OT: First US death due to Coronavirus

[MrsScrew]

Wash your hands or use hand sanitizer
Don't shake hands
If you touch something public (door knob or shopping cart for example) don't touch your face or eyes until you can clean your hands.
Avoid people who are coughing or symptomatic.
If you need to fly wipe everything down : tray table, seat belt, arm rests, window, overhead callbell/lights.
Use common sense.

 

[WhiteBus]

Wash your hands or use hand sanitizer
Don't shake hands
If you touch something public (door knob or shopping cart for example) don't touch your face or eyes until you can clean your hands.
Avoid people who are coughing or symptomatic.
If you need to fly wipe everything down : tray table, seat belt, arm rests, window, overhead callbell/lights.
Use common sense.

And don't drink Corona. That is just solid advice!

 

[rutgersguy1]

Great point. Most everyone fails to put the severity of corona virus into perspective.

Think I read that the flu kills 18k per year, more than 5x the current loss from corona virus worldwide.

Corona will go away when the weather gets warmer in the next few months, but is likely to come back next year if a vaccine is not implemented. But this virus has opened the worlds eye to realize how all countries must share accurate data with health organizations on a current basis to fight these types of health issues.

It also raises questions about supply chain issues, and how dependent much of the world is on China. I hope the US makes some key decisions in this area to maintain our financial independence globally. Corona may yield many positives results along the way. I’m pretty optimistic that this will pass.

Favorite corona related story is that Corona Beer from Mexico is seeing a 40% drop in sales during this period. Consumers are finicky about their choices.

Have posted those numbers here before. "Normal flu" kills in the 10s of thousands in the US every year and about 650K worldwide. This is with an annual flu vaccine available. The mortality rate is about .1%

If the Chinese and the rest of the world did nothing and treated it like the "normal yearly flu" right from the start of this flu season and just let it run its course like we do with "normal flu" what do you think the numbers would look like. The mortality rate is at least .1% like the flu and judging by numbers around the world possibly some factor higher and it has no annual vaccine like the flu and seems to be more easily transmissible than the "normal flu." So take that info and extrapolate the potential of what could happen given the numbers you see with "normal flu" if no precautions by any country were taken for this whole flu season.

The numbers this year won't likely get even close to that of "normal flu" not because covid-19 isn't potentially dangerous it's because extreme precautions are being taken and we're nearing the end of the flu season in general.

I've said I think it's hopeful that things can abate as the weather and humidity go up judging by what we've seen in the southern hemisphere and humid areas thus far. Minimal numbers in general (mostly imported from other outbreak zones) and no reports of mass community transmissions. Of course then the script might flip and you'll start seeing less in the northern hemisphere and more in the southern hemisphere.

In future years, possibly even next year, covid-19 could be just another part of the "normal flu" season but right now in this first year of introduction and discovery there's no vaccine, it seems to spread more easily and could possibly have a higher mortality rate by some factor over the flu so precautions needs to be taken until we reach that point in the future.

Don't have to panic but I don't think complacency as "eh it's no big deal" is correct either. You might think after this is over and the numbers don't come close to "normal flu" and say see what's the big deal but that's only because of the precautions. Without them what would the potential have been given what we know currently.

 

[RUPete]

And don't drink Corona. That is just solid advice!

Yup- simply because it is just crappy beer.

 

[Knightmoves]

And don't drink Corona. That is just solid advice!

Could be a big problem for Corona beer. Their name is associated with a worldwide virus.

What does Corona beer do? Advertise more to reach the public, or does that hurt business even more?

 

[RU848789]

Serious questions:
Why do you think these #'s are accurate? Has there been a legit study or are these #'s just based on recent observations?

Almost everyone that dies gets screened/tested, but the large majority of folks with corona that have marginal flu-like symptoms don't. They just live life and probably don't even go to the doctor. Should we assume that the denominator is accurate? Unless we have a legit study, my answer would be no.

That's a fair question. The ~2% number is based on deaths per confirmed cases and some more recent studies are suggesting it might be closer to 1%. Either way, a virus that is more transmissible than the flu with even just a 5-10X higher death rate (if the mortality rate were "only" 0.5-1.0% vs. 0.1% for flu) would still be a serious public health risk. This virus is still fairly new, so there isn't decades of knowledge like there is for seasonal flow, meaning the "denominator" for the coronavirus is, by definition, still fairly uncertain, but we have to respond with that uncertainty and erring on the more conservative response side does seem like the prudent thing to do rather than saying, "don't worry."

 

[LC-88]

Last Monday morning Italy had six dead. Sunday evening it is 29. That's roughly a 4.8x increase in a week. So in four weeks, if the 4.8x number holds, there will be north of 15,000 dead. Hopefully their quarantine efforts slow things down.

