Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[xenogear3]

Oh thank you for info. So he may have taught the Chinese how to modify a virus maybe?

I don't think China has that technology.
Just like making an Intel microprocessor, the steps are too complicate to understand by one professor.

She steals the sample, creates more and tests it on animals.

[shadowmouse]

Yes, that professor's research is to modify virus.
These improved virus are not reliable to cure people.
It kills people instead.

Or you guys could ... do a bit of research and see what the arrests involved?

Zheng Zaoshang: https://boston.cbslocal.com/2019/12/...edical-center/

A medical student from China who U.S. authorities say tried to smuggle cancer research material taken from a Boston hospital out of the country has been held without bail by a judge who ruled he was a flight risk.

Cancer, not virus research.

Ye Yanqing: https://www.masslive.com/boston/2020...ities-say.html

Devices seized from Ye showed she accessed U.S. military websites, researched U.S. military projects and compiled information for the PLA on two U.S. citizens with expertise in robotics and computer science, according to federal documents.

Again, nothing about viruses.

[sabe]

Or you guys could ... do a bit of research and see what the arrests involved?

Zheng Zaoshang: https://boston.cbslocal.com/2019/12/...edical-center/


Cancer, not virus research.

Ye Yanqing: https://www.masslive.com/boston/2020...ities-say.html


Again, nothing about viruses.

There are viruses that are associated with cancer. So can't say nothing about viruses.
Simply google about it. So many resources.

[ercarp]

Don't be alarmed. Depending on where they were from, some styles of mask are mainly to protect the face during winter. I know that some of my students who live abroad now have been wearing masks because they're getting treated like lepers. One of my daughters is in Europe (long story, I'm not Chinese, she is) and reports getting the cold shoulder all over the place, but she hasn't even been to China for several years now.

Fair enough. For the record, it's not very cold here at the moment (between 1°C and 4°C) despite it being winter. It hasn't even snowed yet in Southern Finland, which is where I live.

[Orochimaruu]

if you calculate the rate of infection from 2500 to 15 000 in 1 weak after maximum countermeasures where put in place when we reached 2500 you get to around 20 million by 1st of march
you might say they are going to up they re game but when there where 2500 infected they where already on highest alert this is chaina they very efficient
there is a curve where infection stop growing but that is created by increasing countermeasures witch can t go higher in fact 20 million is the number in bast case scenario assuming they can function like before
is my logic wrong?explain pls

Mod Edit: This thread was merged.

[Machismo]

I'm not sure you are taking into account the decreased rate of transmission due to the limitations of social circles. While a tally of 20 million may be possible, I doubt it will happen. When diseases spread, they often explode quite quickly, but it will slow down after the first burst, not just from countermeasures, but also a limited number of people are actually subjected to the virus. It really depends on how carried and spread the personal circles are of those who have the virus.

In third-world and developing countries, the immediate contamination circle can be much higher, due to population density, sanitation, and food handling. But, the real potential for the spread is more reliant on that second group of social circles, and how much people travel. That's where countries like the United States would have the most problems. It's not the dozen or so people around me that may get it, it's the 500 people that may get it when I commute to a client 60 miles away.

[PC2]

is my logic wrong?explain pls

It's not that your calculations are wrong it's just that projection is prophecy and it always fails at some point in time because it is impossible to know what new developments will happen tomorrow and on each day after that. Society is constantly coming up with new solutions, innovations, and improvements that can never be taken into account in any predictive methodology. This is specifically why I put the second logical fallacy in my sig and have my avatar, because there's a very common misconception that it's possible to generalize our way to future knowledge. Which we most certainly cannot.

[Shadowferal]

10s of millions get the flu every year despite flu shots and other precautions.
So 20 million getting this virus is probably a conservative estimate.

[shadowmouse]

There are viruses that are associated with cancer. So can't say nothing about viruses.

Well, the Wuhan virus doesn't seem to be related to HPV, herpes, hep B or Epstein-Barr so you're making a hell of a stretch to suggest some kind of sinister connection.

The clear statement was cancer research, and moreover the materials were seized when Zheng tried to leave the country. If you have something solid, haul it on out, don't just do conspiracy gossip. I've spent half my day explaining that the Wuhan virus isn't a US plot. /facepalm Let's just stay with facts

@ercarp Pink was in the health and beauty business. She started wearing the "cute" winter masks while it was still warmer than that -- she was from the South and couldn't stand cold weather, she also thought sun and wind were to be avoided because they might make her look old, and she thought looking cute would make her look younger. On the other hand, she was regularly mistaken for 20 instead of 35.

