• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Corona virus threat to birding (1 Viewer)

Let's put this in perspective. There are about 8800 cases outside of China, and 81% of those are in Korea, Japan, Iran, and Italy. That leaves 1672 in other countries. And most of those are scattered in miscellaneous countries, not concentrated. What's the population of Europe these days?

Or putting it less snarkily, in most places the incidence is tiny relative to the population, and highly localized. For example, here in the US, most of the cases are associated with a nursing home in Washington State.

For me, I'm not so much concerned about the disease (and I'm almost 60). But I'm concerned about the disruptions due to over-reactions.
 
Jeff hopkins said:
Let's put this in perspective. There are about 8800 cases outside of China, and 81% of those are in Korea, Japan, Iran, and Italy. That leaves 1672 in other countries. And most of those are scattered in miscellaneous countries, not concentrated. What's the population of Europe these days?

Or putting it less snarkily, in most places the incidence is tiny relative to the population, and highly localized. For example, here in the US, most of the cases are associated with a nursing home in Washington State.

For me, I'm not so much concerned about the disease (and I'm almost 60). But I'm concerned about the disruptions due to over-reactions.
Click to expand...

It's easy to get over-excited indeed. Over-reaction includes panic buying eg Australia and elsewhere.

It is early days - but numbers in Germany, Spain and France over 100 each for example, with an upward curve.
 
Jeff hopkins said:
Let's put this in perspective. There are about 8800 cases outside of China, and 81% of those are in Korea, Japan, Iran, and Italy. That leaves 1672 in other countries. And most of those are scattered in miscellaneous countries, not concentrated. What's the population of Europe these days?

Or putting it less snarkily, in most places the incidence is tiny relative to the population, and highly localized. For example, here in the US, most of the cases are associated with a nursing home in Washington State.

For me, I'm not so much concerned about the disease (and I'm almost 60). But I'm concerned about the disruptions due to over-reactions.
Click to expand...

Of course, caution should be in place - just in case things get really bad....BUT, doing a little simple arithmetic reveals that worldwide, 1 in 2,700,000 people have sadly died from this virus.
 
One other thing that occurred to me this morning. Wuhan has some pretty significant air pollution as do most major cities in central China. Given that scientists have been saying that Chinese levels of pollution are hazardous and long-term life threatening, and also that CoVid19 is a respiratory virus, all other things being equal you can bet it will hit Chinese cities a lot harder than it will in other places.

FWIW, Korea doesn't exactly have the cleanest air either, but it's certainly a lot better than China (except of course, when the pollution and dust from China are blown to Korea).

I also wonder how much the prevalence of cigarette smoking is skewing the numbers. The Chinese are notorious smokers. Many of the Koreans I worked with smoked even though they knew they shouldn't. That may even have something to do with the higher risk rates for men over women since significantly more men smoke than women in most countries.

And one last thought related to smoking: There were 68 deaths and 2800 hospitalizations due to vaping last year. Compared to 58 cases of Coronavirus in the US (not associated with the quarantined cruise ship) and 6 deaths. Perspective.
 
Last edited:
Jeff hopkins said:
One other thing that occurred to me this morning. Wuhan has some pretty significant air pollution as do most major cities in central China. Given that scientists have been saying that Chinese levels of pollution are hazardous and long-term life threatening, and also that CoVid19 is a respiratory virus, all other things being equal you can bet it will hit Chinese cities a lot harder than it will in other places.

FWIW, Korea doesn't exactly have the cleanest air either, but it's certainly a lot better than China (except of course, when the pollution and dust from China are blown to Korea).
Click to expand...

At the moment you are probably more likely to die driving to the airport or walking across the road whilst on holiday, all true. How it will all pan out though is an unknown.

You have to look at places like Iran where it wasn't taken seriously at first to see how it can affect people (especially in the older demographic) and if no restrictions are put in place once it has a hold.
 
dantheman said:
How it will all pan out though is an unknown.
Click to expand...

Agree with that. Hard to say what is an over- or under-reaction until we know more. We will probably only know for sure in hindsight; unlike the flu, there is no vaccine for this, so not really comparable. A 2% death rate for the global population at large would result in a staggering amount of deaths. I say prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Unless you are in the U.S., where grossly incompetent boobs are running the executive branch and about all you can do is hope this doesn't become a real crisis.
 
Jim M. said:
Agree with that. Hard to say what is an over- or under-reaction until we know more. We will probably only know for sure in hindsight; unlike the flu, there is no vaccine for this, so not really comparable. A 2% death rate for the global population at large would result in a staggering amount of deaths. I say prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Unless you are in the U.S., where grossly incompetent boobs are running the executive branch and about all you can do is hope this doesn't become a real crisis.
Click to expand...

In reality, the flu vaccine isn't as sure fire as some make it out to be. They guess which strains will be likely in any given year, and give you a blend of vaccines for the three most probable. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don't. In fact, last year, they gotit wrong.

WRT to the Executive Branch, there are hopefully enough competent people left in the actual agencies who do the actual work, that I think we can have a "decent" response, albeit not a robust one.
 
