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Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

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Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#241

Post by pengaru »

irq11 wrote: post #207
netheril96 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID-19 is unlike anything before (in modern times). Especially HIV. You don't catch HIV by boarding the subway, eating in a restaurant, or running a marathon. For most people, avoiding unsafe sex is enough to avoid HIV. But if COVID-19 spreads to their country, people's daily lives will be significantly disrupted. SARS, MERS, Ebola, Zika are a little more like COVID-19, except they never propagate that far.

”COVID-19 is unlike anything before” It’s almost exactly like every other respiratory virus, except that the case fatality estimates for old and sick people are higher. There’s nothing mechanistically new about the infections we’re seeing. It’s a pretty bog-standard respiratory virus, in terms of its transmission and overall virulence. ”But if COVID-19 spreads to their country, people's daily lives will be significan…

Entire families don't die from mild chest colds without hospital care.

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#242

Post by akg_67 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #51
01100011 wrote: post #42

I'm curious how other folks who work at large tech shops in the valley feel about working from home for a while. There is nearly zero reason for me to show up at work. I can do nearly everything from home, often better. At work, I'm in a large, open building surrounded by thousands of people. Am I overreacting? I know there's a good chance we're all going to get COVID-19, but if I can delay it a bit, I lessen the hit…

>I'm curious how other folks who work at large tech shops in the valley feel about working from home for a while. Am in the UK and not the US but given that I'm healthy and relatively young I don't really see the point. This disease is scary in the aggregate, i.e it imposes huge economic costs. The average case of it is basically having flu symptoms, and I never stayed at home unless I got sick during bad flu seasons…

You are being downvoted, IMO, not for not locking yourself in but ignoring the chance that even you may survive for having strong immune system, you may still potentially be a carrier and transmit to others with weaker immune systems. Don’t be selfish and consider safety of other less fortunate people.

As a society, cost is much higher than cost to yourself only.

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#243

Post by yibg »

didericis wrote: post #196
rococode wrote: post #46

I've been checking for updates on the virus several times a day since it first started being reported in Western media around Jan 20 (in part because it's been a fun distraction, in part because I have friends in Wuhan). I like to think I'm generally an optimist, but I think it's been clear for several weeks now that this is going to have a significant worldwide impact. There are just too many factors in favor of unc…

> I think when this all comes to an end, China will be one of the countries that dealt with the virus the best. Countries without authoritarian governments likely don't have the means to effectively quarantine major cities and shut down massive portions of their economy immediately without major problems arising. China's authoritarian government is largely responsible for the severity of the initial outbreak. Their e…

China can be held responsible for the slow early response and attempt to cover things up as well as being praised for the decisive efforts at containment later on.

I don’t want to let them off the hook for down playing this thing early on but I’m not sure how much more effective containment would’ve been if this happened in another dense country. Say Japan, India or somewhere in Europe.

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#244

Post by [deleted] »

samastur wrote: post #197
lisper wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seasonal flu kills hundreds of thousands of people every year and we barely talk about that.

Yes, because it infects so many millions. Covid-19 right now looks a magnitude more deadly with significant long term health consequences for many who survive.

[deleted]

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#245

Post by thombat »

pietroglyph wrote: post #134
rococode wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/25/cdc-coronav... > While South Korea has run more than 35,000 coronavirus tests, the United States has tested only 426 people, not including people who returned on evacuation flights.

> not including people who returned on evacuation flights. This bit seems important. The “only 400 tested!” statistic people are citing seems much more reasonable in this context.

If you assume that only 400 other people in all of the USA have been travelling beyond its borders and/or in contact with such travellers, then it's ok to assume that all potentially infected have been tested.

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#246

Post by djmips »

_-___________-_ wrote: post #230
samastur wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because it infects so many millions. Covid-19 right now looks a magnitude more deadly with significant long term health consequences for many who survive.

> a magnitude more deadly Probably not. Case fatality rates don't accurately show the "deadliness" since many people have likely been infected but been asymptomatic or had mild illness that didn't cause them to seek medical advice. > significant long term health consequences for many who survive There is no evidence for that, and it doesn't make sense given the available data. Some number of people have long-term hea…

> Probably not. Case fatality rates don't accurately show the "deadliness" since many people have likely been infected but been asymptomatic or had mild illness that didn't cause them to seek medical advice.

