9 ms·

Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies

126 points by erentz 7y ago

Medicalidiot 7y ago
I'm not going to stop saying this. This looks very dangerous and we should take very precaution possible to slow transmission. All nonessential travel should be avoided, don't touch your face, wash your hands. Slowing this virus down makes everything so much better. [1] Estimate that the case to fatality ratio is between 5-8%. The transmission rate is between 2 and 3. Both of these numbers are similar to the earlier SARS outbreak in the early 2000s. [2] The death rate in Wuhan is significantly higher than that outside. We want to buy time so our healthcare facilities can handle the volume of patients. Take precautions everyone! This may not seriously affect you but you can help prevent the spread to people you love. [1] https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/2/523 https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/2/523 [2] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.17.20023630v4 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.17.20023630v...
- ramblerman 7y ago
  > This looks very dangerous, fatality ratio is between 5-8%. We're better than this at HN. There are stats on the mortality rates, and given you are younger than 50 there is a less than 0.4% mortality rate. Furthermore, recent autopsies have shown this is a virus that hits the lungs more than anything else. China with it's incredible pollution, might have skewed mortality rates that are higher than we may expect in Europe/US. Yes, we should do all we can to prevent the spread. The biggest risk is health facilities not being able to handle the amount of patients. This is very contagious. So please don't spread panic, more people going to the ICU without case doesn't help
  - fzeroracer 7y ago
    > We're better than this at HN. There are stats on the mortality rates, and given you are younger than 50 there is a less than 0.4% mortality rate. Generally speaking, people younger than 50 probably know someone older than 50 and might even be in daily contact with them. You know, parents, grandparents, uncles and all that. I'm not afraid of dying from the coronavirus, I'm afraid of being an infection vector for someone else higher at risk. > more people going to the ICU without case doesn't help In a sane healthcare system, this would actually help. Because ideally, we'd have cheap, easily accessible tests for the coronavirus and people could get tested in a safe environment without fear of spreading or catching it. But alas, it seems we're more comfortable with turning away potential coronavirus patients and letting them spread it on their own. Especially because people don't have the option to self-quarantine.
  - vincnetas 7y ago
    0.4% is number of deaths / number of cases. Problem is that not all cases have recovered and there will be more deaths among them. But yes, main takeaways, don't panic, slow down spread as much as possible (aka wash your hands)
    - baddox 7y ago
      Presumably there are also many cases that are mild and will never be tested or reported.
    - CamperBob2 7y ago
      The fact that only a few deaths occurred on the cruise ship is pretty reassuring. Practically everyone on board would have been older and thus more at risk, yet there were only four deaths out of 600+ cases, IIRC.
  - Medicalidiot 7y ago
    Oh so we don't care about anyone over the age of 50 now? Almost no one reading this thread is going to be in the patient populations that are going to die. I'm here to say this is going to kill the people you love, who are elderly. Also, smoking looks like it exacerbates the problems but the worst factor is age and immunosuppression; 1-2% of the US is immunosuppressed at any time. I'm advocating that you take precautions by not touching your face, washing your hands, and avoiding public places. Stocking up on food so you can avoid the grocery store later is a great idea. Avoiding people when you don't feel well and self quarantining are also great ideas.
    - dang 7y ago
      HN has plenty of readers over 50. Age diversity, from high school students to people who post about their programming jobs in the 1960s, is one of the best things about HN. I get that you feel strongly about coronavirus and are trying to be helpful, but these comments are starting to become repetitive, so if you'd pull back a bit, we'd be grateful. Repetition is the enemy of curiosity, which this site exists for.
      - Medicalidiot 7y ago
        I understand, I appreciate your feedback :)
  - dang 7y ago
    > given you are younger than 50 there is a less than 0.4% mortality rate Please let's stop making assumptions about who is over/under 50 and implications about how un/important their lives are. This has come up too often already, and it's leading to flamewars.
- MiroF 7y ago
  [1] Estimate that the case to fatality ratio is between 5-8%. The transmission rate is between 2 and 3. Both of these numbers are similar to the earlier SARS outbreak in the early 2000s. That's 2-3 times higher than most estimates that I've seen.
cheeze 7y ago
Amazon recently announced that all non essential work travel is cancelled. Friend who works there said they are taking it very seriously - any "essential" travel must be approved from the highest levels. They also announced that interviews will be conducted via VC going forward during the outbreak. I wonder if they 'shut down' campus and encourage everybody to work from home after this, self quarantine kind of thing. IMO it's the right thing to do. Not all sectors can have all of their workers stay home, but Amazon employees (in Seattle, fulfillment centers are a totally different thing) can easily work from home in almost all cases.
