Coronavirus

[SageBrush]

The fact that the virus has mutated into another strain is actually scarier.

You are jumping to conclusions. There are no lack of of wild-type CoronaViridae wondering around. Per the CDC

People around the world commonly get infected with human coronaviruses 229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1

, in addition to the SARS and MERS variants.

 

[KarenRei]

Well, today's results were pretty miserable :Þ

We have two new moderate outbreak centres (Iran and Italy), one new major (but contained) outbreak centre in a prison in Shandong in China, and South Korea has become a major outbreak centre. The annoying thing is because of the incubation time, cases are "locked in" that you don't see yet; even if, say, South Korea's containment reaction was perfect and flawless, we wouldn't even see the effects until a week after they started (average incubation time 5-6 days); new "already infected" cases will keep showing up in the data.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Italy and Iran get significantly worse, as these outbreak centres were just discovered. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised to see Japan start to improve, for the same reason as above. The Diamond Princess seems to be mostly over. With Shandong, since the prisoners are contained, the implementation of proper quarantine procedures in the prison should make it easy to contain (7 guards were infected, mind you, and some new ones may continue to be discovered over the coming days), but all of their contacts will now be under medical supervision.

Apart from Shandong, China's strict quarantine measures appear to continue to have their desired impact... to the degree that the data can be relied on. There was an update to the 19th (the day with the numbers that didn't add up, when they they made a change in their measurement methods), but it was pretty similar to the numbers I'd already calculated from the broken-down numbers. If it continues like this, we may actually see the disease under control in Hubei in the coming weeks.

Overall, though... not a good day. :Þ

 

[Cosmacelf]

While you mention South Korea, so far it seems that Seoul is not where all the new cases are coming from, correct? It’s in a couple of southern cities?

 

[KarenRei]

Daegu area. Southeast. Cheongdo, especially.

Daegu and Cheongdo are now designated "special management zones"; the military has been dispatched to assist in isolation measures.

Special Quarantine Measures Underway in Coronavirus-Hit Daegu

Curious (but probably irrelevant) trivia: "Most of the cases there are linked to the religious sect dubbed the Shincheonji Church of Jesus that is active in the region." The religious sect (cult, really) is cooperating with the containment measures.

Daegu residents are advised to remain indoors and wear facemasks. They're taking this seriously.

 

[MC3OZ]

In retrospect, the CDC will soon be proven correct in its dire warning that repatriating a full plane of both infected and healthy individuals could be a catastrophic error, because it now appears that not only can the virus remain latent for as long as 42 days, 4 weeks longer than traditionally assumed, resulting in numerous false negative cases as infected carrier slip across borders undetected, but far more ominously, it now appears that the diseases can re-infect recently "cured" patients, because as Taiwan News reports, a Chinese patient who just recovered from the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) has been infected for the second time in the province of Sichuan, according to local health officials.

How do you account for falling new cases in Hubei in particular?

If there are all of these undetected false positives at large in the community, then they should be causing additional infections, I can't understand how new cases can drop under that scenario..

For the patient who recovered and became infect a second time, even if that happened we only know of one case... perhaps there is an alternative explanation or even if this can happen it is very rare..

Provided the figures are accurately reporting and testing is adequate, new cases still seem like the best guide to how the disease is progressing....

For example Australia evacuated a group of people from ChIna to an Island for an additional 2 weeks, no new cases were detected in that 14 day period.... surely the virus isn't smart enough to know when people are in quarantine,?
So perhaps we were lucky and no people in that group were infected...
Perhaps the virus can occasionally remain latent and undetected for 42 days, but that can't be common because if it was by now new cases worldwide would be much higher...

Emotional, exhausted coronavirus evacuees finally make it home after two weeks quarantined on 'notorious' island

To be clear, I don't think the problem is going to be 100% solved anytime soon, but if they can keep the case numbers relatively low, it is manageable until we have a cure or a vaccine.

Lot of people are working on it:- https://www.smh.com.au/national/cor...19-vaccine-is-being-made-20200220-p542rh.html

 

[cwerdna]

SageBrush. It's a news report and you marked it as disagree. Good luck with that.

Shrug. Beats me what's up with his disagree of my post.

