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Is It a Pandemic Yet?

nytimes.com

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Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#151

Post by adventured »

mrb wrote: post #95

I will probably be downvoted for saying this, but... The seasonal flu alone kills half a million people every year. So any mild disease that is as contagious and barely twice as fatal will kill 1 million. And that's what's going to happen with COVID19. It is far more severe than the flu. We know COVID19 is as contagious, given how fast it's spreading and how unstoppable it is (R0>2, asymptomatic transmission, airborn…

> COVID19 is the most severe (ie. contagious + fatal) airborne disease since the Spanish Flu.

It very clearly is and it's out of the box, they can't stop it now. The US should be shutting down all travel into and out of the country, full quarantine from the rest of the world. We'd have a chance at stopping it from doing to the US what it has done to China, if we acted immediately, before it's across Europe and more of Asia and then imported in stealth mode by travelers from those regions that are unaware they're infected.

Back in reality, the US economy will look like China's frozen economy, within a month or two, unless Covid is stopped soon. More likely, it's going to spread from Italy across Europe, and continue to spread across Asia. From those hyper economic zones, the US will be guaranteed to import it from multiple sources (no single country to shut down travel with).

China went full totalitarian to an extreme, and couldn't stop it. Covid froze the second largest economy and did it in the span of a month. What chance does the rest of the world stand at stopping it? None.

Bill Gates is worried about it spreading across Africa (and said in an interview a few weeks ago, when asked about his plans for the year: "well, I plan to travel a lot less this year" - yeah). He's obviously properly worried. It will kill a large number of people in poorer economic regions that will see their healthcare resources overwhelmed. The US is nowhere near prepared for what's likely about to hit.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#152

Post by gnulinux »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #132
mrb wrote: post #95

I will probably be downvoted for saying this, but... The seasonal flu alone kills half a million people every year. So any mild disease that is as contagious and barely twice as fatal will kill 1 million. And that's what's going to happen with COVID19. It is far more severe than the flu. We know COVID19 is as contagious, given how fast it's spreading and how unstoppable it is (R0>2, asymptomatic transmission, airborn…

[edited to change linked article] Fortunately we know a lot more about viruses today than we did in 1918. The virus has already been mapped genetically, and many labs around the world are hard at work on an anti-viral treatment. We shouldn't get complacent of course, but it's likely that this thing can be contained and treated eventually. I read today about a device[1] from Israel that helps the lungs quickly clear p…

In particular, chloroquine has been shown to be helpful in treatment and is readily available in developing countries since it's used as a malaria medicine (and there are replacements available in developed countries).

in vitro: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0

practice: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bst/advpub/0/advpub_202...

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#153

Post by Blahah »

soared wrote: post #134
Blahah wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty cavalier attitude even if we take your assumptions to be true. If it's a virulent flu, the last time we had a pandemic with comparable stats was 1918, when we had much less global travel but much worse medical infrastructure. The 1918 Spanish flu infected potentially 1/4 of the world (500 million people at the time) and killed around 2% (variable depending on sources) of the global population - ~40 mi…

Absolutely incomparable to the Spanish flu. Back then we knew literally nothing about the flu, we sent sick soldiers on public trains to hospitals which very quickly spread the virus to other sick/injured people. We took the exact opposite actions of what we now know is correct. We did everything wrong. It’s not even remotely comparable. Scientists learned about the corona virus category in the late 1960s, 40 years a…

My point about the Spanish flu was that this is a complex comparison. Statistically it's similar so far. But with very different social parameters (massively increased global travel, vastly better understanding of epidemiology). We are still doing so many things wrong, given what we know. I think it's comparable.

