15 ms·

Is It a Pandemic Yet?

174 points by kgwgk 7y ago

irq11 7y ago
Thankfully, this is a relatively mild virus. Part of what makes it hard to detect is that most cases (>80%) are mild, and many are actually asymptomatic: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-china-51540981 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia... The vast majority of people who have died have been elderly and/or infirm. The death rate under 60 is well under 1%. If you’re young and healthy, this is a chest cold. The biggest thing the media needs to do is to walk back as much of the panic and overreaction that has been circulating as possible. (edit: thanks to HN’s overbearing moderation system, I am unable to respond to replies. The censor-downvoting of factual information is apparently not a problem for HN mods, however.) JoeAltmaier, to respond to your comment, unless you know hundreds of elderly people, about the same number of people you know will die as in the average flu season. Do you find yourself regularly worried about the flu? Perspective is important.
- rdlecler1 7y ago
  Disagree. The more people are conditioned to be vigilant the safer people will be. You don’t think you have any skin in the game, but I bet you wouldn’t be saying that if you were in Northern Italy right now.
  - soared 7y ago
    Vigilant about what? There is no action you should be taking besides maybe storing some water and food.
- beamatronic 7y ago
  Age in low 60’s is not really “elderly”...
  - irq11 7y ago
    The distribution is strongly biased toward the elderly no matter how you cut the data; above 60, most of the deaths are in the oldest cohort.
- wuunderbar 7y ago
  What about non young or healthy people you might interact with when you’re asymptomatic?
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  So only 1 or two people I know will die of it? How is that 'mild' exactly? Relative to what? The plague?
  - jsjw7sbw 7y ago
    0.8% of the people you know die every year anyway. If all of the people you know get infected it might bump it to 3%. Not that radical in my opinion.
    - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
      That 0.8% includes 'old age'. In fact, its mostly old age. The corona virus increases the death rate from influenza 10,000X. By communicable disease, 100X?
      - jsjw7sbw 7y ago
        >mostly old age Same as corona, no? Edit: I'm not arguing it's less deadly than something else but in perspective I think 'mild' is an accurate description.
        JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        No, for most it takes a lifetime to accrue heart disease and cancer problems. It takes a moment to be infected with this virus, and will probably infect everyone ultimately(a year or two?)
- topkai22 7y ago
  Influenza is the single most deadly pathogens currently circulating and we could end up with an entirely separate pathogen circulating annually with similar or worse fatality statistics? Yes that is terrifying, even if I personally have a low likelihood of dying. Btw, influenza is also very lethal to infants. I have those in my family.
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  We actually don't know how bad this disease is. China's reporting on it absolutely can not be trusted, because: - their health care system is overwhelmed, so they're not testing everyone who may have been infected (a lot of sick people don't even go to the hospitals because they know they'll get turned away) - they seem to have run out of testing kits in many places - their testing may be faulty anyway (which could account for the many reports of people testing positive then negative then positive again) - their media is tightly controlled so there's no independent verification of what they tell us - they've changed their reporting criteria multiple times Outside of China there have been too few cases to know yet either, and the countries where it has spread seem to face some of the same issues as China (such as not testing enough people), so their reporting is likely to be skewed as well.
  - irq11 7y ago
    So basically, you’re choosing to ignore everything we actually know, and replace it with your theories and FUD. For the record? China is definitely, absolutely, positively under-reporting the infection rate. They have admitted it. They know that there are many mild cases that are not being counted. Among other things, this means that the commonly cited fatality rates are a gross overestimate, and would be much lower if we could count all of the mild and asymptomatic cases.
    - pmoriarty 7y ago
      "China is definitely, absolutely, positively under-reporting the infection rate." They also seem to be underreporting the fatalities, by (for example) counting them as not caused by COVID-19 when they may well be. Because both infection rates and fatalities are likely being underreported, and because we don't know by how much they are being underreported, it's premature to draw conclusions as to the severity of this disease.
      - irq11 7y ago
        No, this isn’t likely at all. The reason they are undercounting cases is because the cases not being counted are mild. If some of those mild cases go on to die, it’s pretty unlikely that it’s due to misdiagnosed severe atypical pneumonia. Absolutely no reputable sources have advanced this theory, just people who are scaring each other on HN and reddit. To summarize: undercounting mild cases is definitely happening. Undercounting of covid deaths is extremely unlikely to be happening. Therefore, we know that the current death rates are overestimates of the real values. These are facts.
pgt 7y ago
Non-paywalled link?
- EdwinHoksberg 7y ago
  https://archive.is/8xopJ https://archive.is/8xopJ
  - RandomGuyDTB 7y ago
    Blocked at my school :/ you can use Firefox's (probably Chrome's as well) reader mode to bypass the paywall though.
- rdlecler1 7y ago
  It seems that a number of publications have lowered there paywalled for coronavirus articles. As an important public service article, it seems like a crappy thing for the NYT to keep it up.
  - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
    I suspect because its an opinion piece, not actual news.
    - nickjj 7y ago
      That's a funny business model for a news site. Paywall everything except really important critical news which isn't an opinion piece and end up in a situation where 99% of your site is paywalled. So basically almost everything written isn't important enough to consider reading.
- jshevek 7y ago
  If you are using Brave or Firefox, you can just use "reader mode" to bypass the paywall.
  - pier25 7y ago
remote_phone 7y ago
Of course it is. The officials at WHO failed us because they are more worried about the politics than the truth. This type of behavior will make us not trust them in the future.
- wozniacki 7y ago
  Please cite defensible sources. The past weeks have been filled with mostly sentiment-heavy reports either downplaying it as just a mere flu, with no masks worn even in places like Tokyo - or on the other end of the spectrum - overblown sensationalist videos of people dropping like flies. We need more credible and helpful reports not just hearsay.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  It's still actually quite limited according to official data. They have to consider the reactions of the public and also the potential effects of declaring pandemics too often if it is not necessary. I don't have many comparison points but a quick Google shows that we are still very far from the 2009 flu pandemic, for example. Of course that may change...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - pmoriarty 7y ago
    The problem there's very little testing being done for this novel pathogen. New tests can't just be created by hospitals and labs out of thin air, and they can't be used without undergoing a lengthy bureaucratic approval process. For a novel pathogen like this the tests are still in the early phases of being manufactured and approved, so most people who go in with symptoms just aren't going to be tested. There's also a manpower issue that has to be taken in to account: if everyone with flu-like symptoms came in to get tested the hospitals and labs would be overwhelmed even if they had enough tests available and those tests were already approved. Many labs and hospitals are already close to being overwhelmed from seasonal flu. So I really wouldn't consider official data to be very reliable at this point. We really need to wait and see. Meanwhile, though, it would be prudent to err on the side of caution.
