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COVID-19

SystemSystem Administrator Posts: 199
edited September 2021 in Off-Topic
A thread to discuss COVID-19. Stay healthy, everyone!
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  • DragonKingDragonKing Member Posts: 1,977
    edited February 2020
    Has anyone been keeping up with the Coronavirus? I've been following it and the more information that seems to come out about this thing the more it seems like its a pandemic that we continue to refuse to acknowledge. China has all but isolated itself to try and control this thing, unsuccessfully I might add, but hey they have been lying all the way up to the point where conflicting information from china itself is claiming that the virus isn't from where they originally claimed it was from.

    *nerd moment comment*
    Just the stats and traits on this this thing...
    So far from what I've seen;

    It can have up to a 24 day incubation period.
    (https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/newslondon/coronavirus-incubation-period-can-be-up-to-24-days-scientists-find/ar-BBZRo8l)

    Its airborne
    (https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12307276)

    It can be transmitted and caught through our freaking eyes... HEY MARVEL, X-MEN THIS ISH!
    (https://forums.beamdog.com/post/discussion/off-topic)

    it is extremely viral it literally doubled in South Korea... over night...
    (https://abcnews.go.com/International/coronavirus-patient-numbers-double-overnight-south-korea/story?id=69100643)

    There is a patient 0, with a untraceable strand of it somewhere we don't know about
    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10873496/coronavirus-vaccine-china-wuhan-race-find-patient-zero-killer-bug/

    https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/scientists-rush-to-find-patient-zero-in-a-bid-to-stop-the-coronavirus/news-story/47ed87486e5b40ec5123dc66acea675f

    Despite what media has been saying, The Coronaviruas IS actually more dangerous than the flu...

    The US CDC reports typical flu mortality at 0.1%; current reports of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus at 2% or 20x higher.
    IT has been reported o be much more infectious than SARS and MERS, and also much more infectious than recent versions of the flu.
    It has a longer incubation period than the flu allowing it to spread unnoticed. See above
    Infected individuals may spread the virus, while remaining symptom free for long periods, making it difficult or impossible to identify carriers, and making quarantines ineffective.

    Oh and idiot politicians and government officials breaking both the possibly effected, AND FREAKING CONFIRMED EFFECTED back into the country instead of keeping there they are and making sure they are comfortable/well taken care of there until we have better understanding on how to combat it!


    Counties are closing their freaking boarders, locking down towns and even denying access to certain groups of people to try and protect against it!

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/turkey-and-pakistan-close-borders-with-iran-over-coronavirus-deaths/ar-BB10iy4r

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/02/22/coronavirus-italy-towns-lockdown-deaths-virus-spreads/4841539002/

    can't find the article about the tpurist trying to travel to rest stops but getting denied.

    It is estimated that at its peak, it could reach 60% of th worlds population. I read elsewhere that its suppose to peak around April and May; then decline... I always said I would die by the time I hit thirty, maybe I should play the lottery.
    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10937990/coronavirus-infect-60-percent-worlds-population/


    Thoughts? Feelings? Ideas?

    Also, I went through all this without taking a single jab at a specific political party and their arguments about a specific concept that separates territories. Please don't politicize this. I"ve already had one topic that was suppose to be for fun get locked because of how close it was to political nature when it was meant to just laugh at the actual event happening.

  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    I know medical professionals who focus on pandemics are trying to sound the alarm about it, and no one is really paying much attention.
    Kamigoroshismeagolheart
  • ZaxaresZaxares Member Posts: 1,325
    I'm currently living in Singapore, which is considered a viral "hotspot", but I think that people are panicking needlessly over this. Yes, COVID-19 is highly infectious (I'd say EXTREMELY so), and based on patterns of how cases have cropped up in various countries, I've suspected for a while that it either had a much longer incubation period than medical professionals initially thought, OR the virus was still transmissable even while infected patients were not showing symptoms. Those cases that are now cropping up in South Korea probably got infected a good 3 or so weeks ago and never knew it, and there are probably people in all countries around the world who now have the virus and are unknowingly spreading it without themselves or the people around them realizing it.

