New coronavirus in/from China

[Little John]

anyone who like doomer prn will connect this:

https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the- ... ns-1.21487

Now that would be really quite funny if that's where it comes from.

[UndercoverElephant]

anyone who like doomer prn will connect this:

https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the- ... ns-1.21487

Interesting. Raises various possibilities, but we probably won't ever know if there was human involvement in the origin of this virus.

[UndercoverElephant]

But let's be honest. It's probably going to kill a few and then that will be that.

We now know, for sure, that it is significantly infectious and may be very infectious. We know it is 88% genetically similar to SARS, and is producing SARS-like symptoms. SARS killed 9% of infected patients, and over 50% of people over the age of 60. There's no hope of a quick vaccine being produced -- minimum is 12 months for this sort of virus.

It also appears to have a long gestation period. Some cases have take 14 days to start showing symptoms. Now add into that that Wuhan has just held a big tourist event (200,000 people attended) and that hundreds of millions of Chinese people are about to go home for their New Year. This virus could kill a lot of people in China, India and Africa.

There's a big unanswered question about how easily it will be transmitted in the west - just because the Chinese couldn't contain it, it doesn't follow the UK can't. We will find out the answer to that in the next 2-3 weeks.

[UndercoverElephant]

UK government now issuing emergency advice to NHS staff:

https://imgur.com/HPGpisS

Thing is...Chinese New Year isn't just internal to China. There's going to be thousands of Chinese students and other Chinese people going back to China from the UK, and then returning after the celebrations.

[woodburner]

It'll get interesting when the mortality rate matches that of Spanish Flu which killed between 10% and 20% of people infected.

There is a big question over whether the deaths were caused by the flu, or by the treatments to a possibly compromised population.

[clv101]

This already seems more poorly contained than SARs, with SARs the majority of cases came from a small number of super-infectors. That made the tracking and containment easier. Seems we are already past that point. I expect we're going to see more deaths than SARs and this will be a globally significant event.

The main impact most people will notice, won't be actually getting sick, but the breakdown of civil society.

National Risk Register:
"Normal life is likely to face wider social and
economic disruption, significant threats to the
continuity of essential services, lower production
levels, shortages and distribution difficulties. "

[adam2]

CUHK professor Guan Yi speaking to Caixin Media interviewee (my best attempt at verbatim, source: http://www.caixin.com/2020-01-23/101507670.html) :

"This time it is different from SARS. There is no comparison. 60-70% of SARS infectees caught the virus from a few individual super-infectors. The chain of infection was clear, and all that had to be done was to block these few people.

This time, the infectors have spread all around at this point. We can no longer conduct an epidemiological survey.

A conservative estimate would be that the scale of the infection is 10 times as that of SARS. I have experienced this much, but never have I been this scared. Most (of other epidemics) could be controlled, but this time I am frightened."

Could this be the big one?

Possibly. More likely IMHO that it will pass, but one should be prepared for this being the "big one"

[Little John]

https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking ... d-in-China

[adam2]

This already seems more poorly contained than SARs, with SARs the majority of cases came from a small number of super-infectors. That made the tracking and containment easier. Seems we are already past that point. I expect we're going to see more deaths than SARs and this will be a globally significant event.

The main impact most people will notice, won't be actually getting sick, but the breakdown of civil society.

National Risk Register:
"Normal life is likely to face wider social and
economic disruption, significant threats to the
continuity of essential services, lower production
levels, shortages and distribution difficulties. "

I agree.
Any significant mortality within the UK could indirectly kill more people than those who succumb to the disease.
Consider the effects of just 1% of the UK population dying from this virus.

A modern power station can operate with a 1% shortfall in staff, 495 instead of 500 for example.
If however half the staff stay away, for fear of becoming infected, then the power station might have to close for the duration.
And that is without considering any other indirect effects such as cordons, curfews, riots, or petrol shortages that prevent staff from getting to work.

Similar arguments apply to public transport, food production and distribution, water supply, banking, waste management, and many other facilities and services.

[UndercoverElephant]

This already seems more poorly contained than SARs, with SARs the majority of cases came from a small number of super-infectors. That made the tracking and containment easier. Seems we are already past that point. I expect we're going to see more deaths than SARs and this will be a globally significant event.

The main impact most people will notice, won't be actually getting sick, but the breakdown of civil society.

National Risk Register:
"Normal life is likely to face wider social and
economic disruption, significant threats to the
continuity of essential services, lower production
levels, shortages and distribution difficulties. "

Mrs Elephant has just ordered a month's worth of dried and canned food supplies.

[UndercoverElephant]

https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking ... d-in-China

TO CONTAIN AN OUTBREAK, IS THIS KIND OF TRAVEL BAN USUALLY EFFECTIVE? WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS AND SOME OF THE PITFALLS?

A: To my knowledge, trying to contain a city of 11 million people is new to science. It has not been tried before as a public health measure, so we cannot at this stage say it will or will not work. If this is happening we will note carefully to what extent it is maintained and how long it can take.

Takes a while to sink in. This is like deciding to try to quarantine the whole of London, just before Christmas. And it feels like an exercise in shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

https://www.wfdd.org/story/chinese-auth ... s-multiply

Online, people expressed doubt about whether the quarantine came in time to check the disease's spread. Influential bloggers have been calling on the mayor of Wuhan, Zhou Xianwang, to step down after he admitted the city government's initial public health responses "were not sufficient." The disease has spread to virtually all other Chinese provinces as well as Hong Kong, none of which has been quarantined.

The sudden decision to lock down the city of 11 million residents, who were given less than eight hours' notice of the suspension of public transportation, suggests the severity of the outbreak has alarmed China's leaders. Wuhan's lockdown comes only two days before the official start of Lunar New Year, a major, weeklong holiday during which hundreds of millions normally travel within and outside China.

Perfect example of being behind the curve. If they are serious about stopping this, they need to quarantine more than just Wuhan. And what is going to happen if, as seems very likely, ten more Chinese cities have outbreaks like this? Are they all going to be quarantined??

[Little John]

mmm....

Think I might just nip down the road to Aldi and Asda tomorrow

Noodles, multivits, dried veg and pulses. Already got loads of Camden tablets and Camden powder. We've got a river nearby. Plenty of scrap firewood in from my brother's roofing company stored out back.

Bleach might be a good idea.

All good fun.

[adam2]

This already seems more poorly contained than SARs, with SARs the majority of cases came from a small number of super-infectors. That made the tracking and containment easier. Seems we are already past that point. I expect we're going to see more deaths than SARs and this will be a globally significant event.

The main impact most people will notice, won't be actually getting sick, but the breakdown of civil society.

National Risk Register:
"Normal life is likely to face wider social and
economic disruption, significant threats to the
continuity of essential services, lower production
levels, shortages and distribution difficulties. "

Mrs Elephant has just ordered a month's worth of dried and canned food supplies.

Very sensible. Even if this epidemic turns out to be of little importance, it is prudent to have supplies for any unrelated disaster.

[clv101]

This a good read:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/22/wu ... r-hardest/

[Little John]

Here we go

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... mg00000008