UKC

OK, third time round for this thread title.

It is almost certainly coming now, so the question arises how do you treat pneumonia at home, given that the hospitals will probably be overwhelmed.

It occurred to me that water electrolysis with carbon electrodes, caustic or bicarb soda, enough amps and a plastic bottle with a straw and mask to catch the gas could well provide the required oxygen in an emergency.  Would anyone with chemistry expertise like to comment?  I gather that adding sulphuric acid also creates pure 02.

I'm not too sure what amperage is required to produce a good quantity of oxygen, but 10 amps at 12 volts dc seems to me to be a good starting point.

In reply to gallam1:

It might be eaiser to buy a home oxygen machine (£600)

https://www.theoxygenstore.com/new-invacare-perfecto2-oxygen-concentrator.h...

This will pump out 5 litres a min, if you need more than that you probably need ICU

In reply to gallam1:

bit pointless - have to drain lungs and fight infection first

In reply to Kemics:

I read that ICU provides 2L a min, so that is probably enough for 2 people.

In reply to EdS:

If you raise the o2 concentration you are presumably able to compensate somewhat for the lungs filling with fluid. Blood o2 concentration sensors are cheap and easy to get.

Obviously this won't save you in a water on the lung situation.

In reply to gallam1:

Is someone in your household over 80, or suffering from existing health conditions that are likely to cause complications?

This isn't likely to be much different from having influenza, is it? Or at least, that's what I've been reading, and hearing on BBC Radio Scotland on the way to work!

That is, most people will probably have no symptoms or a bit of a cold, a significant minority will be really quite ill for a week or two, and a small fraction, mostly those in the high risk groups, will die?

Except that a lot more people could be having it at the same time due to the lack of existing resistance, as you point out.

I'm just going with stocking up on lemsip and making sure there's a few weeks worth of food in the house (which I always try to have anyway).

In reply to skog:

watch out: most deaths so far are in the 50-59 age group based on a virologist I was speaking to yesterday!

In reply to gallam1:

Slightly off topic but you could see people panicking about this weeks ago. I went to a local hardware store early this month to buy a dust mask for diy work. Very surprised to be laughed at by the assistant and told the last delivery they had in sold out in 48 hours! Think it'll be chaos here if they start locking down towns and cities.  

In reply to SouthernSteve:

had a chest problem since the end of November so I'm hoping I dont get it

In reply to SouthernSteve:

Most deaths maybe - but highest death rate?

In reply to gallam1:

Not doing anything to prepare for it. Less worried about it than catching ebola or getting run over on the way to the supie.

Just hope there's no mass quarantine during a hoped for spell of good weather!

In reply to SouthernSteve:

Highest case fatality ratio (your chances of dying given you are already admitted to hospital with pneumonia) in Wuhan was in the 80+ age group. See table 1 in this report: http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9a9b-fea8db1a8f5...

If you can't get it (high demand), the CFR (in %) are:

        NA    #  0-9  -- no-one in this age group got admitted.
        0.2,     # 10-19
        0.2,     # 20-29
        0.2,     # 30-39
        0.4,     # 40-49
        1.3,     # 50-59
        3.6,     # 60-69
        8.0,     # 70-79
        14.8     # 80+

This is from Wuhan, though, but it's the best data I know of so far for this. Now, how that translates to infection mortality ratio (IMR) -- your chances of dying given being infected, but not necessarily presenting to healthcare -- is the subject of much ongoing work.
 

In reply to Jon Read:

Thanks. I have sacked my virologist for flippancy!

In reply to SouthernSteve:

I would make it up with them, you may need them yet

In reply to gallam1:

There are some articles on the Lancet which maybe of interest. I don't have a medical background but to the layman it sounds like you may need more kit if you require prolonged oxygen support.

In reply to gallam1:

This chap youtube.com/watch?v=1C-NpadSNuA&  - Dr John Campbell - is doing a daily youtube tracking this thing and giving his thoughts on it.  He's a Brit who works (worked) in the NHS, and manages to present the available data with insight and without hysteria.  He's becoming progressively more worried as time draws on.  Well worth a watch, even just for the old school print-outs that he then highlights with a Parker Vector.  

