Wuhan virus (coronavirus) arrives in the USA

[Anonymous]

4 people on the Japanese evacuation flight from Wuhan were hospitalized as soon as they arrived in Japan.

Japan's health ministry says some people on the flight complained of fevers, coughs and other symptoms. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government says four people with ages ranging from their 30s to their 50s were rushed to hospital.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20200129_33/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"So we have the FCPS student exchange group - 26 or 36? Rather than place them in contained environment ir trailer it's a free roam to cultural sites , hotels, restaurants. If a public entity beings in people from where they might have been exposed and are in an incubation period what's the responsibility? I hav not seen any school board discussions at recent meetings on the topic."

That sounds like a crazy risk to be taking. Especially since DC cultural sites are visited by people from all across the country (and world even) and so could spread the virus even more quickly if one of the kids turns out to have been sick with it.

The children arrived well before the quarantine.

These are kids. What do you think we should do with them? We should host them.

[Anonymous]

My niece was here this past weekend. She’s a pharmacist and has studied in China. She had strep, and had to go to the hospital for testing (note not a local doctor, school doc, etc). She said the hospital had blood on the floor and dirty, tattered blankets given from person to person. NOT the same standards as here in the US or Europe. She ended up getting a yeast infection from the antibiotic, had to go BACK to the hospital to get treated. Here, we’d go by OTC yeast cream at CVS or similar. She said the process was so complicated to simply get treated for a yeast infection she nearly stole the cream from the pharmacy at the hospital. She just wanted to get OUT of that filthy place. And this was in a large city, not a rural town.

Now ask yourself why there’s such pandemonium, death, and spread in China. You will NOT see the same problems here. I think, too, people are forgetting that the flu pandemic happened in 1918 when the medical care, etc was not nearly as advanced as it is here.

Look how studied this already is in our Western countries. It’s nothing short of remarkable how fast our country has mobilized to attack this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anybody have a map where the confirmed cases are in the United States? I was looking online and for some reason I was drawing a blank. I got articles but no map. Also, my kids go to Wootton high school here in Montgomery county. My daughter shared that a lot of the Asian kids are wearing facemasks to school.

Seriously?

Right now you are more at risk for the flu. Currently possibly one in MD not at Wootton.

Yes it’s going to come here and yes all high schools not just Wooton will have it.

?? Where did you get the idea that I thought it was coming to Wootton ? I was just sharing that kids are wearing face masks to school

Thanks for sharing. One note, I think you meant a particular sub group of Asians. In my connections/community of Asians, they don’t wear masks but none from China. In China it seems normal even without this virus. They wear masks everywhere bc it’s smoggy? Take it off at home bc they feel safe with their hepa filters. It’s so normal for them that it’s even in movies. I caught that in Spider-Man homecoming when at the airport there was a family that fit the subgroup wearing masks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From National Geographic:
"
Inspired in part by that case, a team of public health researchers set out to study how random movements about the airplane cabin might change passengers’ probability of infection.

Passengers in window seats have the
lowest likelihood of coming in contact
with an infected person...

...but illnesses are most likely to be
transmitted only to passengers within
one row of the infected person.
Probability of being infected

color codes:
from light green to dark magenta from least to most probability

Light green: Less than 1 percent
Dark green: 5 to 20
Magenta: 80 to 100




The World Health Organization defines contact with an infected person as being seated within two rows of one another.

But people don’t just sit during flights, particularly ones lasting longer than a few hours. They visit the bathroom, stretch their legs, and grab items from the overhead bins. In fact, during the 2003 coronavirus outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a passenger aboard a flight from Hong Kong to Beijing infected people well outside the WHO’s two-row boundary. The New England Journal of Medicine noted that the WHO criteria “would have missed 45 percent of the patients with SARS.”

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/01/how-coronavirus-spreads-on-a-plane/#close

Thanks for posting. japan case of a coach/taxi driver possible transmitted from tourists he drove around. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/29/coronavirus-evacuations-begin-as-china-cases-outstrip-sars
"Late on Tuesday, Japan reported its first possible case of human-to-human transition, involving a coach driver in his 60s who had tested positive after twice driving groups of tourists from Wuhan earlier this month. The man is reportedly recovering."

