My posting about the coronavirus and the cruise ship as a “terror movie” was not a suggestion for how to reenact an actual terror movie. [stderr]
In my remarkably unsuccessful book on homeland security, I wrote that “Our collective reaction to SARS may have been a test that we failed.” And, damn it, that wasn’t a suggestion either.
I’m increasingly concerned by the reporting about the coronavirus outbreak, because it appears that governments around the world are trading their ability to respond effectively against the potential tourism impact. The end result is to make the outbreak much scarier and to keep people ignorant. Way to go, guys! If this is the test, we’re going to fail it too.
WWII Europe, or Chicago?
For example, the reporting on the outbreak largely focuses on South Korea, China, Iran, and Italy, right now – but there are outbreaks in North Korea and Singapore that are under-reported. Singapore is a huge transfer-point that’s very important and is also a shipping center.
Another aspect of a pandemic that is under-reported is that it will completely blow away the US medical insurance system, if hospitals are suddenly whacked with massive influxes of patients that need to spend days in intensive care. Sure, we should worry about taking care of people before we worry about money, but the aftershocks could be hospital bankruptcies galore, further enshitting the US medical system. In fact it seems to me that a massive collapse would be a great opportunity to declare the system “dead on arrival” and switch to a public healthcare option and cancel the F-35 and some supercarriers to pay for it.
It’s like something out of Doctor Strangelove that people in the political arena are screaming “SOCIALIIIIST!!!!” at each other, like it’s a bad thing, and there’s a strong possibility we’re going to have a pandemic hit us and concerted, effective government action will be the determining factor who lives or dies for hundreds of thousands of people. I feel like I keep waking up in a bad move, like San Andreas, except it’s not a movie.
It seemed to me that confining thousands of non-infected people on a boat with hundreds of infected people was a bad idea. And, it appears that it was, in fact, a bad idea because nobody understood yet whether the coronavirus could be transmitted before symptoms appeared. But what would have been the right thing to do? It seems odd to me, now, that 100+ years after the great 1911 pandemic, we don’t seem to have effective response doctrines for this sort of thing? Are viruses that different that it’s not reasonable to establish a standard outbreak response plan? Or is this just a case of “there is a plan, but nobody wanted to enact it because it would be bad for tourism.”
If you’ve ever wanted to go on a cruise, I bet tickets are pretty cheap about now.
Nope, never wanted to go on a cruise and still don’t. With The Idiot Orange Toddler-Tyrant more worried about appearances and the stock market, I have no doubt that the situation will get way worse. Of course it is all just a plot by people who hate him to make him look bad.
By 1911 pandemic, I presume you mean the 1918-1920 influenza pandemic that started in late 1917.
@Bruce Yes I keep getting that date wrong.
If you want some experts opinions, I’ll plug a podcast I like.
http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/
In short, there are a limited ways a virus can spread (for coronavirus it is mainly aerosol) and it wouldn’t be too hard to respond effectively and humanly, if governments were prepared and cared to do so.
I was thinking “Jaws”, myself, since it was a movie about tourism.
The Black Plague passed from person to person in a matter of days, but COVID-19 can be undetected when a boat from Singapore to reach Europe or North America. There’s nothing new under the sun.
We know how to deal with corpses and identifying the dead really well (Barnstead’s method for the Titanic still in use). As often happens, people would rather deal with consequences than prevention.
Intransitive@#5:
As often happens, people would rather deal with consequences than prevention.
I did some disaster planning for a big company once, and one of the scenarios was an outbreak that brought production to a halt. Their models were that it would cost them about $50 million/day. Oh, yeah, and some people would get hurt.
D@#4:
http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/
Sounds interesting! Listening to it now.
Wow very informative!
What? Providing quality health care to 300-odd million people couldn’t possibly be that expensive…
@komarov@#8:
Free stealth coatings for everybody!!
And Mike Pence is in charge.
For those of you not from Indiana: When he was Governor, he ignored public health advice on needle exchanges and treatment plans when we saw a spike in heroin and meth addictions in some of our southern counties. The result of his fundigelical approach was an HIV epidemic that is only now starting to slow.
fusilier, who wonders if he still thinks that smoking tobacco is a benign habit.
James 2:24
@marcus@ #7: Sadly disaster planning is hard, in spite of the opportunity to learn from the past.
Back in the day, with the SARS epidemic, I had round 65% of my faculty budget from international students. If SARS had not been contained we would have gone broke in about three months. As it turns out the outbreak was contained and we only had one fatality in the international student cohort. After the panic subsided I was never brave enough to explain to my staff, most of whom thought they had “tenure” what the disaster plan really entailed.
