Covid 19 virus

[not1xor1]

The long story short is that people need to calm the fuck down, stop endlessly rewatching and rehashing the same shit and take some sensible precautions. Maybe turn off the tv for a bit and do some sowing.

no the story is that people are putting their head under the sand and go on carelessly as ever

the longer you behave that way the longer the problem lasts
it is not a matter of being angry but of being rational
if all people would be able to refrain from careless and stupid behaviour the virus would get extinct within a month

unfortunately most people are just careless assholes and they do not care if they will make other people die, having their usual glass of beer at the pub is most important than somebody else's life

BTW go on like that and within a month death figures in your country will easily get above those of the flue

[james_s]

[...]
I would like people to do that with the common flu as well, which Covid is still not even close to catching up to in terms of deaths as of now. It may indeed become far worse but that doesn't change the fact that the flu has already killed 12,000 in the USA and yet we have idiots who refuse to get the cheap and readily available vaccination for that.

you are just at the beginning
flue doesn't kill people by the thousands a day as COVID-19 might soon do here and/or would have surely done without any containment measure

flue doesn't kill healthy and 40-50 years old medical staff
you have no idea what you are going to deal with

Yes it does. I mentioned already that I knew somebody who died of the flu when they were 8 or 9, a friend of my brother. Jim Henson was a healthy 53 year old when the flu killed him. These are just two examples out of many, many thousands. You are drastically underestimating the impact of the flu while being overly alarmist about Covid. And since I know you are going to take this as me saying Covid is no worse than the flu, that isn't what I'm saying, but it's also not as drastically worse than the flu as you seem to think it is. You are caught up in the panic and thinking emotionally rather than rationally. Most people are going to recover just fine, at least from the virus.

[Stray Electron]

Instead of confining EVERYONE, we could just confine people that are either NOT tested yet or tested positive. People tested negative with a valid proof could be waived of confinement. Pretty simple.

Or better yet, test people like cashiers and postmen and delivery people, so that those who need to interact with others would not be spreading the virus.

Nah, in America, we are concentrating on testing members of sports teams...   

   And the politicians, and the movie stars! 

    You can tell where America's priorities lay.

[coppice]

Nah, in America, we are concentrating on testing members of sports teams...   

   And the politicians, and the movie stars! 

    You can tell where America's priorities lay.

Considering the number of European politicians who have tested positive, they might just be testing the right demographic.

[james_s]

The long story short is that people need to calm the fuck down, stop endlessly rewatching and rehashing the same shit and take some sensible precautions. Maybe turn off the tv for a bit and do some sowing.

no the story is that people are putting their head under the sand and go on carelessly as ever

the longer you behave that way the longer the problem lasts
it is not a matter of being angry but of being rational
if all people would be able to refrain from careless and stupid behaviour the virus would get extinct within a month

unfortunately most people are just careless assholes and they do not care if they will make other people die, having their usual glass of beer at the pub is most important than somebody else's life

BTW go on like that and within a month death figures in your country will easily get above those of the flue

People being alarmist and overreacting is precisely what causes others to blow them off as being caught up in panic and behaving carelessly. We have to be rational, stay calm and take reasonable precautions. Fear and panic causes irrational behavior that makes things worse. If everyone were calm and level headed we could take action and not have this polarization between absolute panic and total disregard. The sensible middle ground is drowned out.

[Stray Electron]

That reinforces a statement I made the other day....  If the economy keeps crashing like this, we (literally) will start to see a regression back to a barter-related economy...  (in Russia, my ex-wife tells me that already is common in the more rural areas, long before this zombie apocalypse even started)

That makes no sense to me.  You see barter when the central banks aren't trusted, or when there's high inflation.  There's no sign of either of those happening.

Around here people don't even want to make cash transactions, let alone bartering.  Too much personal contact.

   Exactly. I'm doing as much as I can through PayPal so that don't even have to show them a credit card.  Running and drawing all of their cash out of their banks is a typical ill-prepared non-prepper reaction to any emergency.  This time though, cash might be seen as a threat and not as a form of payment.

[engrguy42]

Fyi, the population of the US is approximately 330 million.

As of today, the CDC reports there have been a total of 150 deaths in the US so far from COVID-19.

And of those who contract it, the death rate is around 2 to 4%.

CDC also estimates that in the last 5 months there have been 22,000 - 55,000 deaths from the ordinary flu.

Going overboard with rational precautions is a good thing, but irrational fear is never a good thing. 

[iMo]

Nah, in America, we are concentrating on testing members of sports teams...   

   And the politicians, and the movie stars! 

    You can tell where America's priorities lay.

Considering the number of European politicians who have tested positive, they might just be testing the right demographic.

EU chief Brexit negotiator tested positive. Now, try to track down with whom he was in contact

[not1xor1]

Another Lesson Learned from this situation is the US and EU should return production of some materials, chemicals, equipment and other important goods back to US and EU.

this will be a hard and necessary lesson for those enough smart to learn
this time it is COVID-19, next time might be another virus, or a meteorite crash, a nasty earthquake, a serious Carrington event and so on

having all the eggs in a basket (i.e. all the production in a country) is bad for the whole world, for China too

[Simon]

The UK curve, an almost perfect exponential curve of inaction!