So we have the FCPS student exchange group - 26 or 36? Rather than place them in contained environment ir trailer it's a free roam to cultural sites , hotels, restaurants. If a public entity beings in people from where they might have been exposed and are in an incubation period what's the responsibility? I hav not seen any school board discussions at recent meetings on the topic.

A second Japanese woman who was I think a tour guide on that same bus just was confirmed to have this virus.

This isn’t surprising. It clearly spreads like the flu or cold. People should stop counting cases at this point and focus on overall strategies, long term over the next 6 months, to slow spread and prepare hospitals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From National Geographic:
"
Inspired in part by that case, a team of public health researchers set out to study how random movements about the airplane cabin might change passengers’ probability of infection.

Passengers in window seats have the
lowest likelihood of coming in contact
with an infected person...

...but illnesses are most likely to be
transmitted only to passengers within
one row of the infected person.
Probability of being infected

color codes:
from light green to dark magenta from least to most probability

Light green: Less than 1 percent
Dark green: 5 to 20
Magenta: 80 to 100




The World Health Organization defines contact with an infected person as being seated within two rows of one another.

But people don’t just sit during flights, particularly ones lasting longer than a few hours. They visit the bathroom, stretch their legs, and grab items from the overhead bins. In fact, during the 2003 coronavirus outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a passenger aboard a flight from Hong Kong to Beijing infected people well outside the WHO’s two-row boundary. The New England Journal of Medicine noted that the WHO criteria “would have missed 45 percent of the patients with SARS.”

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/01/how-coronavirus-spreads-on-a-plane/#close

Thanks for posting. japan case of a coach/taxi driver possible transmitted from tourists he drove around. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/29/coronavirus-evacuations-begin-as-china-cases-outstrip-sars
"Late on Tuesday, Japan reported its first possible case of human-to-human transition, involving a coach driver in his 60s who had tested positive after twice driving groups of tourists from Wuhan earlier this month. The man is reportedly recovering."

So we have the FCPS student exchange group - 26 or 36? Rather than place them in contained environment ir trailer it's a free roam to cultural sites , hotels, restaurants. If a public entity beings in people from where they might have been exposed and are in an incubation period what's the responsibility? I hav not seen any school board discussions at recent meetings on the topic.

A second Japanese woman who was I think a tour guide on that same bus just was confirmed to have this virus.

This isn’t surprising. It clearly spreads like the flu or cold. People should stop counting cases at this point and focus on overall strategies, long term over the next 6 months, to slow spread and prepare hospitals.

I think the important thing here is to find out if anyone on the tour bus was visibly ill. How much contact did they have?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anybody have a map where the confirmed cases are in the United States? I was looking online and for some reason I was drawing a blank. I got articles but no map. Also, my kids go to Wootton high school here in Montgomery county. My daughter shared that a lot of the Asian kids are wearing facemasks to school.

Seriously?

Right now you are more at risk for the flu. Currently possibly one in MD not at Wootton.

Yes it’s going to come here and yes all high schools not just Wooton will have it.

?? Where did you get the idea that I thought it was coming to Wootton ? I was just sharing that kids are wearing face masks to school

Thanks for sharing. One note, I think you meant a particular sub group of Asians. In my connections/community of Asians, they don’t wear masks but none from China. In China it seems normal even without this virus. They wear masks everywhere bc it’s smoggy? Take it off at home bc they feel safe with their hepa filters. It’s so normal for them that it’s even in movies. I caught that in Spider-Man homecoming when at the airport there was a family that fit the subgroup wearing masks.

They wear masks many places in Asia, it's pretty common. In Japan, on public transportation, you'll see like 1/3 of the people wearing masks at any time, and that is a very clean, not very smoggy country. If you have a little cough or congestion, it would be considered very rude not to put on a mask when you go out in public, unlike here where people are coughing and sniffling everywhere in public. People also wear masks to avoid catching others' illnesses, or for reasons unrelated to illness -- one article said many people wear them to avoid having to interact with others in public -- sort of like putting in your headphones?

[Anonymous]

Good NYT OpEd yesterday on the use of face masks v. other infection control measures

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/opinion/coronavirus-prevention-tips.html?auth=login-email&login=email

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That looks creepy esp with hazmat lady. Hope none of them are sick.

It's not creepy, it is prudent.

Public health is damned if they do, damned if they don't.

