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WHO warns United States could become coronavirus epicenter
- lubesGordi 7y ago"Asked whether the United States could become the new epicenter, she said: “We are now seeing a very large acceleration in cases in the U.S. So it does have that potential. We cannot say that is the case yet but it does have that potential.” " That's all that was said, no new facts in this article.
- derision 7y agoIt's bullshit anyway, we're seeing "a very large acceleration in cases in the U.S" because there was a very large increase in testing
- tunesmith 7y agoI don't like those "days since 100 cases" graphs either, with the steep slope for the US (for growth of confirmed cases). I'm betting that our "actual/confirmed" ratio at that point of 100 confirmed cases was ridiculously high compared to other countries.
- nerfhammer 7y agothe death count is also accelerating and is not subject to that effect
- Jagat 7y agoIf you don't test someone for coronavirus prior to the death (or even after), it doesn't get attributed to coronavirus
- jedberg 7y agoThere is also a reverse problem. Some people are dying of heart attacks and are testing positive COVID-19, and are being counted even though it's unlikely the COVID-19 had anything to do with it.
- uwuhn 7y agoEasily fixable if you stop testing, or officially attribute death to something else.
- dhimes 7y agoAs we run short on tests it's likely that only the bad off will get tested.
- danharaj 7y agoLook at hospitalizations, not confirmed cases. NY state is projecting a peak in 2 weeks with rather effective social distancing and lockdown measures and the peak will still overwhelm ICU's and # of hospital beds. States that aren't taking this seriously will see a much larger peak later and won't have the medical resources NYS has.
- derision 7y agoOhio has the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals which are some of the best hospitals in the country, if not the world. Social distancing and shelter in place has been extremely effective here. A nurse that I know said the hospital he works in currently has no coronavirus cases in ICU. I think in some places where population density is extremely high this will continue to be a huge issue, but in many other places (I'm in the Cleveland area) I think things are already close to the peak
- danharaj 7y agoOhio had a very good response too! https://www.cleveland.com/news/2020/03/compare-coronavirus-cases-in-ohio-michigan.html https://www.cleveland.com/news/2020/03/compare-coronavirus-c... When dealing with exponential functions, linear increases in effort early on lead to extremely large differences in outcomes later on. Our intuition is not very well equipped to understand this sort of situation.
- dhimes 7y agoI don't see an effect due to increased testing- not a large one anyway. Doubling time is still a bit over 2 days, and has been for 10 days or so.
- cdumler 7y ago> It's bullshit anyway, we're seeing "a very large acceleration in cases in the U.S" because there was a very large increase in testing This is bullshit. I can tell you that here in Kansas and Missouri they have given up on testing. You can only be tested if you present symptoms such that you require hospitalization and a doctor approves the test. Health care workers are told to self-quarantine if they think they are infected for seven days, but do not get the test. Yeah, should be 14 days, but we can't afford to loose people. We are critically low on testing kits and protective gear such that CORVID is now considered community communicable and no point to test unless necessary. Kansas City has gone into lock down. We've moved to telemedicine, stopped elective surgeries, closed schools and non essential business.
- ve55 7y agoI am continually seeing headlines from the WHO that seem to be, well, not only obvious, but delayed and unhelpful. Yesterday I saw that they said 'the Pandemic is accelerating'. I recall many wonderful tweets that have been not only helpful, but possibly significantly harmful, as anyone is happy to cite the WHO when they say things like normal people do not need masks, stigma is worse than the virus, and so on (For example: https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1234095938555260929 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1234095938555260929 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1233418231261646849 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1233418231261646849 ), and I'm honestly wondering if they have even been a net-positive for this situation overall. Am I missing something here?
- buboard 7y agoyes WHO woefully mishandled the situation, from underestimating the gravity of the situation and arguing against closing borders in january, to delays declaring a pandemic. Thankfully , countries acted independently
- SlowRobotAhead 7y agoDidn’t WHO initially say that while working with the Chinese they determined it was not spreadable through contact of items? EDIT: yes, of pets and items: > When asked, "Is it safe to receive letters and parcels from China?" [WHO] Answered, "Coronaviruses are safe because they do not survive long on letters and other objects." > In response to the question `` whether a new coronavirus can spread from pets '', `` at present there is no evidence that pets such as dogs and cats can be infected with the new coronavirus '' is. There is also Taiwan showing that its likely China is misleading the WHO (would China ever do that!?)
