In other virus news

[freeradical]

The CDC estimates that so far, 10,000-25,000 Americans have died of the flu in the 2019-2020 flu season.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/pre...imates.htm

[fauch]

Yeah people are going mad over this coronavirus, but forget that there is some pretty nasty stuff already out there infecting (and killing) people every day...
I don't know how seriously to take it. It seems like an artificial "crisis" to me. Even in China where there are 1.5 BILLION people, there have been a few hundred deaths, and who knows what level of health care they had. Not exactly the zombie apocalypse...

[mattkime]

fauch wrote: Even in China where there are 1.5 BILLION people, there have been a few hundred deaths, and who knows what level of health care they had. Not exactly the zombie apocalypse...

and thats the problem with avoiding catastrophe, people will dismiss whether there was any threat to begin with.

[pRICE cUBE]

I believe the Coronavirus to be pretty serious of China is shutting down entire cities, transportation, and infrastructure to contain this. China needs its economy to run on all cylinders so shutting down Lunar New Year is speaks volumes. Building a hospital in 10 days to treat 1000 patients shows that China doesn’t think this is a common illness.

Is the flu serious? Yes, but there is a vaccine for some of the major strains.

[space-time]

building a hospital in 10 days is impressive.

I am curious how they organize staff and supplies for it though. Do they just have extra doctors and nurses on stand-by?

[DP]

The PRC just orders people to work.

[macphanatic]

space-time wrote:
building a hospital in 10 days is impressive.

I am curious how they organize staff and supplies for it though. Do they just have extra doctors and nurses on stand-by?

They pull from other facilities. The intent is to quarantine those infected and those that are treating the infected.

[sekker]

It’s serious because infected people can show no symptoms for a week or more.

Hard to lock things down when those infected don’t even know it.

And the MD who blew the whistle in China died today. It can kill even the healthiest of people (in this case, a 34 year old male IN a hospital).

[space-time]

ouch!

[Numo]

“It’s serious because infected people can show no symptoms for a week or more.“

Maybe even worse is the fact that those same people can transmit the virus while they are non-symptomatic.