COVID-19 Is Now Officially A Pandemic, WHO Says (npr.org) 432
The COVID-19 viral disease that has swept into at least 114 countries and killed more than 4,000 people is now officially a pandemic, the World Health Organization announced Wednesday. From a report: "This is the first pandemic caused by coronavirus," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Eight countries -- including the U.S. -- are now each reporting more than 1,000 cases of COVID-19, caused by the virus that has infected more than 120,000 people worldwide. A severe outbreak in Italy has now caused more than 630 deaths and the country's case total continues to rise sharply. It's now at 10,000 cases, second only to China. There are 9,000 cases in Iran, and more than 7,700 in South Korea. Those countries are all imposing drastic measures in an attempt to slow the virus, which has a higher fatality rate for elderly people and those with underlying health conditions.
List of pandemics thru age (Score:5, Informative)
For those whom needs more comparison
10 Worst pandemic in history
https://www.mphonline.org/wors... [mphonline.org]
Wikipedia article :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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For those whom needs more comparison
10 Worst pandemic in history https://www.mphonline.org/wors... [mphonline.org]
Wikipedia article : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Not to mention that Halloween Pandemic, when all the kids dressed up as Peter.
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Then there was that awful Halloween in the early 80s where kids with masks had their eyes melted and converted to bugs.
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Bear in mind that some health authorities are predicting that between 20% to 80% of the population of affected countries will get COVID-19 by the time it plays out. The mortality rate is being reported as around 2 or 4%. If you take the USA alone, even the lower bounds of those predicted ranges means $1.3 million deaths by the time this plays out. We are a long way from a final death toll.
Re:List of pandemics thru age (Score:5, Funny)
If you take the USA alone, even the lower bounds of those predicted ranges means $1.3 million deaths by the time this plays out.
I bet we can get deaths a lot cheaper than that. Especially if you get them in bulk.
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Lol, well that's hardly the worst typo I've ever made, but good reply :)
Check the edit history too (Score:2)
That said, when researching on Wikipedia, be sure to read the linked sources and check the edit history.
Some of these articles may have changed recently [zerohedge.com].
Not a month ago (Score:2)
People who listened to news media hype have been panicking and making up apocalyptic stories about this for over a month now. What are they going to do for attention now?
It will kill all the smokers (Score:2)
Dump your tobacco stock right now.
Who won the pool? (Score:2)
Who had 41 days from it was declared a threat to pandemic and 1018 deaths?
Someone is buying us all dinner!
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Some objective facts (Score:5, Informative)
First, trust WHO, not the WH.
Second, the 2019-nCvD spread a lot more than you think. It's much worse because we have NOT been testing people unless they specifically went to China or Italy. So, wash your hands with soap and water. We are not kidding. Watch the video on how to do that - think surgical scrub.
Third, the actual mortality rate for people 80+ who are infected with it is around 22%. It's about half that if you are 70-79. It's bad for 60-69 but only around 2-4%.
Take this seriously. This is not a joke. Listen to your county health officials and your state health officials, they actually care about you.
And, in case you wondered, do not take cruises, go to golf course, or stay at resorts. This is actual science saying don't do it.
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So we haven't been testing people, and it has spread a lot more than we think, but you know the mortality rate (broken down by age range). Complete stupidity. Things like this always brings the loonies out.
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You can fact check that at WHO.
Wash your hands with soap and water.
Re:Some objective facts (Score:4, Informative)
Things like this always brings the loonies out.
Yes. You. I've seen your posts on all kinds of topics over the last few months. Literally every one of them is the words of someone who is not educated and needs to stop talking and start listening.
Stop. Listen. Learn.
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So we haven't been testing people, and it has spread a lot more than we think, but you know the mortality rate (broken down by age range). Complete stupidity. Things like this always brings the loonies out.
Wrong metric. The problem is exponential spread and double digit percentage of those who get it requiring hospitalization.
