Regarding masks, all the literature I've read stated that surgical type masks are designed to keep the wearer from spreading their disease to others by acting as a barrier to keep as many virus or germ filled water droplets contained as possible instead of being released into to the environment, it does nothing to prevent the wearer from inhaling any virus particles that could be in the air as there are too many gaps between the mask and wearer to form a good seal. One caveat, because surgical masks acts as an physical barrier, it does provide protection for the wearer in instances where they were in a position of contact with water droplets directly from an infected person, i.e., if an infected person is in close proximity and sneezed or coughed in your direction, a surgical mask will help in lowering the exposure to any viruses or germs contained in the water droplet that you might otherwise be directly projected into your eyes, nose, and/or mouth. If an infected person sneezed or coughed into the air in general, on the hand, any virus particle present will be mixed with the surrounding air particles after the water droplet has evaporated, waiting for an unfortunate individual to inhale this cocktail of foul air through the gaps in the the surgical mask.

Can Face Masks Protect You From Catching Coronavirus?
news.columbia.edu/[...]

Interim Guidance for the Use of Masks to Control Seasonal Influenza Virus Transmission
news.columbia.edu/[...]

Another type of mask in the headlines is the N95 mask, they are referred to as respirators. As the name implies, they work by acting as a filter filtering out 95% of dangerous particles in the air before reaching the respiratory tract. In order to for these to work effectively though, they must be form-fitted to achieved said tight seal. A drawback to N95 masks is that breathing becomes difficult after long periods of use because they restrict airflow. Exercising while wearing one is not recommended.

As a matter of policy, N95 masks do not work as well as they should because most non-healthcare workers do not follow proper procedures when using these masks, therefore it is much more effective to focus efforts on other disease preventing protocols such as washing hands.

Effectiveness of N95 respirators versus surgical masks in protecting health care workers from acute respiratory infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868605/

There is what the CDC recommends on how to prevent infection of the Coronavirus.
www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/about/prevention.html

@pideh390
Here is update #7 which addresses your concern regarding the current mortality rate being inaccurate due to a lag between hospitalization and death.

Coronavirus Epidemic Update 7: Global Health Emergency Declared, Viral Shedding
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW3xqcGidpQ

In case you cannot access the video, the long and short of it is:

1) Yes, the phenomenon you've cited is valid. Once the epidemic is over and all patients discharged, an official mortality rate will be calculated and recorded.

2) But because we are currently in the middle of the outbreak and we need a metric, however inaccurate, to measure the progression of the disease. And so, it is standard practice to use current numbers as the metric.

3) Based on past experiences, during an outbreak where tests kits might be in limited quantities (as is the case here), those that died will be tested to help track the disease and thus is prone to be more accurate, although still under counted. Only those that are very sick or have prolonged symptoms will be tested, that leaves the strong possibility that there is a large percent of cases where people just weren't sick enough to be tested and get better on their own without being hospitalized. And so, the true current morality rate is very likely to be lower and not higher than the calculated mortality rate.

4) The change in mortality rate is more important than the actual number. In other words, if the mortality rate holds steady at 2.2%, when the final mortality rate is calculated at the conclusion of the epidemic it might be somewhere in the range of 1.1% ~ 4.4%, it is very unlikely to jump up to 10% or 20%

5) A recent case in Germany involved a Chinese women from Wuhan in town for a company meeting. She infected 2 people and 1 of the 2 initial victims in turn infected two more for a total of 4. While all 5 patients develop symptoms, they did not require hospitalization.

Another point outside the scope of the video. The mortality rate I've been mentioning throughout this thread is the mortality of hospitalizations and not of the disease. Using this metric, the morality rate of flu is (61K death / 810k hospitalizations) 7.5%

With an official number of suspected cases standing at 15,238, the morality rate of the virus so far is (213 / (9810+15238)) 0.85%

Hope this puts your mind at ease.

@herenow,

I think after much back-and-forth, all necessary arguments have been made on either side and there is a fair amount of literature available now for people to make sense of what's going on if they so wish to be informed. I am glad we can come to a satisfactory conclusion.

