Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)

[Brumby]

A timeline of the initial events in perspective



Findings from the initial batch of 41 patients that were infected with 2019-nCOV. Point to note is that all subsequently developed pneumonia. I think this should put to bed the debate of whether this is more serious than ordinary flu. Typically it is not flu that kills but when pneumonia sets in.




Source : Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China

(study funded by Ministry of Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China, and Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission.)

Finally, how quickly confirmed cases had accelerated.


Source : Outbreak of acute respiratory syndrome associated with a novel coronavirus, China; First cases imported in the EU/EEA; second update

 

[KYli]

I will take a guess & say the Japanese are probably only there to treat their own people that are still in China? however if they are actullay there to help Chinese citizens then that would be very good.

I was wondering why doesn't China hire doctors from abroad just for this crisis? for example from India and many other countries since doctors in China are overwoked, as long as they have translators they can comunicate just fine.

China has enough doctors to deal with this crisis. Not sure why you would suggest that they need helps from other countries.

 

[KYli]

A timeline of the initial events in perspective

View attachment 57061

Findings from the initial batch of 41 patients that were infected with 2019-nCOV. Point to note is that all subsequently developed pneumonia. I think this should put to bed the debate of whether this is more serious than ordinary flu. Typically it is not flu that kills but when pneumonia sets in.
View attachment 57062

View attachment 57063

Source : Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China

(study funded by Ministry of Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China, and Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission.)

Finally, how quickly confirmed cases had accelerated.

View attachment 57064
Source : Outbreak of acute respiratory syndrome associated with a novel coronavirus, China; First cases imported in the EU/EEA; second update

It only meant that 41 people are serious enough to require to stay at the hospitals for treatment. We would know the more accurate mortality rate after more resources are available to test the suspicious cases as many people just have minor symptoms.

 

[Skywatcher]

I will take a guess & say the Japanese are probably only there to treat their own people that are still in China? however if they are actullay there to help Chinese citizens then that would be very good.

I was wondering why doesn't China hire doctors from abroad just for this crisis? for example from India and many other countries since doctors in China are overwoked, as long as they have translators they can comunicate just fine.

They could, but language fluency could be a problem (and even then, it's possible that a Chinese doctor might not speak Japanese well as s/he believes, and likewise for a Japanese doctor's fluency various Chinese dialects).

 

[manqiangrexue]

yeah, even Xi Jinping said China is in a grave situation yet some people here say "guys it's just influenza or even less risky than influenza because X number of people die each year from influenza while in comparison only 80 died in few days from Wu flu".
if the number of deaths is the problem then don't worry.. tomorow the number of deaths will reach near 100 & seeing as how it's spreading like wildfire each day even with all this quarintine don't be surprised if in one week (more or less from now) it reaches 200.. people better take it seriously instead of sticking their head in the sand like an Ostrich, how long has it been since the measures began? 5 days maybe? & in this period 80 people died so if it keeps on spreading at the current rate each week 100 people will die, personaly I only pray the death count won't reach the one thousand threshold, & the infected doesn't reach 10k, however I'm quite pessimistic regarding this, personaly I'm already imotionaly prepared for one thousand deaths after few weeks or months, & if this happens & with economic activity nearly shut down.. don't be surprised if China enters a recesion this year, the virus is related to SARS but it's different from it, it's a new one & it's mutating..some members say the fact that symptoms only appear after two weeks is a good thing.. yeah sure it's a good thing for those who wish harm for China because the virus is a silent killer that won't start having clear symptoms till after maximum infection occurs, it would have been far much better if the symptoms would appear on day one this way we could find the infected much quicker & isolate them.

Why does the number of deaths from influenza not matter? Even if 1,000 or 2,000 people due from the Wuhan virus, that's still less than the number of people who die from the flu every year in Canada (with a population of 38 million). Why would we not do this comparison to put things into perspective? Why would you not look at the demographics of death and note that only people in poor health die from this virus and even then, the rate is very very low? From your comments about this virus and the flu, I can tell that you are completely ignorant about virus biology and have fallen total victim to the public scare because of your ignorance. Vesicles and I are both PhDs in biological sciences (I'm in genetics) and Blitzio is an MD. There is no person on this forum who is qualified in healthcare or biological sciences who is freaked out because it's not worth freaking out over. I'll tell you now, if I were in Wuhan, I'd be enjoying the uncluttered outdoors and I wouldn't be worried about a mask. If I get infected, I'll lay down for a couple of days and then I'll be immune, just like how it happened when I got the swine flu (which killed 12.5K people in the US and over a half million people worldwide for more perspective). (Bet you didn't know that everyone who was once infected becomes immune, eh?) It's not a big deal personally, but on a national level, a meticulous nation with the resources will obviously treat it with the utmost care and urgency.

Recession?? LOLOL Are you joking? Why not just talk about collapse and the secession of Wuhan? LOL This thing will be over in a few weeks and everyone will be spending all that money they saved; I have no doubt.

Yeah if China enters a recession (or worse) because of this thing in 2020 then it means it wipes out 6% or more in GDP... which would set China back probably two to three years in its development progress...