danmaz74 7y ago
I read a lot about this virus lately, and it looks like the mortality rate depends a lot on the availability of intensive care. If that's the case, slowing down the diffusion of the infection could be really important in keeping down the total number of deaths.
- wonderwonder 7y ago
  I noticed the same thing. As numbers continue to grow, we run the real risk of even top of the line health care systems being overwhelmed and people passing from lack of access to care. Couple numbers that jump out for me are China with ~3% mortality rate but also rumors of these numbers being vastly unreported. Iran with a 19% mortality rate (on a small scale)! Also the mortality rate appears to be 3.2% where for a while it was in the low 2s. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries If this grows into a true pandemic, it will to the best of my knowledge be the first stress test of our Just-In-Time style of inventory management at grocery stores.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    In Iran I suspect that either the actual number of cases is much higher than currently reported/known or that the people infected were mostly elderly, or both.
  - rossdavidh 7y ago
    China also reports about 8 recovered for every 1 death, so even if their numbers are accurately reported, there are a lot more who have done neither as of yet, and about 11% of them will die. Which would be a lot more deaths.
    - znpy 7y ago
      China also has a relatively old population, due to their one child policy. And age is a risk factor for covid-19. Italy on the other hand... Oh, nevermind.
  - nicolapede 7y ago
est31 7y ago
> Some 152 cases (and at least three deaths) were confirmed in Italy on Sunday, up from three cases on Thursday. The number of infected people in South Korea jumped to 763 (and six deaths) in just days. To add an important point: In both countries, they have detected covid-19 only well after it has spread inside the country. E.g. in Italy it started with one severely ill patient who went to the hospital and got tested positive for covid-19. Then they recursively traced people that person has been in contact with and found over a hundred cases. They still haven't found "patient zero" yet, the first person in that chain who entered Italy with the disease. Before, it has been all in the dark. There are likely many such pools of carriers all over the world. This aspect of covid-19 is its real danger: in many cases the disease is asymptomatic so you don't get a test and keep interacting with people normally, but it's still able to infect others.
- rimliu 7y ago
  Our media is referring to "patient zero" in Italy as a 38 years-old man. So either he is known or our media is full of your-know-that. Which would not be surprising. Edit: a commenter below correctly pointed out that that 38yo man is being referred to as "patient one" not "patient zero". My bad.
  - Udik 7y ago
    I think they're referring to him as "patient one". Patient zero (i.e. someone who is or was ill and has recently come back from China) hasn't been found yet.
    - gnulinux 7y ago
      Why does it have to be China? Couldn't it be Thailand/Singapore/S.Korea/Japan/Israel/Iran etc?
      - kingofpandora 7y ago
        Udik should have used e.g. rather than i.e.
Swizec 7y ago
We were looking into Covid-19 at the office and after digging through the scariness we realized mortality rate for healthy 30-somethings is around 0.1%. Then we said screw it and stopped worrying. We’re most likely gonna be fine. Even if it becomes widespread the odds are ever in our favor. Plus there’s already a few confirmed cases in SFBA so ... Edit: for the downvoters, I’m not say spread disease with wonton abandon, I’m saying don’t worry about dying. You should obviously be always careful of proper containment procedures even if you just hve the sniffles. At the very least wash your hands after blowing your nose.
- ropiwqefjnpoa 7y ago
  Yeah, I stopped worrying a few weeks back after I saw the mortality rate. It's basically a highly virulent flu with the same risk factors. Not on the same level as sars and the like.
  - James_Henry 7y ago
    It is a highly virulent flu with the same risk factors and no vaccine for those that are at high risk. It may not be something to worry about, but I'd think we should do something to prepare.
    - ropiwqefjnpoa 7y ago
      Absolutely, but the news is causing a low level panic as they do report numbers, but don't emphasize what the numbers mean. I guess that's also the viewers fault as the math is grade school simple.
      - brutt 7y ago
        Someone need to prepare explanation of numbers for them, but nobody did.
      - trengorilla 7y ago
        The news seems to mainly be reporting the 2% death rate when in fact it's more like 9% currently, so the panic could get much worse still.
James_Henry 7y ago
> And what should each of us do, beyond staying informed and washing our hands frequently? Keep calm and rational. It might be worth stocking some reserve of critical medications, for example — but not too much, because hoarding could create shortages. > We, as individuals, can also try to plan for basic contingencies. Companies can cross-train key staff members so that one person’s absence won’t derail the business. Family members and friends should be watchful of one another’s health and welfare, and stand prepared to care for the moderately ill if hospitals become overtaxed. > “Pandemic” isn’t just a technical public health term. It also is — or should be — a rallying cry. I would add that it is helpful to have a stock of at least 3 or so weeks of food and supplies so that you can, if needed, quarantine yourself and take care of yourself and your family/relations well. There isn't enough hospital space for everyone and a lot of people with the virus aren't sick enough to take that space from the those that really need it.
- JulianMorrison 7y ago
  You don't need to stock up if you can get food delivered. They can leave the delivery on the doorstep.
  - i_am_nomad 7y ago
    That might be what the other 1.5 million people in my city are counting on. Which means, I’m not going to count on that.
    - JulianMorrison 7y ago
      If your city's supermarkets can feed people with in-person shopping, they can feed people with deliveries as easily, it's the same number of people buying food.
      - mishac 7y ago
        That's assuming that every supermarket has enough delivery staff. That's not a valid assumption in many places.
bla3 7y ago
For perspective, numbers from the regular flu this winter: "At least 14,000 people have died and 250,000 have already been hospitalized during the 2019-2020 flu season, ..."
- rjtavares 7y ago
  For further perspective, Coronavirus' death rate is 10 to 40 times that of the regular flu. Of course, this number is an early estimate, but there is no doubt that this virus is much more dangerous than the flu.
- coldtea 7y ago
  The difference is we know what the flu can do and how bad it usually gets. And it's less lethal -- it's just more cases that's why there are lots more deaths with flu. But that wont necessarily the case if there's a corona pandemic.
  - themagician 7y ago
    We don’t though. It varies wildly. 2018-2019 flu season saw 50 million infected and 80,000 deaths in the United States.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Yes, and we can expect 10X to 20X that number at risk when this virus spreads.
  - 0xff00ffee 7y ago
    Why stop at 10x or 20x? Why not 1,000x? What's the science behind that?
    - theanalyst 7y ago
      0.5% mortality vs 2-3.5% mortality, look the number of recovered cases is still small, so we can't actually count the in progress numbers just yet
aww_dang 7y ago
Last week google had a promoted 'fact check' snippet for searches about covid-19 being released from a lab. Predictably, it was an article debunking the story as a crack-pot conspiracy theory. Today stories about covid-19 being released from a lab are front page at news.google.com.
- chc4 7y ago
  Those new articles have basically the same exact conspiracy theory reasoning behind them as the ZeroHedge and friends ones from last week, so this isn't as much of a slam dunk as you make it sound like.
  - aww_dang 7y ago
    Not sure why you need to characterize it as a slam dunk. That wasn't my intention. It is simply an observation of a contradiction. If we're capable of consuming news from a variety of sources, digesting them and coming to our own conclusions, that should be enough. If not, hand holding isn't going to help.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- thrower123 7y ago
