7 ms·

How might the coronavirus change our world?

100 points by imartin2k 7y ago

mdorazio 7y ago
Not mentioned here, but definitely plausible: public health monitoring and enforcement action via infrared thermometers in public places. China has already deployed facial recognition all over the place, it would be fairly easy to add thermal imaging on top and actively track people with fevers if the temperature resolution is good enough.
- m-p-3 7y ago
  Is there some kind of infrared thermometer someone could buy for themselves and detect a sickness early and minimize the transmission by voluntarily isolate themselves for a moment?
  - maxander 7y ago
    If it’s just for yourself, a regular thermometer will do, certainly?
  - saeranv 7y ago
    There is an instrument called an infrared thermometer. It measures the long-wave radiation emitted from a target object and computes it's temperature. However that will only give you the measure of a single spot, which could be inaccurate due to thermal reflections, or noise, so ideally you'd want an infrared camera, which will provide a thermal image your target. They're a bit pricey though. On the other hand, why not just use a regular thermometer?
    - richardw 7y ago
      It’s possible to remove the infrared filter from a normal camera and replace with one that only lets in IR. lots of articles online but no idea how hard it is. Edit: for example https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/144388-how-to-turn-your-dslr-into-a-full-spectrum-super-camera https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/144388-how-to-turn-y...
      - trevyn 7y ago
        That will only get you the near-IR range, not the long-wave IR used for thermal imaging.
  - Galanwe 7y ago
    There are two issues behind this. First, the fever and temperature increase come after 2 to 5 days of infection (14 at most). So you are effectively contagious before showing any symptoms. This is why most detection measures at airports are useless. It used to work for other outbreaks though (e.g. SARS/MERS). Second, realistically most people would not want to isolate themselves. They will want to leave China and find a hospital in a neighboring country where they could be treated in better conditions (e.g less overcrowded hospitals, more staff). This is why a lot of Chinese people try to cross to Hong Kong or still attempt to fly to Europe even though they know they are sick. Last, some people will just ignore the fever and hope for the best. We have seen people arriving in HK from China and straight refusing to be tested for the virus. I’m not blaming anyone here of course. I don’t think this is intrinsic to the Chinese mentality, most humans would do the same in such conditions: unconsciously ignore the symptoms, refusing the rational solution and putting themselves before the risk to others; because faced with the probability of dying, your brain can make you believe anything, even that your fever will vanish.
  - oops 7y ago
    The Whoop[1] does not measure body temperature but it does measure your heart. Several users claim it has detected their sickness before they realize. FitBit too. 1: https://www.whoop.com/ https://www.whoop.com/
    - heavyset_go 7y ago
      Surely this is a claim that warrants FDA approval.
    - mr_toad 7y ago
      There are too many confounding factors for resting heart rate to be a reliable measure of illness - stress, dehydration, a hot climate, alcohol and lack of sleep can all have an impact.
  - nitrogen 7y ago
    FLIR is the most well-known thermal IR camera
- gauravjain13 7y ago
  Already in use at major Chinese airports/ports of entry.
  - ta999999171 7y ago
    Better not run too fast to catch your flight!
    - agumonkey 7y ago
      Now I'm curious how do security people react to people running in airports. Or maybe suspicious people never run because they don't want to attract attention (and do so in the process)
  - osteele 7y ago
    In Shanghai (pop. 24M), IR scanning is also required to drive into the city and to enter the subway. The paper says that anyone with a high temperature is held in a quarantine area for hospital pickup. In my district at least, an IR scan is also required to enter shopping malls, and at least some apartment complexes (including mine). This morning the nearest Starbucks started requiring IR scan.
    - soared 7y ago
      Super interesting. Do you have any articles or photos with more info?
    - adrr 7y ago
      Isn’t this easily defeated by taking a NSAID(eg: ibuprofen).
      - sliken 7y ago
        Heh, or a wet napkin, a quick wipe will significantly decrease your face temp until it dries.
        7y ago
- scottlegrand2 7y ago
  There's an interview with an African grad student in Wuhan who says that strange cases of pneumonia were happening all the way back in September of 2019. And this interview was the first I'd ever heard of that. This could have been a non-starter had not the Chinese Communist party covered this up as long as they did. That's what needs to change. There might be a genetic predilection for Asians to be susceptible to coronaviruses, but if we attack these things head-on as they emerge, they won't amount to much. If we pretend they're not happening, one day we're going to get a pandemic. That day might be today unfortunately but only time will tell. https://youtu.be/8uIVf_o9aXM https://youtu.be/8uIVf_o9aXM
  - redis_mlc 7y ago
    It's been reported for decades that small-time livestock farmers in rural China live too closely to their animals, namely pigs, which are genetically similar to humans. So that's the source of annual flu. So search on that as a start.
    - scottlegrand2 7y ago
      Completely different viruses, but right before the coronavirus outbreak, there was a plague outbreak in Beijing and the CCP responded similarly ineptly to it. The article below is from November 2019. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/16/china-bubonic-plague-outbreak-pandemic/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/16/china-bubonic-plague-ou...
- nate_meurer 7y ago
  Indeed, I think thermal imaging for public health monitoring will hasten the spread of video surveillance and facial recognition worldwide. Thermal imaging technology is already commoditized and inexpensive, and as you point out, probably easy to integrate into existing security IT infrastructure. It will start at airports and border checkpoints.
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  People are already taking fever reducers like aspirin to get through screenings where authorities are taking temperatures.
  - woutr_be 7y ago
    You say that as if everyone will be doing this. I believe there was only one case where a woman travelled through France and bragged about it online. People also hide drugs to get past airport customs / security, does that mean security is not effective? Perhaps, but it mostly defers honest people from doing stupid things, there will always be people who'll try to get around it, but they're only a very very small minority.
