At what point did you / will you take the coronavirus epidemic seriously?

[beefytee]

Has anyone checked in with Katy Lied? She started this thread seeming pretty concerned. She hasn't been on here since the start of April. Is she doing ok?

[creekster]

Further proof that we would be so much better off if the US, like New Zealand, had a leader who had been raised in the Church.

Also if we had a population of between 4 and 5 million and the pacific ocean encircling us.

[YOhio]

Also if we had a population of between 4 and 5 million and the pacific ocean encircling us.

haha so true!

[creekster]

haha so true!

thank you for noticing.

[falafel]

Has anyone checked in with Katy Lied? She started this thread seeming pretty concerned. She hasn't been on here since the start of April. Is she doing ok?

I used Google maps street view to see if I could see in her windows, but the blinds were closed.

[smokymountainrain]

Where is that graphic from?

I like it, especially the "Currently hospitalized". That's the one I think is most worth monitoring.

deaths and current hospitalized are probably the most important numbers and they've stayed mostly stagnant for about 2 months.

[Commando]

New Zealand, that hot bed of Covid.

Well, considering they started out with just as many cases as we had yet seemed to eradicate it.... Americans are just f*king dumb sometimes. People here in Arizona acting like shit is sweet even though there is a major spike in cases right now. This is not going to go well.

[Pelado]

I used Google maps street view to see if I could see in her windows, but the blinds were closed.

How often do you do that?

[falafel]

How often do you do that?

As often as necessary.

[Walter Sobchak]

RIP KL, catfisher of men.

[Commando]

RIP KL, catfisher of men.

huh? Do you have a story?

[myboynoah]

Not so fast there, folks.

Are asymptomatic people spreading the coronavirus? A WHO official’s words spark confusion, debate

While asymptomatic transmission does occur, no one knows for sure how frequently it happens. Studies and models have suggested many of those infected never show symptoms. And it remains an open question whether they are a large force driving transmission.

Some countries using contact tracing to work backward from confirmed cases have not found many instances of asymptomatic spread, WHO officials noted. At the same time, WHO officials acknowledged on Tuesday some modeling studies have suggested as much as 41 percent of transmission may be due to asymptomatic people.

Adding to the confusion are differing definitions of what it means to be asymptomatic. Some people who are infected never show symptoms — experts would consider those truly asymptomatic cases. But some show symptoms only later on and could be spreading the virus before those symptoms manifest — they would be considered pre-symptomatic cases.

Further complicating matters is the fact that for some people, symptoms are so mild — or manifest themselves in less expected ways such as diarrhea or muscle aches, instead of the classic fever and cough — that people aren’t aware of them until later on.

“It’s a mess. I don’t know why they would say asymptomatic transmission is very rare when the truth is we simply don’t know how frequent it is,” said Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research. “And it doesn’t change the facts we do know, which is that this virus is very transmissible and is very hard to combat.”

[Pelado]

Not so fast there, folks.

Are asymptomatic people spreading the coronavirus? A WHO official’s words spark confusion, debate

Is the WHO just completely worthless?

[myboynoah]

Is the WHO just completely worthless?

That depends.

WHO's worth correlates directly to whether or not it supports one's opinion.

To be fair, there is so much that is not known about COVID (asymptomatic spread? child spread? etc.) that it is difficult to make definitive statements. But a lot of studies are being done and WHO acts as a good international clearing house of that information. It shouldn't be surprising that some of that data will be contradictory, especially this early in the pandemic. I believe the WHO official was giving the results of some studies done by several countries that pointed in one direction. It certainly wasn't definitive and shouldn't have been taken that way. But it gets out there in the public domain and people with agendas will jump on it.

[Northwestcoug]

Is the WHO just completely worthless?

It is not. The WHO spends a lot of energy updating cancer classifications as the science evolves. Their ‘blue books’ on tumors are a staple in the pathology world. Hematopathologists in particular are giddy with excitement when rumors of a new edition are heard.

But that’s only one arm of the WHO. I do not think the epidemiologic side has done itself much favors lately.