In 5 minutes a day you will have a better informed perspective than what any news sites provide, my own alarm has lessened considerably after reading these.
https://xw.qq.com/act/qgfeiyan
https://news.sina.cn/zt_d/yiqing0121
https://ncov.dxy.cn/ncovh5/view/pneumonia
I don't believe they have privileged access to government secrets. If the government wants to hide something, the last thing they're going to do is share that data with a news org.
Outside of China the worst hit countries have a little more than two dozen cases and there's only been a single death. It makes me not be afraid of this disease. My chance of getting it is crazy low and if I do I will likely just have a mild to bad flu.
Of course things can and probably will get worse, we'll see by how much.
But the reason for concern isn’t your chances of getting this virus today, which is extremely remote unless you’re in Wuhan. The concern is that China can’t contain this and it’s only a matter of time until it becomes a global pandemic, with the risk of killing millions and overwhelming medical infrastructures. There’s a reason so many epidemiologists seem worried...
- Out of 270 confirmed non-China cases there's still been only one death. That's a 0.3% death rate. Which raises the question, why is the death rate 2-3% in China? Are we sure it will be that high worldwide? Is it 2-3% because of something unique to the virus or something unique to China (i.e. a delayed response leading to overwhelmed health services).
- I think the histographs in the WHO situation reports (Fig 2 and Fig 3 in the latest one [1]) tell an interesting story which has gone largely unreported. Excluding the situation on the Japanese cruise ship (which is tragic but easy to quarantine), new international infections have been declining since the end of January. That's because the majority of non-Chinese who became infected got it in Wuhan. No one is going in or out Wuhan now, so those cases have basically dropped to zero, and other sources of infection are stable to down.
Obviously vigilance is important and the threat of an international spread needs to be taken seriously. But I think we should at least consider the possibility that this virus may have appeared more dangerous than it actually is because of a poor early response in Wuhan. And while the response can always be better, no one now is screwing up as badly as Wuhan did.
[1] Latest situation report: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati...
Also, a lot of people that get this virus will just think of it as a bad flu and blow it off over a few days. They don’t get counted in the statistics.
If China wants countries to open their doors again then they need to let the rest of the world's doctors in to help research the nature of this virus.
https://www.technologyreview.com/f/615123/the-china-coronavi...
> International travel bans is basically as strict as traveling out of Hubei province, stricter than average travel restrictions in China.
The Chinese government censured doctors who sounded the alarm, and you want other countries to follow their advice? I'd say exercising more caution than China advises is appropriate given how little we know about this disease.
China is bad, everyone else is good. Anything more complicated than that is essentially discarded.
I think they've doing a good job. The world health organisation does. What's the actual problem here other than the usual China flamewars?
Now that they're engaged, the WHO is saying they're responding pretty well.
An international collective of doctors and scientists who advise the World Health Organisation said this isn't a these you currently, why exactly do you have any reason to doubt them?
Only have to look at the other response here to see how certain types with absolutely no concern for the truth want to dominate this debate, it's just another opportunity for them, nothing else.
The WHO has been previously criticised for only declaring emergencies when it involves America or the holiday season. There's published papers on the matter saying so.
You can't please all the people with this stuff but the onus is on anyone claiming why this body made up of international experts all in competition with each other suddenly decided to collectively conspire in some sort of bizarre attempt to hide the truth?
The scientists advising WHO saying this stuff have far more to lose than the commentators here, people shouldn't lose sight of that very salient fact.
At least some Chinese officials suppressed information in the early days.
Now which body do you trust more, also which one says it's not a problem and people shouldn't be worried: The Chinese govt or the World Health Organisation?
People panicked about this situation and spreading false information are the ones to worry about, not those with the virus.
Especially in countries like Indonesia where I am now:
>In Indonesia, Terawan Agus Putranto, the health minister, advised citizens to relax and eschew overtime work to avoid the disease, which has killed more than 360 people and infected more than 17,000 others, mostly in China.
>“To prevent it is very easy as long as your immunity is good,” Mr. Terawan said.
...
>Indonesia has 264 million people, over 2 million tourists from China, but 0 reported cases of coronavirus
By the time the idiot finds it's run amok there will be a lot of unnecessary deaths.
The WHO is captured by China.