COVID-19/Coronavirus Information and Support Thread (see OP for useful links)

  • Thread starter baldgye
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Famine
Unless you're getting a full face respirator, the masks are not much cop at stopping you from breathing in nCoV (or getting it in your nice moist eyes, more to the point). They're pretty useful to stop people who already have it spewing it out though.
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Wouldn't they be useful to prevent people from stuffing their nCov-greased fat fingers into their mouth though?
 
Dotini
To be more precise, per official statistics 44,653 are currently COVID-19 confirmed in China, with 8,204 (21.4%) in serious or critical condition. 1113 have died.
As the epidemic expands, it is this persistent ~20% who must be hospitalized that is going to be a problem,
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Not sure how that makes my post more precise, but never mind.

You have to remember that the number of people "in a serious or critical condition" doesn't directly implicate the virus with the seriousness of their condition - it literally just means the number of people who have tested positive for the virus who are currently seriously ill (but that also includes people who were already ill prior to infection).

While it is likely that a fair number of these cases are a direct result of infection with Covid-19, it shouldn't be assumed that the virus is wholly responsible for why each person is now seriously ill (or has died). A crude example being, if someone with terminal cancer gets the virus and passes away, it is not possible to say how deadly the virus was to that person because of their underlying condition. In some cases, it might have had little to no impact, in others it might have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back - and in others (the worst-case scenario) it may be the sole reason that someone has become seriously ill. In reality, it will be a mixture of all of these.

To put things in perspective, if the same proportion of people get admitted to hospital each day in China as they do in the UK, then that means that well over 750,000 people are admitted to hospital in China every day. In the 2 months since this outbreak began, that means a staggering 50 million people have been admitted to hospital in China, and over 400,000 in the city of Wuhan alone.

I suppose the real question is, how much more likely does the virus make developing a life-threatening condition? That's very tough to answer, but I wouldn't be too alarmed by the raw numbers without a more detailed analysis of what impact the virus actually has.
 
Touring Mars
Not sure how that makes my post more precise, but never mind.

You have to remember that the number of people "in a serious or critical condition" doesn't directly implicate the virus with the seriousness of their condition - it literally just means the number of people who have tested positive for the virus who are currently seriously ill (but that also includes people who were already ill prior to infection).

While it is likely that a fair number of these cases are a direct result of infection with Covid-19, it shouldn't be assumed that the virus is wholly responsible for why each person is now seriously ill (or has died). A crude example being, if someone with terminal cancer gets the virus and passes away, it is not possible to say how deadly the virus was to that person because of their underlying condition. In some cases, it might have had little to no impact, in others it might have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back - and in others (the worst-case scenario) it may be the sole reason that someone has become seriously ill. In reality, it will be a mixture of all of these.

To put things in perspective, if the same proportion of people get admitted to hospital each day in China as they do in the UK, then that means that well over 750,000 people are admitted to hospital in China every day. In the 2 months since this outbreak began, that means a staggering 50 million people have been admitted to hospital in China, and over 400,000 in the city of Wuhan alone.

I suppose the real question is, how much more likely does the virus make developing a life-threatening condition? That's very tough to answer, but I wouldn't be too alarmed by the raw numbers without a more detailed analysis of what impact the virus actually has.
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I'm obviously having a tough time communicating with you, so I'm going to give up for the time being.
 
Famine
Unless you're getting a full face respirator, the masks are not much cop at stopping you from breathing in nCoV (or getting it in your nice moist eyes, more to the point). They're pretty useful to stop people who already have it spewing it out though.
Click to expand...

Diving goggles and a filter mask. And if the poop really hits the fan, I'm going full hazmat. Spread the panic. Only open up the suit to cough.
 
Just watched the daily coronavirus special on CNBC. Highlights:

- nearly 15,000 new confirmed cases in Hubei today
(cases clinically diagnosed with cat scans due to lack of test kits)​
- over 250 new deaths today
total confirmed infected 60,145; total deaths 1365​
- sustained person to person transmission appears to be occurring in Singapore and Hong Kong
a two to four week delay is expected before this happens in the US​
- unreliability of CDC test kits a focus for improvement
much better kits to be available in April​
- about 20% of all confirmed cases are requiring hospitalization (serious/critical) for pneumonia/lower lung infection
- aerosol transmission still under investigation
- hardest hit seem to be healthy males between 20 and 50 due to cytokine responses
 
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Famine
Unless you're getting a full face respirator, the masks are not much cop at stopping you from breathing in nCoV (or getting it in your nice moist eyes, more to the point). They're pretty useful to stop people who already have it spewing it out though.
Click to expand...
This is what I’ve been told by a couple locals here in Japan, when asking about masks, that most people wearing them are wanting to prevent others. My buddy’s wife has a bit of a cough though, so one person suggested she get a mask ASAP to avoid social distance/dirty looks. People here are very calm but cautious about it, so they’ve been difficult to find for the most part but they are available here.
 