 

[elasalle]

If Korea spikes per city are contained with < 1K cases, I think it will be a good sign to show that health officials are on high alert and can contain it very fast. So far around 400 cases in Korea
As long as these don't go undetected, I think spreading can be contained. ~ cheers!!

 

[KarenRei]

If Korea spikes per city are contained with < 1K cases, I think it will be a good sign to show that health officials are on high alert and can contain it very fast. So far around 400 cases in Korea
As long as these don't go undetected, I think spreading can be contained. ~ cheers!!

It may well go over 1k cases. That said, it's sort of a special case. These are people whose lives revolve around each other (it spread so fast because they were taught to meet in church regardless of whether they were sick, no masks or glasses, sitting tightly together on the floor and loudly singing hymns), and who follow the every word of their leader. Initially the message from the church was that members should continue proselytizing and hide their cases from the authorities. But now the messaging is that the disease was sent by the devil to obstruct their work, and that it's their duty to help wipe it out (and proselytizing should now be done online).

There's over a thousand people who are suspected as possibly having the disease already. But because of the unique circumstances, so long as the cult remains cooperative, they should still be able to deal with it.

 

[TMThree]

How do you account for falling new cases in Hubei in particular?

They reverted back to the old testing methodology, which is why the number of cases quit rising.

Kind of like the US not testing unless you had visited china or came in contract with a known infected person, then claiming they have no evidence of it spreading locally - duh. Of course you won't have evidence of that when you specifically omit testing for it.

Just like FL has zero cases... yeah, not really. But you'll never know.

The state gave regular public updates on Zika, a mosquito-borne virus that infected more than 100 Floridians three years ago.

There was no problem with public updates then. But we know precious little about the coronavirus in Florida.

Gov. Ron DeSantis casually dribbled out a little information two weeks ago during a press event at Omni Middle School in Boca Raton, where he was touting an expansion of speech and debate programs in schools.

“Everybody to this date that has been tested has come back negative,” he said.

We don’t know anything about these everybodies or where they lived. Or about the somebody who got tested last week at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, according to the Sun-Sentinel, but not confirmed by the state.

Why the secrecy? If a virus that began in China two months ago and has already spread to 28 countries, including the United States, don’t the people of Florida have a right to be kept in the loop?

The state law cited is a passage in the Florida Administrative Code that says “all information contained in laboratory reports, notifiable disease or condition case reports and in related epidemiological investigatory notes is confidential.”

But the passage goes on to note three exceptions for releasing otherwise confidential disease or condition case reports to the public.

The exceptions are:

(1) If the state’s health department determines public release of information is warranted “due to the highly infectious nature of the disease.”


(2) If the release of information would be useful to reduce “the potential for further outbreaks.”

(3) If the release helps to identify or locate people in contact with the cases.

If one of those conditions is true, it trumps the patient confidentiality requirement.

In the case of the coronavirus, it wouldn’t be a stretch to argue that there’s more than enough wiggle room in the law for the state health department to be transparent with the public.

Using “patient privacy” as an excuse to tamp down information on a virus well on its way to becoming a pandemic says more about tourism than public safety in Florida.

The lack of openness has become a trend in Florida, as more and more public records become private.

 

[KarenRei]

It's not clear that "reverted back to the old methodology" is an accurate description, but they did have a second change, and also had to issue a back-correction to the (already clearly mistotaled) totals on the 19th.

 

[SageBrush]

It's not clear that "reverted back to the old methodology" is an accurate description, but they did have a second change, and also had to issue a back-correction to the (already clearly mistotaled) totals on the 19th.

Yep.
If they have enough facilities to test all clinically diagnosed disease in a timely manner the change in case definition may not make much difference to your trend line.

I expect mini-eruptions around the globe but so far the China experience leaves me optimistic that aggressive public health measures are effective in a compliant, non-dumb populace. Trumple-stan and assorted banana republics can expect epidemics. Unless god protects them, of course.

 

[Desert Punk]

Hi guys,

I found this on CNBC, 630 more new cases in Hubei region.
Coronavirus live updates: China's Hubei province reports 630 new cases, 96 additional deaths

 

[Curt Renz]

MDmag: The Fear of the Coronavirus, and the Reality of the Flu

Excerpts:

According to the latest reports from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), influenza (flu) has caused the deaths of 10,000-25,000 Americans, hospitalized 180,000, and sickened 19 million so far in the 2019-2020 season.

