The Word from Wuhan

An excerpt from a piece on the situation at Wuhan, where many are quarantined: Schools are suspended until further notice. With many workplaces also shut, notoriously absent Chinese fathers have been forced to stay home and entertain their children. Video clips of life under quarantine are trending on TikTok. Children were presumably glad to be off school -- until, that is, an app called DingTalk was introduced. Students are meant to sign in and join their class for online lessons; teachers use the app to set homework. Somehow the little brats worked out that if enough users gave the app a one-star review it would get booted off the App Store. Tens of thousands of reviews flooded in, and DingTalk's rating plummeted overnight from 4.9 to 1.4. The app has had to beg for mercy on social media: 'I'm only five years old myself, please don't kill me.'

Re:

[hey!]

Mortality rate in Wuhan is 5.8% of cases. An epidemic with a 5.8% mortality rate and an R0 > 2 is sure going to be bring your local society to a screeching halt.

People *would* flee if they could, but China has shut the place down and confined everyone to their apartments. I'm sure a few people on the edges of Hubei snuck out of their houses at night and crossed the border, but if you're in Wuhan, forget it. You can't take a train or bus or plane out of the place. Even if you tried to ride your bike ou

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[K. S. Kyosuke]

He *did* say "5.8% of cases".

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

He *did* say "5.8% of cases".

Many people with mild cases likely don't even go to the hospital. So they aren't counted.

Hospitals are full of sick people and are not healthy places. There not much doctors can do for someone with COVID. There is no cure or treatment. So unless you have a severe case and need supplemental oxygen, you are better off just keeping quiet and staying home.

Re:

[K. S. Kyosuke]

"Mild cases" in this outbreak includes everything up to full-blown pneumonia. [twitter.com] You're suggesting that these people don't seek treatment and aren't counted?

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

"Mild cases" in this outbreak includes everything up to full-blown pneumonia. [twitter.com]

"Full-blown pneumonia" is not mild, even if some guy on Twitter says it is.

Re:

[K. S. Kyosuke]

He's not saying it's *actually* mild, he's saying that the so-called "mild cases" recorded in China include it. Which means that with this degree of "mildness", they're less likely to evade notice than you're suggesting. Not to mention that they obviously *are* counted. Together with some other things [slashdot.org] it seems unlikely that a substantial portion of the population is simultaneously infected and unaccounted for. "Substantial" meaning "sufficient to bring fatality rate to significantly lower levels", that is f

Re:

[Dunbal]

So the mortality rate is NOT 5.8% of all people

No one is arguing this. Heath indicators are standard world-wide, otherwise no one would be able to communicate anything meaningful. The mortality rate of a disease is usually given as a percentage of detected cases. The prevalence and incidence of a disease is usually given as a number of cases per 100,000 population. Epidemiology has already been invented. Also 5.8% seems a bit high from what I've read. JAMA seems to be going with 2.3% or so. Considering that over 60% of detected cases have actually prese

Re:

[hey!]

I expect over time estimates of case mortality rate to go down in most areas.

Re:

[Riceballsan]

he said that.. he said 5.8% of cases. but the bigger thing he was pointing out was the R0 > 2. In other words... 5.8% of people infected die... and on average each infected person infects more than 2 people... if the disease's R0 stays as high as it is... that means everyone will eventually be infected. (obviously that's the point of the attempted quarantines, lock downs etc... is to try to bring the R0 down).

Re:

[hey!]

One thing to avoid doing is to hang too much significance on the possibility most of the cases haven't been identified. Epidemiologists are not dummies; they realize that there are cases that don't get reported. The work from the data they have because otherwise you're working from speculation.

If, as you suggest, the number of people infected were significantly higher, sure; knowing that would decrease your estimate of the disease's mortality rate. But it would also increase your estimate of the diseases

Re:

[buravirgil]

One thing to avoid doing is to hang too much significance on the possibility most of the cases haven't been identified. Epidemiologists are not dummies; they realize that there are cases that don't get reported. The work from the data they have because otherwise you're working from speculation.

If, as you suggest, the number of people infected were significantly higher, sure; knowing that would decrease your estimate of the disease's mortality rate. But it would also increase your estimate of the diseases *transmissibilty*.

We're still in the early stages of this thing, and if its transmissibilty were much higher than we thought, that'd be worse news than the case fatality rate being higher.

SPOT ON

Re:

[gosso920]

Chinese fathers have been forced to stay home and entertain their children.

How will they entertain the kids? By reading selected passages from Mao's Little Red Book?

Re:

[PPH]

From Adam Smith.

Re:

[ruddk]

In quarantine apparently

Re:

[buravirgil]

Hey!'s relating WeChat/Weibo information from what I can tell. As good a source as any, but schools remain closed out of greater precuation than protecting the teachers. We're witnessing policy in action. Study it out...state of the art.

Re:

[Aighearach]

I'd check both his humanity and his temperature at the door, and I probably wouldn't let him in anyway.

Re: Yuck

[Dopamina]

What a weird comment, how in the flying fuck is this virtue signaling? It's literally an article about life under quarantine in Wuhan. Some of you people behave pretty strange in Slashdot, like you specifically come here looking to manufacture some outrage for yourself. You seem to be just as mentally frail as the people you rail against.

Re:

[NicknameUnavailable]

Imagine believing anyone is as mentally frail as msmash.

Re:

[Aighearach]

Virtue signalling is like, "Oh, look at me, look at my humanity, I have compassion for the zombies because they used to be human."

I doubt it is relevant here, most of the people in the story haven't even Turned yet. Give it another 3 weeks and then see how virtuous they are.

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

A lot of Slashdot contributors know about half a dozen buzzword insults, "incel" being a very popular one, that they try and throw into any flamebait post they make. This is just another example. Don't take it seriously, it's just the usual random spew that pollutes any thread with a randomly-chosen buzzword insult thrown in.

