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Comment by fspeech | Hacker News Reader

Japan's cases are more diffuse and they have a test now. The population is also much more aware of the disease now. There are some drugs that show promises. These are the positives. Hopefully it is enough to make the spreading slower in Japan, though it seems they failed to learn much from China's experience. They are telling people with symptoms to stay home and wait for four days. Really they need to find and treat people from very early on. Home isolation does not work. And once patients covert to the serious stage it could quickly overload the medical system even if 80% recover without much treatment.

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The problem with this approach is that many people who have the common cold or influenza A will end up going to a hospital and catching coronavirus there. Sometimes the best thing to do is avoid hospitals entirely and if you have to go to the hospital, do everything possible to avoid getting anyone else sick on the ride from your home to the hospital.

The big issue right now is the asymptomatic transmission where a caretaker can be very careful yet still catch the disease and spread it before they know they've been contaminated.

The hardest part is isolation in a way that protects caretakers.

It is a good thing they are telling people to call the hotlines instead of going to the hospital, but someone should do a follow-up to test people at home (on a triage or a random sampling basis). They can't just wait for things to burst open. The available drugs (Remdesivir is not widely available) are non-specific and likely only effective at the onset. Hopefully it is still early and most callers just have flu or cold.

In Japan, it works a bit differently. People who have a cold go to the local clinic. If the clinic is worried, then they send the patient to the hospital. It's also pretty normal to go to the clinic even if your symptoms aren't severe -- just for a cold. I suspect the "stay at home for 4 days" is meant to stop people from congregating at the clinic.

Ideally however you deliver a mask to them before they very outside their home so they don't infect taxi drivers, bus drivers, uber drivers and other passengers.

Only people driving to the clinic in their own car are less likely to infect their compatriots

I strongly suspect those cheap little surgical masks most people wear are close to useless, as they are incredibly porous and allow completely unfiltered air to get in through the sides of the mask.

A P100 or at least an N95 respirator would be far more effective, but most people aren't going to wear those, unfortunately.

They're meant to prevent already sick people from spreading particulate when they cough or sneeze.

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