Currently, Australian Universities are staring down the barrel, with dependencies around 30% on students from the PRC (that’s an institution wide percentage, not a single-faculty figure as was my previous number). Australia has banned direct flights from China and some universities are paying for their Chinese students to fly somewhere else, stay in a hotel for 14 days, then fly to Australia, hoping that your stopover destination hasn’t also been added to the banned list.
A total shitshow.
Umm that was Marcus #6, not #7.
@ 3 Marcus
There was the Cholera Pandemic (1910-1911). It only took a bit of lucky googling to find it.
https://www.mphonline.org/worst-pandemics-in-history/
Still I thik the Spanish flu of 1918 was a lot bigger. Death Toll: 20 -50 million vs Death Toll: 800,000+ for the 1911 pandemic.
If you’ve ever wanted to go on a cruise, I bet tickets are pretty cheap about now
I never was keen on ocean cruises but France and Italy are sounding tempting. No crowds at the Colosseum!
i saw someone pointing out that US hospitals are operating at near capacity as standard practice, because idle capacity isn’t profitable. Australia is probably the same. So if 10% of the population get ill then there is no medical capacity for treatment.
there are epidemiologists that can tell you how to deal with this. the problem is it costs money and you have to start a month ago, NOT when people are panicking. my bet is it’s already too late for the US
As far as I can tell our potential attempt to contain the virus are pretty much all doomed to fail. Eventually every gets exposed.
At best they are simply ways of delaying the inevitable spread of this virus. Historically, efforts to isolate anything but a very small population under very favorable conditions have tended to fail. Even some assumed successes seem to have been a study in how viruses seem to self limit themselves independent of human action even while humanity is busy slapping itself on the back. It is not uncommon to find antibodies to the virus in people who were assumed to have been protected by previously assumed successful isolation or quarantines.
I read an article that claimed that we still don’t know why the common cold is generally self-limiting. After conquering the immune defense system and massively replicating itself, the viruses tends to simply shut down. They won the war and then they went away. Often unconnected to anything our bodies do. It might have to do with the theory that viruses that kill their hosts are killing off their preferred environmental and genetic niche. Not that I wish to anthropomorphize a virus or assume it has any actual thought process.
So far the reporting is that roughly 2% of people die. There are reports that the deaths are not across the board. There are, of course, the usual array of vulnerable people. The very young, and very old. The weak. People with compromised immune defense systems. But all other things being equal more men that women are recorded as dying. Fewer pregnant women and healthy kids. With time, and a more genetically diverse population these trends may disappear, or be shown to have been an statistical artifact.
Containment might buy time for a vaccine or a definitive treatment to be found. But what if we just let it run its course. Stop trying to contain it and use the resources conserved to treat the worse cases. Would more people die?
I suspect that the well publicized shows of heroic efforts are a waste of time and resources. Please, people in hazmat suits laboriously hosing down sidewalks and subway platforms are not likely to change outcomes. They may, in fact, help spread the virus. What with all the water spray and spread.
None of the containment efforts are really cheap. Disposable masks and cloaks are cheap until you figure millions of people using a dozen, or more, daily. Hazmat suits and respirators are not cheap when buying by the thousands. Building entire hospitals in a few days is mighty impressive. But, does it actually change outcomes? If that same effort was put toward oxygen, basic life support, and ventilators would you save more lives?
So far the most cited sources seem to think around 2% die. But that is more of a wild-assed guess IMHO simply because some people, we don’t know how many, show only very mild symptoms. I wish I knew more. I wish we didn’t have idiots running things.
Just to make myself feel a bit more in control we stocked up on non-perishable food, made sure we have back-up water, all the vehicles are all fueled with some in reserve and we have vital medications for some time. If Trump feels insecure he might turn to ‘manly firmness’ and we could see curfews, activation of guard units, quarantines and resulting panic. Better to be prepared to stay home. Figure I have supplies for a month, maybe two. Lots of books and small projects to keep me busy. I could use some exercise.
Trump’s attempt at reassuring the public and settling the markets had the opposite effect. I saw a man at Walmart get Helter-Skelter eyes when he learned they were out of surgical masks. His wife calmed him down but he went away muttering foul oaths. Had there been two men and but one pack of masks there might have been violence. So far it is just a few. With weeks to go I hope for calm but, knowing that 30% of the population is not reality based and truly thinks Corona virus is all just a hoax to shame Trump, I expect it to get ugly.
Interesting times.
@ 16 . Lorn :
FWIW Strangely enough :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-01/who-is-most-likely-to-get-coronavirus-children-appear-safe/12013842
The plausible speculation explaining that being :
So could it be that the immune sytem response to COVID 19 is worse than the virus itself? Dunno. Anyone?