As of about an hour ago BBC reported about 17,000 cases total & 360 deaths. Still not an exponential increase, but still rising.
I do have one question that someone might be able to answer. Since this is closely related to common flue & cold virus's, do patients get secondary bacteria infections? That happens a lot with colds and flue and can be worse than the original infection.
Pneumonia is what has been the leading secondary infection from coronavirus and leading cause of death.
Exactly. ALL of the major powers have and are developing bioweapons. ALL of them have a risk of accidental release.
And this outbreak is right in the hometown of a lab.
Those who think it isn't at least a possibility are deluding themselves.
Not like China is going to issue a press release starting with "Hey, folks. A funny thing happened at the lab this morning "
As I've said, the gullibility a certain demographics never ceases to amaze me. Your own track record in the "the sky is falling, and them there people done it and it's their fault'' category speaks for itself. (It is also possible that an alien species has targeted Earth with an asteroid and it will hit my house tonight, Feb 3 2020 while I'm asleep and burn me to a crisp....yep, entirely ... "possible".
[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 02-03-2020).]
What's baffled me is apart from the US, none of the other countries evacuating people from the area seem concerned with quarantine once their citizens are home.
Now it is being reported that the Chinese Government is requiring that victims of this virus be immediately cremated. I don't remember this being a protocol for any other virus before and I don't believe that was done with Ebola and some of the other crazy diseases. Are the bodies still that contaminated even after death? That leads to a second question, How long does the virus remain viable outside of the body?
"It's very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic," Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, told the paper."
"The death toll from the virus has increased to 361 on Monday, with a total of 17,205 infected -- an increase of nearly 20 percent in the last 24 hours."
"He told the House of Commons that the number of new cases worldwide was "doubling every five days" and dealing with it was "a marathon, not a sprint".
That would be an exponential increase if it holds for a few cycles.
I don't doubt the reported infection rate and deceased numbers are way low, but whether it's intentional or just from lack of ability to keep an accurate count in a city and province that large...I don't know.
It's a city larger in area than Los Angeles metroplex and a population bigger than NYC.
"It's very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic," Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, told the paper."
He is an idiot.
Either that or he doesn't understand the differences between endemic, epidemic and pandemic which is just as bad as being an idiot for an MD.
All first year med students and most all organic biology students know the differences and what they mean.
The WuFlu is already a pandemic.
That simply means that it has spread across the world.
IT DOES NOT MEAN that it is out of control or that it is some science fiction "Andromeda Strain" nonsense.
[This message has been edited by randye (edited 02-03-2020).]
Exactly. ALL of the major powers have and are developing bioweapons. ALL of them have a risk of accidental release.
And this outbreak is right in the hometown of a lab.
Those who think it isn't at least a possibility are deluding themselves.
Not like China is going to issue a press release starting with "Hey, folks. A funny thing happened at the lab this morning "
Just STOP IT, will you?
Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people in Maryland and all around Baltimore get flu and pneumonia and other diseases EVERY YEAR. Hundreds of those people die..............and NOBODY in their right mind blames Ft. Detrick.
The same goes for Koltosvo, in the Novosibirsk region of Siberia, Russia, and they had an explosion on the 5th floor of their main facility last September and NOBODY got sick and no epidemic was released.,,, and NOBODY with 2 brain cells to rub together, in Russia or anywhere else, blamed their flu on the laboratory.
Additionally, if anyone wants to create a bio-weapon they sure as hell are NOT going to create one with a miniscule 4-9% mortality rate.
Please STOP spreading bullshit.
[This message has been edited by randye (edited 02-03-2020).]
Either that or he doesn't understand the differences between endemic, epidemic and pandemic which is just as bad as being an idiot for an MD.
All first year med students and most all organic biology students know the differences and what they mean.
The WuFlu is already a pandemic.
That simply means that it has spread across the world.
IT DOES NOT MEAN that it is out of control or that it is some science fiction "Andromeda Strain" nonsense.
Everybody with any kind of a title or degree will try to get recognition, that I am sure of. What surprises me, so far, is that there is not attempt by one of the presidential candidates to politicize this disease. That too will probably happen.
We have to sort through the BS to find what the truth actually is. I am not trying to spin it any way shape or form. I am just putting things up on this post that seem to have some basis for people to look at and decide. I sure hope it doesn't come up to a higher than 3 to 5% death rate. But, that is going to be determined by a lot of factors.
First would be how well some of the victims are treated. Right now we seem to be blessed with enough health care workers in Wuhan to treat the victims decently. As the number of victims goes up the critical need for health care goes up too. When they run short of doctors, nurses and others to care for the patients, the percentage of deaths will go up too.
Second, the Chinese are also making the claim that if this gets to some country with poor health care it could be very different.
A third factor would be whether the virus mutates to something worse. Almost always the virus' mutate. Whether the virus mutates to a form that becomes worse or not is the issue.
