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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

#431

Post by darkerside »

distantaidenn wrote: post #210
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…

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…

Considering the elderly population in Japan is relatively high, this could get ugly very fast....

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

#432

Post by testplzignore »

pbourke wrote: post #286
bulutsuzku wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone just explain how in hell it takes so long to develop a vaccine? Vaccine creators aren't supposed to have billions of USD to make their job? What's the real problem here?

1. Come up with the vaccine 2. Test vaccine on animals 3. Prove to regulators vaccine is safe enough for limited human trials 4. Conduct limited human trials 5. Research effectiveness of vaccine / absence of side effects 6. Conduct broader human trials 7. Step 5 again 8. Scale up production of vaccine Now, imagine that you can fail at any step and go back to the starting point.

If this situation got really bad, what are the chances of this timeline being accelerated? The US has step 1 done now. Could we roll the dice on doing broader human trials immediately and also in parallel scale up production? Sure you might kill people in trials and waste lots of money, but may be better than the alternative of tens of millions dead.

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

#433

Post by ficklepickle »

Aeolun wrote: post #416
irq11 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

”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…

Being infectious before showing symptoms is quite new. At least I haven’t heard of it before.

It is also possible to pass on the flu before experiencing symptoms

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/spread.htm

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

#434

Post by mantap »

testplzignore wrote: post #432
pbourke wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Come up with the vaccine 2. Test vaccine on animals 3. Prove to regulators vaccine is safe enough for limited human trials 4. Conduct limited human trials 5. Research effectiveness of vaccine / absence of side effects 6. Conduct broader human trials 7. Step 5 again 8. Scale up production of vaccine Now, imagine that you can fail at any step and go back to the starting point.

If this situation got really bad, what are the chances of this timeline being accelerated? The US has step 1 done now. Could we roll the dice on doing broader human trials immediately and also in parallel scale up production? Sure you might kill people in trials and waste lots of money, but may be better than the alternative of tens of millions dead.

Are you volunteering?

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

#435

Post by hawkice »

saiya-jin wrote: post #399
hawkice wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would take the other side of the bet about how well China is handling this. They are doing... intensely poorly. The rapid spread is in part due to the fact the Chinese government doesn't care at all about central China, and Wuhan only had(/has?) One critical care bed per one hundred thousand people.

How many of these critical beds do you think average african or other south asian countries have? I checked with my wife who is doctor at biggest Swiss hospital - currently they could host around 30 people who need respiratory assistance. Surrounding area contains 1.5-2 millions of people. I used to be critical of China in this, and still hate how they handled the start. But to be honest, unless tremendous luck would…

There is reason to think the fatality rate in other Chinese cities is ten times lower than Wuhan. This is not an issue of generically being poor, it's that the authoritarian government knows where their bread gets buttered, and it's on the coast. We don't know what's already happened in the concentration camps in Xinjiang. But I think we share the prediction of what will, as containment of the virus has failed. And it isn't "China being well known for caring about all Chinese equally".

(Also worth noting the single hospital you mentioned has a 50% improvement in capacity (actually much more, because your number is more specific than 'critical care', but I don't know how much more specific) over the city where people are using gutter oil. Capacity can be less when there aren't public defecation concerns, but your example is emphatically not that.)

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

#436

Post by claudeganon »

rogy wrote: post #277
dahdum wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

on a side note, i have a week of PTO booked in tokyo then a week in kyoto/osaka, leaving friday. do you think its safe to travel?

No, the handling of the situation is worse than has been widely reported in the west. Japan is functionally doing nothing to contain it’s spread right now:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/opinion/coronavirus-japan...

Japan has very poor rankings on press freedom, reporters are routinely fired for questioning the government, and Abe has a long history of being a dishonest, self-serving, authoritarian.

https://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-japan-press-freedom...

They should be responding like Korea has been, but instead are just ignoring the situation.

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

#437

Post by senordevnyc »

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…

I see you’re still hard at work spreading the falsehood that “it’s just like the flu, unless you’re old or sick”.

1. I find the lack of concern about dramatically higher mortality rates for the old and the sick to be reprehensible. They’re people, even if they’re older or sicker than you.

2. It doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense for China to shut down the economy over something so minor.

3. The hospitalization rate is a serious concern that you’re overlooking.

4. Most importantly, your premise that it’s no more dangerous than the flu for the young and healthy is completely false. The fatality rate for flu for 18-49 year olds in the US is 0.02% [1], and this looks to be at least 20x higher than that for that age group, based on the data we have so far.

World health officials, medical experts, epidemiologists, virologists, etc, all seem to be taking this very seriously and are quite concerned. I think I’ll take my cues from them.

1. Source: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm

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

#438

Post by paublyrne »

Terretta wrote: post #424
littlestymaar wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In China when the government tells its citizens to do something, they just do it. They don't ask why. They don't deliberate on whether it's the correct choice. They simply follow the directions. In the West, everything is up for debate. People don't like to be told what to do. Sigh, this is so cliché… I don't know where you're from, but the “west” as the unified entity you describe doesn't exist. When it comes to a…

> When it comes to authority and how people comply with the rules, France and Germany are more different than China and the US. How so?

Can't comment on France, and of course it's a generalization, but in Germany people love to follow the rules. Just watch how people cross the road without looking left or right, but obeying only the light. Sometimes other pedestrians will shout at you if you walk across the road when the light isn't green.

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

#439

Post by short_sells_poo »

wisty wrote: post #390
cm2187 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that’s what the numbers published say: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas... Look at the mortality by age table. Also note the mortality rate outside of Wuhan seems to be 0.7%, a bit more than the common flu which I think is around 0.1% but not really a massive deal. I don’t know where these numbers will land ultimately but I can think of many reasons why people with mild symptoms th…

7 times is quite a lot more. That's like saying a Porsche is a bit more than a Toyota.

Relative differences can be completely meaningless if the absolute numbers are tiny. The chance of you being hit by a meteorite in your lifetime is 1 out of 700'000 and being bitten by a shark is 1 out of 8'000'000. Does that mean you should worry more 10 times more about being hit by a rock from space?

No, both are such small numbers that you shouldn't worry about either.

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

#440

Post by empath75 »

viraptor wrote: post #425
baq wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

slowing down the virus is required while hospital capacity is being scaled up.

And while we're quite literally waiting for the vaccine to be created. The fewer people get infected the next month or two, the better.

I don’t know why people are assuming we can create a vaccine. There’s no vaccine for any other corona virus.
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