    That said, I still say that this disease is not something for us to be panicking over. Currently China has close to 78,000 confirmed cases, and of those, ~2300 have died (many more have recovered and since been discharged from hospital). That's roughly about a 2-3% fatality rate, and as with all diseases, it's mostly vulnerable members of the population like the elderly, those with compromised immune systems or have underlying health conditions (like lung cancer or other respiratory illnesses) that are dying. In contrast, the flu has a fatality rate of 0.2%, yet it still kills about 650,000 EVERY YEAR. Yet nobody panics over the flu despite such a colossal death toll every year.

    The reason why governments are trying to lock down districts and taking other such measures is because, just going by sheer statistics alone, if the virus DOES become widely spread in the community, a lot of people WILL die. But you have to remember that tens of thousands of people die every single day, whether from disease or accidents (you have a 1 in 103 chance of dying in a car crash, for example) or other natural causes. You are not more likely to die from COVID-19 than from any other typical danger that faces us humans in the modern era.

    So yes, do take precautions, practice proper hygiene, be considerate of your fellow citizens by staying home when you are sick etc., but just remember that these measures are more about protecting the very vulnerable segments of our population than out of making sure that YOU don't die (because the odds of that are probably already very low). Just be prepared for things to get "much worse" in terms of infections; I suspect that the virus is probably already endemic in many countries, but people just don't realize it because they are either not experiencing any symptoms, or they just write it off to "feeling a bit under the weather".
    Grond0Proont
  • KamigoroshiKamigoroshi Member Posts: 5,870
    I've been keeping a very close eye on the daily growth of this worldwide pandemic myself. Mostly because I have friends over countries where the virus is already endemic to. And yes, a pandemic is precisely what it is.

    It's sheer mind boggling how many misinformations about this coronavirus are circulating out there. Especially coming from the “official“ numbers out of China. Or the WHO which still downplays it and speaks of COVID-19 being comparable to the flu or SARS. Which from what we already know it clearly isn't. Heck, that beast of a virus is insanely infectious. As much as R0 6.7 by some medical estimations. The flu on the other hand is a measly R0 1.25. Folks parroting that the flu is worse are nothing short of irresponsible in my eyes here.

    One source of information I found to be trustworthy is Chris Martenson's Peak Prosperity channel. They report each day about the newest findings from a medical point of view. Very dry facts without much entertainment value here.
    jjstraka34Grammarsalad
  • DragonKingDragonKing Member Posts: 1,977
    @Kamigoroshi
    It's actually been the first thing in this world that has ever made me go out and try to buy emergency supplies... I kinda failed at it seeing how I live on a fixed income.

    It's already theorized that about 1000 Americans in the states may already have it and spreading it unknowingly and the pop up cases have been drastically apart state by states.

    One thing I didn't bring up I'd actually how this is going to hit the global economy! Because with China locking down and idiotically the U.S. depends on China for a lot of things, we get a lot of metals for our phones and computers there and ate pharmaceutical are produce there, this more than likely will cause a big shortage if it keeps escalating.
    Grond0Proont
  • Mantis37Mantis37 Member Posts: 1,173
    edited February 2020
    A minor silver lining that’s being reported is that climate change emissions will also take a dive.

    Given that a large number of older persons die due to pneumonia and similar conditions I do wonder how many of the deaths that are due to the corona virus are of persons who were already in a vulnerable condition. (Everyone dies of something after all.) Relatively few children have been in a serious condition according to the figures I have seen so far, and adults with respiratory problems are those who seem most at risk of those who don’t already have weakened immune systems.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    IIRC, air borne is suspected, but no confirmed yet. Also remember that China has a much denser population than than pretty much anywhere else, along with its widespread censorship making it difficult for information to circulate. So China will most likely get the worst of it.

    I'd say that the coronavirus has the POTENTIAL to be catastrophic, but is not something to panic over. Panicing makes things worse anyway, so never do it regardless. Its treatable, and the biggest danger isn't that its not survivable. The big issue is that if too many people get infected, hospitals can't keep up with number of needed isolation chambers.

    Fun Fact: An applied science company near me is producing self contained iso chambers for the US gov.
  • DragonKingDragonKing Member Posts: 1,977
    @ThacoBell
    While I agree, panicking is never the answer but neither is down playing it like the media has been happening a lot. One issue here is people also don't prep, partly thanks to a culture that made fun of preppers or the concept of making preparations in case of a disaster of any scale.
    KamigoroshiProont
  • KamigoroshiKamigoroshi Member Posts: 5,870
    @DragonKing
    We already see the impact of China shutting down its economy by pretty much 90%. From car parts, to electronics (apple phones and Nintendo Switch consoles being two cases), to pharmaceutics - there's currently a growing shortage everywhere around the globe. Europe is no exception as well.

