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Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 6:45 pm
by ochotona
I'd like to hear from Dr. WiseOne about this one.

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2020 6:53 am
by WiseOne
I don't know any more than you do. Sounds like it could be a new SARS. I do get regular notices from NYS DOH and will pass on any relevant info.

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2020 2:11 pm
by ochotona
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Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2020 7:31 pm
by Cortopassi
I've never really understood how they get their numbers, but currently, supposedly, 6,600 flu deaths this flue season so far.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm

So why so much worry over a virus that has possible so far killed 3 to 6 people?

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2020 5:38 am
by ochotona
300 sick, 5 dead... Very high fatality rate based on poor sampling but you work with what you know.

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2020 12:32 pm
by dualstow
We had Chinatown restaurants all to ourselves in 2002.
This time, I'll probably just stay home. Wifey already canceled a spring flight.

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2020 5:59 pm
by WiseOne
The coronavirus has started infecting people in the US (and by "people" I mean "one person"), so the official response has begun. So far, we got an email from our hospital about procedures to follow for people suspected of being sick. And, one of our division members cancelled a medical volunteer trip to China.

So far nothing much to do except probably don't jump on a plane to China. Although even if you did, your chances of getting sick are miniscule.

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2020 6:08 pm
by Smith1776
My dad just cancelled his trip to China.

He was already within a hair's breadth of cancelling, and this news was just the last push.

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2020 10:42 pm
by drumminj
Maddy wrote: Wed Jan 22, 2020 6:55 pm And don't order anything from Amazon. >:D
ebooks are probably okay! 8)

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2020 5:50 am
by ochotona
This could a black swan or the black swan for financial markets

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2020 7:56 am
by dualstow
ochotona wrote: Thu Jan 23, 2020 5:50 am This could a black swan or the black swan for financial markets
If people are already thinking about it and perhaps reacting to it, how can it be a black swan?

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2020 9:05 pm
by ochotona
dualstow wrote: Thu Jan 23, 2020 7:56 am
ochotona wrote: Thu Jan 23, 2020 5:50 am This could a black swan or the black swan for financial markets
If people are already thinking about it and perhaps reacting to it, how can it be a black swan?
I don't know what you're talking about... Invisible Swan? Of course people are reacting - that's the point. It came out of nowhere in days, and they're reacting

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2020 9:17 pm
by ochotona
90 min drive from me:

A Texas A&M University student "may have a possible case" of coronavirus, university officials said Thursday.

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2020 9:45 pm
by dualstow
ochotona wrote: Thu Jan 23, 2020 9:05 pm
dualstow wrote: Thu Jan 23, 2020 7:56 am
ochotona wrote: Thu Jan 23, 2020 5:50 am This could a black swan or the black swan for financial markets
If people are already thinking about it and perhaps reacting to it, how can it be a black swan?
I don't know what you're talking about... Invisible Swan? Of course people are reacting - that's the point. It came out of nowhere in days, and they're reacting
I mean, if a black swan is an unforeseen, unprecedented event, this isn’t one.
i’ll explain tomorrow. My typing is keeping my wife awake.

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2020 8:14 am
by dualstow
The wiki page on the Black Swan concept is really bad. I was hoping to cite some examples of past events that are generally agreed upon as black swans.
Instead, all I can do is say that this coronavirus is still small compared to the flu. These kinds of outbreaks have happened from time to time, and so far what’s new is merely pecific type (strain?) The markets have largely shrugged it off.

It is scary, of course. I’ve got relatives who have always lived in Wuhan, and a kind-of relative from Taiwan who is working there now. They’re really overstretched there, as you’ve heard on the news. Not all doctors have proper masks.

I’m just trying to get a handle on what your definition of black swan is, or what would have to happen. For me, this would have to really become massive, quickly, and shake the global economy to its core. I don’t see that happening (which, by definition, would make it a black swan).

You?

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2020 10:16 am
by Mountaineer
I wonder if the name of this new virus has hurt beer sales yet? There are probably some who think the beer and the virus are related. ;)

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/w0gx/corona-extra-want

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2020 1:08 pm
by WiseOne
Looks like there is now a second U.S. case (in Chicago). Both cases so far have been travelers to Yuhan, China. They had many direct contacts after they returned, but no one else has become sick - so far. Give it another week to be sure we are past the incubation period, but that might be good news that the virus doesn't transmit readily person to person. We'll see...

