Over 3,500 people quarantined on Diamond Princess cruise

[QueenElinor]

Yes, exactly. Each time we have a new case study it seems to verify the current data that 20% of the cases are severe and approx 2% are fatal. The Italy numbers are exactly that- 20% in intensive hospital, 2.3%fatal.

While I still feel no real threat to myself personally in the US, even though I fly domestically back and forth to DC every other week, I am confused why so many (and not to pick on anyone specifically) that claim this is as relatively safe as the flu (which is only 1.5% hospitalization and 0.1% fatality even in bad years)

it IS about as deadly as the flu- the flu of 1918.

........I was joking, not really, with my nephew about how maybe its not a bad idea to stock up on non-persishbables. I wonder if those in Italy who are stuck at home have supplies..

You're right in that it's s not really a joke. If they declare a global pandemic you might think of having 2wks of food to get through a quarantine. If your nation calls it a pandemic, you obviously must stock up, but then so will everyone else. I guess I'd want to beat the rush.

Also stock up on meds, especialy prescriptions.

 

[Dreams&wishes]

I'm in UK at the moment, but my sister and parents are in Milan and these are the photos from a major supermarket, it's panic buying. Milan it is not even in quarantine. My friend owns a pharmacy a d they were only delivered 200 masks, and they finished in 15 mins.
Also initially the quarantine for those affected towns was "advised" but after a family tried to escape to southern Italy the government had to put stringent rules in place and now the army is blocking all the roads out if anyone tries to leave there will be fine or jail terms. Food and medicines will be brought in.

 

[QueenElinor]

I'm in UK at the moment, but my sister and parents are in Milan and these are the photos from a major supermarket, it's panic buying. Milan it is not even in quarantine. My friend owns a pharmacy a d they were only delivered 200 masks, and they finished in 15 mins.
Also initially the quarantine for those affected towns was "advised" but after a family tried to escape to southern Italy the government had to put stringent rules in place and now the army is blocking all the roads out if anyone tries to leave there will be fine or jail terms. Food and medicines will be brought in.

I was just thinking of you! Wow, you just confirmed my thoughts on stocking up. Are you going to stay in the UK or head back?

 

[mousefan73]

I'm in UK at the moment, but my sister and parents are in Milan and these are the photos from a major supermarket, it's panic buying. Milan it is not even in quarantine. My friend owns a pharmacy a d they were only delivered 200 masks, and they finished in 15 mins.
Also initially the quarantine for those affected towns was "advised" but after a family tried to escape to southern Italy the government had to put stringent rules in place and now the army is blocking all the roads out if anyone tries to leave there will be fine or jail terms. Food and medicines will be brought in.

Jesus Christ.. I am going shopping tomorrow.. thanks for that head up..

 

[Dreams&wishes]

I was just thinking of you! Wow, you just confirmed my thoughts on stocking up. Are you going to stay in the UK or head back?

We are living in the UK atm and generally live in Australia. So yeah,. I was supposed to go back to Milan for Easter, but I don't think that will happen. They have just stopped a train from Italy to Austria on the border because there were two "suspected" cases. To be honest I don't think Italy is the only one with all of a sudden so many cases. I fear that there are many cases around that are just not being tested. I mean in uk the advise is that even if you have syntoms and you get a test done you can keep going around to work and school until you get a positive test back. Which is absurd!

 

[QueenElinor]

We are living in the UK atm and generally live in Australia. So yeah,. I was supposed to go back to Milan for Easter, but I don't think that will happen. They have just stopped a train from Italy to Austria on the border because there were two "suspected" cases. To be honest I don't think Italy is the only one with all of a sudden so many cases. I fear that there are many cases around that are just not being tested. I mean in uk the advise is that even if you have syntoms and you get a test done you can keep going around to work and school until you get a positive test back. Which is absurd!

Yes, I'm sure they're only finding those cases now, because they looked now. The strange thing is, back on Feb 6, there was reporting that a Taiwanese couple may have picked up the illness in Italy, but it never got much press because no one believed it. Maybe they should have.

 

[Dreams&wishes]

Yes, I'm sure they're only finding those cases now, because they looked now. The strange thing is, back on Feb 6, there was reporting that a Taiwanese couple may have picked up the illness in Italy, but it never got much press because no one believed it. Maybe they should have.

Yes, especially because no one has found case 0 yet!!!

 

[gotomu212]

This thread was started 3 weeks ago.

Yes I know and was commenting on it in the beginning as well. The post of yours I was replying to though that compared it to the seasonal flu was posted by you on this past Tuesday night, and I was confused how people like yourself could still say it was only as bad as the seasonal flu. Was trying to understand why that particular line of thinking keeps popping up.

