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Comment by howmayiannoyyou | Hacker News Reader

Anecdotal (not official) reports suggest as many as 100,000 infections in Wuhan area. There are claims the virus may be spread through eyes as well as inhalation. Additional unsubstantiated claims suggest low to no fever during incubation period, making detection difficult. The most sensationalist claim making the rounds is that a known Wuhan area PLA biolab may have failed to contain this pathogen.

In the end none of the above matters at all. What matters is the willingness globally to take political and economic action to contain transmission. The World Health Organization's failure to declare this a global emergency is risky if the characteristics stated above turn out to be accurate. Timing is key.

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Is transmission through eyes that odd?

The common cold already is. You rub your eyes, the virus enters your tears, which drain to your nose.

Yeah, the "this one spreads through eyes!!!!!!!" shit I keep seeing pop up is actually helping to moderate my panic, somewhat.

It reminds me how much of the "panic!" signal I've been really starting to see explode in the last ~24h, which humans are highly sympathetically attuned to when they suddenly see it spreading everywhere around them, is just from a sheer mass of other idiots who actually don't know anything either coming online on the issue, and reflects internet meme virality, and only very indirectly the uptick in actual danger (ie, from having been loosely following the outbreak, prior to this latest popularization).

Still looks pretty fucking bad, though.

It matters because face masks are not enough to prevent transmission, which matters relative to the common cold only because this virus kills. The common cold does not.

But this is taken care of by face marks and hand washing, because what would be happening is you touch your eyes.

If you're using a face mask, you should be washing your hands anyway, because if you think it's working, the moment you touch it you've come in contact with virus.

Indeed. In addition, the best thing you can do beyond hand washing is don’t touch your face.

Hard to do, I know, but it eliminates a major source of transmission.

how long can a virus live on a face mask?

For an enveloped virus like this? "Awhile". I'm sure there's estimates for SARS or Influenza somewhere that are probably pretty correct for this too.

No, it isn't odd at all.

So what you are saying the mortality rate is comparable to the flu at those infection rates. Why the panic

No, because there are also many social media reports that patients dying of "viral pneumonia" are not being attributed to Coronavirus - simply due to the overwhelming of medical professionals and the inability to sequence everyone's samples.

They aren't spending time confirming that dead patients had coronavirus when they are in crisis mode.

What do you mean anecdotal? I'm really confused at how you even came up with that number. Unless you have some type of firsthand experience.

A few experts in the field have tweeted this speculation.

"In the end none of the above matters at all."

It matters critically if China, or anyone else, is in any way lying about anything.

Official reports are 2K infected, if it's actually 100K and they are not telling the WHO, it's really, really bad.

What the 'put on the news' is another matter and gray area concerning information control in crisis times (i.e. trying to stop mass panic). But with the WHO and other governments, it's another story.

It's not like they can entirely hide these things, I really wonder what kind of other 'interested parties' are making their own clandestine measurements.

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