Oh, and to the OP - I hope you are taking appropriate precautions for the fire risk of your home O2 generation!  Sounds like you know much more about it than me, but I do know O2 burns very nicely in the right circumstances.

In reply to Bobling:

Pedant alert

Almost anything burns in the presence of elevated 02.  02 itself doesn’t burn, it’s reduced.

Anything that doesn’t burn in the presence of O2 can get exposed to FOOF (F2O2) and it’ll burn.  The book “ignition” by John Clark is well worth a read for stories about it.

In reply to Bobling:

I don't know why anybody would be getting more worried with time, look at the data.  China is a country with a health care system vastly inferior to what we have in the U.K and a government so inept that they managed to let this virus spread for an entire month before putting into effect any sort of containment measures.  Before action was taken the virus had spread to every single province of China and left one of them (Hubei) with a near 1% infection rate, despite this after three weeks of effort the virus is in a relentless decline, it has almost disappeared from every province and even in Hubei it is in vast decline, this should give assurance that this thing is not that infectious. China let it get way out of hand, but with the right counter measures it can be effectively tackled.   The only real worry is if you live in India or some other densely populated poorer country, if it takes hold there I cant see the containment being effective.  

In reply to climbercool:

The difference in china is when the state eventually got onto it, if they say stay in your house otherwise we'll drag you away to a detention centre they mean it, I don't think many in Europe will follow the same guidelines to strictly, as there isn't the state pressure and so many think they know better or are more important. 

In reply to gallam1:

Flu has killed ~10000 this season and hospitalised ~180000 so i’m Not worried just yet.

cheers

Toby

In reply to climbercool:

Is not the issue that there would be so many cases of pneumonia, that even the NHS would be swamped handling those?

In reply to summo:  Totally agree, it's remarkable how positive the Chinese have remained in response to these quarantines.  It would be fascinating/tragic to see how a U.K city would respond to a months long forced quarantine, for sure there would be riots of some scale.  

It seems like the quarantine in Italy is police enforced, although just in rural areas for now, I hope these poor Italians can see how worthwhile their quarantining will be.

In reply to Toby_W:

Yes, I was similarly flippant with UKC's resident expert in this area but he pointed out that, as far as we know, there is little natural immunity and the virus seems very easily transmitted, which means that it's possible a very large number of people may become infected. 

So, if that happens in the UK, and if only 10% of the population become infected, and 1% of them die, that's 66,000.  This won't be evenly spread, either geographically or demographically, so the impact could be significant.  And we don't yet know how good post-infection immunity will be or how antigenically variable the virus is.

I suppose the upside is that some of the high-risk group would have died of flu anyway, but I'm not sure I'd advise Matt Hancock to go with that as his public health strategy. 

In reply to climbercool:

Look at the UK.. there are people complaining because the UK government hasn't given them what they consider sufficient advice prior to a forthcoming holiday to Venice or elsewhere in Italy. Talk about a lack of priorities or 1st world problem. If they are worried, then just cancel and stay at home. 

In reply to Dave Garnett:

You only die once! The WHO spokes person was being very carefully with his phrasing yesterday to avoid creating panic. 

In reply to climbercool:

I'm not sure that many other places would have managed much better, especially if, as seems to be the case, infected people can spread the virus before they show obvious signs of illness.  Look at the rate of cross-infection among the nominally quarantined passengers on the Diamond Princess, or the way it has spread in South Korea , Italy and Iran.  The Italians apparently can't even identify a patient zero and have no idea where it came from.

The Chinese Government may not be the most transparent, but it does have the ability to enforce draconian quarantine and other public health measures, which I doubt would happen in Europe.  

In reply to gallam1:

It’s in Tenerife now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51627597

In reply to climbercool:

As a HCP that wasn't my interpretation of the Lancet write up of the care of the first the 100 patients. They are using ECMO where necessary for the most serious patients. We only have 5 ECMO units in the whole of the UK.