I agree with this point but would also like to point out the possibility that way more people get infected by SARS-CoV-2 than the flu.

I also want to note that the flu also has the same asymptomatic or mild illness factor and that the deadliness would be only comparing people who sought medical treatment.

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#247

Post by officialjunk »

fiblye wrote: post #18
quelltext wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC the SARS outbreak in 2003 was "contained" within that year.

We're already at 10x the reported infections of SARS and countries aren't even really testing for the coronavirus. Most countries' policy seems to be asking if you think you're infected and willing to be quarantined for two weeks, and writing it down as a "not infected" if you decline. Or in Japan's case, quarantine people in a mismanaged way to maximize new infections, then let the infected people out to freely ming…

could you please elaborate on why you think it may be more mild?

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#248

Post by distantaidenn »

dahdum wrote: post #233
distantaidenn wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Tokyo and just returned from Seoul yesterday. It's striking how differently the countries are handling this issue. Korea is pretty much on lockdown -- the government and the population are being quite proactive. Masks everywhere, thermal guns at junctions with high human traffic. Water fountains shut down, etc. Even the airport staff at the eateries were undergoing temperature checks before interacting with…

I’m in Tokyo and having a very different experience than you, nearly everyone on the trains are wearing masks and all customer facing staff I see now. Someone hit the emergency button on the train a few days ago because someone was coughing without one (there was a PSA asking people not to do that). It’s mostly foreigners I see walking around without masks now, but I agree it’s still ramping up. I honestly don’t see…

It might be the contrast that makes it so striking to me. South Korea is in full-on alert mode. As I said, in comparison, it seems like business as usual here.

Going from airport (ICN) to airport (HND) amid this really drove it home.

But yes, I am definitely noticing some measures happening here. Mask shortages, a few companies shifting to remote work, etc.

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#249

Post by baq »

oefrha wrote: post #215
didericis wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think when this all comes to an end, China will be one of the countries that dealt with the virus the best. Countries without authoritarian governments likely don't have the means to effectively quarantine major cities and shut down massive portions of their economy immediately without major problems arising. China's authoritarian government is largely responsible for the severity of the initial outbreak. Their e…

> Last time I checked they were still barring members of the CDC from going into China to help asses the situation. I checked and the WHO team led by a Canadian epidemiologist has been working in China for more than two weeks, since Feb 10. I fail to see why they are obligated to allow in a team from a nation that’s been openly hostile for a long time just because they asked and used the word “help”. Sounds like arro…

the WHO has taken some not entirely transparent actions during handling of this epidemic and there are allegations that it's boss has a conflict of interest (his country apparently takes a lot of investments from China) and also that there are some pandemic-related financial instruments from which certain parties stand to benefit June 2020 if pandemic isn't declared. these are all hearsay but would explain trying to appease China and their choice of words in their press conferences. both are of course consistent with trying to not spread panic and make sure WHO has access to China, so I'm inclined to think that this is half politics, half good high level medicine work.

Re: Tokyo Olympics “looking at a cancellation” if coronavirus not contained

#250

Post by _-___________-_ »

vanniv wrote: post #98
Barrin92 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm curious how other folks who work at large tech shops in the valley feel about working from home for a while. Am in the UK and not the US but given that I'm healthy and relatively young I don't really see the point. This disease is scary in the aggregate, i.e it imposes huge economic costs. The average case of it is basically having flu symptoms, and I never stayed at home unless I got sick during bad flu seasons…

This is a more-deadly-than-average coronavirus, or so it seems. It is really hard to tell, because it is still very new outside of China, and you can't trust any of the data coming from there -- so we won't really know for 2 more weeks, until the first big round of cases from open countries end in either recovery or death. That said, the Chinese statistics put median time between first symptoms and death (amongst fat…

> One of their charts shows a breakdown of closed cases into % cured and % dead. That is currently at 92%/8%, with the recovery rate continually improving, but flattening out. That graph makes it look like the mortality rate may end up higher than 2% -- but still probably not radically so, and we really are extrapolating from very little data.

I think there's a really large number of people who have been infected who will never be a "case", so I think 2% is still really high. Just look at e.g. Italy where there was no awareness of it spreading until people were already dying - meaning that it had been spreading for some time. Given that a large number of people seem to be asymptomatic or have mild illness, it's highly likely that many other people were infected in the same "cluster" and never knew.

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