
Life and Death in a Wuhan Coronavirus ICU - therealcamino
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/reporters-notebook-life-and-death-in-a-wuhan-coronavirus-icu
======
eindiran
> Doctors there were running "naked" as they knew they were set to be infected
> given the shortage of protective gear. They still worked there nonetheless.

That is so rough, especially since some healthcare workers are now among the
dead: specifically, I saw that Li Wenliang had died.

[https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/chinese-
doctor-w...](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/chinese-doctor-who-
tried-to-warn-colleagues-in-wuhan-about-coronavirus-dies)

~~~
peteretep
Last thing the CCP needs is martyrs against the state

~~~
Forgivenessizer
Easily solved by turning him into a state hero.

~~~
sudosysgen
A state hero that the state arrested and silence just weeks earlier? That
would be transparent.

------
torgian
My wife is mainland Chinese, and she has been saying that it a worse than what
the government is saying. Also, since Li Wenliang died, well, frankly a lot of
people are pissed at the CCP.

Anyway, I feel like it’ll be an epidemic ( it already is, I believe ) in
China, and be much better controlled outside of China.

Unfortunately my wife is also stuck in Chongqing; Taiwan is essentially
closing up its borders and we don’t know if she’ll be able to move here to
Taiwan to live with me. At least not until things blow over ( I assume summer
time ).

I live in Taiwan and they’ve been very good at containing this, afaik. Just
this morning they released a map of Taiwan with nav-points where all the
cruise ship people were at in Taiwan before they went on the ship, and
released information on what to do if you experience certain symptoms. 13
people have been diagnosed and quarantined.

~~~
chvid
I don’t understand what it is that the Chinese authorities are supposedly
misreporting?

The mortality rate of 2% is consistent with the number of cases and deaths
reported by other countries.

Is it that there are a large number of undiagnosed cases? That is kind of a
given and is probably also the case in other countries.

The timespan between first case and until it gets reported to who and
quarantines start is less than a month. To me that seems very fast (but I am
just a layperson).

~~~
dredmorbius
Chinese authorities at some level -- it's not clear that this was CCP or local
Wuhan decisionmakers -- clearly tried to shut down initial reports of the
outbreak, as evidenced by Dr. Li Wenliang's detention and citation.

As a new disease, with the first cases possibly being acquired as early as
late November 2019, it wasn't until mid to late January 2020 that city and
national authorities appeared to start taking the outbreak seriously.

I'm not aware of other novel outbreaks outside of China and how quickly those
have attracted notice, though there's the case of the 1976 initial outbreak of
Legionaire's Disease, reported within a week of first outbreak (though the
disease was both fast-acting and rapidly lethal for many victims). However
epidemiologists _also_ realised that there had been previous, unrecognised
outbreaks, dating to the 1950s. See:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Philadelphia_Legionnaires...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Philadelphia_Legionnaires%27_disease_outbreak)

The case of HIV/AIDS in the US and elsehwere would be a case of a disease with
ascribed social and moral assocations, for which early responses were very
much delayed, on of several examples of stigma associated with the disease:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_against_people_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_against_people_with_HIV/AIDS)

Reponse to the 2012 MERS outbreak appears to have been swift -- in November of
2012:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Middle_East_respiratory_s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Middle_East_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_outbreak)

The 2003 SARS epidemic, also emerging in China, _also_ first emerged in
November, but was not internationally reported until the following March:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome)

(The fact that SARS, MERS, and 2019-nCoV all appear to have emerged during
November may be significant.)

Point being:

\- China are slow to detect, report, and respond to new contagious epidemics.
Notably so in the case of SARS, and less so, but still, with 2019-nCoV.

\- Other countries, including the US, have had similar failures.

\- Early unofficial public disclosure of 2019-nCoV was prosecuted by Chinese
authorities, though at what direction is unclear.

\- Trust between the people and the government is somewhat frayed.

\- There are also numerous actors with incentives to make the most of any
missteps of the government, or to inflate distrust.

Several of those groups have legitimate gripes against the Chinese government,
and I've seen reports associated with Falun Gong, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
specifically. I've _not_ seen any associated with Tibet or Uygher populations.
And there are various rabble-rousing actors elsewhere, doomers, and
conspiracists (generally of the nutcake variety).

This ... clouds information. Many of the criticisms are legimate, some are
not, and sorting fact from fiction (both between and _within_ reports) is
challenging. China are in the position where _both_ locked-down _and_
unfettered communications are potentially harmful -- the first for preventing
accurate information from being available to _both_ public _and_ government,
the latter for allowing _agents provacateurs_ to rumourmonger, exaggerate bad
news, and spread active disinforation. This is strong shades of attacks the
West has seen over the past several years (within the US, UK, EU, and
elsewhere), some of it from China itself.

How China responds will be interesting.

