Wuhan virus (coronavirus) arrives in the USA

[Anonymous]

First cases confirmed in Greece and Brazil.

Italy now has 374 cases and 12 deaths.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Business News..

Google Trends data show that Americans are losing interest in the coronavirus, even though the death toll continues to rise in mainland China and other countries.

Global stock markets dipped Monday morning as the coronavirus outbreak continued to grow outside of China, with new cases reported in Europe and the Middle East. The death count continues to rise: At least 2,600 people have died since the start of the outbreak.

But Americans appear to be losing interest, at least as measured by Google Trends data. Searches related to coronavirus have been declining in the US since the end of January?

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-death-toll-rises-american-interest-wanes-2020-2

Maybe they are googling COVID-19 instead....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Maybe they are googling COVID-19 instead....

They are trying to find a vacation spot for Spring break that doesn't have any coronavirus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t see this posted, but a lot of us are hoping many cases are unreported and mild, thereby lowering the death rate. Unfortunately, the evidence says otherwise. There is not evidence for widespread, mild disease. The high (2-2.5%) death rate appears to be valid.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/new-data-from-china-buttress-fears-about-high-coronavirus-fatality-rate-who-expert-says/

The theory was debunked by another expert, within the same article. So who knows.

It was refuted because the other guy said we would expect to see severe cases ahead of outbreaks in other countries. I disagree because if the virus is contagious before symptoms appear, you would not expect to see severe cases ahead of time. On the contrary, the outbreaks seem to involve dozens of sick people at the same time, which is what you expect if there arent a lot of mild cases.

It is true, this is speculation, but the article referenced wide testing in china, like 320k people and did not show a lot of mild cases being detected. In my mind, that is why China took such drastic measures. They are worried looking at the data. When is the last time you saw China take actions certain to affect their economy? They have good reason to downplay and ignore this, like Trump is doing, and they didnt.

[Anonymous]

Iran is reporting 139 cases and 19 deaths.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Iran is reporting 139 cases and 19 deaths.

Despite having the highest number of deaths outside China, the Iranian president takes an "it's just the flu" stance and blames the U.S.

According to CNN, the government announced it will not impose quarantines on Iranian cities to contain the coronavirus outbreak in the country.

In his comments on the virus, president Rouhani criticized the United States, saying that the virus “should not become a weapon at the hand of our enemies,” the semi-official Mehrs news agency reported.

“Americans and our enemies have wanted to halt our production and economic activities in this two-year period now with their sanctions and propaganda.”

He said Iran cannot allow the US to stop the country’s social activities through the fear of the virus, adding, “Americans better take care of thousands of flu casualties in their own country,” according to Mehr.

https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-02-26-20-intl-hnk/index.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t see this posted, but a lot of us are hoping many cases are unreported and mild, thereby lowering the death rate. Unfortunately, the evidence says otherwise. There is not evidence for widespread, mild disease. The high (2-2.5%) death rate appears to be valid.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/new-data-from-china-buttress-fears-about-high-coronavirus-fatality-rate-who-expert-says/

The theory was debunked by another expert, within the same article. So who knows.

It was refuted because the other guy said we would expect to see severe cases ahead of outbreaks in other countries. I disagree because if the virus is contagious before symptoms appear, you would not expect to see severe cases ahead of time. On the contrary, the outbreaks seem to involve dozens of sick people at the same time, which is what you expect if there arent a lot of mild cases.

It is true, this is speculation, but the article referenced wide testing in china, like 320k people and did not show a lot of mild cases being detected. In my mind, that is why China took such drastic measures. They are worried looking at the data. When is the last time you saw China take actions certain to affect their economy? They have good reason to downplay and ignore this, like Trump is doing, and they didnt.

I'm guessing that the people with the more mild symptoms are avoiding medical attention. Who wants to be quarantined and basically become a lab rat for 2 or 3 weeks?

[Anonymous]

This was a very interesting post and thread on the reddit Coronavirus discussion forum today:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/f9mxwn/for_those_of_you_who_didnt_catch_his_press/

For those of you who didn't catch his press conference today, Dr. Bruce Aylward (renowned expert who led the team of experts on the ground in China), had a few alarming comments about the seriousness of the disease. ( source: https://youtu.be/-o0q1XMRKYM?t=3058)

"The bottom line is this virus kills people... it kills our elderly and vulnerable... but this is not always the case - young people do die of this disease even in industrialized countries. People are looking at this saying that but in China they don't have this, they don't have that, etc. If I had COVID-19, I'd want to be treated in China. We'd go into these hospitals, how many ventilators do you have? 50-60. A scale we aren't used to seeing. How many ECMO systems do you have? 5. We don't have that in Europe. When we look at how dangerous this disease is, we have to be careful looking at the China data. China know how to keep people alive from COVID - they are super committed to it and they are making a massive investment in it. That is not going to be the case everywhere in the world.... It is a serious disease and I worry that people are going to look at the China numbers and get a false sense of security."

