The good news is the virus is not too risky for an individual, excepting those who are old and with pre-existing conditions. The bad news is that there will likely be a lot of deaths in aggregate, globally. The other bad news is that the virus has been highly disruptive socially and economically in every country when the infection rate has started to climb.
The best we can do is calmly make preparations for how things will change.
A side project I'm working on uses a key component from a Chinese manufacturer. Their factory has been shut indefinitely and we are 40 days behind schedule. My rep told me that while they've been working on the marketing/tech side of things from home, the factory can't open since workers are simply refusing to show up, and neither coercion or incentives seem to help.
The only real uncertainty at this point is if the HN/reddit fever-dream scenario of overwhelmed hospitals plays out, outside of Wuhan.
So far, it has not.
Those of you thinking "oh I'm a healthy young person I'm just gonna carry on doing what I'm doing" is gonna be in for a rude awakening.
Can't find exactly where I read it but it's e.g. mentioned here: https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-cor...
> The fact that patients not displaying symptoms are able to transmit the coronavirus indicates something alarming. As typically such respiratory viruses are normally transmitted thru the mouth via coughing in which minute droplets are exposed or thru the nose when the nasal fluids are released through sneezing or blowing of the nose.
> If a person is not showing any symptoms, then the only possible means is through the exhaled air of the infected individual, which implies that the virus is an extremely potent airborne pathogen.
People who aren't sick still cough/sneeze/blow their nose sometimes. (Especially so in the case of people with allergies, but everyone does it a bit.)
And surely people could transmit the disease through saliva (or other fluids) spread via their hands. People touch their face, pick their teeth, eat with their hands, pick their nose, bite their nails, etc. etc.
Then there is the possibility of transmission through shared meals, or even inadequately washed cutlery etc.
Don't get me wrong, asymptomatic spread is scary, and it probably provides some evidence in favour of airborne transmission. But I don't see how they can make such an absolute statement, when there seem to be other available explanations.
I know, and I thought that was what we were discussing: how strong is the evidence for airborne transmission.
> How do you expect asymptomatic infected individuals to spread the virus?
I gave a bunch of possibilities in my previous reply.
> The viral load is highest in the nose
Higher in the nose than the throat, according to the Medpagetoday article, but that doesn't imply it is absent from the throat -- rather the opposite, otherwise they would have phrased it differently. And people do pick and blow their noses, and sneeze occasionally even when healthy, so it's not like breathing is the only possible route out of the nose. Not to mention the connectedness of nose and throat, which makes it hard for me to imagine a virus being present in the nose but reliably absent from saliva.
I'm not arguing that airborne transmission is unlikely -- I don't know, and am trying to form an opinion. Which is why I'm questioning the argument that it is definitely happening, and responsible for all asymptomatic contagion: it seems overstated to me, but if I'm missing key background facts, I'd like to learn them.
Treatment protocols at UCD Medical Center mentions airborne precautions after the patient tested positive.
Airborne transmission was also seen in China.
https://mobile.twitter.com/farnazfassihi/status/123245395758...
The international flocking of people to one already overcrowded location is another.
If cancelled, this’ll be the second time an Olympic Games in Tokyo is cancelled, that I personally find hilarious, but a lot will be fuming embarrassed, especially if historians later likely is to mark it an uneducated overreaction.
Or are we expecting it to mutate similar to cold n flu viruse?
Everything I've read suggests that Coronaviruses are more stable, genetically speaking, than the flu.
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/its-possible-...
By more stable you mean less likely to mutate?
Would that mean a vaccine would be more effective in protecting against covid19 than a regular seasonaly changing flu?
> Coronavirus non-structural proteins provide extra fidelity to replication, because they confer a proofreading function, which is lacking in RNA-dependent RNA polymerase enzymes alone
Edit - on the more worrying side of things this article (https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/14-of-recovered-...) was released today saying 14% of recovered patients Guangdong tested positive for the the virus. One of the more annoying things during this is that I have no idea which sources are awful tabloids and which are trustworthy like I do in the anglosphere.
There isn't data about mutation yet.
"The World Cup is the most prestigious association football tournament in the world, as well as the most widely viewed and followed sporting event in the world, exceeding even the Olympic Games"[1]
Only the tech 'wizards' from SV, have a monopoly on truth don't you know. The Orwellian censorship that has been unleashed by these idiots will do the world much more harm in the long run than we're led to believe.
Actually .... https://twitter.com/mlipsitch
(FWIW, based on the threads I saw and participated in I don't think that's really accurate; there seemed to be a range of opinions, with plenty of people playing it down but also plenty taking it seriously.)
Many years back I read The Coming Plague about epidemiology and the disease cowboys who fight it. There is always a coming plague, known or novel. It was only a matter of time before we got a repeat of the Spanish Flu, or the Black Death. If not this time, then someday. Thinking otherwise is folly.
It is because if they miss the fox a single time they are dead.
If they run away 999 times without needing to, it's no big deal. Making a lot of noise so other chickens run away too helps the herd.
You can laugh at the chickens, but the chickens you laugh at, are the kind of animals who survives.
The same are true for wolves: they run away from humans because they are too great a risk of injury compared to the size of the meal.
If you aren't willing to run away when not absolutely required, you will miss the one time you really needed to.
There is a cost to living in a constant state of fear and preparation, the opportunity costs are massive.
Humans don't have to look at an animal for a few days to figure out if it's a mouse or a fox.
But for people infected with the Coronavirus we are not more capable: the first 2-14 days a person is infected with the Coronavirus we cannot see it. Only medical tests can, and we can't test everybody around us.
So the smartest might be to run away 100 times to avoid the single person who is infected.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-incuba...
I'm trying to be charitable here...am I reading this correctly?
With the 1918 influenza, 1.7% of the world population died, many of them young people. This was still very traumatic to society, despite the fact that Europe had done its level best to kill young men for the previous four years in the trenches.
Right now, influenza has killed more than COVID-19, but people tend not to worry about that. Not new enough. About 300000 people a year die from influenza in a quiet year. Take your flu shots every year, people.
This one might be a virus but past pandemics like the Black Plague were bacterial in nature.