If you don't manage spread it will overwhelm hospital systems and millions of extra people will die who didn't need to. This from my perspective is worth some inconvenience and pain to avoid even in the face of low personal risk. If you don't agree that's your opinion and you are certainly entitled to it. Just don't be misinformed as to what is actually at stake.
--
I don't need to hav
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If you don't know how much the virus has spread, you can't be sure of the mortality rate, or if its is significantly worse (or better) than the standard cadre of coronaviruses that we deal with every season.
Wash your hands, be prudent about going to large groups of people, don't touch your face, and you should be fine. But the idea that this is "the end" is getting fucking old.
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Mortality rate is based on cases which end in death and results thereof. Before, we lacked enough data, so we projected from initial data.
Nobody said this is the end of this. It's the beginning and until widespread testing and low barrier testing (e.g. free) is available, all the numbers will be way off as to spread and impact.
The thing is, you're going to touch your face. Record yourself for 30 minutes and you'll see.
Wash your hands with soap and water.
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What bullshit, an airborne virus doesn't care if your hands are clean or if you touched your face. Keeping hands clean is great for other reasons.
Staying away from crowds is good idea though.
Re:Some objective facts (Score:5, Informative)
What bullshit, an airborne virus doesn't care if your hands are clean or if you touched your face. Keeping hands clean is great for other reasons.
Staying away from crowds is good idea though.
Not bullshit. Airborne particles from an infected person can live for a while and travel and land on things you then touch with your hand, then you touch your hand to a mucous membrane on your face (mouth, eye, etc...) or something you eat and now you're infected. Keeping your distance *and* washing your hands *and* limiting touching your face are all good ideas to reduce the change of infection.
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First, trust WHO, not the WH.
This. The WHO hunted down an eradicated smallpox. They totally know what they are doing.
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I wish.
Keep burying your head in the sand.
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Data lags reporting.
Advice on prevention is not a lagging indicator.
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Data lags reporting.
So what? That's no excuse for making up stuff. The number of cases are the reported number plus the unreported number. You don't know the unreported number. Claims about who they are and why they're unreported are made up unless you have data. You don't have data.
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Technically correct.
But that's if we don't stop it.
Which would be very very very bad.
Yesterday (Score:2)
Yesterday [slashdot.org] the top voted trolls whinged about google censorship for promoting the CDC & WHO advice. What will they make of this?
How much does WHO cost us? (Score:5, Insightful)
At the beginning of the pandemic, the WHO issued a statement saying that restricting international travel was "an overreaction" and we need to be careful about isolating people. The WHO was the first organization to demand that the virus be given a name that does not contain any indication of the location where the virus originated. Yesterday, the head of WHO said the danger of stereotyping ethnic groups based on the origins of the virus was "more dangerous than the virus itself". It's all political bilge water and no medical science. How much does any of this contribute to minimizing the spread of the disease and its effect on the world? How much are we paying to maintain this organization? To me, it seems to be just another United Nations talking group that accomplishes almost nothing.
Re:500 year disease (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, this virus seems to be far more lethal among the elderly. Removing them from the gene pool does nothing concerning conferring immunity to future generations. You'd need a disease that takes out young people (like the plague) to reliably let evolution occur.
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Removing them from the gene pool does nothing concerning conferring immunity to future generations. You'd need a disease that takes out young people (like the plague) to reliably let evolution occur.
This is only true if 100% of people of child-bearing age survive, which is not the case. In Iran, 23 year old professional soccer player Elham Sheikhi died from COVID-19. Whatever about her, specifically, was susceptible to COVID-19 will not get passed on to other generations, which is natural selection by definition.
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That "professional soccer player" was found to have had a faulty immune system. Sorry Danny, you aren't gonna die of the Coronavirus.
Re: 500 year disease (Score:2)
How about the 34 year old Chinese doctor who was one of the first to recognize covid19?
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Normally I'm a little skeptical of that kind of stuff, but then again China has been putting religious minorities in camps, so it's not hard to believe that they might kill a doctor. However, I wouldn't be surprised if that same doctor was working himself raw over all of this and a lack of sleep and all the extra stress really hurt his body's ability t
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Did you even read the context of my post? She had a faulty immune system. She's dead from Cornovirus. She will not pass on that trait to children. Natural selection. That's the entire point of my counter-argument to what alvinrod commented.