 

[rutgersguy1]

Last Monday morning Italy had six dead. Sunday evening it is 29. That's roughly a 4.8x increase in a week. So in four weeks, if the 4.8x number holds, there will be north of 15,000 dead. Hopefully their quarantine efforts slow things down.

I'm not sure if you can take things exponentially like that....it depends on the demographics of where it is, who has it, etc...There aren't that many deaths in China even.

Italy did have a surge in cases though from like 1100+ to 1600+ but that could be just due to more testing. They've had 34 deaths from that 1600+ for around a 2% mortality rate thus far in the country.

 

[rutgersguy1]

BTW a couple positive side effects I've read about from this whole covid-19 worldwide outbreak. I think pollution in China is down because of all the factory shutdowns and no one out and I believe the number of cases of "normal flu" in Japan are down because of increased awareness and hygiene.

 

[RedKnight23]

Guys like I said before calm down and just wash your hands. I can't spend anymore time on this I'm busy loading supplies into my doomsday shelter!

 

[RU848789]

That’s my concern about this. There are still many questions. Will it subside when the warmer months arrive or will the opposite occur? H1N1 got worse in warmer months.

Not true actually - only appeared that way. With H1N1 in 2009, the virus jumped from pigs to humans first in Mexico in the early and it didn't have far to travel to make it to the US by March/April, near the traditional end of flu season. Deaths in that first wave from spring into fall were around 4000 in the US, but then a much more potent second wave hit starting in the fall and going through the winter, despite a vaccine becoming available, as it wasn't fully deployed for some time, as some didn't want it (this was before Wakefield's fake paper on vaccines-autism was retracted in 2010), just like the regular flu vaccine.

Another 8000 deaths occurred in the US during fall/winter, so it was certainly worse in the colder months (and would've been far worse without the vaccine). But whether or not this new virus will behave like a seasonal flu virus with respect to diminishing in the warmer/wetter months is unknown.

Also, keep in mind that the H1N1 virus had been around before, so the risk was greatest in children, and making an H1N1 vaccine was fairly simple, as it was just a variant on the usual flu vaccine, which already existed. Unlike the new coronavirus, which will require far more work to develop a vaccine for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_in_the_United_States

 

[MrsScrew]

NY State just reported their first confirmed case. A 30 y/o woman who was traveling in Iran. She is being quarrentined at home.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/world/coronavirus-news.html

 

[retired711]

NY State just reported their first confirmed case. A 30 y/o woman who was traveling in Iran. She is being quarrentined at home.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/world/coronavirus-news.html

does your husband know you link items from the New York Times?

 

[MrsScrew]

does your husband know you link items from the New York Times?

I tried to link it from ABC News in NY where I got the alert but couldn't do it.

 

[WhiteBus]

Could be a big problem for Corona beer. Their name is associated with a worldwide virus.

What does Corona beer do? Advertise more to reach the public, or does that hurt business even more?

They have an additional problem Lim

That's a fair question. The ~2% number is based on deaths per confirmed cases and some more recent studies are suggesting it might be closer to 1%. Either way, a virus that is more transmissible than the flu with even just a 5-10X higher death rate (if the mortality rate were "only" 0.5-1.0% vs. 0.1% for flu) would still be a serious public health risk. This virus is still fairly new, so there isn't decades of knowledge like there is for seasonal flow, meaning the "denominator" for the coronavirus is, by definition, still fairly uncertain, but we have to respond with that uncertainty and erring on the more conservative response side does seem like the prudent thing to do rather than saying, "don't worry."

Actually the number is higher than 2% not less. China is way underreported. And many are at high % and have weeks to go to get the real tally

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

Good post. This virus is as or more transmissible than influenza and has a mortality rate roughly 10-20X that of influenza (~2% vs. about 0.1-0.2%). So if we largely ignored it like the flu, we'd potentially have 10-20X the ~12K-60K deaths/year we have from the flu, which would give a range of deaths of 120K to 1.2MM if we did nothing.

That's why this is so serious and doing everything possible to slow/stop the spread is so important, from not allowing travel from countries with outbreaks, to very close monitoring of people who have been in high rate countries, to quarantining/monitoring/treating suspected cases here (and tracking connections), along with personal preventative measures like frequent hand-washing and wearing masks if you are symptomatic.

Only these measures will be effective in significantly lowering "effective" transmission rates to well below those seen for influenza, which will lead to far less deaths than there could be. The other thing we could have on our side is the possibility that transmission rates will decline significantly soon, as we transition to warmer/more humid spring weather, as occurs for influenza, but we don't know yet if that will be the case with this coronavirus.

if you are near 60-65 you might be able to get a pneumonia flu shot.. the pneumonia thing is a once every 5-year thing and is usually given for those 65 and older... since it is said CoVid-19 kills folks through the pneumonia they get.. maybe it could help.. ask your doctor.

BTW.. anyone know what Governor Murphy is doing about this? We don't want it to be like his first snowstorm, do we?

 

[Proud NJ Sports Fan]

Why are we letting people from Iran to fly back here?

https://nypost-com.cdn.ampproject.o...t-case-of-coronavirus-confirmed-in-manhattan/

 

[Saint Puppy]

Now the #$%@#$ is going to hit the fan!!!

 

[rutgersguy1]

2nd death in Washington state....man in his 70s with other health issues.

 

[jtung230]

It’s all media hype. Nothing to see here.

 

[RU848789]

The latest from Washington isn't great - implications are that there could be hundreds already infected, although one would imagine there might be more deaths if these started weeks ago from that first person (unless any deaths might not have been assigned to COVID-19).

Gene analysis points to silent Washington spread
Meanwhile, the gene sequence from a Snohomish County, Washington, high school boy whose illness was announced on Feb 28 as a community spread case has already been uploaded to a public database, and an early analysis hints that it is related to a Snohomish County case reported in January, suggesting that transmission has been underway in Washington state for the last 6 weeks.

The earlier case was a man in his 30s, the first to be detected in the United States. The Snohomish County man had traveled to Wuhan at a time when there were only 300 cases in China. He was seen at a clinic, where his specimens were collected and sent to the CDC. After his COVID-19 infection as confirmed, he was taken to Providence Regional Medical Center for treatment.

Trevor Bedford, PhD, in Twitter comments from the open-source pathogen genome analysis project Nextstrain, said the sequence from the new case descends on a branch from the earlier Snohomish County sequence, strongly suggesting transmission in the area over the past 6 weeks, which could have resulted in a few hundred cases. Bedford is a computational biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

He said the two sequences could also reflect separate introductions, though highly unlikely. "I believe we're facing an already substantial outbreak in Washington State that was not detected until now due to narrow case definition requiring direct travel to China."

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-pers...d-19-cases-silent-washington-spread-suspected

 

[rutgersguy1]

Showing up in all corners of the country now. Another case in Rhode Island and 2 cases in Florida.

 

[ArminRU]

Good post. This virus is as or more transmissible than influenza and has a mortality rate roughly 10-20X that of influenza (~2% vs. about 0.1-0.2%). So if we largely ignored it like the flu, we'd potentially have 10-20X the ~12K-60K deaths/year we have from the flu, which would give a range of deaths of 120K to 1.2MM if we did nothing.

That's why this is so serious and doing everything possible to slow/stop the spread is so important, from not allowing travel from countries with outbreaks, to very close monitoring of people who have been in high rate countries, to quarantining/monitoring/treating suspected cases here (and tracking connections), along with personal preventative measures like frequent hand-washing and wearing masks if you are symptomatic.

Only these measures will be effective in significantly lowering "effective" transmission rates to well below those seen for influenza, which will lead to far less deaths than there could be. The other thing we could have on our side is the possibility that transmission rates will decline significantly soon, as we transition to warmer/more humid spring weather, as occurs for influenza, but we don't know yet if that will be the case with this coronavirus.

Not really a good post. Who cares about total deaths? Mortality % is far more important at this point.

 

[RUScrew85]

More people die of the flu per year in the US alone than have died from Coronavirus world wide....

There are a couple of important differences that might work against your argument.

The biggest thing that catches my interest is why did China lock down like 100M people if it's just the regular old flu? That decision really hurt their economy.

What if China actually has many more infected and dead than their communist utopia reported. What if despite their efforts it has now escaped to the rest of the world. We're going to see more accurate numbers and hopefully don't see numbers much different from China. But if we do...

 

[Proud NJ Sports Fan]

Now the #$%@#$ is going to hit the fan!!!

There are a couple of important differences that might work against your argument.

The biggest thing that catches my interest is why did China lock down like 100M people if it's just the regular old flu? That decision really hurt their economy.

What if China actually has many more infected and dead than their communist utopia reported. What if despite their efforts it has now escaped to the rest of the world. We're going to see more accurate numbers and hopefully don't see numbers much different from China. But if we do...

China knows the severity of the agent

It's nothing we've ever seen

 

[rutgersdave]

There are a couple of important differences that might work against your argument.

The biggest thing that catches my interest is why did China lock down like 100M people if it's just the regular old flu? That decision really hurt their economy.

What if China actually has many more infected and dead than their communist utopia reported. What if despite their efforts it has now escaped to the rest of the world. We're going to see more accurate numbers and hopefully don't see numbers much different from China. But if we do...

That decision hurt the economy but it stop the spread of the virus. I don’t think we’re willing to cut off towns and cities to stop the spread until it too late. Economy or virus infection, which will we choose? It’s Trump’s decision.

 

[RobotHunter]

That decision hurt the economy but it stop the spread of the virus. I don’t think we’re willing to cut off towns and cities to stop the spread until it too late. Economy or virus infection, which will we choose? It’s Trump’s decision.

