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Journal by khallow
Sometime today, there will be more active, reported coronavirus cases outside of China than inside. The cat is out of the bag for sure. I think at this point, it's only a matter of time till a good portion of us catch the disease, barring a vaccine in the next few months. Good luck to you and your loved ones.
Moving on, this appears to me to be a real world test of various countries' public health systems, with such things as how accurate the above reports are, or how many people are infected or die due to this coronavirus.
Moving on, this appears to me to be a real world test of various countries' public health systems, with such things as how accurate the above reports are, or how many people are infected or die due to this coronavirus.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
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All good ideas look like bad ideas to those who are losers.
-- Dilbert
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @04:05PM (3 children)
People overestimate the value of healthcare systems.
For a viral infection - such as the corona virus is, there's not a whole heck of a lot that a hospital can do. They can keep you hydrated, give you decongestants, and keep your fever down - mostly using the exact same centuries old drugs you can buy for a few bucks at any pharmacy. If you reach the point of being too weak to consume liquids on your own then they can give you an IV and intravenous drugs, but if you reach that point - you already stand a good chance of dying regardless of whether you're at a state of the art facility being treated by the best money can buy, or at a bodunk improvised treatment clinic. And whether you get there or not is not dependent on some ultra expensive state of the art treatment or whatever - but basically whether or not your immune system is functioning well.
Similar for hopes of a vaccine. There was a "vaccine" developed for SARS. Not only did it not work especially well, but if you took the vaccine and then later caught SARS it was vastly more nasty than usual.
99% of our most effective treatments are many decades old at this point. The trillions spent since then have been mostly to try to move the decimal place a spot or two with, at best, mixed results. Although pharmaceutical companies have become stupidly rich in the process of making everybody ("everybody" mostly meaning the US - one of only two developed nations in the world where direct to consumer pharmaceutical advertising is legal) think otherwise.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @07:16PM
Of the ~20% of cases needing hospitalization, most require oxygen and many assistive breathing machines - no country will have enough. Italy just reported 1,492 new cases and this pattern will now repeat across Europe and the US. Los Almos dropped the bomb [statnews.com] when they reverse engineered the initial outbreak finding R0 to be between 4.7 and 6 with the Re being 2.4. This is a sum I like to show to "just the flu" bro's with a base of 10.
The R0 of seasonal flu is just 1.2.
There are two strains of SARS-CoV-2 [contagionlive.com] which raises the possibility of ADE [wikipedia.org] (where an antibody facilitates infection by binding to the antigen without being able to neutralize the different strain). The only time I'll ever admit anti-vaxxers may have a point. Ongoing treatment will be required [news.com.au] for a sizable part of the population. There was a video out of China showing children recovered from COVID-19 exhibiting emphysema-like breathing difficulties.
Event 201 was a pandemic preparedness simulation run by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in October 2019 (100 years after the Spanish flu pandemic) and their recommendations [centerforhealthsecurity.org] are laughable. Politicized and centralized control of the outbreak by the CPP and WHO failed, the WHO didn't even recommend basic ingress checks (temperature readings) at ports of entry. The internet was decentralized by design to avoid these single points of failure and the responsibility for dealing with pandemics must be similarly decentralized to the state level.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 09 2020, @12:58PM
Still doesn't mean that the vaccine doesn't work well. Note the conditional "if you took the vaccine and then later caught SARS". That may well mean that you would have caught a vastly more nasty than usual SARS case anyway, say due to a weak immune system (and yes, I recognize that studies on the vaccine may have attempted to filter for that). If you can come up with a vaccine that reduces the infection rate enough that the disease no longer is exponential growth (when combined with the other public health measures in place), then that is good enough.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 09 2020, @01:34PM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 08 2020, @06:26PM (18 children)
This virus is going to massively re-arrange the geopolitical landscape. I really think it's going to cause exponentially more suffering by its economic impacts than the direct effects of the virus itself. Speaking personally, as someone in her very early 30s with no specific risk factors and a normal BMI, I'm not worried about getting this aside from losing at least a week of wages.
No, the real problem here is this is likely another black swan event on the scale of 9/11 or the 2008 crash, and will likely linger around a lot longer. I predict this thing is going to become a permanent member of the world's constantly-circulating virus pool, and will likely become no worse than the average cold or flu in 1-5 years.
