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Jouhou wrote:Noticed it's strange no one has started a discussion on this yet, since it impacts aviation.
Jouhou wrote:Noticed it's strange no one has started a discussion on this yet, since it impacts aviation.
In December an outbreak of viral pneumonia was detected in Wuhan, China. The cases all originate at a seafood market. It has since been identified as a betacoronavirus showing somewhere between 70-90% genetic similarity with the SARS coronavirus. Airports have stepped up screening for fever and illness on passengers coming from Wuhan. People rushed out to buy n95 masks in Hong Kong.
Recent updates to the situation include the first death of an infected patient (6 patients remain in serious condition), and the first detection of the virus outside of China has been found in Thailand (I'm not sure if they were detected as a result of airport screening from these poor translations from Thai I've been reading but I think they might have been) in a tourist from Wuhan, and the virus has been named by the WHO as 2019-nCoV (not much of a name, I'll still think of it as the Wuhan coronavirus).
China keeps reporting the virus is not being transmitted from person to person, but there's reason to be skeptical. China is not always forthcoming about dangerous outbreaks within their borders.
Edit: I would also advise anyone flying through the East Asian - South East Asian region to get a flu shot if you haven't. Most of the adult travelers being quarantined at the airports are being found to be infected with influenza. With the likely increase in scale of the airport screenings following the discovery of the virus in Thailand it'd be a good step for avoiding quarantine.
SQ22 wrote:Jouhou wrote:Noticed it's strange no one has started a discussion on this yet, since it impacts aviation.
In December an outbreak of viral pneumonia was detected in Wuhan, China. The cases all originate at a seafood market. It has since been identified as a betacoronavirus showing somewhere between 70-90% genetic similarity with the SARS coronavirus. Airports have stepped up screening for fever and illness on passengers coming from Wuhan. People rushed out to buy n95 masks in Hong Kong.
Recent updates to the situation include the first death of an infected patient (6 patients remain in serious condition), and the first detection of the virus outside of China has been found in Thailand (I'm not sure if they were detected as a result of airport screening from these poor translations from Thai I've been reading but I think they might have been) in a tourist from Wuhan, and the virus has been named by the WHO as 2019-nCoV (not much of a name, I'll still think of it as the Wuhan coronavirus).
China keeps reporting the virus is not being transmitted from person to person, but there's reason to be skeptical. China is not always forthcoming about dangerous outbreaks within their borders.
Edit: I would also advise anyone flying through the East Asian - South East Asian region to get a flu shot if you haven't. Most of the adult travelers being quarantined at the airports are being found to be infected with influenza. With the likely increase in scale of the airport screenings following the discovery of the virus in Thailand it'd be a good step for avoiding quarantine.
Please remember to provide a source when stating facts. Thanks.
Jouhou wrote:Noticed it's strange no one has started a discussion on this yet, since it impacts aviation.
einsteinboricua wrote:Jouhou wrote:Noticed it's strange no one has started a discussion on this yet, since it impacts aviation.
Only when a non-first world disease impacts a first world country will it become news and action will be taken.
We saw it with Ebola.
einsteinboricua wrote:Jouhou wrote:Noticed it's strange no one has started a discussion on this yet, since it impacts aviation.
Only when a non-first world disease impacts a first world country will it become news and action will be taken.
We saw it with Ebola.
Jouhou wrote:It's actually been huge news for anyone following infectious disease news.
Today, the WHO said there may have been limited human-to-human transmission of the new virus in China within families, and it is possible there could be a wider outbreak.
"From the information that we have it is possible that there is limited human-to-human transmission, potentially among families, but it is very clear right now that we have no sustained human-to-human transmission," said Maria Van Kerkhove, acting head of WHO's emerging diseases unit.
The WHO is however preparing for the possibility that there could be a wider outbreak, she told a Geneva news briefing. "It is still early days, we don't have a clear clinical picture."
einsteinboricua wrote:Jouhou wrote:It's actually been huge news for anyone following infectious disease news.
Which is likely a fraction of the population.
