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Comment by sliken | Hacker News Reader

The scary part is that of the official 8,200 or so people that have been confirmed to have the virus there's been 171 deaths, and 143 recoveries. So more people dead than recovered, does make one wonder about the 8,200.

Seems few believe the official numbers, people visit numerous hospitals without being able to seen, and even those that get seen have problems getting tested, and people who posts about the situation get the post pulled or pressured to pulled themselves.

Here's an article describing the censorship (pulled posts), arrests for "rumor mongering", difficulty in getting tested, etc:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-testing-insi...

This one documents 15% of 41 people getting hospitalized dying:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

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Well there is something to be said for both potential biases in those counts. First of all, those being hospitalized are obviously among the most severe cases. And presumably people with the mildest cases will potentially not even be diagnosed, so the mortality rates would be skewed higher.

And secondly, that more people have died than have recovered doesn't say much other than that it takes longer to recover than to die. If you are going to die, it would appear that it would happen sooner rather than later. Whereas if you aren't going to die, you may take awhile before you've been officially cured.

That isn't to say that is absolutely what is happening here. But both scenarios are fairly likely, and therefore should mediate some of the bleakness of those numbers for the time being.

The numbers we're getting out of China are a mess and almost entirely useless.

There are reports of hospitals turning people away unless they a very sick, and also not testing every ill patient because they're overwhelmed.

I've see death certificates posted online with "viral pneumonia" because they aren't able to test everyone - and certainly don't bother testing those who have already died.

The errors are both ways and huge.

The only thing we can conclude is that it's contagious, deadly, and more deadly than the seasonal flu.

There was one interesting number though. The Japanese had been evacuating 200 people from Wuhan and found 3 cases. Assume that a plane of evacuees like that is somewhat random sampling. And that evacuees have similar or better hygiene. This puts infection rate at 1% of the population. Official population of Wuhan is 11 million, it is possible that it is larger. This puts the number to 100k cases.

On top of that, 2 of the returnees refused to be tested. Who knows what they're up to… work? Seeing family? Hanging around in the park with a Strong Zero for a chat?

Korea evacuated 400 today, 1 couldn't board the plane because known infected, on arrival 4 were tested and found to be infected. This is consistent with the Japan flight from yesterday that you mention.

So, you are infected? How does it compare to the flu? Are symptoms very different?

Best wishes for your recovery!

GP didn't say anything about being infected.

1, not I. I think you mis-read.

Isn't taking the population of Wuhan as 11 million cherry picking? You could choose the population of central Wuhan and get a higher estimate or the population of Hubei province and get a lower estimate. Presumably the distribution of Japanese people evacuated does not match the distribution of people in Hubei province, since many will be tourists (more likely to be in the city centre). Moreover their chance of being infected will depend on where they were staying: there is an epicenter.

But yes it does indicate that the real number is much higher than the confirmed cases. It's really hard to track an outbreak of this magnitude especially when many people are carriers showing mild symptoms. It's actually a good thing if cases are being severely underestimated as it implies a lower death rate (deaths are harder to fudge).

> deaths are harder to fudge

Are you sure about this? AFAIK, the Chinese government does not disclose someone as dead by this virus unless they tested the person positive. That means that if someone dies from respiratory complications on the street or in their home, they will write it off as pneumonia. Right now Wuhan city only has the capacity to screen roughly 6000 samples everyday. Add to this that many sick people are basically just told to go home. Not many cars are driving, city is shutdown so god knows how many are sitting lifeless in their livingroom. I have also seen much evidence that communities are barring the doors of infected households so they can't leave their apartments.

The death count can only be expected considerably higher than reported.

> I've see death certificates posted online with "viral pneumonia"

Would that not be a proper reason for a corona virus caused death? Or does it have to be specific if the exact cause is known?

I'd expect that death certificates would specify the specific cause, if it's known. But I don't know if that's true.

Either way, it makes the data far less useful.

How is "viral pneumonia" not the specific cause of death?

Doesn't say which virus.