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@baldgye Is it a question here, in anybody's mind, as to why it might appear this virus is affecting East Asians much more than other populations? Or is this taboo to discuss in this thread?
 
It's not 'taboo' but I'd politely suggest you'd be wasting your time discussing this while the viral outbreak is potentially still in its infancy.

If the outbreak had occurred in, say, London but disproportiate numbers of Asian people were falling ill, then there might be a discussion point... but given that the outbreak is in East Asia, it is not all that surprising that it is (currently) affecting mostly East Asian people.
 
Dotini
@baldgye Is it a question here, in anybody's mind, as to why it might appear this virus is affecting East Asians much more than other populations? Or is this taboo to discuss in this thread?
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If you are suggesting that this virus affects certain races more than others, you'd have to back it up.
I can't see that as a link, China is, for the most part, a country of poor people working and living in poor conditions. Which is probably why the death toll has been so bad and why it's spread so quickly throughout the nation/region. The fact they're all geographically close to one another is probably the contributing factor, rather than race.
 
baldgye
If you are suggesting that this virus affects certain races more than others, you'd have to back it up.
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I can back it up. But so far only by not-yet peer reviewed science papers and informed speculation by "a retired professional scientist with 30 years of experience in genomic sequencing and analysis who helped design several ubiquitous bioinformatic software tools, and a former NSA counterterrorism analyst."

If that's not sufficient to satisfy your expected personal standards (and of course those of the forum in general) then I will refrain from posting on this particular issue in this thread.

@Touring Mars
I have lots of time to waste. But does the forum?
If my information is correct, this virus strain will not ever affect the West more than ~20% of its affect on the East.

At this point, I'm tempted to take my information to the Conspiracy thread.
 
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It will be some time before you would be able to back that up with data, @Dotini. Given that the outbreak is in China, and most of the international cases are still directly tied to visits to Wuhan/Hubei it would be expected that most of the cases are people of Chinese/East Asian origin. Even the first round of secondary transmissions US/Europe will probably be mostly the same demographic because for better or worse, people generally associate with people 'from home' when living abroad.

It may end up being correct, as some afflictions do have racial disparities (hemophilia, alcohol dehydrogenase deficiency etc), but it is conspiracy thread material for now.

You are welcome to post links to the material written by these folks, there are at least a couple of us who have posted on this page alone who are paid to (among other things) read scientific literature.
 
Dotini
I can back it up. But so far only by not-yet peer reviewed science papers and informed speculation by "a retired professional scientist with 30 years of experience in genomic sequencing and analysis who helped design several ubiquitous bioinformatic software tools, and a former NSA counterterrorism analyst."
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If it's just one person, then it's probably not accurate. But as @Touring Mars is far more knowledgeable in 'science' and it's processes, I'll defer to him.

It sounds less conspiracy and more just nonsense to be honest.
 
Dotini
What about it, @TouringMars, here, conspiracy or take a hike?
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I'd prefer it to be discussed elsewhere, but only because I think this thread ought to be reserved for events relating to the outbreak for the moment.

The 'Conspiracy' thread is probably the best place for a discussion of the origin of the Covid-19 virus, so please feel free to move it there.
 
So apparently a San Diego lab discovered a vaccine for COVID-19 in 3 hours.
Currently going through pre-clinical trials now.

Same lab did the MERS, Zika and Ebola vaccines.

So we may have a vaccine that will hopefully be mass produced shortly and end this.
 
Touring Mars
Pretty impressive, though an actual, safe, usable vaccine is still some way off.

Maybe we should just be thankful that China isn't (yet) in the thrall of an epidemic of anti-vaxxers.
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If nCov decides to start hating white people too, maybe the US will be cured of that scourge...
 
Here’s one for the conspiracy theorists:

“Shanghai Ruilan Bao Hu San Biotech Limited is a research company that specializes in biotechnology.” This bio lab is located in Wuhan.

Apparently, and people fluent in Chinese can variety, Bao Hu San translates to “Umbrella”.

And here’s the company’s logo



Some people taking it farther, saying Corona is an anagram for Racoon (even though Raccoon has two C’s lol).
 
It’s not so much the IP theft (I have read stories about a Canadian researcher stealing and selling biotech to Chinese labs), it’s more that the name and logo seem to be very close to the name and logo of the biotech research company that unleashed the T-Virus on the world in the Resident Evil franchise.
 
TJ13
So apparently a San Diego lab discovered a vaccine for COVID-19 in 3 hours.
Currently going through pre-clinical trials now.

Same lab did the MERS, Zika and Ebola vaccines.

So we may have a vaccine that will hopefully be mass produced shortly and end this.
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Everything I’ve read said a readily available vaccine for the public is still 9-12 months out. That finding a cure can be done fairly quickly, but it then has to go through testing, documenting/research, and lots of legal checks to make sure it’s completely safe for public use.
 

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