Wuhan virus (coronavirus) arrives in the USA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
A few points from a microbiologist:

1. The mortality rate from this new coronavirus is significantly lower than for SARS and MERS. It’s at about 3%, which is still higher than the flu. However that 3% could be artificially high, since it only counts diagnosed cases, and not the multiple (hundreds? thousands?) cases that were too mild to seek medical care or a diagnostic test. In other words, DO NOT PANIC. Take travel precautions, that’s all.

2. These viruses always originate from other animal species (in this case, snakes might be suspected), and become known to humans when a mutation in the viral code makes it able to jump the species barrier and infect humans.

3. Jumping the species barrier can occur in any location where humans come into contact with other animals, but are most likely to happen in crowded human-animal situations, such as live animal markets in China and similar countries, which is why many such viruses have originated in China in recent years. MERS originated in the Middle East via camel.

4. Pandemics are the bane of public health organizations. No country in the world is adequately prepared for one. Our current situation is not a pandemic. The nightmare pandemic is this: a virus that is easily transferred from person to person yet has a somewhat high mortality rate. Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that are not as easily transmitted as influenza viruses, however they are more deadly. A worst scenario is a resurgence of Avian flu, or similar: very infectious, and higher mortality than regular flu.

5. In virus theory, the deadlier they are, the less far they go, because they kill hosts and thus alert authorities before spreading too far. One reason the supremely lethal Ebola devastates certain regions of Africa is that the medical response lacks resources and population education is low. But in our interconnected world, a less deadly but more easily-spreading virus could do more damage if authorities don’t react with lightning speed to cordon off viral epicenters and quarantine patients. China has reacted fast and is applying massive resources to this situation, and this will have a significant impact on viral spread. Other countries must keep tabs on all incoming cases and follow-up with their nearest flight neighbors.


And. Do not panic.

PP, question about the mortality rate? Could you please elaborate how is this calculated and
how do they arrive with the 3Percent? Do you calculate a cases of deceased people against
the people who got sick at exact time and got well?
Do we know and can we be sure they do know who got sick when there and do they compare
those people diligently? What if the other people are still symptomatic and so their condition
is still not final so how the mortality rate can be assessed ad such point?
Thanks for your input.

PP you replied to. Good question.

The mortality rate is calculated from confirmed cases, therefore all the surviving and deceased patients in that calculation have had PCR-DNA sequencing to formally identify this particular strain of coronavirus, 2019-nCoV. This means that the beginning of the epidemic was several weeks ago in 2019, but public health authorities needed time to realize there was an emergent strain, then geneticists/virologists needed time to genetically identify it. The first 2019-nCoV deaths were classified as pneumonia, and there is no way to know exactly many died before someone suspected a new virus had jumped the species barrier. You cannot identify a virus merely by observing external symptoms. The mortality rate is calculated with ALL known deceased patients and ALL known total patients (surviving and deceased). It's not a snapshot in time, it's overall, but even if it was a snapshot in time, the mortality rate should not change. You will see as more deaths occur and more people are infected, that the mortality rate will not change. This is because every virus has a specific effect on humans, and it cannot suddenly modify its impact to become more or less lethal - unless it mutates again, but this has never happened to my knowledge and is more the stuff of movies... mutations occur regularly, but mutations with a visible effect are extremely rare.

[Anonymous]

Wuhan alone is a city of 11m, and several other cities in China have been quarantined. Are food delivery systems continuing unaffected by the travel lockdown, or will Wuhan start to run into shortages soon?

This article describes bare grocery store shelves. Families have stockpiled food but it won't last long.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51236450

[Anonymous]

Did you count the three bodies lying on the floor of the Wuhan hospital all day yesterday in this viral video?

https://twitter.com/badiucao/status/1220649177228595200?s=21

No? Of course not, because we don’t know what they died of. Because the data is still too raw.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wuhan alone is a city of 11m, and several other cities in China have been quarantined. Are food delivery systems continuing unaffected by the travel lockdown, or will Wuhan start to run into shortages soon?

