But the flu is far more widespread, with the net result that it kills 12,000-60,000 people in any given year in the US. And traffic crashes kill another 40,000 (about half of whom WERE wearing their seatbelts).
KarlGauss is right: anyone in the western world who is currently worried about coronavirus should be MUCH more worried about a lot of other things.
2, I guess. There will be a pandemic at some point. But the odds that this is it is probably low for now.
None.
People acting like the death toll is high, must have a distorted concept of the population of China.
But there’s a reason to doubt that number. The number of people infected is almost certainly much greater than what is being reported, both because people with minor symptoms aren’t going to the hospital, and because China probably isn’t reporting the most accurate numbers. That means the fatality rate is likely much lower than 2%, perhaps by a few orders of magnitude.
Not at all. I’ve seen this movie before.
Wrong. A Coronavirus vaccine is still probably months away:
Update: shortly after I commented, my son was diagnosed with influenza B. Goddammit.
I’m willing to bet he knows.
Whoosh
I agree with KarlGauss, who knows more about battling deadly viruses than anyone else on this board.
It’s a good reminder that I should be washing my hands more diligently.
I have a bunch of ‘sick food’ made and frozen from the whole cancer kerfluffle - rice congee, with chicken, with pork, with shrimp; barley stew with beef, with pork and with garlic sausage; rischert with pork and with sausage. I also tend to keep pantry staples around - dried legumes [split peas, white beans, kidney beans, lentils] rice [a particularly nice very long grain jasmine and a mochi] flour [wheat, oat, rye, barley] grains [barley, tebbouleh, buckwheat, hatamoshi] spices and herbs, and some fresh stuff [generally I always have potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, garlic and cabbage around] and a bunch of canned tomatoes, assorted boxes of pastas. We would be able to deal with no shopping for fresh for at least 3 or 4 weeks if we didn’t mind boring food =)
I still have a double handful of masks left from the cancer thing - we even have a couple masks with both particulate and organic filters, and if I get seriously paranoid a scott air pack =) being industrial is handy sometimes
I got into the habit as a young adult [more because I am an inveterate eye rubber and I don’t want to smear chemicals into my eyes] but it is easy enough to manage. I carry soap leaves because I don’t like the smell of normal rest area soap, and have run into rest areas where they were out of soap [and one rest area in Nevada where they were out of water :eek: I used bottled water from the van]
The death rate is fairly high, not the death toll. Not sure that “we shouldn’t be concerned about new disease until it’s killed a significant portion of the most populous country’s population” is a super strong argument against alarm.
Here is a free article e-released by the New England Journal of Medicine today. There’s a lot of informative ‘facts’ buried within it.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316
People over 60 who contract it are the ones coming to medical attention. Presumably younger folks who have it simply don’t get sick enough to seek it.
Looks like the incubation period is usually less than a week (peaking around 3 days after exposure) but can be as long two weeks or so.
According to the study, on average one person with the illness spreads it to 2.2 people. For SARS the figure was about 3. As noted in the text, until the number is less than 1.0, the ‘epidemic’ will continue.
And not a lot of hospital workers seem to be getting it, again unlike SARS. Which is nice.
ETA: For the less medically inclined, the tables and graphs, and the discussion section may still be of interest.
My alma mater has 6 exchange students who are from that area (none show any symptoms) and some teachers recently visited there
https://www.uwplatt.edu/news/update-coronavirus
But not very concerned (0.5?)
Brian
On a scale of 0-10 I’m at a solid zero point nothing. But then, I’m pretty old and have led a rich, full life, so there’s that. In fact, I was just discussing with my wife that this might be a good time to take a tourist trip to China. I’ve spent long periods of time there on business, but other than a couple of long weekends in Shanghai and Beijing I spent all of my time on the job site.
Personally, not concerned at this time.
Interested, yes - this has some potential to become a problem outside of Wuhan, but as noted up thread both SARS and MERS were contained and I expect this will be as well.
Johns Hopkins Wuhan Coronavirus Tracker
as of 1/29/20,
6,165 confirmed cases world wide
133 deaths
126 recoveries
95 cases outside China, in 19 countries
6,070 cases in China with a population of 1.3+ billion
Not worried, but I’m watching it
I am somewhat worried because
That said, this doesn’t seem especially contagious. It’s a coronavirus as is the common cold. Does not seem overly deadly.
Wash your hands and don’t rub your nose and eyes and it is highly unlikely to be spread person to person…
Am I concerned about the people in the Wuhan area, as fellow citizens of Spaceship Earth? You bet.
Am I worried about myself, or anyone else I know personally, or don’t know, in the U.S. getting it? No. I’m more worried about getting influenza despite being vaccinated, and that’s not a big concern right now for me.