~~~
OnACoffeeBreak
> The fact that SARS, MERS, and 2019-nCoV all appear to have emerged during
> November may be significant.

From [1]: The “seasonal” reflects the fact that viruses can’t tolerate high
heat and humidity, preferring the cool and dry conditions of winter and
spring, Webby said. That’s why flu, as well as the four coronaviruses, are
less prevalent in warm, humid months.

1: [https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-
cor...](https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-coronavirus-
isnt-contained/)

~~~
dredmorbius
Right.

Also less prevalent in warm and humid regions (though spread in Singapore and
Thailand is ... interesting).

This is among the reasons my concerns' been on a breakout in North Korea,
which has both a meterological and political/epidemiological climate that
seems highly favourable to outbreak of a disease such as 2019-nCoV.

Though it's politically viable to order a near-complete shutdown of
transportation and travel, the likelihood of this being effective
(particularly against high-level party members breaking quarantine), or
pragmatically possible to sustain (what exists of the PRK economy likely
requires people in close contact), limiting epidemiological effectiveness.

------
nabla9
If they screw up other measures, like hygiene for the sick and food delivery
to 50 million people they can multiply the death rate.

Modern theory of Spanish flu[1] is that the flu itself was not that deadly.
Combination of influenza with bacteria in the lungs caused most of the deaths.
It was the World War I with lots of wounded in the same place, bad hygiene
conditions, many with scarred lungs from poison gas and civilians suffering
from malnutrition.

[1]: Bacterial Pneumonia Caused Most Deaths in 1918 Influenza Pandemic -
Implications for Future Pandemic Planning [https://www.nih.gov/news-
events/news-releases/bacterial-pneu...](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-
releases/bacterial-pneumonia-caused-most-deaths-1918-influenza-pandemic)

> However, it is possible that — as in 1918 — a similar pattern of viral
> damage followed by bacterial invasion could unfold, say the authors.
> Preparations for diagnosing, treating and preventing bacterial pneumonia
> should be among highest priorities in influenza pandemic planning, they
> write. "We are encouraged by the fact that pandemic planners are already
> considering and implementing some of these actions," says Dr. Fauci.

~~~
PeterisP
Spanish flu killed very many people in regions that did not directly
participate in WWI, so civilians (as opposed to recruits sent overseas) should
not be affected by the war; e.g. India, Indonesia, etc.

The half a million people who died of the Spanish flu in USA did not die
because lots of wounded in the same place and scarred lungs from poison gas.

~~~
nabla9
In the US roughly half present of the population died. It killed roughly ~5%
of the world's population.

btw. I did not say WWII was the single cause for high mortality. Hygiene,
malnutrition etc. contributed. And the virus itself had higher mortality rate
than usual, but not as much as previously thought.

~~~
PeterisP
Do you have a source for that 8-22% _of population_ died, which seems an
extremely large, unrealistic number?

E.g. [https://www.quora.com/Which-country-was-most-affected-by-
the...](https://www.quora.com/Which-country-was-most-affected-by-the-Spanish-
Flu?share=1) cites some resource which shows an estimate of 2.3 M people dead
in Europe, and
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4634693/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4634693/)
shows an estimate of 2.6 M excess deaths in Europe i.e. 1.1% of population.

