Novel Coronavirus

[TerryLL]

Agreed. The Spanish Lady shows us how bad it might become. No indication yet that it will get that bad, but the signs are troubling. It wasn't children or the old and infirm who died in massive numbers in 1918, but healthy young people in the prime of life.

[WX]

So, 80 dead and nearly 3,000 infected now.

[skuthorp]

I suspect it's gotten away, a matter now of how infectious it is and how effective China's and our health and quarantine services are.

[skuthorp]

We are seeing lots of footage of Hubei Province, the air quality looks appalling, unless it's just fog of course.

[skuthorp]

Scientists in Victoria have taken the first step to a vaccine by managing to copy the virus in a lab. The Peter Doherty Institute. The two previous 'wild sourced' viruses out of China still do not havs a vaccine.
And the 1st human to human transmission has been proven, a bus driver who drove infected people.

[CK 17]

US citizens are being evacuated via kalitta...

2DDEF856-67D3-4674-BCA3-8093098872A4.jpg

[Corvida]

6057 infected, 132 dead, 110 recovered as of this posting.

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/a...23467b48e9ecf6

Updates have been at least daily so far.

[bluedog225]

The world seems remarkably misguided on how a quarantine is supposed to work.

I saw a video of a reporter in a van with her crew describing how they were getting out of town in the early hours of the morning just in time to avoid being trapped.

[Sailor]

Why flag Lima? Quebec is the quarantine flag. This is ramping up, my buddy a couple of days ago suggested things are ratcheting up by 50% daily and that we'd see 125-130 more dead the next day. This morning, we woke to exactly 130 more. I am not daring to guess at what we'll see but with such a long incubation period and cases already in many other parts of the world, I think we'll be hard pressed to keep things well contained. The CBC news reported on my drive home tonight that we should not worry at all. If we haven't been to China and we haven't associated with one of the 3 cases in Canada, we have nothing to worry about. I suspect that plays to the let the pros do their work from a previous comment. But if it does start popping up more and more rapidly, we could be in for some truly bad news. I hope the Doctor on CBC radio was right.

[skuthorp]

"my buddy a couple of days ago suggested things are ratcheting up by 50% daily"

My thoughts as well, it's doing well in the Pandemic stakes round one.
Meanwhile planeloads of Chinese tourists pour into destinations all over the world with only a questionaire as a barrier. If you had paid for a holiday, flown half way across the world and felt a bit sniffley, would you put yourself in? I sneeze at the drop of a hat, so do many others.

[bluedog225]

I thought Lima was modern.

I had to look up Shubenacadie. Looks like an interesting place to boat. Highest tides in the world?

One day, I’d like to travel up that way. Would love to kayak around Halifax.

[George.]

Finally some reliable and useful data:

Three of the 206 people who returned to Japan from Hubei Province on Wednesday tested positive for the new coronaaaavirus, with two not showing any symptoms, Japan Health Minister Katsunobu Kato told a parliamentary committee.

So 3 out of 206, or 1.5% of a random sample, had the virus, and two-thirds of those were asymptomatic spreaders.

Wuhan alone has 11 million people. It may have around 160,000 infected. That is pretty much what UK researchers had calculated last week.

5 million people left the area before the quarantine, according to the mayor of Wuhan. That works out to up to 50,000 asymptomatic spreaders wandering around the world.

It really does not look like this will be contained.

BTW, multiplying the death rate by the infection rate, that would lead to 3200 dead in Wuhan alone.

[skuthorp]

They are searching for a planelaod of passengers on a domestic flight here. One passenger, ex a China flight, was unwell but travelled anyway and called an ambulance from his home.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

The panic is worse than the pandemic. So far this virus has killed fewer people than some middle managers at Boeing.

[George.]

Not a valid analogy. The 737 Max was grounded. This virus is still flying.

It has reached India. Perhaps not the best public health system in the world. Imagine if it kills 1.5% x 2% of the population there, or even half that number.

[epoxyboy]

A couple of days ago, i flew Christchurch NZ/Singapore/Kuala Lumpur/Bintulu (Sarawak, Borneo).
Almost zero mask usage at the NZ end, maybe 25% usage at Changi, at least 50% usage at KLIA, and back to single digits in Bintulu.
On the aircraft, less than half the cabin crew were masked on each flight. If mask usage equates to concern, its an interesting snapshot of where public perception is at.

Pete

[StevenBauer]

What kind of mask did you wear?

[Reynard38]

I get the feeling we are not being told everything about this virus.

[willmarsh3]

I might be driving for Easter instead of flying. I also shudder to think where this thing might be by Easter.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Perhaps not in Antarctica.

[TomF]

It's gonna continue to ramp up. For all that it's not endemic anywhere yet, the virus doesn't display symptoms until a carrier has already had the opportunity to infect a whack o' people. And its mortality rate is also relatively low, which paradoxically will assist in its spread. Think about it: a microorganism is more successful to the degree that it doesn't actually kill its host, but instead is able to use its live host to find more and more habitat.

This virus is "successful" in that it evades early detection, replicates before that detection can happen, and is easily enough spread that it can flood a population of potential hosts fairly quickly. And doesn't kill off hosts before they pass it on.

I figure that a good portion of the daily increase in the attributed deaths are because epidemiologists are retroactively confirming deaths which have already occurred. And that this kind of tracking of hotspots and vectors of infection will reveal any number of geographical areas which have been put at risk before folks knew that what got Aunt Mildred sick was this coronavirus, rather than something else.

We're overdue, and it isn't just the migrating wildfowl that transport viruses over intercontinental distances anymore. We've created our own far more efficient vectors, and they tend to route through major cities rather than through wetlands out in the boonies where geese and ducks feed.

[amish rob]

It's gonna continue to ramp up. For all that it's not endemic anywhere yet, the virus doesn't display symptoms until a carrier has already had the opportunity to infect a whack o' people. And its mortality rate is also relatively low, which paradoxically will assist in its spread. Think about it: a microorganism is more successful to the degree that it doesn't actually kill its host, but instead is able to use its live host to find more and more habitat.

This virus is "successful" in that it evades early detection, replicates before that detection can happen, and is easily enough spread that it can flood a population of potential hosts fairly quickly. And doesn't kill off hosts before they pass it on.

I figure that a good portion of the daily increase in the attributed deaths are because epidemiologists are retroactively confirming deaths which have already occurred. And that this kind of tracking of hotspots and vectors of infection will reveal any number of geographical areas which have been put at risk before folks knew that what got Aunt Mildred sick was this coronavirus, rather than something else.

We're overdue, and it isn't just the migrating wildfowl that transport viruses over intercontinental distances anymore. We've created our own far more efficient vectors, and they tend to route through major cities rather than through wetlands out in the boonies where geese and ducks feed.

Thank goodness we’ve been abusing the hell out of antibiotics for the past few decades, eh?

Peace,
Captain Tripp

[TomF]

A fine argument to hold the EBS soon, and form our own node.

[Steve McMahon]

A couple of days ago, i flew Christchurch NZ/Singapore/Kuala Lumpur/Bintulu (Sarawak, Borneo).
Almost zero mask usage at the NZ end, maybe 25% usage at Changi, at least 50% usage at KLIA, and back to single digits in Bintulu.
On the aircraft, less than half the cabin crew were masked on each flight. If mask usage equates to concern, its an interesting snapshot of where public perception is at.

Pete

I had a similar experience. On the 19th when I flew to Houston there was not a mask in sight. When I flew Houston to Calgary on the 25th, probably one in 100 people had on a mask, including one flight attendant of Asian decent. Most of the people I saw with masks were also of Asian decent. When I flew home from Calgary to Newfoundland on the 28th there were a lot more wearing masks especially at the Toronto airport. Most but not all were of Asian decent. There were a few people on the Calgary to Toronto leg wearing masks (300 pax 777-200), but none on the Toronto to Newfoundland leg (60 pax Regional Jet).

When the SARS outbreak hit they said a N95 mask provided protection. I'm not sure, but I thought I heard it wouldn't help as much with this one.

[StevenBauer]

this guy has lived in China for years. He just moved back to the US. He has lots of connections in China still.

[George Jung]

First documented 'person to person' transmission in Chicago; person living with someone who caught it in China. Fasten yer seatbelts.

What I'm reading is - mask isn't worth much. Handwashing, more so.

[George.]

Mask is to keep you from spreading it to others.

The thing to watch now is the case counts and death tolls in cities outside Wuhan, where the virus arrived later and screening started soon after. If those start to spike as well then things are bad.

[wizbang 13]

Masks... paper masks.. hahahahaha
stock up on elderberries if yer really afearin

[TomF]

Yeah. Our public health folks say that in this virus' case, the mask isn't as effective as it was thought to be for SARs.

[skuthorp]

The tourist market, reliant on planeloads of Chinese, could subvert much of any other measures.

WHO declares a Global Health Emergency.
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/he...7e150dd2a9062e

There are mixed messages from China re the infection status of those not yet showing symptoms. If they have gotten that wrong then all bets will be off. Imagine such an infection in a country less able to take centralised action than China?

[John of Phoenix]

8236 cases, 171 deaths, 143 recovered.

An additional 453 cases since this morning.

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/a...23467b48e9ecf6

[epoxyboy]

What kind of mask did you wear?

I didnt on the way here. If there had been anybody coughing/sneezing, I might have been more tempted.
Going home middle of next week, it's had two weeks to get worse. I do have a 3M respirator mask which is bit of a step up on the surgical masks that you see most people wearing. But come food service time, all the masks come off, people are touching food, touching surfaces etc, so i really question their effectiveness. I was actually thinking that if you set out to design a disease vector, you couldn't do much better than the in-flight entertainment touch screens!
My worry right now isn't coronavirus, it's dengue fever. I went for a walk this morning, and got bitten by one b'stard mozzie. Incubation time is 3 to 7 days, and I'm due to head home right in the middle of that. As there were only ten new cases reported last year in this area, I would have to be pretty unlucky, but I'll know by the end of next week one way or the other. Can't wait!

Pete

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Britain has two reported cases as of this morning.

[John of Phoenix]

9776 cases, 213 deaths, 187 recovered. Holding steady at about a 2% fatality rate.

1540 additional cases in about 16.5 hours.

[George.]

In France, a doctor caught it from a patient that came from China.

Hopefully it was a very careless doctor. Otherwise it spreads quite easily.