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I have the coronavirus. So far, it isn't that bad

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Re: I have the coronavirus. So far, it isn't that bad

#111

Post by goatherders »

bart_spoon wrote: post #93
ptx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic. First there was nothing to worry about because it was localized to Wuhan, then there was nothing to worry about because it was only spreading in China and surely would not spread to $YOUR_COUNTRY, then there was nothing to worry about because it was only a few isolated cases that were easily dealt with, and now we seem to be moving into how there's nothing to worry about b…

No one is downplaying anything. If anything, people are overemphasizing the danger. Even in Wuhan, the center of the outbreak, less than half a percent of the population has contracted this thing, and of that half percent, 4 out of 5 have mild symptoms. And the outbreak there seems to be stabilizing. That isn’t to say it isn’t serious, or that we shouldn’t be taking measures to guard against it. But a large contingen…

Excellent comment. The rush on supplies and goods means that people in need may not have access to care. THAT worries me quite a bit more than the disease itself.

Re: I have the coronavirus. So far, it isn't that bad

#112

Post by jacobolus »

bart_spoon wrote: post #107
Medicalidiot wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me ask you a question: what is the intention of responding to me in a condescending way? What do you get out of it? My intention right now is for people not to down play how serious this will become and that this isn't just the flu. This is the only data we have right now and it's saying this is really bad. You can talk selection bias here, faulty statistics, etc. but right now the death rate is 8% (deaths/(death…

I wasn’t condescending until you were. I initially questioned your claims, and you responded by asserting that you were correct and I was not because you are a medical student and I am not. It had nothing to do with the validity of what I was saying, it was an appeal to your own authority. If you do not wish to make an argument personal, then you should refrain from using your person as an argument. Secondly, it isn’…

> something to be said for the fact that having several months of preparation and notice will improve readiness remarkably compared to Hubei province

Do note though that the system is already getting strained in some parts of Italy, and it sounds like Iran is in very serious trouble. Despite what seems like a pretty aggressive response, South Korea has had very rapid spread through a cult church.

Elsewhere in China the virus has been largely contained, but the Chinese have imposed extreme quarantine measures at unprecedented scale, which are just now easing a bit (hopefully without a regression in virus spread).

Developing countries are going to have a really bad time with this virus, and even in the US and Western Europe it seems plausible that healthcare systems could be overwhelmed, since to date in many places the carefulness of quarantines, the level of testing, the extent of contact tracing, etc. has been quite limited in comparison to e.g. Singapore or South Korea.

The US response seems disorganized, and anecdotally healthcare workers I have talked to have received little guidance or training so far.

Supply chain disruptions and spikes in demand are having a substantial effect on the availability of personal protective gear and some pharmaceuticals (e.g. antibiotics used for treating secondary bacterial infections in viral pneumonia patients).

Yearly flu season already strains the medical system. This virus seems from available evidence to be both substantially more contagious and substantially more dangerous (higher rates of severe symptoms) compared to the typical flu. When it reaches epidemic scale in a particular place it could make every other kind of medical emergency quite a bit riskier. In Wuhan there are many stories of people with e.g. cancer or heart problems being unable to obtain medical care, because medical resources were fully devoted to coronavirus patients.

Re: I have the coronavirus. So far, it isn't that bad

#113

Post by Medicalidiot »

bart_spoon wrote: post #107
Medicalidiot wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me ask you a question: what is the intention of responding to me in a condescending way? What do you get out of it? My intention right now is for people not to down play how serious this will become and that this isn't just the flu. This is the only data we have right now and it's saying this is really bad. You can talk selection bias here, faulty statistics, etc. but right now the death rate is 8% (deaths/(death…

I wasn’t condescending until you were. I initially questioned your claims, and you responded by asserting that you were correct and I was not because you are a medical student and I am not. It had nothing to do with the validity of what I was saying, it was an appeal to your own authority. If you do not wish to make an argument personal, then you should refrain from using your person as an argument. Secondly, it isn’…

As stated elsewhere, I lacked tact towards the person who I was condescending towards and it was not my intention. But my behavior towards someone else does not mean it's ok for you to now treat me poorly.

I'm not going to argue with you any more because this doesn't seem worth it, and justifying bad behavior is just not something I'm into. This looks like SARS 2002-2004's cousin. The virus is actually called SARS-CoV-2, the disease is COVID-19. The transmission rate is astounding, the fatality rate is also looking like SARS 2002-2004 [1]; this is something you should take very seriously. And no, I don't need a medical degree to recognize a pattern. But I'm guessing you're not immunosuppressed or elderly so it's not a big deal for you. Do whatever you want, bud, because your actions will only get the people around you killed.

I just want to say it's making me laugh to myself how ignorant people are as to what my education actually entails and the nuances between every step of the medical education hierarchy. Like how in a few months I'm going to magically know what I'm doing because I have a piece of paper.

[1]https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.17.20023630v...

Re: I have the coronavirus. So far, it isn't that bad

#114

Post by Medicalidiot »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #108
Medicalidiot wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me ask you a question: what is the intention of responding to me in a condescending way? What do you get out of it? My intention right now is for people not to down play how serious this will become and that this isn't just the flu. This is the only data we have right now and it's saying this is really bad. You can talk selection bias here, faulty statistics, etc. but right now the death rate is 8% (deaths/(death…

I am an ex physicist and how statistics are handled by people who do not have the right expertise is exhausting. He (or she, I do not know) wanted to show you that numbers you base your conclusion on must be carefully vetted. I was once a reviewer of a PhD thesis in biology. The statistics part was dreadful, from someone who was otherwise a very serious student. She just would not know how to properly handle her data…

I was in the wrong here and could have worded this more tactfully. I do appreciate your insight.

