We thought economic growth and technology would liberate China. Instead, it corrupted us.
Someone in the NYTimes opinion section actually spelled out my position from the last few pages for me.
The basic problem is that integration with China and it's influence is less government based on our side and more functions via private corporations. They sold their souls for a piece of the Chinese market and they've shown no willingness to slow down on that front.
I'm not even really sure what can be done about it beyond some sort of organized boycott or the like. And that idea is kind of insane.
An organized collective solution needs to be a governmental one. Opening up trade with China has not worked to liberalize them. States need to impose sanctions, including on international companies that comply with Chinese censorship.
If you think center left technocrats and Neoliberals are going bonkers over tariffs on China, wait until you start implementing sanctions on the CCP, Xi, Chinese SOEs etc.
So uh how about that Wuhan coronavirus. The Chinese government response seems... somewhat schizophrenic, with the mainstream outlets downplaying the outbreak.
But at the same time, they've also quarantined Wuhan, a city of 11 million, and I hear they're at least considering doing it elsewhere. This has understandably caused some panic for the people on the ground there. It doesn't sound like this particular novel virus is that bad, though there are also reports that the Chinese government is not being terribly forthcoming with information or access for foreign researchers and health officials.
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
I mean, on the one hand, coronavirus is a just a dang common cold virus. It's a new type, sure, but there are already six circulating around the world. The official death rate is 0.2%, which is only counting people who actually show and report symptoms and are tested for it whereas there can be plenty of carriers of a cold, and all the reported fatalities so far are elderly people with comorbidities, like diabetes and/or Parkinson's, which is to say the people who would be the most likely to die from whatever disease they came across next anyway.
Coronavirus infections now confirmed in Xinjiang, Chinese state television reports. We've heard from former detainees that the health and sanitary conditions in the indoctrination camps can be poor. If outbreaks happen there it could be a huge and likely hidden problem
China might do with this virus what Trump's regime is doing with the flu in American concentration camps and just letting it burn through without treatment.
I think the concern is that they're releasing no details to health organizations and there's a very high probability of underreporting and obfuscation.
Edit: There have been several articles detailing immediate cremation after the deaths of people who were symptomatic and refusal by the state to autopsy or test for the presence of the virus. Instead dismissing fatalities as "natural causes".
dispatch.o on
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MeeqeLord of the pants most fancySomeplace amazingRegistered Userregular
We thought economic growth and technology would liberate China. Instead, it corrupted us.
Someone in the NYTimes opinion section actually spelled out my position from the last few pages for me.
The basic problem is that integration with China and it's influence is less government based on our side and more functions via private corporations. They sold their souls for a piece of the Chinese market and they've shown no willingness to slow down on that front.
I'm not even really sure what can be done about it beyond some sort of organized boycott or the like. And that idea is kind of insane.
An organized collective solution needs to be a governmental one. Opening up trade with China has not worked to liberalize them. States need to impose sanctions, including on international companies that comply with Chinese censorship.
If you think center left technocrats and Neoliberals are going bonkers over tariffs on China, wait until you start implementing sanctions on the CCP, Xi, Chinese SOEs etc.
I'm a progressive technocrat and I would love a huge pile of targeted sanctions against Chinese political leadership. I'm opposed to tariff's because they are stupid and hurt us more than it hurts them, not because I don't believe that we shouldn't put pressure on China over human rights violations. I would love for the American financial system to be less dependent on repressive regimes, much of my critiques of establishment positions are aimed directly at these associations with human rights violators that we enable with our financial support.
The quarantine is the scariest part. This is Spring Festival, aka the biggest cultural tradition of the country where everything shuts down and half the country travels to their hometown to celebrate.
Considering the reports of China undereporting/hiding bodies combined with the extreme quarantine measures makes me believe that it's much more severe then they are letting on.
The scary thing is this virus has perfect spreading vectors, it has initial cold-like symptoms causing people to underestimate it, like one of the posters above, and it doesn't incapacitate its victims right away like the flu, allowing people to spread the virus as people will come into work for a mear cold.
SARS, Ebola, took months to reach this state, we are here within three weeks looking at global contamination. Incubation period is pretty long-two-to-three weeks. So it will be three weeks until we see serious contamination.
The death rate seems to be holding at 3.1% of people dying.