Here is one of the saner ones that doesn't try to make the model look like a kitten or something.


Surgical masks though, that could just be because they feel threatened. My daughter says people have gotten to the point they will not take her money directly or give her her change back directly -- they stand back and the money is put on the table or counter.

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More news!

The China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing will begin clinical trials on 270 mildly and moderately ill patients infected with the novel coronavirus using an experimental drug from the United States claimed to have successfully treated a case in the US.

The Phase III clinical trial will run from Feb 3 to April 27. It is administered by doctor Cao Bin from the Beijing hospital and the trial will be carried out in Wuhan, Hubei province, epicenter of the outbreak, the hospital said in an online statement on Sunday.

The drug in trial is called remdesivir, developed by US biotech company Gilead Sciences. The medicine was given to the first US case, a 35-year old man who tested positive for the virus, whose pneumonia symptoms appeared to improve within a day with no obvious side effects after the drug was administered, according to a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week.

The drugmaker said in an online statement on Friday the drug is "not yet licensed or approved anywhere globally and has not been demonstrated to be safe or effective for any use". However, the drug was approved for use on compassionate grounds and the request of physicians, it added.

At the same time, the company said it is working with health authorities in China to establish a clinical trial to determine whether remdesivir can safely and effectively be used to treat the coronavirus.

The Center for Drug Evaluation of the National Medical Products Administration in China has received and approved the application on Sunday to carry out the experiment, according to its official website.

Source: http://www.ecns.cn/news/2020-02-02/d...a0592530.shtml

For more background on that drug: https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotec...ug-china-virus

Hopefully this will be good news and at least offer a shot at reducing fatalities.

[NED funded]

Please correct me if I misread that: "it is dangerous because it spreads fast and it can kill people with weakened systems" seems (to me) to refer back to the Wuhan virus.

Seasonal flu has a mortality rate of <0.01%. Coronovirus mortality is like 2%

https://www.worldometers.info/corona...us-death-rate/

Dude is right, if the number of people that got infected by the flu got infected by Coronavirus there would be a whole lot more of dead people.

[shadowmouse]

Dude is right, if the number of people that got infected by the flu got infected by Coronavirus there would be a whole lot more of dead people.

And if frogs had hips they could carry a six gun and wouldn't be afraid of snakes?

We aren't seeing close to the number of cases of Wuhan virus that we see in any given flu season, and percentages aren't doing much more than showing there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. More people are getting flu, more people are dying, and yet every year we shrug it off. I'm hardly alone in saying this:
[Quote]The virus is influenza, and it poses a far greater threat to Americans than the coronavirus from China that has made headlines around the world.

“When we think about the relative danger of this new coronavirus and influenza, there’s just no comparison,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and health policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “Coronavirus will be a blip on the horizon in comparison. The risk is trivial."
Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...se/4564133002/

Hell, people barely blinked at pneumonic plague appearing in Beijing not long before the Wuhan virus surfaced:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world...ms-black-death

And there was bubonic plague going around too:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/scien...ack-death-news

Luckily that didn't crop up during Spring Festival crowds, but it did make it to Beijing and that's an even bigger target than Wuhan. If we're worried about fatalities as a statistical possibility, why not worry about plague? Obviously, because it *didn't* get loose. That's why I find it more realistic to look at what is really happening instead of what ifs. Fear leads to things like hoarding, trying snake oil remedies, or edgelords getting on an airplane wearing a gas mask (with not filter yet) to "make a statement".

There is a reason that shouting fire in a crowded theater is used as an example of when free speech could be limited. Everyone has a right to ask questions and speculate, I simply suggest looking at the available facts and staying calm.

[PC2]

There is a reason that shouting fire in a crowded theater is used as an example of when free speech could be limited.

The large majority of Chinese people don't even have access to this forum nor do they know English so you don't need to worry about speculation causing harm in China.

The real reason we shouldn't speculate isn't because we are worried about people being trampled like in a theater, we shouldn't speculate because the reality is nobody has the slightest clue about how the situation will evolve over the next month. There could be rapid progress in containing and treating it, or it could get a lot worse. Since it can't be predicted by anyone we should simply avoid making either assumption.

[sabe]

You and me are not same person but we have many similarities.
Viruses may not be same but they are built from same material, rna, dna. So the techniques used in one virus may be same or give ideas for another.

[Crispin]

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsan...virus-answered



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China is the only country on Earth that can lockdown this many people and do it as efficiently as they have. That can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your viewpoint, but you can be damn sure no country would ever do a lockdown like this, which has never been seen in history.