The vast majority of the worldwide deaths from Spanish flu were in Asia; the
region with most deaths was India.

~~~
nabla9
Sorry. Copied wrong numbers.

In europe 1.1%.

>Whatever is taken as estimation of the American pandemic death burden, it is
well below the European estimations we provide and others have provided. A
possible explanation is that, at the end of WW1, Europe was characterised by
massive civilian and army movements, a health care system put at its minimum
and frail populations. This has very likely heavily impacted the European
death toll.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4634693/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4634693/)

------
allovernow
Honestly if there is truth to this article it is reassuring. I've been
scouring the darker corners of the internet obsessively for every seemingly
reputable bit of data under the assumption that virtually anything official
out of China could not be trusted.

This doctor is working on the absolute worst of cases and even they, it seems,
have a high overall probability of survival. Also good to see some figures on
the progression of the virus - 5-10 days of incubation, 1 week before symptoms
either improve or worsen, then one more week before severe cases recover or
die.

Regardless, we should all be paying attention to the quarantined cruise ships.
In a few weeks or so we'll have much a more accurate mortality rate. I feel
for those people but perhaps there is some comfort in knowing that their
losses will not be without value.

~~~
kccqzy
> I've been scouring the darker corners of the internet obsessively for every
> seemingly reputable bit of data under the assumption that virtually anything
> official out of China could not be trusted.

I do the same. If you can read Chinese, I strongly recommend you read Sina
Weibo, a micro-blogging social media in China, or Toutiao. Read them quickly
before posts are inevitably deleted by the censors. There are some truly
harrowing stories of ordinary people being refused treatment and left to die
at home.

~~~
samstave
Can you grab and translate and share some of these please?

Also, do you have any opinion on this:

[https://i.redd.it/88osl54prjf41.png](https://i.redd.it/88osl54prjf41.png)

~~~
allovernow
According to Wikipedia SO2 comes from fossil fuels so let's cross our fingers
and pray they're just bringing a power plant online or something.

~~~
samstave
Huh:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/f18ruz/more_evi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/f18ruz/more_evidence_to_suggest_bodies_are_being_burnt/)

~~~
n0rbwah
[https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/f19uc8/debunking...](https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/f19uc8/debunking_the_burning_bodies_sulphur_sulfur/)

------
lefstathiou
I've learned more about the virus reading this article than anything else I've
read over the past weeks.

~~~
Alex3917
I submitted this already, but this is worth reading also:

[https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/puzmZFQGRTiiquwLa6tT-g/confere...](https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/puzmZFQGRTiiquwLa6tT-g/conference-
call-coronavirus-expert)

~~~
eloff
He's the expert, and I'm not. But I can do math. Influenza this year in the
US: 19M infected and 10K fatalities. If you posit 1% mortality rate for
coronavirus like he argues, that's 20 times more deadly. And it's twice that
in China, it's unclear if that's a statistical anomaly or a structural feature
of some difference in how things are tested/reported in China.

So I'm not going to just shrug and say it's no big deal. It could be. I'm a
programmer, I know powers of 2 intimately. We're at 2^15 and doubling every 5
days. If that keeps up for a month we'll be at 1M infected and 16K dead. From
there it's another 50 days to 1B infected and 1-2M dead. I'm keeping an eye on
that, if it doesn't slow down before 2^20 (1M) then I've already planned to
bug out with my loved ones to the mountains of Panama for a couple months
until this blows over.

I think it won't come to that, but I'm keeping an eye on the progression and
doubling rate. The thing with exponential growth is it always ends. The
question here is does it end in time?

~~~
baxtr
You can only do the math right if you get counter and denominator right. The
number of unreported cases is probably very high.

I found this in the article posted above:

 _”So the 20,000 cases in China is probably only the severe cases; the folks
that actually went to the hospital and got tested. The Chinese healthcare
system is very overwhelmed with all the tests going through. So my thinking is
this is actually not as severe a disease as is being suggested. The fatality
rate is probably only 0.8%-1%. There’s a vast underreporting of cases in
China. Compared to Sars and Mers we are talking about a coronavirus that has a
mortality rate of 8 to 10 times less deadly to Sars to Mers. So a correct
comparison is not Sars or Mers but a severe cold. Basically this is a severe
form of the cold.”_