Re:0 year disease (Score:4, Informative)
You seem to be a Lamarckian. A faulty immune system is far more often acquired. Especially when it comes to professional athletes, where it is a side effect of overly intensive training and also doping.
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When you say 100, 500, or 1000 year disease that doesn't really make any sense.
The more people there are that interact with the environment the more biomass there is for the virus to live and mutate within.
So if there's 7 billion people there's a 7x greater chance of a mutation than if there's 1 billion people.
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Based on the information we have now this seems rather similar to the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918
COVID-19 is amateur hour compared to the Spanish Flu.
Some numbers (Score:2)
CDC now shows [cdc.gov] (updated daily at noon) about 1000 cases in the US. That's about 2**10 cases.
One million is 2**20, and 256 million is 2**28, so with 2**10 known cases it will take about 18 doublings to cover the entire US population.
With an average incubation period of 4 days, that's 4*18 = 72 days for the virus to blanket America.
This assumes that the infection rate is two - that everyone with the virus infects two other people. If the infection rate is 4, then it would only take 4*9 = 36 days for the virus
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A 500 year (or maybe 1000 year) disease is probably something like the plague
Except that this is most likely a one-off case. If you have a civilization advanced enough to have towns and cities than allow the plague to spread on a massive scale then 500 to 1000-years later you have advanced medicine enough that the next disease as bad as the plague will be rapidly identified and contained plus you will have antibiotics (good against the original plague at least) and advanced methods to develop vaccines rapidly. In a few more decades we may well be able to develop vaccines even more
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Every 500 years? So the increase in international travel over the last 50 years has been lost on you?
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"It is extremely fatal for elderly, obese, and smokers/vapers. It is less so for younger, fit people"
So IOW what you want to tell us, we should NOT think of this as evolution in action?
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It is extremely fatal for elderly, obese, and smokers/vapers.
As opposed being "slightly fatal" ?
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It is extremely fatal for elderly, obese, and smokers/vapers.
As opposed being "slightly fatal" ?
Alllright, Col. "Grave Danger" Jessep. He means Cases Resulting in Fatality, or CRF rate.
Re: 500 year disease (Score:2)
You mean everyone will keep getting this disease. It's a general category like the flu.
It won't be as bad as it is now as it's mutation rate will stabilize and vaccines will be created to control the more prolific strains. But like the flu, it will come and go going forward every year.
I hope you don't rely on "weak-gened" customers! (Score:2)
There are some positives to bear in mind - future generations should have better luck with this as weak genes will have been culled early, and it will also improve the solvency of our medicare/social security system as one of the things that was hurting it was increasing lifespans, and this is pretty much going to take out anyone over 70 yo.
So yeah..on the surface, you're right. There are complex dynamics here. However, I don't know what you do for a living, but I can easily see this impacting my tech job. We sell software to businesses, so most of them won't be directly impacted, but their customer-base will. Let's say we lose 5% of the population over 70. Sure, that reduces the number of people collecting public assistance. If that's your only interaction with the economy, you could argue it's a positive.
I provide useful services,
Far more frequent (Score:2)
This is the type of biological threat that we would only see every 500 years
Rubbish. Only 100 years ago we have the Spanish flu which was more dangerous and killed young people too. Within the past few decades there have been outbreaks of SARS, MERS and Ebola etc. This is the sort of threat we face every ~10 years but fortunately modern medicine is good at identifying and catching the spread early on. The only reason COVID-19 has escaped early containment was because, while still dangerous, it is so much milder than these other recent diseases so people can spread it before they r
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This is nowhere near the level of the plague. It's a relatively weak virus, not a strong bacteria.
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Also a heck of a lot of people died. I don't see your point.
The Plague killed roughly 1/3 of Europe which took generations for those areas to catch up to the rest of the world.
