That's the cognitive dissonance. The flu kills millions, pneumonia kills millions. This virus has killed 300, mostly in a country of over a billion, and governments are restricting travel and evacuating citizens.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 4 February 2020 17:15 (four years ago) link
It’s at minimum 20x more likely to be fatal that common flu aiui and there is scope for it to get worse.
― ShariVari, Tuesday, 4 February 2020 17:18 (four years ago) link
i suspect it has to do with comments like this: "First 2019-nCoV death outside of China (in the Phillipines), global toll hits 304. Only 328 recovered. 14,380 cases, with 19,544 suspected (there's a shortage of diagnostic kit and hence significant lag)." which makes it seem like maybe there's a 50% fatality rate but i'm pretty sure even tho i'm not an epidemiologist that this is a confused representative of the numbers.
― Mordy, Tuesday, 4 February 2020 17:19 (four years ago) link
if you're not in china, no, you don't need to be worrying. i think the fears are highly related to the fact that it's transmitted by human-to-human contact, and there isn't a vaccine right (expected sometime in summer). so if it isn't contained, and the epidemic became a pandemic, your city might become a version of wuhan. it's one of those things where you should be very glad that the pros are freaking out, because their containment measures are what's keeping it from spreading more rapidly.
― But guess what? Nobody gives a toot!😂 (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 4 February 2020 17:24 (four years ago) link
yes i agree with that. let the professionals freak out.
― Mordy, Tuesday, 4 February 2020 17:25 (four years ago) link
As I mentioned up-thread, my nephew who lives in Shanghai has booked a flight to the UK, instead of coming straight home to his folk's house he's booking into a hotel for two weeks to quarantine himself (of sorts) which we wondered might be a bit over the top but he works in pharma and seems a little spooked, so maybe things over there are more intense than is being reported.
― Maresn3st, Tuesday, 4 February 2020 18:27 (four years ago) link
I'm just repeating the numbers. BTW, death toll as of 4 February 2020 was 427.
From all appearances this 2003 SARS redux, just with a third higher R0 (reproduction number, "infectivity"), about the same lethality, and a Chinese government that's taking it seriously (and which will save thousands of lives, How I wish I had similarly competent governance).
4000 people in China die prematurely from air pollution every day. We're still in the 70-100 range for 2019-nCoV daily deaths. It's barely significant, yet. I would watch the secondary outbreaks in Thailand and Kerala/India, as while they benefit from milder climates they don't have the benefit of an autocratic government with ample resources.
― Darth Bambi (Sanpaku), Tuesday, 4 February 2020 18:41 (four years ago) link
it is so weird when you say things like “they don't have the benefit of an autocratic government with ample resources”
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 4 February 2020 18:47 (four years ago) link
or "How I wish I had similarly competent governance"
― Mordy, Tuesday, 4 February 2020 18:47 (four years ago) link
They might be harvesting organs from minority groups but they sure make the trains run on time!
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 4 February 2020 18:48 (four years ago) link
also this highly effective resourced competent government allowed the conditions that lead to the outbreak and acc to WHO are much more poorly prepared than the US for contagion so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
― Mordy, Tuesday, 4 February 2020 18:50 (four years ago) link
Hubei is 4% of the Chinese population. If you think the U.S. could have cordoned off Illinois or Pennsylvania (and shut down automotive traffic) in a day you haven't spent much time around Americans or its government. We don't have nearly the authoritarian mindset (even in our authoritarian party)(cf: see any hurricane evacuation), and our government doesn't have the resources on command. Should the U.S. face a similar epidemic, we won't be able to slow its spread (for the months until a vaccine is possible) nearly as well.
― Darth Bambi (Sanpaku), Tuesday, 4 February 2020 19:04 (four years ago) link
Best case for US is we slow it enough that it doesn’t start breaking out until the end of flu season. It’s likely to go into hibernation then until next winter, giving more time for preparation.