  The hit rate on conspiracy theories is getting to be better than the official narrative these days.
- tim333 7y ago
  There are two versions. It being genetically engineered is highly unlikely. However it being studied in the Wuhan lab and getting out through a screw up is possible. Not that it makes a huge difference at the end of the day. The fact check seems quite wishy washy https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-government-laboratory/ https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-government-laborator... and here's the lab leak theorizing for what it's worth https://nypost.com/2020/02/22/dont-buy-chinas-story-the-coronavirus-may-have-leaked-from-a-lab/ https://nypost.com/2020/02/22/dont-buy-chinas-story-the-coro...
mothsonasloth 7y ago
For those who are worrying, don't bother with medical masks. A decent DIY rebreather for spray painting, sanding or house clearance should work. I have stockpiled gloves and goggles along with a rebreather FFP3 level. Total cost along with sanitization wipes and alcohol gel - £49 Piece of mind - priceless!
0xff00ffee 7y ago
As someone flying through Europe for the past three days and the next six, I'm just pushing that out of my mind while I flinch every time someone around me coughs...
- _pmf_ 7y ago
  Open borders are beautiful.
  - jankiehodgpodge 7y ago
    As a European, I agree.
cs702 7y ago
Yes. Definition of "pandemic": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic Even though the fatality rate in developed economies seems relatively low (on the order of 1%, perhaps lower), significant economic and logistical disruption appears inevitable in the short run, judging by the reaction of financial markets. Please don't overreact -- there's no need to blow things out of proportion -- but don't be stupid and dismiss this as unnecessary fear-mongering either. It's best to be prepared, just in case. For more details, see: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22403200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22403200 * https://apnews.com/32540d09ec101aac057660ef1b0aa970 https://apnews.com/32540d09ec101aac057660ef1b0aa970 * https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-we-know-about-the-wuhan-virus-11579716128 https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-we-know-about-the-wuhan-vi... * https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/coronavirus-china-live-updates/2020/02/24/58bdab58-56ad-11ea-ab68-101ecfec2532_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/coronaviru... * https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/business/stock-market-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/business/stock-market-cor... By the way, the OP's headline appears to be an exception to Betteridge's Law of Headlines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
cletus 7y ago
So Italy having an arguably uncontained cluster is probably the most troubling part. The EU has extremely porous borders. The chances of this spreading to the other EU members (and the UK) got a lot higher. At least in the US you largely have to come in by air. Yes of course there are land borders. Canada is one but fits the same description of most cross-border travel (apart from to the US) is by air. The border with Mexico is... probably more of an issue. Anyway, the benefit of this is that it gives you a central screening point. Given that carriers can be asymptomatic it's not impossible someone will slip through but it's more difficult for someone to convince themselves they just have a cold and they need to go home, to work or otherwise move across a border and spread the infection. The Northern hemisphere summer really can't come soon enough.
- blisterpeanuts 7y ago
  Summer = fewer colds? It could be problematic, though, because lots of people travel during the summer. There are probably millions of people queued up to visit Italy, Spain, Britain, etc. The Europeans take long vacations, so populations will be particularly mobile in July and August. I wonder if the U.S. might be slightly less vulnerable to contagion, since Americans tend to visit beaches, national parks and other less crowded places, whereas in Europe the tourist attractions are in crowded cities. It's going to be an interesting few months before a vaccine is hopefully found.
  - monadic2 7y ago
    Summer = better air flow, both inside and because people spend more time outside.
    - gnulinux 7y ago
      Not an expert, but it's been stated by experts that coronoviruses, in general, spread slower during summer. This has not been proven for COVID-19, but presumably there will be some nontrivial affect on this virus as well.
      - 7y ago
ducttape12 7y ago
Can someone explain to me why coronavirus is getting so much coverage? According to Wikipedia, Coronavirus has killed about 2000 people. Each year smoking kills 480,000 people in the US. In two days smoking will have killed more people in the US than coronavirus has worldwide. Shouldn't we have headlines about this every day? Or any of the other far more deadly things (traffic accidents, heart disease, suicide, etc.)? (I'm not trolling, I honestly don't understand why this is different.)
- nathanyukai 7y ago
  well because people are used to those figures and it won't grab people's eyeball anymore. While coronavirus can potentially kill a lot more people if it becomes a global break out.
  - ducttape12 7y ago
    So it's what I'm thinking, it's the news hyping it up to get clicks, ad impressions, etc? Seems kind of irresponsible to get the public into a frenzy just to make money.
    - oska 7y ago
      > it's the news hyping it up to get clicks, ad impressions, etc? No. You've already had several good answers on the difference between multiplicative & systemic risk vs additive risk. That's the reason that people are taking this outbreak seriously and why it is getting significant media coverage.
- rubidium 7y ago
  Because smoking has been in the headlines, but it's not news anymore that it's killing so many. The editor of that newspaper would get fired for making that a headline everyday. It is news that there's a new flu-like virus emerging, spreading, and having a relatively high rate of mortality.
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
pstadler 7y ago
A couple of excellent sources for COVID19: https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/ https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus... (most up-to-date counter and news aggregator which includes a source for each reported number) https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/ https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/ (strictly moderated, lots of links to scientific reports and papers, no hoaxes and fake news) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Z7VQ5xlf3BaTx_LBBblsW4hLoGYWnZyog3jqsS9Dbgc/htmlview?sle=true https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Z7VQ5xlf3BaTx_LBBbls... (spreadsheets with interesting charts)
- grinsekatze 7y ago
  And another one by Johns Hopkins CSSE: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...
- topkai22 7y ago
  I’ll through out the daily who situation reports: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports/ https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...
mrb 7y ago
I will probably be downvoted for saying this, but... The seasonal flu alone kills half a million people every year. So any mild disease that is as contagious and barely twice as fatal will kill 1 million. And that's what's going to happen with COVID19. It is far more severe than the flu. We know COVID19 is as contagious, given how fast it's spreading and how unstoppable it is (R0>2, asymptomatic transmission, airborne). And we now have 4 independent estimates that place the Infection Fatality Ratio at about 0.5% to 1.7% which is between 5x and 17x deadlier than the flu (0.1%): https://twitter.com/zorinaq/status/1230977769795776512 https://twitter.com/zorinaq/status/1230977769795776512 Incidentally, this makes COVID19 comparable to the 1918 Spanish Flu (IFR ~2%) according to experts (see link above). And keep in mind the IFR, unlike the CFR, is the metric that takes into account undetected mild cases. The Case Fatality Ratio is around 9% right now. So based on this, I predict it will go pandemic and will kill 1 million, and probably a lot more. COVID19 is the most severe (ie. contagious + fatal) airborne disease since the Spanish Flu.
- blisterpeanuts 7y ago