The Spring Festival and Chinese New Year means enormous amounts of travel, like biggest human migrations in the world big. When the festivities are over and people head back to where they live and work and go to school, yeah, it's not going to be pretty. The timing could not have been worse for this new coronavirus.
I think the concern is that they're releasing no details to health organizations and there's a very high probability of underreporting and obfuscation.
Edit: There have been several articles detailing immediate cremation after the deaths of people who were symptomatic and refusal by the state to autopsy or test for the presence of the virus. Instead dismissing fatalities as "natural causes".
I doubt that were seeing much in the way of deception here. The numbers being released are concerning, realistic and relatively regularly updated. Overseas cases (of which there are many in isolation) dont seem to be presenting different or more dangerous symptoms or infection profiles than detailed by China.
It does seem to be the worst we've seen in a long time though, we have to hope that the response can remain calm and strategic. Or that we see signs that the quarantine is taking effect.
Actually Spanish flu appears to be worse according to the article you presented.
An estimated one third of the world's population (or ≈500 million persons) were infected and had clinically apparent illnesses (1,2) during the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic. The disease was exceptionally severe. Case-fatality rates were >2.5%, compared to <0.1% in other influenza pandemics (3,4). Total deaths were estimated at ≈50 million (5–7) and were arguably as high as 100 million (7).
I'm not that good at math, but that appears to be 10-20%
Actually Spanish flu appears to be worse according to the article you presented.
An estimated one third of the world's population (or ≈500 million persons) were infected and had clinically apparent illnesses (1,2) during the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic. The disease was exceptionally severe. Case-fatality rates were >2.5%, compared to <0.1% in other influenza pandemics (3,4). Total deaths were estimated at ≈50 million (5–7) and were arguably as high as 100 million (7).
I'm not that good at math, but that appears to be 10-20%
I'm comparing like metrics. The figure that the media keeps quoting about the current outbreak is the case-fatality rate (3.1%). As that article states, the same metric when applied to the Spanish flu was (2.5%).
From this CDC article, it's a different formula:
The concept behind the case-fatality rate and the death-to-case ratio is similar, but the formulations are different. The death-to-case ratio is simply the number of cause-specific deaths that occurred during a specified time divided by the number of new cases of that disease that occurred during the same time.
The case-fatality rate is the proportion of persons with a particular condition (cases) who die from that condition. It is a measure of the severity of the condition. The formula is:
[(Number of cause-specific deaths among the incident cases) divided by (Total number of incident cases)] × 10n
The case-fatality rate is a proportion, so the numerator is restricted to deaths among people included in the denominator. The time periods for the numerator and the denominator do not need to be the same; the denominator could be cases of HIV/AIDS diagnosed during the calendar year 1990, and the numerator, deaths among those diagnosed with HIV in 1990, could be from 1990 to the present.
Actually Spanish flu appears to be worse according to the article you presented.
An estimated one third of the world's population (or ≈500 million persons) were infected and had clinically apparent illnesses (1,2) during the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic. The disease was exceptionally severe. Case-fatality rates were >2.5%, compared to <0.1% in other influenza pandemics (3,4). Total deaths were estimated at ≈50 million (5–7) and were arguably as high as 100 million (7).
I'm not that good at math, but that appears to be 10-20%
I'm comparing like metrics. The figure that the media keeps quoting about the current outbreak is the case-fatality rate (3.1%). As that article states, the same metric when applied to the Spanish flu was (2.5%).
It says greater than 2.5%. It doesn't provide a proper upper bound.
From this definition of Case Fatality that means that the proper range appears to be 10-20%.
In epidemiology, a case fatality rate (CFR) – or case fatality risk, case fatality ratio or just fatality rate – is the proportion of deaths within a designated population of "cases" (people with a medical condition) over the course of the disease. A CFR is conventionally expressed as a percentage and represents a measure of risk. CFRs are most often used for diseases with discrete, limited time courses, such as outbreaks of acute infections.
For example: Assume 9 deaths among 100 people in a community all diagnosed with the same disease. This means that among the 100 people formally diagnosed with the disease, 9 died and 91 recovered. The CFR, therefore, would be 9%. If some of the cases have not yet resolved (either died or recovered) at the time of analysis, this could lead to bias in estimating the CFR.
