Coronavirus Outbreak

[boatgeek]

*If* the Chinese numbers are accurate. But, as the video I posted earlier pointed out, China's numbers are suspect. If there are only 2700 cases in Wuhan, a city the size of London with 14,000 hospital beds, then why are hospitals overwhelmed and running out of supplies, and why does China have a crash construction program to build two new hospitals with 3000 more beds? Something doesn't add up.

Then again, even with the numbers currently available, why are other nations, including ours, even allowing flights from hot zones to land, or at least to de-plane passengers? Especially true if, as reported, carriers can be asymtomatic *and* contagious for up to two weeks.

On your first point, we don't really know what the status of the hospitals in Wuhan was before the outbreak. If they normally operated with most or all beds full, it wouldn't take very many additional cases to make a few hospitals look really bad on a few days. We probably wouldn't see pictures of a hospital with nobody in the waiting room because that isn't newsworthy. For context, London needs about 20,000 hospital beds for normal operations. If Wuhan is the same size, they were probably already 6K beds short of what they should have had, which is what they're building out now.

 

[afadeev]

24 Jan 2020 data:

OK, if we take the above R0 and Mortality rates at the face value, the new Coronavirus has the same fatality rate as the whooping cough, and way lower transmission rate (similar to seasonal flu).

So, why are we all freaking out?

This is cute, though:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/28/denmark-refuses-apologise-china-coronavirus-cartoon/

 

[Mushtang]

Plane with 200 Americans flying in from Wuhan lands in California. What could go wrong?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ericans-flight-arrival-california/4607093002/


All passengers had already been through two screenings in China and were monitored during the flight, said Alaska Health Department spokesman Clinton Bennett.

In Anchorage, all passengers were screened twice more and approved to continue on to California by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In California, they were undergoing additional health screenings.

Health officials in California working with the CDC were rescreening the passengers, who will be "temporarily housed for a period of time," Bennett said. He did not say how long the quarantine would last.

 

[tim cubbedge]

So, why are we all freaking out?

Not all of us are.

 

[shreadvector]

Not all of us are.

 

[Peartree]

So, why are we all freaking out?

This is cute, though:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/28/denmark-refuses-apologise-china-coronavirus-cartoon/

Not freaking out. But, since every member of our household is in a "high risk" category because of where we work, who we work with, or our own age and health conditions, it is a matter that I find to be worthy of my attention.

I was amused by the statement of the Chinese embassy that the "crossed the ethical boundaries of free speech" and "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people." Clearly, their understanding of "free speech" is different than ours. If offensive speech is prohibited, then you don't really have free speech, do you? Shoot, if we banned offensive speech, we wouldn't have to worry about idiots like the KKK, etc.

 

[Ez2cDave]

 

[Cl(VII)]

OK, if we take the above R0 and Mortality rates at the face value, the new Coronavirus has the same fatality rate as the whooping cough, and way lower transmission rate (similar to seasonal flu).

So, why are we all freaking out?

I'm not freaking out, but the comparison to Whooping Cough isn't relevant because most of us are vaccinated against it. It is part of the Tdap vaccine which many people get every 10 years or so for tetanus. We in the US anyway, are vaccinated past the herd immunity point on that one, so you typically only see sporadic cases, or very localized outbreaks.

 

[Winston]

JANUARY 28, 2020
Coronavirus outbreak could peak in ten days: Chinese expert

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-01-coronavirus-outbreak-peak-ten-days.html

Health expert says there's no way to predict when coronavirus will peak

https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-01-29-20-intl-hnk/index.html

An expert from the World Health Organization said the peak of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak can't be predicted.

"There is no scientist nor sage on the planet that will tell you when the peak of this epidemic will occur," Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, told reporters today.

"The peak will occur as soon as we put together a package of interventions that are designed to stop the virus," Ryan added. "So we need to focus not on where the peak is; we need to focus on our actions in the coming days and weeks."

Ryan's comments come the day after Zhong Nanshan, the director of China’s National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Disease, told China’s State News Agency Xinhua that he expects the novel coronavirus outbreak to possibly reach its peak in one week or around 10 days from now.

Previously, professor Gabriel Leung, chair of public health medicine at University of Hong Kong, predicted that the peak would come between mid-May and mid-April for major city clusters in mainland China.

 

[Winston]

A Chinese lab says the new virus has snake characteristics, but it might have begun due to close proximity of snakes to bats in a Chinese "wet market." Former "starvation cultures" like China have weird tastes acquired when they had to eat anything that could be eaten, disgusting things (search for "bat soup" images) which are now considered "delicacies" simply by tradition and the novelty attraction. They can be found in these "wet markets." One advantage of a totalitarian government is that they could or could at least try to shut these damned human disease factories down. They banned them in Wuhan on Jan 22nd, but they should ban them everywhere.

