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COVID-19 is unlike anything before (in modern times). Especially HIV. You don't catch HIV by boarding the subway, eating in a restaurant, or running a marathon

COVID-19 is unlike anything before (in modern times). Especially HIV. You don't catch HIV by boarding the subway, eating in a restaurant, or running a marathon. For most people, avoiding unsafe sex is enough to avoid HIV. But if COVID-19 spreads to their country, people's daily lives will be significantly disrupted. SARS, MERS, Ebola, Zika are a little more like COVID-19, except they never propagate that far.

bamboozled 7y ago
Do you really think getting HIV is even slightly comparable to having HIV though? Sure you can catch COVID-19 more easily, but it seems like having HIV is a far worse outcome.
- netheril96 7y ago
  And having Ebola is a even worse outcome. But few in developed countries worry about Ebola at all. Why? Because it is not easy for them to catch Ebola at all.
  - bitreality 7y ago
    This is a disease with a high spread rate, medium fatality rate. That's far more of a public threat than low spread rate, high fatality rate. Spread rate is far more relevant than death rate, and to top it off someone can be spreading it for weeks with no symptoms.
- ck425 7y ago
  HIV is an incredibly manageable disease these days. The day to day effects are on a similar scale to Diabetes ie take regular medication and watch for specific symptoms that could imply it worsening. Otherwise there relatively little day to day impact other than the stigma. I should caveat that I'm referring to countries with a modern and available health system.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - billfruit 7y ago
    But in the early days in the 80s the case was different. Especially I think, in those who contracted it through blood transfusions, the progress of the disease was swift, with toxoplasmosis infection.
irq11 7y ago
”COVID-19 is unlike anything before” It’s almost exactly like every other respiratory virus, except that the case fatality estimates for old and sick people are higher. There’s nothing mechanistically new about the infections we’re seeing. It’s a pretty bog-standard respiratory virus, in terms of its transmission and overall virulence. ”But if COVID-19 spreads to their country, people's daily lives will be significantly disrupted.” If so, it will be primarily due to blunt attempts to prevent transmission of the virus in order to protect the sick and the old. For most people, this virus is little more than a mild chest cold. Once this becomes a true pandemic, we will see a rapid shift away from quarantines and travel bans, and an increased emphasis on protecting vulnerable populations directly.
- djmips 7y ago
  How do you know that it's just fatalities in old and sick? If that's the case, I don't understand why many younger people in Wuhan are dying including the whistle blower doctor who was only 33 years old. We don't even know what the disease will do in terms of long term damage to survivors or the possibility of poor immunity and reinfection. I haven't seen any good statistics on the fatality rate vs age.
  - cm2187 7y ago
    Because that’s what the numbers published say: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/deadly-coronavirus-can-stopped/amp/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas... Look at the mortality by age table. Also note the mortality rate outside of Wuhan seems to be 0.7%, a bit more than the common flu which I think is around 0.1% but not really a massive deal. I don’t know where these numbers will land ultimately but I can think of many reasons why people with mild symptoms that are similar to a cold wouldn’t want to show up in a hospital full of infected people, or would think they just have a cold, so I would expect the denominator of the mortality rare in Wuhan to be understated. For the moment the panic this thing is creating, fuelled by medias eager to make some money by crying wolf, looks like the real threat to me. Lots of people will loose their job as a result of the economic impact of the panic.
_-___________-_ 7y ago
> boarding the subway, eating in a restaurant, or running a marathon There's no evidence that you are remotely likely to catch COVID-19 by doing any of those things either.
- dahdum 7y ago
  There’s ample evidence “going to church” is one way, and that’s not much different than the others.
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
    Perhaps if your church likes to pack in people so closely that they're touching and thinks that it's your duty to God to repeatedly drag yourself to church no matter how sick you are. (The likely index patient apparently attended services 4 times after symptoms started.)
  - bzzzt 7y ago
    Maybe participation in the holy communion by drinking from a cup of wine shared with the entire congregation isn't the best idea right now.
    - dependenttypes 7y ago
      I presume that the alcohol from the wine would not be enough to kill the virus, right?
      - paublyrne 7y ago
        It's unlikely, wine's alcohol content is only around 13%, you would need about 4 times that to kill the average virus. It would also be on the lip of the cup rather than in the wine.
      - Izkata 7y ago
        As a kid in the 90s, my church had a separate line for kids so we could participate too, and we got grape juice.
squiggleblaz 7y ago
Ebola pretty much requires you to come into contact with someone so obviously ill they're about to die. It's not like SARS, Covid 19 or even MERS. It spreads well mostly due to scepticism of health services.
scient 7y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but its also nowhere as mortal or serious as these others you are listing.
- trengorilla 7y ago
  9% of resolved cases have ended in death. It's pretty serious.
  - phreeza 7y ago
    Of the resolved cases, the recovered are only those that were reported. Very likely there are many more recoveries with a mild trajectory. Much less likely that there are many unreported deaths at this point (at least in Wuhan where the vast majority of deaths is concentrated)
billfruit 7y ago
Yes, but in the early days oh HIV no one was sure how it was transmitted, a lot of people got infected before scientists understood how it spread.
billfruit 7y ago
But MERS had a very high case fatality rate of about 34%.