- certifiedloud 7y ago
  > Amazon recently announced that all non essential work travel is cancelled. Friend who works there said they are taking it very seriously - any "essential" travel must be approved from the highest levels. Same at Toyota. At least for international travel.
- wil421 7y ago
  Same at the Megacorp I work at and a lot of other places. I’m in the South and my closing is doing it globally with a 14 day self-quarantine if you went to China, South Korea, and Italy.
- BooneJS 7y ago
  I wonder if this “temporary alteration” will impact the way business is conducted long-term. Instead of choosing between conference calls or flights, choose VC.
  - cheeze 7y ago
    Whether they want to or not, they are now being forced into running a large scale experiment of only conducting interviews over VC. Should at least yield some interesting data. I personally hate doing VC interviewing. It's already hard enough to make a decision from an hour long in person meeting, but VC complicates that more.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
burlesona 7y ago
First posted this on another article before seeing this one. Not much information in this article, but given they only just reported new cases that makes me wonder if this person didn’t come to a hospital until they were in severe condition - probably because they had no idea it was coronavirus and were thinking “it’s the flu, it’ll pass.” If so it likely means many more cases in the community than we currently know about.
- kjlhiou534 7y ago
  Surely there are a number of people with severe pneumonia all over the US right now. Maybe they just started testing them for coronavirus.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    That's correct - until very recently, severe pneumonia with no known link to coronavirus cases didn't meet the testing criteria.
- rolph 7y ago
  a lot of people will walk about with pneumonia [of various origins] and its no big deal to them until they just suddenly pass out or cant walk 2 steps without taking a knee
- war1025 7y ago
  The fact that symptoms are mild in the vast majority of cases and there have now been a couple severe cases positively identified basically guarantees that we have widespread community transmission at this point. Even among people with health insurance, the costs of visits combined with the likelihood of being told "it's viral, just wait it out" mean that many people simply won't bother with going to get a diagnosis from a doctor.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    And it's not even just disincentives, right? If I feel bad but not deathly ill, I don't want to go to the doctor in the first place; I want to lie in bed, where I have Youtube and crackers and there's nobody around to infect.
crystaldev 7y ago
We have no idea what's happening[1] so maybe paranoia is a reasonable default? [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/us-coronavirus-pence.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/us-coronaviru...
- gdubs 7y ago
  Meta point but when NYT introduced their paywall they said access would be free during emergencies. Certainly this qualifies.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
the_other_b 7y ago
For others confused like me, this isn't one of the cases reported last Friday that were reported as 'doing well.' Seems this is part of a collection of new cases that weren't reported to the public (and still aren't).
tobsmagoats 7y ago
Yeah this weekend is going a whirlwind, let's see what the President Trumps remarks are today.
- beamatronic 7y ago
  “Pence tells me no new cases or deaths, so it’s a hoax”
qrbLPHiKpiux 7y ago
Why no mention of the race of the victim? I'm just asking...
- progman32 7y ago
  Why are you asking?
  - war1025 7y ago
    There has been speculation I've overheard that the virus is particularly deadly to Asian people. Seems like a bogus theory to me, but I suspect that was the reason for the question. Largely plays into the "escaped bioweapon" theory.
    - rolph 7y ago
      there is a basis for the recombinant selection of specificity to histocompatability type [in simple terms that can mean race] I have a gut feeling it would be impossible to contain or manage the media if this virus or any other pathogen was killing only those of asian heritage so we would know if it actually was happening. There is no indication any one particular ethnic group is hit harder at this time as there is no adequate comparison between the asian and other than asian people
    - knzhou 7y ago
      This is a great example of how misinformation spreads. All of the speculation comes from a single non peer reviewed paper, which had literally one data point. That paper was posted to a preprint server where scientists could comment on it. And the first comment was somebody doing a quick followup study with 100x more data, which found no significant difference. Source: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.26.919985v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.26.919985v1
      - allovernow 7y ago
