Coronavirus Outbreak...

[Sparko]

Last night at the coronavirus news briefing, Pence said that they are working to make sure everyone who has to miss work because of the corona virus will have paid leave, and insurance companies have agreed to cover the costs of any corona virus tests and any treatments required.

And to help any businesses distressed by the coronavirus with tax deferrals and financial assistance.

[JimL]

Since December, there have been around 30-million cases of the common flu just in the US. And the coronavirus already shows signs of diminishing.

The flu is not new, its out there and can't be contained. No one is trying to contain the spread of the flu. And no, there are no signs that the Corona virus is diminishing. Germany for instance expects that 70% of its population will be infected.

As for trying to contain it, President Trump wanted to institute strict travel restrictions in December, but the Democrats laughed at him, accused him of racism and trying to distract from the sham impeachment. Turns out the President was right. Even now you have Crazy Bernie out there demanding open borders. Aren't you glad Trump is charge?

That's just Trump speak. Trump did institute travel restrictions two months in, on January 31st, but only against foriegners from China and then Iran and Korea, but not for Americans traveling to and from those countries, and no, democrats did not laugh at him or accuse him of racism, that's just more Trump speak.

[Sparko]

The flu is not new, its out there and can't be contained. No one is trying to contain the spread of the flu. And no, there are no signs that the Corona virus is diminishing. Germany for instance expects that 70% of its population will be infected.

That's just Trump speak. Trump did institute travel restrictions two months in, on January 31st, but only against foriegners from China and then Iran and Korea, but not for Americans traveling to and from those countries, and no, democrats did not laugh at him or accuse him of racism, that's just more Trump speak.

The point is to slow the spread long enough that it doesn't overwhelm the hospital system and they have time to develop a vaccine. Which they have for the flu so yeah, they are trying to contain the spread of the flu, jimmy.

[JimL]

The point is to slow the spread long enough that it doesn't overwhelm the hospital system and they have time to develop a vaccine. Which they have for the flu so yeah, they are trying to contain the spread of the flu, jimmy.

Context Sparko, context. The flu is, has been, and will be everywhere, the Corona virus was isolated in Wuhan China and containment is meant to keep it from spreading further and end it like the SARS and MERS outbreaks.

[oxmixmudd]

Even if it's 10x that, heck, even if it's 100x that, that's still far below the number of people who have been infected with the common flu. In just the US, around 40 million annually get the common flu.

I'm not going to waste more that one post on this idiocy - but it simply just shows complete and utter ignorance.

Unrestrained, the virus will spread exponentially until the majority of the population is infected. The virus spreads between 2 to 3 times easier than the flu, but is at least 8x as deadly, more likely 10 to 20x, with a disproportionate effect on the elderly, with morality rates in that population (over 75) exceeding 10% (100x the flu). Without testing, there is no way to know who has it and who does not - except for those that already are sick enough to see a doctor. This means there is effectively no restraint on its spread in this country at the current time.

It will take time to reach flu proportions, but long before this virus reaches that sort of spread, it will overwhelm our medical capacity.

Your 'analysis' of the figures does not take into account the fact the majority of cases for the first two months were in China - which through extraordinary efforts has been able to turn the spread of the disease. Meanwhile the bumbling and inept approaches of our own government and other governments around the world have let it loose across the globe and in this country. We are growing exponentially here in the US and most of Europe. And we are only beginning to react. We still do not have adequate testing capacity, which means most cases are going undetected, which means the disease spread is unrestrained except to the extent voluntary efforts and hygiene and reduced public activity can restrain it.

A disease with an R above 1 spreads - exponentially - without massive efforts to contain it. This disease has an R of 2 to 3 (each case results in 2 to 3 additional cases). The flu has an R of 1.28.

For those that don't comprehend exponential:

starting with 1 person and a disease where each person infects 2 people every week puts nearly the entire US population of 300 million people sick or having been sick in 28 weeks - 7 months.
with the last week adding 128 million people to the list (practical realities do not allow for perfect exponential spread once a significant percentage is infected)

This disease will kill anywhere from 8 to 20x as many people as the flu if it is not stopped.