  [edited to change linked article] Fortunately we know a lot more about viruses today than we did in 1918. The virus has already been mapped genetically, and many labs around the world are hard at work on an anti-viral treatment. We shouldn't get complacent of course, but it's likely that this thing can be contained and treated eventually. I read today about a device[1] from Israel that helps the lungs quickly clear phlegm, thus reducing the coughing behavior that spreads the disease. The Chinese are starting to manufacture and deploy it, so hopefully it will cut back on the spread at least a bit. 1. https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/New-Israeli-invention-used-to-treat-coronavirus-victims-in-China-617530 https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/New-Israeli-invention-u...
  - wffurr 7y ago
    That link has a really obnoxious popup banner for a political poll. Can you use one that is just the news, please? e.g. https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/New-Israeli-invention-used-to-treat-coronavirus-victims-in-China-617530 https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/New-Israeli-invention-u...
remote_phone 7y ago
A study from Germany said that by day 10, all patients had produced antibodies against coronavirus. The key to treatment is to make sure that the patients don’t have severe symptoms before then and then the body will naturally fight it off. If the body gets overwhelmed before day 10 then it becomes more severe and possibly fatal.
- suoinguon 7y ago
  can you link me to the source?
SirensOfTitan 7y ago
I feel fairly uncertain as to how seriously I should /personally/ take COVID19 living in a large American city as a healthy young person with no upcoming travel. I see some friends seriously taking precautions (like buying masks) already, which up-to-this-point I've found a little absurd. Could anyone who knows better perhaps enlighten me on how I ought to be reacting to this?
- WillPostForFood 7y ago
  Buy extra food so if you get sick you don't have to go out and infect other people, or if you are in an area with a lot of sick people you don't have to go out to bu food and get infected.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    That's a socially-conscious act and I applaud it. But in truth, before this is over every person on earth will have experienced the virus. The reason to control the spread and delay infection (not avoid it; that's probably impossible) is to allow the health-care infrastructure critical time to manage the flow of sick. If we all got sick at once, there'd be no capacity to treat 99.9% of us. If we spread it out over a year or more, we can treat more people and have a better outcome.
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      That's not typically how it works. Historical pandemics have only infected about 30% of the population.
      - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        This one is air-borne with many days of no initial symptoms. That's the whole deal right there, why this is especially problematic.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
victor106 7y ago
Can someone ELI5? Why is it so hard to produce a vaccination for this virus? We have vaccinations targeting viruses all the time, isn’t it?
- robjan 7y ago
  Vaccines are being worked on as we speak but the testing and approval process takes a long time.
  - vidanay 7y ago
    IMO, if testing shows a good effectiveness, approval will be fast-pathed.
    - 0xffff2 7y ago
      The fast path for vaccine approval is 2+ years.
      - elpatoisthebest 7y ago
        It looks like it was fast tracked quite a bit faster than 2 years during the H1N1 pandemic. I don't have a better resource right now than Wikipedia, but I guess we could follow the links for more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic#Vaccines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic#Vaccines But according to this page by 19 November 2009 the vaccine was distributed to 16 countries. I think it was first really noticed in April 2009. Not making any claims about what to expect for COVID-19, just that they have fast tracked vaccines faster than 2 years in the recent past.
joobus 7y ago
Why is hacker news censoring covid-19 articles? This article just disappeared from the front page despite having more upvotes than most articles on the first page after being submitted an hour ago. Another covid-19 article over the weekend disappeared from the front page also.
- jerf 7y ago
  I don't know exactly, but IMHO this weekend it has raised itself up to the point that the tech industry really needs to start paying attention to it on a number of levels. The company I work for has a number of significant international offices, and I think the odds of at least one of them being significantly impacted at some point in the next 2-3 months has to be at least 25%. It isn't just the virus itself, or even necessarily primarily the virus, but also the measures the local government enforces. A lot of us engineers have a relatively easy "work from home" option, but not everyone is a programmer. You also have localized concerns, like, at what point are all the people ordering from Amazon going to stop because they're afraid of getting the virus shipped to them? What is Amazon doing about their worker's health, especially in light of the rather persistent rumors this can spread while asymptomatic? On the one hand, I see people claiming that the virus can't survive being shipped very well and on the other hand we have Amazon striving to ship faster and faster, to say nothing of the actual delivery person. Whether we like it or not, this is rapidly becoming "tech industry" news too. Unless we are very lucky, by the end of this week, I suspect that's going to be obvious to everyone. As I've said a few times about prep, even if you don't get the virus or your area never has to be locked down, you ought to be doing prep work anyhow. If it isn't COVID-19, it'll be a quake, or a really bad normal flu season, or any number of other things. You make society more resilient and better able to deal with "true" emergencies when you've prepped enough to take care of yourself and not drain vital social resources at the worst time. You don't usually get lucky and have this kind of warning about oncoming issues. Prepping for a pandemic isn't identical to all the other things you may actually experience, but there's a lot of overlap.
- LyndsySimon 7y ago
  I'm not aware of HN itself actively "censoring" anything, as long as I've been here. If articles are disappearing from the front page, then it's likely due to them being flagged by users. I'll also note that I use an alternate front-end for HN - hckrnews - which by default sorts by time, so the only way I'm ever aware of this sort of complaint is when someone brings it up in the comments. As for this topic in particular, there has been a lot of coverage about COVID-19/2019-nCoV recently, but there hasn't been a lot of new information. I suspect people are flagging the topic because they're getting their regular updates on it from other communities and want HN to remain a place where topics that are of particular and specific interest are posted. Once I realized that's how the majority of the community sees it, I stopped thinking of the rise and fall of topics here as being based on whether or not they are "newsworthy" and it started making a lot more sense.
antisthenes 7y ago
NY Times would do well to let people read at least this article for free. It potentially concerns the health of every person on the planet, so sticking it behind a paywall/accountwall seems like particularly...poor taste?
beamatronic 7y ago
What is the worst case? 15% of the worlds population dies ?
- tim333 7y ago
  Nearer 2%.
  - seren 7y ago
    2% is the number of death when you have Intensive Care Unit beds to provide oxygen, fluids, anti viral drugs to serious case. 15% is the number of serious cases on average. So once you have filled all your ICU, you cannot take any serious case anymore, so I would say the most apocalyptic case is that all hospitals are overwhelmed, and you cannot address any serious case, so 15% is still possible in the most horrific case. (But not the more likely if you quarantine everyone) However in poor countries without any healthcare infrastructure we could have quite a number of serious case dying.
    - beamatronic 7y ago
      So we can stop this right now if everyone goes home and stays there
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