Jeff hopkins said:
In reality, the flu vaccine isn't as sure fire as some make it out to be. They guess which strains will be likely in any given year, and give you a blend of vaccines for the three most probable. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don't. In fact, last year, they gotit wrong.
Click to expand...

I know, but it usually greatly reduces the number of people who are readily susceptible to infection, so the vaccine usually makes it much more difficult for the virus to spread rapidly. Reducing the number of infection targets is often the key to stopping these things according to mathematical models.
 
Jeff hopkins said:
One other thing that occurred to me this morning. Wuhan has some pretty significant air pollution as do most major cities in central China. Given that scientists have been saying that Chinese levels of pollution are hazardous and long-term life threatening, and also that CoVid19 is a respiratory virus, all other things being equal you can bet it will hit Chinese cities a lot harder than it will in other places.
Click to expand...
Another interesting quirk: quite likely that the coronavirus has saved more people from death, than it has killed - due to the reductions in pollution, and road deaths, as a direct result of the shutting down of factories etc.
 
Jim M. said:
I know, but it usually greatly reduces the number of people who are readily susceptible to infection, so the vaccine usually makes it much more difficult for the virus to spread rapidly. Reducing the number of infection targets is often the key to stopping these things according to mathematical models.
Click to expand...

Fair point.
 
Jeff hopkins said:
And one last thought related to smoking: There were 68 deaths and 2800 hospitalizations due to vaping last year. Compared to 58 cases of Coronavirus in the US (not associated with the quarantined cruise ship) and 6 deaths. Perspective.
Click to expand...

But the last time I checked, vaping was a free choice in my country. I chose not to. Getting a virus is, especially if you take all precautions, not a choice.

Only time will tell if the virus can spread. In anyway, I feel that measures taken are always better than no measures taken, especially at this point in time:
If e.g. the US would just let it spread and we get to 100 million infected and take the death rate of around 2-3%, you have 2-3 million people dying. While this sounds like worst-case scenario, would anyone dare to prove this scenario 100% wrong? That is the theoretic potential but as you said, some factors could be at play that increase the death rate in certain parts of the world (pre-existing conditions related to smoking for example), there could be factors increasing the reproduction rate of the virus closer to its source, etcetera.
 
Nutcracker said:
Another interesting quirk: quite likely that the coronavirus has saved more people from death, than it has killed - due to the reductions in pollution, and road deaths, as a direct result of the shutting down of factories etc.
Click to expand...

So its generally a negative thing for the environment then?

I think the thread title is wrong. Frankly its only foreign trips that are at risk from coronavirus. For normal birding from home base, being outside and away from other people is going to be the safe bit of the day. Get out there with your bins and survive the coronavirus! :t:

John
 
Farnboro John said:
So its generally a negative thing for the environment then?

I think the thread title is wrong. Frankly its only foreign trips that are at risk from coronavirus. For normal birding from home base, being outside and away from other people is going to be the safe bit of the day. Get out there with your bins and survive the coronavirus! :t:

John
Click to expand...

Yep, that's how it is. For me "birding" means travel and I do not consider myself being a worse person because of that. The current situation heavily demotivates me from international travel, partly due to many specific circumstances of my life that put me at a high risk of "general trouble" in this time. So I for one see the pandemic as a serious threat to my birding and I am pretty sad and angry about it.
 
opisska said:
Yep, that's how it is. For me "birding" means travel and I do not consider myself being a worse person because of that. The current situation heavily demotivates me from international travel, partly due to many specific circumstances of my life that put me at a high risk of "general trouble" in this time. So I for one see the pandemic as a serious threat to my birding and I am pretty sad and angry about it.
Click to expand...

For anyone feeling hard done by, you might be surprised how rewarding it can be to "look inward" and study other nature on your doorstep. Be it Butterflies, Moths, Flowers, Fungi, etc. there are tonnes of new species to look for in your home county, and low risk of any infection, (until you have to fill your car up with petrol!)
 
Nutcracker said:
It is probably evolving steadily to be less lethal, too - the strains that cause minimal symptoms are the ones most likely to escape notice and get passed on. People with more severe strains are more likely to be noticed, and put in isolation before they pass it on to many others.
Click to expand...

In the First World War, with the Spanish Flu, the opposite happened - the flu evolved to be more serious. It's thought to have been because the most sick soldiers were brought back from the front, so spreading the stronger strains. Fortunately we don't have anything like WWI at the moment, but there are Russian and Turkish soldiers in Syria who might be repatriated in a similar fashion if they fell ill. And Syrian soldiers I suppose too, who might be brought back to Damascus.
 
Last edited:
Warning! This thread is more than 4 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Similar threads

Zeiss
  • Article
Grassland Birds Need Specific Protection
Replies
5
Views
7K
ariban
A
C
Gambia Rainy Season Birding, 1-6 Oct., 2018
Replies
6
Views
3K
Dave Williams
D
P
Two 'non birding' trips to Peninsula Malaysia 2014
Replies
9
Views
4K
andyb39
A
J
BirdLife Internation and NCA say NO to Porto Fayoum
Replies
2
Views
1K
Jenna
J
W
Eagle harrassment by USDA and City of Norfolk, VA
Replies
8
Views
4K
wildpaws
W

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top