This disease puts 8 to 10% of the people it infects into the hospital (and as we see in places like Iran, many of these die if they don't get hospital care)

10,000,000 with the disease is somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people that will need hospital care, somewhere between 90,000 and 350,000 people dead.

10,000,000 people is only 3% of the US population.

Merkel just announced they expect 60 to 70% of their population to get the disease.


It is time for there to be no tolerance of the sort of ignorance you represent MM. You and those like you are a danger to all of us. Grow up. Wise up. Diseases are not ideas, they are real things and they behave according the their own intrinsic properties and could care less if you are pro-trump or anti-trump, Republican and Democrat, liberal or conservative, stupid or brilliant, Christian or Atheist.

[Mountain Man]

The flu is not new, its out there and can't be contained. No one is trying to contain the spread of the flu. And no, there are no signs that the Corona virus is diminishing. Germany for instance expects that 70% of its population will be infected.

That's just Trump speak. Trump did institute travel restrictions two months in, on January 31st, but only against foriegners from China and then Iran and Korea, but not for Americans traveling to and from those countries, and no, democrats did not laugh at him or accuse him of racism, that's just more Trump speak.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/01/critic...kening-devine/

"Trump speak".

[Mountain Man]

I'm not going to waste more that one post on this idiocy - but it simply just shows complete and utter ignorance.

Unrestrained, the virus will spread exponentially until the majority of the population is infected. The virus spreads between 2 to 3 times easier than the flu, but is at least 8x as deadly, more likely 10 to 20x, with a disproportionate effect on the elderly, with morality rates in that population (over 75) exceeding 10% (100x the flu). Without testing, there is no way to know who has it and who does not - except for those that already are sick enough to see a doctor. This means there is effectively no restraint on its spread in this country at the current time.

It will take time to reach flu proportions, but long before this virus reaches that sort of spread, it will overwhelm our medical capacity.

Your 'analysis' of the figures does not take into account the fact the majority of cases for the first two months were in China - which through extraordinary efforts has been able to turn the spread of the disease. Meanwhile the bumbling and inept approaches of our own government and other governments around the world have let it loose across the globe and in this country. We are growing exponentially here in the US and most of Europe. And we are only beginning to react. We still do not have adequate testing capacity, which means most cases are going undetected, which means the disease spread is unrestrained except to the extent voluntary efforts and hygiene and reduced public activity can restrain it.

A disease with an R above 1 spreads - exponentially - without massive efforts to contain it. This disease has an R of 2 to 3 (each case results in 2 to 3 additional cases). The flu has an R of 1.28.

For those that don't comprehend exponential:

starting with 1 person and a disease where each person infects 2 people every week puts nearly the entire US population of 300 million people sick or having been sick in 28 weeks - 7 months.
with the last week adding 128 million people to the list (practical realities do not allow for perfect exponential spread once a significant percentage is infected)

This disease will kill anywhere from 8 to 20x as many people as the flu if it is not stopped.

This disease puts 8 to 10% of the people it infects into the hospital (and as we see in places like Iran, many of these die if they don't get hospital care)

10,000,000 with the disease is somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people that will need hospital care, somewhere between 90,000 and 350,000 people dead.

10,000,000 people is only 3% of the US population.

Merkel just announced they expect 60 to 70% of their population to get the disease.


It is time for there to be no tolerance of the sort of ignorance you represent MM. You and those like you are a danger to all of us. Grow up. Wise up. Diseases are not ideas, they are real things and they behave according the their own intrinsic properties and could care less if you are pro-trump or anti-trump, Republican and Democrat, liberal or conservative, stupid or brilliant, Christian or Atheist.

And yet there have only been around 120,000 confirmed coronavirus infections worldwide since the disease was first identified late last year. That's 0.002% of the global population that has even been infected, and 50% of those have already recovered without complications, and this is before we even have a vaccine for it! The ones most at risk are the same ones most at risk from any infectious disease: the elderly and others with compromised immune systems.

