Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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There is here in the Seattle area. Not that I am criticizing really. I just find it ironic.

Last edited by EzraS on 03 Mar 2020, 8:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

Something to ponder:

Each year in the United States, more than 250,000 people have to seek care in a hospital due to pneumonia. Unfortunately, about 50,000 people die from the disease each year in the United States.

Worldwide yearly about 450 million people contract pneumonia and about 2.6 million die from it.

Imagine how terrified everyone would be if pneumonia came into existence for the first time this year.

However since it has been around a long time, most people do not think about it much.

Leadership positions in Iran are taking a big hit due to the cornavirus

Iran on Tuesday announced new measures to slow the spread of the new coronavirus and reported that the country has seen 2,336 cases and 77 deaths since the outbreak.

An Iranian lawmaker reportedly has told colleagues to stop their contact with public as there are 23 cases of the new coronavirus among parliament members.

Iran has seen the highest death toll from the new virus and the COVID-19 illness it causes outside of China, the epicenter of the virus.

An activist group also said Tuesday that Wikipedia's Farsi-language website appeared to be disrupted in Iran after a close confidant to the supreme leader died of the new coronavirus.

The advocacy group NetBlocks linked the death of Expediency Council member Mohammad Mirmohammadi to the disruption, though Iranian officials and its state media did not immediately acknowledge it. Authorities face increasing criticism from the Iranian public over the outbreak amid concerns the number of cases from the virus may be higher than currently reported.

The disruption raises fears of Iran potentially shutting off the internet entirely again, as it did for a week during economic protests in November. Iran separately has created its own so-called “halal” net of government-approved websites.

Experts still worry Iran’s percentage of deaths to infections, now around 4.4%, is much higher than other countries, suggesting the number of infections in Iran may be far greater than current figures show. Saudi Arabia and Jordan meanwhile announced their first cases of the virus Monday.

Mirmohammadi’s death makes him the highest-ranking official within Iran’s theocracy to be killed by the virus. The virus earlier killed Hadi Khosroshahi, Iran’s former ambassador to the Vatican, as well as a recently elected member of parliament.

Those sick include Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar, better known as “Sister Mary,” the English-speaking spokeswoman for the students who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and sparked the 444-day hostage crisis, state media reported. Also sick is Iraj Harirchi, the head of an Iranian government task force on the coronavirus who tried to downplay the virus before falling ill.

Source: Iran reports 2,336 cases of the new coronavirus, at least 77 dead; MPs hit hard

Addiction specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky panned the media's response to the coronavirus outbreak. The root of the larger problem domestically has been the panic being spread by the mainstream media.

"Essentially the entire problem we are having is due to panic, not the virus," he said. "I was saying this six weeks ago. We have six deaths from the coronavirus, 18,000 from the flu. Why isn't the message, 'Get your flu vaccine'"?

"The entirety of the problem now is that people are being pushed into bankruptcy. Travel is down. The supply chain is being interrupted because of panic," he reiterated.

Source: Dr. Drew: Media-driven panic over coronavirus is a bigger problem than the virus

Compulsory isolation in the fight against coronavirus: a clash of human rights and public health

https://theconversation.com/compulsory- ... lth-132524

You have a contradiction right there. Is COVID-19 worse than flu or not? Hard to say, right?

Compounded to this is WHO's message that this virus can be contained and that containment is still the goal. The picture is just too confusing.

Silver lining: Taiwan is a subtropical country. In two more week the warm weather will kick in and provide a big help. Frankly, Singapore and Hong Kong are doing pretty well. So is Vietnam. All the evidences are pointing to warm weather as a big help.

So, I guess containment can still be the goal, until warm weather arrives in May. It's just that if we go down the route of containment, then we shouldn't be comparing COVID-19 to flu. We don't do containment for flu. Containment requires a different type of expenditure, and it's not cheap. It means shutting down business travels and closing down schools. It means stocking up supplies. It means enforced isolation. Many people will lose their freedom of movement. Not cheap. But the outcome is better than letting the coronavirus run its course.

So, before anyone jumps to comparing the mortality rate of COVID-19 vs. the seasonal flu, they should ask first: do you prefer containment, or do you prefer letting the virus run its course? The two preferences require two different approaches. It's meaningless to compare the mortality rates when you choose containment. You can't have the pie and eat it, too.

Last edited by eikonabridge on 03 Mar 2020, 9:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

I could use another 2 or 3 weeks off from work. Where do I sign up?

Is this true? Or is he just not looking far enough ahead? One argument for the massive costly and disruptive testing, screening and containment measures, in some countries at least, ( and which are also triggering the increased shopping activity, etc ), is that it is a way to slow the spread and keep the numbers "flat", so that health services are not quite as overwhelmed as they would be if it spread faster, and are able to provide better/more intensive care and save lives ....

I'm imagining that most politicians/leaders are investing in containment as much as they can for that reason, while avoiding doing too much damage to economies or other priorities of their own. I think it's significant that a Trump Jr appears to have accused Democrats of wishing millions of deaths on people for political purposes ... because I suspect that that thought is more likely to arise on the right, notorious for not caring about the old or the weak unless rich.

How much less containment could governments get away with? Yes this virus has so far killed far fewer than this year's bouts of pneumonia and flu etc, but if not contained now, or at least slowed down, the existing data indicates that this virus would kill many many more, and hospitalise/deactivate huge numbers of ill, as well as the people caring for them, which would also impact businesses etc, as health services would be overwhelmed by too rapid spread, and this virus spreads very rapidly.

My question is this if the CDC is only testing people that meet a very specific criteria and the virus really spreads easily as they say what are the odds that people who have the COVID 19 virus are getting misdiagnosed as having a more severe case of the FLU or Pneumonia since the virus basicly has the same symptoms if you are not testing for the virus there is no way to know how many of the FLU / Pneumonia cases or deaths are actually COVID 19 related.

1. Stop using life experiences matter as an excuse to travel to different countries

2. Stop staying at unsanitary hotels or whatever

3. Start living in fear of very horrible things

4. Don’t be nasty or debate with people like me who have common sense

Simple. Close off all national borders until 90 days have passed after the most recent confirmed case of the virus.

Why not do that over influenza? 56,000 people die from it annually. Compared to 3,164 who have died from corvid-19.

Really vehicles should be banned. WHO estimates that there are 3,287 deaths per day from road crashes.

Why aren't people terrified of diving?

Depending on rate of spread, and how well health systems worldwide cope with it, it is quite possible that 126 million people could die of coronavirus infection/covid-19. That is 3% ( the current death rate in Italy, Iran, China and the USA ) of 60% of the population, ( they think that between 40% - 80% will be infected ). The Spanish Flu "only" killed between 50-100 million, ( depending on calculation and diagnostic and estimate criteria ), or more certainly about 5% of the population in 1918-20. Car accidents cause 1.25 million deaths a year, less than 1% of the possible/probable projected coronavirus total. Even if the death rate turns out to be "only" 1% that will still be 42 million people.

But, but, but.....open borders!

Ungoodthink.

In Hawaii, they had a scare after a tourist couple from Japan traveled to Hawaii, and then after returning to Japan tested positive for coronavirus. This was a few weeks ago. They had been wanting to test for a while, but it appears at least the first test came back negative:

https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/02/hawai ... -negative/

Maybe they've done more, I don't know, but I haven't been able to find any more info on it in the news, so I guess they've done more and none have come back positive.

So it is looking like you are correct about the effect of warm weather. If warm weather does cause a reduction in the virus, then it's the southern hemisphere could become a hotbed with it returning in the northern hemisphere next winter.