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

Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

helpwithcovid.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 218 posts

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#141

Post by ejstronge »

bronipstid wrote: post #139
ejstronge wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For comparison, the death rate across all age groups of flu is 0.1%. Extrapolating out, a failure to contain the virus will still mean tens of thousands of young healthy people dying in every country. I’m not sure why you’re comparing the all-age mortality of flu to the age-specific mortality of COVID-19. The relevant metric would be about 0.02% [1] 1. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html

Why not? It's just giving some context to people who may think .2% is a "low" mortality rate. Thanks for the age specific number. That shows my point even more.

Ah, I wasn't sure what point you were trying to make, but I thought the all-age figure understates how much more deadly COVID-19 is compared to influenza.

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#142

Post by refurb »

mthoms wrote: post #105
idoby wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in a densely packed city. I have no idea who lives in my neighborhood. This is ironic, but I hear it a lot from people living in big cities. I live in a sparsely packed city, but mostly know who lives in my neighborhood. We were unhappy with the last city government, so we replaced them, and it took a lot less people to do so, in absolute terms (which matters because the relative size of your movement only c…

>I never got the logic behind living in the perpetual cocktail party/high school that is a big city. I'm really struggling to interpret that charitably but I'll try - Some reasons to live in a big city: (1) It's where your friends and (perhaps elderly) parents live. (2) It's where your job is. (3) You can't afford, (or don't want to own) a car. (4) You're single (especially true if you are LGBTQ). (5) You like the cu…

You don't like narrow minded, holier-than-though attitudes that tend to be more common (IMHO) in smaller towns.

Have you ever been to San Francisco?

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#143

Post by jnwatson »

nsxwolf wrote: post #101
moultano wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Along with being young and healthy, the people going out in public to do things should wear gloves and a mask if possible. You might be relatively safe, but you still might take up a hospital bed, and you still might transmit it.

We're being told by the medical establishment, quite angrily, that masks are useless - unless you work in the medical establishment, then they're essential. Who is right?

Here's a good opinion piece in the Times about that very subject.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-...

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#144

Post by pdelbarba »

tootie wrote: post #117

I applaud the intent, but this looks like a laundry list of random ideas. There's no leadership or vetting or job descriptions. I'd love to help us build 1,000,000 ventilators, but I think the answer to that one is for governments to allocate money to manufacturers (which is starting to happen), not to crank out some javascript.

These are all moonshot projects. If someone can come up with a creative and simple ventilator that relies entirely on 3d printed and massively available electronic parts they can save a lot of lives and it appears to be entirely possible. If they don't produce anything of value, at least they tried.

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#145

Post by Fej »

eezurr wrote: post #45

Please consider reaching out to your elderly neighbors and offering your time to gather groceries/supplies for them. Or posting a note near the entrance of your apartment complex with your number. This alone will have a huge impact. They have a very real chance of dying if they contract covid-19. Take a moment to imagine how you would feel if you could not safely leave your home. A lot of us have the amazing comfort…

> In roughly 2-3 weeks, the epicenter locations of this disease in the US are going to run out of hospital beds.

This sounds right, but do you have a source on the 2-3 weeks number? I found a source regarding hospital bed shortages, but it does not specify a number that concrete.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/17/upshot/hospit...

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#146

Post by throwaway4787 »

Fej wrote: post #145
eezurr wrote: post #45

Please consider reaching out to your elderly neighbors and offering your time to gather groceries/supplies for them. Or posting a note near the entrance of your apartment complex with your number. This alone will have a huge impact. They have a very real chance of dying if they contract covid-19. Take a moment to imagine how you would feel if you could not safely leave your home. A lot of us have the amazing comfort…

> In roughly 2-3 weeks, the epicenter locations of this disease in the US are going to run out of hospital beds. This sounds right, but do you have a source on the 2-3 weeks number? I found a source regarding hospital bed shortages, but it does not specify a number that concrete. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/17/upshot/hospit...

You just need to follow the curves in Italy and France - the US follows closely

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#147

Post by smoe »

idoby wrote: post #92
dominotw wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> please consider reaching out to your elderly neighbors I live in a densely packed city. I have no idea who lives in my neighborhood. I would be glad to help anyone at anytime though. I am just not clear how to go about it.

> I live in a densely packed city. I have no idea who lives in my neighborhood. This is ironic, but I hear it a lot from people living in big cities. I live in a sparsely packed city, but mostly know who lives in my neighborhood. We were unhappy with the last city government, so we replaced them, and it took a lot less people to do so, in absolute terms (which matters because the relative size of your movement only c…

I'm metropolis-dwelling primarily because of the cultural offering and diversity. I don't have to adjust my life to what are the popular views of just 1000 people.

For me it is the small places that are the perpetual cocktail party/high school where I "have" to get along with everyone instead of picking my preferences.

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#148

Post by atleta »

hawaiianbrah wrote: post #136
ardy42 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We really need to start distinguishing between masks and respirators. Surgical masks are useless for protecting the wearer from infected people, however they help protect others from an infected wearer. If used properly, a respirator will help protect the wearer from infected people, as it will block them from inhaling virus-containing droplets.

I don’t see how they’re completely useless for protecting the wearer. If someone infected sneezes in my face, would I not be better off with a physical barrier over a point of entry into my system?

Not completely, but it's pretty unlikely it helps. First of all, no one will probably sneeze (or actually cough, because that's the frequent symptom) in your face directly.

If it's not 'in your face', just pretty close, then a lot of the droplets will be too small for the simple surgical mask to filter out. Especially as it leaves a lot of gaps around your nose and mouth. Not to talk about your eyes, where you can get infected just as easily. (Yes, you could wear protective glasses too.)

But... if almost everyone wears these in public places, which actually just became compulsory in Czech that should give pretty good protection to everyone (by filtering the emission of the asymptomatic infected).

And if we think about this use case, then actually it makes no point telling people that it won't protect them because if they think it will they are more likely to wear it.

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#149

Post by 0xfaded »

willturman wrote: post #128
0xfaded wrote: post #22

I have an idea to increase viral RNA test throughput (PCR) by 46.5 times using a binary encoding scheme that I hope someone here might be able to validate/invalidate. Sorry for the thread jack, but I tried posting this yesterday but didn't get picked up. https://wet-robots.ghost.io/how-to-increase-covid-19-testing...

I do custom applications for a liquid handling robotics company. Nucleotide extraction and amplification are some of the most common contemporary applications of modern liquid handling robots. Cherry-picking or sorting of samples is also a technique that is common and well within the functionaltiy of these robots. To avoid cross-contamination, diagnostic samples are typically not mixed and handled in discrete wells w…

Hi willturman,

I'd love to hear if this goes anywhere. My email is carlchatfield gmail com.

Thank you

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#150

Post by allannienhuis »

aaron_m04 wrote: post #82
lnsru wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying recently for 3 groups. My cart is always full and that causes extreme anger of other shoppers. And supermarket personnel complains about my volumes. Getting tired of explaining why I am buying this way. I am afraid, that grocery shopping will be limited anyway soon. Edit: printing missing equipment parts with 3D printer would be easier for me.

Print out a sign and stick it on your cart.

Sadly, as soon as this becomes common, the hoarders will do the same to avoid the shame/consequences. Fear makes people very very irrational. :(
Post reply on HN