Experts envision two scenarios if the new coronavirus isn’t contained | Hacker News Reader

Experts envision two scenarios if the new coronavirus isn’t contained

statnews.com

72 pointsilamont21 comments

> All four, in particular HKU1, can cause pneumonia, and sometimes death. It is rare enough that researchers do not have good estimates of its prevalence or virulence, but two of the others have been better studied.

I wonder how many cases of influenza are confirmed via testing? How many cases could be caused by coronaviruses? I know from experience that I've been to the doctor with fever / aches / respiratory issues and been told I have the flu, only to request a test that results negative. They typically don't test for anything else.

In the US, all of the reported cases would be confirmed by testing, and the number of specimens tested is also published:

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/

I found that the media aren't doing a very good job. It seems that every new case leads to a new article, which isn't really helpful to understand the spread of the virus, the possible scenarios, how are the countries prepared, how worried should we be, what is the latest knowledge on the virus and so on. The last think I need to know is that some taxi driver got infected.

I also notice that people aren't following recommendations. For instance, I saw everybody wearing a mask at Singapore airport but I couldn't find any official recommendation saying to do so, unless you're sick. So should I wear a mask?

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati...

The last section on the last page has WHO’s recommendations for the public.

"Avoiding close contact with people suffering from acute respiratory infections. Frequent hand-washing, especially after direct contact with ill people or their environment. Avoiding unprotected contact with farm or wild animals. People with symptoms of acute respiratory infection should practice cough etiquette (maintain distance, cover coughs and sneezes with disposable tissues or clothing, and wash hands). Within health care facilities, enhance standard infection prevention and control practices in hospitals, especially in emergency departments."

Yes, I read this. They don't recommend to wear a mask. I'm quite surprised to see masks everywhere nonetheless.

I asked a friend who lives in Hong Kong, when I visited a few years back. About 15% of people were wearing masks at the time.

His explanation, 'Everyone did it during the SARS period, and then some people just kept doing it.'

Wearing masks is the better meme. You don’t notice if someone regularly washes their hands but you notice if someone covers half their face.

> For instance, I saw everybody wearing a mask at Singapore airport but I couldn't find any official recommendation saying to do so, unless you're sick. So should I wear a mask?

People working at the airport would be encouraged to wear masks because they're in contact with travellers all day. Travellers might wear masks because Singapore's just below China and the cruise ship for reported infections.

(Singapore has also been actively tracing people and reporting the cases as they happen; I think some other countries aren't taking as active an approach.)

For most Singaporeans, it's business as usual. I take the trains every day, and somewhere between 10%–20% of commuters wear masks.

Given the drop off of the infection rate growth relative to its spread earlier it appears that the quarantine measures put in place by China are having some success.

> Given the drop off of the infection rate growth relative to its spread earlier it appears that the quarantine measures put in place by China are having some success.

That drop-off rate might also be explained by the information suppression campaign that occurred during the early days of the virus. The origin point might simply be earlier than is acknowledged.

I don't believe that. There was a guy who made a Youtube video showing the hundreds and hundreds of daily flights coming and going from China even weeks after the outbreak. He said "there's no quarantine if you have money."

What I am wondering is why no significant outbreak in Indonesia? Philippines? Southeast Asia? India? If it is a pandemic, those countries will be hit hard. I would also expect Rio, Mexico City, to see huge increases in cases before Europe and the US. So far that has not happened.

> What I am wondering is why no significant outbreak in Indonesia? Philippines? Southeast Asia? India?

Those countries might be reporting the cases as influenza or pneumonia, and not the coronavirus.

https://youtu.be/ALQTdCYGISw

Neil Ferguson of Imperial College estimates the current rate of new infections per day in China is 50,000.

This assumes that neither testing bottlenecking nor information suppression is a factor with respect to reported numbers, which is far from certain.

I am not arguing that information isn’t being suppressed, but they’ve essentially closed all public activity in China. There has to be an impact from this beyond just censorship

Current Status Dashboard: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...

What happened to the map? It's been gone for a while now.

It works for me.

That site is fucking wicked.

Every time the space bar is pressed the newsletter form pops up over the article.

> It’s still possible that quarantines and travel bans will first halt the outbreak and then eradicate the microbe, and the world will never see 2019-nCoV again, as epidemiologist Dr. Mike Ryan, head of health emergencies at the World Health Organization, told STAT on Saturday. That’s what happened with SARS in 2003.

Is absence of SARS for 17 years really equivalent to never seeing it again?

“Never seeing it again” here contrasts with what happened for the 2009 H1N1 virus, which is now a recurring part of the annual flu season.

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