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Covid 19 virus

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hamster_nz:

--- Quote from: vad on March 12, 2020, 01:26:32 am ---The epidemic (or pandemic) is already out of control. It is spreading in communities at exponential rate. Such exponential spread can only stop when majority of the population (on the order of magnitude of 50%) gets immunity either through contracting the disease or through vaccination.

--- End quote ---

There is a third option.. change the environment to reduce transmission to less than one new case per infection, and wait for everybody to get better. The better you do this, the quicker it will drop.

Wash you hands, keep your distance from others, and stay at home if sick.

I'm sure you agree that it appears to have worked for China - they aren't vaccinated nor have 750M+ people been infected.


--- Quote ---As for tracking test results... In open countries, like the US, there is the limit on how many positive tests the country can report each day (determined by the number of available test kits, lab throughput, qualification criteria determined by bureaucrats, etc.).

--- End quote ---

 :bullshit: - there is just a lack of willingness to do so. A resistance to the decentralization of power.

vad:

--- Quote from: hamster_nz on March 12, 2020, 01:37:39 am ---
--- Quote from: vad on March 12, 2020, 01:26:32 am ---The epidemic (or pandemic) is already out of control. It is spreading in communities at exponential rate. Such exponential spread can only stop when majority of the population (on the order of magnitude of 50%) gets immunity either through contracting the disease or through vaccination.

--- End quote ---

There is a third option.. change the environment to reduce transmission to less than one new case per infection, and wait for everybody to get better. The better you do this, the quicker it will drop.

Wash you hands, keep your distance from others, and stay at home if sick.

I'm sure you agree that it appears to have worked for China - they aren't vaccinated nor have 750M+ people been infected.

--- End quote ---
Because of what we know about the virus (asymptomatic spread, and that the virus can survive for many days outside the host) - I don’t believe that R0 can be dropped below 1.0 by hygiene and social isolation measures alone.

As for China’s numbers - it’s plain BS. Unless entire China is locked up in quarantine (from Shanghai to the smallest village), I don’t believe in those numbers.

edy:
It is because the majority of cases are misconstrued as a common cold or flu, and there are not enough testing kits available, that nobody can really know whether they actually DO have a common cold/flu (which has a 0.5% mortality or lower) or if they have COVID-19 (with it's 3%+ mortality). Therefore, community spread is inevitable if life goes on as usual. The majority of the population will continue to work through a cold and possibly a flu, spreading it to everyone else in their workplace, or students in school, going to social gatherings and so on.

One thing COVID-19 has demonstrated is that it is very contagious and while not particularly deadly (compared to SARS 10%, MERS 50%, Ebola 90% and so on) the fact that it can disseminate to so many people over a short rate of time, and has several times the death rate of the flu (although the number may be overblown because we don't include milder unknown cases), it can still be devastating to our healthcare systems. We already have 30,000 - 60,000 people die each year from the flu, despite vaccination attempts and only a 0.5% mortality (somewhere less than 1% and some say as little as 0.1%).

Now we have a virus that is known to be more deadly than flu by at least several times (estimates vary from 2-3x to over 10x) and absolutely no vaccine, no immunity, and added ON TOP OF all the other cold/flu viruses still out there. So we are battling multiple viruses and particularly nasty ones at that superimposed on each other. Yes the majority of people will be fine but those that aren't will completely overload our healthcare systems. To prevent the collateral damage and keep healthcare systems intact for all the other problems people face, these somewhat draconian measures are the only way to help delay/prevent the inevitable... so at least things "ease in" a little more slowly. Will it cause the "case growth rate" to plateau and reach <1.0x, probably not. But lower rate is better than higher.

DrG:
Today....
EU-US travel banned restricted for 30 Days.
NBA cancels all games after tonight until ?

Seems like it was just a few days ago, it was "I'm not worried at all" and "I've heard we will have a vaccine in 3-4 months".

I don't think it is panic at all, I think that denial and wishful thinking eventually gives way to the harshness of reality. Still, I am optimistic, I think that, in the US, by May, we will be seeing a very different picture.

Like you and everyone else, there are only a few things that I can do and not do, but I can assure you that I am going to hold those that I believe have performed in, what I can only describe as shamefully incompetent manner, accountable...in the voting booth.

james_s:
If this panic keeps up, it won't be too long before we'll have an economic disaster bad enough that nobody will care about a virus anymore, they'll start taking any job they can get to put food on the table.

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