- anoncareer0212 7y agono EDIT: op added "of items" to his question, dramatically changing it
- nabla9 7y agoIt seems that the US is on the the path of no mitigation Fast/South approach https://neherlab.org/covid19/?%7B%22population%22%3A%7B%22populationServed%22%3A330000000%2C%22country%22%3A%22United%20States%20of%20America%22%2C%22hospitalBeds%22%3A1485000%2C%22ICUBeds%22%3A49499%2C%22suspectedCasesToday%22%3A6638%2C%22importsPerDay%22%3A20%2C%22cases%22%3A%22United%20States%20of%20America%22%7D%2C%22epidemiological%22%3A%7B%22r0%22%3A3.2%2C%22incubationTime%22%3A4%2C%22infectiousPeriod%22%3A3%2C%22lengthHospitalStay%22%3A4%2C%22lengthICUStay%22%3A14%2C%22seasonalForcing%22%3A0.2%2C%22peakMonth%22%3A6%2C%22overflowSeverity%22%3A2%7D%2C%22simulation%22%3A%7B%22simulationTimeRange%22%3A%7B%22tMin%22%3A%222020-02-29T22%3A00%3A00.000Z%22%2C%22tMax%22%3A%222021-04-30T09%3A00%3A00.000Z%22%7D%2C%22numberStochasticRuns%22%3A0%7D%2C%22containment%22%3A%5B%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222020-02-29T22%3A00%3A00.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222020-04-17T04%3A33%3A20.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222020-06-03T11%3A06%3A40.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222020-07-20T17%3A40%3A00.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222020-09-06T00%3A13%3A20.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222020-10-23T06%3A46%3A40.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222020-12-09T13%3A20%3A00.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222021-01-25T19%3A53%3A20.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222021-03-14T02%3A26%3A40.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222021-04-30T09%3A00%3A00.000Z%22%7D%5D%2C%22current%22%3A%7B%22overall%22%3A%22Custom%22%2C%22population%22%3A%22United%20States%20of%20America%22%2C%22epidemiological%22%3A%22Fast%2FSouth%22%2C%22containment%22%3A%22No%20mitigation%22%7D%7D https://neherlab.org/covid19/?%7B%22population%22%3A%7B%22po... https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1242242633050861568/photo/1 https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1242242633050861568/ph...
- chadash 7y agoIn some ways, it already is. If New York State were a country with it's 26k+ cases, it would rank #6 in total cases, ahead of Iran and behind Germany. And I'm assuming that of those cases, the vast majority are in the New York City metropolitan area, which covers a tiny fraction of the state by area. The city is on track to surpass Wuhan in just a few days and we're still lagging behind in our ability to test.
- umilegenio 7y agoI am not sure how much matters, but Italy has a high population density, higher than China: 201/km2. China has 145/km2, while United States has 36/km2. This mean that people are more widespread, so it should be easier to isolate parts of United States than it is to isolate parts of Italy, in case there are problematic areas. In short, New York might become a center of epidemic, but probably not the whole United States.
- magicsmoke 7y agoChina's population density is skewed lower due to uninhabitable and sparsely inhabited mountains and deserts in Xinjiang and Tibet that make up about half the country. Without those regions China's population density doubles to around 300/km2.
- umilegenio 7y agoTrue, mine is a generalization. However Italian geography also lead to heavy concentration of people in limited areas. Lombardy, the worst hit region, has a population density of 420/km2. Look at this map of Italian geography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy#/media/File:Italy_topographic_map-blank.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy#/media/File:Italy_topogr...
- Jommi 7y agoIs there a country where this is not the case?
- Zenst 7y agoThat's an issue as many live in pockets and those pockets are dense in populus. So population density needs to be looked at on a city/town basis as counting all those deserts and farming land etc, to dilute the numbers can skew perspective.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- smdz 7y agoStop calling it the epicenter now. Covid-19 is here to stay and it will run its course. And the entire planet is already an epicenter The US seems to be preparing itself quite well to handle the scale of severe cases. And I hope they walk the talk. And increased testing is obviously going to increase the number of cases.
- Der_Einzige 7y agoShow me evidence that the US is preparing quite well to handle the scale of severe cases.
- Zenst 7y agoIf you look at tourism in countries and international plane flight history, along with the size of a country. It's a given, at some stage in this Virus life-cycle. However, what the WHO need to do it act as part of the problem over many missed opportunities that will now playout whatever happens and with that, the USA will see it become the epicenter soon. But long term, there are countries with less medical and health standards that are large and with lesser international flights, bit behind the growth rate. But they will only catch up and eventually overtake and what will the WHO do in preventing that? Beyond a tweet saying how XXX country is now the epicenter and solve nothing. We have seen some bad misinformation come out from WHO and with that, this latest comment from them fits into the other form of output - unhelpful and too late to stop, whatever will happen.