 

[smmco]

Yes I know and was commenting on it in the beginning as well. The post of yours I was replying to though that compared it to the seasonal flu was posted by you on this past Tuesday night, and I was confused how people like yourself could still say it was only as bad as the seasonal flu. Was trying to understand why that particular line of thinking keeps popping up.

Since we don’t know how many people actually have the virus how can we know the fatality percentage? We don’t test for it in the US. Most countries aren’t testing for it. Many people that do test positive are asymptomatic. All I know at this point is that governments reaction to the virus is causing a lot of panic. It may end up being a pandemic, but pandemics don’t always have high fatality rates.
Honestly at this point I don’t think anyone really knows. My guess the number of people with the virus is a lot higher than reported.
Everyone that comes to the ED with flu cold like symptoms gets tested for the flu .

 

[QueenElinor]

Since we don’t know how many people actually have the virus how can we know the fatality percentage? We don’t test for it in the US. Most countries aren’t testing for it. Many people that do test positive are asymptomatic. All I know at this point is that governments reaction to the virus is causing a lot of panic. It may end up being a pandemic, but pandemics don’t always have high fatality rates.
Honestly at this point I don’t think anyone really knows. My guess the number of people with the virus is a lot higher than reported.
Everyone that comes to the ED with flu cold like symptoms gets tested for the flu .

I really hope you are right, and you definitely may be, but what worried me from the get-go is the Chinese response to this virus. You just don't lock down 10% of the world's population over 2000 flu deaths. It's unprecedented. And the drastic measures they've taken in Wuhan belie the apparent death toll. They've barricaded people in their apartment complexes. Like literally walled them in. People are left to live or die, and these are never reported as viral statistics, because they were not tested.

Also, most epidemiologist do not believe, and in fact never have believed, the numbers the Chinese government report. There are some really interesting ways of estimating the epidemic size based on little point mutations in the different virus strains they've collected from all over the world. Using that and other types of modeling, the estimates are that the actual numbers of infected/dead are five to 20 times the numbers reported in China. That last figure comes from esteemed British scientist, Neil Ferguson.

And these are solid epidemiologists, not wild-eyed conspiracy theorists. Some I followed way back during the Ebola epidemic, like Ian MacKay. But clearly that's a huge range, so yes, no one really does know. But it sure as heck isn't what the Chinese government has portrayed, which is definitely driving fear and uncertainty at all levels of society.

 

[Jax1023]

I really hope you are right, and you definitely may be, but what worried me from the get-go is the Chinese response to this virus. You just don't lock down 10% of the world's population over 2000 flu deaths. It's unprecedented. And the drastic measures they've taken in Wuhan belie the apparent death toll. They've barricaded people in their apartment complexes. Like literally walled them in. People are left to live or die, and these are never reported as viral statistics, because they were not tested.

Also, most epidemiologist do not believe, and in fact never have believed, the numbers the Chinese government report. There are some really interesting ways of estimating the epidemic size based on little point mutations in the different virus strains they've collected from all over the world. Using that and other types of modeling, the estimates are that the actual numbers of infected/dead are five to 20 times the numbers reported in China. That last figure comes from esteemed British scientist, Neil Ferguson.

And these are solid epidemiologists, not wild-eyed conspiracy theorists. Some I followed way back during the Ebola epidemic, like Ian MacKay. But clearly that's a huge range, so yes, no one really does know. But it sure as heck isn't what the Chinese government has portrayed, which is definitely driving fear and uncertainty at all levels of society.

I mean the Chinese government isn’t exactly big in things like human rights or freedoms. I think at least some of this is a bit of “show of force”. Look how powerful the communist party is, we can control our people and our country so well.
And yes, we don’t really know the fatality rate. There seem to be a fair number of cases reported outside of China that seem to have nothing more that a mildly scratchy throat. So there may be a large amount of as of yet undiagnosed cases. Cause if you were in China and knew admitting to a sore throat would get you stuffed in a mass quarantine center, you could probably convince your self it’s from dry air or something.

 

[QueenElinor]

I mean the Chinese government isn’t exactly big in things like human rights or freedoms. I think at least some of this is a bit of “show of force”. Look how powerful the communist party is, we can control our people and our country so well.

But what they ARE big in is their economic might, and showing the world they are a superpower. In both of these areas they've failed, massively. Losing face like this, to the whole world, is a pretty big blow. Chinese business are failing at a massive clip- their internal auto sales, for instance are, down 92%. Ports sit idle. They are the pariahs of the entire world at this time.

The Chinese economic powerhouse has ground to a halt. That might be the biggest sign of a huge problem that we could ask for.