Re: I have the coronavirus. So far, it isn't that bad

#115

Post by looper8 »

Medicalidiot wrote: post #22

This is dangerous. Take every precaution you can not to get infected for as long as you can and that you don't infect anyone else. This is not the flu. The flu makes you more susceptible to a material pneumonia and that's how it kills. SARS-CoV-2 is NOT the flu. COVID-19 is the disease, by the way. Here is the list of complications: -ARDS in 29% (Acute respiratory distress disease, this needs mechanical ventilation t…

I, personally, appreciated the words of warning a lot. I'm a reasonable enough person to not panic and will stay pragmatic about it (I'm not going to go into quarantine now, obviously) but it's very nice to see and hear people in the know are taking it seriously to prevent the spread of a horrible disease and many unnecessary deaths.

Thank you for the warning signs, I will keep an open eye. :)

Re: I have the coronavirus. So far, it isn't that bad

#116

Post by _y5hn »

emj wrote: post #69
mrspeaker wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a time where it would be preferable to live somewhere that has good free/cheap health and social systems: if you're sick, you stay home and there are limited social or financial repercussions. So many people where I am will just "soldier on" because they have no choice.

I'm living in such a place and if you have a cold it is normal to go to work even if you are sick, it's really hard to make people stay at home just because they feel a bit ill. Remote work has to be come more accepted.

There's still social stigma not being able to work 100%. Even if people were just clerks for eachother and total Waste, the stigma would still be there. People seem to not mind infecting others.. Except as dictated by political correctness.

Re: I have the coronavirus. So far, it isn't that bad

#117

Post by kspacewalk2 »

sciinfo wrote: post #77
Medicalidiot wrote: post #22

This is dangerous. Take every precaution you can not to get infected for as long as you can and that you don't infect anyone else. This is not the flu. The flu makes you more susceptible to a material pneumonia and that's how it kills. SARS-CoV-2 is NOT the flu. COVID-19 is the disease, by the way. Here is the list of complications: -ARDS in 29% (Acute respiratory distress disease, this needs mechanical ventilation t…

If most people don't care to prevent infection, the hospitals and medical resources will soon be overwhelmed, the death rate will surge from 0.5-4% (no exact figure at the moment) to 10-20% like earlier in Wuhan. When viral load in the environment becomes sufficiently high, some young people will be taken away by it too, as in the case of several Wuhan doctors who sacrificed themselves under that circumstance. Among…

>the death rate will surge from 0.5-4% (no exact figure at the moment) to 10-20% like earlier in Wuhan

Those percentages come from different samples altogether and cannot be compared. 10-20% is heavily biased toward people who were admitted before there were even reliable tests for the virus or a recognition that it's novel and serious. Now you're comparing that to 0.5-4% which includes a bunch (though by no means close to all) of mild cases who got picked up by the tests but may not have required a hospital visit at all. What's the point of mentioning two numbers that aren't just unreliable and biased, but unreliable and biased in different ways?

Re: I have the coronavirus. So far, it isn't that bad

#118

Post by NullPrefix »

war1025 wrote: post #106
NullPrefix wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So many people where I am will just "soldier on" because they have no choice. Soldiers, usually, don't go alone into the enemy territory. Commandos do. They go alone and fight against everyone.

"Soldier on" is a semi-commonly used phrase that I suspect most (at least Americans) reading the comment knew exactly what they meant. Unsure if you were just unfamiliar with the phrase or wanted to point out something you felt was inaccurate about it.

> Soldier on

> v. To continue or persist, despite adversity or difficulty.

Commando would better fit the description of "Sabotaging the team, product and costumers"

Re: I have the coronavirus. So far, it isn't that bad

#119

Post by war1025 »

NullPrefix wrote: post #118
war1025 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Soldier on" is a semi-commonly used phrase that I suspect most (at least Americans) reading the comment knew exactly what they meant. Unsure if you were just unfamiliar with the phrase or wanted to point out something you felt was inaccurate about it.

> Soldier on > v. To continue or persist, despite adversity or difficulty. Commando would better fit the description of "Sabotaging the team, product and costumers"

The quoted text was:

> So many people where I am will just "soldier on" because they have no choice.

That seems to fit exactly with the definition you posted.

> v. To continue or persist, despite adversity or difficulty.

They don't have any choice but to go to work, so they go to work.

I honestly don't understand what you're getting at with your "commando" idea.

Re: I have the coronavirus. So far, it isn't that bad

#120

Post by ksaj »

oefrha wrote: post #3

Those who died from the virus aren’t writing in to tell us it’s very bad, so there’s that. Edit: To be clear, I’m not being dismissive of this patient’s experience; just want to point out the element of survivorship bias.

It's already been stated that for those it doesn't kill, this strain of coronavirus produces a rather mild flu.

The containment activity isn't intended to soothe the people who carry the virus symptom-free or with mild flu symptoms. It is to lower the mortality rate in the overall population due to the higher-than-typical death rate associated with the strain.

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