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sirozha said:

GeorgeBMac said:

sirozha said:

GeorgeBMac said:

blah64 said:

GeorgeBMac said:

sirozha said:

GeorgeBMac said:

sirozha said:

GeorgeBMac said:

sirozha said:

Coronavirus is not a temporary problem. CDC has already said that this virus is probably going to stick with us indefinitely like the flu except it’s much more deadly and communicable than the flu. 

China started to destroy paper money today because they suspect that the virus survives longer on surfaces than previously believed. It may be good for the electronic payments industry, but it shows you how seriously China is taking this. 

How many of you are ready to buy an iPhone that was manufactured in China after the epidemic started? iPhones are hermetically shrink wrapped.  Are you sure that when you break the shrink wrap, you are not releasing the virus, which no one knows for sure right now how long it can survive on surfaces? 

I don’t think I’m the only person who is having these doubts. Manufacturing is only one problem facing Apple in the next several months. Consumption is another problem that may be significant. Personally, I will not be buying anything made in China until the scientists have a clue about what the humankind is dealing with. 

More infectious but not more deadly. 

Like the flu it's mostly fatal only the elderly starting at about 50 and its mortality rate then doubles with each decade or age.  Below 50 its mortality is close to zero but by 80 it's up around 15%.

Current data shows its infection rate at almost double the flu's rate of 1.25.   But, with the extraordinary measures China is taking to control it that may be a low estimate.  On the other hand, the lack of a vaccine tends to make it much higher.

First off, 50 is only elderly in your head. Are you 19 or something that 50 for you is elderly? People now live into their 90s. Are they elderly half of their lives? 

Secondly, the death rate for those after 60 is 80%. This comes directly from the epidemiologist who is working in the epicenter of the epidemic. 

Thirdly, the death rate for younger people is not near 0 at all. The now famous Chinese ophthalmologist who alerted his colleagues about the new virus at the end of December 2019 was 36 years old when he died from the virus last week. For you, 36 is probably old age, though. 

And finally, this virus is much deadlier than the flu. That’s why the Chinese locked down 60 million people in their apartments and placed 780 million people under strict travel restrictions. The fewer than 2,000 people who died from this virus in China so far are such a small percentage that the Chinese government would never have shut down their economy and placed half of the population under the travel restrictions if this virus were not deadly. The Chinese are good at math. They realize what this virus could do if it’s allowed to spread like the flu. 

Officially mortality rates are: 

0-50 less than 0.5%

50-59 about 1.2%

60-69 about 3.7%

70-79 about 8%

80+ about 14.8%

See the BBC for the graph old timer

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51540981

The CDC publishes data on the flu.   You should look them up.

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 I’m not talking about the official numbers released by the Chinese Communist Party. I’m talking about what’s really happening there. The death rate of the patients over 60 who contracted the Coronavirus is above 80%. However, even if you look at the official numbers with the death rate of 2.5%, its 290 times as high as the death rate of those infected with the flu virus. 

Thanks, but I'll go with reality your speculation.   And, like I suggested, you should have looked up the statistics on the flu on the CDC site before making crazy claims about it.   So far this year the flu has infected 26 million with with 250,000 hospitalized and 14,000 deaths -- All many times more than the Corona virus has.

Mostly, it appears that the main thing the Corona Virus has going for it is that it has a 2-3 week infectious period which is far more than the 2-3 days of the flu. Plus, of course, there is not yet any vaccine for the Corona Virus.

I want to barf every time someone tries to compare this virus to the flu.  Just stop.  It's not the same in so many ways.  Pretty sure you know better.

However, you are spot-on with the infectious period.  Being able to spread this infection for such a long period of time while asymptomatic, and the highly contagious nature in general (aerosol, etc), is why it's will be so much more dangerous if it starts spreading widely before we get any effective treatments in place.  Tourism is a problem.  Worldwide conferences are a problem.  Cruise liners are sadly a problem (and that was mismanaged by the Japanese Gvt).  The WHO is being disingenuous, trying to prioritize economic and financial goals over death.  Clearly there's a balance, but they're not doing a good job right now.

Right now it's a race between getting effective treatments and containing the virus to as few people as possible in the meantime.

The facts are showing that once a person is infected the rest is pretty comparable to the flu.  But, because the infection rate is higher (probably because of long infectious period it has before the person knows they are sick) it is probably more serious.

Yes, the morbidity and mortality rates of the virus are a bit higher than the flu.   But then we are comparing an older, well known disease that the healthcare community is well equipped to handle to a new one where health infrastructure has to ramped up -- including building whole new hospitals to treat it.

A bit higher than the flu? Is 290 times the mortality rate of the common flu  (based on the official Chinese statistics) a bit higher in your estimate? 

Yes, 290 times is much higher.   But that number is bullshit.   I already posted the real numbers.

OK, let's do some math together: 

1. In 2018-2019, there were 48.8 million flue cases in the US and 79,400 deaths from the flu. 79,400/48,800,000*100=0.16%

2. The official death rate from Coronavirus reported by China (as of 02/28/2020) is: 78,824 cases (in Mainland China) and 2,876 deaths. 2,876/78,824*100= 3.6%

3. 3.6%/0.16%= 22.75 times. So, admittedly, when I did the math in my head, I was one order of multitude wrong. 

Is 22.75 times mortality of common flu "a bit higher"? 

The reality, though, is that the mortality of the Coronavirus is probably around 100 times of the common flu because no one believes the numbers coming out of China. The number of dead reported by crematoria is dozens of times that what the official Chinese number report. Additionally, the official Chinese numbers only list those who died in the hospitals with confirmed (by lab tests) cases of Coronavirus, but thousands and thousands of people were turned away from the hospitals in early February because there were no available beds. A lot of people died at home never having been officially diagnosed with Coronavirus. So, we don't know what the real mortality rate is until Western countries start supplying the data. So, for now, let's go with 22 times mortality rate. It means that there will be at least 80,000 * 22 = 1.76 million Americans dead from Coronavirus in 2020. Now, given that half of all Americans get a flu vaccine every year, and the fact that Corona Virus is much more contagious than the flu, it's totally realistic to expect that the number of infected with Coronavirus will be at least twice as high as the number of infected with common flu. In reality, it could be as high as 4 times the number of infected. So, the range of deaths from Coronavirus in the US in 2020 will be between 3.5 million and 7 million people. Is this "a bit higher" than common flu? 

The fact that China seems to have been able to contain the epidemic doesn't mean anything for the US. We will not be able to put 4.5% of the US population under house arrest and restrict travel for 50% of the entire US population. There is no precedent for this in any democratic country. The President would have to impose the martial law in the entire US and authorize the US military to operate domestically in order to be able to enforce that type of quarantine. We would also have to shut down at least half of the US economy for months on end. We know this would never happen in the only remaining purely capitalist country in the world.