Ask HN: What's Missing from Covid19 Reporting?
What questions do you have about covid19 that seem important but aren't being asked/answered in public forums?
(I'll post my own below)
(I'll post my own below)
(a) People who have actual, uncontrolled high BP?
(b) People who would have high BP, but don't because it's controlled by medication?
(c) People who are taking specific BP-controlling meds?
(d) Some combo of (a), (b), (c)?
Back of the napkin numbers to get someone's attention:
deaths today / CFR of 0.009 = cases three weeks ago
cases three weeks ago * 7 three day doublings = cases today
http://hyperdrive.ca/coronavirus/index.php
And in the "4 out of 5 dentists agree" category:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/experts-say-the-coronav...
I'm assuming there are some basic principles that apply to any virus, but I don't know what they are and have found it difficult to get find meaningful information.
2. If lowering frequency and density of exposure reduces infection rate - as the papers that Google surfaces when querying this kind of thing suggest - does this mean that social distancing could be more than a knee-jerk means of reducing the stress of the healthcare system? Could it form the basis of a long-term containment strategy?
3. Would it be possible to randomly test high-traffic areas (grocery stores and gas stations in the US) to get a better sense for how this disease is spreading? Why are we not doing this?
The lab was breeding viruses the old-fashioned way long before modern gene-editing technology was invented. Bat coronaviruses would be mixed with other viruses and repeatedly passed through human cells. That leaves no evidence in the genome. It looks just like natural selection.
The virus labs in China have had several other dangerous accidents that let viruses get out. Those previous accidents were gotten under control. With this one, we weren't so lucky. I think the lesson is clear: don't screw around making deadly viruses when your biohazard containment is substandard. Maybe just don't attempt it under any conditions.
There is a difference between "seems obviously correct" and "proven well enough to avoid a lawsuit".
China exerts control over American media companies. Ones that don't play ball get banned in China. Remember that these companies are usually involved in many businesses, including the sale of movies to China's large population. Everybody is afraid to upset China.
Even the publisher of Nature has ditched about 1000 articles that were upsetting to the Chinese government.
Much of the US media is strongly in opposition to the US president. (They even stopped airing his virus updates, despite good ratings, because it was making him look good.) There is no desire to spread any news that could support his opposition to China.
1. The Chinese initially tried cover up and conceal reports new of the virus. E.g., the police intimidation of Dr. Li Wenliang before he succumb to the virus.
2. Wuhan, where the virus was first reported, is coincidentally China's best and only BSL-4 virus research lab, specifically focused on SARS. COVID is a close relation to SARS.
3. Chinese were caught doing unethical and dangerous DNS editing on human embryos. China later sent this "rouge" scientist to prison after a raucous global outcry.
4. Its been reported some Chinese researchers sell laboratory animals to street vendors after they have finished experimenting on them.
All this said, I don't think China deliberately released released virus. More likely, this will turn out to be China's Chernobyl. Plain and simple greedy incompetent people.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/world/asia/china-coronavi...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7922379/Chinas-la...
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dont-buy-chinas-story-the-...
The absence of a confirmed source does not put disproven conspiracy theories about its origin on the same footing as actual science.
Well, so what? People aren't generally making that claim. The only thing disproven is a straw man.
Nothing in the article rules out the possibility of a lab creating the virus via conventional breeding, by passing the virus through human cells and/or by infecting cells simultaneously with human viruses. Nothing in the article rules out the possibility of a lab accident; indeed there have been several lab accidents in China that released dangerous viruses.
Look at this research:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18077725
It is 2008 research from the lab in Wuhan. They created a virus by combining SARS-CoV with HIV, targeting the human ACE2 molecule as receptor. These features match those of our current pandemic. (India reported the HIV link, and the use of ACE2 is widely known)
We shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the possibility. Note also that China is actively trying to point people away from this line of inquiry. We should resist that effort.
It's worth remembering that the very term "conspiracy theory" was first used to deflect attention from an actual conspiracy. It was a very successful psy-op, and it lives on to this day.
But I'm also a Chinese agent, so take that with a grain of salt.
That is a straw man. I'm definitely not claiming that any such technology was used. The virus modifications in the Wuhan lab are older than the existence of most of that technology.
We didn't need modern technology to create the dog from the wolf. It's the same here, with viruses.
Breeding viruses in a lab is not detectable compared to what happens in nature.
We fully expected an outbreak like this to happen eventually, and yet somehow having the expected result occur has spawned accusations of it being an American or Chinese plot.
This has led to a situation where we think (for example) 2% of positive cases die, when in reality, there may be millions of positive untested cases resolving without issue.
In China: Total Confirmed = 81,782 Total Recovered = 74,181 Total Dead = 3,291 -------------------------- Remaining = 4,370
* I am assuming the number 4,370 will fall either into Recovered or Dead.
Can someone confirm this theory?
Is this going to the same for US?
Total Confirmed Cases = 69,684 Total Recovered = 619 Total Dead = 1,049 -------------------------------- Remaining = 68,016
Does this mean the fate of 68,016 not known yet in US? A similar concerning number exists for Italy too.
15-20% will need hospitalization. ~5% will need ICUs.
0.5%-5% will die depending on whether the medical system is overwhelmed.
This would allow crowd sourcing and statistics to be applied by the best minds in the world.
I know regulations can make this difficult but many difficult boundaries are being pressed now.
e.g. yesterday, Gov. Newsom went on the radio and said something along the lines of "half of people hospitalized were 18-60" (paraphrasing, don't remember the numbers exactly, etc). But something like 2/3rds of our population is that age!
Another thing would be statistics on triage as the outbreak overwhelmed Italy. I'd like to know who was going to the hospitals, who was admitted, who needed to be in the ICU, etc, and how the profile of patients changed as beds got filled.
Nutrition. I've already noticed food purchasing has changed at my local stores. I would like to know if we're exasperating our public health crisis by ruining our diets and if we should be concerned about that moving forward.
And finally, alcohol and drug consumption - particularly by millenials. Anecdotally, many of my peers are drinking a lot more regularly than they normally would during the day and week. There are plenty of memes about it, but I'd like to know if we're looking for hope at the bottom of a bottle for the next few months.
Then bonus points would be a column showing the mortality rate of a person in that country.
For instance an 80 yo in the US has a 6% mortality.
I've read a few things from epidemiologists, but there seems to be little discussion in the wider media.
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-th...
2. What's going on with the PCR reagent shortage? Where are they produced? Why is it hard to make it quickly? etc.
Why be so vague? It seems like more detail would help people identify their personal risk level.
(Edited for tone.)
But I've only heard speculation about this - never an explanation from someone closer to the source.
We all watch what the stock market does every day. Let’s start watching what these trials are doing every day. Really put the spotlight on these folks.
I feel like as a population we’re acting too much like victims. Let’s take charge of this.