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2020 1:17 pm
by dualstow
Well Ocho, I was at lunch with a couple friends, both heavily into investing (but wouldn't touch the pp with 10-foot pool. I peeked at the market at 130p and saw a WSJ headline about the market tanking on the virus. O0 Thought of you.
Mountaineer wrote: Fri Jan 24, 2020 10:16 am I wonder if the name of this new virus has hurt beer sales yet? There are probably some who think the beer and the virus are related. ;)

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/w0gx/corona-extra-want
I hadn't even thought of that! Corona means crown. I always think of the sun, or a king's coronation.

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2020 9:59 pm
by ochotona
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Oh, yummy. Dig in!

This is one case where traditional Buddhist vegetarian cuisine could've been a lifesaver. The Buddhists would claim all of this animal-linked disease is karma (payback) for killing billions and billions of animals over human history.

Image

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2020 10:26 pm
by dualstow
ochotona wrote: Fri Jan 24, 2020 9:59 pm This is one case where traditional Buddhist vegetarian cuisine could've been a lifesaver. The Buddhists would claim all of this animal-linked disease is karma (payback) for killing billions and billions of animals over human history.
Do you believe in evolution? Our near cousins, the chimpanzees, were once thought to be vegetarians until they were witnessed killing for meat. We are animals, too. At what point were we supposed to make the switch from meat-eating cavemen to enlightened vegetarians?

I do think being a “meat reducer” can be a good idea for many reasons, but this karma business...

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2020 9:03 am
by shekels
China built a lab to study SARS and Ebola in Wuhan
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/arti ... enter.html

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2020 2:30 pm
by Smith1776
6DFE97CF-08C6-4A11-B6C3-1B5F6276BBB1.jpeg
6DFE97CF-08C6-4A11-B6C3-1B5F6276BBB1.jpeg (64.6 KiB) Viewed 5006 times

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2020 6:42 pm
by Kriegsspiel
shekels wrote: Sat Jan 25, 2020 9:03 am China built a lab to study SARS and Ebola in Wuhan
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/arti ... enter.html
In 1978, at the University of Birmingham in England, a medical photographer named Janet Parker went home from work early one afternoon in late summer complaining of a blinding headache. Soon she was very ill indeed- fevered, delirious, and covered in pustules. She had contracted smallpox via an air duct from a lab one floor below her office. There, a virologist named Henry Bedson had been studying one of the last smallpox samples on Earth still allowed for research. He was frantically working against a deadline before his own stocks were to be destroyed and evidently grew careless in keeping them safe. Poor Janet Parker died about two weeks after being exposed and in so doing became the last person on Earth to be killed by smallpox. She had actually been vaccinated against the disease 12 years earlier, but smallpox vaccine doesn't last. When Bedson learned that smallpox had escaped from his lab and killed an innocent person, he went out to his garden shed and committed suicide, so in a sense he was smallpox's last victim. The hospital ward on which Parker was treated was sealed off for 5 years.
- Bryson, The Body

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2020 6:46 pm
by Kriegsspiel
dualstow wrote: Thu Jan 23, 2020 9:45 pm I mean, if a black swan is an unforeseen, unprecedented event, this isn’t one.
I think ocho's point is that, even a few weeks ago, nobody saw a pandemic virus erupting from China. So if it causes massive economic damage, then it would be a Black Swan.

It's not that people couldn't conceive of a pandemic virus, just that they weren't prepared for it, or expecting it, now. Just like people could conceive of a housing market crash caused by bad loans/foreclosures, but they didn't see it until it was too late.

At any rate, this is one of those things that you'll learn about even if you aren't using any news. One of my coworkers has been giving running updates about how the pictures coming out of China look like scenes from Resident Evil.

Re: Wuhan, China Corona Virus 2020

Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2020 8:20 pm
by dualstow
Yup, I guess so. Earlier I mentioned that “It would have to get massive, quickly...”

We’ve all seen too many zombie movies and films with government employees in HAZMAT suits. O0