― o. nate, Tuesday, 4 February 2020 19:06 (four years ago) link
xp: And yeah, its pretty dumb that the Chinese people continue to fux around with eating chrysanthemum bats after SARS. They've also decimated sharks worldwide for fin soup and African elephants for powdered ivory aphrodesiacs. I'm mainly speaking of the ability of the government to essentially imprison 4% of their population in a day, to build infectious disease hospitals in 9 days, etc.
― Darth Bambi (Sanpaku), Tuesday, 4 February 2020 19:09 (four years ago) link
what i wouldn't give to live in a country that can imprison 4% on their population in a day
― Mordy, Tuesday, 4 February 2020 19:10 (four years ago) link
if only the leaders of the united states just had a more, i don't know, authoritarian mindset
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 4 February 2020 19:12 (four years ago) link
I mean, how else are you supposed to get shit done?
― toilet-cleaning brain surgeon (pomenitul), Tuesday, 4 February 2020 19:15 (four years ago) link
I mentioned up-thread, my nephew who lives in Shanghai has booked a flight to the UK, instead of coming straight home to his folk's house he's booking into a hotel for two weeks to quarantine himself (of sorts) which we wondered might be a bit over the top but he works in pharma and seems a little spooked, so maybe things over there are more intense than is being reported.
― Maresn3st,
This is insanely troublesome imo What if, god forbid nephew is contagious? He leaves the room for housekeeping to be exposed and no chemical decon for the next guest? Isn't it possible to be a carrier and not have symptoms?
― one charm and one antiup quark (outdoor_miner), Tuesday, 4 February 2020 19:24 (four years ago) link
Mordy: I'm not making a moral judgement. I'm just saying mainland China is way more likely to contain a novel epidemic from the bushmeat trade than say D.R. Congo.
― Darth Bambi (Sanpaku), Tuesday, 4 February 2020 19:28 (four years ago) link
Nephew doing this at an airport hotel would be a pretty good plot point for a disaster thriller.
― Andrew Farrell, Tuesday, 4 February 2020 21:37 (four years ago) link
Useful chart for perspective:
https://i.imgur.com/czzQbWu.png
― Darth Bambi (Sanpaku), Wednesday, 5 February 2020 04:22 (four years ago) link
that is useful, and as usual i fear that not enough people will notice the logarithmic scale
― But guess what? Nobody gives a toot!😂 (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 5 February 2020 04:30 (four years ago) link
I keep seeing numbers like this
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Which says, roughly, 500 dead, 900 "recovered", and it's easy to read that as a 30%+ mortality rate. I figure it's only because recovery takes longer than dying and there's just not been enough time yet.
― koogs, Wednesday, 5 February 2020 05:30 (four years ago) link
The actual infected and recovered rates from Hubei are only indicative.
To move from "suspected case" to "confirmed case" requires a positive test for the virus, and to my knowledge they're still using PCR kits, which are presently limited to 2000/d for the province (and this despite the fact that China's national virus institute is 15 km from the Huanan wet market). Similarly, to move from "confirmed case" to "recovered" requires a negative result from the same test. As you might imagine, there's more demand for tests in the symptomatic than in the recovered.
If the testing kits / testing throughput were unlimited, were reported without several days lag, and everyone with symptoms was tested, we'd see more confirmed cases, and more recovered cases, as well a lot of people developing symptoms not severe enough to go to the hospitals for treatment. We'd perhaps also learn of some who got sick, stayed at home and died (and aren't currently counted). When this is all over in 6-12 months we'll get the retrospective statistics, which will infer a lot more cases and deaths that didn't match reporting criteria.
From here/now, it looks like a viral pneumonia with similar lethality to SARS (<10%, though higher in the elderly), but also somewhat more infectious than SARS.
― Darth Bambi (Sanpaku), Wednesday, 5 February 2020 06:21 (four years ago) link
As an aside, the Sinophobia that has predictably erupted to the surface in the West (and elsewhere) as a result of this ordeal is just as depressing.
