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Just dropping a link here, anyone who is concerned about the coronavirus and has opinions about it should imo read the daily situation reports from the WHO: htt

Just dropping a link here, anyone who is concerned about the coronavirus and has opinions about it should imo read the daily situation reports from the WHO: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2... In 5 minutes a day you will have a better informed perspective than what any news sites provide, my own alarm has lessened considerably after reading these.

droithomme 7y ago
> my own alarm has lessened considerably That that is the case speaks poorly of the WHO as a reliable source of information. Run the numbers. Run a regression on Hubei's spread. I did. That's the two-weeks out future for the virus outside of Hubei (unless the speculation that there was a secretive inoculation program in Hubei that went wrong). Presuming Hubei's population is normal, then this is spreading badly and is not contained. It describes the future. My future, your future. Our future. Psychotic downvoters suppressing the verifiable mathematical reality. Enjoy your apocalypse and mass death. Evil. Better to work on a fix rather than Chinese Communist State Suppression of facts here on HN. You can't suppress a virus using propaganda tactics. All you bring is death.
- jdc 7y ago
  When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." [...] Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - droithomme 7y ago
    I hope you enjoy the mass death you are bringing about. I don't enjoy it at all. But philosophically, I respect your right to be a Satanist working hard to bring on the elimination of life.
- Joe-Z 7y ago
  For someone who accuses other people of being crazy you sure sound pretty crazy yourself. Maybe back up your claims with numbers instead of throwing around accusations of censorship and propaganda?
- progman32 7y ago
  Can you be more specific? If you believe the WHO is wrong, can you provide more details on why you hold this position? An argument backed by facts will help.
- phreeza 7y ago
  Care to share the regression you did? Just eyeballing it on a semilog scale, looks like it is plateauing already.
taneq 7y ago
I just ran across this link (https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3871594 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3871594) suggesting that the official numbers coming out of China may be significantly understated. I'm not familiar with the site, though - are they a reliable news source? Not sure how much credence to give it.
- yread 7y ago
  I think the most likely explanation for that is that they confused the numbers of quarantined->infected and infected->dead people
- yorwba 7y ago
  The story is implausible because it rests on top-secret data about the "real" number of cases being shared with Tencent News and making it all the way to the lowly data-entry operator updating their website. All those disease-tracking websites in China I'm aware of link to a long list of local government press releases and seem to simply aggregate the numbers in those. https://xw.qq.com/act/qgfeiyan https://xw.qq.com/act/qgfeiyan https://news.sina.cn/zt_d/yiqing0121 https://news.sina.cn/zt_d/yiqing0121 https://ncov.dxy.cn/ncovh5/view/pneumonia https://ncov.dxy.cn/ncovh5/view/pneumonia I don't believe they have privileged access to government secrets. If the government wants to hide something, the last thing they're going to do is share that data with a news org.
- tim333 7y ago
  I don't know about those numbers but I think deaths may be considerably understated due to them only counting people who have been properly tested for coronavirus, found to have it and then died but there are probably many others who have died without being able to get a test such as the grandmother mentioned in the article. It's a bit worrying there are no figures for that - the local officials must have an idea how many extra bodies are turning up at crematoria and the like but it doesn't seem to be public.
  - taborj 7y ago
    ^ This exactly. They may be accurately reporting the actual number of diagnosed cases (which I'm on the fence about), but they are certainly not reporting "suspected" cases. I understand that's hard to discern, but they should have a decent idea about the average mortality rate in the area, and be able to see an uptick that will give them a rough estimate.
DarthGhandi 7y ago
The real terrifying thing is how many people will ignore international expert consensus to push their own worldview narratives. China is bad, everyone else is good. Anything more complicated than that is essentially discarded. I think they've doing a good job. The world health organisation does. What's the actual problem here other than the usual China flamewars?
- apatters 7y ago
  I haven't really dug into them but there are criticisms that the Chinese government ignored the situation in the early stages and suppressed information about it. Which sounds like typical negatives of an authoritarian government that hinders free expression and isn't democratically accountable. Perfectly valid to criticize that. Now that they're engaged, the WHO is saying they're responding pretty well.