Now epidemiologists may have a lower CFR for Spanish Flu due to
Actually Spanish flu appears to be worse according to the article you presented.
An estimated one third of the world's population (or ≈500 million persons) were infected and had clinically apparent illnesses (1,2) during the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic. The disease was exceptionally severe. Case-fatality rates were >2.5%, compared to <0.1% in other influenza pandemics (3,4). Total deaths were estimated at ≈50 million (5–7) and were arguably as high as 100 million (7).
I'm not that good at math, but that appears to be 10-20%
I'm comparing like metrics. The figure that the media keeps quoting about the current outbreak is the case-fatality rate (3.1%). As that article states, the same metric when applied to the Spanish flu was (2.5%).
It says greater than 2.5%. It doesn't provide a proper upper bound.
From this definition of Case Fatality that means that the proper range appears to be 10-20%.
In epidemiology, a case fatality rate (CFR) – or case fatality risk, case fatality ratio or just fatality rate – is the proportion of deaths within a designated population of "cases" (people with a medical condition) over the course of the disease. A CFR is conventionally expressed as a percentage and represents a measure of risk. CFRs are most often used for diseases with discrete, limited time courses, such as outbreaks of acute infections.
For example: Assume 9 deaths among 100 people in a community all diagnosed with the same disease. This means that among the 100 people formally diagnosed with the disease, 9 died and 91 recovered. The CFR, therefore, would be 9%. If some of the cases have not yet resolved (either died or recovered) at the time of analysis, this could lead to bias in estimating the CFR.
Now epidemiologists may have a lower CFR for Spanish Flu due to
I'd love to get some clarification on this. I just noticed that the media is quoting experts who are using a very specific term for the rate of deaths, and when I looked up the numbers using the same terminology for the Spanish flu, I was not comforted.
Actually Spanish flu appears to be worse according to the article you presented.
An estimated one third of the world's population (or ≈500 million persons) were infected and had clinically apparent illnesses (1,2) during the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic. The disease was exceptionally severe. Case-fatality rates were >2.5%, compared to <0.1% in other influenza pandemics (3,4). Total deaths were estimated at ≈50 million (5–7) and were arguably as high as 100 million (7).
I'm not that good at math, but that appears to be 10-20%
I'm comparing like metrics. The figure that the media keeps quoting about the current outbreak is the case-fatality rate (3.1%). As that article states, the same metric when applied to the Spanish flu was (2.5%).
It says greater than 2.5%. It doesn't provide a proper upper bound.
From this definition of Case Fatality that means that the proper range appears to be 10-20%.
In epidemiology, a case fatality rate (CFR) – or case fatality risk, case fatality ratio or just fatality rate – is the proportion of deaths within a designated population of "cases" (people with a medical condition) over the course of the disease. A CFR is conventionally expressed as a percentage and represents a measure of risk. CFRs are most often used for diseases with discrete, limited time courses, such as outbreaks of acute infections.
For example: Assume 9 deaths among 100 people in a community all diagnosed with the same disease. This means that among the 100 people formally diagnosed with the disease, 9 died and 91 recovered. The CFR, therefore, would be 9%. If some of the cases have not yet resolved (either died or recovered) at the time of analysis, this could lead to bias in estimating the CFR.
Now epidemiologists may have a lower CFR for Spanish Flu due to
I'd love to get some clarification on this. I just noticed that the media is quoting experts who are using a very specific term for the rate of deaths, and when I looked up the numbers using the same terminology for the Spanish flu, I was not comforted.
I'd really love a nice clear explanation about just how screwed we may all be.
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Well, no. Medical availability and quality of care varies greatly but the knowledge and capabilities exist elsewhere. Even in the worst hit areas the tools we have limit casualties substantially compared to the early 1900s.
When you ask how screwed are we, the answer is no more screwed than with many many other illnesses we deal with every year. If you travel a lot, are very young or old, or are already immuno susceptible you have greater risk if you are in the area of the outbreak. For 99.99% of the forums this will only impact you via the stress of thinking about it.
For the world, it won’t come close to other preventable illnesses like heart disease.
Well, no. Medical availability and quality of care varies greatly but the knowledge and capabilities exist elsewhere. Even in the worst hit areas the tools we have limit casualties substantially compared to the early 1900s.
