Wuhan virus (coronavirus) arrives in the USA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Number of new cases outside China exceed those inside China.

"The number of new COVID-19 cases outside China exceeded those inside the country for the first time, the World Health Organization announced. Outside of China, there are now 2,790 cases of the coronavirus across 37 countries, including 44 deaths as of Wednesday morning, according to a transcript of remarks from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO. “The sudden increases of cases in Italy, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Korea are deeply concerning,” Tedros said. “Yesterday, the number of new cases reported outside China exceeded the number of new cases in China for the first time.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/26/coronavirus-latest-updates.html

So does this mean it peaks two months or so after first detection and then fades away? So we should be looking at peak new cases around the end of March?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Number of new cases outside China exceed those inside China.

"The number of new COVID-19 cases outside China exceeded those inside the country for the first time, the World Health Organization announced. Outside of China, there are now 2,790 cases of the coronavirus across 37 countries, including 44 deaths as of Wednesday morning, according to a transcript of remarks from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO. “The sudden increases of cases in Italy, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Korea are deeply concerning,” Tedros said. “Yesterday, the number of new cases reported outside China exceeded the number of new cases in China for the first time.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/26/coronavirus-latest-updates.html

So does this mean it peaks two months or so after first detection and then fades away? So we should be looking at peak new cases around the end of March?

No, it only indicates the relative utility of China's lockdown measures versus the cases outside of China without those measures. Also, need to caveat that WHO is in China's pocket and the reliability of China's figures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Neither Italy or Iran have valid sample sizes, regardless of other factors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Number of new cases outside China exceed those inside China.

"The number of new COVID-19 cases outside China exceeded those inside the country for the first time, the World Health Organization announced. Outside of China, there are now 2,790 cases of the coronavirus across 37 countries, including 44 deaths as of Wednesday morning, according to a transcript of remarks from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO. “The sudden increases of cases in Italy, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Korea are deeply concerning,” Tedros said. “Yesterday, the number of new cases reported outside China exceeded the number of new cases in China for the first time.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/26/coronavirus-latest-updates.html

So does this mean it peaks two months or so after first detection and then fades away? So we should be looking at peak new cases around the end of March?

With the extreme measures in China - possibly. Expect the cases to surge again as the measures are relaxed.
Europe is now expanding testing to anyone with travel to a region with local transmission. They have picked up on so many cases we would miss completely, like a couple in Germany without any contact to any region at risk that was walking around with symptoms like fever and cough for 10 days and spreading it during carnival. The husband, 47, is in critical condition now.
These types of cases must exist here, too, but we are not allowed nor able to test for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's already here and quite likely being spread. We will only know once we start being able to test people for the virus, which we are not doing much of.

"When pressed on when specifically the kits will be made available, Messonnier did not provide a date.

Currently, only 12 labs outside of the CDC—located in California, Illinois, Nebraska, Nevada, and Tennessee—have the capability to test for the virus. Peter Kyriacopoulos, the chief policy officer for APHL, told CIDRAP News the testing process could be dramatically shortened and expanded if 100 Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL)-member labs receive authorization to do their own tests."

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/cdc-warns-us-covid-19-spread-labs-frustrated-over-lack-tests

China is making the US look incompetent. It's embarrassing.

+1. We are supposed to be world leaders?

This is what you get when you elect a government that cares more about making money than it does about making people's lives better. The Trump administration has cut funding to the areas critical to managing a response to just this kind of crisis. It also ridicules those who want to take COVID-19 seriously and says everything is under control. I was OK with Trump being president when it seemed like he would keep things going for the country, even if he is a jerk, but this virus has the potential to do great harm and the White House has basically no response. It is more than embarrassing, it's dangerous and upsetting. I think the only reason he's said anything at all is due to the stock market slide, and then his response is, "Nothing to see here! Everything is fine!" Scary. I believe he won't allow the government to take the kind of steps needed to limit the damage, such as quarantine places, allow community testing, close businesses, because that will hurt his precious economy that he is so proud of (and did very little to build).

Having a president like this makes me realize what it is like to live in a country like Iran where information suppression is the norm and the government is NOT looking out for its people.

Exactly. He has crippled the agencies from properly doing their jobs. And will likely made uninformed, selfish decisions that will results in fatalities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are all these other countries testing and not us? Can someone help us understand the problem?

