Novel Coronavirus COVID-19

[gaius]

Well I'm glad you've gone 40 years without getting AIDS sincere, and that jspice has avoided getting the bubonic plague, herpes, whooping cough, salmonella poisoning, schizophrenia, the seven year itch and all the other things he listed in his world travels, but all that's pretty irrelevant to what's happening right now. 

Right now, we let many plane fulls of people who might be infected into the country, and who might infect others in the coming weeks. Or maybe we'll get lucky and they won't. Do whatever you feel is best. But as a guy who remembers what happened 40 years ago, you'll be the worst off if the worst does happen.

[basil67]

On 2/1/2020 at 8:16 AM, pepperbird said:

My brother's working in Singapore and travels all over Asia/Australia/New Zealand.  he hasn't reported seeing any cases or hearing much panic. That's good. A calm response is what's needed, not panic.

No, not much panic here.   Though we will be quarantining travellers coming from mainland China.    Can't buy P95 masks here - they've all been sold out for some time because of the highly polluted air due to bushfires.   

Come to think of it, everyone I know is still more upset about the fires (many of which are still out of control) than the virus.   Perhaps we'd be more worried about the virus if there wasn't already a disaster here.  

Edited February 3, 2020 by basil67
typo

[Noproblem]

Well, a case was found in the hospital 2 blocks from my house and i go to health professional grad school, next to that hospital, so yay I guess.

[major_merrick]

So far it doesn't seem to be spreading anything but fear.  Which is quite contagious locally.  I'd expect that if it is going to do something, we're going to find out in the next week or so.  If it doesn't, call it another false alarm like SARS or bird flu.

[carhill]

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/locations-confirmed-cases.html

I didn't see any updates on mutation/reinfection. I got introduced to 'bugs' at an early age, getting pneumonia at age 5 and reading Michael Crichton's then-new novel on germ warfare a few years later. I noticed this in some of the CDC literature:

Quote

In addition, cases asymptomatic spread of the virus have been reported.

Reminded me of Typhoid Mary and the history of disease in humans. We take a lot for granted with modern medicine.

[Libby1]

It doesn't seem to be spreading in other countries at anything like the rate it spread in China - and other than the Philippines, no fatalities outside China.  I just don't know what to make of it.  We know China is doing some seriously atrocious stuff.  The Xinjiang "re-education" camps in which various people of faith (mainly Muslim) are kept.  The UN being repeatedly told that China is targeting religious minorities for organ harvesting.   Typing this stuff out, I feel like a conspiracy theorist because it's so crazy and out there...but this is stuff that has been covered widely by respected mainstream media outlets...but somehow it just doesn't seem to generate shock.

Footage of struggling people being forced into ambulances is incredibly chilling.  I don't doubt that there's a serious problem with coronavirus, but this is an oppressive communist state.  I can't help but wonder about the kind of atrocities the Chinese authorities might be carrying out right now, in plain sight, under explanation that the measures are necessary to contain the virus.

 

Edited February 3, 2020 by Libby1

[elaine567]

 The cases and deaths are doubling every 4-5 days.
It is the asymptomatic incubation period that is troubling and the fact that asymptomatic people may be spreading the disease silently.
By the time they are symptomatic they may have infected countless others.
We also do not know the consequences of having the disease.
Are survivors completely cured, or are they going to be left with long term health problems?
Is there a carrier state?
It is all just too early to tell. It has only been a month.

Vaccines will not be ready for preliminary testing till summer as reported today.
 

[gaius]

From what the authorities said they think the virus started spreading back in mid December in the Wuhan market. Since the average incubation period was around 5 days it took about a month to pass from the first victims to the next, then incubate, then to another wave of people and so on, into a recognizable problem. Currently we're 6 weeks in from when it started in China but still in the first few weeks of exposure in other countries. But we have been exceptionally fortunate so far. Every case I've read about in the US involved someone who didn't go out much after they arrived back from China. And usually in a place that isn't heavily reliant on the subway.

Apparently most of the top infection people have come to a consensus that it's inevitable this is going to turn into a pandemic.

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/481185-as-coronavirus-spreads-a-pandemic-is-likely

I don't know if I agree with that, but the we're still early in the fight and the possibility is certainly still there. We'll see.

[pepperbird]

personally, i don't see any value on the statistics surrounding this disease. It often presents symptoms similar to the common cold or flu, so there could have been many more people who were sick with it, got better and never knew what was causing their illness. If this is true then the mortality rates being quoted  in the media are useless.

[RecentChange]

I live in an area with one of thehighest Chinese population in the world outside of China.

My area has the most positive cases in the country.... 11. 

I am far....far from panicked.

So far the positive cases have been confined to those who traveled to China (ie it didn't get picked up at the store)

I still shopped at the Asian grocery this weekend, rode the subway in San Francisco. 

I have been washing my hands more frequently with extra hot water.

[mark clemson]

I'm confused. AIDS has killed and still kills plenty of people. Why would anyone who's sexually active with multiple partners assume it's not a worry?

Do you think all these Chinese people are having sex with each other to transmit the new coronavirus (and that's not being reported) or  ??

 

Some recent stats:

https://www.who.int/gho/hiv/epidemic_status/deaths/en/

https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/statistics

[Gaeta]

15 hours ago, pepperbird said:

personally, i don't see any value on the statistics surrounding this disease. It often presents symptoms similar to the common cold or flu, so there could have been many more people who were sick with it, got better and never knew what was causing their illness. If this is true then the mortality rates being quoted  in the media are useless.

China says 17,000 infected with the virus and 300 some dead BUT since when can we rely on China's information. It could be 1 million infected and 3000 dead. China is known for lying and withholding information. I have close Chinese friends that immigrated here 20 years ago. They stand strong on their belief China is lying about the number of people infected and dead from this virus.

[pepperbird]

I sure didn't take long for the nasty comments to start...

A woman I went through school with and I keep in touch through social media, and she adopted a daughter form China about 10 years ago. Poor kid is starting to get picked at by some of the other students, claiming she's spreading the disease Kid stuff, but it still hurts her.

[elaine567]

China said the death toll rose to 425 people and the number of infected people stood at 20,438 in the mainland. 
4th Feb figures.

[gaius]

It's unfortunate that Chinese and Asian people are being targeted. And it's especially unfortunate that Chinese food restaurants are losing customers. From what I understand most of the restaurateurs run on tight margins and work their butts off. I don't think most of them spend a whole lot of time traveling back and forth to China. It's more likely a student from a rich family or a retiree that would have been in Wuhan recently.

[Els]

2 minutes ago, gaius said:

It's unfortunate that Chinese and Asian people are being targeted. And it's especially unfortunate that Chinese food restaurants are losing customers. From what I understand most of the restaurateurs run on tight margins and work their butts off. I don't think most of them spend a whole lot of time traveling back and forth to China. It's more likely a student from a rich family or a retiree that would have been in Wuhan recently.

I've not seen that happening here, fortunately, and to be honest it's pretty ridiculous. Mark Zuckerberg has probably been in China a lot more recently than many of those people, flight tickets are expensive and if you are working til midnight every day to make ends meet, you probably aren't going to be throwing that sort of cash around a lot.

[major_merrick]

Targeting is happening here too.  Lots of people aren't eating at the Chinese restaurants, even though they still go to other ones.  To me, that's silly.  If it is out there and contagious, you'll get it whether you eat at the Chinese buffet or KFC.  And from what I've seen, when Chinese folks go back to China, it isn't like they are going for a weekend.  They usually go for several weeks, because plane tickets are expensive and they can only afford it once every few years.  The likelihood of running into someone who has just come back from a vacation in China is very, very slim.  Unless you live around a lot of wealthy business folks and professionals. 

[Libby1]

16 hours ago, Elswyth said:

I've not seen that happening here, fortunately, and to be honest it's pretty ridiculous. Mark Zuckerberg has probably been in China a lot more recently than many of those people, flight tickets are expensive and if you are working til midnight every day to make ends meet, you probably aren't going to be throwing that sort of cash around a lot.

I haven't seen or heard it happening where I live either.  I think if cases break out locally, people will be more reactive to any signs of other people having the sniffles than to what they look like.  I think the situation in some parts of Canada might be different because in the SARS 44 Canadians died, so that'll ramp up the fear factor for some of those who remember it last time around.

Unpleasant as racism is, though, I don't think it compares to the oppressive behaviour a lot people in China encounter from their own government and its agencies . I wonder about the extent to which some of the outrage about people behaving ignorantly over this is a somewhat manufactured way to distract people from some of the stories of life in China and what's going on right now that are being leaked by dissidents and pounced on by China's censors.   

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/opinion/coronavirus-china-government.html

It's odd, how the world seems so keen to turn a blind eye towards the persecution of minority groups in China.  Sometimes it feels as though social media has groomed society to be more distressed by ignorant comments made by individuals than it is by genuine persecution at state level.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/24/islamic-leaders-have-nothing-to-say-about-chinas-internment-camps-for-muslims/

Edited February 5, 2020 by Libby1

[basil67]

Is it "targeting"?  Or is it just staying away from areas considered to be higher risk due to clientele?    Now, we aren't avoiding any stores because there is no hysteria here.  However, I was in a Chinese grocery store a few days ago and was surprised to see many Asian shoppers wearing masks.  When people of the same race recognise that they are more at risk with their own,  I call it 'logic' rather than 'targeting'.  

 

Edited February 5, 2020 by basil67

[Libby1]

2 hours ago, basil67 said:

Is it "targeting"?  Or is it just staying away from areas considered to be higher risk due to clientele?    Now, we aren't avoiding any stores because there is no hysteria here.  However, I was in a Chinese grocery store a few days ago and was surprised to see many Asian shoppers wearing masks.  When people of the same race recognise that they are more at risk with their own,  I call it 'logic' rather than 'targeting'.  

 

The only person I've seen wearing a mask so far was an Asian woman.  It's more of a norm in Asia, which is probably why nobody was giving her funny looks, but if I went out wearing one you can bet I'd get laughed at.  I was talking to a pharmacist about it, and she said "it's not a stupid question" (ie me asking if they had any).  That normally outside of a clinical setting people would only be advised to wear them if they have an infection themselves, to avoid passing it on. 

I see the Diamond Princess cruise ship had at least 10 infected passengers on board.  The rest of the 2600 plus passengers will spend the next two weeks quarantined in their cabins.  Can't imagine many of them will be very keen to go on any other cruises for a while - no matter how plush their cabins might be.

Edited February 5, 2020 by Libby1

[carhill]

A bit above my pay grade but might be useful to some...biological research....

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.26.919985v1.full

 

[Els]

On 2/5/2020 at 10:32 PM, Libby1 said:

Unpleasant as racism is, though, I don't think it compares to the oppressive behaviour a lot people in China encounter from their own government and its agencies . I wonder about the extent to which some of the outrage about people behaving ignorantly over this is a somewhat manufactured way to distract people from some of the stories of life in China and what's going on right now that are being leaked by dissidents and pounced on by China's censors.   

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/opinion/coronavirus-china-government.html

It's odd, how the world seems so keen to turn a blind eye towards the persecution of minority groups in China.  Sometimes it feels as though social media has groomed society to be more distressed by ignorant comments made by individuals than it is by genuine persecution at state level.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/24/islamic-leaders-have-nothing-to-say-about-chinas-internment-camps-for-muslims/

There is a lot of oppression going on in China, but (1) this is pretty much the case in the vast majority of the developing world, China is not an exception, and (2) not really relevant to the topic IMO.

On 2/5/2020 at 8:18 PM, basil67 said:

Is it "targeting"?  Or is it just staying away from areas considered to be higher risk due to clientele?    Now, we aren't avoiding any stores because there is no hysteria here.  However, I was in a Chinese grocery store a few days ago and was surprised to see many Asian shoppers wearing masks.  When people of the same race recognise that they are more at risk with their own,  I call it 'logic' rather than 'targeting'. 

It's common in some cultures to wear a mask all the time, coronavirus or not.

[pepperbird]

This virus illustrates a flaw in our health care system. If people here get sick, enough that they feel they should be seen quickly, they usually head tot he ER or walk in. That's bad, as if they have anything contagious, they will spread it to whomever sat in the crowded waiting room with them. They have to sit and wait even before they are triaged, and there's times when, if the ER gets crowded, they get turned away and told to either go to a different hospital or come back first thing in the morning.

[lana-banana]

Have people spent no time in south Asia? Everyone there wears masks when they're sick. It's not about any particular virus. I wish we did that here, versus people coming in to work and then sickening the entire office.

It's disgusting that people are so racist and ignorant that they're avoiding Asian markets and restaurants. 99% of those sickened were literally in China, and the other 1% had very close contact with someone who immediately had been there. Unless you are regularly interacting with people who just got off a plane from China, and that's less likely than ever now that flights have stopped, you should be fine.

[2BGoodAgain]

On 1/24/2020 at 12:23 PM, gaius said:

It's airborne and deadly. Hundreds, if not thousands of people have already been infected and it's in the US, at 2 ports of entry at least. The confirmed case in Chicago apparently was carrying it for 11 days in the US before they caught on.

Has the next true pandemic started? 🤔Or will it just be another Ebola dud.

1) if i heard right, you can spread it before showing any symptoms

2) as for airborne... so is the flu, the cold, etc... just disinfect your hands, avoid people who cough... mebbe wear a mask.

great pandemic... we shall see...

when you think about it statistically... over 30,000 people died of the flu last year... in the US alone... but it's just the flu, right? whereas the current corona virus is 500? 700? forget... and the reported cases are prob understated, so statisically could be equal to the flu. Of course the flu, you know when someone has the flu when they infect someone b/c they have symtoms, whereas this current corona virus, no symtoms. 

pros and cons....