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57 minutes ago, skevinp said:

Nothing you said appears to disprove or even contradict anything I said.  

As for the topic (newly introduced to this conversation) of the numbers, did the CDC say there couldn’t possibly be any more than 60 cases, or did they just say we know of 60 so far?

What you said was: "Given the number of overhyped maladies of past years, don’t you think that could be what is happening now?"

My answer is: No, I think the story was given too little attention by both U.S. media and the U.S. government, and we all got caught with our pants down (or as Brit Hume might say: caught looking for a Sexy Vinyl Vixen -- crop your screenshots, people). The disease was already in this country before we took any steps to prevent it from getting here. The head of the FDA from 2017-2019 wrote a month ago (Feb. 4) that we should assume this was the case and test anyone with symptoms, not just those who had been to China. We didn't. Now we need to work even harder if we hope to minimize the effects.

Of course the CDC didn't say "there couldn't possibly be any more than 60 cases".

But in much of the rest of the world, the relationship between the number of cases and the number of deaths falls into a fairly narrow range: 0.5%-4% of cases result in death.

Not here. And not in Iran. Everybody agrees that the Iranian government was covering up what was going on there, either to avoid a panic or because they thought it would be embarrassing to admit how bad the situation was.

Meanwhile in this country, it's clear that the reason the number of cases is so low is that we haven't been testing.

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BUT there's some potentially good news from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization. According to this article, Dr. Tedros says:

"To summarize: COVID-19 spreads less efficiently than flu, transmission does not appear to be driven by people who are not sick, it causes more severe illness than flu [currently tracking at a 3.4% mortality rate vs. 1% for the flu], there are not yet any vaccines or therapeutics, and it can be contained".

It can be contained by aggressive testing and then separating infected people from healthy people. (Plus the usual hygiene recommendations.)

Dr. Mike Ryan, who runs WHO's health emergencies program, adds:

"Countries that have relied purely on travel restrictions as the only public health intervention have not done so well, because when they have imported cases they subsequently have been caught off guard."

So, lesson learned, I hope, and we'll do better moving forward.

 

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1 hour ago, N.E. Brigand said:

About an hour ago, the official report from the CDC was that there were 60 cases and 6 deaths.

That was already behind, since Washington state had confirmed 7 deaths by that point. Now the count there is 9 deaths.

Are you expecting the CDC to live-update these counts every second like a stock market tracker?

 

 

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But we know that in China, mortality was tracking at 2%. In South Korea, it's tracking at 0.5%.

So unless the disease got a whole lot worse in the U.S., there must be somewhere between 300 and 1,200 cases here.

And the CDC has to know that their figures are wrong.

A responsible government would be forthcoming about what was once termed "the known unknowns".

I have been late catching up on your swarm of posts about the irresponsible misreporting of outdated data.  So since that theme has been so freshly planted in my mind, imagine the ironic impact of seeing you post this:

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6 deaths out of 60 cases is 10% mortality.

 

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1 hour ago, JimF-LowBari said:

Nevermind my response to the above.. got it now

Maybe someone can clear this up. Reading all (9 currently) deaths in Seattle area? Article I read needs clearer writing. 

edit: 8 King county (Seattle) and 1 Snoqualmie county (just East). Other than possible Oriental family members interesting it’s hit there so hard. Glad my travel days to Puget Sound are over.

Ok caught a report tonight that said most of the WA cases are connected to a nursing facility in Kirkland. Missed that before somehow. And NY case is someone who visited that nursing facility. So possibly deaths have a ground zero.... 

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36 minutes ago, cixelsyd said:

[1] Are you expecting the CDC to live-update these counts every second like a stock market tracker?

[2] I have been late catching up on your swarm of posts about the irresponsible misreporting of outdated data.  So since that theme has been so freshly planted in my mind, imagine the ironic impact of seeing you post this:

[1] Not at all. I believe daily or twice-daily updates are normal. The point was:

[2] 6 deaths out of 60 cases is indeed 10% mortality, just as I said. And in the very same post, I say that we have no reason to believe this disease has a 10% mortality rate, which means that the CDC had some very misleading data.

In other words, The Official Coronavirus Numbers Are Wrong, And Everyone Knows It.

We haven't been testing at anything like the level we should have. (In other countries like South Korea and Italy, they're testing more people every day than we've tested in a month. Here's another example: the U.K. has tested 13,911 people. The U.S., per the CDC, has tested fewer than 700.) That's probably the most important thing authorities can do. Some people were urging authorities to do this a month ago. Had their warnings been heeded, maybe there wouldn't have been nine deaths in Washington, even in that long-term care facility, because sick patients could have been isolated from other residents.

(Just tonight, the person leading the U.S. response to the coronavirus announced new guidance from the CDC giving full clinical discretion to order tests. That's good news! But no audio or video was allowed in the briefing during which this update (and other official news on the outbreak) was announced. The reason for that is pretty obvious and pathetic.)

Speaking of Washington, per this article in Stat (a medical news site):

"The coronavirus outbreak in the Seattle area is at a critical juncture and could see explosive growth in cases much like Wuhan, China, if public officials don’t take immediate, forceful measures, according to a new analysis of genetic data."

Edited by N.E. Brigand
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24 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said:

What you said was: "Given the number of overhyped maladies of past years, don’t you think that could be what is happening now?"

My post quoted and was in response to what Jim said, and his scenario is the “that” I was referring to, so you are continuing to argue with something I was not really saying.  Have a nice day.

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4 hours ago, N.E. Brigand said:

Theaters around the country are grappling with this issue right now: what if local or state government issues an emergency order banning public gatherings for a week or a month? If you have to cancel performances and refund patrons' tickets, how long can you afford to pay your regular staff?

Or imagine that the church, synagogue, mosque, etc. that you attend is ordered by the county health commissioner to "halt all services immediately and for the foreseeable future", as happened today with Temple Young Israel in New Rochelle, New York -- and furthermore, those congregants who attended particular services on Feb. 22-23 have been ordered by the county to self-quarantine (i.e., stay home) for the next week.

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37 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said:

[1] Not at all. I believe daily or twice-daily updates are normal. The point was:

[2] 6 deaths out of 60 cases is indeed 10% mortality, just as I said. And in the very same post, I say that we have no reason to believe this disease has a 10% mortality rate, which means that the CDC had some very misleading data.

When you take data out of context, it can be misleading.

How about we be candid here?  There are two big chunks of context framing this situation.

1.  If there is a respiratory virus that, quite unlike any I know of, can stowaway in the body for two weeks before the host even perceives symptoms... no agency or government is going to stop it dead immediately in its imperceptible tracks.

2.  If, in addition to that, the same respiratory virus seems just like familiar, existing respiratory viruses for the overwhelming majority of its sufferers... the overwhelming majority of cases will go unreported until-and-unless we test everybody on Earth that ever gets so much as the sniffles.

Even someone who cannot spell their own avatar can see that we are not going to have accurate case counts at this stage, no matter who does the counting.

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1 hour ago, JimF-LowBari said:

Ok caught a report tonight that said most of the WA cases are connected to a nursing facility in Kirkland. Missed that before somehow. And NY case is someone who visited that nursing facility. So possibly deaths have a ground zero.... 

The elderly with pre-existing conditions are the most vulnerable to this virus.  It attacks the lungs and they develop pneumonia and that’s never good.  

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