Jump to content

Coronavirus (COVID-19)


Ser Scot A Ellison

Recommended Posts

WHO says Covid-19 peaked by Feb. 5 in China and cases have started to drop. And deaths are somewhere between 1 and 4% there.

eta: I see the Italian cases are in and around Milan, and it was Fashion Week, a huge event. They shut it down early, on Sunday. The Paris Fashion Week is next week and the Chinese have already cancelled. They may cancel live shows and live stream instead.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Pebble thats Stubby said:

Real Flu is nasty.  normally takes about 2 weeks and for most of that you are in bed feeling rather pathetic,  mussels aching, feeling cold, shivering while running a fever.  often with often with a cough headache, sometimes with stuffed/runny nose sometimes puking.   With the Flu you can't really function, most colds people can function for most if not all the illness.

 

Off topic but I have seen this mistake several times lately (not just from the above poster).

The body parts are muscles. Mussels are edible shellfish. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

Off topic but I have seen this mistake several times lately (not just from the above poster).

The body parts are muscles. Mussels are edible shellfish. :)

The above poster is dyslexic.  Spell check is not helpful when real words are used. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Love mussels, and I hate the Flu. Got the Flu last winter and it cost me 3weeks off work. The 3 days at its peak were a misery. I would take next season's Flu vaccine in a heartbeat once its made available. 

Beginning to doubt if the Olympic Games in Tokyo this July/August will go ahead without some restrictions.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Sure, but my point is going whether should we allow the panic to spread.

Nobody recommends panic.  But what anti-panic measures are you suggesting?

My recommendation is to stay calm, do what you can to help the sick (and others generally), and comply with official instructions.  An epidemic is not the best time to be a rebel.  We're all going to die some day, but it still matters how we treat each other while we are alive.

Quote

Let's say if a colleague got the virus, what should I expect (a young healthy male) as the most probable outcome. 

He'll probably survive with mild symptoms.  We don't know everything, but that's a pretty good bet based on what we know.

Quote

I'm just coming out from a very bad flu. Is this going to be worse?

The risk of severe complications seems to be much higher than with the flu.  But I have no idea what it feels like, for those who don't develop severe complications, or for those who do.

Quote

This touches another point. I guess with the outbreaks in S. Korea, Iran and Italy we can kiss goodbye to containment. This thing is going to spread no matter what.

I tend to agree.  But governments should still do their best to slow it down.  That gives nations and their health care services more time to shift into preparedness.  If the disease spreads too rapidly, and hospital services are overwhelmed, then the death rates will rise as well.  Although most develop mild symptoms, a very significant minority will need hospital services to survive.

Quote

The question, what will the response of governments to this. Currently, I'm more worried about getting myself in a prolonged lock-down situation than from getting the virus.

Can't hurt to stock up on supplies.  It not only helps you, but it helps other people.  When there is a run on the stores, later, you won't need to be part of that problem  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/22/2020 at 12:42 AM, The Anti-Targ said:

China is somewhat able to control spread because the people are used to having restricted freedom. I wonder how things will go down when the disease starts spreading in freedom-loving countries. Most people will be sensible and isolate themselves, but will everyone?

I don't have any faith in the efficacy of heavily autocratic systems in dealing with fast-moving epidemics.  It seems to me that their main advantage is that, through censorship and tight control of information, they can make it very difficult for you to prove exactly how badly they have messed things up. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

Nobody recommends panic.  But what anti-panic measures are you suggesting?

Clear and up-to-the-date information of the symptoms, mortality, susceptibility, prevention measures, possible treatments,  course of action for people, etc.  Governments should be predictable regarding the possible measures to be applied under particular circumstances (e.g. in case of pandemic/epidemic). People around me are getting anxious regarding travel plans and even foodstores.

 

15 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

My recommendation is to stay calm, do what you can to help the sick (and others generally), and comply with official instructions.  An epidemic is not the best time to be a rebel. 

Thing is that media is not helping. Government should tell them to calm down and do not spread panic. Government are not looking too transparent either regarding possible measures (I live in Europe btw).

15 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

The risk of severe complications seems to be much higher than with the flu.  But I have no idea what it feels like, for those who don't develop severe complications, or for those who do.

Exactly my point. Before shits hit the fan, there should be clear information so people stay calm.

15 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

I tend to agree.  But governments should still do their best to slow it down.  That gives nations and their health care services more time to shift into preparedness.  If the disease spreads too rapidly, and hospital services are overwhelmed, then the death rates will rise as well.  Although most develop mild symptoms, a very significant minority will need hospital services to survive.