Also having worked in the NHS for 2 decades the idea of the UK building and staffing a new hospital in a matter of days is laughable. 

In one of the A&Es I take patients to, the only time a patient is transferred from an ambulance into a designated cubicle and not onto a trolley on the corridor, is if they go into resus (and even then the patient is often triaged before being let in) or if the patient requires an isolation room (and that normal involves a long wait on the ambulance). 

As it is at the moment there is no way the NHS could cope with a rapid outbreak like China has had.

​​​​​

In reply to climbercool:

Check your maths

Hubei province has population of c. 59 million. With 77,000 cases the infection rate is 0.13 %

Not "near 1%"

FOr China as a whole, with a population of 1.3bn, the rate is 0.0058%

In reply to summo:

This is nonsense. If you go outside in the worst affected cities, they will tell you to go back home, unless infected in which case you will be quarantined.

People in China are staying home for two main reasons:

1. Because they don't want to get the virus

2. Because they have a sense of social responsibility

As my many friends and family in China can attest.

In reply to gallam1:

Agree it would be a miracle if it doesn't spread throughout the world. Compulsory quarantine/hospitaliztion will then be completely impractical in UK and elsewhere (as is the case with flu anyway, which kills thousands).

I  think the pneumonia can be due directly to the virus or to secondary bacterial infection, or presumably both together. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can confirm. It would also be very useful if it is possible for a layperson to tell if their's is bacterial as then they would know to request antibiotics themselves if the NHS is under pressure.

On radio today there was interesting point that if coronoviral infection is is not at a maximum too soon it MAY be limited when warmer weather comes (happens with flu but I don't know the reason.....possible inactivation of virions increased with temperature or stronger immune system?). If that is the case we may be nearer getting a vaccine if cases increase again next winter.

In reply to Jonathan Lagoe - UKC:

I was being a bit tongue in cheek about detention centres. 

Yeah. Sense of duty versus fear of the state..  perhaps the grey area between. Either way I doubt you'll see the same respect for quarantine in Europe. 

My other half works with someone whose family live in the area where SARS start, as soon as this kicked off in mid December they were stockpiling and by January the people there had all but closed the roads to other towns themselves, without any need for state orders. They'd learnt the hard way with sars, there is no such engrained lesson in Europe to learn from. Listen or look at comments in the media, many are more concerned about their holiday, not any potentially vulnerable elderly relatives or friends with medical conditions. 

In reply to Jonathan Lagoe - UKC:

That's an infection rate of those tested. Unless you test the whole population we'll never how many have or had it without any symptoms etc.. but yes it's still relatively low, provider you are in the group that doesn't have it then there's nothing to worry about. 

It's suggested it will ease in the summer, then return in the Autumn, but they don't know how it will survive or react to summer temperatures and folks lifestyles. 

It's just another to add on to the lists with sars, mers etc of viruses that could be potentially even more serious, now they've made the leap to humans. 

In reply to summo:

It will be devestating if it gets into any residential elderly persons home. Flu is easy to manage as they are vaccinated against it at the moment.I cannot imagine any care home managing to contain it.

I am relieved that my 80 year plus  old plus parents who were in care and passed away are not going to have to face this particular risk.

I was in Manchester Royal Infirmary yesterday, the posters about washing hands etc were shall we be blunt, just not good enough.  Barely any info around about what to do. I detect an element of complacency, I hope I am wrong.

In reply to gallam1:

Honestly if you are of a mind to write posts in this thread about the ins and outs of infection rate then spare fifteen minutes to watch the link in my post last night,   youtube.com/watch?v=1C-NpadSNuA&  - Dr John Campbell, he's very informative.  He's also got a ten minute clip up about protecting yourself and your family:  youtube.com/watch?v=IkdPFCStA38&

On a related note an ex-colleague of mine has just died of Swine Flu in Turkey, remember that one?

In reply to Bobling:

If you want informed opinion this is probably your best bet...

https://www.kaltura.com/index.php/extwidget/preview/partner_id/2012451/uico...?

It's a seminar on Covid19 hastily organised by the royal college of physicians. It's long, but the last 35 minutes is the CMO followed by the panel answering audience questions which is well worth watching.

It is about a week old now, and I do wonder if one of the audience questions (regarding undiagnosed cases in the UK) would be answered differently/less confidently now in light of the Italy outbreak.

In reply to neilh:

It'll spread like wildfire now it's in Europe. I was in a burger place yesterday (max) ordered on the touch screen. The hand gel sanitizer was miles away and no where between where you order and collect your hand eaten food. 

You'd think especially in hospitals the gel dispensers would be like obstacles that were impossible to go around on your way in and out. Or even between floors and wards. 

In reply to neilh:

Of course, just look at the massive impact it had on China despite extraordinary measure - they’ve locked down a population the size of the U.K.

If we were half competent in risk management  we would be building temporary hospitals right now and close borders to non-freight. But I don’t think we are unfortunately.

In reply to RomTheBear:

China dragged it's heels for a month and it cost lives... Europe isn't learning from it. The fact that pockets keep popping up show existing containment is failing and greater measures need to be implemented. But the EU, uk and others would happily accept a few vulnerable people dying unnecessarily, instead of suspending the schengen open borders etc. 

In reply to gallam1:

Sheffield Star newspaper today reported 2 corona cases are now in Sheffield

Hallam hospital. They had been in the quarantined ship on the coast of Japan.I live in Sheffield . Such jolly news.

In reply to paul mitchell:

Blimey, I knew Sheffield was up North and perhaps a bit behind the times, but I thought even they would have had the misfortune of having to endure rubbish Mexican lager by now.

In reply to Jonathan Lagoe - UKC:

oops, yeah, I got that wrong, no where near 1%.

but the lower figure doesn't change my point,  China left the virus almost entirely unchecked for 6 weeks during which they carried out the worlds largest migration (Chinese New year) and yet still such a small % are actually infected, now after just over 5 weeks of prevention the disease is in rapid decline, actually it's already been in decline for nearly 3 weeks. 

If China can achieve this with it's very limited medical facilities and the appalling start that they had, than countries which have decent health care and the massive head start of knowing it's coming and what to expect really shouldn't struggle to contain this thing.  Again, it's poorer nations that should really be worrying.

edit, just realised all ive done is written the same thing twice,

In reply to summo:

Is there anything too ridiculous for you to bash Europe?

China essentially shut down a region with roughly the number of people in Germany or the UK, but still easily has the most cases and deaths worldwide within the rest of the country.

Hard to say what would have happened had they not quarantined Wuhan. I tend to agree it was the right thing to do given that the breakout of the infection, which had been running since at least November and certainly did not originate at that food market, coincided with the end of the lunar new year holidays, the biggest mass movement of people worldwide.

Outside China it is too late for such approaches anyway. Germany with huge luck managed to isolate its first 14 cases (with a well defined index case, a Chinese woman given a lecture at a company event near Munich). For the Italians, with clusters of cases popping up simultaniously several hundreds of km apart with no apparent connection, no chance. The quarantine they now enforce seems like mere actionism.

Cancelling football matches or concerts, home quaranting everyone with fitting symptoms as well as their families, and maybe organizing food distribution in affected areas rather than having everyone meet at the supermarket seems a better way to go about it. Also, stopping non essential travel (i.e. holidays) and screening people for fever at airports and train stations seems helpful, but again, in general, the horse seems to have bolted.

Guess we will have to live with a pandemic, same as when an influenza antigen shift occurs after the decision on that years flu vaccine has been made. In neither case will everyone fall ill or even die.

CB

In reply to cb294:

This was you a month ago!  

"Forget it. Two confirmed deaths so far. Compare that to the current measles outbreaks in the DRC (thousands dead, much worse than Ebola) or Samoa."

