Coronavirus

[Emphyrio]

The mortality rate is over 3%, compared with the common flu which is 0.1 or 0.01, I can't remember which. That alone is worrying. Is there hysteria, yes. But even if the symptoms are mild, I wouldn't want to be a carrier and infect/kill someone with a compromised immune system. I know one of the aulde lads in work, who is generally a pillar of sense, is actually worried as he is a 60yr old asthmatic.

[Eoin McLove]

This is it.  Feels a little smoke screeny. I might be way off base and if so then, yeah, egg on my face.  It just seems a bit like the hype du jour.

[Emphyrio]

There's way too much (mis) information out there. It's simply unavoidable on the airwaves or online. 

[Juggz]

For first-hand perspective, my good lady is from Sardinia with an 82 year-old mother. She was supposed to be going back to visit next week but was advised not to by her family as the flight involved changing in Milan. She decided to postpone the trip and the flights have now been cancelled anyway. She has a friend who is a doctor in Milan who said they have too many sick people to cope with right now, they're overwhelmed.

Like Emphyrio said, while you may not feel threatened by it, the thought of infecting an old parent would be a brutal thing to have to live with. I've no doubt a lot of political or social inconveniences are being dealt with or brushed under the table while the news is dominated by it, but it's still killing people, just not an an apocalyptic rate. If we had as many corpses as Italy I'm sure we'd be a little more sympathetic, myself included.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

The mortality rate is not 3%. Any figure around 3% or higher is based on dividing the number of deaths by the number of confirmed, tested cases. However, everything we know about this virus suggests that there are many, many more people who have caught it but have not been tested. There are specialists within the WHO contesting their head's figures on this, as well as the chief medical officer in the UK, as well as simply the fact that we know not everyone is being tested and that many people display such mild or asymptomatic symptoms they won't even check-in, or depending on the country they'll call the hotline and be told not to do anything unless they develop respiratory problems.

They're saying there are 120,000 or so cases globally. That's confirmed cases. In reality it could be double or even ten times that.

And age, we know, is a huge factor. Average age of those who have died in Italy is 81 (yes, average!), meaning the reason they seem to have so many deaths is, at base, a function of their incredible longevity.

The strategy now isn't so much to stop the spread as to slow it down enough that they can filter cases through the medical services without swamping them. Does a high risk individual have a higher chance of survival if they arrive to a hospital that isn't overwhelmed? Perhaps. Certainly slowing it down gives more time to work on treatments which may help.

[Ducky]

Yeah it's much more serious than the flu. We're operating from a much smaller data set for now, but it looks to be exponentially more deadly. The fact that you're contagious for upto two weeks before you start displaying symptoms is a potential recipe for disaster if it's not taken seriously.

I agree that there's a bit too much hysteria surrounding it, bit that's a sign o' the social media-obsessed, instant information times we live in. I do think the cautious response is justified though. Far too many times we hear of the door being closed after the horse has bolted, for once they're actually trying to keep it closed before we hit that point.

I will say too that as someone with a compromised immune system (diabetes, and they've already found diabetes to be one of the common underlying health issues in those that have died) I'm happy to lay low. When I get a cold, it can take me twice as long to get over it and it hits me like a tonne of bricks. Infections royally fuck with your glucose levels. Which makes me sicker and weaker. Which makes it harder to recover, which makes it harder to control glucose and energy levels, which makes it harder to recover and so on.

The WHO have been speculating about a so-called"Disease X" for a number of years now and reckon that so far this fits the bill. It may or may not, but do we really want to end up with egg on our collective faces if it pulls a Spanish Flu on us?

[Eoin McLove]

Yeah,  of course caution is to be advised and prevention is better than cure but when it gets to the point where a global recession is being talked about you can't help but wonder if things are being blown out of proportion.

If you're under the weather,  don't visit dear old aunty Mavis in the nursing home and don't visit friends or family with other health issues.  A bit of hand sanitizer and common sense can go a long way here.

As Chris said above, the average age of fatalities in Italy is 81 so maybe if the corona virus didn't get them,  the flu or pneumonia would have.  Maybe?

My phone keeps giving me headlines from the UK telling me the new updated number of cases confirmed there and it is beginning to feel a bit like a spectator sport.

[Caomhaoin]

Had to go to hospital today for an X-ray after I hurt my hand, and it's scary the amount of people coughing and wearing masks in the waiting area.

[DeletedUsermNqGIiIuGy]

That seems to be a big issue, people flooding to hospitals and emergency rooms with any type of symptom demanding to be tested etc

[Pedrito]

Just listened to this and I've no jdea what this guy's background is or if he tends to exaggerate etc, but I will say that it made me poop a little in my pants. I'm in Madrid, they've closed down all the schools and Universities. I work in 2 Universities here and lots of American students are being called home. Heard from a colleague that a Chinese student of theirs had symptoms for a number of weeks, told noone and was coming to class regularly before boarding a plane back home. Now his Spanish teacher is in quarantine and a bunch of classmates are sick. Chinese lad I train with is seriously freaked out about the whole thing, he's making me nervous as fuck talking about it and I never react to these things. Anyway here's the link:

https://youtu.be/cZFhjMQrVts

[Eoin McLove]

Apparently the number of new cases in China has plummeted today. I wonder can we discreetly sweep the storm back into the teacup?