174 points by kgwgk 7y ago

Thankfully, this is a relatively mild virus. Part of what makes it hard to detect is that most cases (>80%) are mild, and many are actually asymptomatic: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-china-51540981 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia... The vast majority of people who have died have been elderly and/or infirm. The death rate under 60 is well under 1%. If you’re young and healthy, this is a chest cold. The biggest thing the media needs to do is to walk back as much of the panic and overreaction that has been circulating as possible. (edit: thanks to HN’s overbearing moderation system, I am unable to respond to replies. The censor-downvoting of factual information is apparently not a problem for HN mods, however.) JoeAltmaier, to respond to your comment, unless you know hundreds of elderly people, about the same number of people you know will die as in the average flu season. Do you find yourself regularly worried about the flu? Perspective is important.

rdlecler1 7y ago
Disagree. The more people are conditioned to be vigilant the safer people will be. You don’t think you have any skin in the game, but I bet you wouldn’t be saying that if you were in Northern Italy right now.
- soared 7y ago
  Vigilant about what? There is no action you should be taking besides maybe storing some water and food.
beamatronic 7y ago
Age in low 60’s is not really “elderly”...
- irq11 7y ago
  The distribution is strongly biased toward the elderly no matter how you cut the data; above 60, most of the deaths are in the oldest cohort.
wuunderbar 7y ago
What about non young or healthy people you might interact with when you’re asymptomatic?
JoeAltmaier 7y ago
So only 1 or two people I know will die of it? How is that 'mild' exactly? Relative to what? The plague?
- jsjw7sbw 7y ago
  0.8% of the people you know die every year anyway. If all of the people you know get infected it might bump it to 3%. Not that radical in my opinion.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    That 0.8% includes 'old age'. In fact, its mostly old age. The corona virus increases the death rate from influenza 10,000X. By communicable disease, 100X?
    - jsjw7sbw 7y ago
      >mostly old age Same as corona, no? Edit: I'm not arguing it's less deadly than something else but in perspective I think 'mild' is an accurate description.
      - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        No, for most it takes a lifetime to accrue heart disease and cancer problems. It takes a moment to be infected with this virus, and will probably infect everyone ultimately(a year or two?)
topkai22 7y ago
Influenza is the single most deadly pathogens currently circulating and we could end up with an entirely separate pathogen circulating annually with similar or worse fatality statistics? Yes that is terrifying, even if I personally have a low likelihood of dying. Btw, influenza is also very lethal to infants. I have those in my family.
pmoriarty 7y ago
We actually don't know how bad this disease is. China's reporting on it absolutely can not be trusted, because: - their health care system is overwhelmed, so they're not testing everyone who may have been infected (a lot of sick people don't even go to the hospitals because they know they'll get turned away) - they seem to have run out of testing kits in many places - their testing may be faulty anyway (which could account for the many reports of people testing positive then negative then positive again) - their media is tightly controlled so there's no independent verification of what they tell us - they've changed their reporting criteria multiple times Outside of China there have been too few cases to know yet either, and the countries where it has spread seem to face some of the same issues as China (such as not testing enough people), so their reporting is likely to be skewed as well.
- irq11 7y ago
  So basically, you’re choosing to ignore everything we actually know, and replace it with your theories and FUD. For the record? China is definitely, absolutely, positively under-reporting the infection rate. They have admitted it. They know that there are many mild cases that are not being counted. Among other things, this means that the commonly cited fatality rates are a gross overestimate, and would be much lower if we could count all of the mild and asymptomatic cases.
  - pmoriarty 7y ago
    "China is definitely, absolutely, positively under-reporting the infection rate." They also seem to be underreporting the fatalities, by (for example) counting them as not caused by COVID-19 when they may well be. Because both infection rates and fatalities are likely being underreported, and because we don't know by how much they are being underreported, it's premature to draw conclusions as to the severity of this disease.
    - irq11 7y ago
      No, this isn’t likely at all. The reason they are undercounting cases is because the cases not being counted are mild. If some of those mild cases go on to die, it’s pretty unlikely that it’s due to misdiagnosed severe atypical pneumonia. Absolutely no reputable sources have advanced this theory, just people who are scaring each other on HN and reddit. To summarize: undercounting mild cases is definitely happening. Undercounting of covid deaths is extremely unlikely to be happening. Therefore, we know that the current death rates are overestimates of the real values. These are facts.

pgt 7y ago

Non-paywalled link?

EdwinHoksberg 7y ago
https://archive.is/8xopJ https://archive.is/8xopJ
- RandomGuyDTB 7y ago
  Blocked at my school :/ you can use Firefox's (probably Chrome's as well) reader mode to bypass the paywall though.
rdlecler1 7y ago
It seems that a number of publications have lowered there paywalled for coronavirus articles. As an important public service article, it seems like a crappy thing for the NYT to keep it up.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  I suspect because its an opinion piece, not actual news.
  - nickjj 7y ago
    That's a funny business model for a news site. Paywall everything except really important critical news which isn't an opinion piece and end up in a situation where 99% of your site is paywalled. So basically almost everything written isn't important enough to consider reading.
jshevek 7y ago
If you are using Brave or Firefox, you can just use "reader mode" to bypass the paywall.
- pier25 7y ago

remote_phone 7y ago

Of course it is. The officials at WHO failed us because they are more worried about the politics than the truth. This type of behavior will make us not trust them in the future.

wozniacki 7y ago
Please cite defensible sources. The past weeks have been filled with mostly sentiment-heavy reports either downplaying it as just a mere flu, with no masks worn even in places like Tokyo - or on the other end of the spectrum - overblown sensationalist videos of people dropping like flies. We need more credible and helpful reports not just hearsay.
mytailorisrich 7y ago
It's still actually quite limited according to official data. They have to consider the reactions of the public and also the potential effects of declaring pandemics too often if it is not necessary. I don't have many comparison points but a quick Google shows that we are still very far from the 2009 flu pandemic, for example. Of course that may change...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  The problem there's very little testing being done for this novel pathogen. New tests can't just be created by hospitals and labs out of thin air, and they can't be used without undergoing a lengthy bureaucratic approval process. For a novel pathogen like this the tests are still in the early phases of being manufactured and approved, so most people who go in with symptoms just aren't going to be tested. There's also a manpower issue that has to be taken in to account: if everyone with flu-like symptoms came in to get tested the hospitals and labs would be overwhelmed even if they had enough tests available and those tests were already approved. Many labs and hospitals are already close to being overwhelmed from seasonal flu. So I really wouldn't consider official data to be very reliable at this point. We really need to wait and see. Meanwhile, though, it would be prudent to err on the side of caution.

