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Comment by Cantbekhan | Hacker News Reader

Personally I'm not afraid of the sanitary aspect of this virus. I don't think the mortality is extremely alarming per se. What I'm afraid of is the emotional population reaction and the practical impact on daily services fueled by FUD and sensationalist media coverage. Schools closing unnecessarily forcing many working people to stay home to babysit their kids. Teachers/Drivers/Cashiers going on strike to avoid risks while there is a now globally confirmed shortage of face masks (which might or might not be very useful anyway but it will keep people working if they feel it helps). It's virtually impossible to find a useless face mask where I am in the EU (at a normal non 10x inflated price from opportunistic vendors) and even less possible to find a useful one (N95/FFP2/FFP3 rating). Interesting times for sure.

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The mortality rate is unknown. The best estimate is on the order of 1%, but it could be a factor of 10 either way.

The mortality rate will be different depending on the health system, since a significant number of people with this virus require either supplementary oxygen or more seriously ICU care.

If this were to become an epidemic in India for example, a higher mortality rate would be expected. In Africa it could be severely bad due to the large numbers of people with AIDS and the tendency of this virus to suppress the immune system.

Also Sub Saharan Africa only has 2 labs (South Africa and Senegal) capable of technically confirming cases. Which might be a reason there aren't any confirmed cases on the continent.

> Which might be a reason there aren't any confirmed cases on the continent.

There is not a single confirmed case of coronavirus in the entire Central and Eastern Europe, yet[1]. Most likely because there are almost no direct flights from Asia to this region, since it lacks major international metropolitan areas and global tourist attractions.

[1] https://ig.ft.com/autograph/graphics/coronavirus-map.svg

There are strong links between sub-saharan Africa and China as China has been heavily investing there and there are many Chinese people there. So we would definitely expect to see some cases there by now.

Hungary has a pretty big Chinese community mostly in Budapest, plus plenty of Chinese tourists, and I would assume there was a lot travel around the New Year.

If we are guessing about why (and whether) there is no Coronavirus in CE Europe, “no Chinese” is probably not a good guess.

but the amount of traveling chinese is still much much smaller than to larger western european countries.

Consider that Italy has had 3 cases to date: a chinese couple from Wuhan and an italian who was repatriated from Wuhan and is in quarantine.

There are 300k chinese nationals in Italy and about 20k in Hungary, and while I love Budapest the amount of chinese tourists is nothing compared to those in Rome.

Prague is usually full of Chinese tourists and to a lesser extent also Budapest.

Why do you say it suppresses the immune system? And how could it do that?

One of the possible symptoms of coronaviruses (this one, also SARS and MERS) is a decreased white cell count.

Source?

"The biggest assault the virus launches is on a patient's immune system. It causes a fall in the count of lymphocytes"

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/reporters-notebo...

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

Thanks. It doesn’t say how that’s possible. I’d be more interested in the sars and mers case. I had never heard that before.

From yesterday's article it seems unlikely to be at the 10% end. The doctor estimated deaths amongst those hospitalized at around 5% and for each person hospitalised there are probably a lot who just stay home so it's looking nearer the 1% (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22263022)

Unlikely to be at the 10% end in Wuhan. Mortality rates are properties of epidemics, there's no such thing as a mortality rate of a disease per se, because mortality depends on the prior health of the people infected, the sophistication of the health care system, and the load on the healthcare system.

If this coronavirus becomes an epidemic in a region with poor access to healthcare then we may indeed see mortality rates at or above 10% if people cannot get access to supplemental oxygen.

On the other hand if you get coronavirus now in a country with an advanced healthcare system and have access to an ICU then you have excellent chances to recover.

Since we do not know what countries will be affected in the future we cannot begin to guess what the eventual mortality rate will be.

From what I've read, the virus can be a pretty nasty and long one even for those that recover from it. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/reporters-notebo...

The current outbreak is expanding exponentially, with a frequency of approximately 20% severe infections requiring advanced respiratory supportive care. Mortality is at least 3%, and probably higher given the time lag between reported infections and deaths.

Analysis of Wuhan Coronavirus Deja Vu: Conclusions http://virological.org/uploads/short-url/z0cOhZzme3C6HtlcOcE...

Well this is the typical French reaction to a slightly hot day. For sure.

It's the appropriate reaction in this case however.

> I'm not afraid of the sanitary aspect of this virus. I don't think the mortality is extremely alarming per se.

Agree. It seems to be most like another global strand of flu.

And the flu kills 10s of thousands annually in the US, despite our widespread vaccination system.

Do doctors typically suit up in full biohazard gear when confronting flu?

> Do doctors typically suit up in full biohazard gear when confronting flu?

This was posted earlier on HN

Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU - https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/reporters-notebo...

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