What's Happening with the Coronavirus • Hacker News Board

Re: What's Happening with the Coronavirus

#31

Post by ses1984 » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

gwd wrote: post #30

platz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China will likely not be able to contain the virus at this stage. it also could mutate and change it's behavior.

> it also could mutate and change it's behavior. With flu / colds, my understanding is that it's typically milder mutations which end up thriving, as the milder the symptoms, the more likely people are to try to carry on with their normal lives rather than isolating themselves (and thus infect more people).

But entire populations don't mutate at once. If a virulent strain is active in thousands of people, it's going to be quite a while before the full impact of that epidemic is felt.

Re: What's Happening with the Coronavirus

#32

Post by wraithm112 » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

eightysixfour wrote: post #19

computerfriend wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that these are only the confirmed deaths, which is a lower bound. We know that the true number is much larger.

Yes, but it is the same for total number infected. Outside estimates are that there are more than 100k infected. That would put the mortality rate ~= the flu.

You need to account for the delay to death in your model here. People don't die the second they're infected. Most of the people in that estimated infected number were infected in the last week. They couldn't possibly have died of the disease. I believe most epidemiological models have a infection to death delay factor to estimate death rate. Your mortality rate with ~300/100k~=flu is too low.

Re: What's Happening with the Coronavirus

#33

Post by gwd » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:41 PM UTC

ses1984 wrote: post #31

gwd wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it also could mutate and change it's behavior. With flu / colds, my understanding is that it's typically milder mutations which end up thriving, as the milder the symptoms, the more likely people are to try to carry on with their normal lives rather than isolating themselves (and thus infect more people).

But entire populations don't mutate at once. If a virulent strain is active in thousands of people, it's going to be quite a while before the full impact of that epidemic is felt.

Oh, sure; I only meant to say, that normally the "evolutionary pressure" is for mutations to be less dangerous, rather than more dangerous. If anything, we should be hoping for those sorts of mutations.

Re: What's Happening with the Coronavirus

#34

Post by me_me_me » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

eightysixfour wrote: post #19

computerfriend wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that these are only the confirmed deaths, which is a lower bound. We know that the true number is much larger.

Yes, but it is the same for total number infected. Outside estimates are that there are more than 100k infected. That would put the mortality rate ~= the flu.

deaths due to flu are overestimated in western world as those are mainly due to flu striking after patient is going through some other illness and flu was the final blow.

Pure flu deaths are very low.

Re: What's Happening with the Coronavirus

#35

Post by solotronics » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #16

dragonwriter wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then why so small number of people get infected outside of China? Because we won't no how many people are infected today for a couple of weeks, it has an up to 14 day incubation period (and appears to be contagious during the incubation period.) Also the numbers are growing rapidly, especially in places with lots of contact with China. > I can hardly believe no case of infection could get unnoticed and not isolated…

Then it intuitively seems there already are many people infected all over the world and we can't really prevent the infection from spreading, the measures being taken are futile. Brace yourself, buy grocery supplies and prepare your immune systems - start sleeping enough, eating healthy etc now.

Not even joking I quit drinking and started eating healthier as I followed this. I have been watching and reading since it was a few hundred confirmed cases and I think it will become a very large outbreak.

Re: What's Happening with the Coronavirus

#36

Post by ShorsHammer » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:43 PM UTC

platz wrote: post #10

qwerty456127 wrote: post #7

So humble numbers of people infected outside China, why is the whole world panicking?

China will likely not be able to contain the virus at this stage. it also could mutate and change it's behavior.

> could mutate and change it's behavior(sic)

We could also get hit by an asteroid tomorrow and most life on Earth wiped out, guess that isn't newsworthy though. Hope people are worried about that danger, despite all the effort put in we routinely can't detect dangerous objects that come near Earth. Scary stuff.

How many people have died outside China from this virus again? Is it zero? Last I looked it was zero human beings have died outside of China, perhaps I'm wrong.

Re: What's Happening with the Coronavirus

#37

Post by lucian1900 » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:50 PM UTC

wonderwonder wrote: post #26

lucian1900 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's racism. In the West, Sinophobia is an acceptable form of it.

How is wanting to contain the spread of an exponentially expanding virus racist? As far as punitive actions against a country, the world is taking a relatively light approach to China especially when one factors in their treatment of the Uyghurs. They have placed an entire ethnic minority into concentration camps for reprogramming. That's racism.

> They have placed an entire ethnic minority into concentration camps for reprogramming.

Do you have any proof of this? All Western media has been able to produce is a few pictures of some buildings which could contain at most a few hundred people.

At least look at the other side's story before you blindly believe everything capitalist media tells you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4cYE6E27_g

Re: What's Happening with the Coronavirus

#38

Post by thesausageking » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:51 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #7

So humble numbers of people infected outside China, why is the whole world panicking?

Uncertainty and exponential growth.

China went from The world is so interconnected now that once a virus like this gets a small foothold, it's very, very hard to contain. And it's unlikely there were be any vaccine for it for at least 12-18 months.

That means there's a good chance this turns into a world-wide epidemic that will kill millions or more over the next year. Even with it's relatively low death rate (1-2%), if it ends up infecting 100s of millions of people, that's millions dead.

Re: What's Happening with the Coronavirus

#39

Post by Accujack » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #13

qwerty456127 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why so small number of people get infected outside of China? I can hardly believe no case of infection could get unnoticed and not isolated successfully so far.

> Then why so small number of people get infected outside of China? Because we won't no how many people are infected today for a couple of weeks, it has an up to 14 day incubation period (and appears to be contagious during the incubation period.) Also the numbers are growing rapidly, especially in places with lots of contact with China. > I can hardly believe no case of infection could get unnoticed and not isolated…

It's not really a couple of weeks at this point... it's just after the 6th or so. That's the end of incubation period for people who would have been infected before the Chinese govt. quarantined Wuhan.

New infected after that point will be from person to person contact with infected travelers prior to the quarantine. That's when we'll find out how many people caught the virus that we don't know about, and therefore how many have been spreading it without knowing.

Re: What's Happening with the Coronavirus

#40

Post by lucian1900 » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #21

lucian1900 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's racism. In the West, Sinophobia is an acceptable form of it.

If we were letting racism against the Chinese dominate our response, we’d be dismissing the outbreak while numbers outside China were small.

The outbreak is being handled very well through the Chinese planned economy. Despite this, Western media is intensifying the panic. As a result of it, Chinese people are being discriminated against worldwide.