outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

xpost Interesting. Am I right then that even the mortality rate is pretty nebulous? Like SARS et al., obviously they are not testing and can't test everyone, so there is no way to know how many people have got it and were/are asymptomatic, or had very mild symptoms. They are only testing people suspected to be infected (another great album title!) or who were in contact with infected. So maybe the mortality rate is whatever it is *among those people* but it's unclear (right?) what it is or could be in the general population. My point being, whether this is better or worse than SARS, H1N1 et al. is moot, because SARS, H1N1 et al. were not good! And yet, they didn't cripple the world. As far as I remember.

And I still think the 1918 flu comparison is mostly academic, because of both 100 years of medical progress and the advent of antibiotics (which, yeah, won't do anything for this virus, but which are massively helpful in staving off ancillary, opportunistic illness which often does the actual killing).

austin declares emergency, sxsw cancelled

There it is!

13 cases in Portugal now, and flights being cancelled out of Lisbon (preumably due to reduced demand).

Are we being crippled? We’re just staying home.

https://img.taste.com.au/kwdDtrvw/w640-h640-cfill/taste/2020/03/fireshot-capture-1352-_il-grande-sconfitto-da-questo-virus-sono-le-penne-lisce_-lironia-_-www-huffingtonpost-it-159266-1.png
https://img.taste.com.au/CJTdso4y/w720-h480-cfill-q80/taste/2020/03/no-buying-pasta-159267-1.jpg

my Italian coworker told me about these pictures that are going around of the shelves in Italian supermarkets being completely bare except for many packs of penne lisce, the most bad and hated pasta lol

Berkeley has at least once potential case, someone who has self-quarantined (my wife saw her outside of whole foods last week in her mask, she realized later), and she lays out what it was like in South Korea vs what it's like in the US, and it's depressing:

https://www.berkeleyside.com/2020/03/05/opinion-after-seeing-what-south-korea-is-doing-to-stop-the-spread-of-covid-19-the-u-s-seems-unprepared-can-it-step-up

"The question I haven't really seen answered - and maybe there is no answer yet, which increases anxiety - is how this is significantly different from H1N1, or SARS, or the flu or any similar outbreak from the past couple of decades. I mean, yeah, the virus itself is different, but the world survived those without melting down. What is different this time?"

I went down some fucking FB tin hat rabbit hole that posited that this virus doesn't go away, like HIV; if you have it, you have it forever; and that it was likely an engineered virus. My gut reaction is "that's stupid" but you know, could be true.

That graphic was reproduced in reality in 1918, after Philadelphia held a Liberty Loan Drive parade on September 28.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/104/18/7582/F1.large.jpg

head of Philadelphia’s Naval Hospital told the Public Ledger in the days before the parade: “There is no cause for further alarm. We believe we have it well in hand.”

No that’s stupid

xp

Exposure means *immunity*

I'm hoping that no-one in this thread is taking advice from Josh (or Tracer, ffs Tracer!) but this is more than usually bad advice - there are multiple reports of people recovering and being re-infected.

I’m not handing out advice Andrew. I’m saying that I’m not worried if someone I work with or sit next to on the Tube has the sniffles.

“We should all run out and catch this ASAP cause then we’ll have immunity and stop it spreading” is galaxy brain stuff

xp runny nose isn't a symptom afaik, so "the sniffles" is nbd. the problem, as has been noted repeatedly itt, is that the person sitting next to you who seems fine could have it, and easily transmit it

i'm not worried for myself if i run across anyone who's sick, but more worried for others. my mom is coming to visit L.A. tomorrow for a couple weeks, just in time to be in possibly the next city on the west coast to get a marked increase in cases. while she's in "ok" health, she's also 72, and i'm likely going to try to do things with her that don't involve close quarters with others. just in case.

perhaps the people of LA could substitute the usual public transpo commute with single driver highway auto traffic to help prevent further spread

live your life until you get a diagnosis ffs definitely sounds like advice?

Tracer the containment efforts are trying to curb the spread so at risk and immunocompromised patients don't get it and curb preventable deaths. It's not to prevent all regular citizens from getting sick.

Nobody is saying lock yourself in the bunker for a month, but (and this isn't directed at you, but people I know IRL) people who are all like "fuck this cowardice, let's stop quarantining and cancelling major events, just live your lives, we'll get it and recover in a week" are basically flipping the bird to the people most at risk from dying from this.

I mean we do want to prevent regular folk from getting sick too but the reason more aggressive measures are being taken here are to contain the mass spreading which will reduce the number of deaths

Not saying this is what's happening itt but there is a select category of human beings endowed with unusually potent immune systems who are empirically incapable of grasping the meaning of illness and who speak of it in insufferably flippant tones as a result.

