COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US) (11 Viewers)

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It's not really a 'mystery virus' though some media have been calling it that. It's a previously unknown ("novel") coronavirus. But they have sequenced it and we understand it . . . there's already a diagnostic test available.

It is picking up pace though. We're now up to over 200 cases in China and a handful abroad including in Thailand, Japan, and ROK (South Korea) - probably elsewhere, as the city in which it originated (Wuhan) is a transportation hub.

Three people have now died from the Wuhan flu. It's still too early to get reliable mortality rates but it seems lower than SARS. Coronaviruses, however, are believed to mutate easily so a novel coronavirus with a propensity to be lethal always trouble epidemiologists greatly because transmission and mortality can seem manageable for a while but a mutation to a more dangerous virus is always possible.
Wuhan flu ain’t nuthin to **** with
 


The piece starts out with a preface that the virus is "getting stronger" - but I don't think I have seen anything to that effect. Has anyone else?

It's interesting that they point out that the animals being sold in the Wuhan market are similar to animals being sold at other markets in China and Hong Kong. It is believed that SARS originated in bats and was then transmitted to civet cats sold in markets - and ultimately from the cats to humans. Though the Wuhan market calls itself a seafood market, the presence of mammals fits the known coronavirus origination - more so than from seafood.

But I don't think it's particularly persuasive that the animals generally sold in the markets "may explain the spread" of the Wuhan virus . . . mainly because we're not seeing clusters associated with those other markets. Instead, the best explanation for the spread so far (and one that has been feared since the novel virus was first observed) is that Wuhan is a major transportation hub. Large numbers of domestic and international travelers move through Wuhan daily.

Until new cases are being attributed to a different market, the story remains that it began in the Wuhan market and has been transmitted person-to-person for patients that weren't ever at that market.

The total number of cases now exceeds 300 and four have died (still too early to take a rate from those numbers). But some analysts (in the UK for example) believe that the number of cases in the Wuhan area is actually much higher than being reported. That might not be true, but if it is and given how many people move through Wuhan, it could get reach pandemic if it transmits fairly easily P2P.
 
Interesting announcement from Beijing: don't cover up the spread of the virus in the name of protecting the regime. This appears in response to some criticism that the
Chinese government appeared to be making some of the same mistakes it made with SARS in not being candid and in, originally, keeping international experts out.

Beijing on Tuesday warned cadres not to cover up the spread of a
mysterious new coronavirus that started in central China, saying anyone who withheld information would face severe punishment and be “nailed on the pillar of shame for eternity”.

Chang An Jian, the official social media account of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission – Beijing’s top political body responsible for law and order – ran a commentary on Tuesday telling cadres not to forget the painful lessons of Sars and to ensure timely reporting of the current situation.

More than 700 people were killed around the world by the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2002-03, which originated in China.

“Anyone who puts the face of politicians before the interests of the people will be the sinner of a millennium to the party and the people,” the commentary read.

 
Death toll is now six.

Another crazy tidbit - the city of Wuhan is just a town in central China that most of us have never heard of . . . except it has 11 million people! If all 11 million could be considered within the city's limits, Wuhan would be the most populous city in America. If ranked by total metro area, it would be the third most populous, below NYC and LA.

 
First US case is confirmed. The patient had been in Wuhan.

A person in Washington State is infected with the Wuhan coronavirus, the first confirmed case in the United States of a mysterious respiratory infection that has killed at least six people and sickened hundreds more in Asia.

The patient, who was hospitalized with pneumonia last week, recently had traveled to Wuhan, China, where the outbreak appears to have originated, federal officials have found.

 
Chinese officials have told residents of Wuhan "not to leave" the city - imposing a quarantine of sorts, though enforcement isn't clear.

Yikes. That scene in Outbreak comes to mind where the dudes in the 4x4s try to break the quarantine line.

BEIJING — Chinese health authorities sought to impose a quasi-quarantine Tuesday around Wuhan, advising people in the city of 11 million people not to leave, as they stepped up efforts to stop the spread of a mystery virus that has claimed six lives.

With confirmation that the pneumonialike coronavirus can be transmitted from person to person, and with hundreds of millions of Chinese packing onto public transport to make their annual pilgrimages home for the Lunar New Year, a new sense of panic has erupted here.

Long lines formed at pharmacies and convenience stores around the country as people rushed to buy surgical masks, with unlucky customers posting photos on social media of bare shelves. People around the country canceled their trips home for the Spring Festival, as new year celebrations are known, the most important holiday on the Chinese calendar.



Also, one of the lead medical investigators has caught the virus.

A leading Chinese doctor investigating the killer coronavirus has admitted he has caught the SARS-like infection.

Wang Guangfa, who heads the department of pulmonary medicine at Beijing's Peking University First Hospital, was part of a team of experts that earlier this month visited Wuhan, where the virus first emerged.

'I was diagnosed and my condition is fine,' Dr Wang told Kong's Cable TV. He said he is receiving treatment and will have an ‘injection’ soon.

Dr Guangfa is one of the national experts that previously said the pneumonia-causing virus, which has never been seen before, was under control.

 
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Health officials now openly questioning the accuracy of China's case reporting. Two separate analyses (based on infectious disease modeling) have the total number of cases in excess of 1,300 - but the total number of reported cases is below 400.

Health authorities across Asia are concerned the outbreak of the mysterious new coronavirusis larger than Chinese authorities have stated, amid a surge in the number of people infected in mainland China and as three other countries in the region confirm cases.

The number of people confirmed to have contracted the disease on the mainland jumped from 41 to more than 300 this week, with six deaths so far, while Thailand has reported two cases and Japan, Taiwan and South Koreahave reported one case each of the virus – which is in the same family as the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers) viruses.

“It is hard to believe [the official number of] cases, but there are all these cases popping up in so many neighbouring countries,” said Piotr Chlebicki, an infectious disease expert at Mount Alvernia Hospital in Singapore who worked on the nation’s Sars epidemic. “China has a track record of under-reporting cases, so the true picture may be completely different.”

 
Health officials now openly questioning the accuracy of China's case reporting. Two separate analyses (based on infectious disease modeling) have the total number of cases in excess of 1,300 - but the total number of reported cases is below 400.




What? The Chinese are lying about this?
I'm just shocked I tell yah...shocked!
 
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