Impact bias
Fair enough, I misread it
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Bad news
Coronavirus Could Infect Two-Thirds of Globe
Just hard for me to jump to that type of conclusion knowing how wrong people were about bird flu, Ebola, SARS, etc. not to say those werenāt significant issues and that people died but the āoh this ones getting almost everyoneā has been done numerous times. And who knows maybe this will be different but the natural skeptic in me is going to put faith in science and logic and hope that itās not nearly as bad as it could be.
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ā When you ask scientists, āWhatās your fear for the Big One, the pandemic thatās going to kill us all?ā ā not that there is a pandemic thatās going to kill us all ā but if you ask them that, they say, āFlu.ā They worry about some new flu, bird flu or swine flu, thatās highly lethal but becomes very transmissible between humans. I only know one or two scientists who have said, āYou know, I also worry about coronaviruses being the Big One.ā
Again who knows.
Of course I hope itās not as bad as it sounds, but the way things are looking it could continue to spread.
A Chinese tourist has died in France after contracting the new coronavirus - the first fatality from the disease outside Asia.
He arrived in France on 16 January and was placed in quarantine in hospital in Paris on 25 January, she said.
9 days in France outside of quarantine, no telling how many people he could have infected in that time and the incubation period can be several weeks.
The so called āSpanish Fluā of 1918 killed more people than died in WW1 military and civilian.
āThe Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the deadliest in history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwideāabout one-third of the planetās populationāand killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including some 675,000 Americans.ā
Why are the media panicking? Maybe they want to divert attention from something!
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Captain Trips
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Iām aware of this. And not saying the panic isnāt justified merely weāve been down this road with other things recently like the ones Iāve mentioned and the end results have been drastically lower than the panicked estimates.
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Then I will haha. The panic is unjustified. Firstly, in the early stages of an outbreak for a virus, the lethality is almost always skewed high. There are many reasons for this, but the one of the big ones is also the most obvious: the sickest people are the easiest to notice, the most likely to seek medical attention, and the most likely to die because theyāre the most severe cases.
In addition to that, for a new virus thereās no known outbreak model. It takes time for that to develop based simply on lack of concrete numbers and a dozen other things.
So to put this in perspective, the H1N1 flu outbreak of the late 2000s had an initial lethality rate of about 10% - flat out concerning. By the end of the outbreak the lethality calculation was down to 0.1%, or no worse than the common flu. In other words, it is very common for initial estimates to be high by at least 1 order of magnitude, if not more (in this case 2 orders).
Taking this coronavirus, the initial arithmetic (which is 100% not a good way to do case fatality) shows between ~3% and lower, less than 1%. Given the previous info itās just plain malpractice to induce panic through bad reporting. It is very likely the overall fatality rate will be less than 1%, but we need to wait for the outbreak model to develop and get accurate stats as well.
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Iāll also add that death rates vary widely across the globe due to varying quality of medical care and supplies. Itās likely the Chinese govt is withholding info that they seem embarrassing which could slightly bump numbers up, and Iāll go out on a limb and say that simple supply shortages will cause a number of deaths that could be avoided, increasing the death rate.
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Also, theyāre starting to diagnose based on symptoms now since thereās a shortage of testing kits. Great for public health, but given that the symptoms of Coronavirus arenāt very unique, the numbers might be skewed in the coming months
At least this might help make up for the blatant under reporting ( uncle is a doctor and knows ppl in Wuhan)
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Yep, that could go either way in skewing the numbers depending on several things. But as you said, great for the public health
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What has your uncle heard about the numbers of dead/infected in Wuhan? Iām extremely skeptical of what I hear online, both the probable under reporting by the Chinese govt, and the mass hysteria on social media. So having someone who knows people in Wuhan is great since they should have a more accurate idea.
The Flu kills 36K per year. Is it possible that this could be really, really bad? Yeah. Is it worse than the flu right now? Nope.
Unfortunately no. Heās saying that his friends in Wuhan were told not to admit people (even though they had clear symptoms) or write something else ie pneumonia on their papers
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I gotta admit that Iām so tired of hearing people talk about coronavirus all the time here in Italy. The news literally donāt talk about anything else. I donāt watch TV but I happen to be around it when Iām at my momās or my dadās watching it in the living room, and coronavirus is the only topic I have heard people discussing.
People are panicking all over Italy. Schools are closed in my region and many other (luckily my university is located in a different region than the one I live in), everybody is acting like getting infected is a death sentence. Everyone is recommending smart ass stuff like ācarefully wash your hands and donāt touch your mouth with dirty hands.ā Seriously? So up until the arrival of this virus you guys werenāt washing your hands and were sticking dirt into your mouths as a hobby?
My gym was also nearly forced to stay closed yesterday but apparently they found a way to get around that.
Hand sanitizers are run out of in stores and people are selling them online for prices close to ā¬ 80 per bottle. In the cities nearby the places with the highest numbers of people infected, people have assaulted stores to pile up stuff ājust in case.ā
And letās not even get started on those that go around wearing a surgeon mask (which doesnāt do shit anyway) to āprotect themselves from the virus,ā and then maybe get home and light up a cigarette, or text while driving.
I donāt get how people donāt realize that the effects of mass hysteria can be way more dangerous than the virus itself.
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Yes, being extra careful washing hands and touching eyes/ears/nose/mouth will help keep you healthy. No, most people arenāt actively doing this already.
Yes surgical masks prevent the spread of infectious airborne viruses, like the flu and Corona virus.
Yes it would be a good idea to stock up on neccesities if a quarantine goes into effect and stores close/transport is restricted.
But yes, from what little I know the Corona virus is more or less like having a bad flu resulting in pneumonia. Itās not a death sentence, but it is killing healthy young people which is scary.
Only if YOU have the virus. It doesnāt protect you from it if you donāt.
Bullshit. This isnāt even close to happening in Italy, according to official sources.
You do realize the death rate for people 19-48 years old is 0.2%? Compare that to the death rate from other death causes (even influenza) and youāll see how much it is being made a bigger (by several orders of magnitude) deal than it is.
If you know little about a topic, which you admitted, is it really the smartest move to state your opinion anyway, just because you can? Sometimes itās better to shut up than to spread falsehood (which is way more harmful than coronavirus).
@samul A little bit too angry broā, but I pretty much agree with what you say.
The hand sanitizer crazed buyers should realize that the active ingredient is the alcohol you buy in drugstores. Or is that being bought up also?