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[EDIT] I greatly misjudged this audience. Fear is everywhere, but (at least) so is data. WHO 10 March report: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-co

[EDIT] I greatly misjudged this audience. Fear is everywhere, but (at least) so is data. WHO 10 March report: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports/ https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...

whatshisface 7y ago
>In the US, you have a significantly higher chance of dying from the flu than from covid-19. Today, but the thing about time is that before long next month will be today.
magduf 7y ago
>80% of all cases are still in China. That's impossible to know. We have no idea how many cases there are in the US, because we're not doing a significant amount of testing here, because our government is incompetent and unprepared for this.
- chungus_khan 7y ago
  And it should be very obvious from the fact that the rate of positives relative to the number of tests is enormously higher in the US than elsewhere that the number of infected are much higher than believed. Alongside this, cost prevents many from seeking care for things like respiratory illnesses, and in the case of one that actually requires care would probably do so until it is severely progressed.
- lolc 7y ago
  True. And we don't care about the number of cases anyway. We care about the growth. Assuming China has been ramping up its testing efforts, that gives us a clear picture of the spread in China. Especially compared to countries with slow-to-start, spotty testing. It seems to me that the U.S. government would prefer for cases to not be tested. Whatever medical competence there is appears to be sidelined by other interests.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
metalliqaz 7y ago
It is too early in the course of the disease in the US to make that assertion. That will depend quite a bit on how overwhelmed the hospitals become.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  SARS-CoV-2 has significantly higher mortality than the flu even with top treatment.
  - swasheck 7y ago
    This. Last month all of the analysis pointed to the fact that the mortality rate was being severely misrepresented, either through intent or ignorance.
eropple 7y ago
> In the US, you have a significantly higher chance of dying from the flu than from covid-19. In the instantaneous moment, yes. But there's a reason one measures derivatives, and that's why people are concerned.
nalllar 7y ago
Extrapolate a little, please. "Turns out, disaster can be 11 days out on a smooth graph, and idiots will still say "But it's killed fewer people than the flu!" https://twitter.com/MarkJHandley/status/1237119688578138112 https://twitter.com/MarkJHandley/status/1237119688578138112
vtail 7y ago
According to this dashboard, there are 40k infected outside of China vs 80k inside, and the 40k number is still growing exponentially. It’s just a matter of days until we have more cases outside of China. https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...
dontreact 7y ago
Given what I know about the nature of this disease, and the american response thus far, I don’t think this is true. It is looking very likely that the health system is going to be overloaded in the US. This is what people working in hospitals are telling me and it makes sense to me given the information that’s out there.
anthonybsd 7y ago
That's what skeptics in Italy were originally saying. Now people in Lombardy are dying from strokes because hospitals can't admit them because ICU is overrun by Covid-19 patients. Sure, if you break your leg and die from bleeding out because all local hospitals are busy treating bilateral pneumonia patients you technically didn't die from Covid-19, but ....
- lou1306 7y ago
  > Now people in Lombardy are dying from strokes because hospitals can't admit them Now wait a minute. If you have a source on that, please do provide it. Because I am from Italy and I have never heard of such things. (There were cases of people who died from a stroke and tested positive to COVID-19, but that's all I know)
  - anthonybsd 7y ago
    Part 5 of this thread: https://twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/1237142891077697538 https://twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/123714289107769753... Perhaps it's an issue with translation, but then I'm entirely unsure what he means by "Arrest".
    - greedo 7y ago
      I think it's pretty clear that he means cardiac arrest.
      - anthonybsd 7y ago
        That was my interpretation too.
    - lou1306 7y ago
      Thank you, even though I am honestly not sure if I can trust a Twitter thread. For instance, this article [1] (in Italian) says that "up until now [yesterday], no patient who could have benefited from intensive care has been excluded". BUT it also says Lombardy might be headed that way if the virus keeps spreading at this rate. Just to be clear, I do not want to downplay what is happening in any way. But I feel it is better if we stick to verifiable info. [1] https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2020/03/10/coronavirus-il-coordinatore-delle-terapie-intensive-lombarde-nessun-vecchio-escluso-ma-succedera-se-non-fermiamo-il-contagio/5732230/ https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2020/03/10/coronavirus-il-c...
earthtourist 7y ago
This comment is a great example of the ignorance we face. "It's mostly in China" = I don't understand exponential growth. "the flu" = I don't understand that there's a 10-30x higher mortality rate and hospital bed availability is vital to lowering it. https://www.flattenthecurve.com/ https://www.flattenthecurve.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lou1306 7y ago
  > and hospital bed availability is vital to lowering it. This. Plus, any disease that has very good chances of putting a young, healthy person in some ICU is not "the flu".
mcv 7y ago
For now. It's still expanding rapidly. A lot of countries, including the US, don't exactly give the impression they've got a good handle on this. If left to expand, this is going to turn into another unavoidable seasonal flu, except more contagious, more severe, and more deadly. And for now, with no vaccine. A couple of important reasons to try to slow this thing down are: * Hospitals don't have the capacity to deal with the number of severe COVID-19 patients they're likely to get. There's a good reason China built a new hospital in a week. Severe cases end up on the ICU, and we could end up with hundreds of thousands severe cases. * Slowing it down gives scientists more time to find a vaccine. If you wait for it to get worse than the flu, it will be too late.
0xfaded 7y ago
Looking forward to reading this comment in a month :)
harpastum 7y ago
Today's XKCD is a direct response to this line of thinking: https://xkcd.com/2278/ https://xkcd.com/2278/ Just because something hasn't happened yet does not mean it's completely unpredictable. COVID-19 is coming, and if we don't put significant preventative measures in place, many more people will die from it in 2020 than the yearly flu.
ceejayoz 7y ago
"More Jews have died in car accidents than by Nazis" may be a true statement in 1939, but it looks pretty dumb in 1945.