The media also has a responsibility to not stoke fear. They failed miserably at this with the Ebola outbreak in 2014.
Until we see a case enter the developed world, don't expect much attention. Maybe news in Singapore and Hong Kong are covering it, but then again, odds are their news studios are not sensationalists who are after ratings.
einsteinboricua wrote:Until we see a case enter the developed world, don't expect much attention. Maybe news in Singapore and Hong Kong are covering it, but then again, odds are their news studios are not sensationalists who are after ratings.
zakuivcustom wrote:einsteinboricua wrote:Until we see a case enter the developed world, don't expect much attention. Maybe news in Singapore and Hong Kong are covering it, but then again, odds are their news studios are not sensationalists who are after ratings.
HK media are definitely covering things, with the number of actual suspected cases in HK being higher than Wuhan itself.
I wouldn't say HK media are not sensationalist, though. The top two Chinese newspapers (on opposite side of political spectrum) aka Apple Daily and Oriental Daily are VERY sensationalist. You can't blame HKers for worrying about another SARS, though, especially after the long cover-up by mainland government back then. Hack, even yesterday, a few HK TV station had their reporters detained and questioned near the "epicenter" hospital in Wuhan (And yes, it include the ultra pro-China TVB).
With Chunyun coming up, if the virus is worse than current reports, things can get really messy quickly.
Jouhou wrote:Wuhan expands screening and outbreak containment efforts: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202001/ ... 71876.html
zakuivcustom wrote:Jouhou wrote:Wuhan expands screening and outbreak containment efforts: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202001/ ... 71876.html
Let see if this would increase the amount of case number in Wuhan greatly. B/c it's ridiculous that there are still only <50 cases in Wuhan with the virus seemingly spreading to multiple places around the world.
zakuivcustom wrote:Jouhou wrote:Wuhan expands screening and outbreak containment efforts: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202001/ ... 71876.html
Let see if this would increase the amount of case number in Wuhan greatly. B/c it's ridiculous that there are still only <50 cases in Wuhan with the virus seemingly spreading to multiple places around the world.
1989worstyear wrote:Looks like SARS again. Goodbye JAL and ANA 767 fleets.
zakuivcustom wrote:1989worstyear wrote:Looks like SARS again. Goodbye JAL and ANA 767 fleets.
As long as PRC doesn't hide how bad the outbreak is, it would not be as bad as SARS. But the first part is always questionable.
Anyway, suspected cases are also reported in Shanghai and Shenzhen:
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society ... d-shenzhen
I seriously can't imagine how bad things can be with Chunyun along with the fact that Wuhan sits right in the middle of Chinese railway network.
1989worstyear wrote:Looks like SARS again. Goodbye JAL and ANA 767 fleets.
Cerecl wrote:1989worstyear wrote:Looks like SARS again. Goodbye JAL and ANA 767 fleets.
I think a bit of perspectives are in order here.
Viral respiratory tract epidermic happens EVERY YEAR. Many people die every year as a result. Coronavirus is a well known cause of viral RTI even before SARS came along. SARS was a big deal because it was easily transmitted and its associated mortality rate was much higher than your garden-variety flu. So far, only 2 people have unfortunately passed way from a confirmed case of 65 (possibly much higher), I am not convinced its virulence is worse than what we see every year. Just because the current novel virus is a coronavirus doesn't mean it is going be as bad as SARS.
It is VERY hard to properly diagnose everyone who was infected with the virus. Most people who contract the virus only exhibit mild symptoms and most likely won't choose to seek medical attention. For the same reason, the US screen scheme is probably going to miss 95% of the cases. Wuhan is a big city, and human interactions are almost impossible to completely trace (I think Chinese authority claimed they contact traced 600-odd people). Unless Wuhan closes its borders and checks/isolates everyone who had RTI symptoms, you are not going to stop the spread of the virus.
