4 ms·

Is it time to start treating this like a big deal yet? Their first case was three weeks ago and 50 deaf already? This virus is unprecedented and it is only resp

Is it time to start treating this like a big deal yet? Their first case was three weeks ago and 50 deaf already? This virus is unprecedented and it is only responsible for individuals with means to start preparing. No reason to wait for the government to tell you to do so. Plus each person that does it early is one less for the potential store rush.

shard972 7y ago
Not until it kills more than H1N1 apparently.
akie 7y ago
> This virus is unprecedented I think you need to read up on your history.
- tome 7y ago
  If you have particularly useful historical information to hand then it would probably better to share it rather than hint at its existence.
  - throwaway8941 7y ago
    Here's a useful index. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - WJW 7y ago
    Everyone who had history in high school has historical information about this. There have been numerous plagues throughout history with higher infectivity, higher lethality, and both relatively and absolutely higher death counts. Don't put the burden of looking up simple and easily findable information on other posters when you can easily google it yourself.
    - tome 7y ago
      There is a lot of misinformation out there too, and not everyone has the skills to "easily Google" for something outside of their sphere of competence. It would be helpful if those who do have hard facts to share do so directly. That's much more efficient than hoping that everyone will simply discover the facts as a matter of course.
      - simonh 7y ago
        If someone posts a comment saying something is historically unprecedented, isn't the onus on them to be able to back that assertion up?
        tome 7y ago
        Yes indeed. The onus is on all commenters to back up their assertions.
    - varjag 7y ago
      …and many of these would have infectivity and lethality similar to coronavirus if same standard of sanitary, containment effort and intensive care was available then.
    - jamesrcole 7y ago
      > Everyone who had history in high school has historical information about this I don't recall any such information. There's people on this site of all different ages, who grew up in all sorts of different places. How do you know what their high-school history covered? In my school, history was mandatory in the first year of high-school, and I think it might have been in the second year as well. Hardly anyone did it as a subject for the remainder of their high-school years. Needless to say, the content taught in those first 1-2 years barely even scratched the surface of historical topics.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - 7y ago
  - JimDabell 7y ago
    The Spanish Flu infected a quarter of the world's population and killed 50 million people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
- heyflyguy 7y ago
  This virus, coupled with modern day speed of travel *Could be unprecedented. I don't enjoy your snark, I think this is a very serious issue!
  - bilekas 7y ago
    The comment was not snark, it was based on your hyperbolic statement that this is unprecedented. But whatever doctor, like any coronavirus, hygiene and good considerate practices will help. The mortality rate is still around 2%-ish and hugely dependent on the health condition of the patient at time of contracting. Its annoying, its serious and it's spreading for sure. But it is not Armageddon-scale unprecedented contagion.
    - heyflyguy 7y ago
      I didn't make the original comment.
    - allovernow 7y ago
      There are less than 100,000 ICU beds in the United States. ≈15% of cases in healthy individuals require critical care. With current R0 it will not take long to fill those beds and experience the chaos that is bring down the Chinese Empire. Their GDP is shut down. Why do you think stocks tanked 4% today? At the very least we're already talking the start of a potential global recession because of a virus. If nothing else this is shaping up to be an event which will define a generation before it's all over.
- puranjay 7y ago
  It seems unprecedented in my lifetime, which, in case of matters of health, is all I care about. Spanish Flu might have killed 100M but that doesn't affect me. This thing does.
- allovernow 7y ago
