patrick.net

Called this as a potential black swan event January 23.
“ Ok here’s a possibility: a new deadly virus causes mass death and even wider panic, slowing China’s economy down and also exports and supply chains. That might hurt us a bit over time, especially if the virus comes to our shores.
Might just be another Ebola scare though. But yah a mass world health crisis could possibly do it.”

mell says

I doubt anybody on patnet will catch it as we're currently at less than 2 in 1 million. if it becomes endemic and seasonal then your chances of catching it eventually rise over the years.

I think someone on Patnet will catch it. If it’s me, I’ll report symptoms and details as well as what helps me recover (assuming I do). Everyone else wanna do the same? I guess that’s assuming we know we have it. Mild cases might seem like just the sniffles.

NoCoupForYou says

Dengue can easily spread person to person by mosquito bites.

It's not spreading exponentially in the US. Is it?
You think if it was it would not cause alarms?

NoCoupForYou says

The whole thing is hype, heavily colored by politics since day one.

You say that only because have your politics colored glasses and see everything presumably bad for Trump as a conspiracy.

mell says

We're up to 19000 flu deaths by now, just saying ;)

A simple projection implies a lot more people than that will die from COVID19 in the coming year in the US.
You can't look at absolute numbers now and ignore the trajectory.

NoCoupForYou says

overwhelmingly concentrated among lifetime elderly smokers eating bats in heavily polluted China.

Not sure why, but this is one of the few times I've actually laughed out loud instantly on a patnet comment. I'm still laughing.

Heraclitusstudent says

A simple projection implies a lot more people than that will die from COVID19 in the coming year in the US.
You can't look at absolute numbers now and ignore the trajectory.

No way. For the 2019/2020 season COVID-19 deaths will NOT outnumber flu deaths. Not even close. While anything is possible, that simple projection is very likely very wrong and unnecessarily panic inducing. Not even the US or WHO Doctors have forecasted anything close to that. You can talk about a serious illness and steps to curb it without panic inducing doomsday predictions. There are plenty of people, esp. elderly that are already isolated and lonely, this will even exacerbate their isolation. Plus the preppers encouraged by doomsday predictions are taking away medical resources needed by medical staff.

mell says

No way. For the 2019/2020 season COVID-19 deaths will NOT outnumber flu deaths. Not even close. While anything is possible, that simple projection is very likely very wrong

Why? At 0.5%, 20,000 dead is just 4 millions infected.
What will stop the spread of this before we have 4 millions infected? Especially if we take your recommendation to ignore it.
As far as I can tell, we could easily see 100k, or even 500k deaths in the US in 1 year.
Unless we take a page from the Chinese playbook - in which case the market is probably right to head south.

Heraclitusstudent says

mell says

No way. For the 2019/2020 season COVID-19 deaths will NOT outnumber flu deaths. Not even close. While anything is possible, that simple projection is very likely very wrong

Why? At 0.5%, 20,000 dead is just 4 millions infected.
What will stop the spread of this before we have 4 millions infected? Especially if we take your recommendation to ignore it.

It's not a recommendation to ignore. I'm on board with the measures taken simply because we don't now enough about it yet and there's no vaccine/treatment yet. That being said, people are totally willing to entertain 20K flu deaths per season in the US without taking any special precautions. There won't be 4 millions infected, that possibility is very unlikely esp. since the cold season is about to end, most CVs disappear for the summer except for few cases. We can talk about that possibility when there's no sign of slowing down come spring. I still say we have peaked or are peaking by April at the latest. If you look at the worldwide numbers there's only one country which has still a problem and that's Italy. I love Italians but am not surprised, they are very folksy and likely to ignore precautions and sanitary advice, which is why the whole family there gets the seasonal illnesses. I hope they can get it under control soon as they have many elderly.

Heraclitusstudent says

mell says

No way. For the 2019/2020 season COVID-19 deaths will NOT outnumber flu deaths. Not even close. While anything is possible, that simple projection is very likely very wrong

Why? At 0.5%, 20,000 dead is just 4 millions infected.
What will stop the spread of this before we have 4 millions infected? Especially if we take your recommendation to ignore it.
As far as I can tell, we could easily see 100k, or even 500k deaths in the US in 1 year.
Unless we take a page from the Chinese playbook - in which case the market is probably right to head south.

Some say that the virus is an artificial, weaponized strain and as such is too deadly to survive long-term. Meaning that it either will wind down and disappear or become less deadly with every mutation. Which makes projections based on current numbers not very useful to accurately predict the future.

