Japan confirms coronavirus infections without symptoms • Hacker News Board

Re: Japan confirms coronavirus infections without symptoms

#81

Post by cjhopman » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 7:20 PM UTC

edejong wrote: post #70

yorwba wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Wikipedia, the flu causes 3-5 million severe cases and 650,000 deaths worldwide each year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza

Yes, but the mortality rate of the common flu is much, much lower. Mortality of admitted patients is around 11% according to latest Lancet article.

Mortality of admitted patients of influenza in the U.S. is ~9% (https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html). That's not that much different, and the U.S. has a lower mortality rate than much of the world.

Re: Japan confirms coronavirus infections without symptoms

#82

Post by netsharc » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 12:34 AM UTC

mikejb wrote: post #22

netsharc wrote: post #7

Missing "[of Coronavirus]". Yeah the guideline doesn't say it, and we probably can assume what infection they're talking about, but.. Reports say the German man who got the virus after having a business meeting with a Chinese visitor said he had a mild fever in the weekend and slept it off, and came to work on Monday, which must mean he had recovered. Reading that makes me think the virus isn't a death sentence like…

> the German man [...] said he had a mild fever in the weekend and slept it off, and came to work on Monday, which must mean he had recovered. Unfortunately, this isn't a valid assumption. Lots of people come in to work sick - just yesterday we had to ask our boss to send someone home because they showed up to work caughing and sneezing all day (Today, two other coworkers aren't coming in because they're not feeling…

> Unfortunately, this isn't a valid assumption. Lots of people come in to work sick

In the context of the virus, to me it feels that means the virus isn't a killer, so he got a fever that he had to sleep in the weekend, but he still managed to show up to work on Monday, presumably because he felt better.

And it's Germany, where there's no notion of "We're only allocating you X sick days a year, if you're sick more than that you don't get paid."...

Re: Japan confirms coronavirus infections without symptoms

#83

Post by jimmydef » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 4:27 AM UTC

blablabla123 wrote: post #68

edejong wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a bit more worried. There is a recent study that shows a mortality rate of diagnosed patients at 11% [1]. This is not the true case fatality rate, but a sample of patients seen in Wuhan hospital. The true percentage is probably lower due to bias. We simply cannot calculate #fatalities / #cases, for a multitude of reasons. One, there is lag due to the clinical journey of the patients. Since both numbers rise expo…

I'm too lazy to find the link but I've read the mortality rate is 3% - vs. 1% for a normal influenza infection. Obviously the information situation is really bad. If it's really 11% that would be kind of worrisome. If it's just 3%, it's important to take care but in any case there's no point in panicking. The Chinese government indeed does well by building a new hospital complex so fast but the information politics i…

I don't think 11% is that worrisome. These are the cases where patients are ill enough to be admitted to the hospital. In the US, admitted patients of the flu have a 10% mortality rate, which is equivalent. We still don't have enough information regarding the virus but my guess is that its way overblown in the media.

Re: Japan confirms coronavirus infections without symptoms

#84

Post by adrianmonk » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 6:08 AM UTC

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #49

The article says a "new type of coronavirus", which is presumably a misunderstanding on the reporter's part; it seems more likely that these are asymptomatic carriers of the same virus. However, if there really is a symptomless or near-symptomless variant, this would actually be great news, since it would spread rapidly and provide immunity against virulent strains. And this in fact is what appeared to happen with th…

> The article says a "new type of coronavirus", which is presumably a misunderstanding on the reporter's part

It's ambiguous, but I think they just mean 2019-nCoV. It's the one that was discovered late 2019. As opposed to the coronaviruses that were already known for years or decades.

Re: Japan confirms coronavirus infections without symptoms

#85

Post by blablabla123 » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 9:40 AM UTC

jimmydef wrote: post #83

blablabla123 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm too lazy to find the link but I've read the mortality rate is 3% - vs. 1% for a normal influenza infection. Obviously the information situation is really bad. If it's really 11% that would be kind of worrisome. If it's just 3%, it's important to take care but in any case there's no point in panicking. The Chinese government indeed does well by building a new hospital complex so fast but the information politics i…

I don't think 11% is that worrisome. These are the cases where patients are ill enough to be admitted to the hospital. In the US, admitted patients of the flu have a 10% mortality rate, which is equivalent. We still don't have enough information regarding the virus but my guess is that its way overblown in the media.

Good point, also one needs to consider that is has been confirmed that there are people which got infected but practically showed no symptoms. That seems to be the case for the people that got infected in Germany.