~~~
oxymoran
Why are they building 12 hospitals at breakneck speed for a severe cold? Do
you honestly believe that?

~~~
Danieru
Wuhan's Healthcare system could not handle a widespread cold break out either.

Much of the rest of the world has sufficient capacity to hospitalize patients
to prevent an outbreak. China being China is behind both due to recent
industrialization and also an authoritarian state which lied about the
dangers.

Take it how you want, but this is a severe flu which would not have survived
in more industrialized nations.

------
forgingahead
Great article all around, worth reading as it's one of the only I've seen that
are actually talking about disease progression and timeline. Some key info
from the article:

\----

Caixin: Based on your clinical experience, what's the disease progression of
the new coronavirus?

Peng: Lately I've been spending the daytime seeing patients in the ICU, then
doing some research in the evenings. I just wrote a thesis. I drew on data
from 138 cases that South Central Hospital had from Jan 7 to Jan 28 and
attempted to summarise some patterns of the novel coronavirus.

A lot of viruses will die off on their own after a certain amount of time. We
call these self-limited diseases.

I've observed that the breakout period of the novel coronavirus tends to be
three weeks, from the onset of symptoms to developing difficulties breathing.
Basically going from mild to severe symptoms takes about a week. There are all
sorts of mild symptoms: feebleness, shortness of breath, some people have
fevers, some don't. Based on studies of our 138 cases, the most common
symptoms in the first stage are fever (98.6 per cent of cases), feebleness
(69.6 per cent), cough (59.4 per cent), muscle pains (34.8 per cent),
difficulties breathing (31.2%), while less common symptoms include headaches,
dizziness, stomach pain, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting.

But some patients who enter the second week will suddenly get worse. At this
stage, people should go to the hospital. The elderly with underlying
conditions may develop complications; some may need machine-assisted
respiration. When the body's other organs start to fail, that's when it
becomes severe, while those with strong immune systems see their symptoms
decrease in severity at this stage and gradually recover. So the second week
is what determines whether the illness becomes critical.

The third week determines whether critical illness leads to death. Some in
critical condition who receive treatment can raise their level of lymphocytes,
a type of white blood cell, and see an improvement in their immune systems,
and have been brought back, so to speak. But those whose lymphocyte numbers
continue to decline, those whose immune systems are destroyed in the end,
experience multiple organ failure and die.

For most, the illness is over in two weeks, whereas for those for whom the
illness becomes severe, if they can survive three weeks, they're good. Those
that can't will die in three weeks.

\-----

Whole thing is worth reading.

~~~
not_a_moth
Should add their discussion of cytokine storms in healthy people, which
appears to have a more rapid timeline

> Some experts argue that the virus triggers a cytokine storm, which ravages
> the stronger immune system of young adults

> Based on my observations, a third of patients exhibited inflammation in
> their whole body. It was not necessarily limited to young adults. The
> mechanism of a cytokine storm is about whole-body inflammation, which leads
> to a failure of multiple organs and quickly evolves into the terminal stage.
> In some fast-progressing cases, it took two to three days to progress from
> whole-body inflammation to the life-threatening stage.

~~~
oxymoran
Look, you say inflammatory response science says steroids. But what about CBD?
Maybe even THC? Let’s experiment at least,

~~~
topmonk
I always found a shot of straight whisky was good for a cold.

~~~
faeyanpiraat
60% of the time, it works every time.

------
2bitencryption
I'm curious, for most of the infected, is it obvious from the symptoms whether
they have novel coronavirus, or just the regular flu?

That is, the tail end is clearly deadly -- but for the average case, are
symptoms much worse than the yearly flu, or around the same?

~~~
taneq
There's a something like 20% hospitalisation rate. That seems kind of scary
compared to the flu which is "you have a sniffle, get over it."

~~~
plg
"the flu", i.e. influenza, is definitely _not_ "you have a sniffle, get over
it"

more like feeling like you've been hit by a truck for 2 weeks while you shiver
in bed with a fever, coughing your lungs out, unable to function

~~~
8bitsrule
And you may not 'feel better again' for a month, or two, or more.

~~~
ImaCake
My anecdata from a few influenza events is that it is truly awful. A week of
slowly worsening fever. I got close to admitting myself to hospital before my
fever broke and I recovered. Symptoms dissapear very quickly once it's over,
but it took me months to recover my fitness.

------
achow
This was the most valuable piece of info for me, which I shared among my
social circle:

 _Doctor observed that three weeks seemed to determine the difference between
life and death._

 _\- Patients with stronger immune systems would start to recover in a couple
of weeks_

 _\- Second week, some cases would take a turn for the worse._

 _\- In the third week, keeping some of these acute patients alive might
require extraordinary intervention. For this group, the death rate seems to be
4 per cent to 5 per cent._

------
srik
What can we do right now to increase our bio immunity for this?

