Coronavirus - the new pandemic

[Riedquat]

By the by, people with diabetes or cardiovascular disease might want to take extra precautions (frequent hand-washing, maybe masks if you can find a medically effective one). Those are tied to a worse prognosis.

Masks help prevent you from spreading it if you've got it, they don't do much to stop you getting it.

[Darth Wedgius]

By the by, people with diabetes or cardiovascular disease might want to take extra precautions (frequent hand-washing, maybe masks if you can find a medically effective one). Those are tied to a worse prognosis.

Masks help prevent you from spreading it if you've got it, they don't do much to stop you getting it.

Really? The stuff I've read suggests hand washing and not touching your face helps more, but that masks help somewhat.

[Madner Kami]

Masks help the same way that sneezing into your elbow does. It helps prevent you spraying your infectous mucus all over the place.

On another note: I find panic-buyers ridiculously stupid. You know where the one place is, that you should never go to during an epidemic? A place that is frequented by a lot of people all the time and where people touch all the stuff that you are going to touch, like shopping-carts, money, wares and just generally being close to other potentially infectous people. You know where you can find that in droves? Supermarkets.

On yet another note: We sold more than 4 times as much as we usually do last weekend (eclipsing even christmas/new years season) and we finally have a realistic chance of properly cleaning our shelves, because they are empty of wares.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

You know where you can find that in droves? Supermarkets.

I never find that at supermarkets.

[Riedquat]

By the by, people with diabetes or cardiovascular disease might want to take extra precautions (frequent hand-washing, maybe masks if you can find a medically effective one). Those are tied to a worse prognosis.

Masks help prevent you from spreading it if you've got it, they don't do much to stop you getting it.

Really? The stuff I've read suggests hand washing and not touching your face helps more, but that masks help somewhat.

They'll help if you're right on the receiving end of someone's cough or sneeze, and if you wipe your hand on the mask instead of your face. AIUI surgeons wear masks to protect the person they're operating on far more than to protect themselves.

[Darth Wedgius]

By the by, people with diabetes or cardiovascular disease might want to take extra precautions (frequent hand-washing, maybe masks if you can find a medically effective one). Those are tied to a worse prognosis.

Masks help prevent you from spreading it if you've got it, they don't do much to stop you getting it.

Really? The stuff I've read suggests hand washing and not touching your face helps more, but that masks help somewhat.

They'll help if you're right on the receiving end of someone's cough or sneeze, and if you wipe your hand on the mask instead of your face. AIUI surgeons wear masks to protect the person they're operating on far more than to protect themselves.

It looks like surgical masks are more to protect against infection by the wearer, but an N95 mask is meant to protect the wearer against the world. But there's disagreement on it. China says that airborne transmission isn't happening, but similar viruses can be airborne. The WHO recommends masks for those caring for those infected, but it looks like not everyone agrees with them.

[Riedquat]

They'll help if you're right on the receiving end of someone's cough or sneeze, and if you wipe your hand on the mask instead of your face. AIUI surgeons wear masks to protect the person they're operating on far more than to protect themselves.

It looks like surgical masks are more to protect against infection by the wearer, but an N95 mask is meant to protect the wearer against the world. But there's disagreement on it. China says that airborne transmission isn't happening, but similar viruses can be airborne. The WHO recommends masks for those caring for those infected, but it looks like not everyone agrees with them.

I was thinking of all the pictures of people wearing what look like surgical masks. The purpose of the N95 mask is to keep stuff out though, although I think they're really designed for things like working in a dusty environment rather than medical (I might be talking nonsense though, not my area of expertise at all).

[Darth Wedgius]

They'll help if you're right on the receiving end of someone's cough or sneeze, and if you wipe your hand on the mask instead of your face. AIUI surgeons wear masks to protect the person they're operating on far more than to protect themselves.

It looks like surgical masks are more to protect against infection by the wearer, but an N95 mask is meant to protect the wearer against the world. But there's disagreement on it. China says that airborne transmission isn't happening, but similar viruses can be airborne. The WHO recommends masks for those caring for those infected, but it looks like not everyone agrees with them.

I was thinking of all the pictures of people wearing what look like surgical masks. The purpose of the N95 mask is to keep stuff out though, although I think they're really designed for things like working in a dusty environment rather than medical (I might be talking nonsense though, not my area of expertise at all).

Completely fair. I think WHO recommends surgical masks for caregivers, but a lot of people don't agree with the WHO on that one.

[Darth Wedgius]

It looks like the global death rate is actually like 3.4% rather than the previous 2%. That's not the end of the world, but that's pretty high. And a lot of the victims are in pretty well-developed nations like China, Italy, and Iran. The normal seasonal flu has a mortality rate of much less than 1%, but a lot more people usually get the flu, so it may still claim more people than the coronavirus this year.

One positive note is that I understand coronavirus isn't mutating very quickly. I think that means that if a vaccine is developed, it should remain effective protection.

[Riedquat]

Estimating the death rate is very hard mostly due to not having any idea how many people get ill but recover on their own without reporting it. At this time of year there are plenty of colds going around anyway, and not everyone who gets the covid 19 virus gets severe symptoms so may put it down to a bad cold, or ordinary flu if worse than that. This will mean that the death rate isn't actually quite as high as the ratio of known cases to deaths.