Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Legbiter]

The death rate might be as high as 3.4% of those infected. Lets say 60% of Americans get it in the next 18 months; then we have 0.6*0.034*331m = 6.75m. It could easily be worse or better.

Yeah, shave off 3% of the global population over a year and it looks grim. We need a vaccine which is a ways off.

[celedhring]

If the virus is so vulnerable to heat as it is being said, once it's winter in the southern hemisphere it can become a catastrophe.

[fromtia]

People I work alongside are more or less in three camps; the World War Z camp, the Liberal Hoax Its Just Flu Camp, Im Very Concerned About My Income And Old People Camp.

Im in the latter. It does look like the Chinese got their outbreak under control because they went at it very aggressively, and that's making some people a bit complacent. The right response is to go after it very aggressively and try to contain it and push it back I think, not fail to act and hope that it goes away.

Even best case scenario, it doesn't spread easily and its not too dangerous, do we really want an endemic virus in the population that comes around every year and pops off granny? doesn't sound like something I'd readily accept if we can expend some effort now to prevent that.

[fromtia]

Just keeping Pence on this is probably smart.

You are a generous and optimistic soul.

[Maximus]

Just keeping Pence on this is probably smart.

You are a generous and optimistic soul.

So are you.

[fromtia]

I delayed and most likely cancelled my June visit to the UK to see the family, and I imagine I'll skip my West Coast trip and the comic book convention as well. I'll make a firm decision at the end of March. Slowing down on the house repairs and setting aside a little money in case work dries up and washing my hands a lot. Other than that I'm just watching and waiting. A huge relief that children are spared, but I'm very concerned about my parents who are 78 and 82, and my dads already held together with duct tape.

[Sheilbh]

If the virus is so vulnerable to heat as it is being said, once it's winter in the southern hemisphere it can become a catastrophe.

Yeah - I have no idea if that's the case. It's a question I have given how few cases are being reported from the southern hemisphere at the moment, and that the UK Chief Medical Officer has flagged there's a possibility it's seasonal.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The top UK health bods are speaking now : https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2020/mar/09/boris-johnson-cobra-labour-trevor-phillips-says-his-suspension-by-labour-suggests-party-turning-into-brutish-authoritarian-cult-live-news

[fromtia]

The top UK health bods are speaking now : https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2020/mar/09/boris-johnson-cobra-labour-trevor-phillips-says-his-suspension-by-labour-suggests-party-turning-into-brutish-authoritarian-cult-live-news

All very calm and reassuring. The advice to self isolate while sick and for seven days afterwards and to avoid gathering together in order to protect the old and frail seemed about right.

[alfred russel]

The death rate might be as high as 3.4% of those infected. Lets say 60% of Americans get it in the next 18 months; then we have 0.6*0.034*331m = 6.75m. It could easily be worse or better.

Yeah, shave off 3% of the global population over a year and it looks grim. We need a vaccine which is a ways off.

The mortality rate seems to be less than 1% and the infection rate is going to be less than 100%. I'm not saying this isn't bad but there isn't a reason to overstate the worst case.

[Tamas]

The advice to self isolate while sick and for seven days afterwards

Except they are not issuing this yet. They said they would within a fortnight, but not yet. 

[Sheilbh]

The advice to self isolate while sick and for seven days afterwards

Except they are not issuing this yet. They said they would within a fortnight, but not yet. 

Yeah, Whitty on this, apparently based on modelling

Ministers will within a fortnight advise anyone with a fever or a mild respiratory tract infection to stay at home for seven days, Whitty revealed. He said that the government was not giving out this advice now, because the chances of someone with a fever now having coronavirus are very low, he said. But he said that would change very quickly. Soon the number of infections would rise "really quite fast", he said. He went on:
    We are now very close to the time, probably within the next 10 to 14 days, when the modelling would imply we should move to a situation where everybody with even minor respiratory tract infections or a fever should be self-isolating for a period of seven days.

This advice is likely to have huge repercussions for workplaces across the country.

This section from Sir Patrick Vallance is pretty striking:

Vallance said the aim of the measures to be introduced by the government would be to lower the mortality rate of those in the at-risk group by 20 to 30%. But he said it would be wrong to try to "suppress" the disease completely because it could result in a winter outbreak at a time of maximum pressure for the NHS. He said:
What you can't do is suppress this thing completely, and what you shouldn't do is suppress it completely because all that happens then is it pops up again later in the year when the NHS is at a more vulnerable stage in the winter and you end up with another problem.

[Tamas]

So the plan Is to cull out the weak, but just do so at a convenient schedule

[Josephus]

First death reported in Canada. Looks like one of the B.C. ones.

[fromtia]

So the plan Is to cull out the weak, but just do so at a convenient schedule

you might be embellishing a bit.