Newest information. A large jump today in total cases and in deaths.
"By the end of Monday, more than 20,000 cases and 425 deaths had been reported in China - an increase of more than 3,000 confirmed cases in a single day."
I think I understand the threat better now. It's not that the death rate is about the same as any other flu. The threat is that no one has immunity to this flu so the potential is to infect everyone at some point. A 5% death rate for 250,000 people is a normal year. But 5% of 7 billion people is a whole different story.
Non-essential workers are required to stay home until February 10th. Schools remain closed until the 17th. Those dates could easily change if it's not under control.
The gov has mandated no cancellation fees for airlines, no money transfer fees, one month free rent, no loss of pay for staying home, no health care cost. There are more.
A third factor would be whether the virus mutates to something worse. Almost always the virus' mutate. Whether the virus mutates to a form that becomes worse or not is the issue.
Oh, it undoubtedly will mutate, just as it already has. At base, it was a virus that causes the common cold. Becoming zoonotic is a mutation. Ability to spread from one person to another without contact with the original host animal is a mutation.
We do know, because of the genome sequencing already done, that the change from being able to live in just it host animal (whatever that was) to being able to infect humans happen very recently and very quickly because all the genomes look very much alike. In that aspect, it hasn't changed much (if any) since it 1st began infection humans. And, mutation works both ways...there's always the possibility it could mutate to 'something' a lot LESS dangerous as well. Although science believes the initial host for this one came from bats, they also believe the jump to humans involved an intermediate host animal, as there were no bats sold or even present at the seafood market it was believed to have started at. Snakes were a possibility as the intermediate host , but last I read, there was serious doubt the current virus could even survive in snakes.
I think I understand the threat better now. It's not that the death rate is about the same as any other flu. The threat is that no one has immunity to this flu so the potential is to infect everyone at some point. A 5% death rate for 250,000 people is a normal year. But 5% of 7 billion people is a whole different story.
Non-essential workers are required to stay home until February 10th. Schools remain closed until the 17th. Those dates could easily change if it's not under control.
The gov has mandated no cancellation fees for airlines, no money transfer fees, one month free rent, no loss of pay for staying home, no health care cost. There are more.
Thanks for sharing 'boots on the ground' aspect!!! Hate that you're 'stuck' over there, but admire you for staying and not chancing infecting folks at home too.
I think I understand the threat better now. It's not that the death rate is about the same as any other flu. The threat is that no one has immunity to this flu so the potential is to infect everyone at some point. A 5% death rate for 250,000 people is a normal year. But 5% of 7 billion people is a whole different story.
Non-essential workers are required to stay home until February 10th. Schools remain closed until the 17th. Those dates could easily change if it's not under control.
The gov has mandated no cancellation fees for airlines, no money transfer fees, one month free rent, no loss of pay for staying home, no health care cost. There are more.
Hi Hudini: Hope you keep safe over there. What you mention is one big thing. Another would be that there is a lag time between infection and either death or cured. Since it has only been around a couple of months so far, the epidemiologists don't really have a handle on what the death rate will be. And as maryjane mentioned, it could mutate one way or the other. It could get worse or it might even become non-transmissible to humans. Who knows what it will do.
I would think though that with the ability to monitor this with the media we have now compared to the last outbreak that was extremely serious in 1917, we will certainly get a better understanding of how something like this can proceed. Or we may even find that with our technology advances we (or maybe I should say China) might have acted quickly enough to contain it. Who knows? One thing I am sure of is that we will soon find out.
I think it is interesting too, that China being an autocratic society with total control over the population that they can do things we could never accomplish here in the US. Can anyone imagine the US government telling 50 million people that they have to stay home, and in an area that they might get infected with this virus? We don't have enough police to be able to hold back the hordes of US citizens leaving the hot zone.
I think I understand the threat better now. It's not that the death rate is about the same as any other flu. The threat is that no one has immunity to this flu so the potential is to infect everyone at some point. A 5% death rate for 250,000 people is a normal year. But 5% of 7 billion people is a whole different story.
Non-essential workers are required to stay home until February 10th. Schools remain closed until the 17th. Those dates could easily change if it's not under control.
The gov has mandated no cancellation fees for airlines, no money transfer fees, one month free rent, no loss of pay for staying home, no health care cost. There are more.
Nobody really has natural immunity to any CoV influenza unless they have had the exact same virus before and have built up sufficient specific antibodies or have received a prophylactic dose(s) of a proper antigen.
People can have increased resistance to a CoV if it is similar enough to one that they have been infected with before or if the strain is sufficiently "mild".
I should also remind folks that the Chinese H5N1 "bird flu" had a mortality rate of between 50-70%
This WuFlu looks "tame" by comparison so far.
