New coronavirus in/from China

[mikepepler]

Looks like a range of countries are following the USA's lead and sending planes to bring back people from the plague ship in Japan. More scope for cross-infection during the journey back, and once they get home potential for infecting medical and other staff during quarantine or hospital treatment - and I'm sure some of them will get properly ill, due to their age.

It's baffling why Japan kept them all on the ship, I guess they didn't want to have that many people in properly isolated quarantine, but as a result they've ended up with a growing number of patients in hospital instead, as they obviously had to take seriously ill people off the ship to look after them.

[Mean Mr Mustard II]

Looks like their mistake was to foolishly rely on the (contaminated?) crew and galley to feed the inmates, so turning it from quarantine into incubation. Instead, they should have been supplied by the nearby Maccy D's -which a newly liberated inmate (separated honeymoon couple) says he's now looking forward to visiting.

On second thoughts, the Morgan Spurlock experience in his SuperSize Me doc suggests that might not have led to a much better outcome...

[adam2]

I see no harm in the USA or the UK or other developed countries evacuating their citizens from the plague ship.
It seems unduly harsh to leave them confined until everyone catches the virus.
Provided that proper precautions during the evacuation, and those evacuated are then quarantined for 14 days on their return.

My main concern would be less developed nations evacuating their citizens, perhaps via civilian flights, and then releasing them into the community without any effective quarantine. Followed by kisses, cuddles, and other opportunities for spread.

[Mean Mr Mustard II]

It's not a 'Plague Ship'. International maritime law requires a big yellow flag shall be flown to declare that sort of thing. And, as that's not been hoisted, then it must be rumour and PHEIC News.

[UndercoverElephant]

It seems unduly harsh to leave them confined until everyone catches the virus.

It is completely unethical, and very stupid.

[Vortex2]

At the end of the day either;

The Chinese have totally over-reacted .. for which they will eventually pay.

or:

There is something bad happening .. and we haven't been fully informed.


Either way, we should expect economic disturbance and even panic.

[Vortex2]

Sudden thought:

Back in 1986 I was working in the nuclear industry when Chernobyl kicked off.

I can categorically state that the public was deliberately misinformed about the radiation levels.

We had an informal telephone network between Sellafield, the reactor sites and the research labs .. all our radiation sensors told us The Truth.

I can therefore easily imagine that even our own government is fibbing about this current bug.

[adam2]

Sudden thought:

Back in 1986 I was working in the nuclear industry when Chernobyl kicked off.
I can categorically state that the public was deliberately misinformed about the radiation levels.
We had an informal telephone network between Sellafield, the reactor sites and the research labs .. all our radiation sensors told us The Truth.
I can therefore easily imagine that even our own government is fibbing about this current bug.

I know, and brief mention of this is fine in the context of not trusting government announcements.
This thread is however not the place to talk about historic nuclear accidents.
Anyone wishing to discuss the Chernobyl accident should start a new thread in the nuclear forum.

[clv101]

Agreed Vortex2, this is way the disconnect between the official narrative and the narrative it's possible to build from various snippets from social media and back of the envelope calculations is so fascinating. Presumably, something reasonably close to the truth will emerge in the coming months and years.

I just hope I'm around to learn it!

[clv101]

It seems unduly harsh to leave them confined until everyone catches the virus.

It is completely unethical, and very stupid.

Indeed. This looks like a genuine and informed first hand account of the situation on the ship (my bold):

First, here's a couple of comments about the doctor posting:
"I know his hospital. He is the largest and most prestigious hospital doctor in Kobe. Given the current situation, it is a very courageous action. Before being erased, please respect the lives of everyone, not just Japan, and share this video and think about the meaning of the video."

"He is one of the famous specialists of infectious disease in Japan ( Kobe university hospital specialist doctor). I'm quite shocked how the government official from ministry of health treated him like that. I respect and am proud of his actions and hope our government take this more seriously!"

**********************
Hello my name is professor Kentaro Iwata I am a specialist of infectious diseases at Kobe University Hospital, Kobe Japan.

Today I entered into the cruise ship Diamond Princess which is bombarded by a-lot of COVID 19 infection right now and I was removed from the ship on the same day and I'm going to talk to you why this happened.