What makes it worse many of the largest cultures in the world are currently having a problem with its population averages are on the older side. So this could decimate many economies and cultures.
Is this Mad Max level Dooms day? Probably not. But it is a big problem that needs to managed, and could change some economies and politics
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"Also a heck of a lot of people died. I don't see your point.
The Plague killed roughly 1/3 of Europe which took generations for those areas to catch up to the rest of the world."
What 'rest of the world'? The Americas weren't discovered yet, ditto for Australia, China was more or less unknown in 1331–1353.
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During the Dark Ages, Europe was behind the likes of the Middle East, and the Far East, in terms of culture, technology and military.
They were other civilizations that were expanding and growing faster than Europe.
It took Europe rediscovering these areas and learning from them to catch up again.
Re:500 year disease (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't remember the Black Death being a factor between the Fall of Rome and the Carolingian Renaissance.
Also, the aftermath of the Black Death was an economic boom, with the attendant scientific progress. It may surprise you, but 'Medieval Morons' is a fictional trope; consult actual historians to update your knowledge of the Middle Ages.
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China actually had bubonic plague outbreaks in the middle ages as well. As did Europe well after the Americas were discovered (into the 16th century).
Re:500 year disease (Score:5, Informative)
Huh? There had been trade with China even before the Birth of Christ. There were trade delegations from China to Rome as early as the reign of Augustus, and certainly by the second century. In fact, the Black Death's most likely point of origin was China, and made its way along the Silk Road to the Mediterranean and then into Europe. The chief difference from then to now is that pandemics took a lot longer to move, since horses were about as fast as transportation could get. Now, you can hope on a plane from Hubei and be spreading it in LAX in 15 hours.
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Plagues are how wars start as well. One country thinks that they have an opportunity to attack another nation for its territory, or change the balance in power in a region. Countries and governments also get very hostile if they think their power is being weakened.
Saudi Arabia is doing this right now in the form of the Oil Price War of 2020. The fact that oil prices had already plummeted due to COVID-19 made it a ripe time to drive oil prices so low that many forms of oil production (such as the USA's shale deposits) or countries that rely too heavily on oil production for their GDP (Russia) will feel the pinch. It will be far worse for Russia, because that is the majority of what they export from an economic perspective.
Re: 500 year disease (Score:2)
With Muhammad being number 1, that's also pretty much the only male Islamic name you will see(besides maybe Ibrahim, which has the English corollary Abraham). With Christianity you have Jacob, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, etc as names. Tally all of those numbers up and compare them to Mohammad and I bet you that point gets a lot less scary.
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Also known as: how to commit cultural suicide, on a continental scale.
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Apparently, having people who worship differently than you is an "invasion." Are Atheists OK? What about Atheists named Mohamed?
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Apparently you don't realise that the only reason that name is ao popular is that muslims don't have a lot of imagination when it comes to baby names. When two thirds of them use that name, it skews the statistics.
Re:500 year disease (Score:4, Interesting)
Jesus Christ, the Black Death killed a third of Europeans, caused massive social, political and economic crises. In 1351, the English Parliament passed the Statute of Labourers, which effectively put wage controls in place, because there were so few laborers left that they could basically demand whatever they wanted, causing massive wage inflation. Barons and other employers were literally poaching workers.
The law didn't really work, but it goes to show you the extent of the crisis in Europe, and just how a pandemic turns an economy into a house of cards. We're a lot further ahead now than we were 700 years ago, but the fundamentals remain the same. If some significant portion of the work force doesn't show up for work because they are sick, the economy literally grounds to a halt. There's all kinds of news in Europe and North America of Chinese supply chains still being seized up, and some factories either having to scale back or outright shutter, and that's just because the Asian supply chains are disrupted. If we had similar outbreaks in any major North American cities, like, say, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto or Vancouver, then even when the Chinese side of the equation begins to free up, the supply chains will be disrupted at our end, and that will hit pretty much everyone.
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WHO, Catholic Relief Services, Doctors without Borders, etc. Not everyone is concentrated on themselves.
