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Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

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Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#211
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do have one question and I'm asking this seriously, not to start an argument or to attack someone. I also saw this here in a lot of the posts about covid-19. We have numbers, but every time people tend to ignore them or say we should not trust the numbers, take them with a grain of salt, "I think this is way worse, it's going to get way worse" and so on. It's like there is this thirst for disaster or some global dr…

My reasoning for thinking this is worthy of panic: I recently moved to China. The PRC has good numbers (internally) and knows more about COVID-19's severity and risk profile than anyone else. And, on the ground, the PRC is putting the entire country on what amounts to wartime footing (in a way that's unimaginable to most HN readers), to the point that it's willing to sacrifice a quarter or more worth of economic prod…

EDIT:

--- As the replies to my comment indicate I have totally misunderstood the paper. And there IS in fact evidence that the temperature changes the transmission. Sorry my bad. leaving the rest as is ---

> I'm hoping Spring ends up curtailing the pandemic; letting warmer temperatures do their work requires slowing down the virus' spread as much as possible, and that requires significant disruptions to people's everyday lives.

from this paper "Temperature significant change COVID-19 Transmission in 429 cities": https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.22.20025791v...

> There is no evidence supporting that temperature changes COVID-19 transmission. Methods: We collected the cumulative number of confirmed cases of all cities and regions affected by COVID-19 in the world from January 20 to February 4, 2020, and calculated the daily means of the average, minimum and maximum temperatures in January. ....

EDIT: I'm also very worried about this point you mention:

> the PRC is putting the entire country on what amounts to wartime footing (in a way that's unimaginable to most HN readers),

the effect of isolation/quarantine can have massive psychological damage and after-effects (especially on kids), such as PTSD, depression, ... years after the virus is gone:

"The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence" https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

Very much underrated. There isn't enough dialogue right now with the public about what they are likely to expect.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#212
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do have one question and I'm asking this seriously, not to start an argument or to attack someone. I also saw this here in a lot of the posts about covid-19. We have numbers, but every time people tend to ignore them or say we should not trust the numbers, take them with a grain of salt, "I think this is way worse, it's going to get way worse" and so on. It's like there is this thirst for disaster or some global dr…

I don't think that calling the numbers unreliable implies incompetence or even worse, malice, on the part of the reporting country. It's simply difficult as shit to come up with reliable stats on something very new in the middle of an outbreak. Think of how many people aren't even noticing that they have the virus, and thus will never be counted as infected. This is just as true in Milan or California as it is in Wuh…

> It is, however, quite clear that this virus is not as serious as SARS or especially MERS.

I know that the 'severity' of the virus often refers to how severe it is once you have it, but in the context of new viruses and pandemics, IMO 'severity' should refer to overall potential impact. Covid-19 blows SARS/MERS out of the water on that front given its different transmission profile and already-established footholds.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#213
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my original post gave off the impression of being conspiracy-theory-driven, I want to apologize, because that wasn't the intent. My original post aimed at clarifying that death rates in exponentially spreading diseases that have a lag between infection and possible recovery and death is a tricky topic, and that the numbers generally reported seem to not take this nuance into account. I think collecting accurate da…

Yet your post seemed to hint at willful manipulation of data, which isn't something for which there is reliable concrete evidence for, and which in my view is adding to the paranoia. The line of thinking for eg:, Chinese numbers are untrustworthy, WHO numbers are untrustworthy etc, is very frequently echoed by the western press, and even here in HN.

