This is a case where the government needs to get everyone on the same page, which has yet to happen. Also, it needs to be a scientific page, not a political one. If Trump doesn’t get his act together, this will be his Katrina x1000.
Well, Rachel Maddow and others, you do get a very, very dark consolation prize. There are people who actually believe what Trump says. If they continue to do so, their herd will grow much thinner, as their infection rate will far exceed the norm.
Unfortunately, they come into contact with the rest of us, so the disease will also spread faster among those who do not rely on the accuracy of Trump’s pronouncements.
“Mike Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota’s medical school, said he worries the California case is the tip of an iceberg.”
Hey Tanner – congrats on having a smart wife, if she is what you say she is. If she is actually an ID expert, can you please ask her to tell you to stop being such a panic-driven twat?
From today in the New England Journal of Medicine:
“On the basis of a case definition requiring a diagnosis of pneumonia, the currently reported case fatality rate is approximately 2%.4 In another article in the Journal, Guan et al.5 report mortality of 1.4% among 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19; these patients had a wide spectrum of disease severity. If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.”
That’s just more speculation. What’s clear is that it’s considerably more contagious than SARS and MERS with a lower death rate. Further as the article in JAMA noted, patients deemed recovered both by lung scans and PCR tests, tested positive via PCR 5-13 days later. That suggests that they are now carriers and raises questions as to the effectiveness of quarantines to fight the spread of the virus, putting additional risk on vulnerable populations.
If you’re not disturbed by that…
On a more positive note: SARS has a molecular proofreading system that reduces its mutation rate, and the new coronavirus’s similarity to SARS at the genomic level suggests it does, too (Unlike the flu or HIV). That would reduce the chances that this virus will evolve to become considerably more lethal and also improves the odds for an effective vaccine.
My wife says to pay attention to what Bruce Aylward of WHO said on Tuesday:
Bruce Aylward, who led an international mission to China to learn about the virus and China’s response, said the specialists did not see evidence that a large number of mild cases of the novel disease called Covid-19 are evading detection.
“So I know everybody’s been out there saying, ‘Whoa, this thing is spreading everywhere and we just can’t see it, tip of the iceberg.’ But the data that we do have don’t support that,” Aylward said during a briefing for journalists at WHO’s Geneva headquarters.
I never actually saw a contradiction between Trump and the White House saying we have the Corona Virus contained and the health experts saying it is inevitable that it will spread in the U.S. As I understand it, the virus is CURRENTLY contained in the U.S. But as it becomes relatively widespread in Europe as well as Asia, there isn’t really anything we can do short of closing all the borders to prevent both Americans returning from abroad and foreign visitors from bringing it to the U.S. with them. Screenings at the airport will not catch 100% of the infected.
While I agree that Trump’s primary concern is probably protecting his reelection chances, I care less about what he says than what what the administration does. The media is being as sensationalist as they usually are, which in my opinion is the opposite of being responsible. I think the way Pelosi and Schumer attacked Trump over this, before the virus has begun to spread is disgusting. Our leaders should be pulling together right now. There will be plenty of time to assign blame later. Oh I am sure that Trump has made at least a half-dozen disgusting comments in the last week and I am not excusing anything he might have said. On a personal note, I am not panicking. Honestly I am much more worried about my retirement savings than of catching the virus. If I die, all my troubles go away. But as someone on a fixed income, if my retirement savings go away (and 5% of it went away this week) I’ll wish I caught the virus. But I am fairly confident the U.S. will come through the health crisis with much less loss of life than the media is making it seem right now. I also believe the market will rebound. That rebound may be short lived if Bernie gets elected. In which case I’ll start wishing again I had contracted that virus.
Trump politicized it way before Pelosi and Schumer.
Michael McChesney says: “Honestly I am much more worried about my retirement savings than of catching the virus. If I die, all my troubles go away.”
A) I think you are the “rational man” or “rational actor” my Econ professors used to talk about.
B) I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: A world where money is the measure of all things is not a pretty place.
C) You might want to at least pay lip service to caring about your fellow man. It kind of ameliorates the damage to your image done by point B. It helps if you want your political party to stay in power, for instance.
D) Has anyone met anybody in the US who IS panicking, except the panic sellers on Wall Street?
All of these are just my thoughts on reading Mr. McChesney’s post. I am willing to concede he is more intelligent and more knowledgeable than I am. But he seems to share the Republican point of view that the purpose of the US government is to serve the wealth of America, not the people. I could very well be wrong, and I hope I am.
What is fact is that the infrastructure which was put in place after the Ebola breakout in 2014, specifically meant to deal with issues like this, was gutted by Trump and his fellow shitheads in 2018.
This supereffective ebola reaction squad?
What point are we supposed to get from this article, EdB?
Even for the Internet, this is a stupid reply. What does anything in that article have to do with the National Security Council, Homeland Defense, the CDC, or the NIH? In fact, this a perfect illustration of a Trumpian response: yahoo politician appointees making medical decisions.
You raise kids with everything it’s the end of the world on a 24 hour news cycle, hysteria is what you get. And they never learn, just jump on the next one.
