Ask HN: Are we overreacting to coronavirus?

Post by sergiotapia » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 3:41 AM UTC

gaoryrt wrote: post #91

sergiotapia wrote: post #76

Yes we are. I want you to keep this fact in mind: We don't know how many people are infected. We only the number from people who go in to get checked. For all you know there's a ton of people with a slight flu that are now fine. My son and myself had a pretty rough cough and fever Feb 30. Could that have been the chinese virus? We don't know. Extrapolate. Based on everything I've read there's two schools of thought:…

I feel offended as a Chinese when you call it 'Chinese virus'. I think you were blaming Chinese people for whatever reason, even you didn't mean to. You don't want to lose your family or friends, or suffering in economic recession. We don't want it too.

Post by gaoryrt » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 6:33 AM UTC

sergiotapia wrote: post #92

gaoryrt wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel offended as a Chinese when you call it 'Chinese virus'. I think you were blaming Chinese people for whatever reason, even you didn't mean to. You don't want to lose your family or friends, or suffering in economic recession. We don't want it too.

That's ridiculous, we call it the chinese virus just like the spanish flu was called "spanish flu". It's called that because of it's place of origin.

Post by Gigablah » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 7:24 AM UTC

sergiotapia wrote: post #92

gaoryrt wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel offended as a Chinese when you call it 'Chinese virus'. I think you were blaming Chinese people for whatever reason, even you didn't mean to. You don't want to lose your family or friends, or suffering in economic recession. We don't want it too.

That's ridiculous, we call it the chinese virus just like the spanish flu was called "spanish flu". It's called that because of it's place of origin.

Post by Tomte » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 7:31 AM UTC

graycat wrote: post #48

Schaulustiger wrote: post #21

Regarding your question about if we might accidentally test for flu or other, already existing corona virii: This was a topic of discussion in yesterday's talk [1] with Dr. Drosten, a virologist who played an important part in the development of the currently used PCR test. He said that there were extensive studies done with hundreds of samples from both flu patients and patients infected with other corona virii and…

It's easy to get a low rate of false positives: Just always report no virus found. So, we care about both false positives and false negatives. Dr. Brix said as much recently.

Post by thu2111 » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 9:40 AM UTC

Tomte wrote: post #98

graycat wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to get a low rate of false positives: Just always report no virus found. So, we care about both false positives and false negatives. Dr. Brix said as much recently.

Prof. Drosten is the chief virologist at Berlin Charité. I'm confident that somewhere in his medical education the concept of false negatives came up, and I'm also certain that he doesn't word his answers in an interview for the general public to the standards of the nitpicking HN population.