<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>strangeloops85</author><text>As many public health experts and virologists are now pointing out (and as I am sure many at CDC have long realized), there&amp;#x27;s no way to know if there&amp;#x27;s community spread without actually testing for it. Current testing capacity is severely limited - which is baffling really, given that Korea is running like 6000 tests&amp;#x2F; days now. Part of it is a logistical &amp;#x2F; technical screw-up:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.politico.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;cdc-coronavirus-116529&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.politico.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;cdc-coronavirus-116...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;For example, if you&amp;#x27;re a doctor with a case of atypical pneumonia, there&amp;#x27;s no way to actually test a patient for it unless there&amp;#x27;s clear China (possibly Hubei!) travel history. And that could take 3-7 days. However, consider the Canadian ER doctor who a few days ago decided to ask for a test for a woman who had traveled back from Iran recently - turned out she had it, and it revealed to us unexpected, but very real vectors of transmission.&lt;p&gt;These technical issues have to be solved, otherwise there&amp;#x27;s no way to distinguish this from regular seasonal flu cases and pneumonias, until - like in Wuhan - the atypical cases bubble up. At that point, it&amp;#x27;s really too late to do much containment.</text><parent_chain><item><author>dkarl</author><text>The article becomes much less edgy if you know what the authorities are actually saying.  For example, the American CDC, in USA Today[1]:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC&amp;#x27;s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters Friday that U.S. health officials are preparing for the coronavirus to become a pandemic.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&amp;#x27;We’re not seeing community spread here in the United States, yet, but it’s very possible, even likely, that it may eventually happen,” she said. “Our goal continues to be slowing the introduction of the virus into the U.S. This buys us more time to prepare communities for more cases and possibly sustained spread.&amp;#x27;&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Sooooo... today&amp;#x27;s edgy &amp;quot;the media and authorities are keeping us in the dark&amp;quot; blog post got scooped two days ago by the CDC and USA Today.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.usatoday.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;21&amp;#x2F;coronavirus-who-contain-outbreak-iran-deaths-south-korea-cases&amp;#x2F;4829278002&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.usatoday.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;21&amp;#x2F;coronav...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now</title><url>https://virologydownunder.com/past-time-to-tell-the-public-it-will-probably-go-pandemic-and-we-should-all-prepare-now/</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>Frost1x</author><text>Following a few comments from experts in the field and looking at some of the data being presented, it&amp;#x27;s fairly obvious this pandemic case was reasonably high. There are of course lots of unknowns models used can&amp;#x27;t account for but that&amp;#x27;s no reason to discard the potential risk entirely.&lt;p&gt;Keep in mind, many of these decisions to avoid &amp;quot;pandemic&amp;quot; talk try to take most holistic views in regards to public safety&amp;#x2F;health. There is a lot of consideration regarding deaths cause by panic actions which are often estimated&amp;#x2F;modeled as well and if panic related deaths and side effects are higher than a current actual threat, it&amp;#x27;s often viewed that the best course of action is to suppress panic until warranted.&lt;p&gt;So lack of pandemic talk doesn&amp;#x27;t inherently mean there is a legitimate reason &lt;i&gt;not to&lt;/i&gt; panic, just that you&amp;#x27;re being given limited information. At the same time you shouldn&amp;#x27;t assume experts, the media, etc. are somehow mass conspiring against your health&amp;#x2F;safety. Assessments are probably reasonable to follow.&lt;p&gt;The best course of action is to also take a holistic look at situations independent of these groups and make your own rational assessment of risks and impact.&lt;p&gt;If you don&amp;#x27;t already have some non-perishable food supplies, you should have completely irrespective of this specific recent viral outbreak--its basic preparedness for emergencies.&lt;p&gt;Some basic preparedness (I&amp;#x27;m not talking bunkers and 2 year food cache craziness) are warranted in general for unpredictable disaster cases so these situations are good reminders for people to check their pantry for food, etc. just in case something awful was to happen, those supplies can help significantly.</text><parent_chain><item><author>dkarl</author><text>The article becomes much less edgy if you know what the authorities are actually saying.  For example, the American CDC, in USA Today[1]:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC&amp;#x27;s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters Friday that U.S. health officials are preparing for the coronavirus to become a pandemic.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&amp;#x27;We’re not seeing community spread here in the United States, yet, but it’s very possible, even likely, that it may eventually happen,” she said. “Our goal continues to be slowing the introduction of the virus into the U.S. This buys us more time to prepare communities for more cases and possibly sustained spread.&amp;#x27;&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Sooooo... today&amp;#x27;s edgy &amp;quot;the media and authorities are keeping us in the dark&amp;quot; blog post got scooped two days ago by the CDC and USA Today.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.usatoday.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;21&amp;#x2F;coronavirus-who-contain-outbreak-iran-deaths-south-korea-cases&amp;#x2F;4829278002&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.usatoday.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;21&amp;#x2F;coronav...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Past Time to Tell the Public:It Will Probably Go Pandemic, We Should Prepare Now</title><url>https://virologydownunder.com/past-time-to-tell-the-public-it-will-probably-go-pandemic-and-we-should-all-prepare-now/</url></story>