How Do Bats Live With So Many Viruses?
They are considered the probable source of the coronavirus outbreak spreading from China. It turns out that they may have an immune system that lets them coexist with many disease-causing viruses.
29 Jan 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/science/bats-coronavirus-Wuhan.html

Excerpts:

If previous outbreaks of coronavirus are any indication, the Wuhan strain that is now spreading may eventually be traced back to bats.

Dr. Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, who has been working in China for 15 years studying diseases that jump from animals to people, said, “We don’t know the source yet, but there’s pretty strong evidence that this is a bat origin coronavirus.” He said, “It’s probably going to be the Chinese horseshoe bat,” a common species that weighs up to an ounce.

If he’s right, this strain will join many other viruses that bats carry. SARS and MERS epidemics were caused by bat coronaviruses, as was a highly destructive viral epidemic in pigs [I think they're referring to the current "Pig Ebola" in China which has wiped out 30 to 50% of all hogs there.

One bat can host many different viruses without getting sick. They are the natural reservoir for the Marburg virus [that's a really nasty one - the book Biohazard has the story of a Soviet bioweapons scientist who caught it while working and closely documented its effects during his horrible path to death - W], and Nipah and Hendra viruses, which have caused human disease and outbreaks in Africa, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Australia. They are thought to be the natural reservoir for the Ebola virus. They also carry the rabies virus, but in that case the bats are affected by the disease.

Their tolerance of viruses, which surpasses that of other mammals, is one of their many distinctive qualities. They are the only flying mammals, they devour disease-carrying insects by the ton...

Wuhan coronavirus may have been transmitted to people from snakes
22 Jan 2020

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...-have-been-transmitted-to-people-from-snakes/

The source of the infection is suspected to be a food market in Wuhan that was visited by several of those first infected with the virus. The market is known to sell live wild and farmed animals, including marmots, birds, rabbits, bats and snakes.

To find out if the virus might have come from one of these animals, Wei Ji and colleagues at Peking University in China compared the genomes of five samples of the new virus with 217 similar viruses collected from a range of species.

Their analysis suggests that the new virus looks similar to those found in bats, but is most like viruses seen in snakes, genetically speaking. “Results derived from our sequence analysis suggest for the first time that snake is the most likely wildlife animal reservoir,” they wrote.

“We are excited about this new speculation,” says Haitao Guo at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, who reviewed the study. “We need more experimental evidence, but it gives us a clue,” he says.

The new virus may have formed as a result of viruses from bats and snakes combining, which can happen when two types of animal are kept in close quarters, as can happen in food markets, says Peter Rabinowitz at the University of Washington in Seattle.

The virus may then have passed to people through the air, says Rabinowitz. “It’s still speculation, but if the virus is in the secretions or faeces of the snakes, it would be possible to aerosolise and be breathed in if there were enough snakes and enough people,” he says.

 

[Winston]

Pathologist's update for 29 Jan 2020.

 

[Winston]

Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of 99 cases of 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan, China: a descriptive study
Published Online
January 29, 2020

https://marlin-prod.literatumonline.com/pb-assets/Lancet/pdfs/S0140673620302117.pdf

[snip]

Methods
Study design and participants

For this retrospective, single-centre study, we recruited patients from Jan 1 to Jan 20, 2020, at Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan, China. Jinyintan Hospital is a hospital for adults (ie, aged ≥14 years) specialising in infectious diseases.

[snip]

Discussion

This is an extended descriptive study on the epidemiology and clinical characteristics of the 2019-nCoV, including data on 99 patients who were transferred to Jinyintan Hospital from other hospitals across Wuhan. It presents the latest status of the 2019-nCoV infection in China and adds details on combined bacterial and fungal infections.

[snip]

The mortality of SARS-CoV has been reported as more than 10% and MERS-CoV at more than 35%.. At data cutoff for this study, mortality of the 99 included patients infected by 2019-nCoV was 11%, resembling that in a previous study. However, additional deaths might occur in those still hospitalised.

We observed a greater number of men than women in the 99 cases of 2019-nCoV infection. MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV have also been found to infect more males than females. The reduced susceptibility of females to viral infections could be attributed to the protection from X chromosome and sex hormones, which play an important role in innate and adaptive immunity. Additionally, about half of patients infected by 2019-nCoV had chronic underlying diseases, mainly cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and diabetes; this is similar to MERS-CoV. Our results suggest that 2019-nCoV is more likely to infect older adult males with chronic comorbidities as a result of the weaker immune functions of these patients.

 

[cwbullet]

100 vs 8000. This year there have been 8000 influenza-related deaths and 100 for Coronavirus. I am far more worried about influenza.