There are faults with how local authorities in Wuhan tried to hide it early on, but the response since then has been more than any other country would be capable of doing. China sacrifices many personal freedoms to have the logistical and social grasp that it does, letting it build hospitals as fast as it currently is, shut down entire metropolises, and order everyone in the country to wear face masks.

Feel free to say China could have done better, but try and think of how you or the people around you would react if tomorrow your country blocked you from leaving your town or city, shut down all roads and fining or arresting you if you drove your car, and forced you to wear a mask going out anywhere. I doubt you would be all that happy personally, even if it is for the "greater good".

Not going to applaude them for a late reaction, that requires extreme measures.

[Kaleredar]

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsan...virus-answered



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China is the only country on Earth that can lockdown this many people and do it as efficiently as they have. That can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your viewpoint, but you can be damn sure no country would ever do a lockdown like this, which has never been seen in history.

There are faults with how local authorities in Wuhan tried to hide it early on, but the response since then has been more than any other country would be capable of doing. China sacrifices many personal freedoms to have the logistical and social grasp that it does, letting it build hospitals as fast as it currently is, shut down entire metropolises, and order everyone in the country to wear face masks.

Feel free to say China could have done better, but try and think of how you or the people around you would react if tomorrow your country blocked you from leaving your town or city, shut down all roads and fining or arresting you if you drove your car, and forced you to wear a mask going out anywhere. I doubt you would be all that happy personally, even if it is for the "greater good".

I'd wager most (western) countries don't have conditions wherein people freely associate with extremely unsanitary conditions combined with a wide range of exotic animals with zero sanitation protocols.

Western countries DO have numerous deadly zoonotic diseases (hantavirus, anthrax, rabies, etc) but cases of them are extremely few and far between because of the preventative measures taken before people get infected.

If you're talking about government oversight, maybe some of that oversight should have been put into dealing with situations that facilitate viruses like these to mutate in the first place, rather than focusing solely on bringing down the hammer afterwards.

[shadowmouse]

The large majority of Chinese people don't even have access to this forum nor do they know English so you don't need to worry about speculation causing harm in China.

You might have missed it since it was a response to another poster, but I have friends and family outside of China. People come here, they post, they feed each others fears, bigotry, and conspiracy theories -- then they go on to post in other environments. That happens across social media and it is that aggregate effect that leads to idiocy like UC Berkeley of all places saying xenophobia is a normal reaction. UC Berkeley isn't in China, but that kind of thing impacts Asian students studying there.

Since it can't be predicted by anyone we should simply avoid making either assumption.

That's pretty much what I said in the part you left off.

There is a reason that shouting fire in a crowded theater is used as an example of when free speech could be limited. Everyone has a right to ask questions and speculate, I simply suggest looking at the available facts and staying calm.

[PC2]

You might have missed it since it was a response to another poster, but I have friends and family outside of China. People come here, they post, they feed each others fears, bigotry, and conspiracy theories -- then they go on to post in other environments. That happens across social media and it is that aggregate effect that leads to idiocy like UC Berkeley of all places saying xenophobia is a normal reaction. UC Berkeley isn't in China, but that kind of thing impacts Asian students studying there.

Okay but I get the feeling you want to shutdown all criticism of China and the government as it relates to this issue. Which it's not even in China's best interest to remain 100% calm and optimistic because without the right level of concern we won't be driven to find the solutions as fast as possible. In the West we celebrate self-criticism because that's what improves our society and there can't be improvement if people think the government is doing a great job.

That's pretty much what I said in the part you left out.

As far as that line I don't agree with "sticking to the facts" though because with China you often have to reason beyond the facts since the government essentially wants China to be a black box, where they only release the facts that make them appear to be competent.

[matt4pack]

That hospital is most likely just a concrete field hospital. It's easy to show concrete being laid and the outer structures of buildings go up almost as fast in the west.

Now let's see the inside where the real work would be done because I doubt it's anything like a real hospital.

[Doctor Amadeus]

I for sure can see this barring flights from China until we can be sure next, suspend Visas, put any and everyone from the region on a wait list to be screened, vetted and eventually quarantined for a month. All at the visitors expense.

The Panic has only just begun.

[xenogear3]

That hospital is most likely just a concrete field hospital. It's easy to show concrete being laid and the outer structures of buildings go up almost as fast in the west.

Now let's see the inside where the real work would be done because I doubt it's anything like a real hospital.

The hospital is nothing special. It just wants to show how powerful China is !