I can’t comment about the Chinese, but if you trust WHO, given who runs it, I also have a bridge to sell you.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is FUD. They are not in a vacuum. Business and travel will resume only if the situation is demonstrably resolved, or close to. They cannot afford to fake it and re-open factories and lift quarantines just for mass contamination to occur, which would be very public and screw them internationally for good. Edit: Everyone, from all impacted countries say that they are still open for business because they don't want…

Dude, they are literally releasing videos from officials telling some businesspeople that they're still open for business. Don't shoot the messenger, I know it's a dumb idea, but how surprised can you be that the CCP is trying to do something dumb after all the dumb things they've done? Maybe instead of declaring something "FUD", which to me sounds like you're saying I'm here in bad faith, consider that I meant what…

You can’t get this upset when you haven’t posted any sources for your claims. I believe what you’re saying, but not everyone will give you the benefit of the doubt.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reasoning for thinking this is worthy of panic: I recently moved to China. The PRC has good numbers (internally) and knows more about COVID-19's severity and risk profile than anyone else. And, on the ground, the PRC is putting the entire country on what amounts to wartime footing (in a way that's unimaginable to most HN readers), to the point that it's willing to sacrifice a quarter or more worth of economic prod…

EDIT: --- As the replies to my comment indicate I have totally misunderstood the paper. And there IS in fact evidence that the temperature changes the transmission. Sorry my bad. leaving the rest as is --- > I'm hoping Spring ends up curtailing the pandemic; letting warmer temperatures do their work requires slowing down the virus' spread as much as possible, and that requires significant disruptions to people's ever…

To be clear, the "There is no evidence supporting that temperature changes COVID-19 transmission" is part of the background statement of the paper. The paper establishes evidence that temperatures do significantly effect transmission rates.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#216
post #197
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do have one question and I'm asking this seriously, not to start an argument or to attack someone. I also saw this here in a lot of the posts about covid-19. We have numbers, but every time people tend to ignore them or say we should not trust the numbers, take them with a grain of salt, "I think this is way worse, it's going to get way worse" and so on. It's like there is this thirst for disaster or some global dr…

I agree, there is a doomer mentality that applies to everything (climate change, geopolitical tensions, etc) and which the media are more than happy to fuel to sell paper and commercials.

While I agree with the overall sentiment, in the context of a novel pandemic, downplaying the risks is far worse than overplaying them IMO.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit off topic but Iran is mostly only under American and Israeli sanctions at this point after Trump unilaterally pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. The rest of the world can trade with Iran though many companies are still unwilling due to the American pressure.

Due to how interconnected European and American finance and business is this effectively means that Europe cannot trade to Iran. The Europeans cannot enforce the JCPOA without either some kind of American cooperation or a major decoupling their financial systems from the US. I believe Macron has made public musing about the latter as an option, but then again Macron says a lot of things that lack pan-european support…

Specifically, the US imposes/threatens to impose secondary sanctions ie anyone who does business with Iran is also supposed to be subject to sanctions by the US, even if they are not US companies/US parent companies. So those companies can't then themselves do business with US companies or in the US.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reasoning for thinking this is worthy of panic: I recently moved to China. The PRC has good numbers (internally) and knows more about COVID-19's severity and risk profile than anyone else. And, on the ground, the PRC is putting the entire country on what amounts to wartime footing (in a way that's unimaginable to most HN readers), to the point that it's willing to sacrifice a quarter or more worth of economic prod…

EDIT: --- As the replies to my comment indicate I have totally misunderstood the paper. And there IS in fact evidence that the temperature changes the transmission. Sorry my bad. leaving the rest as is --- > I'm hoping Spring ends up curtailing the pandemic; letting warmer temperatures do their work requires slowing down the virus' spread as much as possible, and that requires significant disruptions to people's ever…

[deleted]

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#219

I really would like to know if smoking is implicated. Are there any smoker/nonsmoker stats anywhere?

There's this paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/all.14238

"Low prevalence of smokers, and no allergic diseases despite of drug hypersensitivity and urticaria was self-reported by any patients, indicating that allergic diseases and smoking history may not be the susceptible factors for COVID-19."

And this one: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.05.20020107v...

"Together, this study indicates that smokers especially former smokers may be more susceptible to 2019-nCov and have infection paths different with non-smokers."

They reach opposite conclusions.

Re: Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

#220

i know it's passe to rail on the media, but i think the hyperconnectedness of everyone is causing the amount of panic i'm sensing out there to significantly outweigh the risks wrt covid-19.

What gives you the impression that the risk is small?
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