C.D.C. Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the U.S.

Shadowprophet

Truthiness
Take this with a Grain Of salt, Down here in southern Kentucky This article is eating up social media like wildfire. But, I thought I'd share it to see what you guys think. Personally, I think panic has gotten so far out of hand there is a lot of inaccurate fake news now. And This could be one of those Fakenessess. University of Tennessee scientists may have found coronavirus cure

University of Tennessee scientists may have found coronavirus cure

65505e64-GettyImages-1200211936.jpg

FILE - Yi Junfeng arranges test kits at a fever clinic of Hunan People's Hospital in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province, Feb. 7, 2020. ( Photo by Xinhua/Chen Zeguo via Getty Images )

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (WATE) - As the coronavirus outbreak edges closer to East Tennessee, a possible cure could be closer to coming from the region. Two researchers have discovered a chemical compound, which will be further tested soon, could stop the virus and prevent it from spreading further.

Jeremy Smith, Director of the Center for Molecular Biophysics, a partnership between the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, explained their work is made possible by the “world’s most powerful computer,” or the Summit, at ORNL.

“It’s capable of doing calculations very, very, quickly. The response to the new coronavirus needs to be quick,” he said. Smith said the computer’s speed is equivalent to 100,000 laptops working at the same time. “The work it can do in one day,” he added, “would take months on a normal computer.” Jeremy Smith and Micholas D. Smith, a post-doctoral fellow, and soon-to-be UTK research professor, began digital calculations to find a chemical, or drug, that might work against the virus.

This quick, digital, testing has worked previously, Smith said and cited success in their efforts in the past in finding treatment for diabetes and osteoporosis, for example. After performing simulations of more than 8,000 compounds, they have narrowed it down to, what they believe, will react to the actual sample. The next step in the researchers’ mission is to test the digital remedy on an actual sample. That step includes an expert at the UT Health Science Center in Memphis, Colleen Johnson. The testing would be conducted on an actual coronavirus sample, in the next week, in a controlled environment.

Ironically, the process has been slowed, because Johnson, along with Micholas D. Smith, has both been battling the flu throughout their work. If their calculations and experiment are successful, their work will be published, without peer review, to allow for speedy distribution. The researchers also tested compounds that are already known drugs, approved chemicals, or widely-used for other purposes. That, he said, would mean it wouldn’t require months of testing.

“It’s difficult to be excited when you haven’t solved the problem yet. but, always, the ultimate aim is to help mankind in some way,” Smith said.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
'
"The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe's population. In total, the plague may have reduced the world population from an estimated 475 million to 350–375 million in the 14th century."
- Black Death - Wikipedia

On the other hand:

The black plague did not kill that many people all at once and I am sure that it started off slow and the mortality rates escalated over the course if its five year rampage through Europe but I don't think its useful to compare this virus to other illnesses and plagues of the past...We are dealing with too many unknowns with the coronavirus and it could be mutating as we speak as it seems to be spreading even faster now than early on...I don't think it wise to overreact but equally wise not to underreact and risk spreading it further, its a hard call because of so many unknowns about this situation...

...
 

AlienView

Noble
Just this morning {3/9/20}:

"Dow Plummets, NYSE Halts Trading As Stock Indexes Plummet"

"Trading on the New York Stock Exchange was halted temporarily after indexes plunged 7% in reaction to Saudi Arabia's oil-price cut. The financial market chaos is the latest reaction to the coronavirus epidemic."

Home Page Top Stories

See my original point? - Is it really worth crashing the Stock Market and potentially causing a full scale
Depression just to stop the spread of a virus which is usually mild in symptoms and kills only a small
percentage of those afflicted? We will soon find out.

And what will the death toll be if we end up with a full scale depression and the chaos. and potential wars
that will probably occur in the wake of such a depression?

Hopefully we will not have to find out and science and reason will rule over wide scale paranoia.
https://www.npr.org/2020/03/09/8136...s-nyse-halts-trading-as-stock-indexes-plummet
 

Kchoo

At Peace.
I am sure the Exchange is just a reset to reality. It was likely bound to happen anyway and Corona is not the reason.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
 
Just this morning {3/9/20}:

"Dow Plummets, NYSE Halts Trading As Stock Indexes Plummet"

"Trading on the New York Stock Exchange was halted temporarily after indexes plunged 7% in reaction to Saudi Arabia's oil-price cut. The financial market chaos is the latest reaction to the coronavirus epidemic."

Home Page Top Stories

See my original point? - Is it really worth crashing the Stock Market and potentially causing a full scale
Depression just to stop the spread of a virus which is usually mild in symptoms and kills only a small
percentage of those afflicted? We will soon find out.

And what will the death toll be if we end up with a full scale depression and the chaos. and potential wars
that will probably occur in the wake of such a depression?

Hopefully we will not have to find out and science and reason will rule over wide scale paranoia.
I've done a little poking around online about this to get a broader view, and here's what I've found so far.

The mortality rate of the ordinary flu is less than .1%.

The mortality rate for this virus is somewhere around 3.4% - roughly 34 times more deadly than the ordinary flu (although there's some uncertainty in that estimate).

So this virus epidemic is surprisingly comparable to the 1918 influenza pandemic, aka the Spanish flu. If that makes you a bit nervous, it should; the Spanish flu virus had a mortality rate around 2.5% to 5%, and it infected about 27% of the world's population.

