Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[crazy canuck]

If this is declared to be a pandemic, a number of things will happen.  Let's just take one example of the knock on effects - schools will close.  Those children will have to stay home.  One of the parents of those children will need to stay home because there will be no group activities for those children to go to. People will lose income, productivity will drop etc etc. 

The authorities are not going to close schools because of a car accident.

[grumbler]

Schools will close whether this is declared a pandemic or not.  What would change with the declaration of a pandemic is that automatic plans will go into effect, some of which will include pre-emptive closing of schools.  But it won't result in the closing of all schools indefinitely.

[The Minsky Moment]

I also think the media's been reasonably responsible so far - if anything the big, slightly hysterical reaction is in the markets. This may not be hysterical but at the minute seems a little disproportionate.

Or just a good excuse for investors to pull out of an over valued market

Context is helpful - the S&P is still safely above levels from a few months ago. 
It's reasonable to expect there will be some economic hit where manufacturing activity in the Chinese world hub is down and the true scope of the problem is unknown due to the government's lack of transparency.

[The Minsky Moment]

Every year 1.3 million or so are killed in auto accidents with many more seriously injured. I still drive to work every day.

I doubt you would drive to work every day if you had a 2.6% chance of dying each trip.

[alfred russel]

If this is declared to be a pandemic, a number of things will happen.  Let's just take one example of the knock on effects - schools will close.  Those children will have to stay home.  One of the parents of those children will need to stay home because there will be no group activities for those children to go to. People will lose income, productivity will drop etc etc. 

The authorities are not going to close schools because of a car accident.

Totally agree that there will be a significant economic impact from coronavirus.

That doesn't mean that the approach taken to the disease is proportionate to the threat.

[merithyn]

I do wonder whether anyone on languish has had it yet and just not realised.

Seedy works at a hospital with multiple CV patients right now. Luckily, he doesn't have direct patient care, but he does directly deal with the caregivers. So far he's fine, but they just hit his space in the last week or so. He's also a relatively healthy younger man compared to a geriatric patient with COPD.

Still.... a person worries.

[alfred russel]

Every year 1.3 million or so are killed in auto accidents with many more seriously injured. I still drive to work every day.

I doubt you would drive to work every day if you had a 2.6% chance of dying each trip.

I got jumped on for bad math...damn...if I went to work 200 days in the year I'd only have a 0.5% chance of surviving the year!

The traffic fatality rate in India is something like 50 times higher than in many western countries. Yet expats continue to move there and take cars to get to work.

[Barrister]

I do wonder whether anyone on languish has had it yet and just not realised.

Seedy works at a hospital with multiple CV patients right now. Luckily, he doesn't have direct patient care, but he does directly deal with the caregivers. So far he's fine, but they just hit his space in the last week or so. He's also a relatively healthy younger man compared to a geriatric patient with COPD.

Still.... a person worries.

Is he still smoking?  That's supposed to be a risk factor, or so they think.

[DGuller]

Every year 1.3 million or so are killed in auto accidents with many more seriously injured. I still drive to work every day.

I doubt you would drive to work every day if you had a 2.6% chance of dying each trip.

That's some bullshit math and you know it.

[The Minsky Moment]

The traffic fatality rate in India is something like 50 times higher than in many western countries. Yet expats continue to move there and take cars to get to work.

How many fatalities involve motorbikes?  Because I wouldn't drive in one of those.

[Eddie Teach]

Every year 1.3 million or so are killed in auto accidents with many more seriously injured. I still drive to work every day.

I doubt you would drive to work every day if you had a 2.6% chance of dying each trip.

That's some bullshit math and you know it.

Is it? What is being compared?

[grumbler]

The traffic fatality rate in India is something like 50 times higher than in many western countries.

Not really.  It is ten times that of the US and not even 50 times that of Norway, the lowest rate in the industrialized world (only San Marino is lower).

[grumbler]

I doubt you would drive to work every day if you had a 2.6% chance of dying each trip.

That's some bullshit math and you know it.

  That's not math at all.

[The Minsky Moment]

That's some bullshit math and you know it.

The math is fine, the comparison is bullshit.

People make individual decisions to drive each day because the probability of a fatality occurring is extremely low for that trip.  Total fatalities annually across the entire population are relatively high because the conduct is repeated so many times across the population.  The virus presents a much different situation - instead of endlessly repeated exposures to a tiny risk, it is a single exposure to a moderate risk.

The simple fact is if this virus spreads like the flu there are going to be very large number of deaths. 

[DGuller]

Every year 1.3 million or so are killed in auto accidents with many more seriously injured. I still drive to work every day.

I doubt you would drive to work every day if you had a 2.6% chance of dying each trip.

That's some bullshit math and you know it.

Is it? What is being compared?

I assume the intent is to compare the deadliness of exposure to various risk factors, such as viruses and car accidents.  No one is going to be catching the same virus twice a day every day.