stable, genetically speaking, than the flu. By more stable you mean less likely to mutate? Would that mean a vaccine would be more effective in protecting against covid19 than a regular seasonaly changing flu?
> Coronavirus non-structural proteins provide extra fidelity to replication, because they confer a proofreading function, which is lacking in RNA-dependent RNA polymerase enzymes alone
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re not wrong, but you have a bit of a dismal look at it. Sports, like other forms of entertainment, are a sign of culture, and culture is the touchstone of a good workforce. Just like it’s important to take short breaks in the office, even small amounts of entertainment is important to keep us happy and focused. Large events, such as the Olympics and Oscars, give a pattern to the years, something to talk about an…
To be honest, I have never seen sports as "culture". Neither the Oscars. They are just PR events in this day and age. By the way, hosting the Olympics does not boost the local economy. Quite the opposite, in fact, at least in many cases. They are a heavy loss and increase in debt for almost every city that did it, as well as detrimental for the environment overall. Governments do it as a long term investment in publi…