I do want to make one final observation to wrap up our conversation though. Your concern towards the current epidemic is reasonable and understandable however illogical. Back in the day, every time a slight tremor was felt, all the neighbors are abuzz about the "big one" and everyone runs out to buy a disaster aid kit, but overtime, their concern becomes diminished, they fail to maintain the disaster aid kit and become unprepared until the next tremor reminded them again. All the while, their risks to the "big one" never changed.

As I alluded to in my mentioning of prior outbreaks earlier in this thread, people were vigilant about SARS and Avian flu for a short time after containment but sure enough, everyone went back to their old ways without a care in the world when the virus, even as we speak, is still in the wild ready to strike at any moment. If the public have learnt their lesson from previous outbreaks and formed sanitary habits such as washing hands and effective sterilization of public places, then they wouldn't have to worry about this current outbreak in the first place.

The main reason I started this thread really, was not to discount the seriousness of this virus or to diminish the vigilance, be rather to point out that if we are vigilant as a society on a daily basis then we wouldn't need to be so afraid and panicked of any new outbreaks. I believe there is a correlation on why a lot of recent viral or disease outbreaks are in developing countries where sanitation standards are not as stringent and not in more developed countries.

If we are so caviler and willfully ignorant about the known dangers around us, isn't it hypocritical to then be overtly cautious when a new unknown risk crop up?

Anyway, stay warm and stay healthy.

Here is a medical channel giving daily updates of the corona virus, while not an official source, they do cite official numbers and provide medical opinion and analysis. VPN reqiured.

And amidst all the discussion of the number of deaths, lets not lose sight of the fact that 176 patients have been cleared of the virus and discharged from the hospital.

MedCram - Medical Lectures Explained CLEARLY
www.youtube.com/user/MEDCRAMvideos/videos

Coronavirus Outbreak 1: Transmission & Updates Explained
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vMXSkKLg2I

Coronavirus Outbreak 2: Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment, & Vaccine Status
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCG3xqtcL3c

Coronavirus Outbreak 3: Spread, Quarantine, Projections, & Vaccine
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJBYwUtB83o

Coronavirus Outbreak 4: How Coronavirus Kills: Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) & Treatment
www.youtube.com/watch?v=okg7uq_HrhQ

Coronavirus Outbreak 5: Mortality Rate vs SARS / Influenza
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN9-UXsvPBY

Coronavirus Outbreak 6: Asymptomatic Transmission & Incubation Period
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGxgNebx1pg

And here is a CNN report on the characteristics of the epidemic.

Coronavirus declared a global health emergency
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHBOJtFK9V0

@herenow

You've made a lot of good points, most of which I have already provided a counter point in my previous arguments so I will not remunerate them again, interested parties can go back and re-read them.

It is your right, of course, to feel concerned and take what precautions you feel necessary to protect yourself and your loved ones, my purpose here is not to convince you otherwise, only to provide a logical justification on why I have not bought into the panicked yet. If there is any personal agenda hidden in all of this then it is the slight annoyance felt from the inconvenience brought on by the travel restrictions and the heavy handedness in which policies have been implimented.

There are, however, are some factual inconsistencies and logical fallicies that I feel require further ananlysis. The first one being the currently calculated mortality rate of 213 deaths out of 9720 confirmed cases, is still consistent with the 2.2% that is holding throughout. SARS and MERS was roughly at 10% and 33% respectively as Geezer pointed out above.

Further more, to compare this epidemic to the SARS epidemic as being more serious is a strawman argument given that only 8000 cases were diagnosed. Using this low bar then, there are a plethora of disease that meet this threshold and we should be equally be concerned and panicked over those.

One final analysis, much of the fear and hysteria surrounding the current epidemic is mostly due to the initial overexposure by the media and subsequent public reaction. Imagine a tally board showing the number of confirmed flu cases inching up minute by minute and waking up to an ever increasing death toll of the flu and you might come to the same conclusion that this flu season is very serious, much more serious than SARS.

As an aside, to use your hurricanes analogy, as a matter of public policy and safety, there needs to be a balance between an imminent threat and the economic disruption that results from any policy enacted. Cities are evacuated based on the known, assessed strength and the imminence of the danger. An evaluation order will not be issued if the strength of the hurricane is undetermined or speculative, and the breadth of possible landfall is too broad.