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Is It a Pandemic Yet?

nytimes.com

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Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#221

Post by lm28469 »

wonderwonder wrote: post #98
ducttape12 wrote: post #76

Can someone explain to me why coronavirus is getting so much coverage? According to Wikipedia, Coronavirus has killed about 2000 people. Each year smoking kills 480,000 people in the US. In two days smoking will have killed more people in the US than coronavirus has worldwide. Shouldn't we have headlines about this every day? Or any of the other far more deadly things (traffic accidents, heart disease, suicide, etc.)…

It has the ability to affect the global economy in ways that the others dont. If people don't want to go to work due to an increased risk of mortality, business will shut down. If everyone is forced to go to work and they all get sick and are unable to work for several weeks, business shuts down. Finally if everyone gets sick and 3% of your workforce then dies, that again causes massive economic disruption. This is a…

Too bad life is all about work and world economy... I guess we'll have to wait a bit for the PS5 and the next iphone, how sad.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#222

Post by nickjj »

ducttape12 wrote: post #102
guramarx11 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

smoking is not contagious, a smoker can't infect or kill you directly with cigarettes

Except that according to the CDC, second hand smoke causes 41,000 deaths per year in the US: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal...

> Except that according to the CDC, second hand smoke causes 41,000 deaths per year in the US: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal....

The thing with second hand smoke is your senses can warn you of this danger before it's a threat.

You can often see someone smoking before you can smell the smoke. You can also smell the smoke if you happen to not see them and then choose to react to the situation. You can either continue inhaling that smoke or walk about 30 feet in any direction away from the source to put yourself out of danger.

But with this virus, you don't have such luxuries. It's invisible, tasteless, odorless and can kill you after being exposed to it once. That's pretty much as scary as it gets.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#223

Post by JoeAltmaier »

jsjw7sbw wrote: post #194
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That 0.8% includes 'old age'. In fact, its mostly old age. The corona virus increases the death rate from influenza 10,000X. By communicable disease, 100X?

>mostly old age Same as corona, no? Edit: I'm not arguing it's less deadly than something else but in perspective I think 'mild' is an accurate description.

No, for most it takes a lifetime to accrue heart disease and cancer problems. It takes a moment to be infected with this virus, and will probably infect everyone ultimately(a year or two?)

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#224

Post by vidanay »

robjan wrote: post #189
victor106 wrote: post #144

Can someone ELI5? Why is it so hard to produce a vaccination for this virus? We have vaccinations targeting viruses all the time, isn’t it?

Vaccines are being worked on as we speak but the testing and approval process takes a long time.

IMO, if testing shows a good effectiveness, approval will be fast-pathed.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#225

Post by wonderwonder »

lm28469 wrote: post #221
wonderwonder wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has the ability to affect the global economy in ways that the others dont. If people don't want to go to work due to an increased risk of mortality, business will shut down. If everyone is forced to go to work and they all get sick and are unable to work for several weeks, business shuts down. Finally if everyone gets sick and 3% of your workforce then dies, that again causes massive economic disruption. This is a…

Too bad life is all about work and world economy... I guess we'll have to wait a bit for the PS5 and the next iphone, how sad.

? Its hard to live without shelter,food and water. All cost money, which in turn is a product of the economy and work. It you are saying that everyone should be guaranteed all 3 regardless of work that is another conversation, but not really the reality of today.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#226

Post by lm28469 »

empath75 wrote: post #177
ducttape12 wrote: post #76

Can someone explain to me why coronavirus is getting so much coverage? According to Wikipedia, Coronavirus has killed about 2000 people. Each year smoking kills 480,000 people in the US. In two days smoking will have killed more people in the US than coronavirus has worldwide. Shouldn't we have headlines about this every day? Or any of the other far more deadly things (traffic accidents, heart disease, suicide, etc.)…

> According to Wikipedia, Coronavirus has killed about 2000 people. It's mostly isolated to 1 province in China. If you extrapolate those deaths world wide, you're talking 10s of millions of people dead if it goes pandemic.

You can't really extrapolate things like that though. Try extrapolating west virginia diabetes related death to the world and we'd be fucked too.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#227

Post by pmoriarty »

irq11 wrote: post #15

Thankfully, this is a relatively mild virus. Part of what makes it hard to detect is that most cases (>80%) are mild, and many are actually asymptomatic: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia... The vast majority of people who have died have been elderly and/or infirm. The death rate under 60 is well under 1%. If you’re young and healthy, this is a chest cold. The biggest thing the media needs…

We actually don't know how bad this disease is.

China's reporting on it absolutely can not be trusted, because:

- their health care system is overwhelmed, so they're not testing everyone who may have been infected (a lot of sick people don't even go to the hospitals because they know they'll get turned away)

- they seem to have run out of testing kits in many places

- their testing may be faulty anyway (which could account for the many reports of people testing positive then negative then positive again)

- their media is tightly controlled so there's no independent verification of what they tell us

- they've changed their reporting criteria multiple times

Outside of China there have been too few cases to know yet either, and the countries where it has spread seem to face some of the same issues as China (such as not testing enough people), so their reporting is likely to be skewed as well.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#228

Post by AstralStorm »

gnulinux wrote: post #158
monadic2 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is likely due to hotter temperatures having an effect on humidity.

Very cold and very hot temperatures would reduce range of droplet transmission and viability of fomites. (contamination)

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#229

Post by bryanrasmussen »

rubidium wrote: post #84
ducttape12 wrote: post #76

Can someone explain to me why coronavirus is getting so much coverage? According to Wikipedia, Coronavirus has killed about 2000 people. Each year smoking kills 480,000 people in the US. In two days smoking will have killed more people in the US than coronavirus has worldwide. Shouldn't we have headlines about this every day? Or any of the other far more deadly things (traffic accidents, heart disease, suicide, etc.)…

Because smoking has been in the headlines, but it's not news anymore that it's killing so many. The editor of that newspaper would get fired for making that a headline everyday. It is news that there's a new flu-like virus emerging, spreading, and having a relatively high rate of mortality.

People also discount things that will probably kill them decades from now in a horrible way if they don't change their behavior instead of things that will maybe kill them weeks from now in a horrible way if they're unlucky.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#230

Post by AstralStorm »

KineticLensman wrote: post #113
asiachick wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumb question but what intensive care? Do people need to be on respirators? Need access to drugs only available at ICU? Just curious if any of the things done at an ICU to prevent death really need to be only at the ICU.

The most extreme consequences of infection include acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and sepsis, which may require ICU-type treatment. See [0] for World Health Organisation guidance on critical management of severe acute respiratory infection when novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) infection is suspected. The majority of patients don't experience such severe consequences. [0] https://www.who.int/publications-deta…

You mean specifically SARS, which is a syndrome not a name of the virus. The really really agent is immune pneumonitis, or cytokine storm related sepsis.
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