    - heavyset_go 7y ago
      > You say that as if everyone will be doing this. No, I don't. That is just how you're choosing to read into my comment.
      - woutr_be 7y ago
        Which is why I used "You say that as if...", because it would be very easy to interpreted your comment that way.
- rfoo 7y ago
  Surveillance firms in China (and gov't) are already deploying a prototype of the thing you described [1][2]. No reports on how effective this system is though. [1] http://www.xinhuanet.com/local/2020-02/06/c_1125536287.htm http://www.xinhuanet.com/local/2020-02/06/c_1125536287.htm [2] https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1178554.shtml https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1178554.shtml
- osteele 7y ago
  "The drone project involves young tech enthusiasts from the Jinkui Community Youth Science and Technology Innovation Center. Every day — for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon — youngsters wearing masks and gloves fly drones to patrol the community. The drones carry loudspeakers which announce: “Please stay at home as much as possible. If you have to go out, don’t forget to wear a mask.” The drones can also scan car plates and record which vehicles have entered the community. The drones are also equipped with thermal scanners which can measure the temperatures of people idling in the community. Those found with normal temperatures will be encouraged to return home. Officials will be alerted of people found with fever." https://www.shine.cn/news/metro/2002051335/ https://www.shine.cn/news/metro/2002051335/
  - fyfy18 7y ago
    That sounds exactly like some sort of population control mechanism from a dystopian novel. All it needs is a tazer for those that don't comply.
    - megablast 7y ago
      What should they do during an epidemic?
      - knicholes 7y ago
        Not wear masks, if nothing else.
    - Izkata 7y ago
      How about trapping people inside their homes? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7960471/Police-BARRICADE-screaming-woman-home-iron-bars-Wuhan-stop-coronavirus-spreading.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7960471/Police-BARR...
naveen99 7y ago
Better equipped hospitals: more respirators, ecmo. Or better yet distributed portable hospitals with icu beds at home with telemedicine. Earlier Self driving cars moving people instead of mass infectious transit
- DoctorOetker 7y ago
  >Better equipped hospitals: more respirators, ecmo. And better supply chain tracking, I am looking for UV-C LED's and products containing them (desinfection equipment, like baby bottle desinfectors, desinfection boxes for CPAP masks and hospital equipment, desinfection lamps, ...) Disturbingly even here in the west, going through sponsored advertisements on ebay local pages (named marktplaats.nl in the netherlands) I can easily find 20 euro desinfection lamps, supposedly 12W, having 65 LED's. That is 1) surprisingly cheap: trying to find UV-C LED's through farnell, digikey etc that would easily cost 300 euros for the LED's alone assuming 250+ unit prices (5 euro's per LED). 2) surprisingly high radiant fluxes: 12W for 65 LED's gives ~ 200mW per "UV-C" LED, whereas most datasheets for real UV-C LED's would show just a handful of mW per UV-C LED. If ANYONE can find me ~180mW UV-C LED's priced well below 0.30 Euros at bulk rates, please respond where, as I may be wrong and such incredulous products are perhaps not incredulous, but I would need proof. Knowing that such prices and specs are totally realistic for UV-A (note the A), I can not help but think that somewhere someone decided it was a good idea to build UV-C type products by using UV-A LED's, both would cause fluorescence and phosphorescense on such materials and would be hard to distinguish as a user. So now a large number of consumers, and possibly companies or even hospitals (!) might genuinely believe they are sterilizing surfaces because the products were incorrectly advertised as UV Germicidal Irradiation products. All for what? A new garage door? A Tesla? It truly is a dark world. So I predict there will come a "UV-C Provenance" protocol where: 1) the genuine UV-C LED chip manufacturer keeps a cadastre of ownership of UV-C LED's 2) resellers or product manufacturers must contact the original chip manufacturer with the buyer's email to transfer ownership of a number of contained LED's when selling 3) original UV-C LED manufacturers must contact the buyer to ask for confirmation of receipt of the UV-C LED (or the product that contained such a number of LED's) 4) resellers or product manufacturers may not use the "UV-C provenance" logo if the product does not actually use UV-C LEDs, if they can not prove the provenance by referencing unsold LED's in their name with the chip manufacturer, or if they don't perform their roles above 5) governments perform regular randomized trials of buying "UV-C LED" branded products, and measure the wavelength to verify truthfulness, with hefty fines for violations One might think that a product designer could order genuine UV-C LED's, not use them, order UV-A LED's to use in the product, sell as if they were UV-C, and then afterwards sell their genuine stock. However who would be interested in this (genuine) stock if this hypothetical buyer can not sell the genuine stock under the "UV-C provenance" logo without corresponding UV-C provenance tokens? BTW I am not trying to scare people away from UV-C LED desinfection equipment, they are better in many respects to mercury lamps, for example they don't generate ozone. The problem is the UV-A LED's being foisted off as UV-C LED's Also, if anyone reading this happens to be one of the people involved in substituting UV-A for UV-C LED's in a product or advertisement: you can run but you can't hide, they are going to find you, regardless of your nationality, religion, ... by this time it is an international crisis.
remarkEon 7y ago
Prepping might become more popular, I think. Maybe supply chains become a bit more distributed, or less centralized. Skepticism of "official" narratives might grow, if the virus isn't sufficiently contained soon.
- skokage 7y ago
  >Maybe supply chains become a bit more distributed, or less centralized. This is one of the things that I've been wondering about the last few days. I recently read an article discussing how because China is essentially shut down, the supply chain has been disrupted for manufacturers in other countries. So much of manufacturing in other areas of the world depends on components made in china, and when those stop other manufacturers also stop. People get laid off, and it becomes a cascading problem affecting everyone. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/business/hyundai-south-korea-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/business/hyundai-south-ko...
