Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

cdc.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 140 posts

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#91

Post by bhhaskin »

lubesGordi wrote: post #85
dboreham wrote: post #3

>This virus is NOT currently spreading widely in the United States. Curious how this is known given practically zero tests have been done and numerous cases with no contact external to the US have been discovered.

You should back up your claims. The CDC reports that over 470 tests have been done to date. Is that practically zero? https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html "numerous cases" You'll have to back that up as well given the linked article clearly states the cryptic transmission in Washington is accounted for. They call it "Community Spread."

not even a rounding error in the grand scheme of things.

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#92

Post by simonh »

whatshisface wrote: post #88
simonh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CDC doesn't do much local testing. Mainly they provide test kits to local labs which do the tests. Please bear in mind that CDC funding for international coordination on pandemic control was cut by 80% a few years ago, and since 2018 they have not had a representative on the National Security Council, and had their senior Pandemic response positions eliminated. Reports that their overall funding was cut are not a…

Of course, this is not related to the weird issue with tests not being available. Local hospitals are being prevented from running their own tests not by a lack of availability, but by a special directive that activates during a public health emergency.

That was a serious mistake, certainly. The CDC realy doesn't seem to have been on the ball. In fact a series of mistakes. Why not use the proven WHO test kits in the first place? I hope that wasn't driven by business considerations, or that having 80% of their international activities budget cut limited their ability to co-ordinate with the WHO and other national health agencies.

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#93

Post by edejong »

chii wrote: post #79
edejong wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is way more serious than the flu in multiple ways. First of all, estimates show that the case fatality ratio (CFR) is around 2%, which is 20x higher than the flu. This number is likely to rise when ICUs are becoming over-constrained and cannot take new patients. This is already happening in the north of Italy as we speak. Second, the transmissibility of the SARS-nCov-2019 (the virus causing COVID-19) is much hig…

> Third, there are reports showing lasting damage to kidney and lung tissue (sponge-like structures). Even when surviving COVID-19, previously healthy people might become chronically ill. you can't say that and not point to a source.

Well, this [1] is an article describing extensive GGO [2] and subpleural parenchymal bands in recovered patients. I have read other reports from Wuhan doctors describing these effects, but some search terms seems to be censored these days. I am not a specialist, but it was described as lasting damage.

[1] https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/radiol.2020200370

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-glass_opacity

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#94

Post by lm28469 »

jcadam wrote: post #73
lm28469 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being calm and following health organizations guidelines (or even common sense) aren't mutually exclusive.

The current guidelines are to test only those with respiratory symptoms who have also traveled to certain countries recently. Resources are limited, having everyone with a minor case of the sniffles rush the hospitals all at once doesn't sound like a good plan.

The guidelines are also to notify the authorities and to self quarantine if you suspect you could have it, which you just self confessed.

> having everyone with a minor case of the sniffles

But that's exactly what the virus will be for the vast majority of us, the whole point of getting tested is traceability and knowing that you should self quarantine as to not expose people at risk.

edit: and btw that's how they discovered the first case in Berlin. https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3...

> The young man's infection was only discovered because the Berlin Charité also tests the new virus Sars-CoV-2 as standard with every influenza test.

This just shows how bad the US is at handling the situation. In Germany you get tested as soon as you have any symptoms, in the US CDC refuses testing even if you're showing all the symptoms.

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#95

Post by gattilorenz »

lubesGordi wrote: post #76
EthanHeilman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it still the case that you have a two week latency before symptoms? If so, that would make detecting the early stages of an outbreak without testing exceptionally hard.

I think that's true only if transmission is possible before noticing symptoms.

Relatively rare but transmission between asymptomatic people has been detected/confirmed for this virus.

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#96

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

lubesGordi wrote: post #85
dboreham wrote: post #3

>This virus is NOT currently spreading widely in the United States. Curious how this is known given practically zero tests have been done and numerous cases with no contact external to the US have been discovered.

You should back up your claims. The CDC reports that over 470 tests have been done to date. Is that practically zero? https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html "numerous cases" You'll have to back that up as well given the linked article clearly states the cryptic transmission in Washington is accounted for. They call it "Community Spread."

Switzerland has done 1300 tests to date and has the capacity for ~1000 tests a day: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/covid-19_switzerland-confirms-s...

So, yeah, I'd call that practically zero for a country with 38 times the population of Switzerland.

