4 ms·

So humble numbers of people infected outside China, why is the whole world panicking?

by qwerty456127 7y ago

dontreact 7y ago
Growth still looks exponential and attempts at containment seem to have failed.
- qwerty456127 7y ago
  Then why so small number of people get infected outside of China? I can hardly believe no case of infection could get unnoticed and not isolated successfully so far.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Then why so small number of people get infected outside of China? Because we won't no how many people are infected today for a couple of weeks, it has an up to 14 day incubation period (and appears to be contagious during the incubation period.) Also the numbers are growing rapidly, especially in places with lots of contact with China. > I can hardly believe no case of infection could get unnoticed and not isolated successfully so far. A lot of negatives there but, yes, cases in the incubation period are likely to go unnoticed, since no symptoms exist.
    - qwerty456127 7y ago
      Then it intuitively seems there already are many people infected all over the world and we can't really prevent the infection from spreading, the measures being taken are futile. Brace yourself, buy grocery supplies and prepare your immune systems - start sleeping enough, eating healthy etc now.
      - solotronics 7y ago
        Not even joking I quit drinking and started eating healthier as I followed this. I have been watching and reading since it was a few hundred confirmed cases and I think it will become a very large outbreak.
        NtroP 7y ago
        Quit drinking?! Alcohol kills viruses! Didn't you pay attention to the Andromeda Strain documentary? I plan on staying home and drinking heavily.
        qwerty456127 7y ago
        > Alcohol kills viruses! Does it? I'm actually curious if alcohol-based hand sanitizers should be used as an element in 2019-nCoV infection prevention.
        qwerty456127 7y ago
        Having enough sleep is the most important thing AFAIK. You should also make sure you get enough vitamins and other micronutrients - vitamin supplements are popularly overrated as a cure but this doesn't mean they're useless: they don't really cure but their deficit (and you can hardly expect you are not deficient in any) certainly weakens the immune system. Another interesting thing I have recently found out about is l.reutrti (BioGaia Gastrus) yogurt - it boosts respiratory immunity by increasing histamine.
    - Accujack 7y ago
      It's not really a couple of weeks at this point... it's just after the 6th or so. That's the end of incubation period for people who would have been infected before the Chinese govt. quarantined Wuhan. New infected after that point will be from person to person contact with infected travelers prior to the quarantine. That's when we'll find out how many people caught the virus that we don't know about, and therefore how many have been spreading it without knowing.
  - brutt 7y ago
    In my city (Lviv, Ukraine), number of viral pneumonia cases is jumped by 4x since Jan 26, but we have no test kits to confirm kind of virus they caused by. They can be caused by regular influenza, as usual, or they can be caused by corona. Nobody knows yet. :-/
    - kenneth 7y ago
      That's very scary! Very unlikely to be a coincidence.
    - agapon 7y ago
      Any link / proof ?
      - 0x38B 7y ago
        I had a look at some news from L'viv: "Two people who returned from China were hospitalized in Lviv with signs of ARD (acute respiratory disease)" (1) "Last week, nearly 13,000 people became ill in the Lviv region with influenza and SARS" (2) Primarily among kids and young adults, in the article they say the weather is especially conducive to the spread of the flu right now; I wouldn't automatically link it to the virus in China... 1: https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://www.unian.ua/m/health/country/10854659-u-lvovi-z-oznakami-grz-gospitalizovano-dvoh-lyudey-yaki-povernulisya-z-kitayu.html&xid=17259,15700021,15700186,15700190,15700259,15700271,15700302&usg=ALkJrhiP0VMq_OHDJca_ZgkXavvktzhe4g https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&... 2: https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://zaxid.net/na_lvivshhini_na_grip_i_grvi_za_minuliy_tizhden_zahvorilo_mayzhe_13_tis_lyudey_n1497070/amp&xid=17259,15700021,15700186,15700190,15700259,15700271,15700302&usg=ALkJrhgBgKobNr3ZXPmJuQrY_sgnekrDnA https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&...
        netsharc 7y ago
        Hmm, is that article using a different definition of SARS, because 13000 with SARS should double the panic of this coronavirus...
  - riyadparvez 7y ago
    Probably because of the precautions taken. It's like the old tale of "Why do we need IT support dept. if your system never breaks down?". Precautions probably helped containing the virus, not the other way around that we don't need to take precautions.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  It's difficult to say whether attempts at containment are failing. For example, Wuhan has a population of 11 million. This leaves a lot of scope for the number of new cases to grow while still being contained geographically. Considering the incubation period, we need to wait until the end of the week or next week to see how things go. With the stringent measures they have taken there should be an inflection sooner or later.