  - remarkEon 7y ago
    Smart countries should be using this as a trial run for "what happens during WWIII?", and determining where the critical gaps exist.
    - Reelin 7y ago
      Not just WWIII - what happens when (not if) a large solar flare [1] hits us or if Yellowstone [2] ends up erupting? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_Caldera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_Caldera
    - magicsmoke 7y ago
      I wouldn't be surprised if the Chinese military is using this outbreak as a natural experiment for planning responses to a biological attack if WW3 breaks out. Figure out how well the state can quarantine large parts of the country while ensuring industrial and warfighting supplies can still get through.
asperous 7y ago
This might be ill-informed, but if it goes out of control, wouldn't it reshape worldwide demographics? Young and old would die at different rates. That seems like the potential biggest impact.
- lazyjones 7y ago
  Also, poor (people and countries) would suffer more.
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  Imagine the political change that would occur from half of the boomers being wiped out.
  - malloryerik 7y ago
    Wouldn't it be more like ten percent of boomers? But the effect might be different you'd expect as fear of disease pushed society to adopt more conservative, insular moods.
- dirtyid 7y ago
  A virus that disproportionately "culls" the elderly is useful eliminating unsustainable health care costs, and in China's case, the impending demographic crisis (growing old before growing rich). Though ideally that shift happens after 2040. Right now, it would shift voting patterns to bias towards younger generations. Which incidentally goes against Chinese short-term interests since the elder cohorts in HK and Taiwan are the only ones with pro PRC / reunion sentiments. Quarantine also killed the 2020 5-year plan of doubling 2010 real GDP which required 6% growth. I'll leave others to extrapolate what dead boomers mean for western societies.
derblitzmann 7y ago
Assuming current trends, it will likely be though of as the 21st century's Spanish flu, though that is assuming that the trends continue.
- nostrademons 7y ago
  21st century Spanish Flu was the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic. Literally - Spanish Flu was also H1N1, though the strains were slightly different. The 2009 pandemic was estimated to have sickened about 1.5B people and killed about 150,000 for the relatively low death rate of about 0.01%. We'll likely think of coronavirus the same way we think of the 2009 pandemic, i.e. it gets a Wikipedia article of its own, an occasional historical mention, but we forget about it when disease is not specifically the topic of conversation.
  - soared 7y ago
    1.5B is a massive overestimate, where is that number from? 1 in 7 people in the entire world got sick? WHO: 8,000 deaths, 630k laboratory confirmed cases, 43-89 million got sick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic_H1N1/09_virus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic_H1N1/09_virus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic Spanish flu on the other hand killed 3-6% of the world's population! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
    - nostrademons 7y ago
      It's estimated that 10-20% of the world population caught H1N1 swine flu. 1 in 7 is a rough midpoint of that: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2011/08/study-puts-global-2009-h1n1-infection-rate-11-21 http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2011/08/study-put... The CDC estimated 60M cases in the U.S. alone, about 20% of the population: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemi... The WHO gave up tracking cases on July 23, 2009, 3 months after the epidemic started, when it hit several hundred thousand confirmed cases. At that point it just became a part of seasonal flu. It's circulating again this year: in recent weeks it's been the most common seasonal flu variant infecting people, and with 19M flu cases so far this year, there have almost certainly been more deaths from H1N1 than from nCoV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_timeline#July_2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_timeline#Jul...
tomatotomato37 7y ago
Is it still correct that the coronavirus is still only as problematic as the flu, with the majority of eradication effort going into it with the idea that having two flus going around is still worse than one around? If so I don't really anticipate any real long-term effects at all, it'll just be another seasonal batch of sickness and death for society to deal with.
- imustbeevil 7y ago
  Mortality rate (outside of Wuhan) is 10x worse (0.16%)[1] than the flu (0.014%)[2]. I'm personally not worried about a virus with a 99.84% survival rate, but it's still technically 10x as deadly. [1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-... [2] https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/influenza-and-pneumonia-death-rate/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/influenza-and-pneu...
  - kova12 7y ago
    Plus, there might be a more efficient way to deal with it discovered soon. We are only in opening stages. Plus, it's not a sure thing that it will mutate like flu does every year. It might be that it's going to disappear once enough people get over it and become immune
  - xbmcuser 7y ago
    From what I understand the virus is treatable though highly contagious. China is having a tough time providing care for all those infected specially at the epicenter. If the virus starts spreading in poorer countries of Asia and Africa then mortality rate will go higher as I don't see them being able to control something that even China is facing hard time doing.
    - trevyn 7y ago
      Exactly, there’s “mortality rate when you have access to a mechanical ventilator” vs “mortality rate when you have access to IV fluids and a floor to sit on”.
Apocryphon 7y ago
Will it be the pin that pops our economic boom into a recession?
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  It is likely to break the back of China’s debt crisis.
  - kortilla 7y ago
    Markets don’t appear to think so. There’s a lot of money to be had for you if you think so.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Fingers crossed. These trades are the most exciting.
    - gruez 7y ago
      >Markets don’t appear to think so It's hard to say whether that's really the case because of interventionist policies by the PBOC.
      - topmonk 7y ago
        And the Fed...
- notadoc 7y ago
  That's certainly possible if for no other reason than grinding global supply chains to a halt. If Chinese are being forced to self-quarantine or avoid work, factories will not be producing goods. That could cause considerable consumer inflation, too.