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Seriously, is there anyone out that THIS altruistic?
Tens of thousands of medical professionals, researchers, managers, and first responders.
Why worry? (Score:2)
Worrying about it will not help, it will just make you miserable and could even have a negative impact on your immune system.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
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Hitler was exactly as altruistic as OP
Re:500 year disease (Score:5, Insightful)
Holy shit this is bad advice. Yes, you should be worried because yes, there are things you can do. Stay home when sick. Don't touch your face. Wash your damn hands. Don't go out in public unnecessarily.
This will not necessarily prevent you from being exposes, but that's not the point. The point is to spread this out so that not everyone gets sick at once, overloading our shitty health care system. Everyone who delays their illness by a few weeks or months is helping make sure that we have the capacity to care for everyone.
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The point is to spread this out so that not everyone gets sick at once, overloading our shitty health care system. Everyone who delays their illness by a few weeks or months is helping make sure that we have the capacity to care for everyone.
Or better yet, delay illness long enough until the vaccine is ready.
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You are dumb. YOU DON'T KNOW THE MORTALITY RATE of either h1n1 or this new virus. Unless you test EVERYONE you don't know. Basic statistics. H1N1 mortality rate was BETWEEN 0.01% and 0.08%. We didn't know exactly BECAUSE WE DIDN'T TEST VERY MANY PEOPLE. It is just a guess. Most likely this virus will have a similar mortality rate. Yeah, sorry, you will still have to go to work next week and you won't be stepping through dead bodies in the street. Not sure what this has to do with Trump, either. He is an idi
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Basic statistics is not your friend. Actual epidemiological work is, and guess what, it's got ways of coping with the issues you've flagged.
Also, the rate is only of moderate interest. It's quite clear from Italy that the key question is: "can Covid19 overwhelm a health system with cases of bilateral interstitial pneumonia?" And the answer is "yes it absolutely can"
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There are things we could have done about it, but we've chosen not to do them.
Such as?
And be sure to provide a link where you argued we should be doing this BEFORE the virus became news. Hindsight is 2020...
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Washington is 'vote by mail', so they probably did vote from the nursing homes.
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You think those people were out there voting for trump.
Absentee ballots with "assistance" from a caregiver, maybe.
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So, the number of people who died from the COVID-19 outbreak across the whole world is still significantly less than the number of people who die annually only in the USA in the vehicle accidents.
You definitely need to think about scale. The disease spreads easily, and it has hit a handful of the world population with a higher mortality rate than the flu. Once it really spreads through societies, you will see many more deaths (on the aggregate). Vehicle deaths are far more numerous because there are more than 110,000 people in the world interacting with vehicles.
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Re: Road carnage (Score:2)
Covid-19 spreads much easier than influenza. This is the real problem. It's doesn't make you too sick to lower the transmission rate (ie: H4N1) and it isn't a low sick rate (ie: common cold).
And we do a lot in the fight against influenza. From the vaccine research, level of production, insurance support to the push for administration of shots & awareness.
We do the same level of effort for the flu almost every year that we did to basically eradicate smallpox, measles, etc. And once the system catches
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That's also quite meaningless. What's the rate? 2 times higher? 1.000234 times higher?
Current estimates put it 20-30x higher than flu. Quite a bit of that is statistical analysis based on the number of untested people that would likely be positive if we could actually test that many - or look at Korea where they actually tried.
Once it really spreads through societies, you will see many more deaths (on the aggregate)
This cannot go infinity, because the population of earth is finite.
No, not infinite. But if the mortality rate holds at 2-3% AND the best-case scenario that it spreads slow enough that hospitals can keep up with severe cases (unlikely), this could lead to 100s of millions of deaths. Not something to play lightly with.
blah, blah, blah - anything to do with statistics that have more fully played out than COVID-19
It's still ear
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I'm a flu bro myself, but looking at current numbers is kind of silly as it's just getting started. Personally I feel this will wind up killing somewhere about as many (in the US) as H1N1 - so maybe 10k-20k people, H1N1 was around 12k. It's a worse virus but we are much more aware and taking steps earlier.
