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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

by 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.

by irq11 7y ago

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.