danmaz74 7y ago

I read a lot about this virus lately, and it looks like the mortality rate depends a lot on the availability of intensive care. If that's the case, slowing down the diffusion of the infection could be really important in keeping down the total number of deaths.

wonderwonder 7y ago
I noticed the same thing. As numbers continue to grow, we run the real risk of even top of the line health care systems being overwhelmed and people passing from lack of access to care. Couple numbers that jump out for me are China with ~3% mortality rate but also rumors of these numbers being vastly unreported. Iran with a 19% mortality rate (on a small scale)! Also the mortality rate appears to be 3.2% where for a while it was in the low 2s. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries If this grows into a true pandemic, it will to the best of my knowledge be the first stress test of our Just-In-Time style of inventory management at grocery stores.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  In Iran I suspect that either the actual number of cases is much higher than currently reported/known or that the people infected were mostly elderly, or both.
- rossdavidh 7y ago
  China also reports about 8 recovered for every 1 death, so even if their numbers are accurately reported, there are a lot more who have done neither as of yet, and about 11% of them will die. Which would be a lot more deaths.
  - znpy 7y ago
    China also has a relatively old population, due to their one child policy. And age is a risk factor for covid-19. Italy on the other hand... Oh, nevermind.
- nicolapede 7y ago

est31 7y ago

> Some 152 cases (and at least three deaths) were confirmed in Italy on Sunday, up from three cases on Thursday. The number of infected people in South Korea jumped to 763 (and six deaths) in just days. To add an important point: In both countries, they have detected covid-19 only well after it has spread inside the country. E.g. in Italy it started with one severely ill patient who went to the hospital and got tested positive for covid-19. Then they recursively traced people that person has been in contact with and found over a hundred cases. They still haven't found "patient zero" yet, the first person in that chain who entered Italy with the disease. Before, it has been all in the dark. There are likely many such pools of carriers all over the world. This aspect of covid-19 is its real danger: in many cases the disease is asymptomatic so you don't get a test and keep interacting with people normally, but it's still able to infect others.

rimliu 7y ago
Our media is referring to "patient zero" in Italy as a 38 years-old man. So either he is known or our media is full of your-know-that. Which would not be surprising. Edit: a commenter below correctly pointed out that that 38yo man is being referred to as "patient one" not "patient zero". My bad.
- Udik 7y ago
  I think they're referring to him as "patient one". Patient zero (i.e. someone who is or was ill and has recently come back from China) hasn't been found yet.
  - gnulinux 7y ago
    Why does it have to be China? Couldn't it be Thailand/Singapore/S.Korea/Japan/Israel/Iran etc?
    - kingofpandora 7y ago
      Udik should have used e.g. rather than i.e.

Swizec 7y ago

We were looking into Covid-19 at the office and after digging through the scariness we realized mortality rate for healthy 30-somethings is around 0.1%. Then we said screw it and stopped worrying. We’re most likely gonna be fine. Even if it becomes widespread the odds are ever in our favor. Plus there’s already a few confirmed cases in SFBA so ... Edit: for the downvoters, I’m not say spread disease with wonton abandon, I’m saying don’t worry about dying. You should obviously be always careful of proper containment procedures even if you just hve the sniffles. At the very least wash your hands after blowing your nose.

ropiwqefjnpoa 7y ago
Yeah, I stopped worrying a few weeks back after I saw the mortality rate. It's basically a highly virulent flu with the same risk factors. Not on the same level as sars and the like.
- James_Henry 7y ago
  It is a highly virulent flu with the same risk factors and no vaccine for those that are at high risk. It may not be something to worry about, but I'd think we should do something to prepare.
  - ropiwqefjnpoa 7y ago
    Absolutely, but the news is causing a low level panic as they do report numbers, but don't emphasize what the numbers mean. I guess that's also the viewers fault as the math is grade school simple.
    - brutt 7y ago
      Someone need to prepare explanation of numbers for them, but nobody did.
    - trengorilla 7y ago
      The news seems to mainly be reporting the 2% death rate when in fact it's more like 9% currently, so the panic could get much worse still.

James_Henry 7y ago

> And what should each of us do, beyond staying informed and washing our hands frequently? Keep calm and rational. It might be worth stocking some reserve of critical medications, for example — but not too much, because hoarding could create shortages. > We, as individuals, can also try to plan for basic contingencies. Companies can cross-train key staff members so that one person’s absence won’t derail the business. Family members and friends should be watchful of one another’s health and welfare, and stand prepared to care for the moderately ill if hospitals become overtaxed. > “Pandemic” isn’t just a technical public health term. It also is — or should be — a rallying cry. I would add that it is helpful to have a stock of at least 3 or so weeks of food and supplies so that you can, if needed, quarantine yourself and take care of yourself and your family/relations well. There isn't enough hospital space for everyone and a lot of people with the virus aren't sick enough to take that space from the those that really need it.

JulianMorrison 7y ago
You don't need to stock up if you can get food delivered. They can leave the delivery on the doorstep.
- i_am_nomad 7y ago
  That might be what the other 1.5 million people in my city are counting on. Which means, I’m not going to count on that.
  - JulianMorrison 7y ago
    If your city's supermarkets can feed people with in-person shopping, they can feed people with deliveries as easily, it's the same number of people buying food.
    - mishac 7y ago
      That's assuming that every supermarket has enough delivery staff. That's not a valid assumption in many places.

bla3 7y ago

For perspective, numbers from the regular flu this winter: "At least 14,000 people have died and 250,000 have already been hospitalized during the 2019-2020 flu season, ..."

rjtavares 7y ago
For further perspective, Coronavirus' death rate is 10 to 40 times that of the regular flu. Of course, this number is an early estimate, but there is no doubt that this virus is much more dangerous than the flu.
coldtea 7y ago
The difference is we know what the flu can do and how bad it usually gets. And it's less lethal -- it's just more cases that's why there are lots more deaths with flu. But that wont necessarily the case if there's a corona pandemic.
- themagician 7y ago
  We don’t though. It varies wildly. 2018-2019 flu season saw 50 million infected and 80,000 deaths in the United States.
JoeAltmaier 7y ago
Yes, and we can expect 10X to 20X that number at risk when this virus spreads.
- 0xff00ffee 7y ago
  Why stop at 10x or 20x? Why not 1,000x? What's the science behind that?
  - theanalyst 7y ago
    0.5% mortality vs 2-3.5% mortality, look the number of recovered cases is still small, so we can't actually count the in progress numbers just yet

aww_dang 7y ago

Last week google had a promoted 'fact check' snippet for searches about covid-19 being released from a lab. Predictably, it was an article debunking the story as a crack-pot conspiracy theory. Today stories about covid-19 being released from a lab are front page at news.google.com.