~~~
dredmorbius
Vector reduction.

That's the principle mechanism of public health to epidemiological outbreaks:
reduce the likelyhood and rate of transmission between people.

This is why the appropriate response is to curtail transport, _especially_
long-distance modes which occur faster than onset of symptoms (e.g., air
flights from known epidemic zones). It's why locking down cities within
epidemic zones, restricting mobility _between_ cities where outbreaks have
occurred, wearing barrier protection to prevent _both_ contracting _and_
transmitting particles, disinfecting infected surfaces, and limiting social
and business contact, are all primary responses.

Get a flu shot, if you haven't already. Not because it'll keep you from
getting 2019-nCoV, but because you _don 't_ want to be confusing having the
flu with having nCoV, and you don't want to have to be out getting treated for
flu whilst nCoV's circulating. And having all others treating you like Typhoid
Mary to boot.

 _Wash your hands._

Carry (and use) alcohol-based hand sanitiser. (Antibiotic is useless against
virus.)

Wash the doorknobs, light switches, taps, knobs/pulls, and bannisters in your
home, regularly. Keep visitors and guests to a minimum. Don't touch your hands
to your face, eyes, nose, or ears.

Look for indications of breakout in your area on news or online. Realise that
_if_ there's a breakout, the disease has likely already been circulating for
several weeks, e.g., _the risk is high_. Currently, outside of China, there
are very few places at risk -- Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Japan,
Thailand, and South Korea are the major additional locations.

Transmission seems to require several hours of fairly close contact.

Stocking up on cleaning supplies generally makes more sense than masks, which
are of limited use or efficacy.

Some somewhat nonobvious practices (salt-infused masks, apparently, others may
exist) seem to reduce transmission or viral capability profoundly.

For now, the containment trends are strongly positive, outbreaks outside China
are quite limited, and it looks as if measures are effective. It'll be another
few weeks before this is certain, things could still go quite badly, but signs
are encouraging.

Most notably, the new cases _and_ deaths trends are dropping well below their
initial exponential trajectory:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_Wuhan_coronavirus_ou...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_Wuhan_coronavirus_outbreak#/media/File%3ALog-
linear_plot_of_coronovirus_cases_with_linear_regressions.png)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_Wuhan_coronavirus_ou...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_Wuhan_coronavirus_outbreak#/media/File:Semi-
log_plot_daily_incidence_of_nCoV.png)

Comments I made yesterday on Diaspora regarding this, and pointer to a now
10-day-old post based on the then exponential growth, in which I'd suggested
we should see containment working on new cases by early February, and deaths
by mid-February (we're actually trending well ahead of that):

[https://joindiaspora.com/posts/17158824](https://joindiaspora.com/posts/17158824)

Disclaimers: lay views, not an expert.

~~~
eveningcoffee
One more data point.

[https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51425702](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51425702)

Five Britons have tested positive for coronavirus in eastern France, the
French health minister confirmed.

Four adults and a child were diagnosed with the virus after coming into
contact with a British national who recently returned from Singapore.

------
rsecora
The sad story of the pregant woman described in the Strait Times article, is
described in this link

[http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1005146/dispatches-from-
hubei-...](http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1005146/dispatches-from-hubei-two-
weeks-between-life-and-death)

------
mullingitover
> That was why ICU medical staff were almost all sickened.

This is a brilliant strategy for spreading the virus to any patients who
might've come in with regular cold or flu and hadn't been infected with
coronavirus yet.

This is like a commercial for why we need to build medical telepresence
robots.

~~~
cycrutchfield
If they were in the ICU in a severe or critical state, they already had the
virus. ICU is not the same as the regular hospital admissions.