So yes, it's (like) the flu, bro. Not literally, but in terms of impact it's like a bad flu with no vaccine that spreads a bit more readily.
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And flu vaccine is actually pretty damn useless already, so stop saying COVID is bad because there is no vaccine. Also more than a half million people die from flu already but we don't close universities or work places because of it.
Re:Road carnage (Score:5, Insightful)
It's even theorized that if we could get 80% of the population to take the vaccine we might be able to reduce the R0 enough to prevent the spread of the disease entirely. Unfortunately less than half the population actually gets the flu shot each year. (citation [marketwatch.com])
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So, the number of people who died from the COVID-19 outbreak across the whole world is still significantly less than the number of people who die annually only in the USA in the vehicle accidents.
Operative word: still
Provisional Gallow's Humor license expiry notice in ____ days.
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"So, the number of people who died from the COVID-19 outbreak across the whole world is still significantly less than the number of people who die annually only in the USA in the vehicle accidents. "
Up until now.
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Up until now.
The virus clearly has been out in the wild for a long time now. Three months? That's a quarter of a year. A freaking at least half million people die from flu each year, and yet we don't close work places or universities because of it.
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There is a psychological factor too. When Driving automobiles there is a feeling that we are in control, and only bad drivers are the ones who get killed in car accidents. When Taking public transport or flying we feel more on edge even though we are statistically safer, we are putting our well being onto another person.
Now illnesses is worse because we could catch something even if we do all the right things.
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That's a misguided comment. Everyone of course knows that "good drivers" die a lot too, and it's not just only "bad drivers" who die. Hell, you don't need to be a good or bad driver to die when your vehicle spins and rolls over when a tire blows.
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Still comparable to more than half million of people who die from flu every year world wide.
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It's too bad /. doesn't allow comments to be deleted. Basic competence with geometric thinking shows a US death toll of ~500,000 this year.
It's time for properly trained individuals to have zero tolerance for deadly thinking, be it a /.er or the POTUS - doesn't matter - we have a moral obligation to be forthright and insistent.
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Gosh, I wish more people who don't know anything about math or basic logic stopped posting.
And why is everyone throwing the concept of exponential growth around? The exponential growth for the decease won't happen because the population of earth is finite, you know. And why is everyone getting so fucking defensive as to start nitpicking my car deaths argument? Let's end it. You know what. HALF FUCKING MILLION people die from flu worldwide, EVERY FUCKING YEAR. And we don't close schools, universities, and wo
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You know the World Health Organization probably has priorities a bit larger than a nation's political ambitions.
Yes America is Great and all... However for many of these global organizations the US Politics and Tweets is a very low criteria.
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Rachel Maddow confirmed that the Russians were colluding with Trump to spread the virus at Democratic polling places! Who knew the Russians were good at putting nasty things in little vials!
Re:Geez, so it's NOT a "hoax"? (Score:5, Interesting)
To be fair, Trump has called it a hoax. However, he didn't mean the virus itself was a hoax, but that Democrats and the media were hyping it up to hurt him. (Because everything is about him, even a virus that's infecting and killing people.) It's easy to misquote him slightly and make it sound like he's saying the virus itself is a hoax.
I prefer to ding him for the real things he says since there's so much there that I don't need to rely on misquotes. For example, his insistence that everyone can be tested (test kits are woefully understocked), that the disease is fully contained (it's not), that the number of cases will drop (it hasn't), or that this is the flu (it isn't).
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Re:Geez, so it's NOT a "hoax"? (Score:5, Informative)
"Liar, Trump *never* said that and I don't think Fox did either. Come on, let's be factual here"
Trump said it was the Democrats' new hoax.
https://www.factcheck.org/2020... [factcheck.org]
Ostensibly he was referring to the level of seriousness, not the virus itself, but you can never quite tell with Cheeto Mussolini.
No, he said the Democrats where making a hoax out of the situation, saying that he hadn't responded to it, not that the virus was a hoax. Do be accurate.