dfsegoat 7y ago
I would hope that ultimately, to the authors point #1 - collaboration - that it shows that we can all still come together to fight a common existential threat, or to accomplish a common goal.
rotterdamdev 7y ago
No.
lngnmn1 7y ago
Remote will become mainstream.
spencerwgreene 7y ago
People will start to wash their hands more, touch their faces less, and avoid sick people more because of checklists to avoid coronavirus that people are sharing online.
- giarc 7y ago
  Except those same checklists were shared with H1N1, SARS, MERS-CoV and now nCoV. They are the same checklists/recommendations shared every year for season influenza. Nothing has changed.
  - jbay808 7y ago
    I think that in Canada at least, the government launched an information campaign to get people to cough/sneeze into their sleeves instead of covering their mouth with their hands. From my anecdotal observations, it was pretty effective in changing many people's behaviour in a lasting way.
  - acid__ 7y ago
    To be fair, none of those viruses received nearly the same level of news coverage nor had fear and awareness of them penetrated into popular culture in the way that 2019-nCoV has. And, many people today were only children during the 2003 outbreak of SARS (17 years ago!) so this will certainly help to reinforce it among the younger generation.
    - giarc 7y ago
      I work in infection control in a hospital. I did this work during all but SARS. So far I'd say H1N1 was the biggest since we had many cases in all parts of the world. Sure, access to news is different these days, but we don't get the same hysteria as we did during H1N1.
- russdill 7y ago
  Or hey, how about shutting down wildlife markets?
etxm 7y ago
Curious if it will impact Corona sales.
- spitfire 7y ago
  You know what goes well with coronavirus? Lyme disease.
  - etxm 7y ago
    This makes me so happy.
    - etxm 7y ago
      I’m allowed to be happy.
chrisbrandow 7y ago
Lost me at vertical farming.
giarc 7y ago
>Interesting contrast: a large number of critical Ebola research was inaccessible during the outbreak, and even today downloading a single paper could cost $45: a steep price for a healthcare worker in Liberia. The internet has led me to believe that the authors are allowed to distribute copies to anyone that requests one. If true, it seems those in Liberia just need that info rather than the money.
- wyattpeak 7y ago
  I would imagine that during an outbreak researchers don't have a lot of time or patience to respond to hundreds of requests for their work. I suspect further that publishers would be less cool if they found you were sending out copies by the hundred, rather than a few times, but that's probably a question better answered by researchers.
tanilama 7y ago
I would be more curious on why this would change Chinese people's consumption habits, and how long lasting such change would be after the outbreak. Will be very interesting to see it through.
turk73 7y ago
Greta Thunberg should be pleased. After all, depopulation is the only thing that is going to make any kind of dent in the climate crisis. The more I think about it, the more I'd be okay taking the "Thanos Snap" Russian Roulette odds.
DoctorOetker 7y ago
That depends on how we define "our world". For each individual, the most important parameter of "our world" is probably how (dis)satisfied we are. Humans are not solitary animals, but a social species. We should not limit ourselves to solitary risk, but also consider social risk. Consider listing your N closest loved ones (I will assume 20). Consider a case fatality rate F (I will use China's average 2.1% which may correspond very well with any health care system that is pathologically overrun by sheer amount of cases, see [1]). Consider I the fraction of the global population that has been uniformly infected. What is the probability that not all of your N loved ones survive? P( not all of my N loved ones survive corona outbreak) = 1 - P( all of my N loved ones survive corona outbreak ) = 1 - P( a person was not infected or survives infection) ^ N = 1 - (1 - P( a person is infected and dies from the infection ) ) ^ N = 1 - (1 - P( a person is infected ) * P( a person dies given he was infected ) ) = 1 - (1 - (I * F) ) ^ N For example: Q: "What is the probability not all of my 20 loved ones survive, assuming 80% of the populace will experience infection, and a case fatality rate of 2.1%?" A: P = 1 - (1 - 0.8 * 0.021) ^ 20 = 28.7% that one or more of these friends will die. This is remarkably higher than the individual risk of 1.68% (0.8 * 2.1%) which only holds for egoists. Let no one tell you what probability is acceptable for you, nor how many friends you should have, certainly let no government tell you to think only about yourself, by setting N = 1. Another example: Q: "Assume just 10% of the population was infected, with the same case fatality rate of 2.1% but this time you have 100 friends" A: P = 1 - ( 1 - ( 0.1 * 0.021 ) ) ^ 100 = 18.96 % And always remember, you may have many friends, but your best friend is statistics, like her or not. And this best friend can not die. [1] According to [1a] China announced an average national fatality rate of 2.1% (their words not my calculation, us world citizens have no access to the WHO database of anonymized CRF CORE and DAILY forms). Let us compare with the cases treated outside of China: According to [1b] at their sum total of international (without Chinese regions) we have: TOTAL 216 (infected) 1 (dead) 4 serious Now 2.1% * 216 = 4.536 deaths expected following official China fatality rate. Well, internationally we see 1 death and 4 individuals in serious condition. The out-of-china hospitals are not currently overrun. If they too at some point get overrun, I would expect those 4 to die as well, and our international numbers match up with China's 2.1%. [1a] http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3048815/coronavirus-china-death-toll-hits-425-new-cases-hubei-jump http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3048815/coron... [1b] https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/ https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus...
aaron695 7y ago
We might take the flu (10,000+ dead so far in the USA this season) and other diseases (measles 140,000 dead world wide) more seriously. We might actually prepare properly for a Contagion (2011) movie style outbreak.
magwa101 7y ago
Overhyped, no change at all.
rurban 7y ago
This new flavor of the yearly flu is not much different from other rather harmless flu's of this kind. There's just no flushot for it. But it's not as dramatic or deadly as the Spanish flu, which killed the healthy ones, because of the overreacting immune system. The death rate is minor, like with other flu's, the expansion rate is normal, should be not much different to SARS or similar flu's.

