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Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

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Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#111

Post by ibejoeb »

the_af wrote: post #74

I see a lot of panicky comments, both in real life and in this very thread. I know COVID19 is different from a regular flu, but is it more serious? "Regular" flu is very contagious and kills lots of people every year. It's ok to study coronavirus and to try to find ways to effectively manage it, combat it or prevent the disease -- but why are we panicking? Nobody panics about the flu and it's proven to be fatal for a…

Apparently it's quite a bit more infectious. This coronavirus is something like 1:2.5, whereas the typical flu is about 1:1.

People do worry about the flu, too. This past flu season in Australia was particularly rough, and it was all over the media. It came up in day-to-day conversation.

Part of the reaction is political, too, ostensibly to appear to be actively doing something, e.g., Los Angeles declaring an emergency for 9 infections.

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#112

Post by dekhn »

pkaye wrote: post #73
radicaldreamer wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also see thalidomide in Europe

Wow looks like there are still people around who suffered deformities because of the mistakes in approving thalidomide. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15536544

It's also still used successfully as a medicine for a number of uses.

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#113

Post by chrisco255 »

the_af wrote: post #92
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal reporting is useless. Read some more, and stop spreading false sense of security. That could actually get somebody killed.

Not sure if you're accusing me of something, but just in case: I'm not spreading a false sense of security. I do think prophylaxis and management of the disease is urgent. I think the same of the flu. People at risk tend to die from these diseases. I think health systems of every country should deal with the infection, as well as manage seasonal flu. If anything, I'm asking why people worry more about this than about…

Good stats on number of cases, deaths, recoveries etc: https://thewuhanvirus.com/

Comparisons to H1N1 and SARS included.

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#114

Post by dekhn »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #29

I know Derek Lowe is an expert. However, sometimes, experts think that because things have always been a certain way throughout their career, they will always be like that. Drug development has been very conservative especially in the US for the past several decades. The FDA is all about making sure they never have a thalidomide incident and would rather lose a lot of good drugs than approve a bad drug. This is the s…

The obvious risk here is that you're combining a rush job with limited oversight, and large-scale distribution. So any mistake that would have been caught by the existing process will instead have the potential to roll into a global disaster.

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#115

Post by makomk »

kfarr wrote: post #89
sachdevap wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The death rate of COVID-19 is at about 3.4% on average. In comparison, the death rate of seasonal flu is about 0.1% in the US. No, it is not "like" the flu. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/03/who-says-coronavirus-death-r...

To be clear, the article says "Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died." The issue is with reporting (the denominator). The bar for "reporting" COVID-19 positive is very high relative to the flu, especially as some countries (ahem USA) don't / didn't even permit testing of all symptomatic patients. So yes maybe it is orders of magnitude more deadly than the flu but it doesn't seem clear at all that…

Not just the US. Crucially, Wuhan and I think also the rest of Hubei pretty much only tested patients who showed lung abnormalities on CT scans, so only the more severe cases were diagnosed. The WHO knows this. In fact, they've been appearing in the pages of the New York Times and anywhere else that'll have them and gushing about how great this Chinese testing methodology is and how everyone should copy it.

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#116

Post by bhanhfo »

wh-uws wrote: post #106
bhanhfo wrote: post #49

Scientific agreement seems to be that ~60-70% of the population will get infected. It is just not sure if within months or (hopefully!) years. And no drugs within at least one year. Edit: Source => Original in German here: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/gesundheit/krankheiten-experte-e... Express UK translated it here: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1249963/Coronavirus-n... The guy interview is Prof. Drosten. He…

Will definitely need to link to a source that specifically mentions the 70% figure to stop the downvoting. I have not seen speculation like that only numbers about the virality and mortality rate (both much lower than that)

Source added, excerpt here:

Professor Christian Drosten from the Charite clinic in Berlin, Germany, estimates the virus could infect up to 70 percent of the world or 5.2 billion people.

He said: “Presumably between 60 and 70 percent of the people will get infected but we don’t know in what timeframe.

“It can be two years or even longer. It will be more problematic if the infections occur in a short amount of time.

“That is why authorities are doing everything to recognise the origin of infections and slow down any further spread of the infection.”

According to Professor Drosten, the coronavirus epidemic could even match the Asian flu pandemic of 1957 and the 1968 flu pandemic, which began in Hong Kong.

In the former case, the Asian flu is estimated to have killed between one and two million people.

Professor Drosten said: “If the whole pandemic process lasts two years, we will manage.

“If it is only a year, it will be much more difficult because many more cases will occur all at the same time.

“The necessary number of beds for patients requiring intensive care unit therapy is difficult to predict.

Presumably between 60 and 70 percent of the people will get infected

Professor Christian Drosten, Charite clinic

“If we don’t do anything now, they may not be enough.”

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#117

Post by lenzm »

the_af wrote: post #74

I see a lot of panicky comments, both in real life and in this very thread. I know COVID19 is different from a regular flu, but is it more serious? "Regular" flu is very contagious and kills lots of people every year. It's ok to study coronavirus and to try to find ways to effectively manage it, combat it or prevent the disease -- but why are we panicking? Nobody panics about the flu and it's proven to be fatal for a…

Seasonal flu has an R0 value of ~1.2 [1] while the estimate for COVID-19 was estimated at 2.2 [2]. This can be interpreted as each person infecting 2.2 other people vs. 1.2, the spread of the virus will probably be exponentially faster.

1: https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471...

2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32097725

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#118

Post by mrb »

the_af wrote: post #74

I see a lot of panicky comments, both in real life and in this very thread. I know COVID19 is different from a regular flu, but is it more serious? "Regular" flu is very contagious and kills lots of people every year. It's ok to study coronavirus and to try to find ways to effectively manage it, combat it or prevent the disease -- but why are we panicking? Nobody panics about the flu and it's proven to be fatal for a…

The coronavirus is a magnitude deadlier than the flu, according to all studies I know of that attempt to estimate the Infection Fatality Ratio. The IFR is estimated between 0.5% and 1.6% which is between 5x and 16x deadlier than the flu (0.1%): see links to the 4 studies at https://blog.zorinaq.com/case-fatality-ratio-ncov/#updates--... Given that the flu kills half a million per year, I'll let you image how many could be killed by a disease a magnitude deadlier... But of course the death toll will depend on how the world reacts to the outbreak. If every country implements measures as severe as China by locking down most major cities worldwide, we may limit damages.

Incidentally, the upper end of this range makes COVID19 comparable to the 1918 Spanish Flu (IFR ~2%) according to experts (for example see https://institutefordiseasemodeling.github.io/nCoV-public/an...). And keep in mind the IFR, unlike the CFR (Case Fatility Ratio), is the metric that takes into account undetected mild or asymptomatic cases.

Re: Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic

#120

Post by Someone1234 »

vondur wrote: post #97
Robotbeat wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but the death rate of COVID-19 may not be high enough to justify a huge increase in risk tolerance.

You may be correct about the death rate, but the disruption that it's causing the global economy may change the calculus in the FDA.

We should risk people's lives because doing otherwise may harm the economy..?
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