You today

"I tend to agree it was the right thing to do given that the breakout of the infection, which had been running since at least November and certainly did not originate at that food market, coincided with the end of the lunar new year holidays, the biggest mass movement of people worldwide."

Which I guess shows how hard it is to make sensible responses to these things.

In reply to cb294:

Perhaps it is better to at least do something rather than nothing? The eu wants to be the big federal leaders  

I'd agree 

Indeed

Yeah. Interesting couple of years ahead. 

Why would you think this when in every possible way the NHS is better equipped than the health services in china.  Chinese hospitals are staggeringly bad even in the big cities.  

building a new hospital in 10 days was nonsense propaganda, they built a big empty building to quarantine people sure, but that is not a hospital.  If this happened in the u.k there would be no need to build anything new, you would just take over some other public building and use that as temporary quarantine.  the real problem will be lack of health care workers and medical equipment.

In reply to summo:

So isn't the rest of the world. Bureaucrats,  politicians, and even doctors don’t understand systemic risk.

In reply to MG:

Right, that expanded a bit more quickly than I anticipated. If I had to place a bet back then I was indeed expecting something more confined like its close relative MERS coronavirus.

However, I stand by my claim that even if we get a Wuhan coronavirus pandemic a hypothetical new flu strain (which seems to be rather more infectuous and would hit a bigger fraction of the world population) or the very real measles epidemy in the DRC (which however only afffects poor black people, so who cares....) are - or should be - much bigger public health issues.

CB

In reply to RomTheBear:

What are you proposing should be done that isn't being?

In reply to oldie:

Yep, the high risk of cover induced pneumonia is almost certainly due to both the virus itself - i.e. it's novelty and thus human adaptive immunity having no semi-effective 'library' cells to call upon, allowing the virus to get a strong hold - and secondary bacterial infections. I'd hazard a guess that it's predominantly just the virus itself responsible though, as this (pneumonia) is a typical reason why, historically, new infections have been deadly. 

As to why respiratory illness epidemics drop off in the summer, I think there are several reasons.

Lifestyle is one; people tend to eat more healthily, exercise more, spend less time confined in close proximity with others etc.

Secondly, the human innate immune system (our first line of defence vs the adaptive immune system, our more sophisticated second line) is impeded in cold weather. Mucous membranes in the sinus and reap' tracts will often fall to a lower temperature, as will the blood vessels behind them. If an infection takes hold there, then there will be less white blood cells on hand to combat it, and the cytokine mediated signalling cascade, that triggers a full blown adaptive counter strike, will also be activated slower. Basically, due to vasoconstriction. 

Greetz

In reply to climbercool:

Due to the numerous times I've waited in excess of 4 hours to offload a patient from my ambulance into A&E over the last decade. Including several times waiting over 6 hours including with patients who should have been seen as a priority in the resus room.

I've also seen A&E staff, ITU staff and respiratory ward staff arguing over whose patient should get the last NIV (non invasive ventilation) machine in the hospital. NIV is going to be essential in managing the 20% or so of diagnosed cases of Covid 19 who become seriously or critically ill.This the reality of the NHS in some areas at the moment.

If Covid19 becomes pandemic and outbreaks in the UK, there will be many avoidable deaths , not just in people suffering from the virus but in people not recieving timely care for other conditions due to bed blocking worse than we have ever seen it before.

In reply to paul mitchell:

Maybe all the 5G microwave energy will fry the virus and we'll all be fine? Swings and roundabouts etc.

In reply to cb294:

It's difficult to judge but from what's reported it does seem to me this is comparable to a moderately serious flu strain, without a vaccine.  So bad but not *that* bad.

In reply to Yoshi: 

These are no longer thought to be such important reasons for the increased flu in the winter. 

It is now thought mostly to be due to changes in the weather, basically viruses can survive and spread far more easily in cold dry air than they can in warm humid air.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20151016-the-real-reason-germs-spread-in...

many other links say the same.

In reply to climbercool:

There is also schools opening/closing to throw into the mix. 

