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China building 1k-bed hospital over the weekend to treat coronavirus

reuters.com

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Re: China building 1k-bed hospital over the weekend to treat coronavirus

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those masks are manufactured in China and are not available? Something doesn’t add up

Yes, scalpers swoop them up in all online stores. They are even sold out on Amazon US, Canada, UK and DE. I was told only the ones with a N95 rating can be effective against this virus. https://www.amazon.com/3M-Particulate-Respirator-8210-Pack/d...

> I was told only the ones with a N95 rating can be effective against this virus.

N95 masks need to be fit properly [1], and are very uncomfortable for daily use.

Surgical masks are a good compromise for going out in public, and mostly protect others from the mask-wearer. It's more important to practise good hygiene to avoid infection [2].

[1] https://www.osha.gov/video/respiratory_protection/fittesting...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/health/coronavirus-surgic...

Re: China building 1k-bed hospital over the weekend to treat coronavirus

#72
post #8

Setting aside quality assurance and risk assessment/mitigation, I'm seriously impressed with the speed in which they construct complex infrastructure. The are some good reasons we don't quite go at this pace, but there are lots of good lessons about expediency to be gleaned as well.

Has it occurred to you that in a free market economy these beds may already have been built? Are you impressed by reports of patients showing concerning symptoms being turned away from government-run hospitals? There's really just one lesson and that is anything built by a government is on average inferior to the same thing built by private sector. Maybe the China government is less wasteful than the US government. T…

The free market would never build this without the government paying, because most patients can't exactly afford to pay for their share of the construction costs. For-profit hospitals are incentivized to turn away patients showing concerning symptoms to prevent them from infecting their paying customers.

There are many lessons that can be drawn from this, but "privatize everything" is not one of them.

Re: China building 1k-bed hospital over the weekend to treat coronavirus

#74
post #57

I was born and raised in Wuhan. My father and a few friends are still in Wuhan, one of the friend is a nurse. Here's what they told me: * The hospitals in Wuhan are at absolute maximum capacity. they are lumping any fever cases (e.g. flu) patients with potential coronavirus patients in the same room. * People with mild symptoms are sent home due to capacity, they are instructed to be quarantined at home unless sympto…

If you are interested, there is a crowdfund in the UK trying to raise money to provide surgical masks to doctor and nurses in Wuhan. Here is the link: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/standbywuhan

If the area is officially locked down, blocking transport by land, air, & water, how are they planning to deliver the masks?

I assume there are exceptions made for appropriate officials and medical personnel, if adequate quarantine rues are followed, do the group attracting the crowd funding have access to this channel? Or drone based deliver perhaps (assuming they don't break the transport in/out rule despite not being manned so not presenting the same infection spread vector)?

I'd like to know the masks are going to go somewhere useful, rather than being blocked by the rules and distributed around officials instead of to hospital staff & patients and the public, before I donate.

Re: China building 1k-bed hospital over the weekend to treat coronavirus

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can you imagine something like this happening in America? A new, dangerous respiratory virus mutating in the overcrowded and unhygienic environment of a poorly-managed city market, and then spreading almost unchecked for six weeks, amidst continual denials of its serious nature? No, probably not.

No, instead we just have periodic resurgence of diseases that have been cured for decades, like measles, that kill hundreds of children and vulnerable adults because a significant portion of our population doesn't "believe" in modern science and a significant portion of our government isn't willing to make them do otherwise. But no, we don't have dirty food markets, so we have that going for us.

> that have been cured for decades, like measles

Cured? Where?

The US had ~1,300 cases in 2019 and successfully put down the small outbreak. By September the cases were down to six that month and they stayed down. It was the worst outbreak in decades.

The EU had as many cases in 2019 - 13,500 - as the US did in the prior 20 years combined. That's ten times the figure the US had in 2019. In 2017 + 2018 Europe broadly had around 110,000 cases.

I think the US is very obviously doing excellent regarding measles.

Re: China building 1k-bed hospital over the weekend to treat coronavirus

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can you imagine something like this happening in America? A new, dangerous respiratory virus mutating in the overcrowded and unhygienic environment of a poorly-managed city market, and then spreading almost unchecked for six weeks, amidst continual denials of its serious nature? No, probably not.

No probably not... crammed homeless in city parks giving each other Hep, city streets disinfected from feces, leprosy being endemic in parts of the homeless population. People unable to afford life-saving medication or unable to take time off work due to lack of medical leave, choosing to carry their viruses to work. People also never eat Armadillo meet and come down with the plague. Large parts of the population dis…

I agree with you. Arrogance often puts false premises - and I agree, can happen anywhere in the world.

Re: China building 1k-bed hospital over the weekend to treat coronavirus

#77
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's in part because you have way more people so the competition is higher. You're get your job but you have to be extremely efficient, as efficient as humanly possible, or you're going to be replaced - and if not by a person, eventually by automation. I've been to China once, traveling from HK with to a massive highly dense multi-floor shopping mall, and then went to a 20+ story hotel fully converted into a massive…

> It's in part because you have way more people so the competition is higher. I think the "huge population" aspect is overdone when discussing China. If I apply for a job at my local supermarket, the competition I face has little to do with the fact that the UK's population is 65 million vs 1.4 billion in China. Is the competition in the US 5x fiercer than in the UK because the population is 5x higher? No because the…

You make a good point, but literally every fast food place near me has a 'Help Wanted' advertisement posted these days. I have the sense that they take anyone they can get, whereas in an industrializing society, the competition for those types of jobs (for recent agrarian -> city immigrants) would be pretty fierce.

Unemployment rate might be a better metric, but 'employment rate at food employee level or higher' would be the best I guess.

Re: China building 1k-bed hospital over the weekend to treat coronavirus

#78

I was born and raised in Wuhan. My father and a few friends are still in Wuhan, one of the friend is a nurse. Here's what they told me: * The hospitals in Wuhan are at absolute maximum capacity. they are lumping any fever cases (e.g. flu) patients with potential coronavirus patients in the same room. * People with mild symptoms are sent home due to capacity, they are instructed to be quarantined at home unless sympto…

this morning's news seems to indicate that the virus entered body via eyes according to expert. wearing mask alone probably won't be enough to prevent infection.

Re: China building 1k-bed hospital over the weekend to treat coronavirus

#79
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are interested, there is a crowdfund in the UK trying to raise money to provide surgical masks to doctor and nurses in Wuhan. Here is the link: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/standbywuhan

If the area is officially locked down, blocking transport by land, air, & water, how are they planning to deliver the masks? I assume there are exceptions made for appropriate officials and medical personnel, if adequate quarantine rues are followed, do the group attracting the crowd funding have access to this channel? Or drone based deliver perhaps (assuming they don't break the transport in/out rule despite not be…

So apparently it's not a full quarantine like everyone suggests, but more of a partial quarantine. My understanding is that deliveries to the local government is not accepted, so they are sending this straight to the hospitals. I also hear the logistics are set up, with more information currently available in the wechat group set up for this.

Re: China building 1k-bed hospital over the weekend to treat coronavirus

#80

Can you imagine something like this happening in America?

I can imagine it being much, much worse in America.

You have an underclass who cannot afford to go to hospital or see a doctor, which extends well up into the low end of the working middle class.

You have employers who penalize workers for self-quarantine.

You have vicious mistreatment of undocumented people that makes them scared to draw official notice anywhere.

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