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posted by martyb on Tuesday January 28 2020, @11:38PM   Printer-friendly
from the clearing-the-air dept.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/01/27/coronavirus

As the world knows, we face an emerging virus threat in the Wuhan coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak. The problem is, right now there are several important things that we don't know about the situation. The mortality rate, the ease of human-human transmission, the rate of mutation of the virus (and how many strains we might be dealing with – all of these need more clarity. Unfortunately, we've already gone past the MERS outbreak in severity (which until now was the most recent new coronavirus to make the jump into humans). If we're fortunate, though, we'll still have something that will be worrisome, but not as bad as (say) the usual flu numbers (many people don't realize that influenza kills tens of thousands of people in the US each year). The worst case, though, is something like 1918, and we really, really don't need that.

[Ed note: The linked story is by Derek Lowe who writes a "commentary on drug discovery and the pharma industry". He is perhaps best known for his "Things I Won't Work With" blog entries which are as hilarious as they are... eye opening. I have found him to be a no-nonsense writer who "tells things as they are", holding no punches. The whole story is worth reading as he clearly explains what a coronavirus is, about the current one that reportedly originated in Wuhan, China, what could be done about it, how long that would likely take, and what can be done for those who have already been infected. --martyb]

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Wednesday January 29 2020, @03:04AM (2 children)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday January 29 2020, @03:04AM (#950426) Journal

    He waited from Thursday night into Friday morning at the hospital for an injection he was told he needed to treat the illness

    We don't have a cure so I don't know what that's about.

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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday January 29 2020, @03:25AM (1 child)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 29 2020, @03:25AM (#950436) Journal

    We don't have a cure so I don't know what that's about.

    One is right to say chicken soup doesn't actually fights the cold away, yet it's helping.
    Measles - once infection is on its way, it is mostly deadly without proper health care; becomes just a nuisance with supportive treatment [mayoclinic.org].

    Symptom relief treatment may make all the difference on a patient's life or death - just help the body fight the virus better may be all that it takes to survive the infection.

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    • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday January 29 2020, @05:54PM

      by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday January 29 2020, @05:54PM (#950741) Journal
      He never got the injection, whatever it was, so there was zero palliative or supportive care, and given the overcrowding and the shortage of basic supplies , and the ineffectiveness of masks, if he didn't have the virus he was safer not hanging around, and if he did have the virus others would be safer him not hanging around, since there isn't any cure yet anyway.

      When there's a flu outbreak the last place you want to be is the ER. Unless it turns into pneumonia, everyone is better off if you just stay home in bed.

      So what did they want to inject ? My guess is that it wasn't a doctor telling him this, just someone like a security guard, so no harm done that he didn't get the mystery injection. You don't give antivirals to everyone who walks in the door, so the injection was fake news.

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