I don’t know anyone who is hysterical, except maybe the people who are dumping stocks on Wall Street. I know people who are concerned. Does concern = hysteria to you, EdBeauregard, and if so, why?
The main Pence initiatives so far –
Govt scientists can’t talk to the press until they clear it with Pence.
Kudlow and the Mnuch are also spearheading this initiative.
Regardless of the true mortality rate, this is concerning. We’ve got a team mainly worried about the economic and PR risks led by a jag who likely thinks that anyone who dies just didn’t pray hard enough.
Sing it with me, everybody: Only the best people.
Well, at least he admits he lets Rush do his “thinking” (used very loosely) for him.
Tanner, anyone who says the know the mortality rate of this strain of coronavirus or the Ro is full of shit. Without a solid understanding of the actual number of infected individuals (this is NOT just patients who test positive) you cannot determine or even accurately estimate the actual mortality rate of the disease. We only know the MINIMUM number of cases – and all agree that this is a massive underestimation. However, ALL of the deaths attributable to COVID are being counted. This is dramatically skewing the mortality rate up to the ridiculous 2% you and others like to repeat.
So – stop spreading panic, especially when you don’t know what you’re talking about. Besides the Rush Limbaugh portion of your post, nearly everything else is wrong.
You’re all hot air with little basis in facts. You have no evidence that all cases due to Covid -19 are being counted. Stop making stuff up.
He may be right. In fact, I think he probably is, although it’s too early to draw any firm conclusions. Several reputable professionals claim that China and especially Iran seem to be hiding the number of infections, but are reporting the deaths accurately. If that is true, it would make Dr. Smitty’s point accurate and we could conclude
1. It spreads more quickly than anyone thinks.
2. It is less lethal than anyone thinks.
I’d suggest caution on the lethality calculation. Maybe it is right, but it’s not time to lock in our answer. I don’t think we should be calculating that rate until we have large samples and reliable information from countries that can be trusted to report scientific numbers rather than political ones.
Also Scoop, the number of cases is assuredly being under reported and likely by a large degree. Testing throughput now can’t possibly cover all the current suspected cases. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases is currently limited by the upper limit of testing ability – and this will continue for the foreseeable future.
Yes, fair point. It’s impossible to know how many people are actually infected, but we know the number must be larger than the cases we are aware of.
Oh look, an internet expert! You’re totally missing the point, which isn’t a surprise.
The points I raised aren’t disputed in any serious discussion between knowledgeable parties. They’re facts.
But go ahead: keeping googling and keep panicking, Tanner. Everyone else, don’t worry – he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about.
– and Scoopy gets it. Sorry, don’t want that reply to seem like it’s targeted at you!
You’re clueless. The total number of deaths from the virus are unknown…the number reported is also a lower limit…China has changed its methodology of identifying those infected a number of times…it even varies by province. However, Italy has been very good at identifying cases and their statistics support a 2% death rate. Given the death rate in Iran, it’s a foregone conclusion that they are under reporting the number of infections.
And by the way, my spouse is an infectious disease expert.
Goodness..you clearly get your stupidity from Rush Limbaugh…your spreading of lies is borderline criminal. The corona virus currently circulating has a mortality rate estimated at 2%. That’s higher than the Spanish Flu of 1918 (look it up and see how many millions died). The ordinary flu has a mortality rate of 0.14% and it kills plenty. The corona virus is a highly contagious respiratory infection. It’s considerably more infectious than SARS. That’s why SARS was contained and the corona virus has resulted in a pandemic.
It’s a head cold.
Corona viruses are suspected to be most common colds in the United States. This one should be very little different, perhaps a bit more severe.
It’s lethal in China because prevention in China is shit. Hygiene in poor parts of China is shit. Health care in China is shit. The value of human life in China is shit.
Just plain facts.
All experts agree, the primary methods to avoid Coronavirus infection:
Wash your hands
Sneeze into your elbow
That’s it.
If you get a Coronavirus, ANY coronavirus, stay home. Get rest. Drink liquids. Take over the counter cold remedies to control symptoms and fevers.
That’s it.
To say this is a hysteria is an understatement.
Google SARS the last coronavirus hysteria. Look up how many people outside China died from it.
Yeah.
Mr. Dark, it is good of you to express your opinion, not because it has any value on the subject you are talking about, but because it tells us more about you and the value of your opinions.
Personally, I think I will go with the opinions of scientists and doctors on this subject, and not some cranky guy on the Internet.
PS – the only hysterical people seem to be on Wall Street. Do you know any people who are actually hysterical now, here in the US?
Hey I feel your pain here Mr. Dark
Not the board to have a discussion on if you don’t agree with the thoughts of the herd here especially if it differs from that being pushed by the main stream media.
I don’t know enough about the virus to make any real claims but per Google we have had far more cases of and deaths from the flu in the US than there have been been reported directly tied to this virus with numbers shared as of today. I think this is a scary, scary thing but having numerous conversations with people that went to school far longer than I have and their belief is that it is scary but no more scary to any of us in the US than the common flu.