The_Weeping_Ayatollah says

Heraclitusstudent says

mell says

No way. For the 2019/2020 season COVID-19 deaths will NOT outnumber flu deaths. Not even close. While anything is possible, that simple projection is very likely very wrong

Why? At 0.5%, 20,000 dead is just 4 millions infected.
What will stop the spread of this before we have 4 millions infected? Especially if we take your recommendation to ignore it.
As far as I can tell, we could easily see 100k, or even 500k deaths in the US in 1 year.
Unless we take a page from the Chinese playbook - in which case the market is probably right to head south.

Some say that the virus is an artificial, weaponized strain and as such is too deadly to survive long-term. Meaning that it either will wind down and disappear or become less deadly with every mutation. Which makes project...

I think the likelihood of this being a weaponized strain is 20%, 80% that is is natural. But either way, the longer a virus persists the less deadly they become, on order to survive and leave enough new hosts around. It already mutated once into a less aggressive strain which has been seen emerging more and more lately. This also correlates with the initial high death rate which has been slowly going down, despite being skewed to the upside since testing began as many mild cases will be missed. We don't know enough about it so we're all speculating to a certain extent, but it's not a pandemic by any means if you look at the numbers so far. More a global epidemic.

mell says

people are totally willing to entertain 20K flu deaths per season in the US without taking any special precautions

There is a vaccine. That's a big precaution.

mell says

It already mutated once into a less aggressive strain which has been seen emerging more and more lately.

Yes some miracle could happen that will save the day. Until then row projections say 20K deaths is a low estimate in the US. Mutations can also turn out more contagious or more deadly.

The_Weeping_Ayatollah says

Some say that the virus is an artificial, weaponized strain and as such is too deadly to survive long-term. Meaning that it either will wind down and disappear or become less deadly with every mutation.

Miracle thinking. God will save us. Mutations will happen to help us. It will miraculously go away because of something we have yet to see.
Motivated reasoning.

How about a simple projection from hard empirical facts?

Heraclitusstudent says

Yes some miracle could happen that will save the day. Until then row projections say 20K deaths is a low estimate in the US. Mutations can also turn out more contagious or more deadly.

Again, the new infection rate in the US has started to trend down since testing has been established. And the social gathering restrictions and closures have just started. There's no way you can deduce that many infections. And neither US doctors nor the WHO have any projections coming close to that.

Heraclitusstudent says

The_Weeping_Ayatollah says

Some say that the virus is an artificial, weaponized strain and as such is too deadly to survive long-term. Meaning that it either will wind down and disappear or become less deadly with every mutation.

Miracle thinking. God will save us. Mutations will happen to help us. It will miraculously go away because of something we have yet to see.
Motivated reasoning.

Nothing miraculous about it - simple fucking evolution: it's actualy beneficial for a virus to be less deadly, not more, so it will mutate towards being less deadly. The tendency for pathogenic viruses to become less deadly with time has been observed before on multiple occasions. The best known case is the infamous Spanish flu of 100 years ago.

The_Weeping_Ayatollah says

Nothing miraculous about it - simple fucking evolution: it's actualy beneficial for a virus to be less deadly, not more, so it will mutate towards being less deadly.

Yes and you know how it works: these deadly viruses die after they killed too many of their hosts, and can't continue to propagate.
Are you saying this is what will happen here?

mell says

Again, the new infection rate in the US has started to trend down since testing has been established.

Got a graph?

The Wikipedia graph of new infections ("Total" or "Rest of World") seems to show a flattening in the last 3 days, but that could be noise:

Heraclitusstudent says

The_Weeping_Ayatollah says

Nothing miraculous about it - simple fucking evolution: it's actualy beneficial for a virus to be less deadly, not more, so it will mutate towards being less deadly.

Yes and you know how it works: these deadly viruses die after they killed too many of their hosts, and can't continue to propagate.
Are you saying this is what will happen here?

It's not necessary for more severe strain to kill the host in order to hamper it's spread: people infected with more severe strain would more likely stay home or be put into quarantine thus hampering propagation of the virus, while people infected with a mild strain will continue with their usual activities and thus propagate their strain more. Meaing that the milder strains would have an advantage over the more severe ones.

Patrick says

mell says

Again, the new infection rate in the US has started to trend down since testing has been established.

Got a graph?

The Wikipedia graph of new infections ("Total" or "Rest of World") seems to show a flattening in the last 3 days, but that could be noise:

I look at this site:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

and calculate new infections as percentage of total. While the active cases have gone up since the outbreak in Europe mainly, most countries are on the downslope in the last few days, percentage wise. Italy, Iran, Spain etc. are the current outliers causing the active infections to rise. I expect at least Italy to decrease soon with the drastic measures they have taken. Also if you look at Asia as an example - sure China employed drastic measures, but South Korea and Hong Kong not so much - they have already had their peak. The West is a few weeks behind. The US had new infection rates of 25% the past few days, and higher in the first days of testing, it's currently sitting at 13% for the day but there's still two hours to report since the site resets at GMT 0 hours. It's at worst stagnating and here in the bay areas we just started work from home and canceling all large events.