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/f94c3c90da5b4e9f9a0b19484dd4bb14

They can't even be botherd to update that until 6pm but it always says 9am, that's public health england, hopeless morons.

[Stray Electron]

Fyi, the population of the US is approximately 330 million.

As of today, the CDC reports there have been a total of 150 deaths in the US so far from COVID-19.

And of those who contract it, the death rate is around 2 to 4%.

CDC also estimates that in the last 5 months there have been 22,000 - 55,000 deaths from the ordinary flu.

Going overboard with rational precautions is a good thing, but irrational fear is never a good thing.

   Come back in six months and then you can tell if the fear was irrational or not.  I'm pretty certain that you have never been through an empidemic and have no idea what it's like. I've been through one it's not something that should ever be treated lightly.

[Zero999]

Nah, in America, we are concentrating on testing members of sports teams...   

   And the politicians, and the movie stars! 

    You can tell where America's priorities lay.

Considering the number of European politicians who have tested positive, they might just be testing the right demographic.

EU chief Brexit negotiator tested positive. Now, try to track down with whom he was in contact

It's hardly surprising those who travel most will disproportionally be infected. The next thing will be someone famous dying from it.

[mzzj]

Fyi, the population of the US is approximately 330 million.

As of today, the CDC reports there have been a total of 150 deaths in the US so far from COVID-19.

And of those who contract it, the death rate is around 2 to 4%.

CDC also estimates that in the last 5 months there have been 22,000 - 55,000 deaths from the ordinary flu.

Going overboard with rational precautions is a good thing, but irrational fear is never a good thing.

If you managed to stop ALL further infections in the US you would have peak number of cases about 2 weeks from now on. Peak number of deaths would probably occur 3-4weeks from now on.
You have about 10000 cases total today, in two weeks you are going at somewhere 500000 total cases assuming that the curfews placed so far work as hoped for. 50000 dead even if virus transmission stops today.

How long it took for Italy to go from 150 deaths total to 500 deaths per day?

Panic is yet to come, wait for may.   

[not1xor1]

I read yesterday that there is a problem now with people pulling their money out of banks but I don't know how widespread it is. Don't underestimate the levels of irrational behavior that can be caused by panic, it spreads like a virus itself and leads to all kinds of crazy things and self-fulfilling prophecies. It's a basic human trait, I mean people get killed in stampedes to get cheap discounted junk in stores on black friday sales. Nobody is going to say it's rational to stampede and kill someone over a waffle maker but it happens.

This is one of those rumours we should be careful with. Relaying it can spread irrational fears quickly. It also a stupid thing to do as no one will touch your cash money. I happened to have a larger amount than usual in my wallet and I can't spend it!

AFAIK that is mainly an US problem

here in Italy we'll soon get above China figures regarding total cases and deaths, but nobody is panicking, neither did in Asia
yes, lots of people are worried, sad for the loss of friends or relative, but there is no real panic

most people are still working, there is no lack of food, no empty shelves, nobody ever thought about buying weapons
here the only problem are some stupid people that do not abide by the quarantine rules

I think that you have a much more serious problem than COVID-19 virus there in the US

[nctnico]

Fyi, the population of the US is approximately 330 million.

As of today, the CDC reports there have been a total of 150 deaths in the US so far from COVID-19.

And of those who contract it, the death rate is around 2 to 4%.

CDC also estimates that in the last 5 months there have been 22,000 - 55,000 deaths from the ordinary flu.

Going overboard with rational precautions is a good thing, but irrational fear is never a good thing.

You really are comparing apples to oranges. The flu season is about over but the Corona virus season has just begun! You can safely assume 70% of the people in the US gets infected at some point. Even at a 2% death rate this means over 4 million people will die in the US alone. More if lots of people get sick at the same time and saturate health care.

The only way to avoid this is to buy time through strict quarantine until there is a vaccine that works.

[Simon]

In the Uk the peer to peer lender i use has has to pause withdrawals and update their site to incorporate a queing system. for cash withdrawal.

[iMo]

Based on the Diamond Princess cruise ship case (19% infected while people lived in rather suboptimal epidemiological conditions) let us be a little bit optimistic and estimate 8-15% of population infected in EU states (depends on the actual countermeasures applied by a particular country as well as the commitment of their citizens).
 

[not1xor1]

patient one in Codogno, Northern Italy, was 38 healthy and fit (he was a runner and an amateur football player)
he had to stay in ICU for a couple of weeks

many other stories like that here (yesterday a 29 years old athlete) with more than 40 thousand positive cases
lots of not so old medical staff are dying too
please stop spreading misinformation as that will encourage people to spread the disease too

for instance refer to this https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-covid-typically-mild-kids.html:

Researchers analyzed the cases of 731 children in China with laboratory test-confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 1,412 children who were suspected of having COVID-19.