This article describes bare grocery store shelves. Families have stockpiled food but it won't last long.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51236450

Shouldn’t the military be bringing in food? I can see why regular distributors aren’t doing it — no one is supposed to be on the roads to Wuhan plus many companies are likely not sending their drivers in. Shouldn’t the govt be handling this? I assume there are many cases where people are sick but it’s mild enough that they don’t want to go to the hospital yet and be standing in lines with millions of people — I assume they need hydration and food to recover though??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wuhan alone is a city of 11m, and several other cities in China have been quarantined. Are food delivery systems continuing unaffected by the travel lockdown, or will Wuhan start to run into shortages soon?

This article describes bare grocery store shelves. Families have stockpiled food but it won't last long.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51236450

Shouldn’t the military be bringing in food? I can see why regular distributors aren’t doing it — no one is supposed to be on the roads to Wuhan plus many companies are likely not sending their drivers in. Shouldn’t the govt be handling this? I assume there are many cases where people are sick but it’s mild enough that they don’t want to go to the hospital yet and be standing in lines with millions of people — I assume they need hydration and food to recover though??

I've seen other articles saying that distribution lines are severed. No food is going in to Wuhan now. Maybe that will change soon. Otherwise, the virus will be a lesser worry in China.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did you count the three bodies lying on the floor of the Wuhan hospital all day yesterday in this viral video?

https://twitter.com/badiucao/status/1220649177228595200?s=21

No? Of course not, because we don’t know what they died of. Because the data is still too raw.

There is also a shortage of test kits. If they cannot test new patients and confirm a diagnosis, they won't be counted either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:23:01 Microbiologist, where did you get the 3% mortality rate from? Chinese media reports? Makes me doubt anything else you say

Microbiologist here. Do the math yourself: about 54 deaths to 1700 total confirmed cases. Numbers will change almost hourly, but the mortality rate is unlikely to change much unless there is under-reporting of total cases, in which case it will decrease.

I just don’t understand if there are only 1700 cases total and 54 dead why are their hospitals full and they don’t accept new patients and are building new hospitals?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:”The virus is showing up all over China and all over the world. This "quarantine" isn't sensible or helpful.“

You can’t be serious. Better to quarantine rather than let all those people loose to travel the world and spread the virus even more.

Quarantining a virus always helps in the fight to contain infections. That’s like, basic knowledge.

Over 900,000 people left Wuhan the week before the travel lockdown started. This quarantine may have been a good idea weeks ago, but then it would have been crazy then. Now it just doesn't make sense.

Then what would you have the Chinese govt do? What is the alternative?

[Anonymous]

Microbiologist again.

Chinese data is accurate. The other poster's links to articles does not infirm this. Patients at the beginning of new epidemics will always be missed, but it doesn't matter for calculating mortality rates. It does matter for assessing total number of deaths, but those are two different numbers and right now the first one is by far the most important to assess the level of risk and type of precautions to take.

As for quarantines, they will always be enforced too late for the first patients. However, "better late than never", because they save subsequent lives as the epidemic spreads. It's difficult to estimate, but in this case, hundreds of lives have probably been saved as a result of such a move. Chinese authorities have been accused of reacting slowly, but historically, this is way quicker than they ever reacted before, and who can say whether the USA or European countries would have reacted any better. As has been shown for Ebola, quarantines are THE first tool in a viral epidemic. Nothing else even comes close.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wuhan alone is a city of 11m, and several other cities in China have been quarantined. Are food delivery systems continuing unaffected by the travel lockdown, or will Wuhan start to run into shortages soon?

This article describes bare grocery store shelves. Families have stockpiled food but it won't last long.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51236450

Shouldn’t the military be bringing in food? I can see why regular distributors aren’t doing it — no one is supposed to be on the roads to Wuhan plus many companies are likely not sending their drivers in. Shouldn’t the govt be handling this? I assume there are many cases where people are sick but it’s mild enough that they don’t want to go to the hospital yet and be standing in lines with millions of people — I assume they need hydration and food to recover though??

I've seen other articles saying that distribution lines are severed. No food is going in to Wuhan now. Maybe that will change soon. Otherwise, the virus will be a lesser worry in China.