― Baby yoda laid an egg (wins), Wednesday, 5 February 2020 09:13 (four years ago) link
First British national to contract the virus confirmed. Seems likely they attended the conference at the Grand Hyatt in Singapore that's linked to a bunch of the cases.
I'm in Jakarta at the moment and have my temperature taken every time i enter my hotel.
― ShariVari, Friday, 7 February 2020 01:00 (four years ago) link
XP to Outdoor Miner, we found out he's actually rented an AirBnb, so not very much better if he is contagious but at least no contact with anyone until the two weeks have elapsed.
― Maresn3st, Friday, 7 February 2020 12:36 (four years ago) link
This is mildly encouraging:
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/coronavirus-chinese-data-of-82-cases-are-mild-says-who
― ShariVari, Saturday, 8 February 2020 06:18 (four years ago) link
Seems they're turning Milton Keynes, or at least a bit of it, into the UK's main quarantine facility. Best thing for the place tbh.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/07/coronavirus-britons-evacuated-from-wuhan-to-be-quarantined-in-milton-keynes
― it's after the end of the world (Matt #2), Saturday, 8 February 2020 10:26 (four years ago) link
Foxconn, the electronics company that supplies Apple, has begun manufacturing its own surgical masks, allowing Chinese workers to churn out iPhones uninterrupted as the coronavirus crisis continues.*whistles cheerfully*
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Saturday, 8 February 2020 10:40 (four years ago) link
Five British nationals have been diagnosed with the coronavirus in France, after staying in the same ski chalet and coming into contact with a person who had been in Singapore, Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said on Saturday.The total number of people infected with the virus in France has now reached 11.Buzyn said the group of people newly infected with the virus were not in a serious condition.They had formed "a cluster, a grouping around one original case" after staying in the same chalet, in the Contamine Monjoie resort in Savoie in eastern France."That original case was brought to our attention last night, it is a British national who had returned from Singapore where he had stayed between January 20 and 23, and he arrived in France on January 24 for four days," Buzyn said.
The total number of people infected with the virus in France has now reached 11.
Buzyn said the group of people newly infected with the virus were not in a serious condition.
They had formed "a cluster, a grouping around one original case" after staying in the same chalet, in the Contamine Monjoie resort in Savoie in eastern France.
"That original case was brought to our attention last night, it is a British national who had returned from Singapore where he had stayed between January 20 and 23, and he arrived in France on January 24 for four days," Buzyn said.
thanks Britain
― juntos pedemos (Euler), Saturday, 8 February 2020 11:03 (four years ago) link
classic brits-abroad behaviour
― Homegrown Georgia speedster Ladd McConkey (bizarro gazzara), Saturday, 8 February 2020 11:11 (four years ago) link
if brexit stops this coronimperialism then I'm team boris
― juntos pedemos (Euler), Saturday, 8 February 2020 11:30 (four years ago) link
this guy calmly saying some mildly discouraging things
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALQTdCYGISw
― StanM, Saturday, 8 February 2020 18:17 (four years ago) link
Two bits that jumped out at me: 'we think that the epidemic is roughly doubling in size every five days' and 'we expect the infection levels to peak at the epicenter, Wuhan, in about a month's time'.
― A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 8 February 2020 18:52 (four years ago) link
When I sneeze up in the placeYou better wash yo selfWuhangot you all in checkI got that street fish steezmake you respect deathWuhangot you all in checkAnd you know we come throughto wreck the medical techWuhangot you all in checkThrow your hands up in the air You better disinfectWuhangot you all in check
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Saturday, 8 February 2020 19:07 (four years ago) link
is that from the Wu Han Clan?
― StanM, Saturday, 8 February 2020 20:24 (four years ago) link
We met up with a woman from Beijing yesterday, we are trying to do business with her. She said that she thought the Chinese government should seal off Hubei and let the disease run its course there. My wife is from Hubei and most of her family are still there, so this didn't go down well. The woman also said that she thought the people of Hubei must be genetically weak and this is the work of nature improving the species. She laughed at my wife for suggesting that if the current leadership cannot handle this they should be replaced, she said without the CCP there would be no new China. Look at the UK, she said, they used to have an empire, now they are weak, and we Chinese are strong. Look, they changed their leader and now they have a worse leader. My wife is sad to hear this, not really surprised, though. This woman is from the 1% in China, from our experience her views are not exactly unusual.
