[Munky-Necan]

My colleagues are out of PPE and now using scarves because we are so under supplied. CDC guidelines were just changed to allow staff to be exposed to COVID patients without properly protecting themselves.

I was talking with some physicians and providers when I said that I think this will be the Chernobyl like moment of our era: where the truth is hidden from people to prevent a panic paradoxically exacerbating the current crisis. Shockingly, almost all agreed with me.

[CriticalCathed]

This is so completely blowing this crisis out of proportion. I am so confused by the tenor of the discourse on HN. I expected more from this place.

[XorNot]

This pandemic is potentially going to kill a lot more people then Chernobyl did. And permanently injure (via lung function damage) many more.

[Munky-Necan]

The common complications, of those initially hospitalized(note this limits our extrapolation for population), that were observed in Wuhan were ARDS, acute cardiac injury 7.2%, acute kidney injury 3.6% [1]. This is most likely analogous to having a mild heart attack(we need to read the EKG and labs here to elucidate the actual prognosis), which is still concerning because long term prognosis is usually poor. Acute kidney injury usually progresses to chronic kidney injury.

On top of both of these you're more than correct that lung function will likely decrease. This virus kills lung tissues and although we have cells that are there to heal lungs, SARS-CoV-2 tissue tropism is highest for these cells (ACE2 receptors on type II pneumocytes).

Dr. Facui is one of the most respected scientists in the medical field. He's either in the top ten or right around the top ten of the most referenced. He is the reason why HIV has killed only ~50 million people. I'm building his credibility because he has stated that he hopes we're over reacting to this [2-3].

1)https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32031570/

2) https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/487639-fauci-...

3) https://www.axios.com/fauci-coronavirus-overreaction-decc88f...

[blhack]

Fauci is a hero in every sense of the word right now.

[LaMarseillaise]

This has already killed many times the number of people that Chernobyl did.

[Munky-Necan]

Chernobyl was projected to kill millions. The top epidemiologists in the world projected in the most realistic scenarios that the death toll would have been in the millions prior to the quarantines. Both could have been prevented if people knew the truth well in advance of the crisis.

Call it hyperbole, but the Spanish Flu killed millions because the public was not told the truth soon enough. We were likewise told this was nothing to worry about for months, and now we have ~30%-50% of the US quarantined.

[sfkdjf9j3j]

Don't you think it's more likely that the Spanish flu was so widespread because of the unhygienic conditions and stressed infrastructure caused by World War 1?

[Munky-Necan]

Not at all. Good sanitation is going to prevent mainly oral-fecal spread of disease, but H1N1 (Swine flu is the most recent H1N1 pandemic) is droplet/airborne spread. Hand washing and physical distancing are key here.

If you're asking about hand washing practices in that era and if that would have prevented the spread, absolutely. Hand washing attenuated SARS spread during the 2002 epidemic by roughly ~50% [1]. I am not an expert in history so I cannot speak to hand hygeine practices during that era. What current research is suggesting is that H1N1 spread was exacerbated by a lack of knowledge to the public [2]. Time and time again public health is predicated on the right knowledge given as quickly as possible; this is the most important key to almost every single disease spread[3].

1)https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3323085/

2)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#Spread

3) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1006/bulm.2002.0317

[masonic]

  because the public was not told the truth soon enough

Nobody knew the truth (as the "Spanish" moniker makes obvious). Germ theory itself was new, and viruses were unknown. In fact, a substantial effort to make a vaccine to combat the suspect bacteria resulted in actual deployment to thousands despite the fact that they had misidentified a bacterium as the culprit.

[blhack]

Where are you located?

[Munky-Necan]

In the US, that's all I'm comfortable saying. The people I said this to are at an institution 99% of people in the US would recognize.