  - computerfriend 7y ago
    Roughly 4 million people left Wuhan over the new year. The stringent measures they are now taking are too little too late. See for example the very slow rate at which border crossing points in Hong Kong are being closed.
me_me_me 7y ago
There were 6 cases in China 2 months ago now its closing to 20k. Maybe that's why. SARS killed approx 800 in span of 1.5 year. There are over 300 confirmed deaths from Corona roughly after 2 months. The numbers are growing quickly and I for one am starting to feel a bit uncomfortable about this. Edit: Its 360 deaths, that pretty much half od SARS now :/
- computerfriend 7y ago
  Note that these are only the confirmed deaths, which is a lower bound. We know that the true number is much larger.
  - seattle_spring 7y ago
    Probably true of SARS as well though, right?
  - eightysixfour 7y ago
    Yes, but it is the same for total number infected. Outside estimates are that there are more than 100k infected. That would put the mortality rate ~= the flu.
    - wraithm112 7y ago
      You need to account for the delay to death in your model here. People don't die the second they're infected. Most of the people in that estimated infected number were infected in the last week. They couldn't possibly have died of the disease. I believe most epidemiological models have a infection to death delay factor to estimate death rate. Your mortality rate with ~300/100k~=flu is too low.
    - me_me_me 7y ago
      deaths due to flu are overestimated in western world as those are mainly due to flu striking after patient is going through some other illness and flu was the final blow. Pure flu deaths are very low.
    - 7y ago
platz 7y ago
China will likely not be able to contain the virus at this stage. it also could mutate and change it's behavior.
- gwd 7y ago
  > it also could mutate and change it's behavior. With flu / colds, my understanding is that it's typically milder mutations which end up thriving, as the milder the symptoms, the more likely people are to try to carry on with their normal lives rather than isolating themselves (and thus infect more people).
  - ses1984 7y ago
    But entire populations don't mutate at once. If a virulent strain is active in thousands of people, it's going to be quite a while before the full impact of that epidemic is felt.
    - gwd 7y ago
      Oh, sure; I only meant to say, that normally the "evolutionary pressure" is for mutations to be less dangerous, rather than more dangerous. If anything, we should be hoping for those sorts of mutations.
  - xbmcuser 7y ago
    This virus is not effecting everyone with the same intensity. A 10 year child didn't get sick but his Grand parents and parents did. His parents got him tested for Wuhan Virus anyway as they were scared about it and he tested positive for it. We will really find out how far this virus has spread by end of Feb.
- ShorsHammer 7y ago
  > could mutate and change it's behavior(sic) We could also get hit by an asteroid tomorrow and most life on Earth wiped out, guess that isn't newsworthy though. Hope people are worried about that danger, despite all the effort put in we routinely can't detect dangerous objects that come near Earth. Scary stuff. How many people have died outside China from this virus again? Is it zero? Last I looked it was zero human beings have died outside of China, perhaps I'm wrong.
dragonwriter 7y ago
Because it's not at all under control, the numbers are rapidly growing, and if they do get big there won't be much you can do at that point.
lucian1900 7y ago
It's racism. In the West, Sinophobia is an acceptable form of it.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  If we were letting racism against the Chinese dominate our response, we’d be dismissing the outbreak while numbers outside China were small.
  - lucian1900 7y ago
    The outbreak is being handled very well through the Chinese planned economy. Despite this, Western media is intensifying the panic. As a result of it, Chinese people are being discriminated against worldwide.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > The outbreak is being handled very well through the Chinese planned economy. It may (or may not) be being handled as well as any government could, but its not being effectively contained, it has spread around the world, and it is continuing to spread. > Despite this, Western media is intensifying the panic. Western media is accurately reporting the facts, and the policy responses. Intense concern is appropriate. > As a result of it, Chinese people are being discriminated against worldwide. How? Some places have adopted or are preparing precautions directed at travelers entering from China (which is a different, though overlapping, set from "Chinese people"), but that's a reasonable step given that it is neither contained nor, in the very short term, containable by China, by the facts that the Chinese state has acknowledged (transmissibility during incubation period, number of people who traveled out of the effective area before any containment was in place, etc.)