        What you're saying isn't entirely untrue, but there has also been at least one other paper from about 10 years ago floating around which, following SARS, looked at genetic markers for ACE2 receptors and found that they are significantly overrepresented in Han Chinese and Japanese genes. So there is still some credibility to the speculation.
empath75 7y ago
I think I’m going to start working from home.
- beamatronic 7y ago
  It’s way past time for that. Meaning I agree with you.
outside1234 7y ago
We need to shut down mass transit (trains, planes) and shut down group events including elementary school (which is almost like a bioweapon in terms of its ability to exchange viruses). Honestly, we should probably all start working remotely as well until this is better understood. We need to slow the transmission of the virus.
aazaa 7y ago
The article leaves more questions than it answers: > A person in Washington state infected with coronavirus has died, according to the Seattle and King County Department of Health. Was this one of the reported cases on Friday, or yet another new one? Unfortunately, I suspect we've already moved past the point of worrying about individual cases.
- donarb 7y ago
  It was not one of the reported cases on Friday, the person that died was a 19 year old male.
  - donarb 7y ago
    Hmm, the president just said that it was a 50 year old woman that died. But the Seattle Times stated that that woman was at home resting comfortably. We'll probably know more after the 1 pm press conference by King County health officials.
crystaldev 7y ago
.
- brobinson 7y ago
  Trump just said in his press conference that the deceased was almost 60 years old.
jcoffland 7y ago
One person has died in the US. It's not time to panic. I expected more logical comments here.
- erentz 7y ago
  The concern is people have not been taking this seriously for the past two months. This has resulted in the US being on the back foot and only acting in a reactive manner. The CDC has fallen flat on its face and now state public health departments need to try to pick up the slack. I hope they do. Other countries are already trying to slow down spread via cancellation of events and closures of schools. The same needs to happen here so that our hospital system has a chance to cope. The real danger is what happens when the 19% of people who get infected that require some level of hospital care can’t get it. The death rates will then rise considerably. Those are preventable deaths if we slow this down. There needs to be clear and fact based communication from authorities every day about the current situation and what the public can do to play their part. People panic when information is hidden from them, they aren’t stupid they will see what’s going on. They need to know that all the correct things are being done.
  - craftyguy 7y ago
    > The concern is people have not been taking this seriously for the past two months. This has resulted in the US being on the back foot and only acting in a reactive manner. The CDC has fallen flat on its face and now state public health departments need to try to pick up the slack. I hope they do. Oh please. There's likely absolutely nothing the CDC could have done to prevent it from entering and spreading within the US, given the nature of the virus. What would have been an ideal situation in your mind, have the CDC order a complete halt to domestic/international travel early January?
    - simonh 7y ago
      Over the last 3 years the CDC funding for participation in international epidemic detection and management programs was cut by 80%. In addition the several most senior positions responsible for pandemic preparation and response were cut. The budget proposed just a few weeks ago again included significant cuts in CDC funding, so the governments eye has not been on the ball for quite some time. Having said that you’re right that the CDC and health systems in general have mainly and advisory and coordination, rather than a direct role in preventing the spread of a disease. However they need to have the funding, focus and senior representation in order to do that quickly and effectively.
jp57 7y ago
Is it possible that the virus has been circulating in the states since Christmas or earlier? I live in the states, though not in Seattle. My wife's best friend teaches ESL at a major university. She has several Chinese students in her class who went home over the semester break in December and January. In mid-to-late January, the teacher, her husband, my wife, and I all came down with the "flu" in swift succession, we all rode it out at home and none of us were tested to see if we actually had the flu virus. We just assumed flu because what else could it be? At that point, we'd never heard of novel corona virus. The illness we all got was characterized by a deep and persistent cough and chest congestion, brutal sore throat, and a fever with teeth chattering chills and soaking sweats. We all had various levels of relapses of the cough and chest congestion (generally without fever) after the initial recovery. I stayed home from work, of course, when I was ill, but a few people I had contact with at work also came down with something similar right after me. Many had had the flu shot since we get it for free at work. The general sentiment was that this years flu shot was a dud. I've been wondering if it wasn't actually flu going around.
- lettergram 7y ago
  In January I also had similar symptoms (and I live in a community With probably 30% Chinese). They claimed it was probably influenza B, so perhaps you had that as well (or my docs were wrong)? In either case, I have pneumonia to go with it and gotta day it was awful - 5 days of 105 fever, cough, I could hardly do anything.