  - unityByFreedom 7y ago
    > the WHO is saying they're responding pretty well. The WHO is captured by China.
  - DarthGhandi 7y ago
    > I haven't really dug into An international collective of doctors and scientists who advise the World Health Organisation said this isn't a these you currently, why exactly do you have any reason to doubt them? Only have to look at the other response here to see how certain types with absolutely no concern for the truth want to dominate this debate, it's just another opportunity for them, nothing else. The WHO has been previously criticised for only declaring emergencies when it involves America or the holiday season. There's published papers on the matter saying so. You can't please all the people with this stuff but the onus is on anyone claiming why this body made up of international experts all in competition with each other suddenly decided to collectively conspire in some sort of bizarre attempt to hide the truth? The scientists advising WHO saying this stuff have far more to lose than the commentators here, people shouldn't lose sight of that very salient fact.
unityByFreedom 7y ago
The WHO is captured by China. You're not going to get any reports from doctors who have challenged the CCP narrative there.
- me_me_me 7y ago
  When I read who's statements like: do not close boarders to china because it will hurt business, I do start to wonder.
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    When did they give a statement like that? Show me
    - unityByFreedom 7y ago
      > No travel ban: Tedros, as he is called, said the WHO does not recommend limiting either trade or travel to China at this time. “In fact, we oppose it,” he said. The health organization said it would question border closures, quarantining of airplane passengers who aren’t ill, and similar steps. https://www.technologyreview.com/f/615123/the-china-coronavirus-is-officially-an-international-emergency/ https://www.technologyreview.com/f/615123/the-china-coronavi...
  - unityByFreedom 7y ago
    Yes, the WHO says quarantining within China is fine but canceling flights to other countries is unnecessarily punitive. It's absurd. If China wants countries to open their doors again then they need to let the rest of the world's doctors in to help research the nature of this virus.
- Bendingo 7y ago
  Wow. That's quite an imaginative claim. Got anything to support it?
  - unityByFreedom 7y ago
ryanwaggoner 7y ago
Curious as to what's making you feel better from those reports. Reading today's, the documented cases in China grew 15% in the last 24 hours, and cases outside China grew by almost the same. It seems highly unlikely that this is going to be able to be contained, even assuming that China's numbers are remotely accurate.
- apatters 7y ago
  Fair question, it's not that the situation is looking great, but that the media is making it look worse than it currently is. Outside of China the worst hit countries have a little more than two dozen cases and there's only been a single death. It makes me not be afraid of this disease. My chance of getting it is crazy low and if I do I will likely just have a mild to bad flu. Of course things can and probably will get worse, we'll see by how much.
  - ryanwaggoner 7y ago
    It does seem like countries other than China have it under control currently, which is really good news. But the reason for concern isn’t your chances of getting this virus today, which is extremely remote unless you’re in Wuhan. The concern is that China can’t contain this and it’s only a matter of time until it becomes a global pandemic, with the risk of killing millions and overwhelming medical infrastructures. There’s a reason so many epidemiologists seem worried...
    - apatters 7y ago
      To add to the list of stuff that I consider positive/encouraging: - Out of 270 confirmed non-China cases there's still been only one death. That's a 0.3% death rate. Which raises the question, why is the death rate 2-3% in China? Are we sure it will be that high worldwide? Is it 2-3% because of something unique to the virus or something unique to China (i.e. a delayed response leading to overwhelmed health services). - I think the histographs in the WHO situation reports (Fig 2 and Fig 3 in the latest one [1]) tell an interesting story which has gone largely unreported. Excluding the situation on the Japanese cruise ship (which is tragic but easy to quarantine), new international infections have been declining since the end of January. That's because the majority of non-Chinese who became infected got it in Wuhan. No one is going in or out Wuhan now, so those cases have basically dropped to zero, and other sources of infection are stable to down. Obviously vigilance is important and the threat of an international spread needs to be taken seriously. But I think we should at least consider the possibility that this virus may have appeared more dangerous than it actually is because of a poor early response in Wuhan. And while the response can always be better, no one now is screwing up as badly as Wuhan did. [1] Latest situation report: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200207-sitrep-18-ncov.pdf?sfvrsn=fa644293_2 https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati...