The public numbers are not the same as the ones on GISAID.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#154

Post by SkyBelow »

oefrha wrote: post #145
mrb wrote: post #95

I will probably be downvoted for saying this, but... The seasonal flu alone kills half a million people every year. So any mild disease that is as contagious and barely twice as fatal will kill 1 million. And that's what's going to happen with COVID19. It is far more severe than the flu. We know COVID19 is as contagious, given how fast it's spreading and how unstoppable it is (R0>2, asymptomatic transmission, airborn…

> The seasonal flu alone kills half a million people every year. So any mild disease that is as contagious and barely twice as fatal will kill 1 million That’s assuming no containment effort, like with seasonal flu. Of course, it’s gonna happen if health authorities take the same defeatist attitude as you and do nothing.

>Of course, it’s gonna happen if health authorities take the same defeatist attitude as you and do nothing.

I'm a bit confused. Isn't expecting it to be devastating the very attitude needed for authorities to justify engaging in the containment methods needed to reduce the harm caused?

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#155

Post by WillPostForFood »

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #133

I feel fairly uncertain as to how seriously I should /personally/ take COVID19 living in a large American city as a healthy young person with no upcoming travel. I see some friends seriously taking precautions (like buying masks) already, which up-to-this-point I've found a little absurd. Could anyone who knows better perhaps enlighten me on how I ought to be reacting to this?

Buy extra food so if you get sick you don't have to go out and infect other people, or if you are in an area with a lot of sick people you don't have to go out to bu food and get infected.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#156

Post by smelterdemon »

oefrha wrote: post #145
mrb wrote: post #95

I will probably be downvoted for saying this, but... The seasonal flu alone kills half a million people every year. So any mild disease that is as contagious and barely twice as fatal will kill 1 million. And that's what's going to happen with COVID19. It is far more severe than the flu. We know COVID19 is as contagious, given how fast it's spreading and how unstoppable it is (R0>2, asymptomatic transmission, airborn…

> The seasonal flu alone kills half a million people every year. So any mild disease that is as contagious and barely twice as fatal will kill 1 million That’s assuming no containment effort, like with seasonal flu. Of course, it’s gonna happen if health authorities take the same defeatist attitude as you and do nothing.

Seasonal flu does have containment efforts - vaccination

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#157

Post by empath75 »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #132
mrb wrote: post #95

I will probably be downvoted for saying this, but... The seasonal flu alone kills half a million people every year. So any mild disease that is as contagious and barely twice as fatal will kill 1 million. And that's what's going to happen with COVID19. It is far more severe than the flu. We know COVID19 is as contagious, given how fast it's spreading and how unstoppable it is (R0>2, asymptomatic transmission, airborn…

[edited to change linked article] Fortunately we know a lot more about viruses today than we did in 1918. The virus has already been mapped genetically, and many labs around the world are hard at work on an anti-viral treatment. We shouldn't get complacent of course, but it's likely that this thing can be contained and treated eventually. I read today about a device[1] from Israel that helps the lungs quickly clear p…

There's been some recent discussion that it's actually diarrhea that is causing the spread among 'asymptomatic' carriers.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#158

Post by gnulinux »

monadic2 wrote: post #143
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Summer = fewer colds? It could be problematic, though, because lots of people travel during the summer. There are probably millions of people queued up to visit Italy, Spain, Britain, etc. The Europeans take long vacations, so populations will be particularly mobile in July and August. I wonder if the U.S. might be slightly less vulnerable to contagion, since Americans tend to visit beaches, national parks and other…

Summer = better air flow, both inside and because people spend more time outside.

Not an expert, but it's been stated by experts that coronoviruses, in general, spread slower during summer. This has not been proven for COVID-19, but presumably there will be some nontrivial affect on this virus as well.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#159

Post by asdfqwer234 »

mrb wrote: post #95

I will probably be downvoted for saying this, but... The seasonal flu alone kills half a million people every year. So any mild disease that is as contagious and barely twice as fatal will kill 1 million. And that's what's going to happen with COVID19. It is far more severe than the flu. We know COVID19 is as contagious, given how fast it's spreading and how unstoppable it is (R0>2, asymptomatic transmission, airborn…

what about developing a vaccine?
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