Disclaimer: I AM NOT AN EPIDEMIOLOGIST. I am a degreed biomedical engineer with a background in peripheral vascular access drug delivery and orthopedics.
But I also stayed at a Holiday Inn Express a few years ago.....
Try to stay safe and keep yourself isolated as much as possible Hudini. Looking forward to your reports of this thing abating soon.
[This message has been edited by randye (edited 02-04-2020).]
Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people in Maryland and all around Baltimore get flu and pneumonia and other diseases EVERY YEAR. Hundreds of those people die..............and NOBODY in their right mind blames Ft. Detrick.
The same goes for Koltosvo, in the Novosibirsk region of Siberia, Russia, and they had an explosion on the 5th floor of their main facility last September and NOBODY got sick and no epidemic was released.,,, and NOBODY with 2 brain cells to rub together, in Russia or anywhere else, blamed their flu on the laboratory.
Additionally, if anyone wants to create a bio-weapon they sure as hell are NOT going to create one with a miniscule 4-9% mortality rate.
Nobody really has natural immunity to any CoV influenza unless they have had the exact same virus before and have built up sufficient specific antibodies or have received a prophylactic dose(s) of a proper antigen.
People can have increased resistance to a CoV if it is similar enough to one that they have been infected with before or if the strain is sufficiently "mild".
I should also remind folks that the Chinese H5N1 "bird flu" had a mortality rate of between 50-70%
This WuFlu looks "tame" by comparison so far.
Disclaimer: I AM NOT AN EPIDEMIOLOGIST. I am a degreed biomedical engineer with a background in peripheral vascular access drug delivery and orthopedics.
But I also stayed at a Holiday Inn Express a few years ago.....
Try to stay safe and keep yourself isolated as much as possible Hudini. Looking forward to your reports of this thing abating soon.
The mortality rate is not the only thing that affects the number of deaths. If something is extremely deadly, like over 50% of the people that catch it die, but they get it and right away are so sick that they cannot do anything then they don't spread it around as much. With this Flue (I am going to start calling it the Wu Flue) is only 5 to 10% mortality, but it takes a week or two to develop symptoms and you can spread it before you even know you have it, it can cause many more deaths because it affects more people. And that is where the Wu Flue seems to be right now.
Just for you information too. H5N1 has shown up in China just this week too. But, I think it has only been seen in birds so far.
Just so you know, I stayed at a Motel 6 the last time.
BTW, your information at the start is very good info. If I remember correctly in 1917 with the Spanish Flue, there had been some kind of mild cases of that virus that happened before the major world wide outbreak 1917/1918, therefore some people had some immunity to it.
From the BBC this morning. The slow down in the economy of China has produced a whole different issue. The use of oil and gas in China is down about 20% due to the restrictions on travel, commerce and work. Along with that Airline miles world wide are way down too. This is affecting the Oil market and OPEC is trying to adjust their output to keep prices from dropping too far and too fast.
That 20% drop in China's use of oil and gas equates to Great Britain and Italy quitting consumption. So the oil market is being glutted.
Although science believes the initial host for this one came from bats, they also believe the jump to humans involved an intermediate host animal, as there were no bats sold or even present at the seafood market it was believed to have started at.....
Unfortunately you don't know the reason behind the guy being tossed in the ambulance. Some people are refusing to wear masks and walk around spitting and slinging snot like they don't give a f*** about anyone or anything.
I went to the local market yesterday to get food and as I was walking back I spotted a guy, maybe 40ish, walking around smoking a cigarette. He had no mask and proceeded to plug one nostril while blowing his snot out the other. He then pinched the snot off and slung it sideways with not a care in the world that he might be spreading germs. This behavior is normal here. People hock up loogies and spit it right on the sidewalk. I walk with my head lowered to just keep from stepping in this and dog poop.
Uh....Mortality rate is the people that die from a disease as a percentage of the total number of people that contract the disease.
Functionally, it IS the number of deaths.
That would be true if we actually had knowledge of the mortality rate. Right now it is an assumed rate. And part of the assumptions is knowing how many people actually have the disease and how many actually die of the disease. We don't know the actual number of people who have the disease. And we don't know how many will die of the disease, because it is too early. So anything we have now is just speculation.
Unfortunately you don't know the reason behind the guy being tossed in the ambulance. Some people are refusing to wear masks and walk around spitting and slinging snot like they don't give a f*** about anyone or anything.
I went to the local market yesterday to get food and as I was walking back I spotted a guy, maybe 40ish, walking around smoking a cigarette. He had no mask and proceeded to plug one nostril while blowing his snot out the other. He then pinched the snot off and slung it sideways with not a care in the world that he might be spreading germs. This behavior is normal here. People hock up loogies and spit it right on the sidewalk. I walk with my head lowered to just keep from stepping in this and dog poop.
Damn. With the authoritarian government and social credits I just assumed it was a very polite society.
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