Jouhou wrote:SARS was stopped. Also, considering the seafood market outbreak caught attention like it did, It's seemingly causing more severe illness than the 4 common and less severe human coronaviruses. This one has genes tracing back to bat coronaviruses like MERS and SARS. These have genes that tend to cause severe illness in humans once they've adapted to infecting our cells. It's important to beat the viruses back before they fully adapt. Each person they infect they become better at infecting people and causing more severe illness.
Cerecl wrote:Jouhou wrote:SARS was stopped. Also, considering the seafood market outbreak caught attention like it did, It's seemingly causing more severe illness than the 4 common and less severe human coronaviruses. This one has genes tracing back to bat coronaviruses like MERS and SARS. These have genes that tend to cause severe illness in humans once they've adapted to infecting our cells. It's important to beat the viruses back before they fully adapt. Each person they infect they become better at infecting people and causing more severe illness.
SARS stopped when it was summer time-likely one would expect. Not saying all the public health measures were not useful, but all the measure didn't stop virus from reaching 4 continents.
We have influenza A virus epidemic every year. Some years they are better, and other years they are not so good at killing people. The genetic shift and drift that determine virulence appear random rather than directional/adaptational. Again, genetic similarity to MERS/SARS does not mean that they are equally virulent. Mortality associated with SARS was 10% among confirmed cases. Clearly, mortality with this novel virus is much lower. For nearly every patient with viral RTI we looked after in hospital, they can give a history of a (several) friend(s)/family member(s)who also had the symptoms but didn't go see a doctor or didn't need admission. We don't even contact trace these people, so what is different here? There were probably thousands of people who have already come into contact with the novel virus, only a small proportion become sick enough to need hospital admission, and a small proportion of those succumb, just like any other viral RTI. As I said, screening procedures based on temperature and symptoms are going to miss the vast majority of cases. Perhaps more important to eliminate the source, which appears to have already been done.
Not quite sure why NH and JL's 767s were singled out, but I suspect they will probably survive this coronavirus outbreak pretty OK.
Jouhou wrote:So you think we should just do nothing and let it adapt to humans until it does prove as serious? That's idiotic.
It's not the same lineage as the 4 common types. You can look up a chart of genetic relationships. The human coronaviruses should not be compared to this, although both OC43 and HKU1 are also betacoronaviruses, they are not very similar.
Jouhou wrote:There's no English language articles yet but there are reports that there's 136 new cases, a new death, a confirmed case in Shenzhen, 2 cases at Beijing Daxing. I will post the articles when they come out in English.
zakuivcustom wrote:Jouhou wrote:There's no English language articles yet but there are reports that there's 136 new cases, a new death, a confirmed case in Shenzhen, 2 cases at Beijing Daxing. I will post the articles when they come out in English.
Was about to post this.
Almost just as I expected - increase screening and boom, 100+ new reported cases in two days
frmrCapCadet wrote:Remember that effective surveillance is difficult. Half *ss measures and quarantines offer the perception of doing something useful and delay effective measures. There are sound scientific/medical ways of containing these sorts of outbreaks. Perhaps Jouhou could summarize them, here are a few:
Quick and accurate laboratory work to discover the source and the first victims of a new viral disease
Determine fatality rate, or permanent disablement rate
Likewise determining what the best medical treatment of those infected
Quickly determining if and how the disease can spread from person to person, and how it does it
If it does not easily spread person to person, there likely will not be an epidemic (?)
If it spreads via blood/only certain body fluids it may or may not be epidemic
If like Ebola it spreads by person to person by bodily contact easily it will be epidemic
Note: even with Ebola there were few cases of it spreading without bodily contact IIRC
If it spreads by coughing (rarer than movies and click bait imagine), air travel can be an important method of spreading
Track contacts of sick people, this can be expensive and take time, but is essential in understanding the disease.
