COVID-19 Mega thread

[Beet]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/21/health/wuhan-coronavirus-first-us-case-cdc-bn/index.html

[Cinemark]

Could you change the title to something more informative?

[President Johnson]

This is what I expected all along. Europe will be next, sadly.

[Person Man]

Bugs get around...

[Xing]

And it's in my home state. Guess I need to be careful...

[Cinemark]

And it's in my home state. Guess I need to be careful...

As I've read so far, the people who have died in China all had preexisting conditions. It seems like healthy people have a good chance of recovery, including this man in Washington.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Shut down the border until we know what the hell is going on.

[Meclazine for Israel]

More people died from the normal flu during the SARS epidemic than from SARS.

This agent is even lower in mortality rates.

Although new, it is a biological non-event in the 'pandemic' science fiction movie that the Chinese are worrying about.

Although it is inevitable we will get some nasty spread of biological agents with a much higher mortality rate, this is not the one.

[OBD]

Uh oh. Not only is this right in my backyard, but I have family in Hong Kong rn :/

[Hollywood]

When you pack 11 million people into a city and cram them like sardines into densely populated transit systems and hospitals, the probability of birthing and spreading a dangerous disease increases.  This happens with every single communicable disease in the world.  The 2003-2004 SARS outbreak that spread through Canada hospitals was a direct result of overcrowding in waiting areas and patient rooms, as well as a lack of body protective measures and disinfectant measures like hand washing/sanitizer dispensers.  Sanitization was made priority number one after the outbreak.  Isolation is also important.  These are all issues that can also be attributable to schools, and a better world would prioritize learning from a home laptop. 

CNN will sensationalize this virus as if it’s the end of the world.  They always do.  The only major effect this will have on Americans like myself is the negative impact these stories have on the stock market.  Despite CNN reporting, there isn’t any reason to be concerned about this virus or the economy.

[T'Chenka]

Shut down the border until we know what the hell is going on.

It would have to be the border AND the airports, assuming your solution would be effective.

[dead0man]

Jesus Christ, don't you clowns get tired of freaking out over every little thing?  I get that you're young so you've only seen a few tens of thousands of stories about how you're going to die tomorrow, but can't you dummies see the obvious pattern?

[Hollywood]

Jesus Christ, don't you clowns get tired of freaking out over every little thing?  I get that you're young so you've only seen a few tens of thousands of stories about how you're going to die tomorrow, but can't you dummies see the obvious pattern?

Don't you think you're asking a lot of them?  Some of them are just figuring out that CNN is biased against Bernie. 

[Inmate Trump]

Shut down the border until we know what the hell is going on.

It would have to be the border AND the airports, assuming your solution would be effective.

We just need to build a (REALLY) big and beautiful wall.

[Sir Mohamed]

Jesus Christ, don't you clowns get tired of freaking out over every little thing?  I get that you're young so you've only seen a few tens of thousands of stories about how you're going to die tomorrow, but can't you dummies see the obvious pattern?

In cases like this, overreaction is better than the opposite. Obviously, we shouldn't fall into a panic mode or even hysteria, but take it serious. There is too little data and evidence to estimate how dangerous this is.

[DrScholl]

Jesus Christ, don't you clowns get tired of freaking out over every little thing?  I get that you're young so you've only seen a few tens of thousands of stories about how you're going to die tomorrow, but can't you dummies see the obvious pattern?

Do you ever get tired of finger wagging and lecturing people over everything? Right now it doesn't appear there is any massive panic or hysteria, just concern and it is always wise to pay attention to what is going on.

[dead0man]

Jesus Christ, don't you clowns get tired of freaking out over every little thing?  I get that you're young so you've only seen a few tens of thousands of stories about how you're going to die tomorrow, but can't you dummies see the obvious pattern?

Do you ever get tired of finger wagging and lecturing people over everything?

hyperbole is the problem and it's what you're doing here.

Right now it doesn't appear there is any massive panic or hysteria, just concern

"the pandemic is here" is in the thread title

and it is always wise to pay attention to what is going on.

no it's not, not when it adds stress to your life for no obvious gain

[PSOL]

We could always just give the CDC a couple more million to get some solutions going.

[Grassroots]

I don't see this bug as a huge threat. Just wash your hands and eat cleanly, and interact cleanly too.

[Burke Bro]

I would rather there be widespread panic and the disease not being as dangerous/infectious as we thought than the public taking no precautions and the disease spreading to tens of millions of people within a matter of weeks. Time is very important and could mean the difference for millions of lives, if not the entire human population.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

More people died from the normal flu during the SARS epidemic than from SARS.

This agent is even lower in mortality rates.

Although new, it is a biological non-event in the 'pandemic' science fiction movie that the Chinese are worrying about.

Although it is inevitable we will get some nasty spread of biological agents with a much higher mortality rate, this is not the one.
[/quote
This.

[dead0man]

I would rather there be widespread panic and the disease not being as dangerous/infectious as we thought than the public taking no precautions and the disease spreading to tens of millions of people within a matter of weeks. Time is very important and could mean the difference for millions of lives, if not the entire human population.

you think widespread panic is what stops the spread of dangerous things like this?

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Wuhan has been quarantined — public transportation is shut down, roadblocks have been set up, and all trains, buses or flights in or out have been canceled. Residents are also being required to wear masks in public at all times. Wuhan, a city of 11 million, is a major transit hub, and ~30 million were expected to pass through during the Spring Festival travel season.

This disease isn't the "big one" for two reasons.  First, it's not that deadly, in comparison to something like Ebola.  The other is that it doesn't appear to spread quite as easily as the flu between humans.  A truly terrifying pandemic would be the combination of Ebola's lethality (50%+) with the flu's contagion.  That's not coronavirus.

Still, it would be so scary to be trapped in a city with a cordon sanitaire enforced to prevent the spread of a disease.  That reminds me of that show Containment a few years back (but with a much less severe disease)- that situation would have been terrifying.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

So far there are 17 dead with 900 or so reported cases. That comes out to a 1.9% fatality rate so far. Of course, a good deal of the people in those 900 are newer cases who may still die but may not have died yet. So 2% seems like a low end estimate of the fatality rate that is likely to emerge over time, but it is likely to go somewhat higher than that.

The big thing is stopping the spread as soon as possible and buying more time through that for development of antivirals/vaccines.

This is one case where maybe having Trump be President might not be a totally bad thing. He is a germaphobe, right? So that might hopefully motivate him to deal with this properly... The Wuhan quarantine seems prudent, but more may be needed despite apparently fairly low communicability.

Probably the biggest thing to hope for now is that the fairly small #s of cases that have already emerged outside of Wuhan/China can be contained without spreading further and creating other areas with larger numbers of cases in other countries, so that then local containment measures in China/Wuhan can put an end to it.

This is a good source for detailed information/reports - https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Since this is Atlas, there have to be maps. And there are... showing locations of confirmed cases and deaths:

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

It looks like it may be more spread around China already than I had thought (without having started paying close attention to news articles).