chc4 7y ago
Those new articles have basically the same exact conspiracy theory reasoning behind them as the ZeroHedge and friends ones from last week, so this isn't as much of a slam dunk as you make it sound like.
- aww_dang 7y ago
  Not sure why you need to characterize it as a slam dunk. That wasn't my intention. It is simply an observation of a contradiction. If we're capable of consuming news from a variety of sources, digesting them and coming to our own conclusions, that should be enough. If not, hand holding isn't going to help.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
thrower123 7y ago
The hit rate on conspiracy theories is getting to be better than the official narrative these days.
tim333 7y ago
There are two versions. It being genetically engineered is highly unlikely. However it being studied in the Wuhan lab and getting out through a screw up is possible. Not that it makes a huge difference at the end of the day. The fact check seems quite wishy washy https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-government-laboratory/ https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-government-laborator... and here's the lab leak theorizing for what it's worth https://nypost.com/2020/02/22/dont-buy-chinas-story-the-coronavirus-may-have-leaked-from-a-lab/ https://nypost.com/2020/02/22/dont-buy-chinas-story-the-coro...

mothsonasloth 7y ago

For those who are worrying, don't bother with medical masks. A decent DIY rebreather for spray painting, sanding or house clearance should work. I have stockpiled gloves and goggles along with a rebreather FFP3 level. Total cost along with sanitization wipes and alcohol gel - £49 Piece of mind - priceless!

0xff00ffee 7y ago

As someone flying through Europe for the past three days and the next six, I'm just pushing that out of my mind while I flinch every time someone around me coughs...

_pmf_ 7y ago
Open borders are beautiful.
- jankiehodgpodge 7y ago
  As a European, I agree.

cs702 7y ago

Yes. Definition of "pandemic": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic Even though the fatality rate in developed economies seems relatively low (on the order of 1%, perhaps lower), significant economic and logistical disruption appears inevitable in the short run, judging by the reaction of financial markets. Please don't overreact -- there's no need to blow things out of proportion -- but don't be stupid and dismiss this as unnecessary fear-mongering either. It's best to be prepared, just in case. For more details, see: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22403200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22403200 * https://apnews.com/32540d09ec101aac057660ef1b0aa970 https://apnews.com/32540d09ec101aac057660ef1b0aa970 * https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-we-know-about-the-wuhan-virus-11579716128 https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-we-know-about-the-wuhan-vi... * https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/coronavirus-china-live-updates/2020/02/24/58bdab58-56ad-11ea-ab68-101ecfec2532_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/coronaviru... * https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/business/stock-market-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/business/stock-market-cor... By the way, the OP's headline appears to be an exception to Betteridge's Law of Headlines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

cletus 7y ago

So Italy having an arguably uncontained cluster is probably the most troubling part. The EU has extremely porous borders. The chances of this spreading to the other EU members (and the UK) got a lot higher. At least in the US you largely have to come in by air. Yes of course there are land borders. Canada is one but fits the same description of most cross-border travel (apart from to the US) is by air. The border with Mexico is... probably more of an issue. Anyway, the benefit of this is that it gives you a central screening point. Given that carriers can be asymptomatic it's not impossible someone will slip through but it's more difficult for someone to convince themselves they just have a cold and they need to go home, to work or otherwise move across a border and spread the infection. The Northern hemisphere summer really can't come soon enough.

blisterpeanuts 7y ago
Summer = fewer colds? It could be problematic, though, because lots of people travel during the summer. There are probably millions of people queued up to visit Italy, Spain, Britain, etc. The Europeans take long vacations, so populations will be particularly mobile in July and August. I wonder if the U.S. might be slightly less vulnerable to contagion, since Americans tend to visit beaches, national parks and other less crowded places, whereas in Europe the tourist attractions are in crowded cities. It's going to be an interesting few months before a vaccine is hopefully found.
- monadic2 7y ago
  Summer = better air flow, both inside and because people spend more time outside.
  - gnulinux 7y ago
    Not an expert, but it's been stated by experts that coronoviruses, in general, spread slower during summer. This has not been proven for COVID-19, but presumably there will be some nontrivial affect on this virus as well.
    - 7y ago

ducttape12 7y ago

Can someone explain to me why coronavirus is getting so much coverage? According to Wikipedia, Coronavirus has killed about 2000 people. Each year smoking kills 480,000 people in the US. In two days smoking will have killed more people in the US than coronavirus has worldwide. Shouldn't we have headlines about this every day? Or any of the other far more deadly things (traffic accidents, heart disease, suicide, etc.)? (I'm not trolling, I honestly don't understand why this is different.)

nathanyukai 7y ago
well because people are used to those figures and it won't grab people's eyeball anymore. While coronavirus can potentially kill a lot more people if it becomes a global break out.
- ducttape12 7y ago
  So it's what I'm thinking, it's the news hyping it up to get clicks, ad impressions, etc? Seems kind of irresponsible to get the public into a frenzy just to make money.
  - oska 7y ago
    > it's the news hyping it up to get clicks, ad impressions, etc? No. You've already had several good answers on the difference between multiplicative & systemic risk vs additive risk. That's the reason that people are taking this outbreak seriously and why it is getting significant media coverage.
rubidium 7y ago
Because smoking has been in the headlines, but it's not news anymore that it's killing so many. The editor of that newspaper would get fired for making that a headline everyday. It is news that there's a new flu-like virus emerging, spreading, and having a relatively high rate of mortality.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago

pstadler 7y ago

A couple of excellent sources for COVID19: https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/ https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus... (most up-to-date counter and news aggregator which includes a source for each reported number) https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/ https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/ (strictly moderated, lots of links to scientific reports and papers, no hoaxes and fake news) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Z7VQ5xlf3BaTx_LBBblsW4hLoGYWnZyog3jqsS9Dbgc/htmlview?sle=true https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Z7VQ5xlf3BaTx_LBBbls... (spreadsheets with interesting charts)

grinsekatze 7y ago
And another one by Johns Hopkins CSSE: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...
topkai22 7y ago
I’ll through out the daily who situation reports: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports/ https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...

mrb 7y ago

I will probably be downvoted for saying this, but... The seasonal flu alone kills half a million people every year. So any mild disease that is as contagious and barely twice as fatal will kill 1 million. And that's what's going to happen with COVID19. It is far more severe than the flu. We know COVID19 is as contagious, given how fast it's spreading and how unstoppable it is (R0>2, asymptomatic transmission, airborne). And we now have 4 independent estimates that place the Infection Fatality Ratio at about 0.5% to 1.7% which is between 5x and 17x deadlier than the flu (0.1%): https://twitter.com/zorinaq/status/1230977769795776512 https://twitter.com/zorinaq/status/1230977769795776512 Incidentally, this makes COVID19 comparable to the 1918 Spanish Flu (IFR ~2%) according to experts (see link above). And keep in mind the IFR, unlike the CFR, is the metric that takes into account undetected mild cases. The Case Fatality Ratio is around 9% right now. So based on this, I predict it will go pandemic and will kill 1 million, and probably a lot more. COVID19 is the most severe (ie. contagious + fatal) airborne disease since the Spanish Flu.

