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Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

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Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#51

Post by knzhou »

war1025 wrote: post #30
progman32 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you asking?

There has been speculation I've overheard that the virus is particularly deadly to Asian people. Seems like a bogus theory to me, but I suspect that was the reason for the question. Largely plays into the "escaped bioweapon" theory.

This is a great example of how misinformation spreads.

All of the speculation comes from a single non peer reviewed paper, which had literally one data point. That paper was posted to a preprint server where scientists could comment on it. And the first comment was somebody doing a quick followup study with 100x more data, which found no significant difference.

Source: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.26.919985v1

Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#52

Post by vincnetas »

ramblerman wrote: post #28
Medicalidiot wrote: post #12

I'm not going to stop saying this. This looks very dangerous and we should take very precaution possible to slow transmission. All nonessential travel should be avoided, don't touch your face, wash your hands. Slowing this virus down makes everything so much better. [1] Estimate that the case to fatality ratio is between 5-8%. The transmission rate is between 2 and 3. Both of these numbers are similar to the earlier…

> This looks very dangerous, fatality ratio is between 5-8%. We're better than this at HN. There are stats on the mortality rates, and given you are younger than 50 there is a less than 0.4% mortality rate. Furthermore, recent autopsies have shown this is a virus that hits the lungs more than anything else. China with it's incredible pollution, might have skewed mortality rates that are higher than we may expect in E…

0.4% is number of deaths / number of cases. Problem is that not all cases have recovered and there will be more deaths among them.

But yes, main takeaways, don't panic, slow down spread as much as possible (aka wash your hands)

Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#53

Post by throwaway3157 »

goodcanadian wrote: post #48
jp57 wrote: post #36

Is it possible that the virus has been circulating in the states since Christmas or earlier? I live in the states, though not in Seattle. My wife's best friend teaches ESL at a major university. She has several Chinese students in her class who went home over the semester break in December and January. In mid-to-late January, the teacher, her husband, my wife, and I all came down with the "flu" in swift succession, w…

The general sentiment was that this years flu shot was a dud. The flu shot is a guess at which viruses will be most prevalent this year. A recent study I saw (sorry, I don't have a link) suggested that a single flu shot has little impact on your likelihood of getting the flu this year. If you regularly get flu shots, however, after 4 years, your immunity is significantly increased (I presume because you have be immun…

Correct, I've been told by medical professionals that there are hundred(s) of strains but the flu shot only covers the handful of strains they expect to be prevalent for that flu season. I have been wondering how they come up with that prediction though...

Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#54

Post by superkuh »

throwaway3157 wrote: post #53
goodcanadian wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general sentiment was that this years flu shot was a dud. The flu shot is a guess at which viruses will be most prevalent this year. A recent study I saw (sorry, I don't have a link) suggested that a single flu shot has little impact on your likelihood of getting the flu this year. If you regularly get flu shots, however, after 4 years, your immunity is significantly increased (I presume because you have be immun…

Correct, I've been told by medical professionals that there are hundred(s) of strains but the flu shot only covers the handful of strains they expect to be prevalent for that flu season. I have been wondering how they come up with that prediction though...

The morbidity and mortality weekly report from a month or so back said that in intentional lab infections the influenza vaccine was only 45% effective in preventing infection this year.

Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#55

Post by 40acres »

jp57 wrote: post #36

Is it possible that the virus has been circulating in the states since Christmas or earlier? I live in the states, though not in Seattle. My wife's best friend teaches ESL at a major university. She has several Chinese students in her class who went home over the semester break in December and January. In mid-to-late January, the teacher, her husband, my wife, and I all came down with the "flu" in swift succession, w…

Definitely. Imagine how long it took for news of the virus to bubble up the Chinese bureaucracy and how many people traveled during that time period.

Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#56

Post by jp57 »

gdubs wrote: post #50
jp57 wrote: post #36

Is it possible that the virus has been circulating in the states since Christmas or earlier? I live in the states, though not in Seattle. My wife's best friend teaches ESL at a major university. She has several Chinese students in her class who went home over the semester break in December and January. In mid-to-late January, the teacher, her husband, my wife, and I all came down with the "flu" in swift succession, w…

FWIW our family got hit with the same thing. The cough was... different than anything we’ve experienced in recent memory. I assumed it was the flu (we stayed home and didn’t get tested, but it was pretty brutal.)

Yes. I have trouble describing how bad the cough and lung symptoms were. At one point I remember saying "my lungs itch" and wishing I could find a way to scratch them from the outside.

Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#58

Post by knzhou »

jp57 wrote: post #36

Is it possible that the virus has been circulating in the states since Christmas or earlier? I live in the states, though not in Seattle. My wife's best friend teaches ESL at a major university. She has several Chinese students in her class who went home over the semester break in December and January. In mid-to-late January, the teacher, her husband, my wife, and I all came down with the "flu" in swift succession, w…

Almost certainly not. If it had been around for three months, with no control at all, it would be extremely obvious by now.

Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#59

Post by gdubs »

jp57 wrote: post #56
gdubs wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW our family got hit with the same thing. The cough was... different than anything we’ve experienced in recent memory. I assumed it was the flu (we stayed home and didn’t get tested, but it was pretty brutal.)

Yes. I have trouble describing how bad the cough and lung symptoms were. At one point I remember saying "my lungs itch" and wishing I could find a way to scratch them from the outside.

My wife fractured a rib from coughing just to give a sense of how bad it was.

Re: Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

#60

Post by tshaddox »

throwaway3157 wrote: post #53
goodcanadian wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general sentiment was that this years flu shot was a dud. The flu shot is a guess at which viruses will be most prevalent this year. A recent study I saw (sorry, I don't have a link) suggested that a single flu shot has little impact on your likelihood of getting the flu this year. If you regularly get flu shots, however, after 4 years, your immunity is significantly increased (I presume because you have be immun…

Correct, I've been told by medical professionals that there are hundred(s) of strains but the flu shot only covers the handful of strains they expect to be prevalent for that flu season. I have been wondering how they come up with that prediction though...

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccine-selection.htm

Seems pretty straightforward. They look at which strains people have been testing positive for and how successful the previous vaccines were.

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