When you ask how screwed are we, the answer is no more screwed than with many many other illnesses we deal with every year. If you travel a lot, are very young or old, or are already immuno susceptible you have greater risk if you are in the area of the outbreak. For 99.99% of the forums this will only impact you via the stress of thinking about it.
For the world, it won’t come close to other preventable illnesses like heart disease.
Well, people don't care about the world, they care about themselves. I can do things against preventable heart disease, and I do. I can't do much about someone sneezing in my general direction
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Dunno, as crazy as it seems to chow down on what looks to be essentially a fully intact shrunken terrorgheist, pigs and chickens are probably more of a danger of zoonotic diseases because most problems are going to come from contact with living, sick animals as opposed to eating cooked meat.
It may be that this time it came from bats or snakes or whatever, but at this point that’s all speculative. And from problems we have had with BSE and the like “meat animals” aren’t always safe either.
The safest thing to do would be to abandon both hunted animal meat and livestock cultivation entirely, of course, but good luck..,
Ultimately, the problem with narrow data-based viewpoints like yours is that they are too focused on these kind of "but X is worse" calculations. The world doesn't freak out when the death rates of 60-year-olds rise due to an increased rate of obesity, because it is something that happens over time and does so with a predictable and inevitable progression of signs.
The political fallout of millions of otherwise healthy people dropping dead in a few short days after getting sick would be dramatic, and the impacts of that fallout could mean disruption of food supplies, the economy, and medical services worldwide. It will not be a rational and coordinated global response, but a series of unpredictable swerves as panic rises and already stressed political systems respond poorly.
Like, what happens in the United States if one arm of the government tries to quarantine areas and restrict travel while the other arm of the government refuses to intervene on free market principles when employers refuse to obey and fire workers who refuse to come in while landlords go ahead with evictions for those who comply and lose income?
I am familiar with the actions late 19th and early 20th century governments undertook routinely to stem epidemics and manage the sick and dead. I have my doubts that, for example, 21st century America could do the same under current operating political ideologies.
Current America in a real crisis is absolute nightmare fuel. The government is understaffed and many of the roles that are filled are filled by people with one qualification only, brown nosing.
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Sure, all of those what ifs are real and problematic, but we’re no where near that point and don’t look to be.
Also worth noting that the quarantines are only of mass transport facilities, you can still enter and leave Wuhan, just places where mass transmission is possible are being restricted. And flights and trains are still moving, just fewer and with greater security checks.
This isn't to minimize the danger to folks, but also lets not expand it beyond where the situation is. Panic when there is no need to, especially about nightmare scenarios you have no control over won’t help anything.
Sure, all of those what ifs are real and problematic, but we’re no where near that point and don’t look to be.
Also worth noting that the quarantines are only of mass transport facilities, you can still enter and leave Wuhan, just places where mass transmission is possible are being restricted. And flights and trains are still moving, just fewer and with greater security checks.
This isn't to minimize the danger to folks, but also lets not expand it beyond where the situation is. Panic when there is no need to, especially about nightmare scenarios you have no control over won’t help anything.
No one here is in "panic." Stop being dismissive of people who are trying to discuss what is going on and game out what might happen if this is a real problem, instead of doing whatever it is that you are doing now.
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Zavianuniversal peace sounds better than forever warRegistered Userregular
Dunno, as crazy as it seems to chow down on what looks to be essentially a fully intact shrunken terrorgheist, pigs and chickens are probably more of a danger of zoonotic diseases because most problems are going to come from contact with living, sick animals as opposed to eating cooked meat.
It may be that this time it came from bats or snakes or whatever, but at this point that’s all speculative. And from problems we have had with BSE and the like “meat animals” aren’t always safe either.
The safest thing to do would be to abandon both hunted animal meat and livestock cultivation entirely, of course, but good luck..,
I dunno. For some reason, bat soup seems a far riskier proposition than a McDonald's cheeseburger
Dunno, as crazy as it seems to chow down on what looks to be essentially a fully intact shrunken terrorgheist, pigs and chickens are probably more of a danger of zoonotic diseases because most problems are going to come from contact with living, sick animals as opposed to eating cooked meat.
It may be that this time it came from bats or snakes or whatever, but at this point that’s all speculative. And from problems we have had with BSE and the like “meat animals” aren’t always safe either.
