
What Coronavirus Does to the Body - laurex
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/here-is-what-coronavirus-does-to-the-body/
======
war1025
One thing that I found interesting in the article was the fact that people
seem to be suffering from Cytokine Storms, which people think is one of the
reasons the 1918 Spanish Flu was so deadly for young adults who have the best
immune systems. Basically the immune system overreacts and starts killing
everything. [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_release_syndrome#Hist...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_release_syndrome#History)

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BickNowstrom
There is also possible testicular tissue damage:

[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.20022418v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.20022418v1)

From SARS we can guess at the long-term effects, including permanent fatigue,
post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, necrosis, breathing problems,
chronic lung and kidney problems.

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merpnderp
Correct me if I'm wrong, but a mortality rate of 2.3% is a lot more than 23x
higher than the flu, which the CDC says has a mortality rate of 2 per 100,000.

~~~
BickNowstrom
From
[https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.10.20021675v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.10.20021675v1)
it has a case fatality rate of 4.45% for men and 1.25% for women. CFR
increases when people don't get treatment for severe complications.

~~~
OatsAndHoney
According to the WHO the case fatality rate is 2.3%. However the CFR is not
the real mortality rate of the disease and is a changing number. Here’s an
excerpt from the latest Situation Report about the CFR and what it means.

“The confirmed case fatality ratio, or CFR, is the total number of deaths
divided by the total number of confirmed cases at one point in time. Within
China, the confirmed CFR, as reported by the Chinese Center for Disease
Control and Prevention,9 is 2.3%. This is based on 1023 deaths amongst 44 415
laboratory-confirmed cases as of 11 February. This CFR does not include the
number of more mild infections that may be missed from current surveillance,
which has largely focused on patients with pneumonia requiring
hospitalization; nor does it account for the fact that recently confirmed
cases may yet develop severe disease, and some may die. As the outbreak
continues, the confirmed CFR may change. Outside of China, CFR estimates among
confirmed cases reported is lower than reported from within China. However, it
is too early to draw conclusions as to whether there are real differences in
the CFR inside and outside of China, as final outcome data (that is, who will
recover and who will die) for the majority of cases reported from outside
China are not yet known.”

[https://www.who.int/docs/default-
source/coronaviruse/situati...](https://www.who.int/docs/default-
source/coronaviruse/situation-
reports/20200219-sitrep-30-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=3346b04f_2)

~~~
firethief
They are defining the term "confirmed case fatality ratio" as something
different from the CFR that cannot be directly compared. The way they say it
is misleading because people will parse it like: "{confirmed case fatality
ratio}, or CFR", but they're actually saying "confirmed {case fatality ratio,
or CFR}". You can tell because CFR doesn't have enough letters to have
"confirmed" in it, and it usually has a different definition. That's also why
they never call it "the CFR", they call their thing "this CFR" or "the
confirmed CFR".

Their _confirmed CFR_ is not a good measure of anything because the conversion
rate to _CFR_ depends on average time between case confirmation and death. It
effectively assumes that everyone diagnosed but alive will recover.

------
wildcardww
Clearly the long term health implications of a severe case of the virus are
worrying, however its not clear to me from this article what the implications
(if any) are if you get a mild case? Are there any articles discussing this?

~~~
BickNowstrom
[https://nypost.com/2020/02/19/whistleblower-doctors-say-
coro...](https://nypost.com/2020/02/19/whistleblower-doctors-say-coronavirus-
reinfection-even-deadlier/)

> “It’s highly possible to get infected a second time,” one of the doctors,
> who declined to be identified, told the outlet.

> The physician said that medication used to treat the virus can have negative
> side effects on patients’ heart tissue, making them more susceptible to
> cardiac arrest.

> “A few people recovered from the first time by their own immune system, but
> the meds they use are damaging their heart tissue, and when they get it the
> second time, the antibody doesn’t help but makes it worse, and they die a
> sudden death from heart failure,” the doctor said.

~~~
jeromegv
Let's stick to facts, CDC, WHO, etc, not some anonymous doctor.

~~~
BickNowstrom
It was the WHO who claimed on 4 jan that person-to-person transmission was
impossible. It was CDC and WHO who said asymptomatic transmission was unlikely
("not a driver of the outbreak", "unclear"). It was the WHO who said closing
borders and stopping Chinese from entering the country had zero effect on
spread. It was the WHO who still claims that packages from China can't cause
infection, despite science showing it can survive on plastics for up to 9
days.

China should have all the data on reinfection, and thus, if they share this
data with the WHO like they are supposed to, there should be a factual source
from the CDC or the WHO. Where is it?

If we stick to the official facts every time a whistle blower opens their
mouth, there would be no point in blowing the whistle. Only one who benefits
from that are the authorities.

Like the UK government: If China does not share more information, we are
forced to assume the absolute worst.

~~~
gamblor956
It was actually just the WHO saying all those things, parroting the
information released by China's health services.

The CDC did not make any statements about the transmissibility of WCV because
they didn't have the information to make any statements. In fact, in one of
their first press releases on the WCV they even noted that it might be
possible for person-to-person transmission to occur because not enough was
known about how the virus was spread.
[https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/han00426.asp](https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/han00426.asp)

~~~
scumbert
Yes, let's not lump the CDC in with the WHO. The two organizations have struck
entirely different paths.