Can't hurt to stock up on supplies.  It not only helps you, but it helps other people.  When there is a run on the stores, later, you won't need to be part of that problem  

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/24/2020 at 11:37 AM, Pebble thats Stubby said:

You said you've just recovered from a very bad flu.  

Real Flu is nasty.  normally takes about 2 weeks and for most of that you are in bed feeling rather pathetic,  mussels aching, feeling cold, shivering while running a fever.  often with often with a cough headache, sometimes with stuffed/runny nose sometimes puking.   With the Flu you can't really function, most colds people can function for most if not all the illness.

Interestingly, last Friday after a day of vomiting and diarrhea I started to feel much better. Like cleansed up. Fever went away and now I only had a cough for first time in 20 years, I think.

 

On 2/24/2020 at 11:37 AM, Pebble thats Stubby said:

Flu is so much worse than a cold.

A Bad Flu you will normally be end up in hospital.  if you did not end up in hospital or nearly ended up there, I don't think you had a really bad flu. (not the way I define it)

Well, I think I never felt so bad in my life. Maybe as a small kid. Like beaten up. I couldn't even sleep.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good article in The Atlantic (limited clicks) on coronavirus and how China/Xi may indeed have mismanaged and been blindsided by the outbreak.

Quote

Xi would be far from the first authoritarian to have been blindsided. Ironically, for all the talk of the technological side of Chinese authoritarianism, China’s use of technology to ratchet up surveillance and censorship may have made things worse, by making it less likely that Xi would even know what was going on in his own country...

On December 30, a group of doctors attempted to alert the public, saying that seven patients were in isolation due to a SARS-like disease. On the same day, an official document admitting both a link to the seafood market and a new disease was leaked online. On December 31, facing swirling rumors, the Wuhan government made its first official announcement, confirming 27 cases but, crucially, denying human-to-human transmission. Teams in hazmat suits were finally sent to close down the seafood market, though without explaining much to the befuddled, scared vendors. On January 1, police said they had punished eight medical workers for “rumors,” including a doctor named Li Wenliang, who was among the initial group of whistleblowers...

Things went on in this suspended state for another 10 days, while the virus kept spreading. Incredibly, on January 19, just one day after the death of yet another doctor who had become infected, officials from across the populous Hubei province held a 40,000-family outdoor banquet in Wuhan, its capital, as part of the official celebrations for China’s Lunar New Year.

The dam broke on January 20—just three days before Wuhan would initiate a draconian lockdown that blocked millions of people from leaving. On that day, the respected SARS scientist Zhong Nanshan went on national television, confirming the new virus and human-to-human transmission. That same day, Xi Jinping gave his first public speech about the coronavirus, after he returned from an overseas trip to Myanmar...

It’s hard to imagine that a leader of Xi’s experience would be so lax as to let the disease spread freely for almost two months, only to turn around and shut the whole country down practically overnight.

In many ways, his hand was forced by his own system. Under the conditions of massive surveillance and censorship that have grown under Xi, the central government likely had little to no signals besides official reports to detect, such as online public conversations about the mystery pneumonia.

The whole article is good (it was hard for me to cut it down here), but basically because Authoritarian govts know so much about their citizens, they are very slow to react to things they don't know.  To control an outbreak, the govt must quickly recognize something is going wrong when just a few health workers speak out.  But in China, punishing whistleblowers is standard practice, and the local govt in Wuhan did just that.  But ignoring and suppressing information on an epidemic only makes it worse, thus the flipflop between "everything is fine" on Jan 19 and "Wuhan is shut down" on Jan 20. 

There is little doubt that more open access to information would have allowed the truth of the severity of the outbreak to get out weeks earlier.  And if that had happened, China might have been able to control the epidemic, as they were able to with SARS.  But now, with the outbreak in Iran particularly, it is almost assuredly too late. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, A wilding said:

WTF?

Iran's Deputy Health Minister gave a press conference yesterday denying a cover up of the extent of the outbreak in Iran. Apparently he was displaying "visible discomfort" and mopping his brow.

Today he has been diagnosed to have Covid-19.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51628484

And the US is now saying it's not a matter of if cases start spreading here but when.  But that certainly makes sense to me given everything I've heard.  We're about a year from a vaccine, but in the meantime there will be a spread and the question is whether it becomes endemic and mutating (like the flu) or more permanently vaccinated against (e.g., like chicken pox or measles).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, A wilding said:

WTF?

Iran's Deputy Health Minister gave a press conference yesterday denying a cover up of the extent of the outbreak in Iran. Apparently he was displaying "visible discomfort" and mopping his brow.