If this virus proves to be as contagious and as lethal as the Spanish flu - and so far it sure looks that way, then we can expect it to kill somewhere between 68 million to 400 million people. Those are chilling numbers by any standard.

Most of us here at this forum probably don't have to worry about being killed by this thing, but as nivek pointed out - we've all got loved ones over 70 who are facing a serious mortality risk here. And personally I'm a lot more concerned about that, than I am about the frickin' stock market.

Here's a time-lapse video by the CDC showing the spread of the virus around the world:



Update: I've done a little more reading up on this and found the following chart in a New York Times article that confirms the validity of my comparison between the coronavirus and the Spanish flu:

ScreenHunter_1851 Mar. 10 01.23.jpg
Source: How Bad Will the Coronavirus Outbreak Get? Here Are 6 Key Factors

There are two important points to make here:

1.) In a best-case scenario the coronavirus only spreads as easily as the Spanish flu - this is charted on the x-axis and that big pink region is where the coronavirus resides (the size of the pink box indicates the uncertainty about the characteristics of the virus). But it could be significantly more contagious than the Spanish flu.

2.) The fatality rate estimate depicted here (on the y-axis) is wrong: we know that the mortality rate is at least 2% (it's definitely not as low as the seasonal flu at .1% as indicated in the chart above ).

The corrected assessment looks like this:

ScreenHunter_1852 Mar. 10 01.30.jpg

So a cursory look at the epidemiology of this virus is indicating that a pandemic on the scale of the Spanish flu is the best-case scenario, and the most likely scenario is a pandemic that's even worse.

That's troubling.
 

pepe

Celestial
Couldn't agree more Thomas.

Anyone here in the UK feel like we aren't doing enough ?

I conspire that we are resigned to the fact of not being able to stop this outbreak and are actually wanting this first wave to be dealt with by and during the hotter months.

I mean if anyone can give an alternative valid reason for the UK to still allow flights from Northern Italy with no checks in place at all then I would love to hear it. The old chicken pox tactic mothers used here when getting the kids all together at partys so they would get it and thus not drawing it out.

The Italians didn't stop kissing and hugging like they do and with France being second worst hit and another nation that kiss both cheeks when greeting.

Boris can kiss both my cheeks and while he is I will be pressuring my system.
 
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Kchoo

At Peace.
The difference between this and the Spanish Flu is we have our best scientists using the most advanced tech ever and they working on this thing.

Chances of finding a cure is probably good, I hope.

Meanwhioe, I will keep washing the hands. Wife meets me at the door with purell, and sends me straight to the shower after I have had any exposure to the public.
I also blanch fresh fruit and wipe it down with a dry paper towel before ingesting it.
I will try to avoid catching it, but I leave the house every day and live a normal existence....
 
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Kchoo

At Peace.
Couldn't agree more Thomas.

Anyone here in the UK feel like we aren't doing enough ?

I conspire that we are resigned to the fact of not being able to stop this outbreak and are actually wanting this first wave to be dealt with by and during the hotter months.

I mean if anyone can give an alternative valid reason for the UK to still allow flights from Northern Italy with no checks in place at all then I would love to hear it. The old chicken pox tactic mothers used here when getting the kids all together at partys so they would get it and thus not drawing it out.

The Italians didn't stop kissing and hugging like they do and with France being second worst hit and another nation that kiss both cheeks when greeting.

Boris can kiss both my cheeks and while he is I will be pressuring my system.

Cull the herd while he can.
 

pepe

Celestial
With corona being the same as a common cold in terms of a cure, we can only vaccinate in readiness for the next wave.

There might be one big difference between the China flu of 1918 and this one. That being it left with the troops and took a real hold during trench life conditions and returned with the heros only to wipe their families out.
 

pepe

Celestial
Cull the herd while he can.

Here they are trying to get the timing right as Bojo has mentioned it being critical. Bringing the peak before this winter, it's amazing how we are more spread out in summer, out and about and individually much more distance between folk in general and the optimum time to see it off before we close in again for winter.

I'm not sure I like the element of playing God but good decisions aren't always there to be seen.
 

Rick Hunter

Celestial
most people I know that Go into the armed forces never talk about defending the country, or becoming a hero or fighting for what's right, they talk about the opportunities and benefits they will receive. IT's a job people do for the paycheck. I'm sorry, That's not just how I see it, That's how it truly is, If the army didn't pay anything and all one got out of the deal was a pat on the back and to be called a hero, a lot fewer people would do it.


People don't praise their gardener for their service, they simply pay the guy, People don't give their garbage man a medal. And to that I site, If the army had no benefits no one would join. So should I praise someone, For doing their damned job?


I don't know. It's an important job to be sure, But that hero shit just sounds like a fringe benefit to me.

I used to work for a large police department that was fond of reminding everyone how important they were and getting monuments and streets dedicated to them. Yet, all the coppers I knew while working there readily admitted they did it for the benefits and the early retirement compared to other government employees. Many of them would spend over half of their careers sitting behind a desk 8-5 monday through friday just like me, but collecting early retirement and lifetime 50 state concealed carry along the way.

I'm with you, holding a particular occupation doesn't make you a hero. Heroic acts do make you a hero, and they are pretty uncommon. I'm proud of my occupation (librarian) and I hope that it makes the world a little better. I would probably feel the same way if I was a cop, member of the military, or any other occupation. All jobs are important, no matter what they are.
 
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