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

Are people still going on about this? sheesh

Wuhan is now open, people from there being HEAVILY discriminated against.

So there is a distinct Wuhan dialect/accent that marks them out when they travel?

It’s because they have names like Ghostface Illah

Yes, but even easier to tell is to look at someone's ID card, which states where you are from - you have to show ID to do tons of stuff and there are spot checks too. Local building management knows where everyone is from (we have to register our addresses with the police) so Wuhan people who live in other cities may have a hard time getting to their own apartment as the building management sometimes won't let them in. A friend told me that cars with Hubei registration plates (there's a separate identifier for every province) are having a hard time driving in other provinces as no one will let them park or access private roads etc.

That excess deaths planning document that was linked in here weeks ago and seemed to me, at that point, rather unlikely to come into effect is pretty much playing out in NYC now. Scary stuff.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52249963

It looks like the US is going stratospheric in terms of cases:

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Lots of testing and a big population though, it’s bad but comparisons are hard to make currently. I think we’ll only be able to tell in a year, comparing annual deaths with the average over the last couple years and then scaling that to population size. Decent chance it’ll be America First, mind.

Yes, partially due to massively increased testing in NY, but not in terms of deaths. They've actually been doing surprisingly 'well' overall in that regard, so far, considering how bad their overall response is, and how many things like religious congregations were still going on.

It's criminal that the US government didn't intervene earlier, history wasn't going to judge this administration kindly anyway but this could be Trump's defining legacy... Crazy...

Yes - agreed, I imagine all those lines are incomparable. It's an arresting difference though.

Yeah there was a point the WHO made: more testing, more case detection is good and shouldn't be seen as something to hide if we are to sort the problem globally.

Yeah dunno why they left the UK off those stats.

Of course the key factors are health, age and genetics.

So it is inevitable that certain countries will be hit a lot harder.

Of course also limiting these factors by testing, tracking and confining.

Of course the key factors are health, age and genetics.

I think the key factor is government response.

I think the key factor is government response.

Agree, we left it way too late trying to “keep business going as long as possible”.

There's a video doing the rounds of a George W press conference to promote influenza pandemic planning/response strategy which makes for interesting viewing...

Let's hope history doesn't repeat when 'opening back up' happens. I worry that we are to some extent getting used to those huge daily death tolls and their impact has lessened over the last few weeks.

Not sure why the UK is left off - they should be there instead of Iran by most metrics on that website.

Interestingly though - according to the same website the US has done a lot more tests than everyone else on that chart (like, ten times more than some), but order of magnitude of tests is similar to Germany (only 50% more).

Once 'we' unfortunately broach the thousand barrier,
I think it will open up a new level of lamentation.

That would have be covered in the last sentence.

according to the same website the US has done a lot more tests than everyone else on that chart

Well... you are reaching a point with that number though where you have to start taking into account that the US has a lot more people than all other countries on that list apart from China and India. And once you look at it as 'tests per million inhabitants', the US is a lot less impressive. Though again, when you break it down into the different states, you can see NY is ahead of all other US states in terms of testing by quite a bit.

That's one weird looking motherfucker.

Horrible to think about this.

.... genetics.
So it is inevitable that certain countries will be hit a lot harder.

Eh? So which are the countries with inferior gene pools then?

Woah. Nobody said anyone was inferior! Same as trying to turn this into some bullshit Political stance.

Should have been prepped 10 years ago.

Not that the original comment has anything to do with "inferior genes" but some gene pools are more likely impacted by some problems, no? That's just logical. Like, I'm more likely to get sunburnt than Italians and Dutch are taller etc. Some diseases will impact some genetic groups more.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/07/bame-groups-hit-harder-covid-19-than-white-people-uk

It's too early to tell if this is a result of the virus or the environment or other factors.