Today he has been diagnosed to have Covid-19.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51628484

Random tourists, returning home from Iran, are coming turning out to have the virus when tested.  Obviously it has become very widespread, and the diagnosed cases are just the tip of an iceberg.  The irony of this news conference is yet another indication of that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

BUT! no problems here, no matter that what is left of the CDC (trump fired most of the agency two years ago and never replaced them) says the opposeite of what the trumpistas told us today, that the virus is totally contained and there will be no more cases in the USA. Still We Must Take Billions from federal programs such as those that help low income households with winter heating bills to fight the virus!  We are SO frackin' GRrrrrrrr8!  (And we get ALL THE MONEY, especially your money.)

OTOH -- those people hanging on trump's long tie belong to the most vulnerable to fatality of the virus infection.  But on the tail (no third hand), they have the best health care too (that we all pay for).  

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

32 minutes ago, Zorral said:

BUT! no problems here, no matter that what is left of the CDC (trump fired most of the agency two years ago and never replaced them) says the opposeite of what the trumpistas told us today, that the virus is totally contained and there will be no more cases in the USA. Still We Must Take Billions from federal programs such as those that help low income households with winter heating bills to fight the virus!  We are SO frackin' GRrrrrrrr8!  (And we get ALL THE MONEY, especially your money.)

OTOH -- those people hanging on trump's long tie belong to the most vulnerable to fatality of the virus infection.  But on the tail (no third hand), they have the best health care too (that we all pay for).  

I know I'm asking to be attacked by a hate-filled lynch mob simply by saying this, but I wish people would give the knee-jerk trump hate a rest.  I can't see anything in the above paragraph that remotely approaches a coherent criticism of current administration policy with respect to the coronavirus situation.

Maybe if you reworded it to say exactly what you think he should be doing that he has not done, or exactly what he has done that he should not be doing, with respect to the virus.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Telling people there is no threat when there is one, hiding the facts, pretending all is well, keeping info from the populace and the world - isn't that what you are howling about in terms of China all the time here?  

Go. Away.  You have shown yourself 4 sure 4 ever 4 what you r.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Telling people there is no threat when there is one -- isn't that what you are howling about in terms of China all the time here?  

Certainly there is a threat.   Lots of people have been underselling the threat, IMHO.  President Xi, the WHO, the mainstream media, people on this forum.  Maybe trump too for all I know, but I don't recall him saying anything particularly rage-worthy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, Maithanet said:

Good article in The Atlantic (limited clicks) on coronavirus and how China/Xi may indeed have mismanaged and been blindsided by the outbreak.

I think the whole article is completely out of mark and just trying to get some political points just because politics. A more sober article by the some The Atlantic puts the things more clearly

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/covid-vaccine/607000/

Quote

With its potent mix of characteristics, this virus is unlike most that capture popular attention: It is deadly, but not too deadly. It makes people sick, but not in predictable, uniquely identifiable ways. Last week, 14 Americans tested positive on a cruise ship in Japan despite feeling fine—the new virus may be most dangerous because, it seems, it may sometimes cause no symptoms at all.

 

Quote

The world has responded with unprecedented speed and mobilization of resources. The new virus was identified extremely quickly. Its genome was sequenced by Chinese scientists and shared around the world within weeks. The global scientific community has shared genomic and clinical data at unprecedented rates. Work on a vaccine is well under way. The Chinese government enacted dramatic containment measures, and the World Health Organization declared an emergency of international concern. All of this happened in a fraction of the time it took to even identify H5N1 in 1997. And yet the outbreak continues to spread.

 

Quote

“I think the likely outcome is that it will ultimately not be containable.”

Quote

Starting in January, China began cordoning off progressively larger areas, radiating outward from the city of Wuhan and eventually encapsulating some 100 million people. People were barred from leaving home, and lectured by drones if they were caught outside. Nonetheless, the virus has now been found in 24 countries.

Quote

Lipsitch predicts that within the coming year, some 40 to 70 percent of people around the world will be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. But, he clarifies emphatically, this does not mean that all will have severe illnesses. “It’s likely that many will have mild disease, or may be asymptomatic,” he said.

etc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

Random tourists, returning home from Iran, are coming turning out to have the virus when tested.  Obviously it has become very widespread, and the diagnosed cases are just the tip of an iceberg.  The irony of this news conference is yet another indication of that.

Yes, I think that was pretty much the point that I was trying to make.

I cant help but compare him to Saddam Hussein's Gulf War Press Officer Comical Ali .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...