bamboozled 7y ago

Do you really think getting HIV is even slightly comparable to having HIV though? Sure you can catch COVID-19 more easily, but it seems like having HIV is a far worse outcome.

netheril96 7y ago
And having Ebola is a even worse outcome. But few in developed countries worry about Ebola at all. Why? Because it is not easy for them to catch Ebola at all.
- bitreality 7y ago
  This is a disease with a high spread rate, medium fatality rate. That's far more of a public threat than low spread rate, high fatality rate. Spread rate is far more relevant than death rate, and to top it off someone can be spreading it for weeks with no symptoms.
ck425 7y ago
HIV is an incredibly manageable disease these days. The day to day effects are on a similar scale to Diabetes ie take regular medication and watch for specific symptoms that could imply it worsening. Otherwise there relatively little day to day impact other than the stigma. I should caveat that I'm referring to countries with a modern and available health system.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- billfruit 7y ago
  But in the early days in the 80s the case was different. Especially I think, in those who contracted it through blood transfusions, the progress of the disease was swift, with toxoplasmosis infection.

irq11 7y ago

”COVID-19 is unlike anything before” It’s almost exactly like every other respiratory virus, except that the case fatality estimates for old and sick people are higher. There’s nothing mechanistically new about the infections we’re seeing. It’s a pretty bog-standard respiratory virus, in terms of its transmission and overall virulence. ”But if COVID-19 spreads to their country, people's daily lives will be significantly disrupted.” If so, it will be primarily due to blunt attempts to prevent transmission of the virus in order to protect the sick and the old. For most people, this virus is little more than a mild chest cold. Once this becomes a true pandemic, we will see a rapid shift away from quarantines and travel bans, and an increased emphasis on protecting vulnerable populations directly.

djmips 7y ago
How do you know that it's just fatalities in old and sick? If that's the case, I don't understand why many younger people in Wuhan are dying including the whistle blower doctor who was only 33 years old. We don't even know what the disease will do in terms of long term damage to survivors or the possibility of poor immunity and reinfection. I haven't seen any good statistics on the fatality rate vs age.
- cm2187 7y ago
  Because that’s what the numbers published say: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/deadly-coronavirus-can-stopped/amp/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas... Look at the mortality by age table. Also note the mortality rate outside of Wuhan seems to be 0.7%, a bit more than the common flu which I think is around 0.1% but not really a massive deal. I don’t know where these numbers will land ultimately but I can think of many reasons why people with mild symptoms that are similar to a cold wouldn’t want to show up in a hospital full of infected people, or would think they just have a cold, so I would expect the denominator of the mortality rare in Wuhan to be understated. For the moment the panic this thing is creating, fuelled by medias eager to make some money by crying wolf, looks like the real threat to me. Lots of people will loose their job as a result of the economic impact of the panic.

_-___________-_ 7y ago

> boarding the subway, eating in a restaurant, or running a marathon There's no evidence that you are remotely likely to catch COVID-19 by doing any of those things either.

dahdum 7y ago
There’s ample evidence “going to church” is one way, and that’s not much different than the others.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
  Perhaps if your church likes to pack in people so closely that they're touching and thinks that it's your duty to God to repeatedly drag yourself to church no matter how sick you are. (The likely index patient apparently attended services 4 times after symptoms started.)
- bzzzt 7y ago
  Maybe participation in the holy communion by drinking from a cup of wine shared with the entire congregation isn't the best idea right now.
  - dependenttypes 7y ago
    I presume that the alcohol from the wine would not be enough to kill the virus, right?
    - paublyrne 7y ago
      It's unlikely, wine's alcohol content is only around 13%, you would need about 4 times that to kill the average virus. It would also be on the lip of the cup rather than in the wine.
    - Izkata 7y ago
      As a kid in the 90s, my church had a separate line for kids so we could participate too, and we got grape juice.

squiggleblaz 7y ago

Ebola pretty much requires you to come into contact with someone so obviously ill they're about to die. It's not like SARS, Covid 19 or even MERS. It spreads well mostly due to scepticism of health services.

scient 7y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but its also nowhere as mortal or serious as these others you are listing.

trengorilla 7y ago
9% of resolved cases have ended in death. It's pretty serious.
- phreeza 7y ago
  Of the resolved cases, the recovered are only those that were reported. Very likely there are many more recoveries with a mild trajectory. Much less likely that there are many unreported deaths at this point (at least in Wuhan where the vast majority of deaths is concentrated)

billfruit 7y ago

Yes, but in the early days oh HIV no one was sure how it was transmitted, a lot of people got infected before scientists understood how it spread.

billfruit 7y ago

But MERS had a very high case fatality rate of about 34%.