      - vonquant 7y ago
        >How? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51348593 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51348593
slumdev 7y ago
Removed - I misread the table.
- sct202 7y ago
  They aren't dead, just infected.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - slumdev 7y ago
    I completely misread that table. Whoops.
thesausageking 7y ago
Uncertainty and exponential growth. China went from <300 confirmed cases to 17k in two weeks. The actual number is probably 3-5x bigger as only a % of total cases are confirmed. And that's in spite of China taking very hardline measures including a travel ban affecting 50m people. Countries like the US probably can't take those kinds of strict measures. The world is so interconnected now that once a virus like this gets a small foothold, it's very, very hard to contain. And it's unlikely there were be any vaccine for it for at least 12-18 months. That means there's a good chance this turns into a world-wide epidemic that will kill millions or more over the next year. Even with it's relatively low death rate (1-2%), if it ends up infecting 100s of millions of people, that's millions dead.
csomar 7y ago
Because yesterday there was 60 deaths, a 20% jump over the previous day. At this rate, it'll become way more deadlier than the Flu in only a few days. Considering that around 700 persons world-wide die from the flu everyday and these deaths are happening mainly in Wuhan, this virus is certainly a very deadly one.
Accujack 7y ago
Because of how outbreaks and pandemics normally progress. Essentially they run like a video game with horrible lag - you don't really see the results of what you do to contain them until one or more incubation periods for the disease have passed. The first major action taken by the Chinese government was to quarantine Wuhan. Prior to that, people were traveling freely to other places for the lunar holiday. We're about to reach the end of the incubation period (by the 6th) for people who were infected prior to the quarantine being established. That means if the quarantine of Wuhan contained the outbreak (it's looking less and less likely that it did) we should see some change in the rate of infection in China. That's going to be difficult because of the Chinese government. The flip side of the incubation period ending is that after that point, all new cases should be from people traveling who infected other people. So far, almost all the people who are in quarantine world wide were physically in Wuhan. We don't know yet how many people who have been infected by travelers there are because we haven't hit the end of the post-quarantine incubation period. At present, there could be people all over the world who are infected, don't have symptoms or only mild symptoms, are contagious and spreading the disease, and who won't be discovered as carriers for another week. This week is going to be telling... we may suddenly see a massive uptick in infected outside China (and outside quarantines elsewhere), and if we do it's likely that it's too late to contain the virus, all we can do is limit its spread somewhat and treat the infected.. world wide. If it's really out of containment, given its apparent level of contagiousness it's likely that eventually a significant percentage of all humans alive right now will catch it, and that 2-3% of those people will die - quite possibly a lot more since the numbers of infected are going to overwhelm health care systems worldwide... too many people won't get treated even in western countries. In the third world, in places where people are packed together in slums and large cities, it'll be far worse. For your consideration, if the virus only spreads through China and India, and if e.g. 20% of the people become infected, that means something like 13.6 million people could die, and the rest of us will be dealing with the impact to health care systems, reduced food production, lost wages, reduced military strength and attendant weaknesses in defense, and a host of other problems. So... this virus is rather concerning, not because it kills lots of people (although it can) but because we likely can't control it, and even the number of people it will kill is far too many, and the rest of us are going to be dealing with the consequences for years.
ineedasername 7y ago
Because 10 days ago the estimated # of cases was, while probably fudged lower by China, about 300. Now it's, as of this comment, about 17,000. If that number is underreported to the same magnitude, it's even more of a huge issue. Then consider that the symptoms mimic, at least for a time, cold/flu symptoms, and it's not hard to see how it could go undetected in an even larger group of people. Or not, but it's absolutely possible, hence the enormous scale of the reaction and precautions being taken. It's not panic, it's prudence. well, maybe it's also some level of panic, but I wouldn't say it's an over reaction. This is the sort of thing where I way more effort than actually required is a significant virtue as compared to even slightly less than required.