------
ilkan
There's an understandably big focus on mortality/non-mortality. It seems that
people are classified recovered and sent home after 3 to 14 days of tests are
clear (depending on the hospital) but I haven't seen estimates for full
recovery from symptoms and fatigue afterwards. Many companies run very lean...
Is it likely 2 weeks off work per person after hospital discharge? 4?

------
rixrax
If you get sick with 2019-nCoV, and recover, do we know if You have developed
immunity against it at that point?

~~~
frank2
I don't know, but if the answer is no, then a vaccine against it is not going
to confer immunity either.

------
bullen
If you look at the graphs here:

[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/)

And know that in 3 weeks everyone either dies or has recovered.

Doesn't that mean we will see a large amount of total deaths in a couple of
weeks?

Those graphs are both exponential!

Remember that cases are subjectively selected, while deaths have a fixed
statistical variance!

~~~
bredren
Those graphs depict Total Cases and Total Deaths. (This presentation of data
is sometimes used by startups trying to show their amazing growth off to
potential investors.)

If you look at the daily change in amounts of deaths from this data series, it
is more of a wobbly straight line:

[https://i.imgur.com/gQajRT9.png](https://i.imgur.com/gQajRT9.png)

I did a linear projection of this data series to see how long it would take
for a 1000 a day to be perishing if this trend and I came up with 8/8\. Can
anyone else replicate this?

I would hope containment would slow these numbers, but it is possible it could
go another way. If the data itself is underreported then it could also be
worse.

~~~
bullen
Ah, ok... thx!

I guess the number of serious condition jumping from 5000 to 6000 since last I
looked yesterday or the day before was what startled me...

------
bx32
It was worth reading and by any measure the first great writeup on the virus
and the bravery to fight it.

------
bx32
The whole thing is worth reading. Hats off to all the bravery around to fight
the virus and save lives.

------
oxymoran
Even in Communist China, people are turned away from hospitals due to
inability to pay for treatment...that’s the worst irony I have ever heard.

This disease is virulent and unpredictable. A 34 year old doctor died. 12
hospitals are being built at breakneck speed. This will become endemic at this
rate. Either we create a vaccine or we each roll the dice on acquired immunity
and too many people die in the process. It is time to be concerned.

~~~
rajup
> Even in Communist China, people are turned away from hospitals due to
> inability to pay for treatment...that’s the worst irony I have ever heard.

If you had read the whole article you would have learnt that treatment is free
for those affected.

> It is time to be concerned.

Concerned sure, alarmed no, like your post seems to tend towards.

~~~
t0mas88
It became free the day after the person already died for lack of funds for
treatment. Very very sad case.

------
loceng
"The most regretful thing to me was a pregnant woman from Huanggang. She was
in very serious condition. Nearly 200,000 yuan (S$39,505) was spent after more
than a week in the ICU. She was from the countryside, and the money for
hospitalisation was borrowed from her relatives and friends. Her condition was
improving after the use of Ecmo, and she was likely to survive. But her
husband decided to give up. He cried for his decision. I wept too because I
felt there was hope for her to be saved. The woman died after we gave up. And
exactly the next day, the government announced a new policy that offers free
treatment for all coronavirus-infected patients. I feel so sorry for that
pregnant woman."

I had the unchecked belief that China claiming to be a communist country would
be covering medical costs.

Above reminded me of this: "'He cannot speak or look after himself': A
17-year-old with cerebral palsy died after being left alone for 6 days while
Chinese authorities quarantined his father over coronavirus fears" \-
[https://www.businessinsider.com/teenager-cerebral-palsy-
dies...](https://www.businessinsider.com/teenager-cerebral-palsy-dies-father-
quarantined-suspected-coronavirus-china-2020-2)

Edit: I really can't understand why anyone would downvote this comment - the
downvotes are making me laugh.

~~~
syshum
>>I had the unchecked belief that China claiming to be a communist country
would be covering medical costs.

This is the problem with socialist, they believe the government is always the
good guy, and entrust it to provide for everyone.

We capitalist know that government in all cases the worst solution to any
problem

~~~
tsimionescu
Yes, that's why capitalists drive on private roads only, and go to private
courts when they get in trouble with private police forces. They also honk to
honor their private armies and thank them for their service. The private fire
service is of course a pillar of most capitalist communities as well.