Common sense precautions are called for. Your brand of "The sky is falling!" hysteria is not.

[Sparko]

Context Sparko, context. The flu is, has been, and will be everywhere, the Corona virus was isolated in Wuhan China and containment is meant to keep it from spreading further and end it like the SARS and MERS outbreaks.

That cat is already out of the bag. They are now just trying to mitigate the spread and slow it down. "Flatten the curve" is what the CDC guy said yesterday, so that the number of cases is spread out instead of spiking all at once and overwhelming the hospitals.

[Darfius]

Common sense precautions are called for. Your brand of "The sky is falling!" hysteria is not.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/10/dow-futures-point-to-a-loss-of-more-than-400-points-after-tuesdays-surge.html [as WHO declares global pandemic]

just the flu.jpg

[oxmixmudd]

And yet there have only been around 120,000 confirmed coronavirus infections worldwide since the disease was first identified late last year. That's 0.002% of the global population that has even been infected, and 50% of those have already recovered without complications, and this is before we even have a vaccine for it! The ones most at risk are the same ones most at risk from any infectious disease: the elderly and others with compromised immune systems.

Common sense precautions are called for. Your brand of "The sky is falling!" hysteria is not.

Only. So lets start with 1 person, doubling once per week. 12 weeks. That is 4096. 16 weeks, that is 65536.

How long ago did this start MM? late December. On dec 31, the chinese announced they were treating dozens of cases. Dec 31 was 12 weeks ago MM.

We are right were we should be for exponential spread over that period of time.

You need to grow up and wise up.

Italy: It arrived in Italy in 31 January - 10 weeks ago. Italy now has 12,462 cases. That is MORE that doubling every 2 weeks (i.e. exponential, but with a power >2). And in italy 827 people have died, that is 6.6% mortality. >10% of the current cases are hospitalized. They added 2000+ cases TODAY

Iran: 9000 cases, 354 died, 3.9% mortality. First confirmed cases LESS THAN 4 WEEKS AGO. 900 new cases today.

S. Korea - one of the most aggressive in testing is seeing it's mortality rise. now it is .8%, which is way less than almost anywhere else. And they added another 250 cases today.

US: Look at what happened when it got into that nursing home in Washington State.

>10% of the resident population there is now dead! We are over 1000 cases now whereas we reported our first case just 12 days ago!

1000 in 12 days is doubling every 1.2 days, not every week MM.

The sort of ignorant denial you posted above is useless in the face of this thing, and incredibly dangerous.

[Mountain Man]

Only. So lets start with 1 person, doubling once per week. 12 weeks. That is 4096. 16 weeks, that is 65536.

How long ago did this start MM? late December. On dec 31, the chinese announced they were treating dozens of cases. Dec 31 was 12 weeks ago MM.

We are right were we should be for exponential spread over that period of time.

You need to grow up and wise up.

Italy: It arrived in Italy in 31 January - 10 weeks ago. Italy now has 12,462 cases. That is MORE that doubling every 2 weeks (i.e. exponential, but with a power >2). And in italy 827 people have died, that is 6.6% mortality. >10% of the current cases are hospitalized. They added 2000+ cases TODAY

Iran: 9000 cases, 354 died, 3.9% mortality. First confirmed cases LESS THAN 4 WEEKS AGO. 900 new cases today.

S. Korea - one of the most aggressive in testing is seeing it's mortality rise. now it is .8%, which is way less than almost anywhere else. And they added another 250 cases today.

US: Look at what happened when it got into that nursing home in Washington State.

>10% of the resident population there is now dead! We are over 1000 cases now whereas we reported our first case just 12 days ago!

1000 in 12 days is doubling every 1.2 days, not every week MM.

The sort of ignorant denial you posted above is useless in the face of this thing, and incredibly dangerous.

Right, it's the end of the world.

I bet you're not even aware that the seasonal flu reached pandemic levels during the 2018 season, yet we didn't see this kind of hysteria.

I'm going to do exactly what I do every year around this time: take sensible precautions and continue with my life. I suggest you skip the Chicken Little routine and do the same.

[Mountain Man]

https://slate.com/technology/2020/03...n-we-think.amp

[Darfius]

Right, it's the end of the world.

I bet you're not even aware that the seasonal flu reached pandemic levels during the 2018 season, yet we didn't see this kind of hysteria.

I'm going to do exactly what I do every year around this time: take sensible precautions and continue with my life. I suggest you skip the Chicken Little routine and do the same.

Tag me in, ox! My turn to take the moron to school!

From the very article you tried to equivocate from, MM:

So far this season, influenza A, H3N2 has been the most common form of influenza circulating. Out of the 47,689 specimens that tested positive for influenza, 82.9% were influenza A. In its most recent surveillance report, the CDC reported 22.7 hospitalizations per 100,000 people in the United States and 20 pediatric deaths associated with influenza.

So assuming 100% of people [an impossible and ridiculous number, but just to make the point your idiocy/cowardice will still prevent you from grasping] in the US got the flu that year, only about 76,000 of them would have required hospitalization and only about 76 of them would have died. So how do we get from 76 deaths to reach the "20,000+" deaths attributed to "flu" by the CDC every year? It's an estimate!

Before CDC had FluSurv-NET to gather data on laboratory-confirmed influenza hospitalizations, CDC periodically made estimates of flu hospitalizations using a statistical model of data on hospitalizations with flu-like illnesses.

[from FAQ:Can you explain why some of the estimates on this website are different from previously published estimates using this methodology? (For example, total flu-related hospitalization during 2014-2015 was previously estimated to be 974,000, but the current estimate is 590,000 people) [nearly a 100% overestimate!]?

The estimate was updated based on recently available information about exact testing practices during that season. The surveillance system used to estimate influenza-related hospitalizations, FluSurv-NET, collects data on patients hospitalized who have laboratory-confirmed influenza. Influenza testing is done at the request of the clinician, but not everyone is tested. Also, influenza tests are not perfectly accurate.

Does CDC know the exact number of people who die from seasonal flu each year?

CDC does not know exactly how many people die from seasonal flu each year. There are several reasons for this. First, states are not required to report individual flu illnesses or deaths among people older than 18 years of age to CDC. Second, influenza is infrequently listed on death certificates of people who die from flu-related [allegedly] complicationsmay develop a secondary bacterial co-infection (such as bacterial pneumonia) or because influenza can aggravate an existing chronic illness (such as congestive heart failure or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Also, most people who die from flu-related complications are not tested for flu, or they seek medical care later in their illness when influenza can no longer be detected from respiratory samples.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden...burden/faq.htm

So they admit they use a guesstimate (a guesstimate meant to scare people into getting flu shots which more often cause "flu" than prevent it), but their actual numbers are exponentially lower than their guesstimates. I smell fakery afoot!

But I don't like to just logically and factually correct idiots, I like to morally correct them, too, because that's the real root of the issue. You are a bad person, MM. It is your unrepentant sin that keeps making you look like a straight idiot--again and again. It makes you cowardly and cowards cannot face uncomfortable facts, which of course leads to stupidity on the scale of MM. I mean you're clearly googling "why coronavirus isn't that bad" at this point, all while pretending (as cowards and liars tend to do) that you are being nothing but objective and level-headed. Healthcare workers don't wear full hazmat gear for the flu. People aren't welded into their homes for the flu. Western countries aren't completely shut down for the flu.

In your world where everything is sunshine and rainbows because the alternative is too scawey for you, why is Italy completely shutdown right now? Is the entire government of Italy "chicken littles"? What evidence are you providing to us that you are more knowledgeable and more to be trusted than the physicians and advisors that led them to take that unprecedented step? It takes more to be taken seriously than striking a pose of respectability and trying to convey confidence with your tone. It takes actual facts and sound logic, which you very clearly do not have to those whose own moral cowardice isn't causing them to prop you up to avoid facing reality themselves.

[Bill the Cat]

We've been put on 100% telework.

[seanD]

We've been put on 100% telework.

This is what concerns me more than the virus. How government will react to it (whether hype or not) and how things could change as a result.