100 points by imartin2k 7y ago

Not mentioned here, but definitely plausible: public health monitoring and enforcement action via infrared thermometers in public places. China has already deployed facial recognition all over the place, it would be fairly easy to add thermal imaging on top and actively track people with fevers if the temperature resolution is good enough.

m-p-3 7y ago
Is there some kind of infrared thermometer someone could buy for themselves and detect a sickness early and minimize the transmission by voluntarily isolate themselves for a moment?
- maxander 7y ago
  If it’s just for yourself, a regular thermometer will do, certainly?
- saeranv 7y ago
  There is an instrument called an infrared thermometer. It measures the long-wave radiation emitted from a target object and computes it's temperature. However that will only give you the measure of a single spot, which could be inaccurate due to thermal reflections, or noise, so ideally you'd want an infrared camera, which will provide a thermal image your target. They're a bit pricey though. On the other hand, why not just use a regular thermometer?
  - richardw 7y ago
    It’s possible to remove the infrared filter from a normal camera and replace with one that only lets in IR. lots of articles online but no idea how hard it is. Edit: for example https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/144388-how-to-turn-your-dslr-into-a-full-spectrum-super-camera https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/144388-how-to-turn-y...
    - trevyn 7y ago
      That will only get you the near-IR range, not the long-wave IR used for thermal imaging.
- Galanwe 7y ago
  There are two issues behind this. First, the fever and temperature increase come after 2 to 5 days of infection (14 at most). So you are effectively contagious before showing any symptoms. This is why most detection measures at airports are useless. It used to work for other outbreaks though (e.g. SARS/MERS). Second, realistically most people would not want to isolate themselves. They will want to leave China and find a hospital in a neighboring country where they could be treated in better conditions (e.g less overcrowded hospitals, more staff). This is why a lot of Chinese people try to cross to Hong Kong or still attempt to fly to Europe even though they know they are sick. Last, some people will just ignore the fever and hope for the best. We have seen people arriving in HK from China and straight refusing to be tested for the virus. I’m not blaming anyone here of course. I don’t think this is intrinsic to the Chinese mentality, most humans would do the same in such conditions: unconsciously ignore the symptoms, refusing the rational solution and putting themselves before the risk to others; because faced with the probability of dying, your brain can make you believe anything, even that your fever will vanish.
- oops 7y ago
  The Whoop[1] does not measure body temperature but it does measure your heart. Several users claim it has detected their sickness before they realize. FitBit too. 1: https://www.whoop.com/ https://www.whoop.com/
  - heavyset_go 7y ago
    Surely this is a claim that warrants FDA approval.
  - mr_toad 7y ago
    There are too many confounding factors for resting heart rate to be a reliable measure of illness - stress, dehydration, a hot climate, alcohol and lack of sleep can all have an impact.
- nitrogen 7y ago
  FLIR is the most well-known thermal IR camera
gauravjain13 7y ago
Already in use at major Chinese airports/ports of entry.
- ta999999171 7y ago
  Better not run too fast to catch your flight!
  - agumonkey 7y ago
    Now I'm curious how do security people react to people running in airports. Or maybe suspicious people never run because they don't want to attract attention (and do so in the process)
- osteele 7y ago
  In Shanghai (pop. 24M), IR scanning is also required to drive into the city and to enter the subway. The paper says that anyone with a high temperature is held in a quarantine area for hospital pickup. In my district at least, an IR scan is also required to enter shopping malls, and at least some apartment complexes (including mine). This morning the nearest Starbucks started requiring IR scan.
  - soared 7y ago
    Super interesting. Do you have any articles or photos with more info?
  - adrr 7y ago
    Isn’t this easily defeated by taking a NSAID(eg: ibuprofen).
    - sliken 7y ago
      Heh, or a wet napkin, a quick wipe will significantly decrease your face temp until it dries.
      - 7y ago
scottlegrand2 7y ago
There's an interview with an African grad student in Wuhan who says that strange cases of pneumonia were happening all the way back in September of 2019. And this interview was the first I'd ever heard of that. This could have been a non-starter had not the Chinese Communist party covered this up as long as they did. That's what needs to change. There might be a genetic predilection for Asians to be susceptible to coronaviruses, but if we attack these things head-on as they emerge, they won't amount to much. If we pretend they're not happening, one day we're going to get a pandemic. That day might be today unfortunately but only time will tell. https://youtu.be/8uIVf_o9aXM https://youtu.be/8uIVf_o9aXM
- redis_mlc 7y ago
  It's been reported for decades that small-time livestock farmers in rural China live too closely to their animals, namely pigs, which are genetically similar to humans. So that's the source of annual flu. So search on that as a start.
  - scottlegrand2 7y ago
    Completely different viruses, but right before the coronavirus outbreak, there was a plague outbreak in Beijing and the CCP responded similarly ineptly to it. The article below is from November 2019. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/16/china-bubonic-plague-outbreak-pandemic/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/16/china-bubonic-plague-ou...
nate_meurer 7y ago
Indeed, I think thermal imaging for public health monitoring will hasten the spread of video surveillance and facial recognition worldwide. Thermal imaging technology is already commoditized and inexpensive, and as you point out, probably easy to integrate into existing security IT infrastructure. It will start at airports and border checkpoints.
heavyset_go 7y ago
People are already taking fever reducers like aspirin to get through screenings where authorities are taking temperatures.
- woutr_be 7y ago
  You say that as if everyone will be doing this. I believe there was only one case where a woman travelled through France and bragged about it online. People also hide drugs to get past airport customs / security, does that mean security is not effective? Perhaps, but it mostly defers honest people from doing stupid things, there will always be people who'll try to get around it, but they're only a very very small minority.
  - heavyset_go 7y ago
    > You say that as if everyone will be doing this. No, I don't. That is just how you're choosing to read into my comment.
    - woutr_be 7y ago
      Which is why I used "You say that as if...", because it would be very easy to interpreted your comment that way.
rfoo 7y ago
Surveillance firms in China (and gov't) are already deploying a prototype of the thing you described [1][2]. No reports on how effective this system is though. [1] http://www.xinhuanet.com/local/2020-02/06/c_1125536287.htm http://www.xinhuanet.com/local/2020-02/06/c_1125536287.htm [2] https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1178554.shtml https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1178554.shtml
osteele 7y ago
"The drone project involves young tech enthusiasts from the Jinkui Community Youth Science and Technology Innovation Center. Every day — for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon — youngsters wearing masks and gloves fly drones to patrol the community. The drones carry loudspeakers which announce: “Please stay at home as much as possible. If you have to go out, don’t forget to wear a mask.” The drones can also scan car plates and record which vehicles have entered the community. The drones are also equipped with thermal scanners which can measure the temperatures of people idling in the community. Those found with normal temperatures will be encouraged to return home. Officials will be alerted of people found with fever." https://www.shine.cn/news/metro/2002051335/ https://www.shine.cn/news/metro/2002051335/
- fyfy18 7y ago
  That sounds exactly like some sort of population control mechanism from a dystopian novel. All it needs is a tazer for those that don't comply.
  - megablast 7y ago
    What should they do during an epidemic?
    - knicholes 7y ago
      Not wear masks, if nothing else.
  - Izkata 7y ago
    How about trapping people inside their homes? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7960471/Police-BARRICADE-screaming-woman-home-iron-bars-Wuhan-stop-coronavirus-spreading.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7960471/Police-BARR...

