[Tattersail_]

Hospital round the corner has 4 confirmed cases of Coronavirus. Fuck sake.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

A PDF from UpToDate highlighting everything we know about covid-19 so far: https://www.dropbox....VID-19.pdf?dl=0

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 24 February 2020 - 01:32 PM

[Gorefest]

Tattersail_, on 23 February 2020 - 05:29 PM, said:

Hospital round the corner has 4 confirmed cases of Coronavirus. Fuck sake.

There are two confirmed cases now in the hospital that I work in (cruise ship returnees). Some of my direct colleagues are the clinicians that attend to these workers. It is getting close!

Still think it is all a bit of a storm in a teacup, but time will tell.

[Kanese S's]

Morgoth, on 22 February 2020 - 09:13 AM, said:

Amnesty International, another CIA front, also released a major investigation on the Uighur's. Thankfully we have these serious and well established news sites to tell us how all that is wrong.

Yes.

[Tsundoku]

Kanese S, on 24 February 2020 - 10:09 PM, said:

Morgoth, on 22 February 2020 - 09:13 AM, said:

Amnesty International, another CIA front, also released a major investigation on the Uighur's. Thankfully we have these serious and well established news sites to tell us how all that is wrong.

Yes.

Interesting source.

https://en.wikipedia.../MintPress_News

But then again, who in the media doesn't have an agenda or bias these days? Even the smaller, so-called "citizen", "collaborative" or "free" sourced sites.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 25 February 2020 - 09:12 AM

[D'rek]

Moderator Warning


Hey everyone, it turns out this is the Discussion Sub-Forum. One-word replies aren't discussion. Neg-repping someone who disagrees with you and tagging it with just "racist" isn't discussion, either, and is reprehensible behaviour. If you can't or don't want to discuss things in a calm, rational manner, then don't post in this sub-forum (and don't rep in it either). And be nice.

Failure to abide will get you banned for a while.

[Mezla PigDog]

Did somebody say pandemic?

There will be a huge number of mild cases that have not been diagnosed so the kill rate has to be considerably lower than the 2.2% being touted. Only a matter of time before it is declared now.

[Malankazooie]

Saw some news coverage that Summer Olympics may be in jeopardy (ie. cancelled).

[Mezla PigDog]

Guys guys guys. Don't ruin my favourite pandemic apocalypse thread.

[Mezla PigDog]

The Olympics is at stake. We can all be as racist as we like but I need to see who wins the Modern Pentathlon.

[Malankazooie]

I'm a Dressage guy myself. Horses can't contract COVID-19, can they?

[Kanese S's]

Mezla PigDog, on 25 February 2020 - 10:28 PM, said:

The Olympics is at stake. We can all be as racist as we like but I need to see who wins the Modern Pentathlon.

Cancelling the Olympics because of Coronavirus... like cancelling the Superbowl because of the flu season (which has killed more people this season than Coronavirus).

[Aptorian]

Mezla PigDog, on 25 February 2020 - 10:28 PM, said:

The Olympics is at stake. We can all be as racist as we like but I need to see who wins the Modern Pentathlon.

I'd be such a shame if certain governments around the world had to postpone national elections indefinitely this year.

[Tsundoku]

Aptorian, on 26 February 2020 - 07:10 AM, said:

Mezla PigDog, on 25 February 2020 - 10:28 PM, said:

The Olympics is at stake. We can all be as racist as we like but I need to see who wins the Modern Pentathlon.

I'd be such a shame if certain governments around the world had to postpone national elections indefinitely this year.

"... just until the current emergency is over ..."



Bit of a long shot in most western nations, but I'll bet you that somewhere the thought has at least crossed the minds of small elements of goverment or the bureaucracy. [EDIT] Or Big Business.
What would it take - a National Emergency?

What a cheery thought.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 26 February 2020 - 08:09 AM

[Maark Abbott]

Gorefest, on 24 February 2020 - 01:57 PM, said:

Tattersail_, on 23 February 2020 - 05:29 PM, said:

Hospital round the corner has 4 confirmed cases of Coronavirus. Fuck sake.

There are two confirmed cases now in the hospital that I work in (cruise ship returnees). Some of my direct colleagues are the clinicians that attend to these workers. It is getting close!

Still think it is all a bit of a storm in a teacup, but time will tell.

Seems my comment got delet, but my response to you was 'keep it up the hill I can see from my office window thanks'.

[Gorefest]

Mezla PigDog, on 25 February 2020 - 07:20 PM, said:

Did somebody say pandemic?

There will be a huge number of mild cases that have not been diagnosed so the kill rate has to be considerably lower than the 2.2% being touted. Only a matter of time before it is declared now.

Not sure if the kill rate will be going down that much, to be honest. Don't forget that presently SARS has a recorded kill rate of around 9.5% and MERS even around 34%, so it is not that much of a stretch to consider 2-3% for COVID-19 a realistic number. In comparison, the seasonal flu I think has a kill rate of less than 0.1%. COVID-19 does seem to be spreading a lot quicker than SARS and MERS though, which potentially drastically bumps up the quantitative numbers. Already COVID-19 has killed more people than SARs and MERS combined. Still nowhere near the seasonal flu though, but of course with flu at least we have effective vaccination in place and we know that it tends to die away in spring time.

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 26 February 2020 - 11:48 AM

[QuickTidal]

Re: The Olympics.

It's much less concerning for the athletes (I mean it would be concerning, and in some cases quite a crappy thing for their careers)...but no one is talking about how this affects the host city of Tokyo. The sheer amount of $$$ and infrastructure that's been shoved into this event would be a staggering loss for Tokyo (and possibly Japan as a whole) if it were cancelled. Olympics are EXPENSIVE AF, and the expense is always weighed against tourism dollars....so without that latter quotient it would be disastrous for the people of that city.

I'm not for or against cancelling them...I'm just voicing the thing I am not seeing when it's mentioned, that Tokyo would suffer the worst from a cancellation. A Delay would be better.

[Mezla PigDog]

Gorefest, on 26 February 2020 - 11:47 AM, said:

Mezla PigDog, on 25 February 2020 - 07:20 PM, said:

Did somebody say pandemic?

There will be a huge number of mild cases that have not been diagnosed so the kill rate has to be considerably lower than the 2.2% being touted. Only a matter of time before it is declared now.

Not sure if the kill rate will be going down that much, to be honest. Don't forget that presently SARS has a recorded kill rate of around 9.5% and MERS even around 34%, so it is not that much of a stretch to consider 2-3% for COVID-19 a realistic number. In comparison, the seasonal flu I think has a kill rate of less than 0.1%. COVID-19 does seem to be spreading a lot quicker than SARS and MERS though, which potentially drastically bumps up the quantitative numbers. Already COVID-19 has killed more people than SARs and MERS combined. Still nowhere near the seasonal flu though, but of course with flu at least we have effective vaccination in place and we know that it tends to die away in spring time.

I don't know. I work in the IVD industry and the news we are hearing is that the tests aren't very accurate. Even if they were, in China they had manufacturing problems due to the speed and scale up needed. Due to the numbers infected and potentially infected there haven't been proper studies to know when the best time after infection to sample, or what body fluid or body site to sample. There will be no concrete data on sensitivity, specificity, reproducibility etc. No gold standard comparator so who says a negative or positive is true? The answer is clinical symptoms but only the most seriously affected will be receiving care in most severely hit places. WHO and national labs in China and developed countries will be working on all of this but there is no way they will have accurate numbers from even suspected cases, nevermind those with a mild cold who stay at home or have no reason to think they are infected. MERS and SARS were more localised so the studies could be conducted in a more controlled manner and you didn't have the numbers of infected asymptomatic carriers.

None of this should alarm the casual onlooker - just standard industry stuff. I genuinely think the number of infections in affected locations will be a lot higher than reported.

[Gorefest]

Oh, I fully appreciate that it is too early to tell, but based on the projected spread and in line with reports from more localised and controlled environments (e.g. the various cruiseship outbreaks) the 2-3% figure does not seem that far-fetched. As you say, there is a good chance that a lot of cases will have gone unreported, which could push the CFR percentage down. But similarly there might be a lot of misidentified cases which have been flagged up as .e.g flu which may turn out to be COVID-19. All they have to go on at present is the latest confirmed infection data and comparisons with the closest related pandemic pathogens (SARS and MERS), which all suggest that 2% is already quite a conservative estimate. The currently reported 2.3% CFR is based on a study of around 70,000 confirmed patients in China, which closely matches the data from the Diamond Princess cruise ship (although one could argue that the age demographic on cruise ships tends to be biased towards elderly people, who are more at risk of serious complications). Hopefully it will come down, of course. But the global vigilance is understandable, seeing that at present it flags up as 20-30x more deadly than the seasonal flu with a far higher infection rate than previous coronaviruses and little insight into its origins and kinetics (will it die down in spring-time, like the flu does, or is it not susceptible to temperatue changes etc?). Plus there currently are no means of protecting ourselves against it, i.e. no vaccines etc.

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 26 February 2020 - 02:32 PM

[Obdigore]

Gorefest, on 26 February 2020 - 02:30 PM, said:

Oh, I fully appreciate that it is too early to tell, but based on the projected spread and in line with reports from more localised and controlled environments (e.g. the various cruiseship outbreaks) the 2-3% figure does not seem that far-fetched. As you say, there is a good chance that a lot of cases will have gone unreported, which could push the CFR percentage down. But similarly there might be a lot of misidentified cases which have been flagged up as .e.g flu which may turn out to be COVID-19. All they have to go on at present is the latest confirmed infection data and comparisons with the closest related pandemic pathogens (SARS and MERS), which all suggest that 2% is already quite a conservative estimate. The currently reported 2.3% CFR is based on a study of around 70,000 confirmed patients in China, which closely matches the data from the Diamond Princess cruise ship (although one could argue that the age demographic on cruise ships tends to be biased towards elderly people, who are more at risk of serious complications). Hopefully it will come down, of course. But the global vigilance is understandable, seeing that at present it flags up as 20-30x more deadly than the seasonal flu with a far higher infection rate than previous coronaviruses and little insight into its origins and kinetics (will it die down in spring-time, like the flu does, or is it not susceptible to temperatue changes etc?). Plus there currently are no means of protecting ourselves against it, i.e. no vaccines etc.

I'm by no means a doctor, immunologist, or anything else in that field, but my understanding is that this is almost exactly as deadly as the 'common flu', but we have vaccines for the at risk population for that strain, and nothing for the Coronavirus, which is why it's death toll is deadlier, the elderly and young are getting hit hard.

Is that correct? I know some of you have much more advanced medical training/knowledge than I do.

This post has been edited by Obdigore: 26 February 2020 - 04:03 PM