He also goes on to share during the question period that he doesn't think there is a significant "iceberg" of mild cases that we aren't seeing in China because some community testing hasn't really shown that. This is alarming to me and something I was really hoping for.

I found some of the subsequent comments valuable, especially this one (microbiologist, is that you??)

I know nobody here on Reddit trust the numbers coming from China, but as a Chinese citizen, I want to explain how people should look at the numbers rationally. The numbers before Jan 20th are definitely less than the real numbers. There were several important meetings going on in early January and the local government were trying to cover up the situation so they don't look bad, and don't cause panic among the citizens, which is very stupid (and ironically other countries are doing the same). Then they realize that the hospitals are full of pneumonia patients and medical staff are getting the disease as well. They are running low on medical resources. That's when they announce the situation to the entire nation, on Jan. 20th.

Within a week the entire nation is basically shutting down and China went to fight this virus with their full capacity. But at the moment, there were not enough hospital bed, not enough doctors, not enough masks, basically everything was low in Hubei or Wuhan. So for about two weeks, the numbers coming from government is lower than actual, not just because they don't want to look bad, but because they can't track everyone. There are only certain number of test kits they can run in the labs so there was a huge backlog. If a patient died while he was waiting to be tested, they will burn his body immediately because one, they don't have space to store the body, two, keeping the body can cause further spreading of the virus and three, there's a huge backlog on testing that they would rather test the living patients than the dead ones. So the death counts from Jan 20th to early February are definitely lower than actual.

They also told the patients with minor symptoms to go home and self quarantine, which is what many other countries are doing right now. However, those people still need to live, they have families and they need to do grocery shopping. Thus those people continuously spreading the virus for quite some time. It even cause some families to all get infected and die. That's why they later build field hospital to contain the patients with minor symptoms.

In early February, the CCP changed the local government officials to more competent ones and medical staff from all over the country flew over to help. From that time point, the numbers become much more trust worthy. I would say the numbers Chinese government reported for the last three weeks are very very close the the actual numbers, and they are not intentionally manipulating the numbers.

I read many posts saying they don't believe there are so few cases for the rest of the country outside of Hubei. But that's because they have never lived in China and see at what level the government can execute their policies. If almost everyone stays at home for a month, the virus can be contained. The numbers outside of Hubei is very reliable.

However, for Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy, they have passed the stage of other provinces in China. They are like Hubei in January. That's why many Chinese people are very confused. The Chinese government has shown the world the right and wrong things to do when fighting this virus, however, other countries seemingly only repeating the wrong procedures. I know some people don't believe Dr. Bruce when he said If I had COVID-19, I'd want to be treated in China. But it seems that many Koreans are having the same mentality.

For most countries in the world, the fatality rate will not be similar to the rest of China, but rather close to Hubei, if not higher. I am no virologist, but I do have a PhD in microbiology from a US university. So I think my opinion is worth considering.

A lot of the other comments were discussing ventilator capacity in the US and Europe.

[Anonymous]

What’s the “alarming” significance of the Dr above commenting that he “does not think there’s a significant iceberg of un(der) reported mild cases”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was a very interesting post and thread on the reddit Coronavirus discussion forum today:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/f9mxwn/for_those_of_you_who_didnt_catch_his_press/

For those of you who didn't catch his press conference today, Dr. Bruce Aylward (renowned expert who led the team of experts on the ground in China), had a few alarming comments about the seriousness of the disease. ( source: https://youtu.be/-o0q1XMRKYM?t=3058)

"The bottom line is this virus kills people... it kills our elderly and vulnerable... but this is not always the case - young people do die of this disease even in industrialized countries. People are looking at this saying that but in China they don't have this, they don't have that, etc. If I had COVID-19, I'd want to be treated in China. We'd go into these hospitals, how many ventilators do you have? 50-60. A scale we aren't used to seeing. How many ECMO systems do you have? 5. We don't have that in Europe. When we look at how dangerous this disease is, we have to be careful looking at the China data. China know how to keep people alive from COVID - they are super committed to it and they are making a massive investment in it. That is not going to be the case everywhere in the world.... It is a serious disease and I worry that people are going to look at the China numbers and get a false sense of security."

He also goes on to share during the question period that he doesn't think there is a significant "iceberg" of mild cases that we aren't seeing in China because some community testing hasn't really shown that. This is alarming to me and something I was really hoping for.

I found some of the subsequent comments valuable, especially this one (microbiologist, is that you??)