naveen99 7y ago

Better equipped hospitals: more respirators, ecmo. Or better yet distributed portable hospitals with icu beds at home with telemedicine. Earlier Self driving cars moving people instead of mass infectious transit

DoctorOetker 7y ago
>Better equipped hospitals: more respirators, ecmo. And better supply chain tracking, I am looking for UV-C LED's and products containing them (desinfection equipment, like baby bottle desinfectors, desinfection boxes for CPAP masks and hospital equipment, desinfection lamps, ...) Disturbingly even here in the west, going through sponsored advertisements on ebay local pages (named marktplaats.nl in the netherlands) I can easily find 20 euro desinfection lamps, supposedly 12W, having 65 LED's. That is 1) surprisingly cheap: trying to find UV-C LED's through farnell, digikey etc that would easily cost 300 euros for the LED's alone assuming 250+ unit prices (5 euro's per LED). 2) surprisingly high radiant fluxes: 12W for 65 LED's gives ~ 200mW per "UV-C" LED, whereas most datasheets for real UV-C LED's would show just a handful of mW per UV-C LED. If ANYONE can find me ~180mW UV-C LED's priced well below 0.30 Euros at bulk rates, please respond where, as I may be wrong and such incredulous products are perhaps not incredulous, but I would need proof. Knowing that such prices and specs are totally realistic for UV-A (note the A), I can not help but think that somewhere someone decided it was a good idea to build UV-C type products by using UV-A LED's, both would cause fluorescence and phosphorescense on such materials and would be hard to distinguish as a user. So now a large number of consumers, and possibly companies or even hospitals (!) might genuinely believe they are sterilizing surfaces because the products were incorrectly advertised as UV Germicidal Irradiation products. All for what? A new garage door? A Tesla? It truly is a dark world. So I predict there will come a "UV-C Provenance" protocol where: 1) the genuine UV-C LED chip manufacturer keeps a cadastre of ownership of UV-C LED's 2) resellers or product manufacturers must contact the original chip manufacturer with the buyer's email to transfer ownership of a number of contained LED's when selling 3) original UV-C LED manufacturers must contact the buyer to ask for confirmation of receipt of the UV-C LED (or the product that contained such a number of LED's) 4) resellers or product manufacturers may not use the "UV-C provenance" logo if the product does not actually use UV-C LEDs, if they can not prove the provenance by referencing unsold LED's in their name with the chip manufacturer, or if they don't perform their roles above 5) governments perform regular randomized trials of buying "UV-C LED" branded products, and measure the wavelength to verify truthfulness, with hefty fines for violations One might think that a product designer could order genuine UV-C LED's, not use them, order UV-A LED's to use in the product, sell as if they were UV-C, and then afterwards sell their genuine stock. However who would be interested in this (genuine) stock if this hypothetical buyer can not sell the genuine stock under the "UV-C provenance" logo without corresponding UV-C provenance tokens? BTW I am not trying to scare people away from UV-C LED desinfection equipment, they are better in many respects to mercury lamps, for example they don't generate ozone. The problem is the UV-A LED's being foisted off as UV-C LED's Also, if anyone reading this happens to be one of the people involved in substituting UV-A for UV-C LED's in a product or advertisement: you can run but you can't hide, they are going to find you, regardless of your nationality, religion, ... by this time it is an international crisis.

remarkEon 7y ago

Prepping might become more popular, I think. Maybe supply chains become a bit more distributed, or less centralized. Skepticism of "official" narratives might grow, if the virus isn't sufficiently contained soon.