Nobody is saying lock yourself in the bunker for a month, but (and this isn't directed at you, but people I know IRL) people who are all like "fuck this cowardice, let's stop quarantining and cancelling major events, just live your lives, we'll get it and recover in a week" are basically flipping the bird to the people most at risk from dying from this.

otm

if you know anyone with cancer or recovering from cancer (and everyone does) - keep them and other people with weakened immune systems in mind.

xpost That's not really what I said or meant re: going out to become immune. What I've said repeatedly is that there are high risk people and low risk people, and most people by far are low risk and therefore outright quarantine is an extreme position to take. You should go about your business unless you really feel like you can't or shouldn't. Obviously that is up to you, but unless you ("you") are advocating/advising/suggesting that literally everybody shuts themselves in for two weeks, then there's at least some chance you're going to be exposed. And if you are exposed, most likely you will then become immune. Speaking of spreading possible bullshit:

there are multiple reports of people recovering and being re-infected.

Here's an article I just found about why you may be seeing those scattered reports: https://fortune.com/2020/03/06/coronavirus-recover-test-positive-twice/

Being reinfected with COVID-19 is possible, said Sharon Lewin, director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, but such an instance would be "surprising." It's possible that patients are not actually being reinfected, but that other factors—misdiagnosis, human error, or faulty tests—are giving that appearance.

Testing done with animal models for SARS, a similar coronavirus, indicates that patients who recover from the disease will have immunity from it. "From what we know of other coronaviruses, you recover, you make an antibody response, and you clear the virus, and then if you rechallenge the animal with the same virus they're protected," Lewin said.

Lewin put stocks in explanations other than reinfection, but she emphasized that the virus still has too many unknowns and there are too few reported twice-positive cases to conduct a study or draw a definitive conclusion.

Regardless, for those locking themselves away, which is your prerogative, that's a surefire way to limit your exposure, to this and all sorts of other stuff, but it will still likely be out there should you ever decide to emerge.

I’m not trying to limit my exposure for myself I’m trying to limit it for public health while my city is on the upward trajectory of an epidemic outbreak. And that means I’m working from home for at least three weeks and so are tens of thousands of other people.

And you should, or it's not a bad idea, because as you said, your city is on the upward trajectory of an epidemic outbreak.

And I would do the same here if and when it happens here.

...but other cities are also likely on the same trajectory. remember that thing where the US is completely failing to provide testing kits?

xp

it's amazing that you can know so much about this whole coronavirus thing and not think that it's already here, in chicago

basically this, 100x over and over again, for a total of 100,000 times

I’m not trying to limit my exposure for myself I’m trying to limit it for public health while my city is on the upward trajectory of an epidemic outbreak. And that means I’m working from home for at least three weeks and so are tens of thousands of other people.

― college bong rip guy (silby),

There have been five cases (so far) in the state of IL.

I mean, I'm just reading up on this the same way other people are, in real time.

nice. how many tests have there been in IL?

i mean, you got tested, right?

i definitely got tested.

everyone you know got tested, right?

xps ffs dude 5 KNOWN cases

and after you get sick, how long does it take before the symptoms show up?

and how long has it really been spreading, anyway, in Illinois? well, to know that we just have to refer back to the test results. you know, the ones we all took a week ago or so

Again, and again: does that mean literally everybody should isolate because literally everybody could have it?

I mean, that's a logical position to take, isn't it?

the point is - let's be cautious because no one knows what's going on because there aren't enough tests here, and i don't really care to accidentally spread it around (as an asymptomatic carrier) more than i need to, especially as i know people old, middle-aged, and young who have very delicate immune systems, friends and family

no, that's not a logical position.

OK. What does "need to" mean? Are you staying home? If not, why not?

a logical position is to take precautions and not be massive eyerolling when people are taking measures to limit their exposure in large public gatherings.

I'm not eye-rolling. I'm not saying people should limit their exposure. People should be cautious. But if you leave the house, you run the risk of catching it. And if you catch it, you run the risk of passing it on. You don't need to be in a large public gathering for that to happen.

i take a bus to a train to work, then a train and bus back to work. i'm going to an event tomorrow where there will be dozens of people packed into a tight space

What precautions can you take besides washing your hands (a given), avoiding sick people (a given), and not leaving the house?

Follow the WHO guidelines for one. There's a start.

fwiw I don’t think anyone without symptoms should sequester themselves unless advised to, I was just loling at the logic of contracting the disease—>immunity—>not passing it to others—>profit because it leaves out the rather important stage of... being contagious and passing it to others

I am still leaving the house

also the misleading comparisons to H1N1 and SARS

(and last night, HIV (!?!)