 

[DLgal]

But what they ARE big in is their economic might, and showing the world they are a superpower. In both of these areas they've failed, massively. Losing face like this, to the whole world, is a pretty big blow. Chinese business are failing at a massive clip- their internal auto sales, for instance are, down 92%. Ports sit idle. They are the pariahs of the entire world at this time.

The Chinese economic powerhouse has ground to a halt. That might be the biggest sign of a huge problem that we could ask for.

This. Right here. This is how you know things are seriously bad over there. They are in over their heads and it is having very devastating effects on their economy, which is NOT something the Chinese government wants.

A lot of their efforts are smoke and mirrors. They have no idea how to manage this situation.

 

[hnthomps]

The Chinese economic powerhouse has ground to a halt. That might be the biggest sign of a huge problem that we could ask for.

that is not just a sign of a huge problem, but a huge problem in and of itself. Sustained economic disruption in China - and disruption to Chinese exports - will start having massive global economic impact.

going back to the comparisons to the flu thing - I think this is just an example of one’s own biases. Most of us haven’t gotten seriously ill from the flu, but we’ve all had the flu. So anytime we hear about people dying from the flu we internalize some version of “people die from the flu, but not people like me”. And then we hear about this disease with some flu like qualities and transfer our experiences to it. People who aren’t trained statisticians or scientists may have a hard time conceptualizing how 1% is different from .1% and will still anchor on “the flu is deadly for some people, but I’ve gotten the flu and am fine. Thus I will be fine from this, if it even gets here”.
Obviously not everyone thinks this way, but I suspect that, plus the initial media calls not to worry about it here and instead worry about the infectious disease already running rampant, contribute.

 

[DLgal]

You know, I'm not comforted by the "80% of people who get this have mild symptoms" part of this virus at all. That means 1 in 5 ends up hospitalized. Those are terrible odds! The flu is NOWHERE near that bad. Can you imagine if 1 out if every 5 people who caught the flu ended up in the hospital in critical condition?

The flu has a hospitalization rate of, on average, 50 per 100,000, or roughly 0.05%, a far cry from 20%.

 

[mmmears]

You know, I'm not comforted by the "80% of people who get this have mild symptoms" part of this virus at all. That means 1 in 5 ends up hospitalized. Those are terrible odds! The flu is NOWHERE near that bad. Can you imagine if 1 out if every 5 people who caught the flu ended up in the hospital in critical condition?

The flu has a hospitalization rate of, on average, 50 per 100,000, or roughly 0.05%, a far cry from 20%.

Yep. And people continue to say that the flu is much worse than this new virus. Also, that 20% is in the hospital for weeks, many in ICU.

 

[smmco]

I really hope you are right, and you definitely may be, but what worried me from the get-go is the Chinese response to this virus. You just don't lock down 10% of the world's population over 2000 flu deaths. It's unprecedented. And the drastic measures they've taken in Wuhan belie the apparent death toll. They've barricaded people in their apartment complexes. Like literally walled them in. People are left to live or die, and these are never reported as viral statistics, because they were not tested.

Also, most epidemiologist do not believe, and in fact never have believed, the numbers the Chinese government report. There are some really interesting ways of estimating the epidemic size based on little point mutations in the different virus strains they've collected from all over the world. Using that and other types of modeling, the estimates are that the actual numbers of infected/dead are five to 20 times the numbers reported in China. That last figure comes from esteemed British scientist, Neil Ferguson.

And these are solid epidemiologists, not wild-eyed conspiracy theorists. Some I followed way back during the Ebola epidemic, like Ian MacKay. But clearly that's a huge range, so yes, no one really does know. But it sure as heck isn't what the Chinese government has portrayed, which is definitely driving fear and uncertainty at all levels of society.

I don't know if I'm right. I may very well be wrong. I just don't know how you can get accurate numbers when we aren't testing people. I'm not one to trust anything I read in the media.

 

[smmco]

You know, I'm not comforted by the "80% of people who get this have mild symptoms" part of this virus at all. That means 1 in 5 ends up hospitalized. Those are terrible odds! The flu is NOWHERE near that bad. Can you imagine if 1 out if every 5 people who caught the flu ended up in the hospital in critical condition?

The flu has a hospitalization rate of, on average, 50 per 100,000, or roughly 0.05%, a far cry from 20%.

How do you know its one in five when we don't know how many people have the virus?

 

[Adventurelawyer]

How do you know its one in five when we don't know how many people have the virus?

You keep assuming you will ever know how many people have the virus. We don’t know how many people have influenza each year, but you seem to hold those numbers in high regard.

Based on the only numbers we have. Lets be cautious, not alarmist.

 

[0FF TO NEVERLAND]

I plan on flying to northern italy in the coming months so I’ll definitely be on top of this

At least they are on top of it..