Item — HN Reader

The author is not an epidemiologist, and does not appear to have any other relevant expertise to assess the situation. The people who do have that expertise consistently say that it is very serious.

Cases have declined in China only because of the extreme measures they undertook to stop it. (In other words, "hysteria.")

2 comments

There is a difference between an epidemiologist doing their job and the media over-hyping the situation to deal with a slow news week.

The medical community should absolutely be in high gear right now. That doesn't mean the rest of us need to act like its an end of the world situation.

The medical community is asking us to prepare. You should be changing your behavior to reduce contact with other people, learning the necessary sanitation techniques, and preparing to be self sufficient in your home for a few weeks.

And who are you to say if the media are "over-hyping" the situation?

The medical community can call for calm if they think that's important, but from where I sit, isolating cases is paramount to stop the spread and getting a population ready for local quarantine situations seems fairly important too. You don't get there by sticking your head in the sand.

It's not nice to hear, but perhaps we do have to hear it.

>Cases have declined in China only because of the extreme measures they undertook to stop it.

I mean, you can't really say the author can't assess the situation because of a lack of expertise, and then immediately assess the situation with a lack of expertise.

I'm assuming that the quarantine helped, but also it might not have helped. That might have just been the natural progression of this disease. We don't know, and you can't claim that as a statement of fact.

> I mean, you can't really say the author can't assess the situation because of a lack of expertise, and then immediately assess the situation with a lack of expertise.

This is the assessment of the WHO, not mine. https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-chi...

Where in the report does it say that "cases have declined in China ONLY BECAUSE OF the extreme measures"?

"China’s bold approach to contain the rapid spread of this new respiratory pathogen has changed the course of a rapidly escalating and deadly epidemic."

"China’s uncompromising and rigorous use of non-pharmaceutical measures to contain transmission of the COVID-19 virus in multiple settings provides vital lessons for the global response."

I don't think they could say it much more clearly.

> The cordon sanitaire around Wuhan and neighboring municipalities imposed since 23 January 2020 has effectively prevented further exportation of infected individuals to the rest of the country.

This makes multiple observations to that end. What you consider "extreme" is a matter of how much you want to troll the topic.

Considering China has had only ~80k cases, and Wuhan alone has 11M people, it is fair to assume that the disease certainly did not run its natural course.