So humble numbers of people infected outside China, why is the whole world panicking?

dontreact 7y ago

Growth still looks exponential and attempts at containment seem to have failed.

qwerty456127 7y ago
Then why so small number of people get infected outside of China? I can hardly believe no case of infection could get unnoticed and not isolated successfully so far.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > Then why so small number of people get infected outside of China? Because we won't no how many people are infected today for a couple of weeks, it has an up to 14 day incubation period (and appears to be contagious during the incubation period.) Also the numbers are growing rapidly, especially in places with lots of contact with China. > I can hardly believe no case of infection could get unnoticed and not isolated successfully so far. A lot of negatives there but, yes, cases in the incubation period are likely to go unnoticed, since no symptoms exist.
  - qwerty456127 7y ago
    Then it intuitively seems there already are many people infected all over the world and we can't really prevent the infection from spreading, the measures being taken are futile. Brace yourself, buy grocery supplies and prepare your immune systems - start sleeping enough, eating healthy etc now.
    - solotronics 7y ago
      Not even joking I quit drinking and started eating healthier as I followed this. I have been watching and reading since it was a few hundred confirmed cases and I think it will become a very large outbreak.
      - NtroP 7y ago
        Quit drinking?! Alcohol kills viruses! Didn't you pay attention to the Andromeda Strain documentary? I plan on staying home and drinking heavily.
        qwerty456127 7y ago
        > Alcohol kills viruses! Does it? I'm actually curious if alcohol-based hand sanitizers should be used as an element in 2019-nCoV infection prevention.
      - qwerty456127 7y ago
        Having enough sleep is the most important thing AFAIK. You should also make sure you get enough vitamins and other micronutrients - vitamin supplements are popularly overrated as a cure but this doesn't mean they're useless: they don't really cure but their deficit (and you can hardly expect you are not deficient in any) certainly weakens the immune system. Another interesting thing I have recently found out about is l.reutrti (BioGaia Gastrus) yogurt - it boosts respiratory immunity by increasing histamine.
  - Accujack 7y ago
    It's not really a couple of weeks at this point... it's just after the 6th or so. That's the end of incubation period for people who would have been infected before the Chinese govt. quarantined Wuhan. New infected after that point will be from person to person contact with infected travelers prior to the quarantine. That's when we'll find out how many people caught the virus that we don't know about, and therefore how many have been spreading it without knowing.
- brutt 7y ago
  In my city (Lviv, Ukraine), number of viral pneumonia cases is jumped by 4x since Jan 26, but we have no test kits to confirm kind of virus they caused by. They can be caused by regular influenza, as usual, or they can be caused by corona. Nobody knows yet. :-/
  - kenneth 7y ago
    That's very scary! Very unlikely to be a coincidence.
  - agapon 7y ago
    Any link / proof ?
    - 0x38B 7y ago
      I had a look at some news from L'viv: "Two people who returned from China were hospitalized in Lviv with signs of ARD (acute respiratory disease)" (1) "Last week, nearly 13,000 people became ill in the Lviv region with influenza and SARS" (2) Primarily among kids and young adults, in the article they say the weather is especially conducive to the spread of the flu right now; I wouldn't automatically link it to the virus in China... 1: https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://www.unian.ua/m/health/country/10854659-u-lvovi-z-oznakami-grz-gospitalizovano-dvoh-lyudey-yaki-povernulisya-z-kitayu.html&xid=17259,15700021,15700186,15700190,15700259,15700271,15700302&usg=ALkJrhiP0VMq_OHDJca_ZgkXavvktzhe4g https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&... 2: https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://zaxid.net/na_lvivshhini_na_grip_i_grvi_za_minuliy_tizhden_zahvorilo_mayzhe_13_tis_lyudey_n1497070/amp&xid=17259,15700021,15700186,15700190,15700259,15700271,15700302&usg=ALkJrhgBgKobNr3ZXPmJuQrY_sgnekrDnA https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&...
      - netsharc 7y ago
        Hmm, is that article using a different definition of SARS, because 13000 with SARS should double the panic of this coronavirus...
- riyadparvez 7y ago
  Probably because of the precautions taken. It's like the old tale of "Why do we need IT support dept. if your system never breaks down?". Precautions probably helped containing the virus, not the other way around that we don't need to take precautions.
mytailorisrich 7y ago
It's difficult to say whether attempts at containment are failing. For example, Wuhan has a population of 11 million. This leaves a lot of scope for the number of new cases to grow while still being contained geographically. Considering the incubation period, we need to wait until the end of the week or next week to see how things go. With the stringent measures they have taken there should be an inflection sooner or later.
- computerfriend 7y ago
  Roughly 4 million people left Wuhan over the new year. The stringent measures they are now taking are too little too late. See for example the very slow rate at which border crossing points in Hong Kong are being closed.