Most of those 2,143 cases were mild, and only one child died. Close to 6% of the children's cases were severe or critical, compared with 18.5% of cases in adults.

You're severely misrepresenting my statements. I responded to a statement that a large proportion of young people need serious treatment. They don't, with some exceptions also discussed. People older than 60-70 years old represent the overwhelming majority of serious case requiring treatment. This in no way encourages behaviour which spreads the virus. One must be an unprecedented idiot to think you don't need to take precautions if you are unlikely to get seriously ill. This simply doesn't follow from the facts we established. Carelessness kills people even if it's not you. We all play a role in preventing spread.

NO - you wrote:

    It's good to remember that this 1% or whatever it turns out to be are almost exclusively people who would have died from the regular flu or any other sickness. They may very well have died this year unprovoked.

and I replied:

even lots of young and fit people would die without intensive care and expensive machinery to help them breath (and some is diying notwithstanding that)

there is no reference to a proportion, no percentage
healthy and fit people are dying now
without ICU would die even more
THIS IS NOT FLUE

it is completely false that they are

almost exclusively people who would have died from the regular flu or any other sickness

I showed that even some kids did need ICU in China
I never said a huge proportion of kids
it is you who used the term "almost exclusively"

[engrguy42]

Fyi, the population of the US is approximately 330 million.

As of today, the CDC reports there have been a total of 150 deaths in the US so far from COVID-19.

And of those who contract it, the death rate is around 2 to 4%.

CDC also estimates that in the last 5 months there have been 22,000 - 55,000 deaths from the ordinary flu.

Going overboard with rational precautions is a good thing, but irrational fear is never a good thing.

You really are comparing apples to oranges. The flu season is about over but the Corona virus season has just begun! You can safely assume 70% of the people in the US gets infected at some point. Even at a 2% death rate this means over 4 million people will die in the US alone. More if lots of people get sick at the same time and saturate health care.

The only way to avoid this is to buy time through strict quarantine until there is a vaccine that works.

I'm not sure where you get your numbers from (eg, 70% of people in the US will get infected), and of course you may be right. Of course nobody knows the future on this, and as an engineer I'm sure you're fully aware how difficult/impossible it is to predict the future of just about ANYTHING, so I suppose anything is possible. Anybody can predict anything about this and nobody can challenge it since there's no real data to support it. 

But in the US it seems like this week the entire country is shutting down. Most stores are closed, schools are closed at least until April, universities are only online, and it seems like everyone is doing what I referred to as "going overboard with rational precautions". It's a very good thing to be overly precautious at this point, IMO, and it makes the most sense IMO to assume it will have a big impact. Like it has in China apparently.

You might want to check the WHO daily updates and look at the actual numbers. Of course, take any numbers with a grain of salt since it's still very early, but my point was that if you take rational precautions now it's far better than choosing the fear approach, because fear causes folks to do stupid stuff like stock up on toilet paper.

IMO, if you look at the numbers, like an engineer, it helps to erase the fear and focus on the facts and taking intelligent precautions, realizing that time is of the essence since this stuff can spread exponentially, and fear just clouds your judgement.

[nctnico]

I am looking at the numbers as an engineer. Just look at the WHO documents provided earlier in this thread. From those it is clear that a lockdown will only slow the Corona virus down. As soon as the lockdown is relaxed the spread will continue. A vaccine combined with herd immunity are the only effective weapons we can use. For herd immunity a minimum infection of 60% is needed.

[thinkfat]

I'd say the main benefit of broad testing is you get big numbers early. That scares the shit out of the all the idiots and helps confining the spread.

On the merit of testing people that are asymptomatic and didn't have contact to someone known contagious: I don't think it makes much sense. There are not enough test kits and if you test negative, you'll catch the bug later and use up another test kit. It's better if everyone behaved as if they were already infected.

[engrguy42]

I am looking at the numbers as an engineer. Just look at the WHO documents provided earlier in this thread. From those it is clear that a lockdown will only slow the Corona virus down. As soon as the lockdown is relaxed the spread will continue. A vaccine combined with herd immunity are the only effective weapons we can use.

Why didn't that lockdown relaxation phenomena you describe happen with SARS? And MERS?

[edavid]

It's better if everyone behaved as if they were already infected.

That only works for people who live alone.  Within families you would really like to know what the deal is.  We need those instant home test kits people are working on.

[not1xor1]

It was even defended for a while that generalized testing was useless. Guess what - we just didn't have enough test kits anyway and no capacity in the short term to have more, so the rationale was convenient. Sad stuff.

generalized testing is useless
the first thing SK authorities did was contact tracking and focused testing

BTW test kits are themselves abundant (Italy recently produced and shipped half million of that to the US)

the problem is the logistic of testing itself, you need lots of people to take the tests and to analyze them
besides that they are not 100% reliable... there are always some false positives or negatives and people who are negative today may be infected tomorrow

[engrguy42]

FWIW, here's an interesting video posted the other day analyzing the WHO statistics for the present status of the global COVID-19 situation. There's also a part 2 looking at the US in particular.