I was very concerned of the number of the people who got infected with COVID 19 disease infections. Then I was wondering why this is happening, I wanted to enter into the cruise ship and wanted to be useful in helping to containing infection there I spoke with several people and finally the one officer at working for Ministry of Health and Labor called me yesterday saying that well you can come and enter into a cruise ship and do the infection control work and I said fine, then I prepared my stuff and I did all the paperwork's and arrangement and they got in onto the Shinkansen? from Kobe to Yokohama all the way to go to Yokohama

I got another call from the same officer say that somebody didn't like me so do you can't get into the cruise ship. He was not able to say who and he was not able to say why but certainly some power over him affected his decision and I was blocked from entering into the ship then after several discussions he found another way that if you could come as a DMAT team member you can come in at into the cruise ship. DMAT is the disaster management medical team in Japan and usually deals with disaster not infectious diseases but because of the lack of the people who could help people inside a cruise ship to get out of the ship or the managing of people and the swan song DMAT was requested to enter in the cruise ship because my specialty is not a disaster management

So I was not very happy about that, but because we have no other way I said fine I'll do that. Additionally I got another call that some people didn't like me getting into the cruise ship present even as a DMAT member. Another discussion happened then the I waited about our one hour in shin-yokohama sessions and finally the officer find a way that if you work for DMAT not as an infection prevention specialist, but as the ordinary routine Diamond officer working under wounded team at doctor doing a routine job then you could come into the cruise ship.

I was not very happy with that decision but because there's no other way so I said finding out get into the ship I entered the ship then I found the chief officer of the DMAT and spoke with him I said well I was assigned to the DMAT members or the out whatever you want to say they hes well you don't have to work team DMAT work because that's not your specialty and you are an infection prevention specialist so why don't you do the infection control then I said fine

I spoke with the superior of him who is in charge of the DMAT operations and he also said that you are infection control person so you should do infection control I said fine but he said well you shouldn't be here as a DMAT member you should come as the along to infection control specialist he was not very happy about while I was inside a DMAT but because that was not my decision there was no other way so he I said well I have to do it

I looked into the several places inside the ship and the turned out that the cruise ship was completely inadequate in terms of the infection control there was no distinction between the Green Zone which is the free of infection and the Red Zone which is potentially contaminated by virus.

So the people could come and go wearing a PPE of PPE crews were just walking around and the officers of ministry the health and the labor was walking around, DMAT people are walking around, psychiatrists are walking around, and people were eating in one place, people were wearing PPE and off PPE and eating lunch with their gloves on and just dealing with the smart phone with full PPE so it was completely chaotic and some crews had a fever they went to the medical center while wearing and N95 masks but he didn't have any protection between his room and a medical room and the medical officer was not protecting herself and that she was very happy saying that well she was already infected I'm sure about that, so the she was completely giving up protecting herself anyways

I dealt with a lots of infections more than twenty years and I was in Africa dealing with the Ebola outbreak, I was in another country is dealing with the cholera outbreak I was in China in 2003 to deal with the SARS, and I saw many febrile patient there. I never had fear of getting infection myself, for Ebola, SARS, cholera because I know how to protect myself and how to protect others and how the infection control should be.

So I could do the adequate infection control protect myself and protect others. but inside Princess Diamond I was so scared, I was so scared of getting COVID-19 because there was no way to tell where the virus is. No green zone no red zone everywhere could have Virus and everybody was not careful about it. There was no single professional infection control person inside the ship and that there was nobody in charge of infection prevention as a professional.

The bureaucrats were in charge of everything and I spoke with the head officer of the Ministry of Health on labor and he was very unhappy with my suggestion of protecting DMAT people and other staffs so that no other secondary transmission to occur then after several hours of talking to people and finding problems I found a lot of issues there for example informed consent of getting a PCR from the people in the ship was on a paper and that paper was going back and forth back and forth with the room of the infection from the paper by touching there.

So I suggested that maybe it's better to abandon the paper type informed consent but resolutely getting the informed consent probably would be more protective so on so on so yeah I, I think I was reasonable, and I never yell at anybody, and I never criticize anybody personally, but I was trying to be constructive but we try to seek the constructive but immediate improvement to protect everybody inside the ship

Then about five o'clock the person from the quarantine office came in and approached said well you have to be out because you will not be allowed to inside of ship because I was inside ship as the temporary officer of the quarantine that he apparently my my rank was removed by somebody and then nobody said who that the I was out. And the officer who offered me the job of infection control said he was sorry then I asked him so what do you want to do then do you want to infect everybody in the ship? it will be your thousands of people who could potentially get COVID-19.

I don' t criticize DMAT people they were not infection control specialists, Society of infection prevention entered the, a lot of specialists came in but they spend only a few days and to left. And they said they were fearful of getting infections themselves. I share the same fear because I'm in the same room now and I separated from my family I'm very scared of getting infection myself and I'm very scared of infecting my family too.

I'll be out of my medical services at Culver University Hospital for maybe next two weeks to avoid further infections to occur that is very likely to occur if you keep zero infection control inside the ship that brings us like this.

You might know that there is no CDC in Japan but I thought there must be some specialists called on and was in charge of infection control in ship it's not expecting nobody was professional infection control specialist and the only the bureaucrats were doing the jobs completely layman's work in the violating all the infection control principles and the risking people inside further infections so I'm not very surprised to see many new positive PCR's to be broadcasted every day hundreds of people got infected and the lot of people from outside Japan decided to take the people away from the ship and bring them to their home countries by airplane and offered them another 14 days of quarantine. I hope this will be the opportunity to raise a question what is happening inside ship.