skokage 7y ago
>Maybe supply chains become a bit more distributed, or less centralized. This is one of the things that I've been wondering about the last few days. I recently read an article discussing how because China is essentially shut down, the supply chain has been disrupted for manufacturers in other countries. So much of manufacturing in other areas of the world depends on components made in china, and when those stop other manufacturers also stop. People get laid off, and it becomes a cascading problem affecting everyone. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/business/hyundai-south-korea-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/business/hyundai-south-ko...
- remarkEon 7y ago
  Smart countries should be using this as a trial run for "what happens during WWIII?", and determining where the critical gaps exist.
  - Reelin 7y ago
    Not just WWIII - what happens when (not if) a large solar flare [1] hits us or if Yellowstone [2] ends up erupting? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_Caldera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_Caldera
  - magicsmoke 7y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if the Chinese military is using this outbreak as a natural experiment for planning responses to a biological attack if WW3 breaks out. Figure out how well the state can quarantine large parts of the country while ensuring industrial and warfighting supplies can still get through.

asperous 7y ago

This might be ill-informed, but if it goes out of control, wouldn't it reshape worldwide demographics? Young and old would die at different rates. That seems like the potential biggest impact.

lazyjones 7y ago
Also, poor (people and countries) would suffer more.
Polylactic_acid 7y ago
Imagine the political change that would occur from half of the boomers being wiped out.
- malloryerik 7y ago
  Wouldn't it be more like ten percent of boomers? But the effect might be different you'd expect as fear of disease pushed society to adopt more conservative, insular moods.
dirtyid 7y ago
A virus that disproportionately "culls" the elderly is useful eliminating unsustainable health care costs, and in China's case, the impending demographic crisis (growing old before growing rich). Though ideally that shift happens after 2040. Right now, it would shift voting patterns to bias towards younger generations. Which incidentally goes against Chinese short-term interests since the elder cohorts in HK and Taiwan are the only ones with pro PRC / reunion sentiments. Quarantine also killed the 2020 5-year plan of doubling 2010 real GDP which required 6% growth. I'll leave others to extrapolate what dead boomers mean for western societies.

derblitzmann 7y ago

Assuming current trends, it will likely be though of as the 21st century's Spanish flu, though that is assuming that the trends continue.

nostrademons 7y ago
21st century Spanish Flu was the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic. Literally - Spanish Flu was also H1N1, though the strains were slightly different. The 2009 pandemic was estimated to have sickened about 1.5B people and killed about 150,000 for the relatively low death rate of about 0.01%. We'll likely think of coronavirus the same way we think of the 2009 pandemic, i.e. it gets a Wikipedia article of its own, an occasional historical mention, but we forget about it when disease is not specifically the topic of conversation.
- soared 7y ago
  1.5B is a massive overestimate, where is that number from? 1 in 7 people in the entire world got sick? WHO: 8,000 deaths, 630k laboratory confirmed cases, 43-89 million got sick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic_H1N1/09_virus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic_H1N1/09_virus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic Spanish flu on the other hand killed 3-6% of the world's population! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    It's estimated that 10-20% of the world population caught H1N1 swine flu. 1 in 7 is a rough midpoint of that: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2011/08/study-puts-global-2009-h1n1-infection-rate-11-21 http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2011/08/study-put... The CDC estimated 60M cases in the U.S. alone, about 20% of the population: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemi... The WHO gave up tracking cases on July 23, 2009, 3 months after the epidemic started, when it hit several hundred thousand confirmed cases. At that point it just became a part of seasonal flu. It's circulating again this year: in recent weeks it's been the most common seasonal flu variant infecting people, and with 19M flu cases so far this year, there have almost certainly been more deaths from H1N1 than from nCoV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_timeline#July_2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_timeline#Jul...

tomatotomato37 7y ago

Is it still correct that the coronavirus is still only as problematic as the flu, with the majority of eradication effort going into it with the idea that having two flus going around is still worse than one around? If so I don't really anticipate any real long-term effects at all, it'll just be another seasonal batch of sickness and death for society to deal with.

imustbeevil 7y ago
Mortality rate (outside of Wuhan) is 10x worse (0.16%)[1] than the flu (0.014%)[2]. I'm personally not worried about a virus with a 99.84% survival rate, but it's still technically 10x as deadly. [1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-... [2] https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/influenza-and-pneumonia-death-rate/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/influenza-and-pneu...
- kova12 7y ago
  Plus, there might be a more efficient way to deal with it discovered soon. We are only in opening stages. Plus, it's not a sure thing that it will mutate like flu does every year. It might be that it's going to disappear once enough people get over it and become immune
- xbmcuser 7y ago
  From what I understand the virus is treatable though highly contagious. China is having a tough time providing care for all those infected specially at the epicenter. If the virus starts spreading in poorer countries of Asia and Africa then mortality rate will go higher as I don't see them being able to control something that even China is facing hard time doing.
  - trevyn 7y ago
    Exactly, there’s “mortality rate when you have access to a mechanical ventilator” vs “mortality rate when you have access to IV fluids and a floor to sit on”.

Apocryphon 7y ago

Will it be the pin that pops our economic boom into a recession?

toomuchtodo 7y ago
It is likely to break the back of China’s debt crisis.
- kortilla 7y ago
  Markets don’t appear to think so. There’s a lot of money to be had for you if you think so.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Fingers crossed. These trades are the most exciting.
  - gruez 7y ago
    >Markets don’t appear to think so It's hard to say whether that's really the case because of interventionist policies by the PBOC.
    - topmonk 7y ago
      And the Fed...
notadoc 7y ago
That's certainly possible if for no other reason than grinding global supply chains to a halt. If Chinese are being forced to self-quarantine or avoid work, factories will not be producing goods. That could cause considerable consumer inflation, too.

dfsegoat 7y ago

I would hope that ultimately, to the authors point #1 - collaboration - that it shows that we can all still come together to fight a common existential threat, or to accomplish a common goal.

rotterdamdev 7y ago

No.