droithomme 7y ago

> my own alarm has lessened considerably That that is the case speaks poorly of the WHO as a reliable source of information. Run the numbers. Run a regression on Hubei's spread. I did. That's the two-weeks out future for the virus outside of Hubei (unless the speculation that there was a secretive inoculation program in Hubei that went wrong). Presuming Hubei's population is normal, then this is spreading badly and is not contained. It describes the future. My future, your future. Our future. Psychotic downvoters suppressing the verifiable mathematical reality. Enjoy your apocalypse and mass death. Evil. Better to work on a fix rather than Chinese Communist State Suppression of facts here on HN. You can't suppress a virus using propaganda tactics. All you bring is death.

jdc 7y ago
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." [...] Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- droithomme 7y ago
  I hope you enjoy the mass death you are bringing about. I don't enjoy it at all. But philosophically, I respect your right to be a Satanist working hard to bring on the elimination of life.
Joe-Z 7y ago
For someone who accuses other people of being crazy you sure sound pretty crazy yourself. Maybe back up your claims with numbers instead of throwing around accusations of censorship and propaganda?
progman32 7y ago
Can you be more specific? If you believe the WHO is wrong, can you provide more details on why you hold this position? An argument backed by facts will help.
phreeza 7y ago
Care to share the regression you did? Just eyeballing it on a semilog scale, looks like it is plateauing already.

taneq 7y ago

I just ran across this link (https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3871594 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3871594) suggesting that the official numbers coming out of China may be significantly understated. I'm not familiar with the site, though - are they a reliable news source? Not sure how much credence to give it.

yread 7y ago
I think the most likely explanation for that is that they confused the numbers of quarantined->infected and infected->dead people
yorwba 7y ago
The story is implausible because it rests on top-secret data about the "real" number of cases being shared with Tencent News and making it all the way to the lowly data-entry operator updating their website. All those disease-tracking websites in China I'm aware of link to a long list of local government press releases and seem to simply aggregate the numbers in those. https://xw.qq.com/act/qgfeiyan https://xw.qq.com/act/qgfeiyan https://news.sina.cn/zt_d/yiqing0121 https://news.sina.cn/zt_d/yiqing0121 https://ncov.dxy.cn/ncovh5/view/pneumonia https://ncov.dxy.cn/ncovh5/view/pneumonia I don't believe they have privileged access to government secrets. If the government wants to hide something, the last thing they're going to do is share that data with a news org.
tim333 7y ago
I don't know about those numbers but I think deaths may be considerably understated due to them only counting people who have been properly tested for coronavirus, found to have it and then died but there are probably many others who have died without being able to get a test such as the grandmother mentioned in the article. It's a bit worrying there are no figures for that - the local officials must have an idea how many extra bodies are turning up at crematoria and the like but it doesn't seem to be public.
- taborj 7y ago
  ^ This exactly. They may be accurately reporting the actual number of diagnosed cases (which I'm on the fence about), but they are certainly not reporting "suspected" cases. I understand that's hard to discern, but they should have a decent idea about the average mortality rate in the area, and be able to see an uptick that will give them a rough estimate.

DarthGhandi 7y ago

The real terrifying thing is how many people will ignore international expert consensus to push their own worldview narratives. China is bad, everyone else is good. Anything more complicated than that is essentially discarded. I think they've doing a good job. The world health organisation does. What's the actual problem here other than the usual China flamewars?