me_me_me 7y ago

There were 6 cases in China 2 months ago now its closing to 20k. Maybe that's why. SARS killed approx 800 in span of 1.5 year. There are over 300 confirmed deaths from Corona roughly after 2 months. The numbers are growing quickly and I for one am starting to feel a bit uncomfortable about this. Edit: Its 360 deaths, that pretty much half od SARS now :/

computerfriend 7y ago
Note that these are only the confirmed deaths, which is a lower bound. We know that the true number is much larger.
- seattle_spring 7y ago
  Probably true of SARS as well though, right?
- eightysixfour 7y ago
  Yes, but it is the same for total number infected. Outside estimates are that there are more than 100k infected. That would put the mortality rate ~= the flu.
  - wraithm112 7y ago
    You need to account for the delay to death in your model here. People don't die the second they're infected. Most of the people in that estimated infected number were infected in the last week. They couldn't possibly have died of the disease. I believe most epidemiological models have a infection to death delay factor to estimate death rate. Your mortality rate with ~300/100k~=flu is too low.
  - me_me_me 7y ago
    deaths due to flu are overestimated in western world as those are mainly due to flu striking after patient is going through some other illness and flu was the final blow. Pure flu deaths are very low.
  - 7y ago

platz 7y ago

China will likely not be able to contain the virus at this stage. it also could mutate and change it's behavior.

gwd 7y ago
> it also could mutate and change it's behavior. With flu / colds, my understanding is that it's typically milder mutations which end up thriving, as the milder the symptoms, the more likely people are to try to carry on with their normal lives rather than isolating themselves (and thus infect more people).
- ses1984 7y ago
  But entire populations don't mutate at once. If a virulent strain is active in thousands of people, it's going to be quite a while before the full impact of that epidemic is felt.
  - gwd 7y ago
    Oh, sure; I only meant to say, that normally the "evolutionary pressure" is for mutations to be less dangerous, rather than more dangerous. If anything, we should be hoping for those sorts of mutations.
- xbmcuser 7y ago
  This virus is not effecting everyone with the same intensity. A 10 year child didn't get sick but his Grand parents and parents did. His parents got him tested for Wuhan Virus anyway as they were scared about it and he tested positive for it. We will really find out how far this virus has spread by end of Feb.
ShorsHammer 7y ago
> could mutate and change it's behavior(sic) We could also get hit by an asteroid tomorrow and most life on Earth wiped out, guess that isn't newsworthy though. Hope people are worried about that danger, despite all the effort put in we routinely can't detect dangerous objects that come near Earth. Scary stuff. How many people have died outside China from this virus again? Is it zero? Last I looked it was zero human beings have died outside of China, perhaps I'm wrong.

dragonwriter 7y ago

Because it's not at all under control, the numbers are rapidly growing, and if they do get big there won't be much you can do at that point.

lucian1900 7y ago

It's racism. In the West, Sinophobia is an acceptable form of it.

dragonwriter 7y ago
If we were letting racism against the Chinese dominate our response, we’d be dismissing the outbreak while numbers outside China were small.
- lucian1900 7y ago
  The outbreak is being handled very well through the Chinese planned economy. Despite this, Western media is intensifying the panic. As a result of it, Chinese people are being discriminated against worldwide.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > The outbreak is being handled very well through the Chinese planned economy. It may (or may not) be being handled as well as any government could, but its not being effectively contained, it has spread around the world, and it is continuing to spread. > Despite this, Western media is intensifying the panic. Western media is accurately reporting the facts, and the policy responses. Intense concern is appropriate. > As a result of it, Chinese people are being discriminated against worldwide. How? Some places have adopted or are preparing precautions directed at travelers entering from China (which is a different, though overlapping, set from "Chinese people"), but that's a reasonable step given that it is neither contained nor, in the very short term, containable by China, by the facts that the Chinese state has acknowledged (transmissibility during incubation period, number of people who traveled out of the effective area before any containment was in place, etc.)
    - vonquant 7y ago
      >How? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51348593 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51348593

slumdev 7y ago

Removed - I misread the table.