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#97

Post by [deleted] »

hartator wrote: post #74
lettergram wrote: post #23

Sent this to my friends and family yesterday: > it is important to note that current global circumstances suggest it is likely that this virus will cause a pandemic. CDC really isn’t mincing words - this is going to be bad and we should start social distancing to slow the spread.

Pandemic is defined when a virus reaches multiple continents so it’s already the case.

[deleted]

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#98

Post by edejong »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #82
edejong wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is way more serious than the flu in multiple ways. First of all, estimates show that the case fatality ratio (CFR) is around 2%, which is 20x higher than the flu. This number is likely to rise when ICUs are becoming over-constrained and cannot take new patients. This is already happening in the north of Italy as we speak. Second, the transmissibility of the SARS-nCov-2019 (the virus causing COVID-19) is much hig…

> First of all, estimates show that the case fatality ratio (CFR) is around 2%, which is 20x higher than the flu. These estimates are mostly from China. Obviously likely to be higher for a respiratory condition in a place with some of the worst air quality in the world. There is also some question about whether the less serious cases are even being identified -- if your sample is only of the people with severe sympto…

The estimates seem to be reflected by international numbers to a certain degree, ranging from 1%-3%. With the disease in exponential growth, dividing #death/#cases is not the right calculation to make, as it might take 3-5 weeks before a patient dies from the disease. The Princess Diamond ship is currently at 1.2% iirc.

Your factor of under-representation of cases seems to cancel out the delayed onset of mortality at the moment.

The end of the flu season is incomparable with the demands on the health-care system due to COVID-19 since flu-demand is at least 1-2 orders of magnitude smaller. The advantage of the end of the flu season is that we can identify cases quicker.

W.r.t. lesions caused by COVID-19 comparable to the flu. Yes, both cause permanent damage. However, COVID-19 seems to attack more of the lungs and in general, both lungs, whereas influenza often is isolated to one lung. I am not a specialist, but I have read scary descriptions of COVID-19 lungs from specialists.

The stringent measures are already happening and the effects are already being felt. The stock market has responded by evaporating 4000 billion in value. Given the past lackadaisical response of government, it is likely we will see further effects either way: response or not.

If nothing is done and millions of people will get infected (think: 2 billion people) in a short amount of time (1 year), we will see widescale breakdown of services, global turmoil and panic. Hopefully, we will be able to slow the spread, develop a vaccine and 500 million people will get infected instead.

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#99

Post by Loughla »

edejong wrote: post #65
edejong wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is way more serious than the flu in multiple ways. First of all, estimates show that the case fatality ratio (CFR) is around 2%, which is 20x higher than the flu. This number is likely to rise when ICUs are becoming over-constrained and cannot take new patients. This is already happening in the north of Italy as we speak. Second, the transmissibility of the SARS-nCov-2019 (the virus causing COVID-19) is much hig…

Care to explain the down-voting?

I'll take a stab at why you're being down-voted.:

>case fatality ratio (CFR) is around 2%, which is 20x higher than the flu.

[Citation needed]

>This number is likely to rise when ICUs are becoming over-constrained and cannot take new patients. This is already happening in the north of Italy as we speak.

[Citation Needed] I can find citations for crowded hospitals in popular media, but nothing about the death rate increasing.

>Third, there are reports showing lasting damage to kidney and lung tissue (sponge-like structures). Even when surviving COVID-19, previously healthy people might become chronically ill.

[Major Citation Needed]

>very stringent measures are required

[Citation Needed]

That's probably why. There are 4 claims you've made that need to be backed up with facts.

Re: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Situation Summary

#100

Post by simonh »

chii wrote: post #79
edejong wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is way more serious than the flu in multiple ways. First of all, estimates show that the case fatality ratio (CFR) is around 2%, which is 20x higher than the flu. This number is likely to rise when ICUs are becoming over-constrained and cannot take new patients. This is already happening in the north of Italy as we speak. Second, the transmissibility of the SARS-nCov-2019 (the virus causing COVID-19) is much hig…

> Third, there are reports showing lasting damage to kidney and lung tissue (sponge-like structures). Even when surviving COVID-19, previously healthy people might become chronically ill. you can't say that and not point to a source.

Here's an article from the Lancet describing patients with high rates of organ function damage. It's not as useful as the one linked by edejong because it's a very early study. It shows that quite a few patients already had damage on admission, more than those that subsequently died so clearly many patients survived with organ damage, but it doesn't follow up on how many more may have suffered such damage after admission. So it's evidence, but not as strong.

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736...

Post reply on HN