Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

So Coronavirus is in Newcastle. What are the chances of this guy wearing a medical mask:

That guy was elected as a town councillor recently. One man crusade to rid his estate from wronguns.

What's the relevance of the photo? All towns and cities have football fans.

He's somewhat notably associated with Newcastle United FC and, by extension, the city of Newcastle.

I see. I'm ignorant of such things. What is he notable for?

Mostly optimism about the weather

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/keith-beefy-roberts-newcastle-united-14598068

Flu is a killer normally, while spanish flu pandemic killed stronger (people normally able to fight off the flu) people rather than those with a weaker immune system.

Is corona like that?

Not yet [like Spanish], creates respiratory problems which is worse if you are elderly or otherwise ill. Healthy people are able to resist these symptoms quite well. But let’s see if it mutates before we rest on our healthy cycling induced slightly fit laurels.

Here’s a nice dashboard of cases by location: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

I’m hoping the recovered number starts to soar soon as right now it looks grim.

From my understanding, it doesn't really look that much more grim than a normal flu strain at this point. People underestimate how many deaths a strong influenza wave can cause, without there being much in the way of a panic about it.

In that case I think your understanding is a little limited...

Really? In bad years, apparently up to 10000 people die from the flu, or flu complications. Just in the UK.

I don't really know where to start with this but I'll raise a few points.

It's too early to calculate mortality or morbidity rates. Professionals in the field almost unanimously agree on this.

Pandemics happen in waves. This is still wave one. Second waves tend to be the problematic time. Most serious pandemics are benign in wave one.

Swine Flu was less serious than normal flu but still killed half a million people globally. I don't get why people think half a million extra deaths is not a big deal. Half a million human deaths FFS!

Spanish flu on the other hand had a mortality rate of about 2.5% and ended up killing 50 million.

Nobody knows how good or bad things are. It is not possible to know at the moment.

NYT is suitability on the fence on this
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/health/coronavirus-pandemic-china.html

We have no idea where this is going, it could fizzle out in six months or we could all be dead this time next year...

Let's see how we go...

A typical mortality chart for a viral pandemic...

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Nobody knows how good or bad things are. It is not possible to know at the moment.

That's exactly my point. Right now, we don't have any final statistics about it, however what we do know so far - according to virologists - does not make it sound like it'll end the human race.

I don't get why people think half a million extra deaths is not a big deal.

I don't think anyone is arguing that it's "not a big deal" as such. Just that there is maybe no reason to report about it on the level it is being reported on. Because again, many thousand people can die in a bad flu year in the UK alone and yet we don't see constant frontpage headlines about it. And that's not comparing apples to oranges - it's very directly comparing apples to apples. It just seems very disproportionate, and there are way too many people just staring at the "x people dead" number and freaking out about it.

I think the medical etc. professionals know what they have to do and I trust them to respond to the threat as required. For us 'normal people' in London (or generally in Europe) currently there is nothing we can do, or do differently. I don't like the undertone of "Don't panic, but we'll make sure to report about it in a way that makes it seem like maybe you should panic anyway" in some of the media.

Swine Flu was less serious than normal flu but still killed half a
million people globally. I don't get why people think half a million
extra deaths is not a big deal. Half a million human deaths FFS!

is it extra deaths, or half a million that would have died from the 'normal' flu anyway?
is there a trend when this sort of new flu comes out, that less people die of the normal flu, because this other one gets them first?

My understanding is that it was extra deaths, in addition to an average flu season.

No idea about your second question but given that coronavirus but I do know coronavirus isn't a flu virus so perhaps not a link in this case. I'll leave that one to the virologists I think.

China in lock down, countries closing borders - media coverage seems pretty proportionate to me.

I'm not gonna engage anymore...

Oh OK

A lot of the comment i hear is 'if you weren't going to die from flu, you won't get this one and die' but I guess there aren't actually the facts to back up that assumption! (these people aren't medics btw, just pub chat)

I think the medical etc. professionals know what they have to do and I trust them to respond to the threat as required.

There obviously is a huge response happening to this, but dealing with any viral outbreak inevitably involves a lot of unknowns. Even for the regular annual waves of flu that circle the globe the transmissability and lethality of the viruses isn't known immediately. With a completely novel virus, we have even less idea. The problem is that while we're trying to work that all out the virus is spreading into a larger pool of people, who might travel and pass it on. Also, the more people it's in the greater the possibility that it will mutate and become more transmissable or more lethal.

Sure. I'm not suggesting there should be no news stories about it. But I personally know a number of people who are in a pretty immediate state of alarm due to the CORONAVIRUS headlines without being able to put it in any type of context, my grandmother included - to them it isn't a case of "we don't really know how this is going to work out", it's a case of "this is something I personally should worry about a lot right now", which is just not (yet?) the case in Europe.

I'm all the more annoyed about it as some pretty bad news about the climate, where projections about the future are a lot more solid, are mostly met with deafening silence.