lngnmn1 7y ago

Remote will become mainstream.

spencerwgreene 7y ago

People will start to wash their hands more, touch their faces less, and avoid sick people more because of checklists to avoid coronavirus that people are sharing online.

giarc 7y ago
Except those same checklists were shared with H1N1, SARS, MERS-CoV and now nCoV. They are the same checklists/recommendations shared every year for season influenza. Nothing has changed.
- jbay808 7y ago
  I think that in Canada at least, the government launched an information campaign to get people to cough/sneeze into their sleeves instead of covering their mouth with their hands. From my anecdotal observations, it was pretty effective in changing many people's behaviour in a lasting way.
- acid__ 7y ago
  To be fair, none of those viruses received nearly the same level of news coverage nor had fear and awareness of them penetrated into popular culture in the way that 2019-nCoV has. And, many people today were only children during the 2003 outbreak of SARS (17 years ago!) so this will certainly help to reinforce it among the younger generation.
  - giarc 7y ago
    I work in infection control in a hospital. I did this work during all but SARS. So far I'd say H1N1 was the biggest since we had many cases in all parts of the world. Sure, access to news is different these days, but we don't get the same hysteria as we did during H1N1.
russdill 7y ago
Or hey, how about shutting down wildlife markets?

etxm 7y ago

Curious if it will impact Corona sales.

spitfire 7y ago
You know what goes well with coronavirus? Lyme disease.
- etxm 7y ago
  This makes me so happy.
  - etxm 7y ago
    I’m allowed to be happy.

chrisbrandow 7y ago

Lost me at vertical farming.

giarc 7y ago

>Interesting contrast: a large number of critical Ebola research was inaccessible during the outbreak, and even today downloading a single paper could cost $45: a steep price for a healthcare worker in Liberia. The internet has led me to believe that the authors are allowed to distribute copies to anyone that requests one. If true, it seems those in Liberia just need that info rather than the money.

wyattpeak 7y ago
I would imagine that during an outbreak researchers don't have a lot of time or patience to respond to hundreds of requests for their work. I suspect further that publishers would be less cool if they found you were sending out copies by the hundred, rather than a few times, but that's probably a question better answered by researchers.

tanilama 7y ago

I would be more curious on why this would change Chinese people's consumption habits, and how long lasting such change would be after the outbreak. Will be very interesting to see it through.

turk73 7y ago

Greta Thunberg should be pleased. After all, depopulation is the only thing that is going to make any kind of dent in the climate crisis. The more I think about it, the more I'd be okay taking the "Thanos Snap" Russian Roulette odds.

DoctorOetker 7y ago

That depends on how we define "our world". For each individual, the most important parameter of "our world" is probably how (dis)satisfied we are. Humans are not solitary animals, but a social species. We should not limit ourselves to solitary risk, but also consider social risk. Consider listing your N closest loved ones (I will assume 20). Consider a case fatality rate F (I will use China's average 2.1% which may correspond very well with any health care system that is pathologically overrun by sheer amount of cases, see [1]). Consider I the fraction of the global population that has been uniformly infected. What is the probability that not all of your N loved ones survive? P( not all of my N loved ones survive corona outbreak) = 1 - P( all of my N loved ones survive corona outbreak ) = 1 - P( a person was not infected or survives infection) ^ N = 1 - (1 - P( a person is infected and dies from the infection ) ) ^ N = 1 - (1 - P( a person is infected ) * P( a person dies given he was infected ) ) = 1 - (1 - (I * F) ) ^ N For example: Q: "What is the probability not all of my 20 loved ones survive, assuming 80% of the populace will experience infection, and a case fatality rate of 2.1%?" A: P = 1 - (1 - 0.8 * 0.021) ^ 20 = 28.7% that one or more of these friends will die. This is remarkably higher than the individual risk of 1.68% (0.8 * 2.1%) which only holds for egoists. Let no one tell you what probability is acceptable for you, nor how many friends you should have, certainly let no government tell you to think only about yourself, by setting N = 1. Another example: Q: "Assume just 10% of the population was infected, with the same case fatality rate of 2.1% but this time you have 100 friends" A: P = 1 - ( 1 - ( 0.1 * 0.021 ) ) ^ 100 = 18.96 % And always remember, you may have many friends, but your best friend is statistics, like her or not. And this best friend can not die. [1] According to [1a] China announced an average national fatality rate of 2.1% (their words not my calculation, us world citizens have no access to the WHO database of anonymized CRF CORE and DAILY forms). Let us compare with the cases treated outside of China: According to [1b] at their sum total of international (without Chinese regions) we have: TOTAL 216 (infected) 1 (dead) 4 serious Now 2.1% * 216 = 4.536 deaths expected following official China fatality rate. Well, internationally we see 1 death and 4 individuals in serious condition. The out-of-china hospitals are not currently overrun. If they too at some point get overrun, I would expect those 4 to die as well, and our international numbers match up with China's 2.1%. [1a] http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3048815/coronavirus-china-death-toll-hits-425-new-cases-hubei-jump http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3048815/coron... [1b] https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/ https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus...

aaron695 7y ago

We might take the flu (10,000+ dead so far in the USA this season) and other diseases (measles 140,000 dead world wide) more seriously. We might actually prepare properly for a Contagion (2011) movie style outbreak.

magwa101 7y ago

Overhyped, no change at all.

rurban 7y ago

This new flavor of the yearly flu is not much different from other rather harmless flu's of this kind. There's just no flushot for it. But it's not as dramatic or deadly as the Spanish flu, which killed the healthy ones, because of the overreacting immune system. The death rate is minor, like with other flu's, the expansion rate is normal, should be not much different to SARS or similar flu's.