    @ThacoBell
    It has last week been confirmed by the head of the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau that COVID-19 is transmissible via both droplets and aerosols. Well, that and the fact that it spreads asymptomatically. We saw how bad things can get in a closed environment like the Diamond Princess cruiser ship. The 14 days quarantine was utterly insufficient back then as well. This doesn't come as an surprise, given that COVID-19 has an incubation period of up to 27 days by current estimations.

    Panicing is never the right answer to anything. Neither is blindly hoarding everything on the super market shelves (something people actually already do over in Italy). But the real danger is people having insufficient informations. That endangers both themselves and others they come into contact with. I believe there is lot of room between both of these two extremes: well enough to be aware of the dangers, as well as making sensible preparations for a time in which self-quarantine may be necessary.
    ThacoBellProont
  • MathsorcererMathsorcerer Member Posts: 3,037
    This got lost in the Politics thread but I did mention that researchers at UT managed to map the "spike" protein chains which surround the central orb; these are the protein chains which allow the virus to attach to a potential host cell and infect it. This gives researchers the information they would need to develop a way to counteract or nullify that protein chain's ability to alter itself in order to attach--a vaccine.
    Balrog99ThacoBellProontSkatan
  • DragonKingDragonKing Member Posts: 1,977
    Quarantine in Italy has been broken as it reaches south Italy and now people begin to panic and people raid shopping malls.


    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8041467/Coronavirus-spreads-SOUTH-Italy-infected-tourist-north-visits-Sicily.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490
  • DragonKingDragonKing Member Posts: 1,977
    Iran Confirms Official Running Its Anti-Coronavirus Task Force Has Contracted Coronavirus


    https://time.com/5790268/iran-coronavirus-official-tests-positive/
    Balrog99Proont
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,366
    It sounds like there's already been some solid breakthroughs on the vaccine front. I heard it may be just a few months away. Trump's a gambler and the odds are in his favor this time. That doesn't mean I agree with his reckless policies though. There may come a time when it's more than a novel cold virus we have to worry about. I haven't seen any indication that the US would be ready for something like that...
  • MathsorcererMathsorcerer Member Posts: 3,037
    If I recall, researchers are already conducting lab mouse trials and are seeking FDA approval for the human testing phase ahead of its deployment.

    This kind of research--developing ways to block rogue protein chains in viruses--should be applicable to other protein-based illnesses like Alzheimer's.
    Grond0Balrog99Proont
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    edited February 2020
    The danger is real (the video should be watched till the end):

    Grond0KamigoroshiSkatan
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    I agree there are several promising lines of research for vaccines. Even if a perfect vaccine is found (and Covid-19 proves to be a stable virus with limited serotypes) though, that won't be the end of the story. There's significant resistance to vaccines in many countries and it's quite possible that vaccination rates won't be high enough to provide herd immunity - though we can always hope that the novelty of this latest threat will persuade some of the skeptics ...
    smeagolheartProont
  • KamigoroshiKamigoroshi Member Posts: 5,870
    If I recall, researchers are already conducting lab mouse trials and are seeking FDA approval for the human testing phase ahead of its deployment.
    They want to directly jump from lab mouse trails to humans? A very, very bad call. Sounds like they forgot that when people first used the freshly concoted SARS vaccine on lab mouses back in the days, it caused a more deadly second outbreak on the animals. I don't even want to imagine how badly things can get if a non-approved vaccine makes its rounds.

