SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

[Arruda]

I see the conditions and how no one even comes out I get it it’s a scary situation but I believe it is something that will fade away just as all the recent viruses.

It will most likely eventually fade away of course. The problem is what happens between now and then.

My point with the video was not that it's scary, it's that for the Chinese to do that you must recognize it's not normal. You have never seen a quarantine like that in your lifetime.

 

[Ian Reus]

Dude your missing the point.

Would I like to go get sick? Obviously not

Would I like to get a the normal flu in general? No

That’s like saying “go put your head in a microwave and get cancer” “would you like it?!”

That was a really dumb way to try to make your point.

This virus has minimal life threat. People are scared because it’s new.

“Omg there is no cure” no shit....it was just discovered.

Give it a few months and this will blow over just as every Afro mentioned virus.

I agree it is a silly way to make a point. I just think you're missing same point of how serious this can get.

A new unknown strain of virus has explored humans for the first time as is exploding quicker and easier than any virus we've ever encountered.

We don't yet have any protection against it and the only means we have to slow it down was demonstrated by china who basically locked down entire cities. This is equivalent to ww2. The general population needs to come together to fight this otherwise it could potentially wipe out more than the Spanish flu given our global reach now.

If it mutates, the hope is is adapts to humans so it doesn't kill them. Best case scenario.

Flu symptoms just means this virus has already evolved to infiltrate your body to use it to spread itself. That's why you sneeze and cough. It wants that although it probably wouldn't want to kill it's only means of human transport just now if it had a conscience.

 

[Revan]

Possibly but it’s too early to tell, based on the stats I have no reason to believe we should be worried yet.

Which stats? It has a highly death rate compared to normal flu and swine flu, and it might be as contagious. So it is a pretty big deal. The only good thing is that it seems far less deadly than its cousins (SARS and MERS).

The bird flu you mentioned is another very big deal. Luckily, it doesn’t spread from human to human. Yet. If it reaches that stage, it is gonna be as devastating as the death plague was (61% mortality rate at humans). People didn’t kill hundreds of millions of poultry for nothing (oh and this is another virus for which there is no cure).

 

[Wibble]

When a virus first is discovered there is never a cure right away. I guarantee you there will be though. There is nothin to fear. It’s like getting a cold that’s how low hour chances are of dying.

Plus knowing people nowadays they wound not even get a vaccine anyways since they don’t want to vaccinate there kids.

What are you talking about? The death rate is far far higher than the flu much less a cold.

And using a few antivaxers as a reason to not worry or do anything about it is ludicrous.

I think we would all be grateful if you stopped posting in this thread.

 

[predator]

This is why its almost criminal that the health authorities say you dont need to wear a mask. I think if I get it I will survive or/and more likely suffer mild symptoms like the majority.

However, It would kill me if during the incubation period, and I am unaware I was inflicted with it, pass it on to an elderly and kill him or her.

If my gp told me i had it then I would happily sit in my local hospital in isolation, despite losing income being self employed. My worry is the elderly and those with conditions, that according to tabloids, are most vulnerable.


Naively, I am expecting this to gradually fade away and I dont know why. Maybe i am overestimating the human race and underestimating the power of nature.

 

[Prometheus]

It’s as serious as Ebola, bird flu and all the others that came before it. A cure will be found and it will blow over. It is not a world wide epidemic.

I mean I get it it’s new people are scared but like....relax people

1% is actually huge. I don't know how accurate predictions will be but currently it's said that at least one-third of the UK population is projected to get it, and 0.01*1/3*(66,000,000) = 220,000 deaths. It's likely that CFR > 1%. Also, greater concern is the high ICU rate. If/when it hits countries with non-existent health-care infrastructure, the CFR could be as high as double digits. It's not so easy to spook China.

 

[SportingCP96]

What are you talking about? The death rate is far far higher than the flu much less a cold.

And using a few antivaxers as a reason to not worry or do anything about it is ludicrous.

I think we would all be grateful if you stopped posting in this thread.

I never said to not do anything about it.

I am saying it’s mortality rate is low and there is more fear about it then there should be.

 

[SportingCP96]

1% is actually huge. I don't know how accurate predictions will be but currently it's said that at least one-third of the UK population is projected to get it, and 0.01*1/3*(66,000,000) = 220,000 deaths. It's likely that CFR > 1%. Also, greater concern is the high ICU rate. If/when it hits countries with non-existent health-care infrastructure, the CFR could be as high as double digits. It's not easy to Spook China.

Based on reports from CNN today it was said that the virus can not survive in warm weather thus it will put it dormant until at least the fall which gives them what they believe is plenty of time to find a cure.