The safest thing to do would be to abandon both hunted animal meat and livestock cultivation entirely, of course, but good luck..,
I dunno. For some reason, bat soup seems a far riskier proposition than a McDonald's cheeseburger
(Keep in mind your McDonalds cheeseburger is safe because of regulation, food inspection, access control and cleanliness procedures, and even then Romaine lettuce has it's annual 'kill some people' event)
Like bats may be spookier and more exotic or whatever but pigs are much better vectors for transferring diseases to humans (and vice versa). I would venture that the holding conditions of the live animals and interaction with large numbers of people and other possible animal vectors is probably more to fault than spooky bat soup.
I googled it and the only sources were right-wing and dubious sites. It may be just a "Chinese people eat gross stuff" meme. Although I do know that Chinese medicine does involve eating some pretty disgusting stuff.
You're gonna have to do some work to separate out a cultural "that is disgusting" reaction from a medical "that is dangerous" assessment.
Chinese cultural acceptance of exotic bush meat is a huge problem leading to the extinction of many species including my favorite. It's disgusting and should be banned https://youtu.be/DqC3ieJJlFM
Actually Spanish flu appears to be worse according to the article you presented.
An estimated one third of the world's population (or ≈500 million persons) were infected and had clinically apparent illnesses (1,2) during the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic. The disease was exceptionally severe. Case-fatality rates were >2.5%, compared to <0.1% in other influenza pandemics (3,4). Total deaths were estimated at ≈50 million (5–7) and were arguably as high as 100 million (7).
I'm not that good at math, but that appears to be 10-20%
I'm comparing like metrics. The figure that the media keeps quoting about the current outbreak is the case-fatality rate (3.1%). As that article states, the same metric when applied to the Spanish flu was (2.5%).
It says greater than 2.5%. It doesn't provide a proper upper bound.
From this definition of Case Fatality that means that the proper range appears to be 10-20%.
In epidemiology, a case fatality rate (CFR) – or case fatality risk, case fatality ratio or just fatality rate – is the proportion of deaths within a designated population of "cases" (people with a medical condition) over the course of the disease. A CFR is conventionally expressed as a percentage and represents a measure of risk. CFRs are most often used for diseases with discrete, limited time courses, such as outbreaks of acute infections.
For example: Assume 9 deaths among 100 people in a community all diagnosed with the same disease. This means that among the 100 people formally diagnosed with the disease, 9 died and 91 recovered. The CFR, therefore, would be 9%. If some of the cases have not yet resolved (either died or recovered) at the time of analysis, this could lead to bias in estimating the CFR.
Now epidemiologists may have a lower CFR for Spanish Flu due to
I'd love to get some clarification on this. I just noticed that the media is quoting experts who are using a very specific term for the rate of deaths, and when I looked up the numbers using the same terminology for the Spanish flu, I was not comforted.
I'd really love a nice clear explanation about just how screwed we may all be.
We're not. A deadly flu is a big issue in the macro, on the personal scale it's not much.
Sure, all of those what ifs are real and problematic, but we’re no where near that point and don’t look to be.
Also worth noting that the quarantines are only of mass transport facilities, you can still enter and leave Wuhan, just places where mass transmission is possible are being restricted. And flights and trains are still moving, just fewer and with greater security checks.
This isn't to minimize the danger to folks, but also lets not expand it beyond where the situation is. Panic when there is no need to, especially about nightmare scenarios you have no control over won’t help anything.
No one here is in "panic." Stop being dismissive of people who are trying to discuss what is going on and game out what might happen if this is a real problem, instead of doing whatever it is that you are doing now.
Insisting that the only possible scenario is the "worst case doomsday collapse of society scenario" deserves some real dismissal. He's not being rude, he's being realistic and informative.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
You're gonna have to do some work to separate out a cultural "that is disgusting" reaction from a medical "that is dangerous" assessment.
Chinese cultural acceptance of exotic bush meat is a huge problem leading to the extinction of many species including my favorite. It's disgusting and should be banned https://youtu.be/DqC3ieJJlFM
Sustainable fishing, farming, and hunting are huge and important issues. They are not necessarily (and probably) not related to the current viral outbreak in China. Even if you banned the sale (and it was completely actually eliminated) of 'exotic' meat you probably would still be having routine outbreaks coming from these live animal markets in China because it's the conditions the animals are in which facilitate the spread of disease between animals and humans that is the problem.
