Senate Pandemics in the Age of Globalization: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion: See OP Warning

I think is fair to assume China's population will not be drastically reduced... but still sad to hear.

 

I'm giving this virus a second look. First, I like it's ability to spread quickly. Second, though its kill rate seems low at first glance, it requires a lot of high end medical care to treat in a significant percentage of cases. A really large outbreak could easily overwhelm medical delivery services and drive up the mortality. There's some potential here. I'll reserve judgment though.

 

Markets have all taken a dive today due to the virus. Dow is currently down around 450.

 

When I heard on the news that people can be contagious before they know they have it I figured it would be bad. So far UK doesn't have any confirmed cases but I don't expect that to last.

 

The deaths mainly appear to be those with preexisting respiratory problems and the elderly.
While the death toll I imagine, will remain light, there has been concern that this might be the "black swan" that would trigger a worldwide economic downturn. Certainly China will suffer one.

 

I don't think it would take much - global economy is a bit fragile. U.S. economic growth predicted to be lower this year than last, western Europe even more marginally growing if at all. subzero interest rates/European quantitative easing has basically done all it can do. Brexit may be "orderly" but still not a lot of fun.

 

More comparisons - SARS had an average incubation period of about 5 days. There were only 8100 cases total over the epidemic. We're well beyond that very early in this epidemic.

 

So it's not really clear that the virus spreads easily before people become symptomatic. But if it does then hang onto your ****ing hats.

Illinois has something like 12,000 vacant hospital beds at any given time, but these are not distributed evenly across the state. I'd guess large urban hospitals tend to have less underutilization. The number of ICU beds is much smaller. Large city hospital capacity would be swamped quickly in a pandemic.

 

At this point there doesn't seem to be any indication that this is more dangerous than seasonal influenza... which kills 400,000 people a year.

 

I don't think 400,000 a year is going to do it for Ken.

@Rylo Ken how many monkeys out of twelve would you give this virus at the moment?

 

I'd give it 2 monkeys

In the U.S. hospitalization rates for flu are less than 2%. And a bit less than 10% of flu hospitalizations end in death. If coronavirus is leading to about 20-30% hospitalization, that's significantly worse.

 

My son got bitten by one monkey. That was enough to send him on a multi-country quest for rabies vaccinations.

 

The hospitalization rate is probably inflated a lot. Symptoms may be typically mild and cold-like so people aren't reporting it.

 

What did they do to the monkey?

 

A Møøse once bit my sister...

 

Mind you, moose bites can be pretty nasty, but the monkey continues to bite tourists on a daily basis as far as I know.

 

You laugh, but that monkey was in deep. He got his start in the South Vietnamese underground and, like most Triads at the time, fled when the VC swept into the region. In 1985 Jojo the Monkey, or "Joey Bananas" as his associates called him, made 426, and was given control of most of the street gang activity in the Phnom Penh region. By 1993 Joey had consolidated enough power to effectively control most of the organized crime activity in southern Cambodia, he was known as "the Lesser 438" to most gangsters in the know. This made the more traditional, human power base of the organized crime ring nervous, particularly as the increased emphasis on fruit acquisition threatened to derail the more traditionally lucrative drug trade. This set off the decade-long "Bananas and Blow" war that shook the Cambodian underworld to its very core. Over the course of this conflict Joey was effectively ousted from power and was forced to resort back to a life of petty theft. He died, ignominiously, in a routine police operation, allegedly while resisting arrested for assault, though recent evidence suggests one or more of the officers involved may have received payment from a particularly aggressive branch of the flying lemur clan.

 

Sure like any big overhyped blockbuster it’s burst out of the gate. You’ll see, its returns will be very front ended. Once people work it out it’ll fizzle away & be yesterday’s news in no time.

 

This thread is interesting, seems like most of the infected outside of China are in a stable condition some of them are even allowed to stay at home.