Coronavirus Declared Pandemic by World Health Organization | Hacker News Reader

Coronavirus Declared Pandemic by World Health Organization

wsj.com

102 pointsJumpCrisscross21 comments

I am on the east coast and all of the universities have closed -- but people are still acting strange about WFH at my product company(which has full remote devs and other employees, regular WFH days, etc).

It is disheartening to be made to feel 'tinfoil hat' for staying home. The stuff coming out of italy(https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/k7ex4a/coronavirus-has-no...) is very scary.

It's better to be safe than sorry. I've cited "frequent contact with elderlies" and one of my reasons for a request to WFH (not easy as a contractor), as I don't want to increase the transmission surface area for them.

Thank you. A lot of people think there's no big deal. The major ones to suffer are the elderly, and to walk about because you're invincible doesn't mean you're doing the world a favor. You're possibly helping the spread to elderly people.

Cheers. I've been sitting on that email to my PM since the weekend, then yesterday finally I heard this on the radio which validated my feelings (listen from 26:00 onwards):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000g3j9

Summary: Dr. Sarah Jarvis saying don't be so gung ho about the virus, because you might be a transmitter to the more vulnerable.

Anyone know where you can find information on the demographics of those affected in Italy?

I wish more outlets were doing more to give us age data.

I saw this released earlier today: https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Bolletti...

Basically, of the 357 deaths in this report from Italy March 09, 0 below 40:

40-49 1

50-59 3

60-69 37

70-79 114

≥80 202

This has been updated today: https://imgur.com/a/UUWnX3p (it's in Italian, but probably it can be understood easily)

any idea on severity stats? how many people within each cohort are severe (i.e. require hospitalisation)?

Yesterday article that is relevant:

"Critics take aim at ‘failure’ of bond designed to fight disease \ Instruments issued by World Bank have yet to pay out to combat the coronavirus"

https://www.ft.com/content/a6239e12-5ec7-11ea-b0ab-339c2307b...

What happens when the WHO classifies a pandemic? I imagine a number of processes and procedures come into effect--anybody know what they are?

My limited understanding understanding is that it automatically releases funding (from the WHO and other bodies) to help with the crisis. It should also trigger some catastrophe and pandemic bond clauses, meaning investors who bought these bonds will lose their money as it now goes towards relief funding.

Pandemic bond clauses? Why does this sound like people gambling against the world not having a pandemic

That's basically what it is. Another way to think about it is it's a way for the World Bank / WHO to buy insurance against pandemics. Sell high yield bonds that default when a pandemic happens.

Does anyone know how many times the WHO has declared Pandemics in its history?

The last was H1N1 (swine flu) outbreak, which killed hundreds of thousands of people. It was declared a pandemic by the WHO in 2009.

And they got a right old bludgeoning because it triggered a number of costly 'delay' - as opposed to 'containment' processes in various countries which angered some people as unnecessary.

As I understand it WHO changed the definition of what a pandemic is in ~2009. So take comparisons to earlier pandemics with a grain of salt.

Better late than never

Everyone with a half brain knew it weeks ago.

congrats ?

Please don't do this here.

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