Lots of scientists predicted that 'swine flu' wouldn't spread in the summer of 2009 in the UK because *obviously* influenza was traditionally an infection associated with winter. They were all wrong. We had a very big wave of infection in June and July 2009, and this wave was only curtailed due to the school holidays. The shear force of infection, due to so many infections at once (due in turn to the lack of immunity in the population, it being a novel influenza strain)  overrode whatever seasonality in infection rates there was. Now that 'swine flu' is part of the every-year seasonal influenza suite, and immunity each year is something like 70-80%, it behaves like all the previous seasonal flu strains and is seasonal. I think the same will be true for this new human coronavirus. Including those scientists wrongly predicting transmission will drop this summer.

In reply to SAF:

I get it the NHS is massively underfunded, what government department isn't?  But to be comparing the NHS negatively to Chinese health care you must have no experience of Chinese hospitals.  Millions of people in China live in a situation where the local hospital doesn't have the sort of  facilities a U.K hospital would have had 50 years ago.  There will be  Chinese hospitals that don't have a single NIV let alone having the luxury of arguing who gets to use the last available one. you mention 4 hour waits for an ambulance,  again 10s of millions of Chinese will live in locations where there just are no ambulances even if you could afford one.

Basic sanitation isn't even a concern in most hospitals, Not seen this but i've been told in many areas it's not unusual for people to be smoking inside.   7% of Chinese live on less than $3.2 a day, effectively there is no universal health care. Millions of people in China live in situations where even if they are seriously sick they can't go to hospital because they can't afford the bills, admittedly the government is saying they will reimburse people with corona virus but many don't have the upfront cash to even begin treatment, plus the majority will go in sick and then find out they just have the flu and therefore aren't entitled to reimbursement. 

Ive spent a lot of time in Chinese hospitals and they are one of the most shockingly poor aspects of the country.

Medicine has no esteem in China, Doctors in the big cities are paid $13,754 a year, even when adjusted to the Chinese economy this is nothing, an unqualified English teacher can easily make double this!

Having spent much time in both it is very clear to me which country I would rather be in when a virus strikes.

But despite all this China seems to be triumphing over Coronavirus, YAY!

In reply to climbercool:

https://twitter.com/BBCLookNorth/status/1231906384989564928

Sheffield cases.

In reply to climbercool:

I'm sure what you are describing is true as an overall picture of China, but the main outbreak of the virus and where most data has come from is Wuhan. In Wuhan they do have large hospitals with intensive care units, including ECMO.  I read about one department increasing it's intensive care beds before the outbreak was even official, and just that one hospital had more ICU beds (before increasing) than the entire region I live in (which admittedly has the lowest ratio of ICU beds to population in the UK).  

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30183-5/... The care recieved by the first cohort of patients (at least) was far from basic.

The smoking in hospitals that you mention is interesting however.  There is speculation that the high rates of smoking are pushing up the cfr in China, and hopefully this will mean better odds for the majority of people in the UK where there are far fewer smokers these days.  

In reply to MG:

Individual level policies aren’t sufficient at this stage, so you need a multi-scale approach: drastic pruning of contact networks, drastic reduction of mobility, collective behaviour changes.

In reply to RomTheBear:

That rather depends on the importance placed on preventing the spread.  All those actions would have severe consequences in other directions, not least potentially preventing medical supplies being produced and transported. It might be that a) it's too late so such a drastic response would have no benefit or b) such a drastic response would be more damaging than letting things run their course.

In reply to MG:

Even if difficult to estimate, the mortality seems to be many times higher than the regular flu; and it develop into a severe/critical condition in about a quarter of cases, so many people will require hospitalisation.

In reply to RomTheBear:

Some numbers here.  No one really knows yet.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/

In reply to MG:

You don’t really need to stop freight travel. But yes supply lines will need adapting. Not only medicine but also food.

a). This fatalistic response is incorrect as the leverage of extraordinary intervention has demonstrated to be be very high.

b) Reducing mobility of course would be damaging but the damage it can cause is bounded and controlled, whereas that of a virus in unbounded. You can’t treat multiplicative risk the same as linear risk.

