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Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

kiro7.com

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Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#51
post #20

HN is really buying into the media hysteria on this one. I would have expected more.

I wish the admins would put a ban on these stories over here to be honest. I haven't seen anything interesting come out of these threads, just the same surface level fear-mongering you can find on reddit and elsewhere. I don't really see how any of this "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity". "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic", well, about that...

I don't know if the hysteria is warranted or not, but at this point I'm convinced that it doesn't make for good HN discussions. People who want to discuss every development of this epidemic can find tons of places to do that already, including a plethora of subreddits focusing on various aspects of it.

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#52

I’m starting to take some precautionary measures even here in Virginia. Stocking up on food and other emergency supplies, avoiding public transit and walking everywhere, wiping down all surfaces I come in contact with with Clorox wipes I keep in my backpack. Hopefully I’m just going insane and there’s no reason to panic, but a respiratory illness with no treatment protocol besides quarantine, an r nought of probably…

Definitely sounds insane to me. Stop reading the news mate.

>80% of cases are mild symptoms. A mild cold. Under 50 has a fatality rate of less than 0.5%. Almost all fatalities are over 70 or people who are already severely ill. You are about 25x more likely to die of the seasonal flu at this point.

This is media hysteria in a post fact world where all information from all sources is equally valid. Everyone is trying to be heard to make their case.

If you are 70+ or severely ill this IS pretty bad because, unlike the flu, their is literally no defense. If you don’t fit that profile it’s just a bunch of FUD.

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#53
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: "There are also two confirmed cases associated with the nursing facility." Also, there was recently a death from Coronavirus in Seattle, and there has been community transmission in the nearby neighborhood of Mill Creek. So, what evidence do you have that that "these folks probably have the flu"? At best you are dismissing concerns, at worst you are making things worse by trying to convince people n…

Statistically it is still far more likely that they had the flu. I think it is dangerous to overstate the problem because then when it really does become an issue it will be dismissed because of all the previous folks "crying wolf."

"Statistically" means, in this case, based on data. The data we have right now is EXCEEDINGLY poor. The US just hasn't been testing many people, and the CDC has mandated that only people who travel abroad and those they contact should be tested. It's obvious based on these new cases that Covid-19 is being spread through communities, rather than by single carriers who've travelled abroad.

Statistics based on bad data (which we know is bad at this point) is analogous to guessing, and when guessing it's best to guess with the more cautious point of view. Is it still more likely, at this point in time, that a person with flu-like symptoms has flu? Probably.

Given the transmission rate from Chinese data (also bad data, but not as bad as ours), the US likely has more flu carriers than Covid-19 carriers. But how much more likely? No one knows, and no one can know, until we get a reasonable sample population tested.

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#54
post #33
post #20

HN is really buying into the media hysteria on this one. I would have expected more.

Eh, it fits nicely with HNs political bent.

China has been shut down for weeks, Japan and South Korea are shutting down, and you're here saying talking about it is a political thing. Truly an idiocracy

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#55

I'm starting to get the impression that most countries are dealing with this outbreak professionally. Except for Iran and the US. Ironic.

Doesn't seem that way looking at the numbers regarding the US. The US has and is handling it the best. The administration shut down travel earlier than any other country. There are much fewer cases than other countries even though we have a larger population, economic trade, and travel. There was already a travel ban from Iran to the US. This morning they just banned travel if you've ever been in Iran, so they don't…

Numbers don't mean much. You don't have confirmed cases if you don't test. The same is true pretty much everywhere however, not only the US. You'd have thought we would systematically test people from at-risk region, but apparently not.

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#56

I'm starting to get the impression that most countries are dealing with this outbreak professionally. Except for Iran and the US. Ironic.

Doesn't seem that way looking at the numbers regarding the US. The US has and is handling it the best. The administration shut down travel earlier than any other country. There are much fewer cases than other countries even though we have a larger population, economic trade, and travel. There was already a travel ban from Iran to the US. This morning they just banned travel if you've ever been in Iran, so they don't…

[deleted]

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#57

Look at the timeline of the outbreak in China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%932... - Patient 0 falls ill on December 1, 2019. - Patient 1 falls ill on December 8. - 8 total cases by December 18. - 45 cases by January 16, 2020. - 121 cases by January 18. - 1,287 cases by January 24. - 11,791 cases by January 31. - 24,324 cases by February 4. - 44,653 cases by February 11. - 70,548 cases by…

This is accumulated stats, please include the number of active cases too.

And the most of the accumulated cases are from Hubei. I agree the quarantine seems to be effective.

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#58
post #51
post #20

HN is really buying into the media hysteria on this one. I would have expected more.

I wish the admins would put a ban on these stories over here to be honest. I haven't seen anything interesting come out of these threads, just the same surface level fear-mongering you can find on reddit and elsewhere. I don't really see how any of this "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity". "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic", well, about that... I don't know if the hysteria is warranted or n…

Flag it and move on. The flagging system works pretty well for this kind of thing.

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#59
post #19

How do you differentiate influenza from covid-19? These folks probably just have the flu. I live in WA state and I had the worst case of the flu I can remember about 3 weeks ago. Did I have covid-19? No way to really know.

Bellevue, WA here; I had a very bad case of the flu in early Feb (worst I can remember) and it took 3+ weeks to fully recover. Many cow-orkers were also affected (some meetings with 30+ people were down to a handful of people . . . not a bad thing under the circumstances). Our "patient zero" was a dev who came into work for a day with a cough. If you're sick, please stay home.

There’s no way you can confirm it was the dev. Almost Everyone has had the flu this year basically regardless of flu shot status. I had a flu shot and got influenza A. It took a week to recover but the fever only lasted half a day. Tamiflu helped. My case corrresponded with a peak in cases in my state.

Re: Officials: Dozens at WA nursing facility show possible coronavirus symptoms

#60
post #8

>Health officials said that additional positive cases are not expected. What does this mean? That everyone who could have got exposed are already sick? Or that two weeks have passed with no more new flu-like illnesses?

That’s a misquotation. The original source says “additional positive cases are expected”: https://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/health/news/2020/February/2...

That's a pretty fucked up misquotation
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