I know nobody here on Reddit trust the numbers coming from China, but as a Chinese citizen, I want to explain how people should look at the numbers rationally. The numbers before Jan 20th are definitely less than the real numbers. There were several important meetings going on in early January and the local government were trying to cover up the situation so they don't look bad, and don't cause panic among the citizens, which is very stupid (and ironically other countries are doing the same). Then they realize that the hospitals are full of pneumonia patients and medical staff are getting the disease as well. They are running low on medical resources. That's when they announce the situation to the entire nation, on Jan. 20th.

Within a week the entire nation is basically shutting down and China went to fight this virus with their full capacity. But at the moment, there were not enough hospital bed, not enough doctors, not enough masks, basically everything was low in Hubei or Wuhan. So for about two weeks, the numbers coming from government is lower than actual, not just because they don't want to look bad, but because they can't track everyone. There are only certain number of test kits they can run in the labs so there was a huge backlog. If a patient died while he was waiting to be tested, they will burn his body immediately because one, they don't have space to store the body, two, keeping the body can cause further spreading of the virus and three, there's a huge backlog on testing that they would rather test the living patients than the dead ones. So the death counts from Jan 20th to early February are definitely lower than actual.

They also told the patients with minor symptoms to go home and self quarantine, which is what many other countries are doing right now. However, those people still need to live, they have families and they need to do grocery shopping. Thus those people continuously spreading the virus for quite some time. It even cause some families to all get infected and die. That's why they later build field hospital to contain the patients with minor symptoms.

In early February, the CCP changed the local government officials to more competent ones and medical staff from all over the country flew over to help. From that time point, the numbers become much more trust worthy. I would say the numbers Chinese government reported for the last three weeks are very very close the the actual numbers, and they are not intentionally manipulating the numbers.

I read many posts saying they don't believe there are so few cases for the rest of the country outside of Hubei. But that's because they have never lived in China and see at what level the government can execute their policies. If almost everyone stays at home for a month, the virus can be contained. The numbers outside of Hubei is very reliable.

However, for Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy, they have passed the stage of other provinces in China. They are like Hubei in January. That's why many Chinese people are very confused. The Chinese government has shown the world the right and wrong things to do when fighting this virus, however, other countries seemingly only repeating the wrong procedures. I know some people don't believe Dr. Bruce when he said If I had COVID-19, I'd want to be treated in China. But it seems that many Koreans are having the same mentality.

For most countries in the world, the fatality rate will not be similar to the rest of China, but rather close to Hubei, if not higher. I am no virologist, but I do have a PhD in microbiology from a US university. So I think my opinion is worth considering.

A lot of the other comments were discussing ventilator capacity in the US and Europe.

Sh**t. We are screwed under this incompetent administration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s the “alarming” significance of the Dr above commenting that he “does not think there’s a significant iceberg of un(der) reported mild cases”?

It means the fatality rate, and severe hospitalization rate, are likely accurate.

I know people think a 2% fatality rate isn't that bad but if the illness affects everyone... it's really bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s the “alarming” significance of the Dr above commenting that he “does not think there’s a significant iceberg of un(der) reported mild cases”?

It would mean the death rate is really high—-anywhere from 2% to 20% depending on what data set you are looking at. And that means containment is really important—buy is nearly impossible on a country that is not authoritarian especially where the virus transmit before symptoms appear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s the “alarming” significance of the Dr above commenting that he “does not think there’s a significant iceberg of un(der) reported mild cases”?

The significance, I think, is that some people are trying to self-soothe and rationalize things in their brains by hoping that the death rate is a lot lower than it is. Doesn’t seem like it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the “alarming” significance of the Dr above commenting that he “does not think there’s a significant iceberg of un(der) reported mild cases”?

It would mean the death rate is really high—-anywhere from 2% to 20% depending on what data set you are looking at. And that means containment is really important—buy is nearly impossible on a country that is not authoritarian especially where the virus transmit before symptoms appear.

No one thinks that it’s 20%. Please stop pushing numbers around like facts when you clearly don’t understand them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the “alarming” significance of the Dr above commenting that he “does not think there’s a significant iceberg of un(der) reported mild cases”?

It would mean the death rate is really high—-anywhere from 2% to 20% depending on what data set you are looking at. And that means containment is really important—buy is nearly impossible on a country that is not authoritarian especially where the virus transmit before symptoms appear.

No one thinks that it’s 20%. Please stop pushing numbers around like facts when you clearly don’t understand them.

Right now both Italy and Iran are running with a death rate of about 20%.

Of course it is too soon to tell where they will level off.

I have faith that Italy's won't be much different than China's, but Iran is altogether another situation. They are now saying they won't be quarantining.

The Iranian medical system is not bad but because of longstanding embargoes, it already had shortages of supplies that are now quite desperate. There is no question that their fatality rate will be much higher than China's.