If they don't know, fine. Albeit sloppy, given the context.

If they do know, and don't say, it's deceptive.

I'm not sure that it's deceptive; generally the "cause of death" is just one part of a larger report that can give further detail.

Thats like saying the person died form lack of blood after being shot. Its technically correct, but actually useless.

Medically it seems much more specific though. You could die from numerous things after a gunshot wound, so naming the specific cause of death is more accurate.

New data, based on "all confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV in Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital from Jan 1 to Jan 20, 2020": 11% "died of multiple organ failure" and 23% are in intensive care unit https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

Interesting, however:

> Most patients were men, with a mean age of 55·5 years (SD 13·1; table 1). 50 (51%) patients had chronic diseases, including cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, endocrine system disease [and some others]

The findings conclude:

> In general, the characteristics of patients who died were in line with the early warning model for predicting mortality in viral pneumonia

Also the group was self-selecting of people who went to hospital before Jan 20th.

In summary: old men with pre-existing health conditions are going to have a rough ride. Am yet to see this play out in 2020 Presidential Election odds though.

>50 years is not old. I don't know what is considered old but I know that >75y has a two magnitudes higher mortality rate with the flu.

I doubt that the 50 years old Hospital doctor who died had any serious per-existing health condition. In fact, you could argue hat most doctors have a stronger immune system than average since they are exposed to more germs due to their profession. So this 50y old professional dropping dead is a bad sign! (and hands off to him for his bravery in doing his job).

You could only argue that he cough the strain very early. A virus jumping into a new species is more aggressive at the beginning, later it adopts more to the new host and becomes less aggressive.

"Old" might be the wrong word, but the gist of it is that, like the flu, it's potentially worse around the 50-60+ age group.

>I doubt that the 50 years old Hospital doctor who died had any serious per-existing health condition.

If you are referring to the doctor in Wuhan - Liang Wudong - he was 62-years old.

> The scary part is that of the official 8,200 or so people that have been confirmed to have the virus there's been 171 deaths, and 143 recoveries.

It isn't that bad. It means that this virus won't kill more than 50% of population even if we were to shut down all research right now.

Uh, in what world is wiping out half a population not that bad??

Thanos Did Nothing Wrong /s

The new world, post smallpox that wiped out up to 90% of the population. That's setting quite a low bar though, it would still be about on par with the black death.

It would be good for the environment

Humans are part of the environment. Every bit as much as a tree or a koala is. So it wouldn't be good for all of the environment.

I've noticed it's never people in a vulnerable group that talk this way.

If they really believed in it, they could start by giving the example and hope others follow.

Christ. I can't imagine wanting half the population to die "for the greater good"...

One could argue that thinning the population of the older demographic with pre-existing (and expensive) conditions could be a net benefit to governments with socialized healthcare. See Taiwan which has repeatedly had to refund their system because of an aging population and the related growing costs.

I'm not disputing your point, but with respect to Taiwan, the fact that visiting a doctor is almost a sport certainly doesn't help - An average of 14 visits per year per person:

>There is a high level of health seeking behaviour in Taiwan. It is part of the Taiwanese culture to take medicines or to seek medical help frequently, even for minor ailments.

>The average outpatient department visit rate is 14 times per year per person.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3960712/

That's not what I meant. I was saying that there's at least 50% chance that you might be immune to this virus. Who knows, there might be 1000 people who were infected but never went to hospital because they got better without medical care.

Sarcasm doesn't do well on HN. Maybe for good reason.

There was no sarcasm here. The comment just states that the virus' 0 day fatality rate is at most 50%. Why are you offended by this fact? Obviously we might see some twists like the virus becoming more resiliant, and obviously we won't shut down all research. The actual death count of this disease will be much lower.

Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. I've played plague inc.

I didn't mean that your comment is factually incorrect.

It's just that neutrally observing that 50% of a population would die is at least off-putting.

Given your explanation, maybe you were mocking the credulous. Mocking doesn't work well on HN either.

I've looked at comment histories for many shadowbanned users, and I'm just echoing commentary.

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