LinvilleGorge

One thing I find interesting is Hong Kong and Singapore's success at containing this. They did a great job taking aggressive early measures but I also wonder if weather has a big impact on this. There has been a lot of speculation that this spread will naturally tails off in the summer as temps and humidity rises because that's often the case with these things. Could HK and Singapore lend credibility to that theory? It'll be interesting to see how things go in the southern hemisphere. That'll tell us if we'll catch a break in the summer.

It's gonna hurt in the meantime economically but I think we'll see one helluva boom on the other side of this.

He's not downplaying. He's just being realistic and not irrationally panicking. Statistically speaking, your last sentence is incorrect. Sure, there are always outlier cases, but the under 40 global mortality rate is 0.2%. This pandemic is primarily about protecting the elderly and immuno-compromised as well as trying to prevent the healthcare system from being overran which would lead to a serious health crisis not just from coronavirus but other medical issues requiring care as well.

Just gonna add this... I don't intend to invite panic. My personal hunch is that the actual mortality rate is significantly lower than the globally reported 3.4% simply because I think there are a LOT of undiagnosed cases. South Korea is pretty much setting the global standard on how to deal with this and have by far the best testing program and their mortality rate is significantly under 1% at 0.6% They're not exactly a young population either with an average age of 41. The average age in the US is 38. The global average is 30. They're probably the best case study right now. The Diamond Princess cruise ship is another good one 705 people ended up testing positive. Six have died. That's a 0.8% mortality rate. It's also worth noting that according to the Cruise Lines International Association, the average cruise passenger is 47, so significantly older than the South Korea population, possibly explaining the higher mortality rate compared to South Korea. Don't panic, but be aware and use precaution.

A vaccine, if one can be developed, is probably a year away. There won't be a cure. It's all about supportive care and trying to minimize the spread the best we can. Over time, the population will likely develop a natural immunoligical resistance but right now there's none with it being a novel virus.

Food for thought for those touting the current "low numbers". These things grow exponentially and we're probably too far into the curve to keep this from overwhelming many of our hospitals soon. There's an expectation for a doubling of cases every 4 days. When you're going from 1 to 2 to 4 to 8 to 16 to 32 it takes awhile for the momentum to build. Three weeks in you're "only" at about 32 infected from patient zero. However, three weeks (six total weeks) after that you're at over 1000. Three more weeks (nine total weeks) you're at over 32,000. Three more weeks (12 total weeks) and you're over a million. Three weeks after that (15 total weeks) you're over 33 million. That's 10% of the US. About two weeks after that (17 weeks) exponential growth has infected the entire US population. That's what exponential growth does. Now that's not going to happen, not everyone is going to be infected and most infected will recover. But we're going to see a huge surge of cases and it's right around the corner.

That was Michael Osterholm director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. What's scary is that his predictions on the way this thing will play out have been spot on so far. He was pounding the drum back in early January that this was going to become a global pandemic unless we took drastic action immediately.

We're running low here. Gonna be some straight from the throne and into the shower action going on soon. LOL!

Their average age is about 47. They're one of the older populations in the world. It's not surprising their mortality rate is trending higher but the current 8% is pretty damn alarming. It's not likely to improve with their healthcare system overrun. I'd be lying if I said I trusted the numbers coming out of China.

Truly asymptomatic? Uncommon. Honestly, it would probably be fair to use the word rare. Mild symptoms that could easily be construed as a run if the mill cold? Yep, very common. Approximately 80% of cases. Most of those people likely aren't seeking treatment and would go undiagnosed even if tests were widely available, which they aren't.

Watch this gif. The young assistant to his left is practically bathing in hand sanitizer. The older assistant to his right seems to be agonizing over the decision to stay sitting there or bail on this situation. https://mobile.twitter.com/bigtengeek/status/1237921261717729282?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1237926172283015168&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fs9e.github.io%2Fiframe%2F2%2Ftwitter.min.html%231237926172283015168

My parents are still relatively young and healthy (they're not 60 yet), but I still have three grandparents living. My paternal grandfather just got out of the hospital for pneumonia and pneumonia will end up killing him one day. His lungs are shot from a lifetime of working in a carbon plant. My paternal grandmother only has half of one of her lungs from a bout of lung cancer over a decade ago. I wouldn't like her odds either. My maternal grandfather is a tough old codger who's pretty healthy for an 82 year old. I'd bet money on him beating it.

If you're relatively young and relatively healthy you're pretty unlikely to die from this, but that's a pretty damn selfish way of looking at things. I'd prefer people to take steps to try to minimize the spread of this disease to protect our elderly and immuno-compromised.

I said earlier that I hope the big take away of this whole thing will be increased acceptance of working remotely. I lied. That would be nice, but I truly hope the big takeaway from this is the realization of the dangers of politicizing EVERYTHING. Science is one of the key things that shouldn't be politicized.

He doesn't like facts and data.

You said something incredibly stupid and I called you on it using actual existing data. You say you understand that this is just beginning yet everything you type clearly demonstrates that you actually don't.

Sigh... Keep chugging that Fox News.

Well, since we're already sitting on 37 that ship has already sailed

You don't seem to comprehend that we (as in the majority of the world) are in the very beginning stages of this. This party hasn't even started yet.

Schools for sure. Honestly, in terms of spread kids are probably the biggest risk factor. This disease seems to be causing no to very mild symptoms in kids for the most part so it's far more likely to go unnoticed among them and far more likely to be spread because good luck keeping a kid from touching their face and being diligent about hand washing, etc.

I didn't mention Italy because it's part of the travel ban. The UK has an active outbreaks and is not. Same with South Korea, hence why they were specifically mentioned.

This. It's already widespread, we just don't realize it yet. 80% of cases are symptomless or mild. Most of those people likely haven't even been to the doctor. The ones who have were likely diagnosed with a cold and told to rest up.

If there's a long term benefit to this whole ordeal, I really hope that it's a more widespread acceptance of working remotely. With the technology available today there are a LOT of jobs that can be done arguably even more efficiently remotely. I've worked remotely for the past 11 years. Fug going to an office for 40+ hours every week.

Yet there's no travel restrictions to South Korea, UK etc. with active outbreaks. The travel restrictions seem to have no reasonable logic behind them.

Doesn't matter. There's already plenty of carriers right here.