Not sure why I'm writing this here, except that I feel like writing it somewhere.
― Wuhan!! Got You All in Check (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Sunday, 9 February 2020 11:12 (four years ago) link
Christ :(
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 9 February 2020 11:13 (four years ago) link
Ime it's not just the 1%ers who buy into that rot. Let it not be said that Chinese state propaganda is ineffective.
― toilet-cleaning brain surgeon (pomenitul), Sunday, 9 February 2020 11:14 (four years ago) link
it's not just the 1%, it's true
― Wuhan!! Got You All in Check (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Sunday, 9 February 2020 11:20 (four years ago) link
On a somewhat related note, one of my friends, a Canadian of Chinese descent, just got back from Hong Kong and is reportedly sharing articles over Facebook about how the seasonal flu's mortality rate is supposedly higher in the US than the 2019-nCoV's in China. According to him, disregard for this 'alternative' narrative is yet another instance of Western imperialism.
― toilet-cleaning brain surgeon (pomenitul), Sunday, 9 February 2020 11:21 (four years ago) link
He's also a Jordan Peterson stan and claims to have fully adopted his all-beef diet…
― toilet-cleaning brain surgeon (pomenitul), Sunday, 9 February 2020 11:23 (four years ago) link
of course the real natural selection is for people who decide to live on beef and bleach to own the libs
― Wuhan!! Got You All in Check (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Sunday, 9 February 2020 11:25 (four years ago) link
Just heard that more people have now died of this than died of SARS, fwiw.
I was talking to a friend yesterday whose company's HK offices are now all closed. There was also a sad piece on the radio featuring Chinese families resistant to quarantine centers, because while they feel their family members would be nominally cared for (that is, fed), they recognized that sending loved ones to a quarantine center was tantamount to sending them off to die.
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 9 February 2020 13:50 (four years ago) link
a friend in LA tells me that at some chinese restaurants there they are taking everyone's temperature when they enter the restaurant and making them wear masks. that's quite overboard. people in downtown SF are wearing masks as well....but they are probably 80% asian. i don't think they're helping with the sinophobia; on the other hand maybe they don't care about that, they just want to make sure they don't get sick.
― akm, Sunday, 9 February 2020 16:45 (four years ago) link
Speculation on what's going on in North Korea other than five dead already
https://www.dailynk.com/english/sources-five-north-koreans-died-coronavirus-infections/https://www.thedailybeast.com/north-koreas-secret-coronavirus-crisis-is-crazy-scary/
― Elvis Telecom, Monday, 10 February 2020 09:03 (four years ago) link
Crazy that that biggest outbreak anywhere outside of China is a cruise ship with 3600 as-yet-uninfected people still aboard. 136 cases confirmed on the Diamond Princess so far. Sounds like a nightmare scenario - especially given the advanced danger with the cruise-ship age demographic.
I'm going to Singapore tomorrow.
― ShariVari, Monday, 10 February 2020 10:59 (four years ago) link
3600 as-yet-uninfected is actually quite reassuring (I mean excluding the obvious possibility of them becoming infected).
― Matt DC, Monday, 10 February 2020 11:32 (four years ago) link
On the Diamond Princess, the passengers/crew were originally told that with every new case, their 14-day quarantine would be reset. The ventilation system between cabins is connected, and people without any close contact with known cases were infected. It was like some preface to a J.G. Ballard novel social breakdown.
The current plan is they'll keep the original quarantine end date of Feb 19 for the whole ship, except for resets “only for close contacts of newly confirmed cases.”
There's still probably a interesting low-budget screenplay in the story...
― Hval's electric toothbrush (Sanpaku), Monday, 10 February 2020 12:24 (four years ago) link