Conflating the issue and posting clickbait showing the consumption of an animal that may or may not even be endangered doesn't seem useful.
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Zavianuniversal peace sounds better than forever warRegistered Userregular
You're gonna have to do some work to separate out a cultural "that is disgusting" reaction from a medical "that is dangerous" assessment.
Chinese cultural acceptance of exotic bush meat is a huge problem leading to the extinction of many species including my favorite. It's disgusting and should be banned https://youtu.be/DqC3ieJJlFM
Sustainable fishing, farming, and hunting are huge and important issues. They are not necessarily (and probably) not related to the current viral outbreak in China. Even if you banned the sale (and it was completely actually eliminated) of 'exotic' meat you probably would still be having routine outbreaks coming from these live animal markets in China because it's the conditions the animals are in which facilitate the spread of disease between animals and humans that is the problem.
Conflating the issue and posting clickbait showing the consumption of an animal that may or may not even be endangered doesn't seem useful.
Actually Spanish flu appears to be worse according to the article you presented.
An estimated one third of the world's population (or ≈500 million persons) were infected and had clinically apparent illnesses (1,2) during the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic. The disease was exceptionally severe. Case-fatality rates were >2.5%, compared to <0.1% in other influenza pandemics (3,4). Total deaths were estimated at ≈50 million (5–7) and were arguably as high as 100 million (7).
I'm not that good at math, but that appears to be 10-20%
I'm comparing like metrics. The figure that the media keeps quoting about the current outbreak is the case-fatality rate (3.1%). As that article states, the same metric when applied to the Spanish flu was (2.5%).
It says greater than 2.5%. It doesn't provide a proper upper bound.
From this definition of Case Fatality that means that the proper range appears to be 10-20%.
In epidemiology, a case fatality rate (CFR) – or case fatality risk, case fatality ratio or just fatality rate – is the proportion of deaths within a designated population of "cases" (people with a medical condition) over the course of the disease. A CFR is conventionally expressed as a percentage and represents a measure of risk. CFRs are most often used for diseases with discrete, limited time courses, such as outbreaks of acute infections.
For example: Assume 9 deaths among 100 people in a community all diagnosed with the same disease. This means that among the 100 people formally diagnosed with the disease, 9 died and 91 recovered. The CFR, therefore, would be 9%. If some of the cases have not yet resolved (either died or recovered) at the time of analysis, this could lead to bias in estimating the CFR.
Now epidemiologists may have a lower CFR for Spanish Flu due to
I'd love to get some clarification on this. I just noticed that the media is quoting experts who are using a very specific term for the rate of deaths, and when I looked up the numbers using the same terminology for the Spanish flu, I was not comforted.
I'd really love a nice clear explanation about just how screwed we may all be.
We're not. A deadly flu is a big issue in the macro, on the personal scale it's not much.
Sure, all of those what ifs are real and problematic, but we’re no where near that point and don’t look to be.
Also worth noting that the quarantines are only of mass transport facilities, you can still enter and leave Wuhan, just places where mass transmission is possible are being restricted. And flights and trains are still moving, just fewer and with greater security checks.
This isn't to minimize the danger to folks, but also lets not expand it beyond where the situation is. Panic when there is no need to, especially about nightmare scenarios you have no control over won’t help anything.
No one here is in "panic." Stop being dismissive of people who are trying to discuss what is going on and game out what might happen if this is a real problem, instead of doing whatever it is that you are doing now.
Insisting that the only possible scenario is the "worst case doomsday collapse of society scenario" deserves some real dismissal. He's not being rude, he's being realistic and informative.
I think it depends on how fast it spreads, how long it is contagious while it incubates but before it becomes symptomatic, and how much it mutates.
No reason to panic at this point, absolutely true. But we as a society should definitely be strengthening things like the health care system and the CDC. Because one of these days, we are going to get a nasty virus tearing through us again.
Oh and depending on level of infection and CFR a deadly flu is a big issue on the macro and personal scale. If we get Spanish Flu again, 1-2 out of 10 people being gone is going to crimp everybody's life. Now modern medicine might lower that casualty rate, but even cutting that in half is a bad day for everybody effected.
Now is this virus being taken seriously? Yes. Should anybody here panic? No. Is the problem contained? Who the fuck knows at this point. But at least health officials are taking this seriously.
