Quite childish IMO.Danish newspaper refuses to apologise to China over coronavirus cartoon
Any comment on this, @23.21.159 ?
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IMPORTANT // Please look after your loved ones, yourself and be kind to others. If you are feeling that the world is too hard to handle there is always help - I implore you not to hesitate in contacting one of these wonderful organisations Lifeline and Beyond Blue ... and I'm sure reaching out to our PRE community we will find a way to help. T.
Coronavirus
- Thread starter Tigers of Old
- Start date
Scientists at the Doherty institute here in Melbourne have made a breakthrough in combatting this virus. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01...d-in-australian-lab-outside-of-china/11906390
Someone has posted a prediction chart if current numbers continue. Will be interesting to trek it's progress..
Seasonal flu on average kills half that many per year, you've chosen the high end number.
The flu is a significant public health concern, but there's a number of reasons why this novel coronavirus is a different issue. First and foremost there are effective vaccines against seasonal influenza, and even then, the worst flu seasons happen because the vaccine has low efficacy. But even a low efficacy (I think the worst two years ago was about 60%) is infinitely better than 0%.
Secondly, we have effective post and pre exposure antivirals against influenza, which are not dependent on predicting which strains move through the population. Although the supply of these in Australia would not cover a pandemic, they help to limit spread. For coronavirus, we have nothing.
Thirdly, the mortality rate is something like 0.01% for seasonal influenza of those infected. It's looking like around 2 to 3% for coronavirus, but still hard to tell, because of the scarcity of testing kits.
Imagine if it does sweep through Melbourne, you're looking at three thousand tiger members dead.
I don't mean to scaremonger. Our worldwide quarantine procedures tend to work pretty well. But this virus has a high mortality rate (relative to other respiratory viruses), a high r nought value, and can apparently spread asymptomatically. It's a bit of a perfect storm.
Good news is everyone is doing the right thing on an international level, everyone is taking it seriously, and we have our very own PDI taking big steps toward rapid diagnosis and a possible vaccine.
All the rest of us can do is just make sure we wash our hands, maybe hold off on travel plans and stay calm.
This is the first I've heard of it.Danish newspaper refuses to apologise to China over coronavirus cartoon
Any comment on this, @23.21.159 ?
It's the corrupt, incompetent federal government. Of course they don't know what they're doing. Are these idiots still letting flights in from China?I sure hope they know what they're doing..
China travellers urged to stay home, evacuated Australians to be held on Christmas Island
Scott Morrison says the Federal Government will try to evacuate "isolated and vulnerable Australians" trapped in China because of the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus.www.abc.net.au
I honestly can’t see how this will stop. Hopefully some scientists crack a vaccine soon.
They're as dumb as they are crooked and nasty.
who posted it?
Not directed at you at all Olds (although you wouldn't normally project scary, unverified data?)
but I do find it interesting how people believe health scientists, but not climate scientists.
No-one calls cancer an overblown hoax by a bunch of charlatans. Ditto viruses.
People *smile* in an envelope to test for bowel cancer, and wear masks to prevent viruses, but take no action on climate change?
curious.
Im not saying I dont think Corona virus is bad,
but there's a few precedents (which Coburg has articulately addressed) of pretty pissweak modern global pandemics.
But yeah, sooner or later, there will be a doozy.
maybe this is it, I dunno?
Yeah, Im all for shutting the borders as a precaution. Just the same as I'm for ceasing coal production immediately as a precaution.
This table is the result of a pretty simple mathematical formula with only a few variables whereas climate is a vast chaotic system. But as with climate models, get the variables wrong and it’s garbage in, garbage out.
The health of millions depends not on scientists making predictions but developing a vaccine to combat the virus.
Right now I’m not sure what to believe, but I’m not buying the government officials’ line that it’s safe to mingle with people who’ve been to China but aren’t showing symptoms.
Elizabeth Warren has apparently claimed that we need to address climate change in order to contain this virus, but let’s not cast our lot in with the froot loops by mentioning that other topic in this thread again.
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It wasn't from an official source. Seems someone has run a computer simulation on the data released so far & it could be well wide of the mark. Fingers crossed it is.
(The computer simulation is behind btw)
Table is linear based on 47.5% daily increase in cases @ 2.06% mortality. If initial containment measures aren't effective, the number of cases will follow an exponential curve shaped like this.
Hospitals can only treat so many and with a third of cases requiring intensive care, if hospitals are filled then mortality must rise.
Hospitals can only treat so many and with a third of cases requiring intensive care, if hospitals are filled then mortality must rise.
What about over population? Dont mention it either.
I welcomed Coburgs comments earlier, good to see a precise and calmly worded reply.
Yep, I agree Ian. Numbers are only what you make of them. If a fully laden Airbus crashes somewhere it is a major catastrophe, yet a similar number of women die during childbirth on the African continent every day and no one really knows or cares. Malaria takes out around 400K to 450K people a year, mostly kids under 5. Etc. Etc.
That said, I'd be interested to know the demographic and age profile on those who have died from the current coronavirus outbreak. This can be very important to understanding the potential impact of the virus. The Spanish Flu of 1918-1920 was noteworthy for all the wrong reasons, not the least being the upward estimates suggest it wiped out 3%-5% of the global population at the time (100 million people). But it also resulted in an unusually high proportion of deaths in young adults. There are several theories on why this happened, including mass malnourishment and poor hygiene post WWI, but some studies suggest that the virus had the capacity to trigger cytokine release syndrome (also known as cytokine storm for those who prefer things a little more dramatic) which smashes the immune system of anybody, but is particularly devastating to people like young adults whose immune systems can normally withstand viruses like influenza. This makes it pandemic material.
Also, the scaremongering around SARS and bird flu was only ridiculous due to the media making a story from poorly researched and expressed 'facts'. A number of avian flu strains, particularly H7N9, are considered very dangerous to humans because:
- they show a propensity to mutate quickly across multiple species
- they are often zoonotic (go from animals to humans relatively easily)
- despite the low numbers, there is strong evidence of human to human transmission
- a number of these strains are infectious in humans before any symptoms show
- the often don't kill their avian host, so detection is not easy until you have a major problem in humans or other species
- at up to a 40%, the fatality rate from infection is roughly twice what the worst case fatality rate for Spanish flu was (20%).
On this basis, the WHO has identified these viruses as being the next likely global pandemic virus, along with things like ebola which is super infectious. They have designated research on these viruses as an extremely high priority.
Also keep in mind that studies of the Spanish flu have suggested the virus had elements of both avian and swine flu strains. Between October and December each year, China is often a hotbed for both. And just a final thing in case people are interested. The term coronavirus is actually applied to a group of closely related viruses. The common cold is a coronavirus, as was SARS, MERS and avian flu. But swine flu isn't. So when you see a virus like Spanish Flu with elements of avian and swine flu in its makeup, you know you have something potentially very nasty on your hands.