    Creating a safe vaccine for human consumption takes a lot of time. Even with a promising lead. Personally, I wouldn't count for any end results in below 9 months.
    MathsorcerersmeagolheartProont
  • MathsorcererMathsorcerer Member Posts: 3,037
    I wouldn't want them to rush it, either, but I am not the one in charge of the research or that program.
    Kamigoroshi
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    If the 2% fatality rate is correct, it may seem benign at first glance. After all, if you PERSONALLY get it, you have a 98% chance to survive. Sounds pretty good. But if 100,000 people get it, 2000 of them are going to die. That will cause a mass panic. Not to mention every one of those 100,000 is likely going to be filling up hospital beds, and if they aren't they are likely out there spreading it even further.
    Proont
  • DragonKingDragonKing Member Posts: 1,977
    Oh look,
    We are finally taking;it seriously over here in the nation of mini-countries.
    https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/484602-san-francisco-declares-state-of-emergency-over-coronavirus
  • KamigoroshiKamigoroshi Member Posts: 5,870
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    If the 2% fatality rate is correct, it may seem benign at first glance. After all, if you PERSONALLY get it, you have a 98% chance to survive. Sounds pretty good. But if 100,000 people get it, 2000 of them are going to die. That will cause a mass panic. Not to mention every one of those 100,000 is likely going to be filling up hospital beds, and if they aren't they are likely out there spreading it even further.
    If we take the current numbers coming out of China at face value, then we are confronted with a fatality rate of an ever growing 3.43%. Take them with a grain of salt though. Chances are that these numbers may be a couple of ten times higher than that.
  • DragonKingDragonKing Member Posts: 1,977
    What have I been saying?
    WHAT HAVE I LITERALLY BEEN SAYING?
    That's another quarantine broke!

    Seriously get emergency supplies now, worse case scenario this is actually nothing and you have actual extra food to eat. Best case scenario you are prepared for when thing get worse and not fighting people in grocery stores for food like what's happening in Italy right now.


    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8046727/45-passengers-allowed-Diamond-Princess-ship-symptoms-coronavirus.html


    @Kamigoroshi
    I actually heard the number was at 10% now.
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    Hard not to think of the scene in "The Stand" where the President is giving a radio address to the country reassuring them, but having to pause every 5 seconds to cough because, of course, he too has Captain Trips.
    smeagolheart
  • KamigoroshiKamigoroshi Member Posts: 5,870
    @DragonKing Not as of yet when using the official numbers.
    I did made it a habit of making daily visits to the live-tracking Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 Map. Others may also find the site to be useful.
    Grond0JuliusBorisovProont
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,366
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    Hard not to think of the scene in "The Stand" where the President is giving a radio address to the country reassuring them, but having to pause every 5 seconds to cough because, of course, he too has Captain Trips.

    Well, if COVID-19 gets to a 99.4% fatality rate that'll leave roughly 32 million folks to carry on. It's a long walk from Detroit to Vegas so I should probably get going...
    MathsorcererProont
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    Hard not to think of the scene in "The Stand" where the President is giving a radio address to the country reassuring them, but having to pause every 5 seconds to cough because, of course, he too has Captain Trips.

    No need to go to fiction. As @DragonKing posted yesterday there's a real life example in Iran - where the official in charge of their task force tested positive a day after being shown sweating profusely while reassuring the public that things were under control ...
    jjstraka34Mathsorcerer
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    Hard not to think of the scene in "The Stand" where the President is giving a radio address to the country reassuring them, but having to pause every 5 seconds to cough because, of course, he too has Captain Trips.

    Well, if COVID-19 gets to a 99.4% fatality rate that'll leave roughly 32 million folks to carry on. It's a long walk from Detroit to Vegas so I should probably get going...

    So you are siding with Flagg......interesting.
    MathsorcererProont
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited February 2020
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
    MathsorcererZaxaresProont
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    chimaera wrote: »
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    If the 2% fatality rate is correct, it may seem benign at first glance. After all, if you PERSONALLY get it, you have a 98% chance to survive. Sounds pretty good. But if 100,000 people get it, 2000 of them are going to die. That will cause a mass panic. Not to mention every one of those 100,000 is likely going to be filling up hospital beds, and if they aren't they are likely out there spreading it even further.

    That's not how it works. The fatality rate is unevenly distributed depending on age, so depending on how old you are you might be even in the less than 1% mortality group. Second, flu is actually more dangerous, because flu mortality is dependent on the strain and it's only a matter of time before we get another highly virulent one like in the past.

    By comparison: "CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 29 million flu illnesses, 280,000 hospitalizations and 16,000 deaths from flu."
    https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm

    Yeah, but that also means that the number of people dying from the flu is less than 1/10 of 1%. Which would make this virus about 20-30x more lethal.
    KamigoroshiThacoBellProont
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