 

[PXR5]

Very true .

 

[Ez2cDave]

Personally, I don't think we are getting "honest numbers", out of China. I believe the number of cases & deaths is much higher. China refused help from the CDC. Something is "fishy".

https://www.foxnews.com/health/us-health-officials-on-coronavirus-outbreak

 

[shreadvector]

100 vs 8000. This year there have been 8000 influenza-related deaths and 100 for Coronavirus. I am far more worried about influenza.

"This year" is not over yet.

The Fun Ships:

https://www.foxnews.com/travel/7000...ronavirus-passenger-suspected-symptoms-report

You are all PERFECTLY safe to go to the gym, the mall, school, etc.

And those people preparing your fast food are not sick at all. Eat up.

 

[shreadvector]

Person-to-person transmission of coronavirus reported in US, CDC says

https://www.foxnews.com/health/person-to-person-transmission-coronavirus-reported-in-us-cdc

Even Pravda is reporting this:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/30/health/coronavirus-illinois-person-to-person-cdc/index.html

 

[Ez2cDave]

 

[cwbullet]

"This year" is not over yet.

The Fun Ships:

https://www.foxnews.com/travel/7000...ronavirus-passenger-suspected-symptoms-report

You are all PERFECTLY safe to go to the gym, the mall, school, etc.

And those people preparing your fast food are not sick at all. Eat up.

Unless it mutates significantly, it is not as virulent or deadly as Flu. I am not worried in slightest, yet.

 

[Ez2cDave]

Unless it mutates significantly, it is not as virulent or deadly as Flu. I am not worried in slightest, yet.

My biggest concern is the relatively long incubation period and the fact that people are contagious, well before any symptoms start to appear.

Dave F.

This is mighty "convenient" . . .

https://endoftheamericandream.com/a...navirus-was-filed-in-2015-and-granted-in-2018

The population of Wuhan is over 11 MILLION people . . . Remember, exposed people are contagious BEFORE they are symptomatic !

https://nypost.com/2020/01/27/half-...d-town-before-lockdown-raising-risk-of-spread

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/asia/china-wuhan-coronavirus-maps.html

https://geoawesomeness.com/track-china-coronavirus-real-time-map-global-cases-death-wuhan


You can track the spread here . . .

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

 

[NateB]

100 vs 8000. This year there have been 8000 influenza-related deaths and 100 for Coronavirus. I am far more worried about influenza.

Agreed. This fact has been glossed over by the media and still people are dismissive that influenza is a serious illness.

We have been well over 100% capacity for weeks and the largest competitor in town is also full and had been on EMS diversion on and off for the last 2 months. Flu season started early this year and it has been a bad one. We also have local nursing homes quarantined RSV outbreaks. We have been getting updates from different medical directors and the health commissioner about this Coronavirus and they always end with the reminder that this illness is a lesser concern at this time and influenza is particularly bad this year.

 

[KC3KNM]

This is mighty "convenient" . . .

https://endoftheamericandream.com/a...navirus-was-filed-in-2015-and-granted-in-2018

It's also mighty incorrect.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/01/social-media-posts-spread-bogus-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory/

https://www.politifact.com/facebook...hecking-hoaxes-and-conspiracies-about-corona/

https://www.snopes.com/ap/2020/01/2...online-are-not-related-to-new-virus-in-china/

Sharing things that are obviously false really doesn't help anyone.

 

[cwbullet]

My biggest concern is the relatively long incubation period and the fact that people are contagious, well before any symptoms start to appear.

Dave F.

This is mighty "convenient" . . .

https://endoftheamericandream.com/a...navirus-was-filed-in-2015-and-granted-in-2018

The population of Wuhan is over 11 MILLION people . . . Remember, exposed people are contagious BEFORE they are symptomatic !

https://nypost.com/2020/01/27/half-...d-town-before-lockdown-raising-risk-of-spread

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/asia/china-wuhan-coronavirus-maps.html

https://geoawesomeness.com/track-china-coronavirus-real-time-map-global-cases-death-wuhan


You can track the spread here . . .

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

The long incubation period is a concern, but you have to remember it is likely much less communicable prior to the symptoms unless you are swapping spit with the infected person. Currently, it is spread by physical contact and fomite. It is not believed to just jump into the air and spread from person to person. The best thing you can do is bathe in purell and keep your hands to yourself. Be like Monk till this passes and you will significantly lower your odds of exposure.

The incubation period is not 14 days. It is 2-14 days with most cased being on the 2 days end.

Then again, you could hole up in your closet till this passes.