I can see why distribution lines got severed as soon as no one was allowed on the roads into Wuhan + private non state owned companies probably realized how bad things were and decided they weren’t going in to deliver their usual shipments bc the risk wasn’t worth it. Yet that’s why the military/govt should have a plan for this?!? They had a flight bringing in more drs and supplies — why not one with essential food??

[Anonymous]

I won’t be going to the local nail salon anytime soon. Or my favorite Chinese restaurant. I’m not taking any chances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:”The virus is showing up all over China and all over the world. This "quarantine" isn't sensible or helpful.“

You can’t be serious. Better to quarantine rather than let all those people loose to travel the world and spread the virus even more.

Quarantining a virus always helps in the fight to contain infections. That’s like, basic knowledge.

Over 900,000 people left Wuhan the week before the travel lockdown started. This quarantine may have been a good idea weeks ago, but then it would have been crazy then. Now it just doesn't make sense.

Then what would you have the Chinese govt do? What is the alternative?

How about require people wear masks in public places

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wuhan alone is a city of 11m, and several other cities in China have been quarantined. Are food delivery systems continuing unaffected by the travel lockdown, or will Wuhan start to run into shortages soon?

This article describes bare grocery store shelves. Families have stockpiled food but it won't last long.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51236450

Shouldn’t the military be bringing in food? I can see why regular distributors aren’t doing it — no one is supposed to be on the roads to Wuhan plus many companies are likely not sending their drivers in. Shouldn’t the govt be handling this? I assume there are many cases where people are sick but it’s mild enough that they don’t want to go to the hospital yet and be standing in lines with millions of people — I assume they need hydration and food to recover though??

I've seen other articles saying that distribution lines are severed. No food is going in to Wuhan now. Maybe that will change soon. Otherwise, the virus will be a lesser worry in China.

I can see why distribution lines got severed as soon as no one was allowed on the roads into Wuhan + private non state owned companies probably realized how bad things were and decided they weren’t going in to deliver their usual shipments bc the risk wasn’t worth it. Yet that’s why the military/govt should have a plan for this?!? They had a flight bringing in more drs and supplies — why not one with essential food??

For 11 million people? Including the other quarantined cities, over 35 million people facing food shortages, as well as medical supplies and staff shortages.

[Anonymous]

OK, you've kept me up way past my bedtime! Last post.

They are building hospitals because the population is rushing to get tested and they are anticipating a surge in infections, predictably, since they estimate that every patient contaminates 2 or 3 others. No country has the capacity to test millions of people's DNA in a short amount of time, so they will triage and hopefully develop an antigen assay for rapid testing. In the meantime, they quarantine. The army will probably deliver food at some point. This is a war zone, not with other humans, but against a virus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wuhan alone is a city of 11m, and several other cities in China have been quarantined. Are food delivery systems continuing unaffected by the travel lockdown, or will Wuhan start to run into shortages soon?

This article describes bare grocery store shelves. Families have stockpiled food but it won't last long.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51236450

Shouldn’t the military be bringing in food? I can see why regular distributors aren’t doing it — no one is supposed to be on the roads to Wuhan plus many companies are likely not sending their drivers in. Shouldn’t the govt be handling this? I assume there are many cases where people are sick but it’s mild enough that they don’t want to go to the hospital yet and be standing in lines with millions of people — I assume they need hydration and food to recover though??

I've seen other articles saying that distribution lines are severed. No food is going in to Wuhan now. Maybe that will change soon. Otherwise, the virus will be a lesser worry in China.

Well food was moving in for 11 mil ppl last week — going from distributors to stores. The govt needs to step into the shoes of those distributors — not every single item that would otherwise be available needs to be brought in but the basics do.

I can see why distribution lines got severed as soon as no one was allowed on the roads into Wuhan + private non state owned companies probably realized how bad things were and decided they weren’t going in to deliver their usual shipments bc the risk wasn’t worth it. Yet that’s why the military/govt should have a plan for this?!? They had a flight bringing in more drs and supplies — why not one with essential food??

For 11 million people? Including the other quarantined cities, over 35 million people facing food shortages, as well as medical supplies and staff shortages.