Or to put it differently, the vast majority of the re-spike to linear of the blue line is due to Europe and within Europe almost exclusively due to Italy. If you took Europe out you'd see the trend clearer. The total infections in the US hardly contribute - per 1 million capita they currently stand at 2.

mell says

Pay attention Dummies!

90% of all Western Cases are from Sequestered cruise ship passengers, that are effectively Political prisoner, pathogen hosts, and kept long enough to incubate a Global Crisis.
Just a month ago, the media was reporting it's not spreading, and will soon be over. Since then there has been more than 4 Cruise ships around the world that have quarantined people due to JUST ONE CASE. They kept them all there until 300 or 400 cases were documented. Then somehow saw fit to send everyone home.
None of those cases would have happened had they just sent them home. That's they way it behaves in the wild. It's not a highly contagious disease unless people are confined in close quarters.

For once Elon Musk said something smart today.

something to the affect of "The Corona hype is ridiculous. "

The Local authorities wont honestly report where they are coming from. Just like they do with the Jihad Terrorists, and the Catch and Release criminals and killers they relocate to our towns, then Lie their fucking Commie Asses off. Liberals are Creeps!

Were assuming this is "flu like" and will dissipate once summer hits. Remains to be seen.

Although the mortality rate is approx. 3% we dont know the long term health risks to those exposed nor do we k ow how many will ultimately contract this thing.

That said this may be (although not quite a nothing burger) not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, at least not yet. It's too early too tell, IMHO.

My point is the unknowns outnumber the knowns right now and that contributes to the sense of fear and panic that are starting to materialize.

Time will tell,but for me I'll enjoy every day as best I can... virus or no virus. Same as yesterday... same as tomorrow. Carpe Diem.

Heraclitusstudent says

It's not spreading exponentially in the US. Is it?

Neither is the Coronavirus. It took weeks to get to 400+ cases.

Heraclitusstudent says

You say that only because have your politics colored glasses and see everything presumably bad for Trump as a conspiracy.

You mean how the media shifted from "Don't you dare hurt globalism from shutting air travel down with China", including Senator Schumer, to today, where Jack made "Trumpedemic" trend?


I'm on the side of reason. I've been calling this overhyped BS from the beginning.

Millions have probably had this disease already. In the grand scheme of epidemiology, this is a nothing burger. Making it into a something burger is politicization.

Plus the Trump administration is doing all the right things - relief for gig workers, payroll tax cuts, now we just need to add a bit of Fed bazooka / PPT and we can rocketship this baby back up. Looks like the numbers of most countries for new infections are at or below 15% which is huge. A new day just started on the counter at https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Let's see if we can keep this trend of slowing new infections.

Also my respect for Pence has grown significantly - was never a big fan but the way he handles the vitriol from the leftoid reporters with stoicism is remarkable, this has been going on since he demolished that demonrat idiot whose name I forgot during the VP debate before the 2016 election.

Map of the US looks like it has hemorrhagic acne. Primarily in all of the dirty places where one would expect.

Some late data came in and added cases to the US coming in as one of the higher countries for new infections - likely due to ramped up testing - so the US ended the day with 23% of new infections, still a small decline. The other good news is most countries have declined, most European countries and Iran came in well under 15%, and Asia is leveling off fast now.

Oh! They changed the fucking map! Now states mostly have a single large dot on them now vs. cities and counties. It's fucking EVERYWHERE and they're hiding it! hahaha

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

We're all gonna die!!!!

It's almost an impossibility if you've been out in public that you have NOT been exposed to this in the last month or so. Just saw on the news tonight that you can transmit if infected for up to 21 days (this is with limited data of course). Some people have minimal to no symptoms.

This first became somewhat public in China during early December I believe? So that means this could have been around since late October and potentially earlier, transmitting from person to person. It's mid March. 100's of thousands of people had been through the Wuhan region from November through January. This thing is all over the globe already. If you've been sick since early December there's no telling if it was typical influenza or Corona if you didn't get tested.

Both my kids had cough and/or respiratory issues in late January with a slight fever. Could have just been a cold. Could have been the flu. I'd have no idea because it wasn't severe enough to do anything about it beside cough medicine and fever reducer. No doc visit necessary.

TL:DR - Corona is massively overhyped and you likely have been exposed to it.

