WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency

Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by nostrademons on Thursday January 30, 2020 @07:55PM (#22197848)

Looking only at hospitalized populations creates severe selection bias when applied to the question people want answered here, namely "If I get nCOV, what's my chance of dying?" Only the most severe cases a physician sees end up hospitalized, and only the most severe cases within the general population end up being seen by a physician and confirmed as nCOV. You've already got two levels of selection bias (with an unknown percentage passing through each filter) before reaching the denominator in your numbers.

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Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by pmoriarty on Thursday January 30, 2020 @10:35PM (#22198790)

Not only that, but Wuhan's hospitals and health care system in general seem to be overwhelmed.

In other places that are better prepared and which have more resources the outcomes will likely be better, in worse prepared places with fewer resources the outcomes will likely be worse.

Let's keep that in mind before we extrapolate from Wuhan to the rest of the world.

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Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by mrb on Thursday January 30, 2020 @09:59PM (#22198593)

Correct there is a bias. However even when comparing the coronavirus to the seasonal flu (hospitalized patients only), the coronavirus still looks much more severe:

Only 7% of hospitalized flu cases died in 2018-2019 (34 157 out of 490,561): https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html The coronavirus would thus appear to be 4 times more deadly (26%.)

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Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by _-___________-_ on Friday January 31, 2020 @06:54AM (#22200931)

Or the hospitals are more overwhelmed now, so only the sickest patients are being admitted.

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Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by alasdair_ on Friday January 31, 2020 @02:05AM (#22199728)

I suspect that “chance of dying” varies based on treatment, and that treatment in an overwhelmed Wuhan hospital is likely not the same as treatment as, say, the first patient in France to get the disease.

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Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by bra4you on Friday January 31, 2020 @03:42AM (#22200101)

"I suspect that “chance of dying” varies based on treatment, "

I doubt this. WHile this may be true for a known disease, we have to ask, how much can the hospital do in this cases? It is a little bit like HIV in the beginning. Watch them die?

Interestingly, China is trying HIV medications on the infected.

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Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by hybrid_cluster on Friday January 31, 2020 @04:17AM (#22200237)

One of the main causes of death of the new coronavirus seems to be Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). This can be treated fairly effectively with ventilation, but such treatment would obviously require a bed, ventilation system, and attentive nurses, at the very least. It's easy to imagine how these requirements may currently not be met for all patients with ARDS symptoms in Wuhan.

For more info on ARDS and treatment in the context of the current pandemic, see this informative explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okg7uq_HrhQ

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