But until then, this is going to topple a lot of established power structures, because many of them are rotten and corrupt to the core. The US is a prime example. I hope and pray that the major lessons that we learn from this are 1) healthcare *is* national security and 2) we need to clean our corruption problem up if we don't want something even worse to wipe us out utterly.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @10:40PM (13 children)
With about 3000 listed victims and about $3,000,000,000,000 claimed losses, we're talking about $billion per every single corpse. Every government on this planet routinely lets subjects die off to save much smaller sums for the budget. Consider these two observations.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @11:04PM (12 children)
The global supply chain has collapsed and demand will not be picking up any time soon. The combined stupidity of offshoring production to a single country and refusal to isolate that country by putting global travel restrictions in place made global economic collapse inevitable. Lessons learned - supply chains will be diversified and China will end up in a massive recession. The geopolitical question is, will we relive the swinging '20s with a decade of hedonism before an economically struggling China goes on a war footing or not?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 09 2020, @04:53PM (11 children)
While there will be some long term impairment from a one or more year pandemic, much of the necessary infrastructure changes to the global supply chains can be figured out in a much shorter time. That leads me to the opinion that a recession from the coronavirus will be of similar v-shape unless it triggers a substantial secondary vulnerability, say such as a collapse in a major country's banking industry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @08:34PM (10 children)
I've no doubt will we see a V-shaped slump and rebound but for the slope of the recovery. We are already discussing things beyond first order effects. [reuters.com] My initial claim was:
China and Singapore flattened the COVID-19 infection growth curve by going into lock-down and Italy is now following suite as it appears to be the only effective measure. The sequence of events would be as follows:
The auto industry has already been forced to seek alternative sources of supply from outside China. Once the investment in plant is made, these alternative sources will be able to compete on cost with the Chinese and these supply lines may never return to China. Insurers may demand this diversification of supply. Global shipping has been on a downturn for years, Trumps tariffs and incoming EU VAT rules will hit Chinese exports hard - all in addition to animus against the CCP for covering up the first signs of the outbreak. If an economic downturn creates civil unrest in China, the party will almost definitely deflect using an external conflict (as we've seen so many times in history). We know about Chinese ambitions wrt the South China Sea and Taiwan.
I don't think I'm being overly speculative and can't envision any other realistic scenario for how this shit-show plays out over the long term. You're welcome to disagree and throw another hat in the ring.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 10 2020, @12:29AM (9 children)
You think a lot of things. But yes, you are being overly speculative. So there is a short term supply disruption and a somewhat longer term demand-side disruption. That's still just a standard recession.
Except we're not really talking about much in the way of economic damage. It's not like companies and workers will evaporate from a year or two of weak economic activity. That's the only second order effects you've mentioned so far.
And what of that is supposed to be significant? Economies do stuff, governments occasionally trade paint, and societies evolve. None of that is unusual or alarming. If this hypothetical civil unrest in China should result in a more democratic government, it'll even be heavily bullish in the long term.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 10 2020, @01:19AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @02:23AM (7 children)
I'm not the same AC you've been discussing this with. The supply chain issues are happening because of quarantines and lockdowns. They were confined mostly to China for awhile but are now happening elsewhere. It's entirely possible we'll see some of that in the US. It's because of incompetence. We wouldn't have to quarantine so many people or have massive lockdowns if we tested lots of people early and often. Find out who has the coronavirus, treat them early, and isolate them early. Everyone else can go along with their lives with much less risk of being exposed. Pence said there are four million more tests that will be distributed by the end of the week. They've failed to deliver thus far, so I have no confidence in them this time. If we have large scale lockdowns and more supply chain issues, it will be because the government failed to contain or slow the spread of the virus early on.
As for longer term effects, I see two problems. We have little room to cut interest rates further because they were already quite low and we've started cutting them further. There's also a considerable amount of corporate debt on the books. The economy probably can withstand short term supply chain disruptions and decreased productivity from containment and mitigation efforts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @01:16PM (6 children)
Yeah. khallow thinks I am being overly speculative but we're well over the rubicon. [twitter.com] When I wrote my initial comment, only Northern Italian provinces were going into lock-down, now it's the entire country. This virus should have never escaped Wuhan (or anywhere else). The consequences of not implementing short term travel restrictions are going to play out long term (because Dr Tedros and WHO didn't want to create any "stigma"). And we are looking at a global pandemic [zerohedge.com] and we can't go back to economic data from the Spanish flu or standard recessions and predict a simple recovery on a V-shaped dip. Does the airline industry pull financial guidance or entire countries suspend mortgage repayments [bbc.co.uk] in a standard recession or in a global crash?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:48PM (5 children)
That leaves triggering large problems in the global economy as the other big risk. At present, I don't think that's a serious issue. You certainly haven't mentioned anything serious enough to worry about.