sct202 7y ago
They aren't dead, just infected.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- slumdev 7y ago
  I completely misread that table. Whoops.

thesausageking 7y ago

Uncertainty and exponential growth. China went from <300 confirmed cases to 17k in two weeks. The actual number is probably 3-5x bigger as only a % of total cases are confirmed. And that's in spite of China taking very hardline measures including a travel ban affecting 50m people. Countries like the US probably can't take those kinds of strict measures. The world is so interconnected now that once a virus like this gets a small foothold, it's very, very hard to contain. And it's unlikely there were be any vaccine for it for at least 12-18 months. That means there's a good chance this turns into a world-wide epidemic that will kill millions or more over the next year. Even with it's relatively low death rate (1-2%), if it ends up infecting 100s of millions of people, that's millions dead.

csomar 7y ago

Because yesterday there was 60 deaths, a 20% jump over the previous day. At this rate, it'll become way more deadlier than the Flu in only a few days. Considering that around 700 persons world-wide die from the flu everyday and these deaths are happening mainly in Wuhan, this virus is certainly a very deadly one.

Accujack 7y ago

Because of how outbreaks and pandemics normally progress. Essentially they run like a video game with horrible lag - you don't really see the results of what you do to contain them until one or more incubation periods for the disease have passed. The first major action taken by the Chinese government was to quarantine Wuhan. Prior to that, people were traveling freely to other places for the lunar holiday. We're about to reach the end of the incubation period (by the 6th) for people who were infected prior to the quarantine being established. That means if the quarantine of Wuhan contained the outbreak (it's looking less and less likely that it did) we should see some change in the rate of infection in China. That's going to be difficult because of the Chinese government. The flip side of the incubation period ending is that after that point, all new cases should be from people traveling who infected other people. So far, almost all the people who are in quarantine world wide were physically in Wuhan. We don't know yet how many people who have been infected by travelers there are because we haven't hit the end of the post-quarantine incubation period. At present, there could be people all over the world who are infected, don't have symptoms or only mild symptoms, are contagious and spreading the disease, and who won't be discovered as carriers for another week. This week is going to be telling... we may suddenly see a massive uptick in infected outside China (and outside quarantines elsewhere), and if we do it's likely that it's too late to contain the virus, all we can do is limit its spread somewhat and treat the infected.. world wide. If it's really out of containment, given its apparent level of contagiousness it's likely that eventually a significant percentage of all humans alive right now will catch it, and that 2-3% of those people will die - quite possibly a lot more since the numbers of infected are going to overwhelm health care systems worldwide... too many people won't get treated even in western countries. In the third world, in places where people are packed together in slums and large cities, it'll be far worse. For your consideration, if the virus only spreads through China and India, and if e.g. 20% of the people become infected, that means something like 13.6 million people could die, and the rest of us will be dealing with the impact to health care systems, reduced food production, lost wages, reduced military strength and attendant weaknesses in defense, and a host of other problems. So... this virus is rather concerning, not because it kills lots of people (although it can) but because we likely can't control it, and even the number of people it will kill is far too many, and the rest of us are going to be dealing with the consequences for years.

ineedasername 7y ago

Because 10 days ago the estimated # of cases was, while probably fudged lower by China, about 300. Now it's, as of this comment, about 17,000. If that number is underreported to the same magnitude, it's even more of a huge issue. Then consider that the symptoms mimic, at least for a time, cold/flu symptoms, and it's not hard to see how it could go undetected in an even larger group of people. Or not, but it's absolutely possible, hence the enormous scale of the reaction and precautions being taken. It's not panic, it's prudence. well, maybe it's also some level of panic, but I wouldn't say it's an over reaction. This is the sort of thing where I way more effort than actually required is a significant virtue as compared to even slightly less than required.