~~~
mullingitover
...And we're writing about this on an internet that was developed by privately
funded defense researchers and private universities. You can use this internet
to get driving directions via privately funded geolocation satellites.

~~~
tsimionescu
No, the internet originally was funded almost exclusively by public money (US
military and CERN being some of the biggest contributors), and there is
basically no such thing as "privately funded defense researchers" \- almost by
definition, defense research is funded by public money, or at least by private
investors looking to get their money back by selling to the state.
Universities also tend to do research funded by outside grants, which in the
early days of computer technology were, again, almost exclusively public US
military budgets.

GPS is a public utility, as are GLONASS and Galileo, so I'm not even sure what
"privately funded geolocation satellites" you are talking about.

Regardless, your claim was a universal (the state is worse at providing ALL
services) so showing some services which the state is much better at providing
is enough to prove you were wrong.

~~~
glogla
I think GP was being sarcastic.

~~~
tsimionescu
Oops, you may be right...

~~~
mullingitover
My bad, forgot the /s closing sarcasm tag

------
notkaiho
Did you see Eric Raymond having a completely normal one about novel
Coronavirus?

[http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8587](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8587)

~~~
_jal
An excellent example of how expertise and reasoning ability in one domain does
not necessarily transfer to another.

That humility is hard for engineers is something I try to remind myself daily.

~~~
mhh__
[https://xkcd.com/1570/](https://xkcd.com/1570/)

------
scubaguy
The original article (chinese version)

[http://china.caixin.com/2020-02-05/101511802.html](http://china.caixin.com/2020-02-05/101511802.html)

------
saltedonion
When the innocent pays for the mistakes of the regime.

------
tempsy
This whole thing has brought out my conspiratorial side...I don’t know what to
believe anymore but I feel like we’re in a tip of the iceberg situation here.
Hope I’m wrong.

~~~
tim333
The
[https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/puzmZFQGRTiiquwLa6tT-g/confere...](https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/puzmZFQGRTiiquwLa6tT-g/conference-
call-coronavirus-expert)

article linked by someone above is quite a good antidote to the worries

------
lukaa
I think we are dealing with black swan event. It's new disease, higly
contagious and with 200 more deathly rate than flu. Since we don't know much
about that disease and how much that virus can mutate being extra cautious is
best strategy.

~~~
xvector
> with 200 more deathly rate than flu.

Source? I've not seen any published number higher than 5%.

------
burnJS
Does that lead image tell you something? They are in full gear treating this
guy. Would Doctors be geared up like that treating someone for the flu?

~~~
gwbas1c
Doctors get the flu vaccine.

------
one2know
Some say the mortality rate is 10-20% because the 1-2% numbers being passed
around are comparing current deaths against current population who have the
disease. Current deaths should be compared to the population that had the
disease at the time they contracted it which was 1-2 weeks ago. The epidemic
began only two weeks ago.

[https://qz.com/1798887/china-coronavirus-fatality-rate-is-
to...](https://qz.com/1798887/china-coronavirus-fatality-rate-is-too-early-to-
tell/)

~~~
lainga
How useful is comparing deaths to confirmed recoveries?

~~~
kragen
While the epidemic is still in an exponential growth phase, not very useful,
because death and recovery may not take the same average time from initial
symptoms. Even a small difference in time will result in a huge bias in the
death/recovery ratio, which right now is about 1:3, using the official
statistics.

------
xbmcuser
The number of people dying each day from this corona virus is increasing and
these are official numbers so might be under reported. 29-30th Jan around 40
people were dying a day now it has reached 80-90. When you take into account
the number of infected is still increasing and no real way to control the
spread or treat the virus this is going to be way worse in the next few weeks.
[https://voice.baidu.com/act/newpneumonia/newpneumonia](https://voice.baidu.com/act/newpneumonia/newpneumonia)

~~~
microcolonel
As the share of the population that is infected grows, the death rate for
complications will increase dramatically. It is already extreme, and it is
expected to grow exponentially into April (at least in Hubei).

Up to the limits of medical facilities, your odds will be good, but it takes a
lot of resources to keep patients alive when they are experiencing
complications, and those resources are inherently limited.

