It's virus time, guyz. Welcome to Pandemic.

[D.o.S.]

Is it possible that this virus is basically the seasonal flu, or mixed in with the seasonal flu and people haven't been hysterical about it because there was no testing identifying it?
And that the global economy came close to complete collapse due to fear mongering by the media?

Y....y'know that scientists were the ones that identified the virus, right?
The name is literally novel coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19. The problem with it is the novel part, meaning antibodies don't exist in anyone for it, vaccines don't exist for it, etc.
Like scruffie said, it's basically another flu on top of the flu that's already going around. Except COVID-19 has three stages: cold-like symptoms, flu-like symptoms, pneumonia, then death if you're body can't handle the first 3 stages.

The TL;DR of why it's a big deal is that it's a brand new respiratory disease with no vaccine which cause carriers to be asymptomatic for 2 weeks while highly contagious and then can hit infected with hardcore flu symptoms until they get pneumonia, which can lead to permanent lung damage or death. And the big deal is that it's 30 times deadlier than the flu, and again, there's no vaccine.

Bingo.

[Dowi]

I heard things are stating to close in the U.S. too (schools, theatres etc..). I live in the Italian area that has been hit the most by this Virus (Lombardy - which is also the richest region): guys, just stay at home. I hear an ambulance every hour and i live in a quite isolated residential area. Yes, for young people like us the effects of this flu might not be a problem at all, but I personally know at least 6 people whose father/mother/grandma/pa has been hospitalized in critical conditions in the last 5 days (plus a few ones died). I'm not talking about very old people, i'm talking about 60yrs old or so.

If you want to have a glimpse of the situation: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/world/europe/12italy-coronavirus-health-care.html

[Abanoise]

I live just close to Dowi, about 100 miles far, and the situation is quite critical. Not only because of inherent danger of falling ill (way more than a seasonal flu), but also for the high virulence and the long lasting recovery time: the main problem is that intensive care units needed for the serious cases are limited, and may be occupied by a single patient for weeks; second, in these days, virus spreads among hospitals and medical centers, so it's quite dangerous for everyone who suffer any other illness to reach them for any sort of medical examination. Last week I suffered for days because of an acute gastritis, but my doctor refused to examined me for fear of a possible contagious, and he also prevented me from going to ask for further examinations...

[repoman]

So, as it is, only a couple hundred thousand have been infected, but if COVID-19 infected anywhere near the amount of people annually infected by the flu, the death toll would be insane.

This is the point though, no one knows how many people are infected with COVID19, with such similar death rates for hospitalizations, it's possible that many people had this virus, thought it was the "normal" seasonal flu and it went unreported? We are missing like 99% of the data here.

[repoman]

Korea had no where near the extreme quarantine proceedures that Wuhan had, yet somehow simply by testing a lot of people, this made their covid19 death rate 0.9% instead of 4.5% in Wuhan. None of these numbers or explanations makes any sense what so ever.

So... you are saying info coming out of china seems inaccurate... Well, I never....

Yes, that could be a problem. I'm curious how the Chinese data matches with Italy.

[Blackened Soul]

Korea had no where near the extreme quarantine proceedures that Wuhan had, yet somehow simply by testing a lot of people, this made their covid19 death rate 0.9% instead of 4.5% in Wuhan. None of these numbers or explanations makes any sense what so ever.

So... you are saying info coming out of china seems inaccurate... Well, I never....

Yes, that could be a problem. I'm curious how the Chinese data matches with Italy.

Exactly. And, add population ratio....

[coldbrightsunlight]

Wooo our country has now been, if not shut down, drastically scaled back. Guess I won't be seeing many people for a few weeks.

[Pepe]

All the playgrounds are closed now. What am I going to do with my three kids during the next five weeks?!

[Blackened Soul]

Make human sized hamster wheels?

[JonnyAngle]

Its a little spooky here. It's kind of like driving around on Christmas. Noticeably fewer people out and about, but not The Walking Dead quiet.

[themeanreds]

So, as it is, only a couple hundred thousand have been infected, but if COVID-19 infected anywhere near the amount of people annually infected by the flu, the death toll would be insane.

This is the point though, no one knows how many people are infected with COVID19, with such similar death rates for hospitalizations, it's possible that many people had this virus, thought it was the "normal" seasonal flu and it went unreported? We are missing like 99% of the data here.

We have plenty of data which illustrates how and why Covid can affect us differently and more severely than conventional flu, and why aggressive early testing is essential to mitigate spread.

Hospital beds and ventilators in Italy, for example. So far as I know, Italy has not experienced catastrophic shortages of either for some time prior to Covid.

South Korea and testing. Aggressive early testing, less extreme quarantine regulations, and lower infection rates make sense together as a whole. Testing as many as possible, as soon as possible, allows for improved tracking of spread and targeting of quarantines and treatment. Keep up with the spread, and city and country-wide total lockdowns may not be necessary.

[themeanreds]

So, as it is, only a couple hundred thousand have been infected, but if COVID-19 infected anywhere near the amount of people annually infected by the flu, the death toll would be insane.