I wish all the international bodies to request Japan to change. I wish everybody to call for protection of people inside the Diamond Princess. Otherwise there will be far more infections for passengers for crews for Diamond members for psychiatrist for officer of the Ministry of Health and labor DMAT member consists of nurses and doctors and that they will go back to the hospital they work routinely and it's a much infected their patients further to spread and the disease.

I can't bear with it, I can't bear with it, I think we have to change we have to do something about these crews and we have to help people inside the ship their safety and their life.

Again I am professor Kentaro Iwata of infection this infectious disease specialist thank you for listening.

[Mean Mr Mustard II]

Sleepless night. Wonder why...

Anyway, now I'm awake, just to say I did more prepping yesterday. My concern is wider panic stripping shelves bare, and patchy resupply thereafter. Got my tins of spam fixed.

Also, health monitoring equipment.

When calling NHS 111, the caller that can cite vital signs - eg - diabetic, blood sugars, any ketones present, blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, and oxygenation level would seem to be more likely to receive treatment. Or, conversely, not to panic over minor sniffles and feeling under par, because able to effectively monitor themselves.

Obviously, had the diabetic gear for some time. Not just blood glucose, but a ketone tester and in-date strips (I'd recommend the Optium Neo, does both.) And spare batteries for it.

Another risk factor for complications is hypertension. We've got a home blood pressure monitor, used for occasional regular testing to fill in data sheets for the GP. It may be worth regular testing from now to ensure that any hypertension is well controlled, either through lifestyle or medication. Or to report levels if unwell.

Likewise, got a digital thermometer the other week. And a pulse oxymeter yesterday. Had already decided on getting one of those when I saw Chris Martenson's youtube - link below - from a couple of days ago, recommending same. From the admission protocols he's reported, that's literally vital info to know. If you can report that over the phone, then at least you aren't waiting - possibly too long - on a paramedic arriving to conduct that simple and cheap test.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReMCn4GsviM

Temperature at fever - 37.3 C, or 99.14 F +

Blood oxy - SpO2 <93%

These are the figures as defined by the Chinese hospital clinical protocol. Therefore, only serving as a rough guide elsewhere. He explains the flowchart at 31 mins.

Interestingly, he shares the same views about the low credibility of institutions. While he's a bit too focused on stock markets for my liking, his overall take chimes well with what many of us here are thinking, and he's providing a very useful news / analysis service via his daily YT updates.

[Mean Mr Mustard II]

Dr Iwata is separately quoted in the rolling news here and confirmed to have boarded the ship.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/ ... atest-news

[UndercoverElephant]

Agreed Vortex2, this is way the disconnect between the official narrative and the narrative it's possible to build from various snippets from social media and back of the envelope calculations is so fascinating. Presumably, something reasonably close to the truth will emerge in the coming months and years.

I just hope I'm around to learn it!

I am not sure the authorities (anywhere) actually know the truth. If, as seems increasingly likely, this disease is asymptomatic in many cases, or very mild, then the Chinese themselves probably don't know what the death rate is. Their actions are designed to shore up their authority and the perception of their right to rule China, rather than being a rational response to the virus. And outside of China, we simply don't have enough data (still).

Part of the problem here is also that nobody trusts the authorities to tell the truth (even in the west). Anyone who remembers the BSE crisis knows why. They spent far too long saying "We have no scientific evidence of a threat to humans" when they also had no evidence it was safe to eat infected meat. They erred on the side of short-term economics, rather than public safety or long-term economics.

[fuzzy]

Things we don't know include:

Are the silent carriers spreading it? - As much or more? Is the truth as in the Tapei article - slight symptoms get reinfected worse around. Maybe it keeps reinfecting till you drop dead as per numerous videos. This would explain the severity in Wuhan [where it has been bubbling away] -vs- the world and the slowness of onset.

[kenneal - lagger]

........ Anyone who remembers the BSE crisis knows why. They spent far too long saying "We have no scientific evidence of a threat to humans" when they also had no evidence it was safe to eat infected meat. They erred on the side of short-term economics, rather than public safety or long-term economics.

Unless you were an infected cow the BSE "crisis" was very much a non event. The number of people who died or were infected was very small and all the long term predictions completely failed to materialise.

BSE was a problem of dairy cattle and intensively reared beef animals but they chose to tar the whole industry with the same brush to avoid pointing out that only animals fed with feed containing meat products were at risk. To put the blame on contaminated feed would have exposed the role the Ministry of Agriculture had in not just allowing the use of meat products in ruminant feed but their role in the research which actually encouraged that use so that cheap food would be available for the masses.

This shows up the fact that the main role of bureaucrats the world over is to protect the bureaucracy. The interests of the public come a long way behind.

Cheap anything usually turns out to be bad in the long run. Only an economist or someone brainwashed by economists would disagree with that sentiment.