whatshisface 7y ago

>In the US, you have a significantly higher chance of dying from the flu than from covid-19. Today, but the thing about time is that before long next month will be today.

magduf 7y ago

>80% of all cases are still in China. That's impossible to know. We have no idea how many cases there are in the US, because we're not doing a significant amount of testing here, because our government is incompetent and unprepared for this.

chungus_khan 7y ago
And it should be very obvious from the fact that the rate of positives relative to the number of tests is enormously higher in the US than elsewhere that the number of infected are much higher than believed. Alongside this, cost prevents many from seeking care for things like respiratory illnesses, and in the case of one that actually requires care would probably do so until it is severely progressed.
lolc 7y ago
True. And we don't care about the number of cases anyway. We care about the growth. Assuming China has been ramping up its testing efforts, that gives us a clear picture of the spread in China. Especially compared to countries with slow-to-start, spotty testing. It seems to me that the U.S. government would prefer for cases to not be tested. Whatever medical competence there is appears to be sidelined by other interests.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

metalliqaz 7y ago

It is too early in the course of the disease in the US to make that assertion. That will depend quite a bit on how overwhelmed the hospitals become.

whatshisface 7y ago
SARS-CoV-2 has significantly higher mortality than the flu even with top treatment.
- swasheck 7y ago
  This. Last month all of the analysis pointed to the fact that the mortality rate was being severely misrepresented, either through intent or ignorance.

eropple 7y ago

> In the US, you have a significantly higher chance of dying from the flu than from covid-19. In the instantaneous moment, yes. But there's a reason one measures derivatives, and that's why people are concerned.

nalllar 7y ago

Extrapolate a little, please. "Turns out, disaster can be 11 days out on a smooth graph, and idiots will still say "But it's killed fewer people than the flu!" https://twitter.com/MarkJHandley/status/1237119688578138112 https://twitter.com/MarkJHandley/status/1237119688578138112

vtail 7y ago

According to this dashboard, there are 40k infected outside of China vs 80k inside, and the 40k number is still growing exponentially. It’s just a matter of days until we have more cases outside of China. https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...

dontreact 7y ago

Given what I know about the nature of this disease, and the american response thus far, I don’t think this is true. It is looking very likely that the health system is going to be overloaded in the US. This is what people working in hospitals are telling me and it makes sense to me given the information that’s out there.

anthonybsd 7y ago

That's what skeptics in Italy were originally saying. Now people in Lombardy are dying from strokes because hospitals can't admit them because ICU is overrun by Covid-19 patients. Sure, if you break your leg and die from bleeding out because all local hospitals are busy treating bilateral pneumonia patients you technically didn't die from Covid-19, but ....

lou1306 7y ago
> Now people in Lombardy are dying from strokes because hospitals can't admit them Now wait a minute. If you have a source on that, please do provide it. Because I am from Italy and I have never heard of such things. (There were cases of people who died from a stroke and tested positive to COVID-19, but that's all I know)
- anthonybsd 7y ago
  Part 5 of this thread: https://twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/1237142891077697538 https://twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/123714289107769753... Perhaps it's an issue with translation, but then I'm entirely unsure what he means by "Arrest".
  - greedo 7y ago
    I think it's pretty clear that he means cardiac arrest.
    - anthonybsd 7y ago
      That was my interpretation too.
  - lou1306 7y ago
    Thank you, even though I am honestly not sure if I can trust a Twitter thread. For instance, this article [1] (in Italian) says that "up until now [yesterday], no patient who could have benefited from intensive care has been excluded". BUT it also says Lombardy might be headed that way if the virus keeps spreading at this rate. Just to be clear, I do not want to downplay what is happening in any way. But I feel it is better if we stick to verifiable info. [1] https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2020/03/10/coronavirus-il-coordinatore-delle-terapie-intensive-lombarde-nessun-vecchio-escluso-ma-succedera-se-non-fermiamo-il-contagio/5732230/ https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2020/03/10/coronavirus-il-c...

earthtourist 7y ago

This comment is a great example of the ignorance we face. "It's mostly in China" = I don't understand exponential growth. "the flu" = I don't understand that there's a 10-30x higher mortality rate and hospital bed availability is vital to lowering it. https://www.flattenthecurve.com/ https://www.flattenthecurve.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lou1306 7y ago
> and hospital bed availability is vital to lowering it. This. Plus, any disease that has very good chances of putting a young, healthy person in some ICU is not "the flu".

mcv 7y ago

For now. It's still expanding rapidly. A lot of countries, including the US, don't exactly give the impression they've got a good handle on this. If left to expand, this is going to turn into another unavoidable seasonal flu, except more contagious, more severe, and more deadly. And for now, with no vaccine. A couple of important reasons to try to slow this thing down are: * Hospitals don't have the capacity to deal with the number of severe COVID-19 patients they're likely to get. There's a good reason China built a new hospital in a week. Severe cases end up on the ICU, and we could end up with hundreds of thousands severe cases. * Slowing it down gives scientists more time to find a vaccine. If you wait for it to get worse than the flu, it will be too late.

0xfaded 7y ago

Looking forward to reading this comment in a month :)

harpastum 7y ago

Today's XKCD is a direct response to this line of thinking: https://xkcd.com/2278/ https://xkcd.com/2278/ Just because something hasn't happened yet does not mean it's completely unpredictable. COVID-19 is coming, and if we don't put significant preventative measures in place, many more people will die from it in 2020 than the yearly flu.

ceejayoz 7y ago

"More Jews have died in car accidents than by Nazis" may be a true statement in 1939, but it looks pretty dumb in 1945.