------
BickNowstrom
[https://www.theepochtimes.com/exclusive-chinese-regime-
deplo...](https://www.theepochtimes.com/exclusive-chinese-regime-
deploys-1600-internet-trolls-to-suppress-information-on-
coronavirus_3242454.html)

Chinese regime deploys 1600 internet trolls to suppress information on
Coronavirus.

------
zed88
Leak questions official stats.

[https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=2...](https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=228004)

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rocky1138
Does anyone else find it annoying that people are calling this the coronavirus
rather than it's actual name? What happens when the next coronavirus comes up?

~~~
war1025
Fun fact, the common cold is also a coronavirus.

Edit: As pointed out in the reply, only some colds are coronavirus. Wikipedia
suggests ~15% [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cold#Viruses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cold#Viruses)

~~~
hobofan
More correct fact: "Common cold" is a disease that can be caused by one of
hundreds of virus strains and only a few of them are a coronavirus.

~~~
AstralStorm
About 15% of cases thereof, though.

The name is COVID-19.

------
slowmovintarget
According to the estimates in the article -- predicted infections: 60% of 7.8
billion, current known fatality rate: 2.3% -- this virus is on track to kill
roughly 108 million people. That's more than the Spanish flu of 1918 (high
estimates put that at ~50 million).

~~~
ValentineC
According to the latest WHO sitrep [1], there are 3 deaths and 924 confirmed
cases. That's a fatality rate of 0.325%.

China is an outlier because their health system is overworked.

[1] [https://www.who.int/docs/default-
source/coronaviruse/situati...](https://www.who.int/docs/default-
source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200219-sitrep-30-covid-19.pdf)

~~~
soperj
If this gets to where most of the people in the world are, ie:
India/Bangladesh/Pakistan/Africa, do you think their health care system will
be better than China currently or worse?

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deorder
It is good to see that the generally accepted media is finally picking this
up.

2 weeks ago talking about potential upcoming supply line issues and
speculating about the virus / disease (most of what turned out to be true) got
me and others banned, censored, quarantined (because of "spreading
misinformation") and even threatened over PMs on several of the other social
networks.

~~~
IceDane
I'm sorry but what, lol? The media has barely talked about anything else for
more than the past two weeks. If you got banned somewhere it's probably
because you were spreading misinformation or suggesting there are
conspiracies, kind of like you're doing right now.

------
alexandercrohde
This seems kinda baity to me, for a virus that kills 1/500 people aged 30-40
who catch it.

~~~
Karto
Beside the discussable mortality rate among healthy adults, and beside surving
with permanent lung damage, many people who are 30-40 have kids who are 0-10.
Things take a whole new dimension there.

~~~
nck4222
Coronavirus isn't like the flu in this regard, and is actually less severe the
younger you are, including children.

No one under 10 has died from it, and only one person under 20. The mortality
rate for people under 50 is about .2% (compared to 2.3% for all cases).

So far it's basically a logarithmic function of age.

The lung damage piece is obviously frightening, and we obviously still have a
lot to learn about it as we're not sure why children are able to fend it off
so easily yet.

~~~
baq
The point is that potentially quite a few kids are about to lose one or both
parents this year, much more than baseline.

------
kazinator
> _Unlike their common-cold-causing cousins, these emergent coronaviruses can
> spark a viral-induced fire throughout many of a person’s organs, and the new
> disease—dubbed "COVID-19" by the World Health Organization—is no exception
> when it is severe._

> _That helps explain why the COVID-19 epidemic has killed more than 1,800
> people, surpassing the SARS death toll in a matter of weeks. While the death
> rate for COVID-19 appears to be a fifth of SARS, the novel coronavirus has
> spread faster._

That is bungled logic.

1\. COVID-19 is very severe.

2\. Because COVID-19 is so severe, in just few weeks it has killed more people
than another famous severe disease SARS.

3\. But wait, the death rate of COVID-19 is only 1/5th that of SARS, so it is
actually less severe.

4\. Right, okay, so COVID-19 has killed more people than SARS because it
spreads faster. Why were we comparing SARS and COVID-19 severity again?

~~~
samatman
It's not bungled logic at all.

R0 and lethality are unrelated. COVID-19 has a higher R0 and a lower lethality
than SARS.

COVID-19 has a higher lethality than the common cold.

Those are the data points I extracted from what you've quoted.

~~~
kazinator
Bungled logic can consist entirely of propositions that are individually all
true statements about the world.

"Socrates is a man. Socrates is mortal. Therefore, all men are mortal."

Here, we can verify the facts that Socrates is a man, that Socrates is mortal
and that all men are mortal.

So as far as "extracting data points" goes, everything is cool. We just ignore
how the data points are related together, and pretend we don't see funny terms
like "therefore", or "that explains why" and such.

If we just look for data points to extract, we are not engaging the arguments,
though, It's an understandable reaction to the world though, in which we are
bombarded on all sides by material trying to persuade us to believe or do
something.

> _R0 and lethality are unrelated._

Calling the bluff. You didn't extract this data point from the quote: it's
something you already know. Nothing like vocabulary you're using appears in
the quote.