[Pedrito]

I'd tend to think the way you're thinking but you'd have to wonder with whole countries on lockdown to be fair. Madrid here has a pppulation of 6.5 million. Every school is closed, every public gym, all Universities. Again, I get the drama queen element to it, but looking at the measures they're taking, one would start to wonder if it's a tad worse than they're letting on. Really hoping it fucks off in a few weeks but I'm torn between being completely blasé about it and then a little voice in my head saying 'yeah, they don't just shut down the whole of the north of Italy if things aren't at least a tad bit serious'.

[Pedrito]

Probably need to just man the fuck up tbh

[Eoin McLove]

Well I haven't a fucking clue, obviously, but I can't help but see this as part of a bigger hysterical trend that could be tied back (like everything else) to social media in some way. The instant nature of news reporting now that has to try to compete with the mania of Facebook and Twitter and whatever other bullshit is de rigeur these days so you end up with YELLOW WEATHER WARNINGS! Oh fuck,  what does that mean? Rain... Oh, right yeah.

Again, probably way off the mark and just shooting from the hip as is my way, but when I think of this in light of bird flu, equine flu, swine flu, SARS, Ebola, the Taliban, Weight Watchers Eclairs YUM! What was my point again? Oh yeah,  load a bollix.

[The Butcher]

The thing is, with the flu, there's a seasonal vaccine (granted not a huge % get it) but we know roughly the amount of numbers that will enter our hospitals every season. It's not a surprise to the health system (and we know the story with the Irish health system regards trolleys/waiting lists and the rest). Flu death rate from WHO/CDCs usually puts it at around 0.1%.

The reason why this COVID-19 is discussed (to death by some) is because it's new and we really don't know how it will pan out. We will only know the proper death rate when this is all over but WHO currently put it at 3.4%, this changes from country to country - like Italy who have an older population and places like South Korea with a much lower death rate because they are testing everyone (drive thru testing). Northern Italian hospitals are overrun with people, the health system is collapsing there in terms of it being a war zone type situation, having to choose who lives or dies. I started the thread off in the middle seeing both sides - I'm not panicked but I'm more concerned/prepared myself. What we do determines what happens to older people and people with pre-existing conditions. I'd rather be safe than sorry. I've been tracking this since January and as time has gone on the more convinced I am that this is not hysteria. You just need to see the drastic measures China had to implement in order to try slow the spread. Iran has become a complete mess and not handling it at all.

Ebola is so fatal that it's hard to spread around, this has the perfect balance so far, I was never concerned with Swine flu / SARS / MERS and the rest when it all came out, this is different. We have our heads in the sand when it comes to this and I really don't like this "I'm alright jack" attitude. The economy was on course for a recession regardless of this, it's been a talking point for 2 years now...we just have extremely low interest rates and Central banks printing money out the ying yang with QE to keep the holey bucket from leaking, if you looked at the German/Japanese stats, they were heading for a downturn...now this coronavirus has pushed a recession quicker and further down the tracks. Global recession happens regardless of a few of us posting on online forums. Again it reminds me of this talk of "doom mongers" "talking down the economy" back in 2006. Bertie Ahern with his famous "why don't they commit suicide?". We will talk ourselves into a recession is just daft.

We are being told to listen to our experts. Remember those Irish "experts" during the property bubble era of 2006? "Fill your shoes with bank shares" they said. And we all know what happened...I'd rather listen to the experts in the countries that this is effecting the most and what we can learn from their experiences. The response to this has been shocking in my eyes. We had our Chief Medical Officer saying 3 weeks ago that we MIGHT get 1 or 2 cases in the COMING MONTHS and we are will positioned to manage it....he will be the equivalent of our financial regulator Pat Neary when this is over. And they said "it takes more than 15 minutes to risk infection if you are beside someone with COVID-19" What the fuck like...these are our experts?! RTE telling people to put signs on the door if you are infected...talk about harking back to the plague times! They cancelled the rugby because they were worried about "large crowds in close proximity" but with the same breath  saying they saw "no implications" "No reason" to cancel the parades...fast forward to now and they are cancelled.

It has the huge potential to cripple/overwhelm our health services with even heavily conservative numbers of infection rates here. I don't call this panic, this is a call to be alert, not alarmed. Again I hope I'm wrong, if we can slow the spread, push it out until April maybe the warm weather will help if it's seasonal but gives it time to wait on a vaccine. We are an island that gives us a huge advantage too, just hope our officials become more proactive than reactive currently. Just don't read about the first/second waves of the Spanish flu and then the fear will definitely set in!