While I do feel that we could be testing more, I'm not sure where you would draw the line at this point. The symptoms are not so unique from many other illnesses currently going around, that I guess the CDC just decided unless you came from Hubei directly, it doesn't make sense. Because the alternative would probably turn into testing WAY too many people, running out of tests, etc. which would just drain the system too much.

Of course I'm not 100% sure if this is true, but I definitely don't think the answer is simply mass testing willy nilly.

We can't even do focused testing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are all these other countries testing and not us? Can someone help us understand the problem?

While I do feel that we could be testing more, I'm not sure where you would draw the line at this point. The symptoms are not so unique from many other illnesses currently going around, that I guess the CDC just decided unless you came from Hubei directly, it doesn't make sense. Because the alternative would probably turn into testing WAY too many people, running out of tests, etc. which would just drain the system too much.

Of course I'm not 100% sure if this is true, but I definitely don't think the answer is simply mass testing willy nilly.

We can't even do focused testing.

Right but if we had unlimited tests.... would we be doing more? Not sure.

[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”?

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.

Key phrase in that post is ‘as a Chinese citizen’

[Anonymous]

at least 2 “head doctors” in Germany are positive. At least one is 60 years old. They were at a clinic with many other doctors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:at least 2 “head doctors” in Germany are positive. At least one is 60 years old. They were at a clinic with many other doctors.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wz.de/panorama/ein-coronavirus-patient-ist-oberarzt-am-uniklinikum-tuebingen_aid-49208041%3foutput=amp

Justine doctor and his 24 year old daughter but they are observing a lot of doctors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Iran has thrown up it's hands and stomped out like a toddler. They're not even going to try. It's impossible to stop the spread when you have a country with that large of a population doing this. Our best hope still remains to delay delay delay until vaccine.

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1232586823832088583?s=19

Iranian President Rouhani says there will be no quarantine imposed on any city or place in the country, and the people should not care about the rumors.

Time to impose a travel ban on anyone entering the US who has been to Iran in the last 14 days.

Iran plans to weaponize this. Mark my words

[Anonymous]

If the 60 year old senior physician experiences complications you bet Germany will pay attention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Iran has thrown up it's hands and stomped out like a toddler. They're not even going to try. It's impossible to stop the spread when you have a country with that large of a population doing this. Our best hope still remains to delay delay delay until vaccine.

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1232586823832088583?s=19

Iranian President Rouhani says there will be no quarantine imposed on any city or place in the country, and the people should not care about the rumors.


Time to impose a travel ban on anyone entering the US who has been to Iran in the last 14 days.


Iran plans to weaponize this. Mark my words

By letting their people walk around and infect their countrymen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

1-2% is plenty high enough to be alarming.

Overall no one is saying anything like 20% CFR. You cannot go by initial results in outbreaks as if they haven't been testing for it, the first cases they know about will be the severe ones.

If 10% of the cases are "severe" and medical attention is not available, then the CFR might be higher in those areas.

But I think a lot of people were hoping there was much mild, undetected spread which would bring the CFR of this virus down to 0.1 % like seasonal flu.

Why the emphasis on using a denominator (CFR) that includes unresolved cases? If you look at closed cases (ended in recovery or death), the current death rate = 8%. : https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

That's not a good way to estimate case fatality rates at the start of an epidemic. For example, if you have 100 sick people and 1 dead person with 0 recovered then you have a 100% fatality rate by your method. Not a good way to estimate. The real problem is that the number of critical patients that need ventilator support will have huge fatality rates if there is not enough medical support and that's what everyone's worried about.

CFR is not good either when the disease tends to worsen appreciably after a couple of weeks. So the CFR mortality rate is probably understated for now because # of deaths are not matched to the # patients who have had the disease long enough to have died. I don't think we know the true denominator either --especially if people are not tested here in the US and some are asymptomatic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the 60 year old senior physician experiences complications you bet Germany will pay attention.

Germany already is paying attention.

Germany is at the beginning of a coronavirus epidemic after new cases sprung up that can no longer be traced to the virus’s original source in China, Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Wednesday.

A total of five new cases of coronavirus in the west and south of Germany - taking the country’s total to around 20 - meant the disease appeared to be moving to a new phase, Spahn told a news conference, urging health authorities and employers to review their pandemic planning.

“The infection chains are partially no longer trackable, and that is a new thing,” Spahn said.

“Large numbers of people have had contact with the patients, and that is a big change to the 16 patients we had until now where the chain could be traced back to the origin in China.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-coronavirus-germany/germany-is-at-start-of-coronavirus-epidemic-health-minister-idUSKCN20K2MG