- learc83 7y ago
  My brother's wife is also an ESL teacher. She had multiple students who traveled home to Wuhan during the winter break. Shortly after school starting she came down with a cold, gave it to my brother, and he had a pretty bad cough for a month. He's just now getting over it.
  - pmlnr 7y ago
    Last winter in Cambridge, UK, both me and my wife went through something labelled the Queen's Cough. In theory, that was an adenovirus: apart from the brutal cough that got worse if you rested and layed down, it regularly resulted in inner ear inflammation. We suffered from it for nearly a month, we had to take mild tranquilizers - valerian extract - to fall asleep, only to get up coughing for 10-20 mins non stop in tge middle of the night. There are loads of nasty chest infections out there.
hinkley 7y ago
When is it time to start freaking out? I have a friend who may be starting to unhinge a little bit. Whereas I have some sort of stoic “this is completely out of my control and will happen or it won’t” response that is probably not that much more rational.
- nerdponx 7y ago
  Never. However the time to take it seriously as something that has already transmitted throughout communities in the US, has passed, and you should do that starting now.
- baddox 7y ago
  When is the point at which freaking out will help?
- allovernow 7y ago
  No one should be freaking out but we should all be preparing by stocking up on essentials to stay home as much as possible for a month or two.
- finaliteration 7y ago
  I think the “truth” is likely somewhere in the middle: Be cautious and take precautions like washing your hands, avoiding huge crowds, and having some extra supplies on hand, but don’t panic. It’s not completely out of our control but completely freaking out and melting down won’t help anything.
- gdubs 7y ago
  It’s never time to freak out. That leads to poor decisions. It is time to take this seriously. Beyond personal hygiene, plan on how you’ll deal with school closures if you’re a parent (and ensure your school has a remote study curriculum in place.) Consider if you get it, it could be fairly benign — so you want to think about your role in reducing the spread to more vulnerable populations. WFH if possible. Preparedness begins in the household, to the community, to the state. We should all do what we can to spread the impact of this and prevent a strain on resources.
- 7y ago
daenz 7y ago
Personally, I believe most people should just accept that they are going to get COVID-19. It's going to get spread around, and it's not containable. You're likely going to get it. That's the bad news, but the good news is that we have immune systems and we know how to take care of each other and ourselves. Yes it's going to kill some people, no it is highly probably not going to kill you. People will be sick and going on with their lives and doing their jobs. It feels like we're teetering on the verge of hysteria, but a little acceptance about the situation would go a long way.
- akvadrako 7y ago
  There are 86k confirmed cases globally. That’s 0.001% Why would you think most people will get it?
  - conradev 7y ago
    The number of cases per day outside of China is still growing exponentially: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/#case-tot-outchina https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/... Until that changes it’s a fair assumption that a lot more people will get it
    - akvadrako 7y ago
      If you look at the log graph on that link it’s clear it won’t get 50000x more severe unless the course drastically changes.
      - pbourke 7y ago
        Looks like doubling every 5-6 days. So a million cases in 35-40 days if trend continues?
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - 7y ago
hnarn 7y ago
If you are under 60 years old, the lethality of Covid19 is only 2-3x that of the regular flu. Why are people spreading these types of news and commenting on them like it's the end of days? We may yet see a severe pandemic in our time but I don't see anything indicating this would be it, especially not since lethality goes down with spread. The biggest concern so far people should have regarding this virus is what it's going to do to your portfolio seeing as the supply chain of half the companies in the world seems to be disrupted in the coming months.
- nyolfen 7y ago
  many people have beloved family members who are older than 60. even if you are young, the symptomatic infection can be very severe and disabling for a week or two. it's also extremely contagious. > especially not since lethality goes down with spread there is no guarantee of this
  - hnarn 7y ago
    How is any of this different from seasonal flu? It's also potentially lethal for the older population and can also knock you out for a week or two. I'm not disputing that flu viruses are bad, I'm just pointing out that the mass hysteria that seems to be brewing is not based in facts.
    - feanaro 7y ago
      Because the flu is simply much less lethal than this.
    - edanm 7y ago
      Well, even if it's only as bad as the flu, what we're talking about is "remember that thing that kills hundreds of thousands every year? We're now going to double that number for the foreseeable future". Unless of course we manage to stop it from spreading further (which seems unlikely at this point but possibly worth trying anyway.)
    - nyolfen 7y ago