Usually fever is flu not cold but then again I'm not sure when it comes to kids.

I was nailed pretty good in mid-Jan as well. Thought it was the flu and work with a lot of people who travel back and forth to China a lot.

Could be!

he demolished that demonrat idiot whose name I forgot during the VP debate before the 2016 election.

That was Tim Kaine, a Senator from my state.

Cold fact is that worldwide about 150,000 people DIE EVERY DAY!
Now we have 4,000 worldwide Coronavirus death over about 3 months. How this nasty FLU compare?
I think all is grossy overblow.

just_dregalicious says

Usually fever is flu not cold but then again I'm not sure when it comes to kids.

I was nailed pretty good in mid-Jan as well. Thought it was the flu and work with a lot of people who travel back and forth to China a lot.

Could be!

I know you've mentioned respiratory issues and I'm not a doctor, so obviously stay safe. I'm admittedly biased right now because of vacation plans in the coming weeks (not Guam... yet). I just honestly think this has been spreading for a while if you look at time lines.

And the testing almost seems pointless now. Especially on the West Coast. It's almost certain that between even December to late January that 10's of thousands traveled between CA and China and probably thousands in Wuhan. I'm probably being conservative too. It's almost impossible for this not to be the case. Factor in the lunar new year for the Chinese... this shit is and probably has been everywhere for the last 30-45 days minimum.

I now have the luxury of getting my fucking temperature taken to board a ship and potentially be turned away from ports for something I suspect most people have been exposed to.

It doesn't transmit that easily with an R0 of 2, which is moderatley but not super high. The 21 days and survival on surfaces for days are extreme cases, as is the symptom less transmission. While it's possible it's unlikely. Most transmissions happen in direct and immediate contact. Don't forget it's cold and flu season and millions catch a cold or flu, doesn't mean it's CV. The best measures you can take i
are avoiding obviously sick people and never touching your face before washing your hands thoroughly and avoiding large gatherings. You can still get it if you follow those guidelines, but your chances are extremely slim. It's not easy not to touch your face and takes a bit of training.

HeadSet says

he demolished that demonrat idiot whose name I forgot during the VP debate before the 2016 election.

That was Tim Kaine, a Senator from my state.

Ah yes I remember now thanks. That guy was a quagmire.

WookieMan says

I know you've mentioned respiratory issues and I'm not a doctor, so obviously stay safe. I'm admittedly biased right now because of vacation plans in the coming weeks (not Guam... yet). I just honestly think this has been spreading for a while if you look at time lines.

Totally agree... Wasn't poking fun it really could have been. It was strange because it did not affect my sinuses at all which usually happens. I don't usually get the flu either though. But I do recall being relieved it seemed I wasn't going to get nailed because my nose was strangely fine.

I think it's overblown too. For most.

Lots of mistakes though. Lots. Not okay to blow it off because it kills the old mostly. Not okay to compare it to X because it's additive. But I don't think it's preventable. (see: below)

I've been sort of looking at it like this: Not much can take out society quickly. Nukes, Asteroid, EMP natural or otherwise/related, volcano-related, rampant disease (We're all inbred ~30th cousins, shit can take us out no problemo, we do see this in nature it just isn't shown on the Discovery Channel)

So I see this as sort of like a nuclear war where most of them were duds, some hit out in the middle of nowhere and didn't kill many. How did society/govts respond?

I'm pretty damn disappointed so far. Thinking that wild idea about retiring in BFE (maybe with yams and M134) isn't such a bad idea even if it is not close to a hospital. We haven't had billions of inbred on the planet very long.

Yeah, I was thinking about you when I heard on the radio the state is recommending no cruises! I canceled my Hawaii trip if it helps haha.

BTW, I was at Scripps Memorial Hospital today to meet with a surgeon to discuss the recliner (yes, furniture did it to me) injury I received and I noticed a male nurse using his sleeve to push elevator buttons. Then in radiology there were signs posted (no text) all over of people with masks on their faces. Surgeon fist bumped me.

Made me so happy!

recliner (yes, furniture did it to me) injury

Was that from a "Mr Bean" method of getting the recliner home from the furniture store? Or is that an electric recliner that went out of control and folded up on you "George Jetson" style?

Are you as Smart as a MIT scientist?

https://summit.news/2020/03/10/mit-scientist-claims-coronavirus-is-a-deep-state-fraud/

Zika - named for Zika Forest in Uganda
Ebola - named for Ebola River, Congo
MERS - Middle East Respiratory Syndome
Spanish Flu - Spain

Yet:
SARS - Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
Corona Virus/Covid-19

Both emerged in East Asia.

RACIST!

Let's call it the Wu Ping Cough.