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I just finished listening to a veteran virologist give a 2 hour interview. It’s being blown way out of proportion. Nobody under the age of 9 has died, period. U

I just finished listening to a veteran virologist give a 2 hour interview. It’s being blown way out of proportion. Nobody under the age of 9 has died, period. Under the age of 30 your mortality probability is vanishingly small. It’s only a threat to people who have a compromised immune system because of age, diabetes or something like that. This is nothing like the Spanish flu. Unlike influenza viruses, these viruses don’t mutate in a way that would cause their recurrence every year. The chances of a more deadly strain popping up are extremely small. I listened to trump address the nation in the rose garden live today. The npr correspondent confidently said that this virus “isn’t going away.” It’s a flat out lie and hysteria.

DeepThoughts 7y ago
Would love to see your sources. I’m shocked there are still people like you claiming this is all an overreaction while the smart folk are all bracing for impact. You gotta get it together man, this is bigger than anything you’ve ever seen in your life. If we’re very lucky it’ll be bad in the coming weeks and months, if we’re not it’ll be much much worse.
- ggffryuuj 7y ago
  I would love to see a source that contradicts what I said. My source is the testimony of a virologist with 40 years of experience and other qualified people. I’m sorry to be blunt but there simply isn’t anything to brace for. The worst case scenario is that a very small number of people die before herd immunity slows the spread to nothing, after which the virus will basically disappear probably before we even have a vaccine for it. That’s what happened with Zika and some others. That’s what’s going to happen here. The number of people who die will be similar to deaths from the flu, car accidents and other things. Can you offer a single substantive counter argument to anything I’ve said? I will enjoy reading it.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    It'd be super great if you'd cite your source. Like... a name? A link?
    - ggffryuuj 7y ago
      https://youtu.be/WWNuDT4t-TM https://youtu.be/WWNuDT4t-TM And even though this guy destroys all of your panic driven assumptions and ideas, you probably won’t upvote me will you?
  - 2snakes 7y ago
    because the hospitals could become overloaded, that means a lot more people with other medical problems would be getting triaged than just coronavirus. not only that but this exponential curve can be blunted saving thousands of lives, including your own elderly acquaintances.
  - jariel 7y ago
    " I’m sorry to be blunt but there simply isn’t anything to brace for." This is appallingly wrong. If you're commenting here on HN and referring to legit medical sources, then you're also smart enough to see what has happened in Wuhan and Italy where hospitals are completely overwhelmed, where triaging is leaving many people without any care. Over 65? Comorbidities? Sorry, 'just die' or hopefully not, is the medical response because they are overwhelmed. That under 30 are less likely to die is irrelevant when most of the population is >50 and the rate of spread, the severity of cases is such that health services are completely overwhelmed. Hospitals around the world are facing 'Denial of Service' attacks and everything is crumbling. The way to make this survivable is to control the spread of the disease so as to make care available and give enough time for rapid trials etc.. "The worst case scenario is that a very small number of people die before herd immunity slows the spread to nothing" No! The 'worst-case scenario' is 10's of millions of infected, (possibly over 100 million in the US), 1000-to-1 infected to ventilator ratio, total and complete overwhelming of US medical services, several million dead, 10's of millions out of work and isolated for many weeks, unable to work, contribute, teach, provide medical services, run the 'toilet paper factory', etc.. Literally the worst disaster in US history - worse than WW2 or the Civil War (~2% death rate) in terms of domestic turbulence. Now - add in how many people are going to die from 'regular things' because the healthcare system is null.
    - ggffryuuj 7y ago
      Appalling. That’s so funny. The morbidity rate is far less than 3%. Most people who get it probably don’t even realize they have it which makes the numbers look worse than they are. Look I’m not saying nothing should be done. If nothing were done the. We might see something that vaguely resembles what you are describing. If people wouldn’t panic and if antibiotics were prescribed remotely and if people did a few basic things like wash their hands and stay at home if they have a preexisting medical condition, then basically nothing would happen. The only one we don’t have is a lack of panic. People are trying to see their doctors and get tests while they have no symptoms. I’m sorry man but you’re wrong this time.
      - jariel 7y ago
moab 7y ago
"It’s only a threat to people who have a compromised immune system because of age, diabetes or something like that." Yeah forget those people. /s
- ggffryuuj 7y ago
  You seem to have forgotten logic and common sense.
ceejayoz 7y ago
> Unlike influenza viruses, these viruses don’t mutate in a way that would cause their recurrence every year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_OC43 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_OC43 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_229E https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_229E Both of these viruses do exactly that. They're among the many that give us colds. "Coronaviruses have a worldwide distribution, causing 10–15% of common cold cases. Infections show a seasonal pattern with most cases occurring in the winter months." Consider the possibility that your source is full of it. It happens to the best: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nobel_disease https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nobel_disease
- ggffryuuj 7y ago
  Rhinovirus is responsible for the common cold, not corona virus. I have no idea how that article doesn’t mention that. The corona viruses you link to do not change year to year in a way that evades the immune system like influenza does. And there is no evidence that this corona virus changes in the way that influenza does. If you have evidence that it does, then post it. This is just unbelievable. Here I am citing a virologist who studies this for decades and is an expert. He says with no ambiguity that corona viruses that are responsible for a small fraction of colds do not change themselves to evade the immune system like the flu. And your source is a Wikipedia article that doesn’t even claim that those corona viruses do that. And then you make this wild assumption that an expert is suffering from some kind of mental bias, meanwhile you and everyone else is suffering from the oldest, most well known and most common and obvious mental bias of all time which is fear and panic in the face of the unknown. Which do you think is more likely? Do you even have any kind of background in biology? You vapid insufferable twit.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    > Rhinovirus is responsible for the common cold, not corona virus. https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus > Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). I'm done here.
dba7dba 7y ago
I would love to see you link/source. I have watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw&t=2357s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw&t=2357s with Michael Osterholm as guest. This is not a flat out lie.
- ggffryuuj 7y ago
  I saw that too. He isn’t a virologist and also is hawking his book. And he’s not very articulate or dispassionate. And he still hasn’t contradicted me in any way. Not unambiguously.

DeepThoughts 7y ago

Would love to see your sources. I’m shocked there are still people like you claiming this is all an overreaction while the smart folk are all bracing for impact. You gotta get it together man, this is bigger than anything you’ve ever seen in your life. If we’re very lucky it’ll be bad in the coming weeks and months, if we’re not it’ll be much much worse.

ggffryuuj 7y ago
I would love to see a source that contradicts what I said. My source is the testimony of a virologist with 40 years of experience and other qualified people. I’m sorry to be blunt but there simply isn’t anything to brace for. The worst case scenario is that a very small number of people die before herd immunity slows the spread to nothing, after which the virus will basically disappear probably before we even have a vaccine for it. That’s what happened with Zika and some others. That’s what’s going to happen here. The number of people who die will be similar to deaths from the flu, car accidents and other things. Can you offer a single substantive counter argument to anything I’ve said? I will enjoy reading it.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  It'd be super great if you'd cite your source. Like... a name? A link?
  - ggffryuuj 7y ago
    https://youtu.be/WWNuDT4t-TM https://youtu.be/WWNuDT4t-TM And even though this guy destroys all of your panic driven assumptions and ideas, you probably won’t upvote me will you?
- 2snakes 7y ago
  because the hospitals could become overloaded, that means a lot more people with other medical problems would be getting triaged than just coronavirus. not only that but this exponential curve can be blunted saving thousands of lives, including your own elderly acquaintances.
- jariel 7y ago
  " I’m sorry to be blunt but there simply isn’t anything to brace for." This is appallingly wrong. If you're commenting here on HN and referring to legit medical sources, then you're also smart enough to see what has happened in Wuhan and Italy where hospitals are completely overwhelmed, where triaging is leaving many people without any care. Over 65? Comorbidities? Sorry, 'just die' or hopefully not, is the medical response because they are overwhelmed. That under 30 are less likely to die is irrelevant when most of the population is >50 and the rate of spread, the severity of cases is such that health services are completely overwhelmed. Hospitals around the world are facing 'Denial of Service' attacks and everything is crumbling. The way to make this survivable is to control the spread of the disease so as to make care available and give enough time for rapid trials etc.. "The worst case scenario is that a very small number of people die before herd immunity slows the spread to nothing" No! The 'worst-case scenario' is 10's of millions of infected, (possibly over 100 million in the US), 1000-to-1 infected to ventilator ratio, total and complete overwhelming of US medical services, several million dead, 10's of millions out of work and isolated for many weeks, unable to work, contribute, teach, provide medical services, run the 'toilet paper factory', etc.. Literally the worst disaster in US history - worse than WW2 or the Civil War (~2% death rate) in terms of domestic turbulence. Now - add in how many people are going to die from 'regular things' because the healthcare system is null.
  - ggffryuuj 7y ago
    Appalling. That’s so funny. The morbidity rate is far less than 3%. Most people who get it probably don’t even realize they have it which makes the numbers look worse than they are. Look I’m not saying nothing should be done. If nothing were done the. We might see something that vaguely resembles what you are describing. If people wouldn’t panic and if antibiotics were prescribed remotely and if people did a few basic things like wash their hands and stay at home if they have a preexisting medical condition, then basically nothing would happen. The only one we don’t have is a lack of panic. People are trying to see their doctors and get tests while they have no symptoms. I’m sorry man but you’re wrong this time.
    - jariel 7y ago

moab 7y ago

"It’s only a threat to people who have a compromised immune system because of age, diabetes or something like that." Yeah forget those people. /s

ggffryuuj 7y ago
You seem to have forgotten logic and common sense.

ceejayoz 7y ago

> Unlike influenza viruses, these viruses don’t mutate in a way that would cause their recurrence every year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_OC43 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_OC43 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_229E https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_229E Both of these viruses do exactly that. They're among the many that give us colds. "Coronaviruses have a worldwide distribution, causing 10–15% of common cold cases. Infections show a seasonal pattern with most cases occurring in the winter months." Consider the possibility that your source is full of it. It happens to the best: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nobel_disease https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nobel_disease

ggffryuuj 7y ago
Rhinovirus is responsible for the common cold, not corona virus. I have no idea how that article doesn’t mention that. The corona viruses you link to do not change year to year in a way that evades the immune system like influenza does. And there is no evidence that this corona virus changes in the way that influenza does. If you have evidence that it does, then post it. This is just unbelievable. Here I am citing a virologist who studies this for decades and is an expert. He says with no ambiguity that corona viruses that are responsible for a small fraction of colds do not change themselves to evade the immune system like the flu. And your source is a Wikipedia article that doesn’t even claim that those corona viruses do that. And then you make this wild assumption that an expert is suffering from some kind of mental bias, meanwhile you and everyone else is suffering from the oldest, most well known and most common and obvious mental bias of all time which is fear and panic in the face of the unknown. Which do you think is more likely? Do you even have any kind of background in biology? You vapid insufferable twit.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  > Rhinovirus is responsible for the common cold, not corona virus. https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus > Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). I'm done here.

dba7dba 7y ago

I would love to see you link/source. I have watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw&t=2357s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw&t=2357s with Michael Osterholm as guest. This is not a flat out lie.

ggffryuuj 7y ago
I saw that too. He isn’t a virologist and also is hawking his book. And he’s not very articulate or dispassionate. And he still hasn’t contradicted me in any way. Not unambiguously.