Only thing to do is watch the story as it develops.
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If you think center left technocrats and Neoliberals are going bonkers over tariffs on China, wait until you start implementing sanctions on the CCP, Xi, Chinese SOEs etc.
But at the same time, they've also quarantined Wuhan, a city of 11 million, and I hear they're at least considering doing it elsewhere. This has understandably caused some panic for the people on the ground there. It doesn't sound like this particular novel virus is that bad, though there are also reports that the Chinese government is not being terribly forthcoming with information or access for foreign researchers and health officials.
New York Times Coverage:
https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-coronavirus.html
On the other
China might do with this virus what Trump's regime is doing with the flu in American concentration camps and just letting it burn through without treatment.
Edit: There have been several articles detailing immediate cremation after the deaths of people who were symptomatic and refusal by the state to autopsy or test for the presence of the virus. Instead dismissing fatalities as "natural causes".
I'm a progressive technocrat and I would love a huge pile of targeted sanctions against Chinese political leadership. I'm opposed to tariff's because they are stupid and hurt us more than it hurts them, not because I don't believe that we shouldn't put pressure on China over human rights violations. I would love for the American financial system to be less dependent on repressive regimes, much of my critiques of establishment positions are aimed directly at these associations with human rights violators that we enable with our financial support.
Quarantine is a big deal
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The scary thing is this virus has perfect spreading vectors, it has initial cold-like symptoms causing people to underestimate it, like one of the posters above, and it doesn't incapacitate its victims right away like the flu, allowing people to spread the virus as people will come into work for a mear cold.
SARS, Ebola, took months to reach this state, we are here within three weeks looking at global contamination. Incubation period is pretty long-two-to-three weeks. So it will be three weeks until we see serious contamination.
The death rate seems to be holding at 3.1% of people dying.
3.1% is bad. Hell's bells it's pretty terrible. But the last time the world saw a real viral plague it was so much worse.
This one’s worse. Spanish flu for the same metric:
I doubt that were seeing much in the way of deception here. The numbers being released are concerning, realistic and relatively regularly updated. Overseas cases (of which there are many in isolation) dont seem to be presenting different or more dangerous symptoms or infection profiles than detailed by China.
It does seem to be the worst we've seen in a long time though, we have to hope that the response can remain calm and strategic. Or that we see signs that the quarantine is taking effect.
Actually Spanish flu appears to be worse according to the article you presented.
I'm not that good at math, but that appears to be 10-20%
I'm comparing like metrics. The figure that the media keeps quoting about the current outbreak is the case-fatality rate (3.1%). As that article states, the same metric when applied to the Spanish flu was (2.5%).
From this CDC article, it's a different formula:
It says greater than 2.5%. It doesn't provide a proper upper bound.
From this definition of Case Fatality that means that the proper range appears to be 10-20%.
Now epidemiologists may have a lower CFR for Spanish Flu due to
The majority of deaths were from bacterial pneumonia,[65][66] a common secondary infection associated with influenza. The virus also killed people directly by causing massive hemorrhages and edema in the lung.[66]
I'd love to get some clarification on this. I just noticed that the media is quoting experts who are using a very specific term for the rate of deaths, and when I looked up the numbers using the same terminology for the Spanish flu, I was not comforted.
21 Million dead.
If it spreads to the same extent as the Spanish flu that means
80,185,990 dead.
I'd really love a nice clear explanation about just how screwed we may all be.
Depends on where you are probably
When you ask how screwed are we, the answer is no more screwed than with many many other illnesses we deal with every year. If you travel a lot, are very young or old, or are already immuno susceptible you have greater risk if you are in the area of the outbreak. For 99.99% of the forums this will only impact you via the stress of thinking about it.
For the world, it won’t come close to other preventable illnesses like heart disease.
Good lord that's disgusting..
Well, people don't care about the world, they care about themselves. I can do things against preventable heart disease, and I do. I can't do much about someone sneezing in my general direction
Dunno, as crazy as it seems to chow down on what looks to be essentially a fully intact shrunken terrorgheist, pigs and chickens are probably more of a danger of zoonotic diseases because most problems are going to come from contact with living, sick animals as opposed to eating cooked meat.
It may be that this time it came from bats or snakes or whatever, but at this point that’s all speculative. And from problems we have had with BSE and the like “meat animals” aren’t always safe either.
