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Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

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Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#551

Post by pombrand »

dwd wrote: post #390
btilly wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flu regularly migrates between pigs, chickens and humans. Whenever it does, the poorly adapted flu is unusually lethal. The misnamed Spanish flu seems to have killed by triggering a strong immune response. That response is called a cytokine storm. Which means that the stronger your immune system, the more likely you were to be hit hard. It therefore killed the reverse of the groups that normally get killed by dis…

Primarily death was due to bacterial pneumonia, the cytokine storm likely accelerating the deterioration of the lungs. That particularly viral strain may have been more dangerous, but overall the current pandemic is comparable in death rates. It would seem during the Spanish flu your best chance of survival was being in a location where strict quarantine and travel restrictions were imposed so the health system was a…

I.e 5x deadlier than the seasonal flu TODAY with an approx 0.1% mortality rate in the US, which has been decreasing steadily, so perhaps only 2-3x deadlier than the normal seasonal flu today on average.

"In 1918, doctors lacked intensive care units, respirators, antiviral agents, and antibiotics, an important fact in light of historical evidence of interactions between influenza and secondary bacterial respiratory pathogens (e.g., Haemophilus influenzae) as a significant cause of death during the pandemic." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2374803/

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#552

Post by webninja »

Sleep more! There was some study that found that reducing your sleep from 9 hours to 5.5 hours reduces your immune system by 1/2. I don’t have a citation handy but whenever I got sick in college, it was usually during final exam weeks when I had to pull late nighters. Sleeping is the single best thing you can do for your immune system and your immune system is your last line of defense.

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#553

Post by webninja »

alasdair_ wrote: post #360
RegnisGnaw wrote: post #43

Refill your medication(s), that's the biggest one. India produces a lot of drugs and if they get infected, we will see shortage. China also produces a lot of the base chemicals used in medication, so this is worry some. If you have chronic conditions, you really don't want to be without. Soap and sanitizer. Mostly soap. Soap is equally effective as sanitizer in washing hands, etc. Soap is also much cheaper and more a…

>Refill your medication(s), that's the biggest one. I take a prescription medication that is a controlled substance. I feel like a criminal each time I fill it. I'm only given exactly the amount I need for the next 30 days and it routinely causes problems when I need to travel out of state around the time of my next refill. I really wish there was some way of saying "I've been taking this stuff for years, I've clearl…

My girlfriend takes medications that are critical to her and there are a few effective things she done that are legal.

Ups the dosage to twice as much and breaks the meds in half. Usually the price is still the same but now there’s twice as much.

Stops taking the meds on some weekends to create a buffer.

Asks a doctor to try another similar medications and express fear about going off the current med incase the new one doesn’t work. Unintended side effect is that you now have twice as much for that month.

Gradually reduce medication dosage and occasionally stop taking it. If you can live without it you’ll be more independent.

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#554

Post by Hnrobert42 »

jacquesm wrote: post #281
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either A. the r0 is much higher due to asymptomatic spreading OR B. the serious complication rate is higher. It’s likely not both. If A. is true, the serious complication rate is likely overstated because there are lots of asymptomatic people who are getting counted.

The serious complication rate is ~20% or so of confirmed cases, that's pretty high.

But how do we know it is 20%? If R0 is higher than we think due to asymptomatic spreading, then we likely aren’t counting all the asymptomatic cases. If we did, it would result in a lower serious complication rate. That’s why I said it can’t be both.

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#555

Post by helij »

megous wrote: post #511
helij wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not panic. It's reality. Many of us did the same. I went with 2 weeks worth of food, water and toiletries and we already have the usual stock which including refrigirated stuff should be enough for full month if needed. When you see small towns put into quarantine in Europe allowing people in and out only with 'written permission' you know you should prepare family and yourself asap. Get food, water, medicine an…

Well, I saw a lady who bought out a full cart of flour packages yesterday. There was last 1kg package of salt, and around 6 packages of flour left on the shelf. (normally there's ~200) Yes, it's not a generalized panic, but individual people like that can really screw up the shopping experience for others. Is it panicking? Dunno, maybe she's just setting up a flour shop, or has 50 hungry necks to feed. But it was cer…

We regularly buy 10kg of flour because we have a bread maker. The last time I bought bread (not counting when on holiday) is 3.5 years ago. 10kg is enough for over a week.

