We are the chief medical writer for The Associated Press and a vice dean at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Ask us anything you want to know about the coronavirus pandemic and how the world is reacting to it. Science

UPDATE: Thank you to everyone who asked questions.

Please follow https://APNews.com/VirusOutbreak for up-to-the-minute coverage of the pandemic or subscribe to the AP Morning Wire newsletter: https://bit.ly/2Wn4EwH

Johns Hopkins also has a daily podcast on the coronavirus at http://johnshopkinssph.libsyn.com/ and more general information including a daily situation report is available from Johns Hopkins at http://coronavirus.jhu.edu

The new coronavirus has infected more than 127,000 people around the world and the pandemic has caused a lot of worry and alarm.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.

There is concern that if too many patients fall ill with pneumonia from the new coronavirus at once, the result could stress our health care system to the breaking point -- and beyond.

Answering your questions Monday about the virus and the public reaction to it were:

Marilynn Marchione, chief medical writer for The Associated Press
Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and author of The Public Health Crisis Survival Guide: Leadership and Management in Trying Times

Find more explainers on coronavirus and COVID-19: https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '20

[deleted]

168

u/APnews Mar 16 '20

From Dr. Sharfstein: Good question. The disease obviously spread quite a lot before significant actions were taken. I also understand their age distribution may skew older. But the full answer is not yet known.

3

u/jessquit Mar 17 '20

their age distribution may skew older

am I the only person somewhat shocked that this was stated as a possibility, when in reality the fact that Italy's age distribution absolutely "skews older" is easily verifiable and something that everyone studying this disease should have already assimilated by now?

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.65UP.TO.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=true

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u/sharkshaft Mar 17 '20

Agreed. This is what nobody seems to be talking about. Generally speaking this virus only kills old and sock people and age is a huge factor in mortality.

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u/laokin Mar 17 '20

Haplotype. China, Italy, and the worst of them all is Iran. All three are different haplotypes, the haplotype indicates the severity of CFR.

I.E. These are variations of SARS-COV-2; and there are at least 5 different Haplotypes. The U.S. has all 5.

9

u/rivertam2985 Mar 16 '20

Perhaps the density of their population was a factor. To give you an idea:

California- 403,882 square km, population- around 37.3 million

Italy- 301,340 square km, population- around 62.2 million

3

u/ProbablyJustArguing Mar 17 '20

But what about China?

12

u/alex_moose Mar 17 '20

China took some very draconian measures to keep people isolated and stop the spread. Italy is the exact opposite - it's a cultural norm to circumvent rules, and the government is not strong on enforcement.

5

u/rivertam2985 Mar 17 '20

I dunno. Didn't look at China. I was just trying to grasp the size of Italy compared to a place I was more familiar with so I could wrap my head around their body count.

0

u/boredquince Mar 17 '20

China is asshoe. Seriously. Don't trust China numbers. I don't even look at their numbers anymore

3

u/fisher_of_men_ Mar 17 '20

I mean, considering many major cities are coming out of lockdown, it seems reasonable that they've been pretty successful in their pandemic response. But if you don't trust them, do you trust Taiwan or South Korea?

1

u/boredquince Mar 17 '20

Taiwan and South Korea. Pretty much islands. Easier to contain than.. Lets say Italy which borders 4 countries with pretty much open borders (in the beginning at least)

2

u/millershanks Mar 17 '20

large chinese community („China town“ in Milano), which had great turnover when people went back to China after 3 months and new people came in, a log of personal contact because meals are shared with family and friends, a generally touchy-feely culture, unlike e.g. Germany. Or maybe they didn‘t pay attanetion enough, similar to many other countries.

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u/takaminacchan Mar 16 '20

Among other things: the curve there started too steep. Too many people were infected too quickly and the health system couldn't handle this many people needing respirators at once.

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u/ImgurIsLeaking Mar 16 '20

Just a heads up from an italian: to date, not one patient has been denied a respirator. Hospitals in the most affected regions are indeed running near or at capacity, but new cases requiring intensive care are being transferred to regions where the outbreak hasn't hit.

6

u/takaminacchan Mar 16 '20

Haven't there been a relative lot of people who have died while in confinement, though? I was under the impression many of the deaths occurred outside of hospitals precisely because of overwhelms.

In any case, my bad if I got that wrong and thanks for data!

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u/ImgurIsLeaking Mar 16 '20

I personally haven't read news about such occourences, but I wouldn' be surprised if that happened in a few instances, definitely not in significant numbers though.

It's however true that currently people with symptoms are required to stay in their homes and call emergency services only when their conditions worsen significantly.