 

[SportingCP96]

If my gp told me i had it then I would happily sit in my local hospital in isolation, despite losing income being self employed. My worry is the elderly and those with conditions, that according to tabloids, are most vulnerable.


Naively, I am expecting this to gradually fade away and I dont know why. Maybe i am overestimating the human race and underestimating the power of nature.

This could be be as well and if it is I’ll gladly say I was wrong but I truly believe this is something that will fade away in a few months time.

Hindsight is always 20/20

 

[Revan]

Based on reports from CNN today it was said that the virus can not survive in warm weather thus it will put it dormant until at least the fall which gives them what they believe is plenty of time to find a cure.

No one knows this. Neither SARS, nor MERS became inactive during the summer, in fact, if I am not mistaken, SARS became more contagious. And this virus is called SARS-2. Just cause Donald Trump said that it will become inactive and miraculously go away, that doesn’t make it true.

And even if it does (see Spanish flu which was another pig flu, so not coronavirus) it can come back (like Spanish flu did) possibly mutated and more dangerous. Finally a few months is not enough time to make a cure. SARS was 17 years ago and there is no cure, there is no cure for MERS, there is no cure for Ebola, there is no cure for H5N1, there is no cure for HIV. In fact it is close to certain that there won’t be a cure or a vaccine within a year.

 

[SportingCP96]

No one knows this. Neither SARS, nor MERS became inactive during the summer, in fact, if I am not mistaken, SARS became more contagious. And this virus is called SARS-2. Just cause Donald Trump said that it will become inactive and miraculously go away, that doesn’t make it true.

And even if it does (see Spanish flu which was another pig flu, so not coronavirus) it can come back (like Spanish flu did) possibly mutated and more dangerous. Finally a few months is not enough time to make a cure. SARS was 17 years ago and there is no cure, there is no cure for MERS, there is no cure for Ebola, there is no cure for H5N1, there is no cure for HIV. In fact it is close to certain that there won’t be a cure or a vaccine within a year.

I am saying what I saw in the news don’t kill the messenger.

Either way time will tell and if I am wrong I will gladly show face and take the hate or stick and admit I was wrong.

I have always done that in this forum and in life.

 

[17 Van der Gouw]

1% is actually huge. I don't know how accurate predictions will be but currently it's said that at least one-third of the UK population is projected to get it, and 0.01*1/3*(66,000,000) = 220,000 deaths. It's likely that CFR > 1%. Also, greater concern is the high ICU rate. If/when it hits countries with non-existent health-care infrastructure, the CFR could be as high as double digits. It's not so easy to spook China.

1/3 of the UK population?

That would be a monumental problem. I'm not doubting you but do you have a source for that prediction?

 

[Revan]

I am saying what I saw in the news don’t kill the messenger.

Either way time will tell and if I am wrong I will gladly show face and take the hate or stick and admit I was wrong.

I have always done that in this forum and in life.

I saw in TV, it must be true, right? So, I’ll spread the misleading information.

I mean, how on earth someone might know that it is gonna be dormant in the summer when:

a) it is a novel coronavirus. See, novel.
b) the closest virus to it (SARS) did not become dormant in this summer.

This entire madness started from Trump who was scared that cause of fear the stock market is gonna go down, and consequently harm his election chances.

 

[Arruda]

I am saying what I saw in the news don’t kill the messenger.

Either way time will tell and if I am wrong I will gladly show face and take the hate or stick and admit I was wrong.

I have always done that in this forum and in life.

No one here is going to hate and stick anyone for being wrong about this. I certainly hope not.

Besides, you don't imagine how much we all want you to be right. It just, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be case.

 

[SportingCP96]

I saw in TV, it must be true, right? So, I’ll spread the misleading information.

I mean, how on earth someone might know that it is gonna be dormant in the summer when:

a) it is a novel coronavirus. See, novel.
b) the closest virus to it (SARS) did not become dormant in this summer.

This entire madness started from Trump who was scared that cause of fear the stock market is gonna go down, and consequently harm his election chances.

The information was from an alleged doctor or scientist can’t remember, nonetheless too early to tell what’s real or what’s not as not enough is known about the virus yet

 

[senorgregster]

Based on reports from CNN today it was said that the virus can not survive in warm weather thus it will put it dormant until at least the fall which gives them what they believe is plenty of time to find a cure.

There's a lot of assuming going on with the warm weather claims and you know what assuming does to you and me. It turns out the cases local to me got the illness in Egypt along with 12 crew members. Currently in the mid 80sF or nearly 30C.

 

[SportingCP96]

No one here is going to hate and stick anyone for being wrong about this. I certainly hope not.

Besides, you don't imagine how much we all want you to be right. It just, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be case.

You would be surprised, this is the internet after all.

 

[SportingCP96]

There's a lot of assuming going on with the warm weather claims and you know what assuming does to you and me. It turns out the cases local to me got the illness in Egypt along with 12 crew members. Currently in the mid 80sF or nearly 30C.

Fair enough. I won’t argue that

 

[Arruda]

r/coronavirus is a cesspool, but r/medicine has some pretty interesting resources in their megathreads. Very interesting links to maps, etc.

 

[Revan]

The information was from an alleged doctor or scientist can’t remember, nonetheless too early to tell what’s real or what’s not as not enough is known about the virus yet

It doesn’t matter if it is a doctor or a scientist. No one can give anything more than an educated guess. The only things we know is that it is very contagious, and very similar to SARS (it shares 80% of the genome). SARS was finally contained in July, but this one has already infected 13 times as many people as SARS so expecting it to be contained in the summer is nothing more than a wishful thinking.

 

[Wibble]

I never said to not do anything about it.

I am saying it’s mortality rate is low and there is more fear about it then there should be.

You sound like you are saying there is nothing to worry about which implies little or nothing needs to be done.

The mortality rate is far higher than flu in all age groups, except the under 9 age group where it is zero, and is 15-21% fatal in the elderly.

The other factor is that a very high percentage of those who get it, possibly as much as 10%, require hospitalisation. This could very quickly overwhelm the health system. So we need to take this very seriously even though there is no need to panic.

 

[Prometheus]

1/3 of the UK population?

That would be a monumental problem. I'm not doubting you but do you have a source for that prediction?

Here.

So let’s look at some statistics: it is likely that more than 30% of the whole UK population will get Covid-19 – it may be as high as 60% in some estimates. Most will have no or mild illness but maybe one in seven will need hospital admission. Of patients in hospital up to one in five may need ICU care – that would be an unprecedented number of people admitted to ICU. As many as one in 50 of patients known to have Covid-19 may die from it.

 

[Arruda]

Here.

From that article, I found this surprising:

"Compared with other European countries the UK ranked 23rd of 31 in terms of ICU beds per head of population and 29th of 31 for all hospital beds. Germany has approximately four times as many ICU beds per capita as the UK and the USA perhaps 10-fold as many. "

Didn't expect UK to rank so low in hospital bed. Is that underfunding or has it always been like that?

Also, USA have loads! Presuming they staff them all they may not fare so terribly in the medium-run.

 

[Wibble]

Also, USA have loads! Presuming they staff them all they may not fare so terribly in the medium-run.

For those who can afford health insurance

 

[zing]

I'm currently in quarantine and preparing my thesis defense as I'm graduating next week(6 and a half years of busting my arse to end up with a Skype graduation), I've barely had any contact with the outside world over the last few days.

Good luck and stay safe.

 

[Man of Leisure]

For those who can afford health insurance

For those who can’t afford health insurance, there’s Medicaid.

 

[Wibble]

For those who can’t afford health insurance, there’s Medicaid.

Bet that will work out well if there is a huge outbreak.

 

[Wibble]

From that article, I found this surprising:

"Compared with other European countries the UK ranked 23rd of 31 in terms of ICU beds per head of population and 29th of 31 for all hospital beds. Germany has approximately four times as many ICU beds per capita as the UK and the USA perhaps 10-fold as many. "

Didn't expect UK to rank so low in hospital bed. Is that underfunding or has it always been like that?

Also, USA have loads! Presuming they staff them all they may not fare so terribly in the medium-run.

I doubt anywhere has anywhere near enough ICU beds. Look at how many hospitals China had to rapidly construct.

I'd guestimate that anything north of 3-5% of the population gets this at any one time and there won't be enough ICU beds to cope. Or worse if the current icu beds are already largely occupied.

 

[sglowrider]

If my gp told me i had it then I would happily sit in my local hospital in isolation, despite losing income being self employed. My worry is the elderly and those with conditions, that according to tabloids, are most vulnerable.


Naively, I am expecting this to gradually fade away and I dont know why. Maybe i am overestimating the human race and underestimating the power of nature.

Where I live, they had the numbers pretty much under control until this week. But we had another cluster emerging -- an airline steward was in Europe and brought it back home. The problem is the 14+ day incubation period -- you dont know that you even have the virus since the symptoms are showing up. Imagine the numer of people you will meet during that period!

I am afraid that this re-infection process will be par for course for this pesky virus, until a proper vaccine can be developed.

 

[Jim Beam]

So, doctor in Slovenia was in Italy a week ago, come back and went straight back to treat patients (some of them people in an Elderly care). Turns out positive yesterday after 3 days of working.

Can understand regular, uninformed people not taking it seriously, but this is a bit too much. Am not in some panic, doom mode, but it is pretty obvious it can become very serious if not for you then certainly for older ones or those with underlying health issues. It is also pretty obvious we are not near ready or have the same awareness Chinese did.

 

[Ekkie Thump]

I never said to not do anything about it.

I am saying it’s mortality rate is low and there is more fear about it then there should be.

So, below is a link to a Feb 27th powerpoint presentation given by doctors from Nebraska University's Global Center for Health Security. This is the same mob that evacuated 57 Americans from Wuhan. This is the guy who led the presentation.

https://www.nebraskamed.com/sites/d...re-webinar-lets-get-prepared-for-covid-19.pdf

Their best guess estimates of what a US epidemic could entail if curtailing it fails are given on page 9. Obviously this is based on a lot of assumptions, but the best guess outcome seems alarming:

(Ro = an average of how many people each infected person infects, CFR=Case fatality rate).

 

[zing]

Can someone explain why, by all reports, the US is doing a poor job of testing?

I had assumed countries like US and UK would be very efficient in dealing with this sort of thing.

 

[Ian Reus]

Can someone explain why, by all reports, the US is doing a poor job of testing?

I had assumed countries like US and UK would be very efficient in dealing with this sort of thing.

Trump.
Trumpenstein.

 

[Ekkie Thump]

Can somebody explain to me a reasonable rationale behind a hospital stopping testing (ie not some sociopath attempting to massage the figures for his own gain)? This is the hospital network based in Seattle and currently treating all those poor sods from the nursing home outbreak:

https://www.evergreenhealth.com/community-message-3420

From now on patients will be treated on clinical presentation. Just seems barmy to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

 

[Maagge]

Can someone explain why, by all reports, the US is doing a poor job of testing?

I had assumed countries like US and UK would be very efficient in dealing with this sort of thing.

Well, if it costs you a lot of money going to the doctor you'll be hesitant to do it. Plus Trump is very much downplaying the whole thing, and it even seems like he's actively working against his officials at times.

 

[Pexbo]

Is there any link between this virus and alcohol?

I drank quite a lot of alcohol last night and this morning I’ve woken up feeling absolutely horrendous. Scary times

 

[Wibble]

1%. My point exactly which is this is a nothing virus. The chances of you dying by it is very very minimal.

Maybe was the bird flu then I saw a chart comparison a few days ago but I could have the virus confused.

The MAIN point is...this is nothing to stress over as it is not one bit serious.

1% is 10 times the death rate of the flu that is already a serious drain on our medical resources. Plus we have no trestment (flu is treated with Tamiflu) and no vaccine (we have a flu vaccine and we have failed to develop a vaccine for MERS/SARS or other coronaviruses).

If you think this is nothing to worry about you plainly haven't understood what is going on.

 

[Wibble]

Possibly but it’s too early to tell, based on the stats I have no reason to believe we should be worried yet.

You don't understand stats.

How many hospital beds and ICU beds do we have? What % of those are already used? Given that we expect an infection rate of between 20 and 40% of which 7-10% will need to be hospitalised and of those at least 5% will need an ICU bed what infection rate will overwhelm our hospital system?

Ballpark this equates to 2-5% of the population infected at any one time depending on which country you live in.

But a high % of ICU beds are usually used before extra Covid cases arrive. So if even 1% of people get this at one time we could be in deep trouble.

 

[RedSky]

Weird that someone would claim this isn't a world wide epidemic when in my lifetime (born 85) this is the one virus that actually seems to have hit most countries across the world, currently in small numbers in most but it's still relatively early days. Seems like the type of virus which will be very hard to contain, once it's here, it's here.

Anyone with elderly parents, grand parents or friends should be pretty concerned about Corona and the problem is there are far too many selfish people in life who will send their kids to school or go to work despite showing early symptoms. I wouldn't want our NHS to face a bad epidemic level in the UK as it will probably tip it over the edge given how badly funded and under manned it already is.

But we shouldn't be shitting our pants on a daily basis, life needs to go on. So with that, i'm off to play some crazy golf.

 

[Man of Leisure]

Bet that will work out well if there is a huge outbreak.

Some might argue there already is a huge outbreak, but I know what you mean. I think we’re all fecked if that happens. Regardless of the existing healthcare system in the country. Having said that, the US is as well-equipped to deal with it as anywhere globally. My point was, poor people do have access to healthcare here in America.