blisterpeanuts 7y ago
[edited to change linked article] Fortunately we know a lot more about viruses today than we did in 1918. The virus has already been mapped genetically, and many labs around the world are hard at work on an anti-viral treatment. We shouldn't get complacent of course, but it's likely that this thing can be contained and treated eventually. I read today about a device[1] from Israel that helps the lungs quickly clear phlegm, thus reducing the coughing behavior that spreads the disease. The Chinese are starting to manufacture and deploy it, so hopefully it will cut back on the spread at least a bit. 1. https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/New-Israeli-invention-used-to-treat-coronavirus-victims-in-China-617530 https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/New-Israeli-invention-u...
- wffurr 7y ago
  That link has a really obnoxious popup banner for a political poll. Can you use one that is just the news, please? e.g. https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/New-Israeli-invention-used-to-treat-coronavirus-victims-in-China-617530 https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/New-Israeli-invention-u...

remote_phone 7y ago

A study from Germany said that by day 10, all patients had produced antibodies against coronavirus. The key to treatment is to make sure that the patients don’t have severe symptoms before then and then the body will naturally fight it off. If the body gets overwhelmed before day 10 then it becomes more severe and possibly fatal.

suoinguon 7y ago
can you link me to the source?

SirensOfTitan 7y ago

I feel fairly uncertain as to how seriously I should /personally/ take COVID19 living in a large American city as a healthy young person with no upcoming travel. I see some friends seriously taking precautions (like buying masks) already, which up-to-this-point I've found a little absurd. Could anyone who knows better perhaps enlighten me on how I ought to be reacting to this?

WillPostForFood 7y ago
Buy extra food so if you get sick you don't have to go out and infect other people, or if you are in an area with a lot of sick people you don't have to go out to bu food and get infected.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  That's a socially-conscious act and I applaud it. But in truth, before this is over every person on earth will have experienced the virus. The reason to control the spread and delay infection (not avoid it; that's probably impossible) is to allow the health-care infrastructure critical time to manage the flow of sick. If we all got sick at once, there'd be no capacity to treat 99.9% of us. If we spread it out over a year or more, we can treat more people and have a better outcome.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    That's not typically how it works. Historical pandemics have only infected about 30% of the population.
    - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
      This one is air-borne with many days of no initial symptoms. That's the whole deal right there, why this is especially problematic.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]

victor106 7y ago

Can someone ELI5? Why is it so hard to produce a vaccination for this virus? We have vaccinations targeting viruses all the time, isn’t it?

robjan 7y ago
Vaccines are being worked on as we speak but the testing and approval process takes a long time.
- vidanay 7y ago
  IMO, if testing shows a good effectiveness, approval will be fast-pathed.
  - 0xffff2 7y ago
    The fast path for vaccine approval is 2+ years.
    - elpatoisthebest 7y ago
      It looks like it was fast tracked quite a bit faster than 2 years during the H1N1 pandemic. I don't have a better resource right now than Wikipedia, but I guess we could follow the links for more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic#Vaccines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic#Vaccines But according to this page by 19 November 2009 the vaccine was distributed to 16 countries. I think it was first really noticed in April 2009. Not making any claims about what to expect for COVID-19, just that they have fast tracked vaccines faster than 2 years in the recent past.

joobus 7y ago

Why is hacker news censoring covid-19 articles? This article just disappeared from the front page despite having more upvotes than most articles on the first page after being submitted an hour ago. Another covid-19 article over the weekend disappeared from the front page also.

jerf 7y ago
I don't know exactly, but IMHO this weekend it has raised itself up to the point that the tech industry really needs to start paying attention to it on a number of levels. The company I work for has a number of significant international offices, and I think the odds of at least one of them being significantly impacted at some point in the next 2-3 months has to be at least 25%. It isn't just the virus itself, or even necessarily primarily the virus, but also the measures the local government enforces. A lot of us engineers have a relatively easy "work from home" option, but not everyone is a programmer. You also have localized concerns, like, at what point are all the people ordering from Amazon going to stop because they're afraid of getting the virus shipped to them? What is Amazon doing about their worker's health, especially in light of the rather persistent rumors this can spread while asymptomatic? On the one hand, I see people claiming that the virus can't survive being shipped very well and on the other hand we have Amazon striving to ship faster and faster, to say nothing of the actual delivery person. Whether we like it or not, this is rapidly becoming "tech industry" news too. Unless we are very lucky, by the end of this week, I suspect that's going to be obvious to everyone. As I've said a few times about prep, even if you don't get the virus or your area never has to be locked down, you ought to be doing prep work anyhow. If it isn't COVID-19, it'll be a quake, or a really bad normal flu season, or any number of other things. You make society more resilient and better able to deal with "true" emergencies when you've prepped enough to take care of yourself and not drain vital social resources at the worst time. You don't usually get lucky and have this kind of warning about oncoming issues. Prepping for a pandemic isn't identical to all the other things you may actually experience, but there's a lot of overlap.
LyndsySimon 7y ago
I'm not aware of HN itself actively "censoring" anything, as long as I've been here. If articles are disappearing from the front page, then it's likely due to them being flagged by users. I'll also note that I use an alternate front-end for HN - hckrnews - which by default sorts by time, so the only way I'm ever aware of this sort of complaint is when someone brings it up in the comments. As for this topic in particular, there has been a lot of coverage about COVID-19/2019-nCoV recently, but there hasn't been a lot of new information. I suspect people are flagging the topic because they're getting their regular updates on it from other communities and want HN to remain a place where topics that are of particular and specific interest are posted. Once I realized that's how the majority of the community sees it, I stopped thinking of the rise and fall of topics here as being based on whether or not they are "newsworthy" and it started making a lot more sense.

antisthenes 7y ago

NY Times would do well to let people read at least this article for free. It potentially concerns the health of every person on the planet, so sticking it behind a paywall/accountwall seems like particularly...poor taste?

beamatronic 7y ago

What is the worst case? 15% of the worlds population dies ?

tim333 7y ago
Nearer 2%.
- seren 7y ago
  2% is the number of death when you have Intensive Care Unit beds to provide oxygen, fluids, anti viral drugs to serious case. 15% is the number of serious cases on average. So once you have filled all your ICU, you cannot take any serious case anymore, so I would say the most apocalyptic case is that all hospitals are overwhelmed, and you cannot address any serious case, so 15% is still possible in the most horrific case. (But not the more likely if you quarantine everyone) However in poor countries without any healthcare infrastructure we could have quite a number of serious case dying.
  - beamatronic 7y ago
    So we can stop this right now if everyone goes home and stays there

deleted 7y ago

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