Having been on the internet for thirty years, I'm quite familiar with the doomsday pattern. This stuff comes out every recession and every novel disease outbreak. Make a guess how many times it's been right so far?
Finally, I will continue to pay attention to comparable history like the 1918 influenza pandemic and global recessions because this is similar, despite the protests to the contrary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @08:09PM (4 children)
LOL [un.org]
It's similar to the Spanish flu if you allow for double the R0 and higher fatality rate with a more interdependent global trade network that will not be able to function.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:54AM (3 children)
So now, argument from ignorance fallacies.
And if you don't allow for double the R0 (because it's likely not double!) and a near equivalent fatality rate (because once again, it's about the same), then well, you get my side of the argument. I already have allowed for global trade disruption. This isn't going to be some magic unsolvable problem.
Same goes for global recessions. We get them all the time. We know how they evolve. It's not rocket science.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2020, @04:43PM (2 children)
How is khallow today; Stonks?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 14 2020, @12:41PM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 15 2020, @02:18PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @05:27AM (1 child)
It's not corruption or healthcare that's the problem. China is generally seen as more corrupt than the US and also does not have nationalized healthcare, in spite of claiming to be communist. The problem, as always, is division. If China had US style social and political divisions, they'd have had an outbreak in the hundreds of millions. Instead it looks like they've mostly contained this with 100,000 cases in a country of 1,400,000,000. That's simply impressive.
Look at the US today and this virus is, ultra predictably, just becoming another tool for political division. We're becoming somewhat nihilistic in that we believe nothing matters, at all, except our own political viewpoints. It's not 'how can we solve this problem' but 'how can I further my political agenda with this problem.' There's even now this absurd ideology that if you're not actively engaging in politics then you're actually supporting some side or the other, as a sort of viral effort to consume everybody into this stupidity.
I think the long-term effects of this virus will probably be positive, even in the worst case scenario. Many nations are starting to head towards demographic collapse as fertility rates drop + people living far longer resulting an increasingly old and dependent population. The worst case scenario would see this issue completely resolved. The US is collapsing, but I think predictions of imminent collapse are hyperbolic. It's simply a gradual decline. It feels so similar to the collapse of the Roman Empire.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 09 2020, @12:44PM
Not to me. Seems much more similar to the collapse of the Roman Republic with the presence of populist politicians.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 09 2020, @01:07PM (1 child)
No, the real problem here is this is likely another black swan event on the scale of 9/11 or the 2008 crash, and will likely linger around a lot longer. I predict this thing is going to become a permanent member of the world's constantly-circulating virus pool, and will likely become no worse than the average cold or flu in 1-5 years.
Which doesn't really say much since these sorts of black swan events happen quite often.
We'll see. I think for the US, it'll take something bigger like a major defeat in a war or said "something even worse" pandemic. Big things take longer to die.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 09 2020, @01:07PM
Unless, of course, it doesn't.
Which doesn't really say much since these sorts of black swan events happen quite often.
We'll see. I think for the US, it'll take something bigger like a major defeat in a war or said "something even worse" pandemic. Big things take longer to die.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday March 08 2020, @06:30PM
Like most things, good sanitation will go very far. The miracle cure is soap (not the anti-bacterial shit) and water
They wouldn't lie about that, would they?
If you wanna see scary, look at your keyboard, and all the other keyboards you use. I don't believe you need links for that, but, just in case you don't want to believe me [uk.com]...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @02:49AM
I attribute this entire epidemic to khallow's failure to invest in sanitizing his backhoe before renting it out for profit. That, and Trump cutting the CDC's pandemic response team funding. Amazing how biology is just always too expensive for cheap-skate capitalists, and they miss the mark. Must have something to do with the Black Death giving them the chance in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @10:03PM (2 children)
We have three paths forward in the US:
1) Allow the virus to spread nearly unchecked. This means it spreads almost exponentially, eventually overwhelming hospitals and causing seriously ill people to not be treated. We've seen how this plays out in Wuhan.