126 points by erentz 7y ago

I'm not going to stop saying this. This looks very dangerous and we should take very precaution possible to slow transmission. All nonessential travel should be avoided, don't touch your face, wash your hands. Slowing this virus down makes everything so much better. [1] Estimate that the case to fatality ratio is between 5-8%. The transmission rate is between 2 and 3. Both of these numbers are similar to the earlier SARS outbreak in the early 2000s. [2] The death rate in Wuhan is significantly higher than that outside. We want to buy time so our healthcare facilities can handle the volume of patients. Take precautions everyone! This may not seriously affect you but you can help prevent the spread to people you love. [1] https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/2/523 https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/2/523 [2] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.17.20023630v4 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.17.20023630v...

ramblerman 7y ago
> This looks very dangerous, fatality ratio is between 5-8%. We're better than this at HN. There are stats on the mortality rates, and given you are younger than 50 there is a less than 0.4% mortality rate. Furthermore, recent autopsies have shown this is a virus that hits the lungs more than anything else. China with it's incredible pollution, might have skewed mortality rates that are higher than we may expect in Europe/US. Yes, we should do all we can to prevent the spread. The biggest risk is health facilities not being able to handle the amount of patients. This is very contagious. So please don't spread panic, more people going to the ICU without case doesn't help
- fzeroracer 7y ago
  > We're better than this at HN. There are stats on the mortality rates, and given you are younger than 50 there is a less than 0.4% mortality rate. Generally speaking, people younger than 50 probably know someone older than 50 and might even be in daily contact with them. You know, parents, grandparents, uncles and all that. I'm not afraid of dying from the coronavirus, I'm afraid of being an infection vector for someone else higher at risk. > more people going to the ICU without case doesn't help In a sane healthcare system, this would actually help. Because ideally, we'd have cheap, easily accessible tests for the coronavirus and people could get tested in a safe environment without fear of spreading or catching it. But alas, it seems we're more comfortable with turning away potential coronavirus patients and letting them spread it on their own. Especially because people don't have the option to self-quarantine.
- vincnetas 7y ago
  0.4% is number of deaths / number of cases. Problem is that not all cases have recovered and there will be more deaths among them. But yes, main takeaways, don't panic, slow down spread as much as possible (aka wash your hands)
  - baddox 7y ago
    Presumably there are also many cases that are mild and will never be tested or reported.
  - CamperBob2 7y ago
    The fact that only a few deaths occurred on the cruise ship is pretty reassuring. Practically everyone on board would have been older and thus more at risk, yet there were only four deaths out of 600+ cases, IIRC.
- Medicalidiot 7y ago
  Oh so we don't care about anyone over the age of 50 now? Almost no one reading this thread is going to be in the patient populations that are going to die. I'm here to say this is going to kill the people you love, who are elderly. Also, smoking looks like it exacerbates the problems but the worst factor is age and immunosuppression; 1-2% of the US is immunosuppressed at any time. I'm advocating that you take precautions by not touching your face, washing your hands, and avoiding public places. Stocking up on food so you can avoid the grocery store later is a great idea. Avoiding people when you don't feel well and self quarantining are also great ideas.
  - dang 7y ago
    HN has plenty of readers over 50. Age diversity, from high school students to people who post about their programming jobs in the 1960s, is one of the best things about HN. I get that you feel strongly about coronavirus and are trying to be helpful, but these comments are starting to become repetitive, so if you'd pull back a bit, we'd be grateful. Repetition is the enemy of curiosity, which this site exists for.
    - Medicalidiot 7y ago
      I understand, I appreciate your feedback :)
- dang 7y ago
  > given you are younger than 50 there is a less than 0.4% mortality rate Please let's stop making assumptions about who is over/under 50 and implications about how un/important their lives are. This has come up too often already, and it's leading to flamewars.
MiroF 7y ago
[1] Estimate that the case to fatality ratio is between 5-8%. The transmission rate is between 2 and 3. Both of these numbers are similar to the earlier SARS outbreak in the early 2000s. That's 2-3 times higher than most estimates that I've seen.