The safest thing to do would be to abandon both hunted animal meat and livestock cultivation entirely, of course, but good luck..,
Ultimately, the problem with narrow data-based viewpoints like yours is that they are too focused on these kind of "but X is worse" calculations. The world doesn't freak out when the death rates of 60-year-olds rise due to an increased rate of obesity, because it is something that happens over time and does so with a predictable and inevitable progression of signs.
The political fallout of millions of otherwise healthy people dropping dead in a few short days after getting sick would be dramatic, and the impacts of that fallout could mean disruption of food supplies, the economy, and medical services worldwide. It will not be a rational and coordinated global response, but a series of unpredictable swerves as panic rises and already stressed political systems respond poorly.
Like, what happens in the United States if one arm of the government tries to quarantine areas and restrict travel while the other arm of the government refuses to intervene on free market principles when employers refuse to obey and fire workers who refuse to come in while landlords go ahead with evictions for those who comply and lose income?
I am familiar with the actions late 19th and early 20th century governments undertook routinely to stem epidemics and manage the sick and dead. I have my doubts that, for example, 21st century America could do the same under current operating political ideologies.
Also worth noting that the quarantines are only of mass transport facilities, you can still enter and leave Wuhan, just places where mass transmission is possible are being restricted. And flights and trains are still moving, just fewer and with greater security checks.
This isn't to minimize the danger to folks, but also lets not expand it beyond where the situation is. Panic when there is no need to, especially about nightmare scenarios you have no control over won’t help anything.
No one here is in "panic." Stop being dismissive of people who are trying to discuss what is going on and game out what might happen if this is a real problem, instead of doing whatever it is that you are doing now.
I dunno. For some reason, bat soup seems a far riskier proposition than a McDonald's cheeseburger
(Keep in mind your McDonalds cheeseburger is safe because of regulation, food inspection, access control and cleanliness procedures, and even then Romaine lettuce has it's annual 'kill some people' event)
Like bats may be spookier and more exotic or whatever but pigs are much better vectors for transferring diseases to humans (and vice versa). I would venture that the holding conditions of the live animals and interaction with large numbers of people and other possible animal vectors is probably more to fault than spooky bat soup.
But neither of us are zoonose epidemiologists.
I googled it and the only sources were right-wing and dubious sites. It may be just a "Chinese people eat gross stuff" meme. Although I do know that Chinese medicine does involve eating some pretty disgusting stuff.
Chinese cultural acceptance of exotic bush meat is a huge problem leading to the extinction of many species including my favorite. It's disgusting and should be banned
https://youtu.be/DqC3ieJJlFM
We're not. A deadly flu is a big issue in the macro, on the personal scale it's not much.
Insisting that the only possible scenario is the "worst case doomsday collapse of society scenario" deserves some real dismissal. He's not being rude, he's being realistic and informative.
Sustainable fishing, farming, and hunting are huge and important issues. They are not necessarily (and probably) not related to the current viral outbreak in China. Even if you banned the sale (and it was completely actually eliminated) of 'exotic' meat you probably would still be having routine outbreaks coming from these live animal markets in China because it's the conditions the animals are in which facilitate the spread of disease between animals and humans that is the problem.
Conflating the issue and posting clickbait showing the consumption of an animal that may or may not even be endangered doesn't seem useful.
Bats are a known vector for diseases and are a large part of the exotic bush meat trade in China, so no, I don't think it's conflating the issue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat-borne_virus
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-25220-9_12#Sec9
I think it depends on how fast it spreads, how long it is contagious while it incubates but before it becomes symptomatic, and how much it mutates.
No reason to panic at this point, absolutely true. But we as a society should definitely be strengthening things like the health care system and the CDC. Because one of these days, we are going to get a nasty virus tearing through us again.
Oh and depending on level of infection and CFR a deadly flu is a big issue on the macro and personal scale. If we get Spanish Flu again, 1-2 out of 10 people being gone is going to crimp everybody's life. Now modern medicine might lower that casualty rate, but even cutting that in half is a bad day for everybody effected.
Now is this virus being taken seriously? Yes. Should anybody here panic? No. Is the problem contained? Who the fuck knows at this point. But at least health officials are taking this seriously.
Only thing to do is watch the story as it develops.