This is a perfectly normal way to respond to a new, potentially dangerous pathogen to prevent spread. They can either confiscate everyone's phones so no one can take pictures which would set of shouts of "They are covering something up!" or be totally transparent and have people think it is creepy.

They don't know for sure how virulent this coronavirus is, so it makes sense that the health care workers would want to be totally protected in order to volunteer for the flight (or be ordered to). The people on the place have already been exposed in the area they were living/working so it make less sense (probably also they don't know have enough suits....)

Both can be true. I totally agree with you that they are doing everything right to contain this. The comment wasn't a criticism of public health workers at all. It can still cause a visceral reaction upon seeing the image.

[Anonymous]

Fears of coronavirus infection have university officials responding quickl

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/01/29/fears-coronavirus-infection-have-university-officials-responding-quickly/?outputType=amp

[Anonymous]

South Korea - Police have been sanctioned to arrest or use force against individuals who do not follow quarantine orders. Suspected patients who refuse quarantine or undergo treatment can be fined as much as $2,500, local newspaper JoongAng Ilbo reported Wednesday.

https://www.upi.com/amp/Top_News/World-News/2020/01/29/South-Korea-police-authorized-to-arrest-coronavirus-patients/6011580300092/

[Anonymous]

Coronavirus Infections Surpass SARS Epidemic

Jan. 29, 2020, at 9:46 a.m.


https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2020-01-29/wuhan-coronavirus-infections-surpass-sars-epidemic-in-china?context=amp

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My niece was here this past weekend. She’s a pharmacist and has studied in China. She had strep, and had to go to the hospital for testing (note not a local doctor, school doc, etc). She said the hospital had blood on the floor and dirty, tattered blankets given from person to person. NOT the same standards as here in the US or Europe. She ended up getting a yeast infection from the antibiotic, had to go BACK to the hospital to get treated. Here, we’d go by OTC yeast cream at CVS or similar. She said the process was so complicated to simply get treated for a yeast infection she nearly stole the cream from the pharmacy at the hospital. She just wanted to get OUT of that filthy place. And this was in a large city, not a rural town.

Now ask yourself why there’s such pandemonium, death, and spread in China. You will NOT see the same problems here. I think, too, people are forgetting that the flu pandemic happened in 1918 when the medical care, etc was not nearly as advanced as it is here.

Look how studied this already is in our Western countries. It’s nothing short of remarkable how fast our country has mobilized to attack this.

THIS. A lot of people acting like chicken little here simply cannot comprehend what it's like for medical care in the eastern world, even in the big cities or the "nicer" hospitals. The whole -- OMG it's going to be soooo bad in America when it happens that maybe it's better to get it now when there's only a few cases (WTF?? that theory circulated here yesterday) -- seems to ignore the fact that in the US NO hospital -- not even a small town one passes around sheets and blankets from person to person unless they've first been laundered at x degrees for y timeframe -- all of which are required guidelines. To say nothing about healthcare professionals changing gloves and masks like every 2 seconds when they go patient to patient; in the scenes we're seeing in China the drs. are in biohazard suits yet I wouldn't be surprised at all if they are just wearing those suits for their own protection but then going person to person with the same gloves etc. on -- thus infecting someone with a lesser virus with this one. It's also why I don't get why people there are standing shoulder to shoulder in hospitals "to get checked." Don't they risk catching it between just the crowds and also the lack of infection control by whoever is seeing them? But I think a lot of it is cultural -- there are definitely eastern cultures where the DOCTOR'S definitive word is what matters . . . if he says they're ok, then they must be ok to say nothing of the fact that they just spent hours in large crowds and the guy who ok-ed them may or may not have been wearing those gloves all morning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My niece was here this past weekend. She’s a pharmacist and has studied in China. She had strep, and had to go to the hospital for testing (note not a local doctor, school doc, etc). She said the hospital had blood on the floor and dirty, tattered blankets given from person to person. NOT the same standards as here in the US or Europe. She ended up getting a yeast infection from the antibiotic, had to go BACK to the hospital to get treated. Here, we’d go by OTC yeast cream at CVS or similar. She said the process was so complicated to simply get treated for a yeast infection she nearly stole the cream from the pharmacy at the hospital. She just wanted to get OUT of that filthy place. And this was in a large city, not a rural town.