As I mentioned earlier, son and I were traveling in SE Asia during SARS, there was a lot of half *ss measures, monitoring, and quarantines which did nothing to protect us and other people from the disease. Even at the earliest stages it was possible to assess what was accurate information and advice and what was mostly bull crap.
meecrob wrote:So let me get this straight. Mortality rate is less than SARS, and SARS killed 774 people worldwide. For comparison, over 900 died worldwide in transport-category aviation crashes in 2003. I'm not saying "do nothing" about this, but some people are talking like this is the next Black Death. I might sound cold and callous, but there comes a point when the preventative measures are worse than the virus. From Wiki regarding Toronto's response: "The atmosphere of fear and uncertainty surrounding the outbreak resulted in staffing issues in area hospitals when healthcare workers elected to resign rather than risk exposure to SARS." So basically they scared healthcare workers so much they chose to stop helping people with ALL medical ailments, not just SARS, because try were told "the-sky-is-falling" hyperbole.
Cerecl wrote:Jouhou wrote:SARS was stopped. Also, considering the seafood market outbreak caught attention like it did, It's seemingly causing more severe illness than the 4 common and less severe human coronaviruses. This one has genes tracing back to bat coronaviruses like MERS and SARS. These have genes that tend to cause severe illness in humans once they've adapted to infecting our cells. It's important to beat the viruses back before they fully adapt. Each person they infect they become better at infecting people and causing more severe illness.
SARS stopped when it was summer time-likely one would expect. Not saying all the public health measures were not useful, but all the measure didn't stop virus from reaching 4 continents.
We have influenza A virus epidemic every year. Some years they are better, and other years they are not so good at killing people. The genetic shift and drift that determine virulence appear random rather than directional/adaptational. Again, genetic similarity to MERS/SARS does not mean that they are equally virulent. Mortality associated with SARS was 10% among confirmed cases. Clearly, mortality with this novel virus is much lower. For nearly every patient with viral RTI we looked after in hospital, they can give a history of a (several) friend(s)/family member(s)who also had the symptoms but didn't go see a doctor or didn't need admission. We don't even contact trace these people, so what is different here? There were probably thousands of people who have already come into contact with the novel virus, only a small proportion become sick enough to need hospital admission, and a small proportion of those succumb, just like any other viral RTI. As I said, screening procedures based on temperature and symptoms are going to miss the vast majority of cases. Perhaps more important to eliminate the source, which appears to have already been done.
Not quite sure why NH and JL's 767s were singled out, but I suspect they will probably survive this coronavirus outbreak pretty OK.
meecrob wrote:I'm saying you have to balance containing this virus with reality because if you make too big an issue out of it, you will negatively impact significantly more people than you are helping. Also, if its not "the-sky-is-falling," then why are you rhetorically asking me what 1.5% of 7.7 billion is? Nobody with any modicum of medical knowledge would entertain a 100% infection rate. That's impossible.
Jouhou wrote:meecrob wrote:I'm saying you have to balance containing this virus with reality because if you make too big an issue out of it, you will negatively impact significantly more people than you are helping. Also, if its not "the-sky-is-falling," then why are you rhetorically asking me what 1.5% of 7.7 billion is? Nobody with any modicum of medical knowledge would entertain a 100% infection rate. That's impossible.
That's really not that impossible, if you consider that people born before a certain year (1957 I think?) Are considered immune to measles because surely they were infected with it (I personally think that's bullshit but that's the official stance on it).
You don't appear to have a modicum of medical knowledge though since you're calling calls for a containment response an over reaction. No, it's not. That's the sensible reaction. Stop it before it snowballs. Stop it in time that people like you sit around and think infectious diseases pose no threat. We've been mitigating pandemic threats, if not stopping them dead in their tracks, effectively for awhile now. And fools sit around and think pandemic preparedness is a waste of time because it's protected them for their whole lives.
Jouhou wrote:meecrob wrote:I'm saying you have to balance containing this virus with reality because if you make too big an issue out of it, you will negatively impact significantly more people than you are helping. Also, if its not "the-sky-is-falling," then why are you rhetorically asking me what 1.5% of 7.7 billion is? Nobody with any modicum of medical knowledge would entertain a 100% infection rate. That's impossible.
That's really not that impossible, if you consider that people born before a certain year (1957 I think?) Are considered immune to measles because surely they were infected with it (I personally think that's bullshit but that's the official stance on it).