Full cart is a bit much though if it's like 50kg+

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#556

Post by polishdude20 »

craftinator wrote: post #396
radicalbyte wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk to any bodybuilder and they'll tell you that for every 4kg of fat you lose you'll also drop 1kg of muscle. So yes it is mainly fat but some muscles will be lost at the same time, especially if you have a high muscle mass.

As a Marine who has gone through many, many building and leaning cycles, I call BS on this. When you drop that fat, you aren't actually losing muscular tissue (at least not much). I've gotten down to Olympian levels of body fat, 9-10%, and what you are losing besides the fat is water weight. Your muscles shrink because they hold in less blood; your body regulates this to keep blood pressure normalized with all the de…

Did you continue to work out while cutting? Because that reduces the muscle lost. If you're an average joe and you're starving yourself, your muscle will reduce comparably to fat.

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#557

Post by mercer »

jnbiche wrote: post #541
Buttons840 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do not overstock on masks or other supplies. Masks especially should be available to the sick. It's ironic that (I'm sure) someone out there will stock up on 10,000 masks and it will cause them to be in even greater danger because the sick people around them will have fewer masks. The CDC recommends that sick people wear masks to keep droplets in, and that people who directly interact with sick people wear masks whil…

I agree strongly that we shouldn't overstock on masks. That said, I'd urge everyone to get a few P95 [1] masks for themselves and their family members, in the event that you have to accompany them to a hospital, or even to wear in public if you live in an urban environment. 1. P95 have same filtering capacity as N95, but last for much longer.

Considering the fact that even alcohol-based hand-sanitizer is already sold out at 8 confirmed cases over here, masks seem extremely difficult to get a hold of...

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#558

Post by craftinator »

polishdude20 wrote: post #556
craftinator wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Marine who has gone through many, many building and leaning cycles, I call BS on this. When you drop that fat, you aren't actually losing muscular tissue (at least not much). I've gotten down to Olympian levels of body fat, 9-10%, and what you are losing besides the fat is water weight. Your muscles shrink because they hold in less blood; your body regulates this to keep blood pressure normalized with all the de…

Did you continue to work out while cutting? Because that reduces the muscle lost. If you're an average joe and you're starving yourself, your muscle will reduce comparably to fat.

I continued to do physical activity. I think your muscles will "shrivel" if you don't use them; they won't be engorged with blood on a regular basis, thus will lose plasticity at a cellular level. Then when you do use them, they'll fill with less blood, and look smaller. It takes a lot to actually lose muscular tissue. Mostly people just lose muscular plasticity, and they appear smaller.

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#559

Post by craftinator »

remarkEon wrote: post #414
craftinator wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Marine who has gone through many, many building and leaning cycles, I call BS on this. When you drop that fat, you aren't actually losing muscular tissue (at least not much). I've gotten down to Olympian levels of body fat, 9-10%, and what you are losing besides the fat is water weight. Your muscles shrink because they hold in less blood; your body regulates this to keep blood pressure normalized with all the de…

Yeah, came here to say this (was in the Army). My experience is the same. When it started to happen you could actually smell it (smells like ammonia ... like cat urine, almost).

Took me weeks to figure out what the heck that smell was; mostly assumed we'd gotten a bad batch of MRE's

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#560

Post by rojobuffalo »

dfsegoat wrote: post #97
allovernow wrote: post #18

This is very likely to overwhelm not just medical infrastructure, but shut down supply chains for basic necessities for months. If the pandemic hits, most businesses will shutter, just like in China. It is prudent to stock up now for 1-2 months of cheap, non- perishable foods like rice and beans (complete protein together) at a minimum. There's just no excuse not to now if you make a tech salary - a couple hundred do…

I find this to be pretty alarmist. "If the pandemic hits" ... the virus has already hit. The WHO itself has backed off the Pandemic classification [1]. The virus has an overall 98% survival rate, and most diagnosed cases in the US, are not actually showing any symptoms (which itself is a cause for concern re: spread). The annual Flu, MERS and SARS were far far worse. The flu kills between 26,000 and 52,000 annually i…

From the CDC

> However, it is important to note that current global circumstances suggest it is likely that this virus will cause a pandemic.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/summary.html#risk-...

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