 

[Ez2cDave]

It's also mighty incorrect.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/01/social-media-posts-spread-bogus-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory/

https://www.politifact.com/facebook...hecking-hoaxes-and-conspiracies-about-corona/

https://www.snopes.com/ap/2020/01/2...online-are-not-related-to-new-virus-in-china/

Sharing things that are obviously false really doesn't help anyone.

https://www.jacksonville.com/article/20120928/NEWS/801246493

 

[KC3KNM]

https://www.jacksonville.com/article/20120928/NEWS/801246493

The beauty of fact checking sites is that they cite sources.

I don’t expect you to blindly believe what I’ve posted, but it would be nice if you’d look through the sources and realize that the link you posted is absurd.
​

Also, did you even read what you just posted? Or just copied the first response that came up
when you googled “fact checkers are bad”? “These fact-finders all help to arrive at the truth. But we believe that confirming accuracy through multiple sources and original reporting is the best guarantee.“ Seems to promote logical use of “fact finders” and researching the sources cited within them.

 

[Ez2cDave]

The beauty of fact checking sites is that they cite sources.

I don’t expect you to blindly believe what I’ve posted, but it would be nice if you’d look through the sources and realize that the link you posted is absurd.
​

Also, did you even read what you just posted? Or just copied the first response that came up
when you googled “fact checkers are bad”? “These fact-finders all help to arrive at the truth. But we believe that confirming accuracy through multiple sources and original reporting is the best guarantee.“ Seems to promote logical use of “fact finders” and researching the sources cited within them.

Every "fact checker" you cited is biased Left, hardly an open-minded group to get "facts" from.

Meanwhile, people are dying, due to the Coronavirus, and it is spreading . . . Fact !

 

[KC3KNM]

Every "fact checker" you cited is biased Left, hardly an open-minded group to get "facts" from.

Meanwhile, people are dying, due to the Coronavirus, and it is spreading . . . Fact !

This mindset is the problem with the United States (and realistically the world) today. This partisan crap is getting unbearable.

If you believe or refuse to believe something based on the color of the tie the person speaking is wearing... you’ve got something much worse than the Coronavirus already.

 

[Ez2cDave]

This mindset is the problem with the United States (and realistically the world) today. This partisan crap is getting unbearable.

If you believe or refuse to believe something based on the color of the tie the person speaking is wearing... you’ve got something much worse than the Coronavirus already.

Unfortunately, this is the polarized, partisan, politically-divided, racially-divided, religiously-divided, morally-divided country that the United States has become, in the 21st Century.

The "color of the tie" means nothing, but the "agenda" means everything.

I will not engage in any further exchanges with you, except as pertains directly to the Coronavirus outbreak and I suggest that you do the same.


Back on subject . . . As of 9:30 pm, last night, there are 9,776 cases of Coronavirus, worldwide. 213 people have died, while 187 have recovered from the virus, according to this source.

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Dave F.

 

[Winston]

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/uk-confirms-first-cases-coronavirus-countries-ignore-who

Summary for 31 Jan 2020:

- UK confirms first two coronavirus cases after multiple scares
- First person-to-person spread confirmed in US - wife of infected husband
- Confirmed cases in China rise to 9,692 from 7,700 a day earlier
- Risk mood hits stocks
- Impact of virus "not fully reflected" in rigged China PMI number
- At least two-thirds of China's economy to stay shut
- Goldman disagrees with Ross, says virus blowback will wipe 0.4% off US GDP growth
- The U.S. and Japan advise citizens to avoid traveling to China.
- Hong Kong schools shuttered until March 2
- Singapore closes borders to Chinese travelers, first southeast Asian nation to do so.
- More than 43 airlines cancel flights to China
- France successfully evacuates citizens
- 1,000 suspected virus cases 'under observation' in India
- Russia confirms two cases
- JPM cuts global growth forecast
- United allows pilots to decline trips to China
- Delta expands China cancellations through April
- American cancelling all flights to and from China on unannounced date after its pilots' union sued the airline to force cancellations; analysts expect the airline will wait a week to start cancelling flights to give customers a way out of China
- Research suggests 75,800 likely infected in Wuhan
- Iran cancels flights to and from China

Tweeted video - Beijing subway completely empty at 1:30pm:

https://twitter.com/kinkumpoop/status/1222029814640435201

Road barrier examples:

Novel Coronavirus vs SARS (interesting that the 11% fatality rate of SARS matches the rate in the Chinese medical study released on 29 Jan 2020 of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus which I posted a link to)

 

[KC3KNM]

I will not engage in any further exchanges with you, except as pertains directly to the Coronavirus outbreak and I suggest that you do the same.

Dave F.

“I suggest that you do the same” sounds a little threatening for a casual conversation on a forum. Might wake up to a horse head in my bed if I’m not careful...