You don't appear to have a modicum of medical knowledge though since you're calling calls for a containment response an over reaction. No, it's not. That's the sensible reaction. Stop it before it snowballs. Stop it in time that people like you sit around and think infectious diseases pose no threat. We've been mitigating pandemic threats, if not stopping them dead in their tracks, effectively for awhile now. And fools sit around and think pandemic preparedness is a waste of time because it's protected them for their whole lives.
zakuivcustom wrote:Jouhou wrote:meecrob wrote:I'm saying you have to balance containing this virus with reality because if you make too big an issue out of it, you will negatively impact significantly more people than you are helping. Also, if its not "the-sky-is-falling," then why are you rhetorically asking me what 1.5% of 7.7 billion is? Nobody with any modicum of medical knowledge would entertain a 100% infection rate. That's impossible.
That's really not that impossible, if you consider that people born before a certain year (1957 I think?) Are considered immune to measles because surely they were infected with it (I personally think that's bullshit but that's the official stance on it).
You don't appear to have a modicum of medical knowledge though since you're calling calls for a containment response an over reaction. No, it's not. That's the sensible reaction. Stop it before it snowballs. Stop it in time that people like you sit around and think infectious diseases pose no threat. We've been mitigating pandemic threats, if not stopping them dead in their tracks, effectively for awhile now. And fools sit around and think pandemic preparedness is a waste of time because it's protected them for their whole lives.
(Will try to find an English source)
China officially designate the virus as "Type B infectious disease" while taking measures similar to "Type A infectious disease" i.e. forced quarantine, to try to stop the disease from snowballing further, on the 20th.
They are definitely worried about Chunyun also - with the possibility of the disease spreading to more cities around China.
IMHO at least mainland China finally take some measures, even though HK had quarantine suspected case since the 8th. It can still get ugly, though.
meecrob wrote:Jouhou wrote:meecrob wrote:I'm saying you have to balance containing this virus with reality because if you make too big an issue out of it, you will negatively impact significantly more people than you are helping. Also, if its not "the-sky-is-falling," then why are you rhetorically asking me what 1.5% of 7.7 billion is? Nobody with any modicum of medical knowledge would entertain a 100% infection rate. That's impossible.
That's really not that impossible, if you consider that people born before a certain year (1957 I think?) Are considered immune to measles because surely they were infected with it (I personally think that's bullshit but that's the official stance on it).
You don't appear to have a modicum of medical knowledge though since you're calling calls for a containment response an over reaction. No, it's not. That's the sensible reaction. Stop it before it snowballs. Stop it in time that people like you sit around and think infectious diseases pose no threat. We've been mitigating pandemic threats, if not stopping them dead in their tracks, effectively for awhile now. And fools sit around and think pandemic preparedness is a waste of time because it's protected them for their whole lives.
Seriously? I don't mind debating, but you have to at least try to read what I wrote. I said you have to balance the response. You read that as I am saying containing it is an over-reaction. Last time I checked, having a balanced approach was the opposite of an over-reaction.
Jouhou wrote:Andddd death toll just rose to 6. I wonder if the mutation I was worried about happened.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chin ... ZK0X1?il=0
Taiwan reports first confirmed infection:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chin ... SKBN1ZK0ZP
According to Chinese Language news, it's now confirmed in Zhejiang province as well. Any hopes I had for containment are dashed I think.
1989worstyear wrote:Jouhou wrote:Andddd death toll just rose to 6. I wonder if the mutation I was worried about happened.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chin ... ZK0X1?il=0
Taiwan reports first confirmed infection:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chin ... SKBN1ZK0ZP
According to Chinese Language news, it's now confirmed in Zhejiang province as well. Any hopes I had for containment are dashed I think.
Yep - regardless of whether or not I'll be as bad as SARS it's already looking like it'll have the same impact on the global economy.
https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/g ... 5D26CC31A3
Jouhou wrote:Chinese people didn't travel outside of their country so much during SARS either. It's getting scattered around the globe now.