  This is already at least as bad as the Spanish Flu in terms of R0 and CFR. Yes, unprecedented. Spanish Flu has an R0 of about 2[1]. Current published estimates for 2019-ncov are 2.3-3.8 for this paper [1] and there's another floating around which gets as high as 6-8. 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19545404/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19545404/ 2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971220300539 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197122... Look at the rate of spread in Korea and Italy recently. Where numbers aren't being cooked like in China. 3 weeks from first infection to Nationwide pandemic. Unprecedented. This is the first time something so virulent has struck humans living with this kind of density. This will have massive ramifications for global geopolitics because it will show the weakness of centralizing production in third world countries and becoming dependent. Rumors abound in china about elites, professors, researchers, lawyers speaking out against the government. 2500 of them allegedly signed a petition demanding free speech. This virus will test the resilience and ingenuity of the human race. Unprecedented.
bloodm 7y ago
"Their first case was three weeks ago and 50 deaf already?" Maybe send hearing aids?
afthonos 7y ago
I don’t know in what way it isn’t treated as a big deal. There are daily updates from every country; the news covers the epidemic in detail; China quarantined tens of millions of people; major trade shows are being cancelled. Unless you literally mean bubonic-plague levels of panic, I’m not sure what else remains to be done in places where the disease has not yet fully spread.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  I personally know experts in virology who are not working on a vaccine for this virus. Until all labs, equipment and experts are reassigned from whatever they are doing to finding a vaccine or cure, humanity is far from 'maximum response'. Assuming that world leaders are working in the best interests of their populations, that leads me to believe that whatever these experts and labs are currently studying is considered more important than this. Or to say it another way, world leaders have decided the hundreds of millions of dollars necessary to persuade these experts and labs to switch to studying this virus isn't worth the money. Which means those leaders believe that either the virus won't hit pandemic levels, or if it does, the economic impact will be less than hundreds of millions of dollars.
  - watertom 7y ago
    What are your experts telling you about this virus? Surely they are reading all the available literature that has been published, they would be poor experts if they weren’t keeping up with the hottest topic in their field in like forever. You should get them to come here and do an informational, break down some of the more specialized technical information, about how the virus behaves, attacks, etc. clearing up any confusion the technically minded, lay virologists among us.
  - jobigoud 7y ago
    You realize there are other diseases right? There is a world of difference between thinking it's a big deal and "reassigning all labs equipments and experts from whatever they are doing to finding a vaccine or cure". This would stall progress on so many other important stuff that it would cause much more damage than it's trying to prevent. As an example, there is currently the worst epidemic of dengue in South America's history right now. (3 million infected and 1500+ deaths in 2019). https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-51496280 https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-51496280
JulianMorrison 7y ago
What 50 dead means is, vastly larger numbers of mild infections being covered up or not reported. It doesn't mean it got deadly. It means they're lying how big it is.
thdrdt 7y ago
It is bad, but your are still more likely be killed by cancer or a car accident. Ebola is a virus that could be unprecedented. That's a serious killer and I am glad it is not traveling as fast as Corona.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  On the contrary, it travels faster than Corona and is more lethal. And that's exactly why it isn't such a huge problem, a typical Ebola outbreak burns out so fast that it doesn't spread beyond the community it starts in. If Ebola would ever start off in a major population center that would be an entirely different problem.

