Item — HN Reader

One established possibility is that corona won't be contained. With 2009 H1N1 outbreak it spread quickly, eventually to an estimated 11 to 21% of the global population.

H1N1 turned out to be much milder than initially feared, causing little more than runny noses and coughs in most people. And H1N1 is now so commonplace, it's simply seen as a part of the seasonal flus that come and go every year among the global population.

If you're of this school of thought, then the panic may seem a bit much.

[1] https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/03/02/how-is-the-coron...

2 comments

Except there’s enough cases now that show that isn’t the case. The H1N1 was more “mild” than the speculation but COVId-19 isn’t. H1N1 also managed to be starved out more or less, but so far that doesn’t seem to be a real possibility for COVID-19.

If the olympics are being considered to be postponed, and tons of large conferences have already been canceled paired with companies stopping all international travel & discouraging domestic travel that’s more than enough evidence that the right thing to do is cancel your event.

The thing that a lot of folks seem to be missing is as a healthy, young adult you’re probably going to be fine if you get it and take care of yourself. With a longer incubation period than H1N1 though, you’re more likely to spread it to others who may be immunocompromised or at risk if they get it. That’s the risk with a conference, you can end up infecting many folks who infect other folks leading to high death rates.

The only way you don’t do that is you start to make the hard but right decisions to cancel events. China acted very quickly with quarantines outside of Wuhan, which is why the numbers are not growing at the same rate it was previously. There will surely be a second spike with spring break & other travels in the spring as China re-opens more areas but this isn’t going away, it’s only going to stay at the same rate or get worse over the next 6-8 weeks.

> The thing that a lot of folks seem to be missing is as a healthy, young adult you’re probably going to be fine if you get it and take care of yourself. With a longer incubation period than H1N1 though, you’re more likely to spread it to others who may be immunocompromised or at risk if they get it. That’s the risk with a conference, you can end up infecting many folks who infect other folks leading to high death rates.

Yeah, this! It's worth repeating.

Sure, but at this point it’s also one of the strains the yearly vaccine covers. The situation will change dramatically when a vaccine becomes available.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/season/faq-flu-season-2019-2020.htm