cheeze 7y ago

Amazon recently announced that all non essential work travel is cancelled. Friend who works there said they are taking it very seriously - any "essential" travel must be approved from the highest levels. They also announced that interviews will be conducted via VC going forward during the outbreak. I wonder if they 'shut down' campus and encourage everybody to work from home after this, self quarantine kind of thing. IMO it's the right thing to do. Not all sectors can have all of their workers stay home, but Amazon employees (in Seattle, fulfillment centers are a totally different thing) can easily work from home in almost all cases.

certifiedloud 7y ago
> Amazon recently announced that all non essential work travel is cancelled. Friend who works there said they are taking it very seriously - any "essential" travel must be approved from the highest levels. Same at Toyota. At least for international travel.
wil421 7y ago
Same at the Megacorp I work at and a lot of other places. I’m in the South and my closing is doing it globally with a 14 day self-quarantine if you went to China, South Korea, and Italy.
BooneJS 7y ago
I wonder if this “temporary alteration” will impact the way business is conducted long-term. Instead of choosing between conference calls or flights, choose VC.
- cheeze 7y ago
  Whether they want to or not, they are now being forced into running a large scale experiment of only conducting interviews over VC. Should at least yield some interesting data. I personally hate doing VC interviewing. It's already hard enough to make a decision from an hour long in person meeting, but VC complicates that more.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago

burlesona 7y ago

First posted this on another article before seeing this one. Not much information in this article, but given they only just reported new cases that makes me wonder if this person didn’t come to a hospital until they were in severe condition - probably because they had no idea it was coronavirus and were thinking “it’s the flu, it’ll pass.” If so it likely means many more cases in the community than we currently know about.

kjlhiou534 7y ago
Surely there are a number of people with severe pneumonia all over the US right now. Maybe they just started testing them for coronavirus.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  That's correct - until very recently, severe pneumonia with no known link to coronavirus cases didn't meet the testing criteria.
rolph 7y ago
a lot of people will walk about with pneumonia [of various origins] and its no big deal to them until they just suddenly pass out or cant walk 2 steps without taking a knee
war1025 7y ago
The fact that symptoms are mild in the vast majority of cases and there have now been a couple severe cases positively identified basically guarantees that we have widespread community transmission at this point. Even among people with health insurance, the costs of visits combined with the likelihood of being told "it's viral, just wait it out" mean that many people simply won't bother with going to get a diagnosis from a doctor.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  And it's not even just disincentives, right? If I feel bad but not deathly ill, I don't want to go to the doctor in the first place; I want to lie in bed, where I have Youtube and crackers and there's nobody around to infect.

crystaldev 7y ago

We have no idea what's happening[1] so maybe paranoia is a reasonable default? [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/us-coronavirus-pence.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/us-coronaviru...

gdubs 7y ago
Meta point but when NYT introduced their paywall they said access would be free during emergencies. Certainly this qualifies.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

the_other_b 7y ago

For others confused like me, this isn't one of the cases reported last Friday that were reported as 'doing well.' Seems this is part of a collection of new cases that weren't reported to the public (and still aren't).

tobsmagoats 7y ago

Yeah this weekend is going a whirlwind, let's see what the President Trumps remarks are today.

beamatronic 7y ago
“Pence tells me no new cases or deaths, so it’s a hoax”

qrbLPHiKpiux 7y ago

Why no mention of the race of the victim? I'm just asking...

progman32 7y ago
Why are you asking?
- war1025 7y ago
  There has been speculation I've overheard that the virus is particularly deadly to Asian people. Seems like a bogus theory to me, but I suspect that was the reason for the question. Largely plays into the "escaped bioweapon" theory.
  - rolph 7y ago
    there is a basis for the recombinant selection of specificity to histocompatability type [in simple terms that can mean race] I have a gut feeling it would be impossible to contain or manage the media if this virus or any other pathogen was killing only those of asian heritage so we would know if it actually was happening. There is no indication any one particular ethnic group is hit harder at this time as there is no adequate comparison between the asian and other than asian people
  - knzhou 7y ago
    This is a great example of how misinformation spreads. All of the speculation comes from a single non peer reviewed paper, which had literally one data point. That paper was posted to a preprint server where scientists could comment on it. And the first comment was somebody doing a quick followup study with 100x more data, which found no significant difference. Source: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.26.919985v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.26.919985v1
    - allovernow 7y ago
      What you're saying isn't entirely untrue, but there has also been at least one other paper from about 10 years ago floating around which, following SARS, looked at genetic markers for ACE2 receptors and found that they are significantly overrepresented in Han Chinese and Japanese genes. So there is still some credibility to the speculation.