shard972 7y ago

Not until it kills more than H1N1 apparently.

akie 7y ago

> This virus is unprecedented I think you need to read up on your history.

tome 7y ago
If you have particularly useful historical information to hand then it would probably better to share it rather than hint at its existence.
- throwaway8941 7y ago
  Here's a useful index. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- WJW 7y ago
  Everyone who had history in high school has historical information about this. There have been numerous plagues throughout history with higher infectivity, higher lethality, and both relatively and absolutely higher death counts. Don't put the burden of looking up simple and easily findable information on other posters when you can easily google it yourself.
  - tome 7y ago
    There is a lot of misinformation out there too, and not everyone has the skills to "easily Google" for something outside of their sphere of competence. It would be helpful if those who do have hard facts to share do so directly. That's much more efficient than hoping that everyone will simply discover the facts as a matter of course.
    - simonh 7y ago
      If someone posts a comment saying something is historically unprecedented, isn't the onus on them to be able to back that assertion up?
      - tome 7y ago
        Yes indeed. The onus is on all commenters to back up their assertions.
  - varjag 7y ago
    …and many of these would have infectivity and lethality similar to coronavirus if same standard of sanitary, containment effort and intensive care was available then.
  - jamesrcole 7y ago
    > Everyone who had history in high school has historical information about this I don't recall any such information. There's people on this site of all different ages, who grew up in all sorts of different places. How do you know what their high-school history covered? In my school, history was mandatory in the first year of high-school, and I think it might have been in the second year as well. Hardly anyone did it as a subject for the remainder of their high-school years. Needless to say, the content taught in those first 1-2 years barely even scratched the surface of historical topics.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - 7y ago
- JimDabell 7y ago
  The Spanish Flu infected a quarter of the world's population and killed 50 million people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
heyflyguy 7y ago
This virus, coupled with modern day speed of travel *Could be unprecedented. I don't enjoy your snark, I think this is a very serious issue!
- bilekas 7y ago
  The comment was not snark, it was based on your hyperbolic statement that this is unprecedented. But whatever doctor, like any coronavirus, hygiene and good considerate practices will help. The mortality rate is still around 2%-ish and hugely dependent on the health condition of the patient at time of contracting. Its annoying, its serious and it's spreading for sure. But it is not Armageddon-scale unprecedented contagion.
  - heyflyguy 7y ago
    I didn't make the original comment.
  - allovernow 7y ago
    There are less than 100,000 ICU beds in the United States. ≈15% of cases in healthy individuals require critical care. With current R0 it will not take long to fill those beds and experience the chaos that is bring down the Chinese Empire. Their GDP is shut down. Why do you think stocks tanked 4% today? At the very least we're already talking the start of a potential global recession because of a virus. If nothing else this is shaping up to be an event which will define a generation before it's all over.
puranjay 7y ago
It seems unprecedented in my lifetime, which, in case of matters of health, is all I care about. Spanish Flu might have killed 100M but that doesn't affect me. This thing does.
allovernow 7y ago
This is already at least as bad as the Spanish Flu in terms of R0 and CFR. Yes, unprecedented. Spanish Flu has an R0 of about 2[1]. Current published estimates for 2019-ncov are 2.3-3.8 for this paper [1] and there's another floating around which gets as high as 6-8. 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19545404/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19545404/ 2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971220300539 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197122... Look at the rate of spread in Korea and Italy recently. Where numbers aren't being cooked like in China. 3 weeks from first infection to Nationwide pandemic. Unprecedented. This is the first time something so virulent has struck humans living with this kind of density. This will have massive ramifications for global geopolitics because it will show the weakness of centralizing production in third world countries and becoming dependent. Rumors abound in china about elites, professors, researchers, lawyers speaking out against the government. 2500 of them allegedly signed a petition demanding free speech. This virus will test the resilience and ingenuity of the human race. Unprecedented.

bloodm 7y ago

"Their first case was three weeks ago and 50 deaf already?" Maybe send hearing aids?

afthonos 7y ago

I don’t know in what way it isn’t treated as a big deal. There are daily updates from every country; the news covers the epidemic in detail; China quarantined tens of millions of people; major trade shows are being cancelled. Unless you literally mean bubonic-plague levels of panic, I’m not sure what else remains to be done in places where the disease has not yet fully spread.

londons_explore 7y ago
I personally know experts in virology who are not working on a vaccine for this virus. Until all labs, equipment and experts are reassigned from whatever they are doing to finding a vaccine or cure, humanity is far from 'maximum response'. Assuming that world leaders are working in the best interests of their populations, that leads me to believe that whatever these experts and labs are currently studying is considered more important than this. Or to say it another way, world leaders have decided the hundreds of millions of dollars necessary to persuade these experts and labs to switch to studying this virus isn't worth the money. Which means those leaders believe that either the virus won't hit pandemic levels, or if it does, the economic impact will be less than hundreds of millions of dollars.
- watertom 7y ago
  What are your experts telling you about this virus? Surely they are reading all the available literature that has been published, they would be poor experts if they weren’t keeping up with the hottest topic in their field in like forever. You should get them to come here and do an informational, break down some of the more specialized technical information, about how the virus behaves, attacks, etc. clearing up any confusion the technically minded, lay virologists among us.
- jobigoud 7y ago
  You realize there are other diseases right? There is a world of difference between thinking it's a big deal and "reassigning all labs equipments and experts from whatever they are doing to finding a vaccine or cure". This would stall progress on so many other important stuff that it would cause much more damage than it's trying to prevent. As an example, there is currently the worst epidemic of dengue in South America's history right now. (3 million infected and 1500+ deaths in 2019). https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-51496280 https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-51496280

JulianMorrison 7y ago

What 50 dead means is, vastly larger numbers of mild infections being covered up or not reported. It doesn't mean it got deadly. It means they're lying how big it is.

thdrdt 7y ago

It is bad, but your are still more likely be killed by cancer or a car accident. Ebola is a virus that could be unprecedented. That's a serious killer and I am glad it is not traveling as fast as Corona.

jacquesm 7y ago
On the contrary, it travels faster than Corona and is more lethal. And that's exactly why it isn't such a huge problem, a typical Ebola outbreak burns out so fast that it doesn't spread beyond the community it starts in. If Ebola would ever start off in a major population center that would be an entirely different problem.