2) Ban public gatherings, close schools and many businesses, and lock down freedom of movement. It's effective, but requires these measures to be in place for several weeks. This is China's and Italy's approach to the virus.
3) Don't restrict freedom of movement and have limited restrictions on public gatherings. Conduct testing for the virus on a massive scale, isolate infected individuals to prevent them from spreading the virus, and administer treatment as early as possible. This is also effective, with resources being shifted to testing instead of enforcing large scale quarantines. This is South Korea's approach to the virus.
So far, we're following the first path most closely. I find this quite alarming. I very much prefer the third option, because it prioritizes early detection and treatment while minimizing the impact on everyone's lives. I fear that we aren't going to do nearly enough testing and too many infected people won't be isolated soon enough. Out of panic, we'll end up with some form of the second option, which is already being considered to some degree. Our leaders are failing us, repeatedly promising to rapidly scale up testing throughout the country, then failing to do so. The obsession with minimizing panic is paralyzing us from responding. The absence of good information and the insistence on downplaying the threat are probably creating more panic than they're preventing.
We need to get through this crisis first, then we need to hold all of our leaders accountable. We need a change of leadership at many levels of our government so that those who are failing us don't have the opportunity to do this again. And we need to eliminate the sick culture in this country, which is the perception that it's frowned upon to take vacation or miss work when you're ill.
And, as Spock said, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. I'm very disappointed that the father of Missouri's first coronavirus case chose to ignore his quarantine and go to a school dance with his daughter. I understand the desire to enjoy those moments with children, but not at the expense of risking the exposure of many others to the virus. It's a selfish act that cannot even be explained by the fear of missing work and the need to pay the bills. I suspect there are many more people doing this, but we just don't hear about them. Just like during WW2, when we asked everyone to make sacrifices for the war effort, we need everyone to choose to put the interests of others ahead of their own selfishness. If our leaders weren't failing us, we'd test the family of the coronavirus patient instead of imposing quarantines for people who may not be ill. But we need to make the best of a bad situation and everyone needs to do their part.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 10 2020, @12:34AM (1 child)
I imagine the symptoms were pretty mild for the child. It's not people at death's door who go to dances.
And if the symptoms are mild or even nonexistent, then the disease must not be that bad. It's standard human logic and I bet a substantial contributor to the spread of the virus over the past few months.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @01:47AM
He has at least two daughters, one of whom returned from Italy and was undergoing testing at the time to determine if she had the coronavirus. Pending the outcome of the test, doctors told the father and anyone else in the family to self-quarantine. Rather than do as the doctors asked, he defined the order and went to the dance with the other daughter. When he was there, he found out that the daughter who had been in Italy tested positive. He may have no symptoms at all and may not even have the virus, but we don't know for sure. When the doctors asked him to self-quarantine, he should have done so. I suspect he's not alone in defying the orders. It was reported that an individual in New Hampshire who tested positive also defied a request to self-quarantine.
There's a woman in Omaha who tested positive after returning from the UK. She went to a doctor and was told it was just a cold. She wasn't tested for eight days and may have exposed others. But from what I've heard, she genuinely didn't know and was failed by a lack of testing. Now, she's fighting for her life, in critical but stable condition. If she exposed others, it was because she didn't know and nobody asked her to self-quarantine. There are some pretty ugly things being said about her on social media, none of which is warranted. Our leaders failed her because she couldn't get tested.
My objection is with people who are asked to isolate themselves as a precaution, then knowingly defy the quarantine. That's what I'm calling selfish, because the father in Missouri was told to isolate himself and chose not to do so. I suspect that there are many other people who ignore quarantines, he just happened to get caught.
In China, one of the issues with controlling the virus was the massive amount of travel for the Lunar New Year celebrations. I work at a state university here in the US. On a smaller scale, we're about to have a large amount of travel across the country from students on spring break. Some students will be traveling to places where community spread is occurring. International travel is being discouraged by universities but very little is being said about domestic travel. Once the virus arrives at a university, it's all too easy for it to spread rapidly across campus and into the surrounding community. Until today, the university I work at hadn't shared their plans for dealing with an outbreak of the virus in the city or on campus. They've been scrambling over the past few days to even make plans, despite being well aware of the risk for a significantly longer period of time. I'm very concerned about what may happen over the next 3-4 weeks and that our leaders seem to be incompetent at many levels of government. It makes me angry. It's not about politics. I don't care what party, if any, you support. They've all failed us. We all deserve better.
Be well.