Coronavirus Highlights Humans’ Psychological Shortcomings In Assessing Danger
How the world is reacting to the outbreak of the coronavirus, which has killed far less people than the common flu, illustrates the unconscious biases in how human beings think about risk, as well as the impulses that often guide our responses — sometimes with serious consequences. “We’re hearing about the fatalities,” said said Paul Slovic, a University of Oregon psychologist. “We’re not hearing about the 98 or so percent of people who are recovering from it and may have had mild cases.” In other news: the "thermometer guns," the infection rate, the symptoms and treatment for coronavirus, and more.
The New York Times:
Coronavirus ‘Hits All The Hot Buttons’ For How We Misjudge Risk
Shortly after the University of Washington announced that the school’s fourth suspected case of the new coronavirus had turned out negative, two professors, one of public policy and the other of public health, held a small dinner for students and faculty members. Like everywhere else on campus, and in much of the world, the coronavirus was all anybody could talk about. But one of the attendees, a public health student, had had enough. Exasperated, she rattled off a set of statistics. (Fisher, 2/13)
Kaiser Health News:
Facts Vs. Fears: Five Things To Help Weigh Your Coronavirus Risk
The news about the novel coronavirus in China grows more urgent daily. The number of related deaths is now greater than 1,300, while tens of thousands of people have been infected — most of them in China. People returning to the U.S. from China are quarantined for 14 days. It can be frightening to think about the threat, but public health officials in this country constantly remind people that the risk of the disease here is low. Still, scientists have more questions than answers about important issues surrounding the coronavirus, now officially named COVID-19. Here’s some help in understanding the unknowns and evaluating the risks. (Szabo, 2/14)
The New York Times:
‘Thermometer Guns’ On Coronavirus Front Lines Are ‘Notoriously Not Accurate’
It has become an iconic image of the coronavirus outbreak in China: a masked official aiming what appears to be a small white pistol at a traveler’s forehead. For weeks, this ominous-looking device has been deployed at checkpoints across China — tollbooths, apartment complexes, hotels, grocery stores, train stations — as government officials and private citizens screen people for fevers in an effort to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus. Sometimes described as a “thermometer gun,” the device is equipped with an infrared sensor that can quickly measure surface temperature without making any contact with a person’s skin. (Yaffe-Bellany, 2/14)
The Wall Street Journal:
How Many People Might One Person With Coronavirus Infect?
When an infection erupts the way coronavirus has exploded in Wuhan, China, and elsewhere in the world, public-health experts try to gauge the potential for an epidemic—or, worse, a pandemic—by calculating the pathogen’s basic reproduction number. The figure, generally written as R0 and pronounced “R naught,” is an estimate of how many healthy people one contagious person will infect. Because viruses spread exponentially, a few cases can quickly blow up to an overwhelming number. An R0 of two suggests a single infection will, on average, become two, then four, then eight. (McGinty, 2/14)
The Wall Street Journal:
What We Know About The Coronavirus, From Symptoms To Treatment
Concern is high about a dangerous new coronavirus behind an epidemic in China and illnesses in 24 other countries. The number of people sick with or dying of a viral pneumonia caused by the virus has continued to rise in the epicenter of Hubei Province, China, despite a quarantine of some 60 million people and other measures to stop it. Worries about the potential global impact have interrupted travel and business and disrupted supplies of some goods—including supplies needed to fight the epidemic. Scientists and public-health officials are learning more all the time about the virus. It has been named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2. The disease it causes is called Covid-19. (McKay, 2/13)
The Associated Press:
Virus Renews Safety Concerns About Slaughtering Wild Animals
China cracked down on the sale of exotic species after an outbreak of a new virus in 2002 was linked to markets selling live animals. The germ turned out to be a coronavirus that caused SARS. The ban was later lifted, and the animals reappeared. Now another coronavirus is spreading through China, so far killing 1,380 people and sickening more than 64,000 — eight times the number sickened by SARS. The suspected origin? The same type of market. (McNeil and Choi, 2/14)
Reuters:
Gilead Drug Prevents Type Of Coronavirus In Monkeys; Raises Hope For China Trials
An experimental Gilead Sciences antiviral drug prevented disease and reduced the severity of symptoms in monkeys infected with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), an infection closely related to the fast-spreading coronavirus that originated in China, a study published on Thursday found. The results, reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, raise hope that the drug, remdesivir, currently in clinical trials in China, might be effective against the new virus that has infected some 60,000 people globally, and killed more than 1,300, mostly in China. (Steenhuysen, 2/13)
Reuters:
Fake News Makes Disease Outbreaks Worse, Study Finds
The rise of "fake news" - including misinformation and inaccurate advice on social media - could make disease outbreaks such as the COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic currently spreading in China worse, according to research published on Friday. In an analysis of how the spread of misinformation affects the spread of disease, scientists at Britain's East Anglia University (UEA) said any successful efforts to stop people sharing fake news could help save lives. (Kelland, 2/13)
KQED:
'An Outbreak, Not An Epidemic': Bay Area Doctors Talk Coronavirus Risks And Prevention
Researchers have traced COVID-19, and viruses like it, to bats. Animal-to-human transmission, however, typically occurs through a secondary host. Scientists have traced the MERS outbreak to palm civets (a cat-like mammal), and SARS to camels. Greene said public health experts don’t yet know the secondary host for this strain of coronavirus, but they believe the outbreak began at a seafood market. (Arcuni, 2/13)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Bay Area Drug Company’s Experimental Coronavirus Drug Generates Excitement
As the new coronavirus continues to spread across the globe with no known cure, an experimental drug made by Foster City’s Gilead Sciences — in one of the highest-profile clinical trials under way for coronavirus patients — is generating excitement. The drug, an injectable antiviral called remdesivir, was given in late January to the first confirmed case of coronavirus in the United States, a 35-year-old man in Washington state, after he returned from Wuhan, China, and his symptoms worsened after a week in the hospital. His condition improved the next day. (Ho, 2/13)