Funny people with wild imaginations...

so I just checked the numbers.. 461 in critical condition & 80 dead so in total 541 are either dead or in critical contion , so if you get the Wu flu there is a 20% chance you would either be on death's doors or totally dead, but yeah sure it's just like influenza like what some people here say.

regarding what should be (or should have been) done, just like what I said before they discovered the virus like 1 month ago or more if I'm not mistaken, yet officials only started spreading awarness between people few days ago! I read an article which I believe had a good point, Xi Jinping's anti corruption campaign has backfired big time, when the officials in Wuhan found out about the virus they tried to deal with it without spreading awarness between the people all because they didn't want a public backlash which in turn would result in Xi punishing them for incompetence, they thought they could solve the problem prompetly without warning the people to take all precautions, if back in mid or late 2019 they started warning people against going into crowded areas, wear masks, get your self checked in hospital if you have fever etc... it would have been far much easier to control the crisis, yet now here we are.. just because a bunch of officials wanted to avoid punishment & save face. there are reports that some posts on the internet that critisized the Wuhan officials were deleted.

There is no such thing as totally dead; you are dead or not. People in the hospital in critical care are not dead and will make full recoveries if their bodies were reasonably healthy to begin with. 20% is a made-up insane panic number; basically, if you catch the virus, there is a 20% chance you'll be bedridden for a while (probably higher than that), but DEATHS are DEATHS. Calculate the actual death rate and you will see it is more like 3%... in a Chinese population full of elderly, it is still 3%. Not too scary at all...

As for what should have been done, nobody can foresee these things; if you pull the trigger and go full panic whenever somebody shows flu symptoms at the hospital, you will have multiple "emergencies" every season and it will basically be like the boy who cried wolf when you call the next thing a crisis. The WHO made a careful evaluation and declined to call this a public health emergency. This is the difference between scientists and sensationalists: scientists understand the virus while sensationalists just want to scare the ignorant and get clicks on their article.

 

[supercat]

Some tidbits:

- The warning that the virus is contagious during nonsymptomatic incubation period seems to be based on a single case study (scroll to the bottom to see the report):

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Since it's a single case, there is no way we can know the R0 for the incubation period. It's entirely possible that it's much lower than the R0 for the symptomatic period.

- Several manufactures are currently producing diagnostic test solution with high sensitivity and specificity. More than 30,000 people have been tested so far.

- The virus has been isolated and the development of vaccine has started, although it's a long shot.

- In Wuhan so far, 62 "fever clinics" have been set up. During regular time, about 3,000 go to clinics. In the past few days, 15,000 showed up at peak time. The situation has improved somewhat now. Two new hospitals are under construction. The first one will come online on Feb. 5. In total, 5,000 beds (both at the new hospitals and at existing hospitals) will be added soon.

- There are about 2,700 confirmed case, less than 500 of these are serious cases. There are about 7,500 suspected cases. In addition, 33,000 are under observation.

- Comparison to flu: so far, the R0 is similar to the R0 for flu, although it could be adjusted higher later. In China, there are about 80,000-100,000 flu-related deaths each year. So how bad could it be eventually? Maybe as bad as 5 flu seasons?

 

[Blitzo]

Here at the Texas Medical Center, they use a shame tactic to shame you into taking the flu shot. Every employee who has taken the flu shot has a little yellow tag on their ID badge. And they would show off their little tag and shame us into taking the shot too. Just the other day, a colleague of mine, who is a gastroenterologist, tapped his ID badge and was like "I got my tag, where is yours?" And my shameless and thick skin so far has prevented me from being shamed into taking the shot... Maybe I should...

At my hospital we get annual flu shots for free and frankly it's a case of "it's my responsibility to as a frontline HCW"

If one good thing has come out of this episode is that hopefully people around the world will generally be more vigilant to get their vaccinations.

 

[localizer]

At my hospital we get annual flu shots for free and frankly it's a case of "it's my responsibility to as a frontline HCW"

If one good thing has come out of this episode is that hopefully people around the world will generally be more vigilant to get their vaccinations.

We're not even allowed into facilities without flu shot tag on ID.

 

[manqiangrexue]

At my hospital we get annual flu shots for free and frankly it's a case of "it's my responsibility to as a frontline HCW"

If one good thing has come out of this episode is that hopefully people around the world will generally be more vigilant to get their vaccinations.

Maybe another good thing will be less Chinese people wasting tens of thousands of yuan eating goddamn endangered exotic animals. I say save the monkey/bear/peacock/wolf cub, etc... get some 10 yuan beef noodles with a case of Qingdao, a bottle of ErGuoTou and donate the difference to the PLA. Dinner's only as good as the company you're with anyway.

 

[ougoah]

Maybe another good thing will be less Chinese people wasting tens of thousands of yuan eating goddamn endangered exotic animals. I say save the monkey/bear/peacock/wolf cub, etc... get some 10 yuan beef noodles with a case of Qingdao, a bottle of ErGuoTou and donate the difference to the PLA. Dinner's only as good as the company you're with anyway.

All for eradicating animal cruelty and wild animal markets with very little health authority oversight and management. But this wouldn't be saving money for China as a whole. It would save these individual consumers some money and they are such a small microscopic size of the Chinese population, but it would cost the business operators income.