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Is It a Pandemic Yet?

nytimes.com

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Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#261

Post by forgot-my-pw »

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…

It's almost better to get infected now where hospitals are not full (if you're in a developed country and generally a healthy person). Wait out 2 weeks, then you build immunity after. Except when the virus mutates :(

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#262

Post by elpatoisthebest »

0xffff2 wrote: post #250
vidanay wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The fast path for vaccine approval is 2+ years.

It looks like it was fast tracked quite a bit faster than 2 years during the H1N1 pandemic.

I don't have a better resource right now than Wikipedia, but I guess we could follow the links for more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic#Vaccines

But according to this page by 19 November 2009 the vaccine was distributed to 16 countries. I think it was first really noticed in April 2009.

Not making any claims about what to expect for COVID-19, just that they have fast tracked vaccines faster than 2 years in the recent past.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#263

Post by rv-de »

downerending wrote: post #259
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?

You probably won't die, esp since you're young, but it's certainly possible that you could get caught up in a quarantine. Best to have a good supply of any required drugs, etc.

What are those required drugs?

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#264

Post by rv-de »

James_Henry wrote: post #20

> And what should each of us do, beyond staying informed and washing our hands frequently? Keep calm and rational. It might be worth stocking some reserve of critical medications, for example — but not too much, because hoarding could create shortages. > We, as individuals, can also try to plan for basic contingencies. Companies can cross-train key staff members so that one person’s absence won’t derail the business.…

What's your prepper food of choice?

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#265

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ardy42 wrote: post #202
adventured wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 o…

> 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 th…

Starved? $4.1 trillion, and a nearly $1 trillion deficit, is "starved"? What in the world would "overfed" look like?

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#266

Post by irq11 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #227
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 a…

So basically, you’re choosing to ignore everything we actually know, and replace it with your theories and FUD.

For the record? China is definitely, absolutely, positively under-reporting the infection rate. They have admitted it. They know that there are many mild cases that are not being counted.

Among other things, this means that the commonly cited fatality rates are a gross overestimate, and would be much lower if we could count all of the mild and asymptomatic cases.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#267

Post by AnimalMuppet »

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.)…

Part of it may be volition, and part may be time, and part of it may be the unknown.

If I die from smoking, it's probably because I smoked. (Yes, I know that some people can die from second-hand smoke, but it's by far the minority.) And if I die from smoking, it's from smoking for 10 or 50 years, not from one cigarette.

With Covid, though, I can die because someone at my work went the wrong place on vacation. And I can die in days, not in years.

And, Covid today kills fewer than smoking. That may not be true in a year, though. So part of the focus is because the potential is there for it to be an objectively bigger killer than smoking.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#268

Post by edanm »

rv-de wrote: post #263
downerending wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably won't die, esp since you're young, but it's certainly possible that you could get caught up in a quarantine. Best to have a good supply of any required drugs, etc.

What are those required drugs?

I think people generally mean drugs that are required for you. E.g. if you have some medication you need to take regularly, make sure you have a large enough supply to be able to last a few weeks without access to renewing your supply.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#269

Post by songshuu »

forgot-my-pw wrote: post #261
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…

It's almost better to get infected now where hospitals are not full (if you're in a developed country and generally a healthy person). Wait out 2 weeks, then you build immunity after. Except when the virus mutates :(

That was the OG notion as regards chickenpox.

Re: Is It a Pandemic Yet?

#270

Post by pillefitz »

forgot-my-pw wrote: post #261
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…

It's almost better to get infected now where hospitals are not full (if you're in a developed country and generally a healthy person). Wait out 2 weeks, then you build immunity after. Except when the virus mutates :(

It might be possible the second infection will be more severe than the first, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-dependent_enhanceme...
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