
WHO warns United States could become coronavirus epicenter - smaili
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-who-usa/united-states-could-become-coronavirus-epicenter-who-idUSKBN21B1FT
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lubesGordi
"Asked whether the United States could become the new epicenter, she said: “We
are now seeing a very large acceleration in cases in the U.S. So it does have
that potential. We cannot say that is the case yet but it does have that
potential.” "

That's all that was said, no new facts in this article.

~~~
derision
It's bullshit anyway, we're seeing "a very large acceleration in cases in the
U.S" because there was a very large increase in testing

~~~
nerfhammer
the death count is also accelerating and is not subject to that effect

~~~
Jagat
If you don't test someone for coronavirus prior to the death (or even after),
it doesn't get attributed to coronavirus

~~~
jedberg
There is also a reverse problem. Some people are dying of heart attacks and
are testing positive COVID-19, and are being counted even though it's unlikely
the COVID-19 had anything to do with it.

~~~
DanBC
What makes you think Covid-19 isn't killing those patients?

~~~
jedberg
Because as far as we know it’s respiratory and asymptomatic for many days.

Someone who has a heart attack during the asymptomatic period was probably
going to have one anyway.

~~~
DanBC
How are asymptomatic people having heart attacks being coded as covid-19
deaths?

~~~
Jagat
As far as I know, asymptotic people aren't even being tested for covid-19,
because of the test kits shortage.

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ve55
I am continually seeing headlines from the WHO that seem to be, well, not only
obvious, but delayed and unhelpful. Yesterday I saw that they said 'the
Pandemic is accelerating'. I recall many wonderful tweets that have been not
only helpful, but possibly significantly harmful, as anyone is happy to cite
the WHO when they say things like normal people do not need masks, stigma is
worse than the virus, and so on (For example:
[https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152](https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152)
[https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1234095938555260929](https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1234095938555260929)
[https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1233418231261646849](https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1233418231261646849)
), and I'm honestly wondering if they have even been a net-positive for this
situation overall. Am I missing something here?

~~~
thenewnewguy
> normal people do not need masks

Normal (i.e. non-sick) people _don 't_ need masks, this is good advice. As a
matter of fact buying masks is actively harmful, because you are depriving
people who do need them (the sick and their caregivers).

Source:
[https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/prevention...](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/prevention.html)

(No comment on the rest of the tweets though)

~~~
tunesmith
If masks were plentiful, non-sick people _should_ wear masks in this case,
because contagion starts before symptoms.

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chadash
In some ways, it already is. If New York State were a country with it's 26k+
cases, it would rank #6 in total cases, ahead of Iran and behind Germany. And
I'm assuming that of those cases, the vast majority are in the New York City
metropolitan area, which covers a tiny fraction of the state by area.

The city is on track to surpass Wuhan in just a few days and we're _still_
lagging behind in our ability to test.

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nabla9
It seems that the US is on the the path of no mitigation Fast/South approach
[https://neherlab.org/covid19/?%7B%22population%22%3A%7B%22po...](https://neherlab.org/covid19/?%7B%22population%22%3A%7B%22populationServed%22%3A330000000%2C%22country%22%3A%22United%20States%20of%20America%22%2C%22hospitalBeds%22%3A1485000%2C%22ICUBeds%22%3A49499%2C%22suspectedCasesToday%22%3A6638%2C%22importsPerDay%22%3A20%2C%22cases%22%3A%22United%20States%20of%20America%22%7D%2C%22epidemiological%22%3A%7B%22r0%22%3A3.2%2C%22incubationTime%22%3A4%2C%22infectiousPeriod%22%3A3%2C%22lengthHospitalStay%22%3A4%2C%22lengthICUStay%22%3A14%2C%22seasonalForcing%22%3A0.2%2C%22peakMonth%22%3A6%2C%22overflowSeverity%22%3A2%7D%2C%22simulation%22%3A%7B%22simulationTimeRange%22%3A%7B%22tMin%22%3A%222020-02-29T22%3A00%3A00.000Z%22%2C%22tMax%22%3A%222021-04-30T09%3A00%3A00.000Z%22%7D%2C%22numberStochasticRuns%22%3A0%7D%2C%22containment%22%3A%5B%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222020-02-29T22%3A00%3A00.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222020-04-17T04%3A33%3A20.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222020-06-03T11%3A06%3A40.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222020-07-20T17%3A40%3A00.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222020-09-06T00%3A13%3A20.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222020-10-23T06%3A46%3A40.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222020-12-09T13%3A20%3A00.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222021-01-25T19%3A53%3A20.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222021-03-14T02%3A26%3A40.000Z%22%7D%2C%7B%22y%22%3A1%2C%22t%22%3A%222021-04-30T09%3A00%3A00.000Z%22%7D%5D%2C%22current%22%3A%7B%22overall%22%3A%22Custom%22%2C%22population%22%3A%22United%20States%20of%20America%22%2C%22epidemiological%22%3A%22Fast%2FSouth%22%2C%22containment%22%3A%22No%20mitigation%22%7D%7D)

[https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1242242633050861568/ph...](https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1242242633050861568/photo/1)

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umilegenio
I am not sure how much matters, but Italy has a high population density,
higher than China: 201/km2. China has 145/km2, while United States has 36/km2.
This mean that people are more widespread, so it should be easier to isolate
parts of United States than it is to isolate parts of Italy, in case there are
problematic areas. In short, New York might become a center of epidemic, but
probably not the whole United States.

~~~
magicsmoke
China's population density is skewed lower due to uninhabitable and sparsely
inhabited mountains and deserts in Xinjiang and Tibet that make up about half
the country. Without those regions China's population density doubles to
around 300/km2.

~~~
umilegenio
True, mine is a generalization. However Italian geography also lead to heavy
concentration of people in limited areas. Lombardy, the worst hit region, has
a population density of 420/km2. Look at this map of Italian geography:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy#/media/File:Italy_topogr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy#/media/File:Italy_topographic_map-
blank.svg)

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Zenst
If you look at tourism in countries and international plane flight history,
along with the size of a country. It's a given, at some stage in this Virus
life-cycle.

However, what the WHO need to do it act as part of the problem over many
missed opportunities that will now playout whatever happens and with that, the
USA will see it become the epicenter soon.

But long term, there are countries with less medical and health standards that
are large and with lesser international flights, bit behind the growth rate.
But they will only catch up and eventually overtake and what will the WHO do
in preventing that? Beyond a tweet saying how XXX country is now the epicenter
and solve nothing.

We have seen some bad misinformation come out from WHO and with that, this
latest comment from them fits into the other form of output - unhelpful and
too late to stop, whatever will happen.

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smdz
Stop calling it the epicenter now. Covid-19 is here to stay and it will run
its course. And the entire planet is already an epicenter

The US seems to be preparing itself quite well to handle the scale of severe
cases. And I hope they walk the talk. And increased testing is obviously going
to increase the number of cases.

~~~
Der_Einzige
Show me evidence that the US is preparing quite well to handle the scale of
severe cases.

