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posted by martyb on Wednesday March 11 2020, @08:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the maybe-it-is-not-such-a-bad-time-to-be-living-alone-in-someone's-basement dept.

[Editor's note: We had been gathering together COVID-19 stories for eventual release as a round-up story. I lack time at the moment to personally gather all those together with this most recent submission. We will run the next round-up in the next few days. But given the significance of this submission, I wished not to delay it from being immediately released to the community. --martyb]

World Health Organization declares the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic:

The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on Wednesday as the new coronavirus, which was unknown to world health officials just three months ago, has rapidly spread to more than 121,000 people from Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the United States.

“In the past two weeks the number of cases outside China has increased thirteenfold and the number of affected countries has tripled,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva. “In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths and the number of affected countries to climb even higher.”

Tedros said several countries have demonstrated the ability to suppress and control the outbreak, but he scolded other world leaders for failing to act quickly enough or drastically enough to contain the spread.

“We’re deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction,” he said, just before declaring the pandemic. “We have rung the alarm bell loud and clear.”

[Ed. addition follows.]

Also at Ars Technica and cnet.

For those who might not be aware of the distinction, Wikipedia helpfully provides these summaries:

An epidemic (what we have had up to now with COVID-19):

An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί epi "upon or above" and δῆμος demos "people") is the rapid spread of infectious disease to a large number of people in a given population within a short period of time, usually two weeks or less.

[...]An epidemic may be restricted to one location; however, if it spreads to other countries or continents and affects a substantial number of people, it may be termed a pandemic.[1] The declaration of an epidemic usually requires a good understanding of a baseline rate of incidence; epidemics for certain diseases, such as influenza, are defined as reaching some defined increase in incidence above this baseline.[2] A few cases of a very rare disease may be classified as an epidemic, while many cases of a common disease (such as the common cold) would not.

By comparison, a pandemic (which has just now been announced for COVID-19):

A pandemic (from Greek πᾶν pan "all" and δῆμος demos "people") is an epidemic of disease that has spread across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic. Further, flu pandemics generally exclude recurrences of seasonal flu. Throughout history, there have been a number of pandemics, such as smallpox and tuberculosis. One of the most devastating pandemics was the Black Death, which killed an estimated 75–200 million people in the 14th century. The current pandemics are HIV/AIDS and Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).[1][2] Other recent pandemics are the 1918 influenza pandemic (Spanish flu), and the 2009 flu pandemic (H1N1).


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Sulla on Wednesday March 11 2020, @09:56PM (2 children)

    by Sulla (5173) on Wednesday March 11 2020, @09:56PM (#969865) Journal

    Age demographics

    Italy population
    Nearly 60% of the population is aged 40 and over, about 23% of which is over 65

    South Korea
    13% of the population is 65 and older

    United States
    16% of the population is 65 and older

    So for the portions of the population who will primarily be affected, we should see significantly higher death rates in Italy (as a percentage). Of course if we add in those with underlying conditions (obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes) the US could end up with a worse rate than Italy.

    Italy has also been refusing treatment for those older patients with underlying conditions in favor of younger healthier patients to focus resources on those who are more likely to survive. So far the US has taken the opposite approach and directed medical resources to be focused on our older populations (containment within retirement areas, etc) based on the SK numbers showing limited problems for people under 50. The Chinese numbers show that people under 40 have a .2% death rate (2xish the flu) and under 50 as .4ish. The Chinese numbers are tough to rely on because their test had 30-80% with false negative. The same test when used on the first patient in Washington would fluctuate between positive and negative throughout the day. I was unable to find resources on the SK test accuracy.

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  • (Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday March 11 2020, @10:20PM (1 child)

    by legont (4179) on Wednesday March 11 2020, @10:20PM (#969885)

    If you have it, could you share a source for the age triage Italy used?

    --
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