apatters 7y ago
I haven't really dug into them but there are criticisms that the Chinese government ignored the situation in the early stages and suppressed information about it. Which sounds like typical negatives of an authoritarian government that hinders free expression and isn't democratically accountable. Perfectly valid to criticize that. Now that they're engaged, the WHO is saying they're responding pretty well.
- unityByFreedom 7y ago
  > the WHO is saying they're responding pretty well. The WHO is captured by China.
- DarthGhandi 7y ago
  > I haven't really dug into An international collective of doctors and scientists who advise the World Health Organisation said this isn't a these you currently, why exactly do you have any reason to doubt them? Only have to look at the other response here to see how certain types with absolutely no concern for the truth want to dominate this debate, it's just another opportunity for them, nothing else. The WHO has been previously criticised for only declaring emergencies when it involves America or the holiday season. There's published papers on the matter saying so. You can't please all the people with this stuff but the onus is on anyone claiming why this body made up of international experts all in competition with each other suddenly decided to collectively conspire in some sort of bizarre attempt to hide the truth? The scientists advising WHO saying this stuff have far more to lose than the commentators here, people shouldn't lose sight of that very salient fact.

unityByFreedom 7y ago

The WHO is captured by China. You're not going to get any reports from doctors who have challenged the CCP narrative there.

me_me_me 7y ago
When I read who's statements like: do not close boarders to china because it will hurt business, I do start to wonder.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  When did they give a statement like that? Show me
  - unityByFreedom 7y ago
    > No travel ban: Tedros, as he is called, said the WHO does not recommend limiting either trade or travel to China at this time. “In fact, we oppose it,” he said. The health organization said it would question border closures, quarantining of airplane passengers who aren’t ill, and similar steps. https://www.technologyreview.com/f/615123/the-china-coronavirus-is-officially-an-international-emergency/ https://www.technologyreview.com/f/615123/the-china-coronavi...
- unityByFreedom 7y ago
  Yes, the WHO says quarantining within China is fine but canceling flights to other countries is unnecessarily punitive. It's absurd. If China wants countries to open their doors again then they need to let the rest of the world's doctors in to help research the nature of this virus.
Bendingo 7y ago
Wow. That's quite an imaginative claim. Got anything to support it?
- unityByFreedom 7y ago

ryanwaggoner 7y ago

Curious as to what's making you feel better from those reports. Reading today's, the documented cases in China grew 15% in the last 24 hours, and cases outside China grew by almost the same. It seems highly unlikely that this is going to be able to be contained, even assuming that China's numbers are remotely accurate.

apatters 7y ago
Fair question, it's not that the situation is looking great, but that the media is making it look worse than it currently is. Outside of China the worst hit countries have a little more than two dozen cases and there's only been a single death. It makes me not be afraid of this disease. My chance of getting it is crazy low and if I do I will likely just have a mild to bad flu. Of course things can and probably will get worse, we'll see by how much.
- ryanwaggoner 7y ago
  It does seem like countries other than China have it under control currently, which is really good news. But the reason for concern isn’t your chances of getting this virus today, which is extremely remote unless you’re in Wuhan. The concern is that China can’t contain this and it’s only a matter of time until it becomes a global pandemic, with the risk of killing millions and overwhelming medical infrastructures. There’s a reason so many epidemiologists seem worried...
  - apatters 7y ago
    To add to the list of stuff that I consider positive/encouraging: - Out of 270 confirmed non-China cases there's still been only one death. That's a 0.3% death rate. Which raises the question, why is the death rate 2-3% in China? Are we sure it will be that high worldwide? Is it 2-3% because of something unique to the virus or something unique to China (i.e. a delayed response leading to overwhelmed health services). - I think the histographs in the WHO situation reports (Fig 2 and Fig 3 in the latest one [1]) tell an interesting story which has gone largely unreported. Excluding the situation on the Japanese cruise ship (which is tragic but easy to quarantine), new international infections have been declining since the end of January. That's because the majority of non-Chinese who became infected got it in Wuhan. No one is going in or out Wuhan now, so those cases have basically dropped to zero, and other sources of infection are stable to down. Obviously vigilance is important and the threat of an international spread needs to be taken seriously. But I think we should at least consider the possibility that this virus may have appeared more dangerous than it actually is because of a poor early response in Wuhan. And while the response can always be better, no one now is screwing up as badly as Wuhan did. [1] Latest situation report: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200207-sitrep-18-ncov.pdf?sfvrsn=fa644293_2 https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati...