COVID-19 virus thread (formerly Wuhan coronavirus)

Status
Not open for further replies.
It's kind of crazy that this virus was disclosed and then identified and screened against almost immediately.
 
hobbsyoyo said:
It's kind of crazy that this virus was disclosed and then identified and screened against almost immediately.
Click to expand...

There's two possible reasons I can think of for that, the conspiracy one where a lab accident resulted in the initial spread and so the Chinese authorities were already clear about what they were dealing with, and the other is that there was a lot of spread before it was officially disclosed, because the authorities didn't want to spread panic and/or didn't want to look incompetent.
 
IglooDude said:
For the same reason that shark attacks get national attention but drownings in the same water are a footnote locally.
Click to expand...
That's basically my view of it and why I think it's so stupid.
 
IglooDude said:
There's two possible reasons I can think of for that, the conspiracy one where a lab accident resulted in the initial spread and so the Chinese authorities were already clear about what they were dealing with, and the other is that there was a lot of spread before it was officially disclosed, because the authorities didn't want to spread panic and/or didn't want to look incompetent.
Click to expand...
Or there is at least one more reason: The actual time line (when the virus first jumped to people) is longer than we know and when local officials did take notice they had both the means and motivation to act quickly. People acting responsibly. No deep state or conspiracy needed. Corona viruses are not new.
At first, doctors had no surefire way to tell whether someone was infected with the virus known as 2019-nCoV or if they had a more run-of-the-mill flu. In the early days of the outbreak, physicians simply reported cases of a pneumonia-like illness to local health authorities. As a result, it took several weeks for the World Health Organization to learn of the trending cases in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Once the virus’ genome was sequenced and released, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies around the world were able to develop realtime diagnostic tests. Now that these tests are more readily available, the number of new infections appears to be skyrocketing. It may seem scary, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the virus is spreading faster or making people sicker.
Click to expand...
 
Arwon said:
It kills, bad years can kill a lot of ppl. A lot more people could be getting shots than often do.
Click to expand...
hobbsyoyo said:
People routinely underestimate how bad even a normal flu can be. It won't usually kill healthy people but it can - and sometimes it can do so quite readily. Something I've noticed is that often people who've never had the actual flu think it's NBD.
Click to expand...
I'll admit to never having had the flu, and yes, I only think it's a medium deal. The vast majority of people who die of the flu would most likely have died from something else within the following few years anyway.

Old, frail, and sick people risk dying when they get the flu – and if they get this new virus. A few younger people may also be unlucky and die from the flu, or from this new virus, as well. As tragic as each individual death is, I'm still not seeing much of a reason to overdramatise this.

Does anyone know: Of the people who have died, has any of them been younger than 60?
 
Even if you're young and healthy and don't die, it still sucks to be out of commission for a week. When enough people get sick, it can start to cause major disruptions to society even without mass death.
 
Cheetah said:
I'll admit to never having had the flu, and yes, I only think it's a medium deal. The vast majority of people who die of the flu would most likely have died from something else within the following few years anyway.

Old, frail, and sick people risk dying when they get the flu – and if they get this new virus. A few younger people may also be unlucky and die from the flu, or from this new virus, as well. As tragic as each individual death is, I'm still not seeing much of a reason to overdramatise this.

Does anyone know: Of the people who have died, has any of them been younger than 60?
Click to expand...
I don't know the answer to your question about the age of those who have died, but with most flu the most vulnerable are those with compromised immune systems or those whose immune systems are not as yet fully developed: the old, the sick and the very young.
 
Cheetah said:
I'll admit to never having had the flu, and yes, I only think it's a medium deal. The vast majority of people who die of the flu would most likely have died from something else within the following few years anyway.
Click to expand...
In some cases you can recover from flu, but get different complications, long term health damage.
And virus pneumonia is dangerous for young people too. Don't know about the current epidemic, some of SARS victims were young.
 
My mother had the Spanish flu as a young child. She survived.
 
More than 50 million people were ordered on lockdown in central China, with a travel ban covering 16 cities in the central Hubei province, where the virus was first encountered.
Click to expand...

Hubei is about the size of Washington State. China is building 1000 bed, pop up hospitals in a week to deal with the sick.

Wuhan is on lock down, 11 million people. Imagine trying to lock down the NYC metro area.
 
Birdjaguar said:
Hubei is about the size of Washington State. China is building 1000 bed, pop up hospitals in a week to deal with the sick.

Wuhan is on lock down, 11 million people. Imagine trying to lock down the NYC metro area.
Click to expand...

yeah
Wuhan, just another metropole in China, is BIG
That is I think not yet in our collective awareness

Wuhan is a highly developed city with car manufacturing, and on top many high end techs up to AI.
It has a nominal GDP per capita of roughly 25,000 USD (the same as that big Brazil metropole greater Sao Paulo) which converts on the China-US averate nominal GDP to PPP to roughly 50,000 USD in PPP per capita, almost the same as the average US per capita.

Not some backward Chinese provincial town of long time ago or something like Lagos now.
 
Last edited:
Hrothbern said:
yeah
Wuhan, just another metropole in China, is BIG
That is I think not yet in our collective awareness

Wuhan is a highly developed city with car manufacturing, and on top many high end techs up to AI.
It has a nominal GDP per capita of roughly 25,000 US (the same as that big Brazil metropole greater Sao Paulo) which converts on the China-US averate nominal GDP to PPP to roughly 50,000 USD in PPP per capita, almost the same as the average US per capita.

Not some backward Chinese provincial town of long time ago or something like Lagos now.
Click to expand...
Wiki puts its 2017 GDP at $540 billion USD

That is bigger than every US city except NY, LA and Chicago. Dallas FT Worth is 4th in the US at $530 billion.

It is a big important place.
 
Birdjaguar said:
Wiki puts its 2017 GDP at $540 billion USD

That is bigger than every US city except NY, LA and Chicago. Dallas FT Worth is 4th in the US at $530 billion.

It is a big important place.
Click to expand...

yes !

and nr 9 city in China AFAIK
 
Could we even lock down Dallas-Ft Worth if we had to?
 
Birdjaguar said:
Could we even lock down Dallas-Ft Worth if we had to?
Click to expand...

I imagined something similar here in my country.
Commuters to Amsterdam live in suburbs from small towns-villages wherefrom commuters travel to Rotterdam and so on and so forth.
With this virus being contagious during the incubation period, before symptoms are manifest, within no-time at all, the whole of the Netherlands, except some rural peripheral provinces is to be locked down.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom