COVID-19 (artist formerly known as Wuhan strain novel Corona virus)

It was a joke. I understand the situation.

Also, today, new screenings starting apparently:

https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/...0-intl-hnk/h_fab395d1124a912300906c4f3b4d7401

 

Given the way they were screening people fleeing Wuhan, it’s probably everywhere and had been for a little while. Interesting that only Iran, Italy, and South Korea have had major issues thus far.

 

I hope you and your wife are OK, but no joke I’d stay away from babies and the elderly for a few weeks.

 

Yes, IP, all joking aside, friend, I hope you and the new wife are OK.

 

I mean, he is an actual doctor, just not one who specializes in epidemiology. I do think his attitude is incredibly dangerous. It IS a problem, which is why governments and disease centers are so alarmed and active in their response to the situation. So, this is different than the usual blanket and nondescript statement of "the media" creating an overzealous narrative. People are dying and it is spreading. No, it's not the bubonic plague, but a death rate of 2% is much higher than those with the flu.

 

Orders of magnitude higher.

 

“Everyone calls me Jeff”

“Let’s find out what the next doctor wants me to call him.”

 

Sounds like reported cases in RI and Atlanta now.

 

Do you think he thinks of himself as a doctor, or celebrity? Or changes with the circumstances? And isn't he a psychologist?

 

He's a medical doctor and has the credentials as such. Perhaps he's become too intoxicated with being a celebrity, but he does have obvious medical knowledge. I still think he's not someone I would listen to as opposed to a doctor at the CDC, for example. I also think the "hey, it's no a big deal, the media is lying to you" loud voice from a doctor isn't particularly helpful in a situation which, clearly, is problematic, in some ways. I'm not particularly worried about dying from it, but there are plenty of vulnerable people who should be concerned about contracting the virus.

 

I was supposed to attend a very large conference week after next here in Houston called CERAWeek. Multiple heads of state, tons of cabinet-level secretaries, heads of tens to a hundred global energy companies, etc attend this conference each year. Also many mayors, civic leaders, heads of NGOs, academics, etc. And then people like me that attend to see what they are saying. A bit of a recipe for ‘disaster.’

I was beginning to wonder if it would be cancelled - but because of the expense and the types of people attending, they were very reluctant to do it. However, they pulled the cord this morning. I was on the hook to go but was a little nervous given the global nature of the conference. So, glad they just canceled.

 

Subtle "I'm important" post.

 

This virus highlights just how politically polarized we’ve become.

I find it interesting that I’ve seen multiple memes highlighting how much deadlier the flu is than this virus and decrying media bias. I’ll check to see who posted it and it’s always one of my most rabid Trump fans in my feed.

Generally, my non-right friends/family that post about it are highlighting the importance of hand-washing over masks and some are highlighting fatality rates bs flu.

 

I actually started to post ‘And people like me’ and didn’t. Will add that now....haha.

 

From a friend from high school who is a doctor at Vandy (forgive him for that).....

Things That You Should Know About the Coronavirus Outbreak

(Feel free to share)

I have noticed there are lots of different pieces of misinformation going around about this outbreak of Coronavirus, also called COVID-19. Wanted to take some time to help people understand a little better.

Each time we identify and make a big deal out of a new member of the coronavirus family, (also known as a strain), it’s because it crossed over from animals to humans and started spreading among humans. It gets a strain identification and year number as its name. Each one has a different ability to cause disease in humans.

Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) is therefore a new, bad example of an old virus family, because it crossed over from animals to humans in Wuhan and has been infecting humans ever since. The reason it’s a big deal is because it has the potential to actually make people really sick (1 in 5) and kill around 2 out of 100 of people who get it (so far).

Does that make sense? We have known about “Coronaviruses” for a long time, but THIS coronavirus is new and deadly.

Now, let’s compare this coronavirus (COVID-19) with what we know about influenza.

The current reported death rate from COVID-19 of 2% is pretty high, but by comparison, the worst case pandemic that we know of is the 1918 flu, which killed around 20% of people that showed symptoms. (Post-script edits as per comments below, some estimates are that the fatality rate for the 1918 Spanish influenza may have been as low as 2%-3% because of assumptions about asymptomatic infection, but it still killed around 50 million people.)

That said, a 2% fatality rate is higher than the usual rate for our annual outbreaks of influenza, but we vaccinate against flu in order to bring those numbers down. In absolute numbers, flu kills around 250,000 to 500,000 people around the world per year. We don’t currently have a coronavirus vaccine, and we will probably have to wait a year to a year and a half to have a vaccine, best case.

If (worst imagined case) the 2019 coronavirus managed to infect everyone in the US, based on current numbers we’re looking at 2% of around 300 million people being killed, which could be (again, worst case) 6 million people. This would likely be disproportionately older folks and people with preexisting health problems (from what we have seen so far.)

I don’t think/ I hope that it will not be that bad in reality, but it could potentially be much worse than a bad flu season.

Spread of COVID-19 is by heavy droplets, which can spread in a range of around 6 feet when someone is coughing or sneezing, but the viral particles will survive for a longer period on a contaminated surface. Hand washing and cleaning contaminated/shared surfaces will be very important during the outbreak. Taking good care of your preexisting health problems so that you are more resilient if you get infected will be very important. (Side note: Smoking makes you more susceptible to bad outcomes from all kinds of respiratory infections. Might be a good opportunity to quit smoking?)

The WHO says that we should all get prepared, so I would listen to what they say. The WHO is in line with what our NIH and CDC are also saying, but our institutions are being somewhat restricted in providing us with accurate information under the current political climate.

Viruses don’t care about the stock market or who is running for election/ re-election. They just are what they are. Take care of your pre-existing health conditions and do good hand hygiene.​

 

Flu death rate in US is about .05% right now for this season. Mainland China saw 2.3% death rate. It annoys me when people say it's all media driven.

 

The memes generally aren’t completely wrong - just more intellectually dishonest.

Like, the flu is far more deadly - it has killed 60 times as many people.

Well, ok, but...

 

Spears have killed more people than Glocks!

 

40 times deadlier than the flu to date this year.

 

Despite its high transmission rate and elevated fatality rate, a gift is that children appear to handle it very well.