Downmodded into oblivion

[Anonymous Coward]

If only the App Store had meta moderation!

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

If only the App Store had meta moderation!

If only people bothered to meta moderate!

It's Not Just Wuhan

[buravirgil]

This article presents a scope seemingly particular to the epicenter and is tailored propaganda by omission for nerds. China, the nation as a whole, shut down...that's right...snarky Madagascar reference...everything.

Exactly what the US seems on edge about, China did. Schools. Jobs. Transportation. And the exceptions and mechanisms and procedures of exception that were made to arrest any futher advance of clusters should be reported, but are not. Incrementally returning a prioritized range of enterprise from construction to shopping is vital information to be shared, but is not given frame.

You know the motel converted to a hospital that collapsed? Its reportage is as though it's a crisis within a China returned to normalcy. It's still ghost-towns throughout the nation.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

It's not the whole nation. A lot of factories in Shenzhen are back up and running and fulfilling the backlog of orders. Handling the situation has been passed down to local authorities in most places and they will decide when it's safe to lift any restrictions that they imposed.

Re:

[buravirgil]

It's not the whole nation. A lot of factories in Shenzhen are back up and running and fulfilling the backlog of orders. Handling the situation has been passed down to local authorities in most places and they will decide when it's safe to lift any restrictions that they imposed.

The factories in Shenzhen were the first enterprise given exception two weeks ago. I have lived for six years in the near-interior of Jiangxi and coastal Fujian provinces.

The article frames Hubei's enforced quarantine excluding any context of advisory quarantines still in effect for the whole country. Are schools and vehicular/mass transit "up and running" in Shenzhen? They are not. Those factories are monitored to safeguard any resurgence of advance because the risks of habitual congregation are being as

Re:

[Aighearach]

There is a big difference between opening a factory (only requires a guard) and restarting production in a way that would fulfill the backlog of orders. That requires travel restrictions to be lifted, and supplier factories to also be running.

Also, international shipping is not back to normal yet. Things like Jasmine rice from Thailand are running out in US stores. Thai restaurants are serving up California rice for the first time. Production in Thailand is unaffected, nothing is closed there. But shipping

Re:

[buravirgil]

There is a big difference between opening a factory (only requires a guard) and restarting production in a way that would fulfill the backlog of orders.

A national work stoppage has not been lifted, but enterprise vital to stability and objectives of regaining productivity are excepted and given daily evaluation to inform evolving protocols. For example, employees of enterprise related to food were excepted (risked) since the beginning to prevent panic hoarding. Social distancing and reduction of congregational exposure was immediately prioritized: Take-out orders only; Shopping only during the day.

China's work stoppage and advisory quarantines across the

Re: It's Not Just Wuhan

[Nidi62]

My mother in law is a teacher at a private that is on break this week. They told all the faculty to take home everything they needed to teach in case the school was closed next week for a few weeks. My sister is a teacher as well and they've mentioned virtual classes at her school, but she is a special needs teacher so not sure how that would work.

Say what....

[Baby Yoda's Daddy]

Calling future customers as "little brats" is a bit harsh.

Re:

[RandomUsername99]

I really doubt this was some concerted effort. They probably were just honestly rating their experience with the app as a substitute for the biggest control force the government had on their lives.

Re:

[Richard Kirk]

Naah, brats they are. But cunning brats. The species is tough. They give me hope: we and the will survive. Meanwhile in the UK we have people fighting in the arena for packs of toilet rolls. They will probably survive too, but I am less happy about that.

Re:

[nagora]

Oh, you and your facts!

I aprooooooove!

[SirAstral]

This is hilarious stuff... way to go youngsters!

yarghhh har harrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Caves of Steel....

[Jhon]

Sounds like the dawn of Spacer culture...

Re:

[pudge]

Hey! I was thinking about you but had no way to get in touch. Ping me somehow!

Re:

[pudge]

Also I wrote a song called Caves of Steel.

https://soundcloud.com/pudgene... [soundcloud.com]

Wow! Chinese kids, Way to go

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The Chinese kids spontaneously coming together and working out a way to defeat a system they feel is unjust is extremely gratifying. This is the next generation of Chinese leaders and proletariat. These kids will game the social score system to death. If they can make this app get 1.5 stars, they will figure out a way to give every chinese citizen a 5 star social score.

Re:

[Solandri]

Difference is the kids are reasonably sure that the government won't raid their home at night, send their family to a work camp, and execute them for rating an app 1 star. Taking a stand when you have nothing on the line is meaningless. What matters is whether or not you're willing to take a stand when it could cost you everything.

Re:

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Well, some chinese young man stood in front of a tank. So if a billion kids do this, may be a few thousand will take a stand.

Re:

[freeze128]

If a billion Chinese stand in front of a tank, then who will assemble my iPhone?

Re:

[clawsoon]

You might've intended that as a joke, but it's unexpectedly deep on the second read.

Re:

[sabbede]

I think you might be reading too much into what is really just kids trying to get out of school.

Old News

[nealric]

Worth noting that this article is dated February 21st. It may or may not be representative of the situation today.

Re:

[sarren1901]

Good thing no one bothers to read articles anyway. We just like to discuss the summary and even that's only a precursor to our normal political bickering.

Wuhan virus is China's fault.

[sabbede]

I don't think we should ever forget, downplay, or help cover up that fact. The virus came from a primitive, unsanitary, and inhumane "wet market" that shouldn't exist in the modern world, and spread because the Chinese government is a pack of corrupt liars.

China's government could have shut down these markets, the same ones that caused previous outbreaks and pay poachers to slaughter endangered animals, but chose to protect them instead. They could have told the truth about what was happening so the re