This is the point though, no one knows how many people are infected with COVID19, with such similar death rates for hospitalizations, it's possible that many people had this virus, thought it was the "normal" seasonal flu and it went unreported? We are missing like 99% of the data here.

We have plenty of data which illustrates how and why Covid can affect us differently and more severely than conventional flu, and why aggressive early testing is essential to mitigate spread.

Hospital beds and ventilators in Italy, for example. So far as I know, Italy has not experienced catastrophic shortages of either for some time prior to Covid.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatl ... le/607807/

South Korea and testing. Aggressive early testing, less extreme quarantine regulations, and lower infection rates make sense together as a whole. Testing as many as possible, as soon as possible, allows for improved tracking of spread and targeting of quarantines and treatment. Keep up with the spread, and city and country-wide total lockdowns may not be necessary. Death rates are significantly lower than China because South Korea was able early on to isolate the infected and exposed from the most vulnerable.

Operative words: “with no forewarning”:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.propub ... behind/amp

[Dowi]

I live just close to Dowi, about 100 miles far, and the situation is quite critical. Not only because of inherent danger of falling ill (way more than a seasonal flu), but also for the high virulence and the long lasting recovery time: the main problem is that intensive care units needed for the serious cases are limited, and may be occupied by a single patient for weeks; second, in these days, virus spreads among hospitals and medical centers, so it's quite dangerous for everyone who suffer any other illness to reach them for any sort of medical examination. Last week I suffered for days because of an acute gastritis, but my doctor refused to examined me for fear of a possible contagious, and he also prevented me from going to ask for further examinations...

Forgot to mention this, but yeah, this is a big part of the problem too, my mother needed an examination too and in the end she managed to find a private doctor because there was no other way of being visited by anyone.
Ps. hope you're fine now

We have plenty of data which illustrates how and why Covid can affect us differently and more severely than conventional flu, and why aggressive early testing is essential to mitigate spread.

Hospital beds and ventilators in Italy, for example. So far as I know, Italy has not experienced catastrophic shortages of either for some time prior to Covid.

exactly, i think this is now clear to anyone that the biggest problem with this virus is not (only) its death rate, but the death rate caused by the inability of medical systems to react to such a high number of individuals requiring intensive care - and therefore, the difficulties of dealing at the same time with emergencies not realted to this virus.

All the playgrounds are closed now. What am I going to do with my three kids during the next five weeks?!

if you want i can enlist all the things we did in the past three weeks to entertain my daughter in a two-rooms apartment

[repoman]

I live just close to Dowi, about 100 miles far, and the situation is quite critical. Not only because of inherent danger of falling ill (way more than a seasonal flu), but also for the high virulence and the long lasting recovery time: the main problem is that intensive care units needed for the serious cases are limited, and may be occupied by a single patient for weeks; second, in these days, virus spreads among hospitals and medical centers, so it's quite dangerous for everyone who suffer any other illness to reach them for any sort of medical examination. Last week I suffered for days because of an acute gastritis, but my doctor refused to examined me for fear of a possible contagious, and he also prevented me from going to ask for further examinations...

Forgot to mention this, but yeah, this is a big part of the problem too, my mother needed an examination too and in the end she managed to find a private doctor because there was no other way of being visited by anyone.
Ps. hope you're fine now

We have plenty of data which illustrates how and why Covid can affect us differently and more severely than conventional flu, and why aggressive early testing is essential to mitigate spread.

Hospital beds and ventilators in Italy, for example. So far as I know, Italy has not experienced catastrophic shortages of either for some time prior to Covid.

exactly, i think this is now clear to anyone that the biggest problem with this virus is not (only) its death rate, but the death rate caused by the inability of medical systems to react to such a high number of individuals requiring intensive care - and therefore, the difficulties of dealing at the same time with emergencies not realted to this virus.

All the playgrounds are closed now. What am I going to do with my three kids during the next five weeks?!

if you want i can enlist all the things we did in the past three weeks to entertain my daughter in a two-rooms apartment

The death rate looks high when you equate the total that test positive as the total number of effected, if you compare death rates to hospitalizations between COVID19 and the flu last year, they look quite similar. Seasonal flu looks far less lethal because they assume like 60% of the country gets it, we don't know how many people have this virus, which is what I'm getting at, it could be far more deadly, it possibly could not, I'm not saying one way or the other, it's that we don't know yet.


Some more info from Chinese data: "About 4% of children were asymptomatic, 51% had mild illness and 39% had moderate illness. About 6% had severe or critical illness, compared to 18.5% of adults."

So out of all positives of COVID19 for children, 90% were either asymptomatic, mild or moderate. Among adults it appears much worse (still his would mean 81.5% of adults were asymptomatic, mild or moderate, although I don't see breakdown of total number of ages in his this adult category, and what exactly the breakdown of "severe or critical" is. If 80-90% of people having this are asymptomatic/mild/moderate, and the total number tested even in the most highly tested countries is such a tiny fraction of the total population, the potential pool of people infected could be massive, they are just not being effected by it really?

[Achtane]

A public health bulletin courtesy of Wu-tang: