Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

26
The World Health Organization (WHO) has refused to classify this new virus as an international emergency because there are few international cases, but it is an emergency in China.
Wuhan - home to around 11 million people - is now rapidly building a new 1,000-bed hospital to deal with the increasing number of victims. The project will "solve the shortage of existing medical resources" and would be "built fast [and] not cost much... because it will be prefabricated buildings". Videos have been circulating on social media, reportedly taken by Wuhan residents, showing long queues at local hospitals.
Earlier, information from China's National Health Commission, when the death toll was 17, said the youngest person who died from the virus was 48 and the oldest was 89.

Most victims were elderly and suffered from other chronic diseases including Parkinson's and diabetes.
We now know this is not a virus that will burn out on its own and disappear. Only the decisions being made in China - including shutting down cities - can stop it spreading. Scientists have revealed each infected person is passing the virus onto between 1.4 and 2.5 people. It is known as the virus's basic reproduction number - anything higher than 1.0 means it's self-sustaining.

Those figures are early estimates, but put coronavirus in roughly the same league as Sars. There are two crucial outstanding questions - who is infectious and when are they infectious. The fact only 25% of reported cases are severe is a mixed blessing.

Yes, that is less dangerous than Sars, but if those hard-to-detect mild or maybe symptomless cases are contagious too, then it is much harder to contain. And we still don't know when people are contagious. Is it before symptoms appear, or only after severe symptoms emerge? One is significantly harder to stop spreading than the other.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51230011
“To address the insufficiency of existing medical resources,” Wuhan is constructing a hospital modeled after the Xiaotangshan SARS hospital in Beijing, Wuhan authorities said in a Friday notice. The facility will be a prefabricated structure on a 270,000-square-foot lot, slated for completion Feb. 3.

The SARS hospital was built from scratch in 2003 in just six days to treat an outbreak of a similar respiratory virus that had spread from China to more than a dozen countries and killed about 800 people. The hospital featured individual isolation units that looked like rows of tiny cabins.
Chinese officials have not said how long the shutdowns of the cities will last. While sweeping measures are typical of China’s Communist Party-led government, large-scale quarantines are rare around the world, even in deadly epidemics, because of concerns about infringing on people’s liberties.

Recalling the government’s initial coverup of SARS, many Chinese are suspicious of the case numbers reported by officials. Authorities in turn have been keen to pledge transparency. China’s cabinet, the State Council, announced Friday that it will be collecting information on government departments that have failed in their response to the new outbreak, including “delays, concealment and underreporting of the epidemic.”
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/st ... s-hospital


It is now thought that kraits and cobras sold at the seafood market in Wuhan were the source of the virus. Kraits and cobras hunt bats among other food sources.
Snakes -- the Chinese krait and the Chinese cobra -- may be the original source of the newly discovered coronavirus that has triggered an outbreak of a deadly infectious respiratory illness in China this winter.The many-banded krait (Bungarus multicinctus), also known as the Taiwanese krait or the Chinese krait, is a highly venomous species of elapid snake found in much of central and southern China and Southeast Asia.
In the case of this 2019 coronavirus outbreak, reports state that most of the first group of patients hospitalized were workers or customers at a local seafood wholesale market which also sold processed meats and live consumable animals including poultry, donkeys, sheep, pigs, camels, foxes, badgers, bamboo rats, hedgehogs and reptiles. However, since no one has ever reported finding a coronavirus infecting aquatic animals, it is plausible that the coronavirus may have originated from other animals sold in that market.
The study of the genetic code of 2019-nCoV reveals that the new virus is most closely related to two bat SARS-like coronavirus samples from China, initially suggesting that, like SARS and MERS, the bat might also be the origin of 2019-nCoV. The authors further found that the viral RNA coding sequence of 2019-nCoV spike protein, which forms the "crown" of the virus particle that recognizes the receptor on a host cell, indicates that the bat virus might have mutated before infecting people. But when the researchers performed a more detailed bioinformatics analysis of the sequence of 2019-nCoV, it suggests that this coronavirus might come from snakes.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/22/health/s ... index.html

The seafood market in Wuhan thought to be the source of the virus was closed and fully sanitized, so it may be difficult to find the exact source. At first it was thought that civets were the source of SARS, but it wasn't until 2017 that bats were found to be the source animal.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

27
There's a second case in the US, in Chicago. Sixty-three patients from 22 states are under investigation.

https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coro ... index.html
JUST IN: Second US case confirmed by CDC
From CNN Health’s Elizabeth Cohen and John Bonifield

A second case of the Wuhan coronavirus in the United States has been identified in Chicago, the US Centers for Disease Control and Preventions said in a Friday press briefing.

The patient is a Chicago resident in her 60s. She is in isolation at a hospital in the city.

The woman flew from Wuhan to Chicago on January 13. Since she was not ill while traveling, health authorities do not think she spread the virus during that time. Health authorities say she has had limited close contacts since returning to Chicago.

Sixty-three patients from 22 states are under investigation.

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

30
lurker wrote: Fri Jan 24, 2020 2:54 pm lovely. another reason to avoid cities.
lurker wrote: Fri Jan 24, 2020 2:54 pm lovely. another reason to avoid cities.
Yes, cities can be hazardous to your health along with planes, trains, buses and other enclosed areas. One report said that police, SWAT and paramilitaries were at train and bus stations in affected cities to make sure they stayed closed. Any large areas where people could congregate were also closed - movie theatres, clubs, sports facilities and even internet cafes. They better keep TV and radio running along with internet and wifi to keep people inside.

What's concerning is that the Chinese police state wasn't open about SARS in early 2000 and Xi and his loyal followers could be again lying about this emergency. That and reports that the existing hospitals in Wuhan, a city of 11 million are already overflowing and they are rushing to build a new 1000 bed hospital that will open February 3rd. It makes me question the number of cases being reported. Bet NSA has a lot of satellites looking at Wuhan and other Chinese cities to see what's happening.

MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London are watching this very closely. Imperial College London is a major science university like our Cal Tech and MIT plus it has a very well known medical school.
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-i ... ronavirus/

From CDC
Risk Assessment

Outbreaks of novel virus infections among people are always of public health concern. The risk from these outbreaks depends on characteristics of the virus, including whether and how well it spreads between people, the severity of resulting illness, and the medical or other measures available to control the impact of the virus (for example, vaccine or treatment medications).

Investigations are ongoing to learn more, but person-to-person spread of 2019-nCoV is occurring. It’s important to note that person-to-person spread can happen on a continuum. Some viruses are highly contagious (like measles), while other viruses are less so. It’s not clear yet how easily 2019-nCoV spreads from person-to-person. It’s important to know this in order to better assess the risk posed by this virus. While CDC considers this is a very serious public health threat, based on current information, the immediate health risk from 2019-nCoV to the general American public is considered low at this time. Nevertheless, CDC is taking proactive preparedness precautions.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/summary.html

Hoping CDC and other western labs will give us updates soon in this specific virus, media hypes and the public needs facts.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

32
featureless wrote: Fri Jan 24, 2020 5:26 pm I keep reminding myself that flu kills a lot more and has a vaccine I haven't remembered to get yet... So I must not be very worried about it.

It's hard to know what's going on in China though. Locking down 10 million people seems odd for a flu-like mortality. Who knows.
It's not too late, I was between doctors so got mine at a pharmacy. Your health insurance should cover it, mine did. Public health departments usually do it no charge.

We need more information on the virus, but so far CDC and state and local health agencies are not putting out emergency alerts except don't travel to Wuhan area. Perhaps the quarantine is more for economic reasons than health ones, China is a police state so they don't have to explain. At least one UK university is warning Chinese students that if they travel to China for Lunar New Year they could be quarantined when they return.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/dpk/diseases- ... -2020.html
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

34
The spread of a deadly new virus is accelerating, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned, after holding a special government meeting on the Lunar New Year public holiday. The country is facing a "grave situation" Mr Xi told senior officials, according to state television. The coronavirus has killed at least 41 people and infected some 1,400 since its discovery in the city of Wuhan.

Travel restrictions have already hit several affected cities. And from Sunday, private vehicles will be banned from central districts of Wuhan, the source of the outbreak.

A second emergency hospital is to be built there within weeks to handle 1,300 new patients, and will be finished in half a month, state newspaper the People's Daily said. It is the second such rapid construction project: work on another 1,000-bed hospital has already begun. Specialist military medical teams have also been flown into Hubei province, where Wuhan is located. The urgency reflects concern both within China and elsewhere about the virus which first appeared in December.

The US, France and Russia are among several countries trying to evacuate their nationals from Wuhan, reports say.
t has also spread to Europe, with three cases confirmed in France. Tests in the UK on 31 people have come back negative, the government has said. Officials are trying to trace around 2,000 people who have recently flown to the UK from Hubei province.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51249208
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

36
China said on Saturday that it would suspend all tour groups and the sale of flight and hotel packages for its citizens headed overseas, starting on Monday.
The Beijing city government also announced on Saturday that it would suspend all inter-province buses from Sunday, effectively limiting road travel into the capital.

The measures, taken hundreds of miles from Wuhan, where the outbreak of a novel coronavirus began, were a sign that concerns over the spread of the outbreak have crept close to central government offices and the ruling Communist Party’s seat of power.
The authorities in Wuhan said they would also speed up the customs process for donated supplies, as hospitals in the city raise the alarm about a shortage of hospital gowns, surgical masks and other necessities.

A notice posted Saturday on the website of the city’s customs agency said that new channels were being put in place to ensure that donations were put to immediate use. Overseas donations will be exempted from tax duties, the notice said.
Travel restrictions in Wuhan and 12 other cities have essentially penned in 35 million people on the country’s biggest holiday, normally a time for traveling to visit family.
Mr. Xi demanded strong efforts to provide medicine and other supplies, a point of anger among many doctors and medical workers in Wuhan who have complained about a shortage of protective masks, gowns and other safety equipment.
The State Department has ordered all American employees at the United States Consulate in Wuhan to leave the city, as a lockdown imposed on central China expanded, the United States Embassy said on Saturday.
The United States government is arranging a charter flight to evacuate American diplomats and citizens on Sunday, according to a person familiar with the plan. The plane would likely take evacuees to the West Coast of the United States, this person said.

Medical staff would be aboard the plane to screen passengers, and evacuees who were not American diplomatic officers would be responsible for the cost of the flight, according to the person briefed on the plan.
The medical journal The Lancet published a study on Friday suggesting that people infected with the coronavirus might be able to spread it even if they do not have flu symptoms.

Researchers studied a family of seven in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, five of whom had traveled to Wuhan, the center of the outbreak. Two of them came into contact with an infected relative in a hospital there. Testing conducted days later, after they flew home, found that six members of the family had the coronavirus, including one who had not gone to Wuhan.

One infected family member, a child, had no symptoms, suggesting that people with the virus might be spreading it without knowing that they have it, the study found.

“It shows this new coronavirus is able to transfer between person to person, in a hospital setting, a family home setting, and also in an intercity setting,” Yuen Kwok-yung, an author of the study, said in an interview. “This is exactly what makes this new disease difficult to control.” Dr. Yuen characterized the disease as “asymptomatic walking pneumonia.” The researchers cautioned that the study was limited to early cases of the virus, and that it was difficult to assess risk factors at this stage. But they stressed the importance of quarantining patients as early as possible, given the early signs of asymptomatic transmission.
As footage and photos appeared to show medical workers in white coats wailing from the stress of working several consecutive shifts, many social media users used forums to accuse the government of failing to provide adequate support to physicians working on the front lines of the outbreak.

Many also blamed officials for failing to supply new protective gear and testing kits to hospitals facing shortages.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/25/worl ... virus.html

15 new deaths announced, one of those was a 63 yr old ear, nose and throat specialist who recently retired.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

37
Surgical masks are flying off shelves in some US like Chicago and New York.
Dr David Carrington, of St George's, University of London, told BBC News "routine surgical masks for the public are not an effective protection against viruses or bacteria carried in the air", which was how "most viruses" were transmitted, because they were too loose, had no air filter and left the eyes exposed. But they could help lower the risk of contracting a virus through the "splash" from a sneeze or a cough and provide some protection against hand-to-mouth transmissions.

A 2016 study from New South Wales suggested people touched their faces about 23 times an hour.
Dr Connor Bamford, of the Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine, at Queen's University Belfast, said "implementing simple hygiene measures" was vastly more effective.

"Covering your mouth while sneezing, washing your hands, and not putting your hands to your mouth before washing them, could help limit the risk of catching any respiratory virus," he said.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51205344

It's flu season, I have hand sanitizers and disposable hand wipes always available and use them. I'm not a germophobe but with asthma and being over 60 I take precautions.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

38
N95 masks don't make much sense when you consider most people don't know to take them off, dispose of them, then disinfect your hands, face and clothes to prevent huffing up the virus that's all over your skin and clothes. Plus, just like the cold and flu, the eyes make a great entry point. Recall the ebola doctors wore tyvex suits and respirators and were hosed down with a bleach solution before taking off the ppe. Best just stick with frequent hand washing and keep the booger hooks our of your nose and eyes.

If things get bad, best course of action is stay home. Here's hoping I don't need my modest mountain of Mountain House dehydrated earthquake preps!

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

39
featureless wrote: Sat Jan 25, 2020 12:27 pm N95 masks don't make much sense when you consider most people don't know to take them off, dispose of them, then disinfect your hands, face and clothes to prevent huffing up the virus that's all over your skin and clothes. Plus, just like the cold and flu, the eyes make a great entry point. Recall the ebola doctors wore tyvex suits and respirators and were hosed down with a bleach solution before taking off the ppe. Best just stick with frequent hand washing and keep the booger hooks our of your nose and eyes.

If things get bad, best course of action is stay home. Here's hoping I don't need my modest mountain of Mountain House dehydrated earthquake preps!
Exactly and in China where the government requires people to wear masks and there is a shortage of masks, they are just germ carriers.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

41
He makes some good points, but CDC is still going with low risk for the US and WHO still hasn't declared an international emergency. Some advisers to CDC though are frustrated with the amount of information coming from China.
Advisers to the CDC say a lack of data from China about the Wuhan coronavirus is curtailing international efforts to quell the outbreak.

While the advisers commended the Chinese researchers for mapping the virus's genome in just a few weeks, they said there's a glaring lack of basic epidemiological evidence about who's getting infected with the virus and how it's spreading. "This is Epi (epidemiology) 101," said Dr. William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and a longtime CDC adviser. "I don't want to denigrate our Chinese colleagues, but when information is not presented clearly, you have to wonder."
The CDC advisers said since there's no vaccine against this new virus, public health efforts, such as catching cases early and instituting quarantine rules, are crucial. But they say it's hard to know whom to quarantine and for how long without knowing how people are getting infected, at what point and for how long they're capable of spreading the virus to others.
But the CDC advisers said that's not nearly enough. They said there are very specific pieces of information about the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus that are still missing.

Among them: Of more than 600 cases, how many contracted the virus from handling animals at the market where the virus emerged and how many contracted it from people who had been at the market?

Among those who never went to the market, are they family members of the people who got infected at the market or colleagues who sit next to each other at work? Or maybe they don't know anyone who is sick and it's unclear where they caught it?
Looking at that chain of infection, are people spreading the disease before they have symptoms, while they have symptoms or after they've recovered?
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/23/health/w ... dex.html
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nC ... c-response
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

42
highdesert wrote: Sat Jan 25, 2020 2:05 pm He makes some good points, but CDC is still going with low risk for the US and WHO still hasn't declared an international emergency. Some advisers to CDC though are frustrated with the amount of information coming from China.
The CDC and WHO won't have enough information to declare an international emergency until there's overwhelming evidence. By then, the declaration will be just as meaningful as driving a car using only the rear-view mirror. There's too much inertia in our 'mature' systems to properly respond to rapidly changing events.

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

44
senorgrand wrote: Sat Jan 25, 2020 4:43 pm I kinda feel this is all over-hyped. There are a billion people in China and there are what, like dozens of infected?

Seems like the risk of this virus is about the same of shark attack plus lightening strike.
I guess one could say there are some unit of 'dozens' infected in China. One hundred eight dozen.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/worl ... virus.html
Nationwide, more than 400 new cases of the virus were diagnosed, officials said early Saturday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in China to nearly 1,300.

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

45
AndyH wrote: Sat Jan 25, 2020 5:16 pm
senorgrand wrote: Sat Jan 25, 2020 4:43 pm I kinda feel this is all over-hyped. There are a billion people in China and there are what, like dozens of infected?

Seems like the risk of this virus is about the same of shark attack plus lightening strike.
I guess one could say there are some unit of 'dozens' infected in China. One hundred eight dozen.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/worl ... virus.html
Nationwide, more than 400 new cases of the virus were diagnosed, officials said early Saturday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in China to nearly 1,300.
so, one chance in a million
Image


"Person, woman, man, camera, TV."

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

48
The annual influenza viruses that we get immunized against every year, start in Asia - large populations that live close to animals. SARS started in southern China and had a 9.6% fatality rate higher than this virus, but we don't know if China is releasing real fatality numbers, they could be hiding them to prevent panic and reassure the world that they have control over the emergency. Besides a human toll there is an economic toll that China is very sensitive to. Some of us will recall 1986 and Chernobyl and how the Russians lied through that emergency.

I think it's something to be aware of and follow, but there's still a low chance of infection.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

49
This year, lost most others, the flu shot being passed around doesn't hit the active strains. This new virus, though, isn't like flu. There's no herd immunity for this new stuff. It's going to spread around the globe because of the nature of humans and travel. Best bet is for one to keep their immune system up with decent sleep and plenty of water, and keep a stash of echinacea and L-lysine. Viruses need a weakened immune system to take hold (echinacea helps boost that, along with the other stuff we should already be doing), and L-lysine slows or stops viral replication.

Mr Big - it's only a million to 1 if we think linearly. Nature doesn't. 1,2,4,18,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024, 2048... Nature works in exponentials.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Ahrefs [Bot], Semrush [Bot] and 3 guests