Now ask yourself why there’s such pandemonium, death, and spread in China. You will NOT see the same problems here. I think, too, people are forgetting that the flu pandemic happened in 1918 when the medical care, etc was not nearly as advanced as it is here.

Look how studied this already is in our Western countries. It’s nothing short of remarkable how fast our country has mobilized to attack this.

THIS. A lot of people acting like chicken little here simply cannot comprehend what it's like for medical care in the eastern world, even in the big cities or the "nicer" hospitals. The whole -- OMG it's going to be soooo bad in America when it happens that maybe it's better to get it now when there's only a few cases (WTF?? that theory circulated here yesterday) -- seems to ignore the fact that in the US NO hospital -- not even a small town one passes around sheets and blankets from person to person unless they've first been laundered at x degrees for y timeframe -- all of which are required guidelines. To say nothing about healthcare professionals changing gloves and masks like every 2 seconds when they go patient to patient; in the scenes we're seeing in China the drs. are in biohazard suits yet I wouldn't be surprised at all if they are just wearing those suits for their own protection but then going person to person with the same gloves etc. on -- thus infecting someone with a lesser virus with this one. It's also why I don't get why people there are standing shoulder to shoulder in hospitals "to get checked." Don't they risk catching it between just the crowds and also the lack of infection control by whoever is seeing them? But I think a lot of it is cultural -- there are definitely eastern cultures where the DOCTOR'S definitive word is what matters . . . if he says they're ok, then they must be ok to say nothing of the fact that they just spent hours in large crowds and the guy who ok-ed them may or may not have been wearing those gloves all morning.

While I appreciate the sentiment, I also feel like maybe you've never been to the Children's ER in the middle of the night during flu season ... I was there in December for a croup attack with my child and it was elbow to elbow with sick kids and disorganized/understaffed. Was later told this was due to two trauma patients being flown in, but if that's all it takes to tap out of capacity, then it's in fact hard to see how the system would work all that well in a pandemic here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My niece was here this past weekend. She’s a pharmacist and has studied in China. She had strep, and had to go to the hospital for testing (note not a local doctor, school doc, etc). She said the hospital had blood on the floor and dirty, tattered blankets given from person to person. NOT the same standards as here in the US or Europe. She ended up getting a yeast infection from the antibiotic, had to go BACK to the hospital to get treated. Here, we’d go by OTC yeast cream at CVS or similar. She said the process was so complicated to simply get treated for a yeast infection she nearly stole the cream from the pharmacy at the hospital. She just wanted to get OUT of that filthy place. And this was in a large city, not a rural town.

Now ask yourself why there’s such pandemonium, death, and spread in China. You will NOT see the same problems here. I think, too, people are forgetting that the flu pandemic happened in 1918 when the medical care, etc was not nearly as advanced as it is here.

Look how studied this already is in our Western countries. It’s nothing short of remarkable how fast our country has mobilized to attack this.

THIS. A lot of people acting like chicken little here simply cannot comprehend what it's like for medical care in the eastern world, even in the big cities or the "nicer" hospitals. The whole -- OMG it's going to be soooo bad in America when it happens that maybe it's better to get it now when there's only a few cases (WTF?? that theory circulated here yesterday) -- seems to ignore the fact that in the US NO hospital -- not even a small town one passes around sheets and blankets from person to person unless they've first been laundered at x degrees for y timeframe -- all of which are required guidelines. To say nothing about healthcare professionals changing gloves and masks like every 2 seconds when they go patient to patient; in the scenes we're seeing in China the drs. are in biohazard suits yet I wouldn't be surprised at all if they are just wearing those suits for their own protection but then going person to person with the same gloves etc. on -- thus infecting someone with a lesser virus with this one. It's also why I don't get why people there are standing shoulder to shoulder in hospitals "to get checked." Don't they risk catching it between just the crowds and also the lack of infection control by whoever is seeing them? But I think a lot of it is cultural -- there are definitely eastern cultures where the DOCTOR'S definitive word is what matters . . . if he says they're ok, then they must be ok to say nothing of the fact that they just spent hours in large crowds and the guy who ok-ed them may or may not have been wearing those gloves all morning.

Somewhat surprisingly, there are not that many general practitioners in China and very few stand alone clinics/doctors' offices. So people go to hospitals, which we know are huge vectors of disease, for everything.