Re:Don't be stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Correct, though the direct risk to human life is primarily limited to the elderly and those with complicating conditions (immunocompromised, lung issues, heart issues, etc). The indirect risk is due to overworked medical services and supply chain stress. Most of our measures at this point are designed to alleviate these two things: in other words, to slow the spread of the disease rather than stop it entirely, which is largely seen as impossible at this point.
To an extent, yes. In healthy individuals who aren't old, it does generally present like the flu (in some cases it's even less severe: sometimes it only presents like a cold and sometimes it's completely asymptomatic). However, it spreads several times faster and more aggressively than the flu, and as mentioned the mortality rate skyrockets for certain groups. If you have elevated risk factors, expect a more severe reaction and try to limit unnecessary contact as much as possible.
That's both untrue and pretty fucked up to say. Most people who contract the illness, even people in vulnerable demographics, will survive it. Even people who are 80+ still survive between 70-80% of the time. Otherwise healthy individuals who are below the age of 60 survive over 99% of the time. The severity comes more from the greatly increased virulence and our inability to contain it combined with the elevated mortality rate in certain demographics.
Either way, wishing death on someone for being ignorant is still fucked up. The media's been pushing the angle that it's not as bad as the flu for months now, and the US government's likely been telling them to push that angle. This is why people aren't treating it seriously. A better target for your anger would be these two groups, not the people who are reacting exactly how their media and government have been telling them to react for months.
You are so misinformed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: You are so misinformed (Score:4, Insightful)
Yup, all is well and good. Countries totally shut themselves down and quarantine entire cities / populations for no reason.
But at least you win the smartest boy in the room award!
I don't think you should panic, either, btw. But it's clearly serious - and for anyone who has already lost a loved one, well, it sucks, and I hope it isn't and doesn't happen for you.
Re:Don't be stupid (Score:4, Informative)
The whole world will be under quarantine a few weeks from now, it's either that or literally hundreds of millions could die. That's not scare-mongering, you just have to look at the growth rate which is exponential and won't stop until people stop socialising. Full population-wide quarantine measures will be needed like those that are being taken in China.
The only way China has stopped the virus is by putting 700 million people under lock-down. Italy just did the same thing but they're not being strict enough yet, the virus will continue to spread in Italy until people get how bad it is (but slower).
If you stick Italy's curve and China's curve along with the US's current numbers on a graph you can easily work out how long it is until the US has tens of thousands of people infected with a high percentage needing oxygen support (5 to 10%). This doesn't compare with flu.
The US and Europe (excluding Italy) have not taken any serious steps yet to contain the spread of Covid-19, they're just chasing it with testing kits and saying the numbers as they rocket up.
Italy only has 10,000 cases but that is enough to overwhelm their health care system, because of the number of people it puts into intensive care that need specialist equipment. There is no reason to believe the rest of Europe or the US will be any different. Developing countries will be hit far worse.
Here in the UK we're about 2 weeks behind Italy and our health service won't be able to cope. When there's more people that need intensive care than that care can be provided - those people will die, the death rate could be over 5%.
Take this seriously, take vitamin D to support your immune system, minimalise socialising, wash hands, wear masks etc etc.
Re: (Score:3)
Non-China global cases:
41k Now
14k One week ago
3.3k two weeks ago
595 three weeks ago
227 four weeks ago
The speed varies but one thing stays the same - the virus spread is more than doubling every week outside of China. Within China there is 700 million people under lock down - that is why the virus has stopped spreading fast there.
This virus is infectious within 24-48 hours but the symptoms don't show up until 5 to 7 days. Do you think it will magically stop spreading?
How many weeks does it have to double bef
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't it? In every country measuring properly its fitting the perfect logarithmic rise in cases. Of course you could believe the China solved the issue in which case I have a bridge to sell you.
Most countries are still not measuring it properly. Italy is. America doesn't have the test kits. Most countries in Europe are only testing people who have been to Italy South Korea or China, or those who end up with severe respiratory distress.
Only the most gullible would think that there's currently only 120000 cas