empath75 7y ago

I think I’m going to start working from home.

beamatronic 7y ago
It’s way past time for that. Meaning I agree with you.

outside1234 7y ago

We need to shut down mass transit (trains, planes) and shut down group events including elementary school (which is almost like a bioweapon in terms of its ability to exchange viruses). Honestly, we should probably all start working remotely as well until this is better understood. We need to slow the transmission of the virus.

aazaa 7y ago

The article leaves more questions than it answers: > A person in Washington state infected with coronavirus has died, according to the Seattle and King County Department of Health. Was this one of the reported cases on Friday, or yet another new one? Unfortunately, I suspect we've already moved past the point of worrying about individual cases.

donarb 7y ago
It was not one of the reported cases on Friday, the person that died was a 19 year old male.
- donarb 7y ago
  Hmm, the president just said that it was a 50 year old woman that died. But the Seattle Times stated that that woman was at home resting comfortably. We'll probably know more after the 1 pm press conference by King County health officials.

crystaldev 7y ago

brobinson 7y ago
Trump just said in his press conference that the deceased was almost 60 years old.

jcoffland 7y ago

One person has died in the US. It's not time to panic. I expected more logical comments here.

erentz 7y ago
The concern is people have not been taking this seriously for the past two months. This has resulted in the US being on the back foot and only acting in a reactive manner. The CDC has fallen flat on its face and now state public health departments need to try to pick up the slack. I hope they do. Other countries are already trying to slow down spread via cancellation of events and closures of schools. The same needs to happen here so that our hospital system has a chance to cope. The real danger is what happens when the 19% of people who get infected that require some level of hospital care can’t get it. The death rates will then rise considerably. Those are preventable deaths if we slow this down. There needs to be clear and fact based communication from authorities every day about the current situation and what the public can do to play their part. People panic when information is hidden from them, they aren’t stupid they will see what’s going on. They need to know that all the correct things are being done.
- craftyguy 7y ago
  > The concern is people have not been taking this seriously for the past two months. This has resulted in the US being on the back foot and only acting in a reactive manner. The CDC has fallen flat on its face and now state public health departments need to try to pick up the slack. I hope they do. Oh please. There's likely absolutely nothing the CDC could have done to prevent it from entering and spreading within the US, given the nature of the virus. What would have been an ideal situation in your mind, have the CDC order a complete halt to domestic/international travel early January?
  - simonh 7y ago
    Over the last 3 years the CDC funding for participation in international epidemic detection and management programs was cut by 80%. In addition the several most senior positions responsible for pandemic preparation and response were cut. The budget proposed just a few weeks ago again included significant cuts in CDC funding, so the governments eye has not been on the ball for quite some time. Having said that you’re right that the CDC and health systems in general have mainly and advisory and coordination, rather than a direct role in preventing the spread of a disease. However they need to have the funding, focus and senior representation in order to do that quickly and effectively.

jp57 7y ago

Is it possible that the virus has been circulating in the states since Christmas or earlier? I live in the states, though not in Seattle. My wife's best friend teaches ESL at a major university. She has several Chinese students in her class who went home over the semester break in December and January. In mid-to-late January, the teacher, her husband, my wife, and I all came down with the "flu" in swift succession, we all rode it out at home and none of us were tested to see if we actually had the flu virus. We just assumed flu because what else could it be? At that point, we'd never heard of novel corona virus. The illness we all got was characterized by a deep and persistent cough and chest congestion, brutal sore throat, and a fever with teeth chattering chills and soaking sweats. We all had various levels of relapses of the cough and chest congestion (generally without fever) after the initial recovery. I stayed home from work, of course, when I was ill, but a few people I had contact with at work also came down with something similar right after me. Many had had the flu shot since we get it for free at work. The general sentiment was that this years flu shot was a dud. I've been wondering if it wasn't actually flu going around.

lettergram 7y ago
In January I also had similar symptoms (and I live in a community With probably 30% Chinese). They claimed it was probably influenza B, so perhaps you had that as well (or my docs were wrong)? In either case, I have pneumonia to go with it and gotta day it was awful - 5 days of 105 fever, cough, I could hardly do anything.
learc83 7y ago
My brother's wife is also an ESL teacher. She had multiple students who traveled home to Wuhan during the winter break. Shortly after school starting she came down with a cold, gave it to my brother, and he had a pretty bad cough for a month. He's just now getting over it.
- pmlnr 7y ago
  Last winter in Cambridge, UK, both me and my wife went through something labelled the Queen's Cough. In theory, that was an adenovirus: apart from the brutal cough that got worse if you rested and layed down, it regularly resulted in inner ear inflammation. We suffered from it for nearly a month, we had to take mild tranquilizers - valerian extract - to fall asleep, only to get up coughing for 10-20 mins non stop in tge middle of the night. There are loads of nasty chest infections out there.

hinkley 7y ago

When is it time to start freaking out? I have a friend who may be starting to unhinge a little bit. Whereas I have some sort of stoic “this is completely out of my control and will happen or it won’t” response that is probably not that much more rational.

nerdponx 7y ago
Never. However the time to take it seriously as something that has already transmitted throughout communities in the US, has passed, and you should do that starting now.
baddox 7y ago
When is the point at which freaking out will help?
allovernow 7y ago
No one should be freaking out but we should all be preparing by stocking up on essentials to stay home as much as possible for a month or two.
finaliteration 7y ago
I think the “truth” is likely somewhere in the middle: Be cautious and take precautions like washing your hands, avoiding huge crowds, and having some extra supplies on hand, but don’t panic. It’s not completely out of our control but completely freaking out and melting down won’t help anything.
gdubs 7y ago
It’s never time to freak out. That leads to poor decisions. It is time to take this seriously. Beyond personal hygiene, plan on how you’ll deal with school closures if you’re a parent (and ensure your school has a remote study curriculum in place.) Consider if you get it, it could be fairly benign — so you want to think about your role in reducing the spread to more vulnerable populations. WFH if possible. Preparedness begins in the household, to the community, to the state. We should all do what we can to spread the impact of this and prevent a strain on resources.
7y ago

daenz 7y ago

Personally, I believe most people should just accept that they are going to get COVID-19. It's going to get spread around, and it's not containable. You're likely going to get it. That's the bad news, but the good news is that we have immune systems and we know how to take care of each other and ourselves. Yes it's going to kill some people, no it is highly probably not going to kill you. People will be sick and going on with their lives and doing their jobs. It feels like we're teetering on the verge of hysteria, but a little acceptance about the situation would go a long way.

akvadrako 7y ago
There are 86k confirmed cases globally. That’s 0.001% Why would you think most people will get it?
- conradev 7y ago
  The number of cases per day outside of China is still growing exponentially: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/#case-tot-outchina https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/... Until that changes it’s a fair assumption that a lot more people will get it
  - akvadrako 7y ago
    If you look at the log graph on that link it’s clear it won’t get 50000x more severe unless the course drastically changes.
    - pbourke 7y ago
      Looks like doubling every 5-6 days. So a million cases in 35-40 days if trend continues?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
- 7y ago

hnarn 7y ago

If you are under 60 years old, the lethality of Covid19 is only 2-3x that of the regular flu. Why are people spreading these types of news and commenting on them like it's the end of days? We may yet see a severe pandemic in our time but I don't see anything indicating this would be it, especially not since lethality goes down with spread. The biggest concern so far people should have regarding this virus is what it's going to do to your portfolio seeing as the supply chain of half the companies in the world seems to be disrupted in the coming months.

nyolfen 7y ago
many people have beloved family members who are older than 60. even if you are young, the symptomatic infection can be very severe and disabling for a week or two. it's also extremely contagious. > especially not since lethality goes down with spread there is no guarantee of this
- hnarn 7y ago
  How is any of this different from seasonal flu? It's also potentially lethal for the older population and can also knock you out for a week or two. I'm not disputing that flu viruses are bad, I'm just pointing out that the mass hysteria that seems to be brewing is not based in facts.
  - feanaro 7y ago
    Because the flu is simply much less lethal than this.
  - edanm 7y ago
    Well, even if it's only as bad as the flu, what we're talking about is "remember that thing that kills hundreds of thousands every year? We're now going to double that number for the foreseeable future". Unless of course we manage to stop it from spreading further (which seems unlikely at this point but possibly worth trying anyway.)
  - nyolfen 7y ago