General > General Technical Chat
Working From Home - Impacts of Coronavirus
RRobot:
I don't have a lab at home, ....
Sure you do, that's how you started all of this, in the garage.
PlainName:
--- Quote ---While just a wild assed guess
--- End quote ---
Oh, that's a useful indication then! Can we all treat our own wild-assed guesses as pukka?
--- Quote ---I'd say the actual death rate is probably more like .05% of those who contract it
--- End quote ---
As I type, the headline figures are 102,513 cases, 3,491 deaths. That's around 3%, no? And we don't know how many of those 102K are going to die in the end so that 3.5K is likely to go up.
There will undoubtedly have been some that flew under the radar, but I think any 'wild-assed guess' now would be over-estimating since no-one is going to think "Oh, looks like I might have this killer virus - guess I'll just take an aspirin and stay in bed for a bit." What with the lurid headlines - even though they may not be deserved - if you think you've got it you're going to want it seen to.
EEVblog:
--- Quote from: dunkemhigh on March 08, 2020, 11:14:44 am ---no-one is going to think "Oh, looks like I might have this killer virus - guess I'll just take an aspirin and stay in bed for a bit." What with the lurid headlines - even though they may not be deserved - if you think you've got it you're going to want it seen to.
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Nope, huge numbers will not want to go to hospital to get tested unless it gets bad or they know for fact they have had contact with someone knowingly infected. And even if you suspect it and you just have the usual flu like symptoms you get once or twice a year it's likely many will just sit it out thinking that the hospitals are where sick people are, and the last place they want to be at a time like this. Especially in highly infectious regions that systems are overrun. Don't underestimate the fear of going into a hospital to get checked and you don't have it and then you might contract it. Guaranteed this is happening in huge numbers in places like Wuhan.
PlainName:
--- Quote ---huge numbers will not want to go to hospital to get tested
--- End quote ---
Here, if you think you've got it you DO NOT go to your GP or hospital. Instead, you phone the NHS hotline and they take it from there. Isn't it the same down under?
And whilst I agree that normally many would sit it out, with the newspapers doing their panic thing I think that's changed a bit for this one. And one thing to bear in mind with this is other people reporting you if you look like you have it. Nevertheless, the question remains: if 3% is too high and 1% is too high and.... where do you stop? What percentage would be not a big deal?
--- Quote ---Don't underestimate the fear of going into a hospital
--- End quote ---
I have a morbid fear (is there any other kind in this context!) of being an in-patient. Perversely, this week I am on call to transport urgent blood products and samples. A hospital local to me is the regional collection point for coronavirus samples and it will be my responsibility to take them to a larger hospital for testing. Another local hospital I deliver samples to had a coronavirus fatality last week. I am not in the least bothered (despite also being in the 'at risk of complications' class twice over).
I am not here to stir up more panic, but I think it important to be realistic and not underestimate the issue either. The question I answered up-thread was why isn't flu getting the same attention, and everything else has just run on from that.
PlainName:
From The Grauniad:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/08/coronavirus-face-mask-facts-spreading-covid-19
--- Quote ---Claim: ‘It is no more dangerous than winter flu’
Many individuals who get coronavirus will experience nothing worse than seasonal flu symptoms, but the overall profile of the disease, including its mortality rate, looks more serious. At the start of an outbreak the apparent mortality rate can be an overestimate if a lot of mild cases are being missed. But this week, a WHO expert suggested that this has not been the case with Covid-19. Bruce Aylward, who led an international mission to China to learn about the virus and the country’s response, said the evidence did not suggest that we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg. If borne out by further testing, this could mean that current estimates of a roughly 1% fatality rate are accurate. This would make Covid-19 about 10 times more deadly than seasonal flu, which is estimated to kill between 290,000 and 650,000 people a year globally.
--- End quote ---
So, a wild-ass internet guess vs a WHO expert. Difficult choice.
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