In reply to climbercool:

Perhaps they’re recording them as flu....  The daily death rates are sufficient low in China that sqrt(N) variance should have been clearly visible in them but wasn’t. Then a paper comes out saying as much and suddenly variance in the data goes up...  Doesn’t inspire confidence that reporting is happening without some adulteration of the numbers...  Or I’m just paranoid.

In reply to wintertree:

Not at all. Propaganda is the key ingredient of the Chinese response to the virus. Getting the WHO to call it Covid-19 rather than Wuhan Coronavirus (as with Puumala, Borna, Ebola, Marburg, Lassa, you name it viruses) is one of their first victories.

CB

edit: forgot to mention there is indeed a difference in recording that is not even new or propaganda but openly known and simply a different way of doing things. An 80 year old guy on a cancer ward who dies of a hospital flu infection a few weeks before succumbing to his cancer will be recorded as a flu death in Europe but a cancer death in China. Changing that for the new CV infection was what led to the massive jump in death rates 10 or so days ago.

In reply to cb294:

I think China Crisis Virus would have been a good name for it.

In reply to FactorXXX:

The Wu-Flu.  Catchy.

In reply to Bobling:

I've head it called Kung Flu by some sharp teenagers!

In reply to gribble:

Hong Kong Fluey

In reply to gallam1:

I've heard a number of people say things along the lines of "Covid 19 isn't actually that serious a disease, the death rate is low".

It's occurred to me, what is our definition of a serious disease?

If you have a disease with a mortality rate of 50% most people would class it as very serious , even if the infection rate was only 1% of the population.

If you have a disease with a mortality rate of 1% the perception wouldn't be that it isn't as serious a disease, however if the infection rate is 50% of the population, the end result is the same.

In reply to Hat Dude:

A very good question.  One aspect of “serious” is when it overwhelms the state’s ability to give life saving care to all who need it - then survival rates can change dramatically for the worse.

Also, ask these folks about serious...   youtube.com/watch?v=DH8gDik0_U4&

In reply to Hat Dude:

Psychologically this is unfamiliar, like AIDS in the eighties - something new with a very poor prognosis.

Psychologically this is very familiar - flu, measles, driving, climbing - you know plenty of people who have survived. 

The outcome might be the same but the psychology is not the same - unfamiliar=panic vs familiar=acceptance?

In reply to gallam1:

We'll soon find out just how well Europe will cope.. seems plenty kids have been exposed. The so called super transmitters, who are often less disciplined with hand washing and covering mouths whilst coughing etc.. best start prepping!! 

In reply to Hat Dude:

Hedonic Calculus innit?  Certainty, propinquity etc.  When they become aware of them, people tend to prefer diseases where they, personally, have a better chance of surviving if they do get it.  And people tend not to be aware of the really nasty but very rare diseases as anything other than abstract.   

Plus there's the agency thing.  People somehow imagine they have more control over their chances of surviving a less serious common infection than they do over whether or not they catch a rare serious one.

In reply to summo:

Don't think that that is what makes a person a supertransmitter, even though proper hygiene will help drop transmission rates.

At least for other diseases, being asymptomatic despite shedding tons of virus/other pathogen is much more important. This is why the relief many people (including journalists) expressed when it turned out that there are asymptomatic / very mild cases was rather misguided: Yes there is a chance I might only develop mild disease if I am infected, but it makes containment virtually impossible.

CB

In reply to MG:

Smart move today announced by public health England to start testing people with flu like symptoms. It states the main priority is to establish an early warning system but I guess their secondary hope is to find people walking around with coronavirus, with symptoms not severe enough to present themselves to the NHS. If that's the case then the severity may not be as bad as current information suggests.

In reply to elsewhere:

unfamiliar means more uncertainty, more uncertainty more that we don’t know, therefore the risk is higher - and the psychological response perfectly rational.