Are you suggesting that Trump should actually shut down US cities over this virus?

 

[rutgersdave]

Are you suggesting that Trump should actually shut down US cities over this virus?

Isn’t that what China did? It’s Trump call. We can decide if he made the right decision in about 6 months.

 

[RC1978]

AT&T has suspended all international travel and severely restricted national travel.

Just a point on how it might effect the economy.

 

[LC-88]

Isn’t that what China did? It’s Trump call. We can decide if he made the right decision in about 6 months.

more like 6 weeks

 

[RU848789]

Not really a good post. Who cares about total deaths? Mortality % is far more important at this point.

I have no idea what you're trying to say. Inherent transmission rate (with no intervention), effective transmission rate (including intervention steps), mortality rate and total mortalities are all important and short of some new treatment (since prevention by a vaccine is still pretty far off) the only one we can readily influence is effective transmission rate, which must be the primary focus for now in order to prevent a serious epidemic/pandemic.

 

[RUScrew85]

That decision hurt the economy but it stop the spread of the virus. I don’t think we’re willing to cut off towns and cities to stop the spread until it too late. Economy or virus infection, which will we choose? It’s Trump’s decision.

I think he'll leave it up to the professionals. Mostly.

 

[RU_DIO]

AT&T has suspended all international travel and severely restricted national travel.

Just a point on how it might effect the economy.

2 friends of mine were scheduled for business trips out to San Fran for two different corporations this week. Both companies canceled the meetings.

 

[ArminRU]

I have no idea what you're trying to say. Inherent transmission rate (with no intervention), effective transmission rate (including intervention steps), mortality rate and total mortalities are all important and short of some new treatment (since prevention by a vaccine is still pretty far off) the only one we can readily influence is effective transmission rate, which must be the primary focus for now in order to prevent a serious epidemic/pandemic.

Comparing the flu to the coronavirus in terms of total cases and deaths is not a great comparison since the coronavirus is so new.

People are trying to downplay coronavirus by saying “well the flu kills much more”, which is extremely dumb.

 

[BigWill]

That's true but what might the numbers look like if the extraordinary measures taken right now weren't being taken and it was just dealt with like the flu, where a flu shot is available. For the moment there's no vaccine and we don't really have a good idea on the mortality rate which could be 1-2% but possibly lower. Flu is .1% mortality.

A lot is unknown. In the future I've read and I kind of agree that this could be another annual virus of the "flu season" and by then hopefully more treatments will be available but for now that's not the case.

We don't require mandatory vaccination for many diseases and allow people into the US from countries that still have infectious diseases that are virtually non-existent because of vaccinations in the US.

Yet now some parts of the US allow children to be NOT vaccinated at parental discretion !

So we don't require flu shots with a disease that has killed an estimated 14 to 41,000 people just in the US to date in this years flu season.

We don't require alcohol breathalyzer sensors for Motor Vehicles to start so that we could reduce the deaths by auto and alcohol, probably around 20,000 a year JUST in US. Yet we now have cars that parallel park themselves because many of our DL holders can't park a car...

 

[BigWill]

Comparing the flu to the coronavirus in terms of total cases and deaths is not a great comparison since the coronavirus is so new.

People are trying to downplay coronavirus by saying “well the flu kills much more”, which is extremely dumb.

No, it's accurate to date with the available data.

Mainly coming from Communist Chin-na.

Want to be proactive ? Get your flu shot.

 

[MulletCork]

Wash your hands or use hand sanitizer
Don't shake hands
If you touch something public (door knob or shopping cart for example) don't touch your face or eyes until you can clean your hands.
Avoid people who are coughing or symptomatic.
If you need to fly wipe everything down : tray table, seat belt, arm rests, window, overhead callbell/lights.
Use common sense.

Flying to Vegas on Friday and plan on doing exactly this. Plus while there, wiping down stuff, washing hands very often and using sanitizer. I mean, we're not going to not go. So will just be extra vigilant.

 

[ImBadRU]

Media loves this sh**.

 

[jtung230]

stick your head in the sand always work. The people that blame the media are funny. They all criticize Chinese media for under reporting and US media for overhyping.

 

[saewonyi]

The government does not like to incite panic...the media does...the media during an election year against a president they loathe is tantamount to bloody and chum-choked waters...they probably see this as a huge opportunity to help their cause.

this a politically blunt and coldly accusatory statement on my part, but that’s because that is what we’ve become...

Just a generation ago (Clinton admin and before) both parties would have at least pretended to work together. I have little confidence either party frankly gives a ****!

Amen brother, while Dems accuse Trump of not doing enough, what was Pelosi's first order of business in the House last week? Banning flavored tobacco. The petty hypocrisy of the Left politicizing this event because they hate Trump so much, so typical.