Coronavirus, on the other hand, has killed about 900 people worldwide. There have been only a handful of cases in the United States, with no deaths reported. So why is the public so panicked over this outbreak?
...

The fact is, influenza is an illness that is far more deadly but also far more familiar to us. The current coronavirus outbreak, which originated in China, serves as a surrogate for a good deal of xenophobia and fear of the country itself.

 

[KarenRei]

Daily numbers. Basic summary...

• Disappointing:
  • Hubei
  • Italy
  • Japan (was hoping for a turnaround already)
• About as expected:
  • South Korea
• Not as bad as expected:
  • Iran
  • Other China

No new outbreak centres.

 

[Desert Punk]

Thank you for taking time to generate these graphs!

 

[TMThree]

MDmag: The Fear of the Coronavirus, and the Reality of the Flu

Excerpts:

According to the latest reports from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), influenza (flu) has caused the deaths of 10,000-25,000 Americans, hospitalized 180,000, and sickened 19 million so far in the 2019-2020 season.

Coronavirus, on the other hand, has killed about 900 people worldwide. There have been only a handful of cases in the United States, with no deaths reported. So why is the public so panicked over this outbreak?
...

The fact is, influenza is an illness that is far more deadly but also far more familiar to us. The current coronavirus outbreak, which originated in China, serves as a surrogate for a good deal of xenophobia and fear of the country itself.

Funny stuff. The fear isn't about where flu is vs coronavirus right now, it's where things will be if coronavirus is as widespread as flu. Anyone arguing that flu is more dangerous is either lying or ignorant.

We have no herd immunity, no vax, and it has a higher r0 with higher death rate.

 

[hpartsch]

MDmag: The Fear of the Coronavirus, and the Reality of the Flu

Excerpts:

According to the latest reports from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), influenza (flu) has caused the deaths of 10,000-25,000 Americans, hospitalized 180,000, and sickened 19 million so far in the 2019-2020 season.

Coronavirus, on the other hand, has killed about 900 people worldwide. There have been only a handful of cases in the United States, with no deaths reported. So why is the public so panicked over this outbreak?
...

The fact is, influenza is an illness that is far more deadly but also far more familiar to us. The current coronavirus outbreak, which originated in China, serves as a surrogate for a good deal of xenophobia and fear of the country itself.

You can believe the numbers from China or you can believe W.H.O information --until something better comes out -- I'm not a fan of them but they are starting to not worry about trade and travel as much....

"We know that more than 80% of patients have mild disease and will recover.

But the other 20% of patients have severe or critical disease, ranging from shortness of breath to septic shock and multi-organ failure."

WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the mission briefing on COVID-19

 

[cwerdna]

It may well go over 1k cases. That said, it's sort of a special case. These are people whose lives revolve around each other (it spread so fast because they were taught to meet in church regardless of whether they were sick, no masks or glasses, sitting tightly together on the floor and loudly singing hymns), and who follow the every word of their leader. Initially the message from the church was that members should continue proselytizing and hide their cases from the authorities. But now the messaging is that the disease was sent by the devil to obstruct their work, and that it's their duty to help wipe it out (and proselytizing should now be done online).

There's over a thousand people who are suspected as possibly having the disease already. But because of the unique circumstances, so long as the cult remains cooperative, they should still be able to deal with it.

Yes, I'd heard similar things when I listened to What COVID-19 Cases Look Like In South Korea via the NPR News app which mentioned (amongst other things):
"And the members of Shincheonji reportedly ignore this virus because they see it as a trick of the devil to obstruct them from spreading their religion."

South Korean cult church leader says coronavirus outbreak is the 'devil's deed' and Shadowy Church Is at Center of Coronavirus Outbreak in South Korea that I found seems to have similar reports.

 

[sundaymorning]

Cases outside epicenter (Wuhan) falling.

WRAPUP 1-China reports fewer cornonavirus cases outside epicentre, cases surge in S. Korea

 

[TMThree]

A lot of people in the US are paycheck to paycheck. How many have food stock to stay home for a month or two? How about if your government locked you in your houses?

As we saw with the Princess cruise ship, it still spread slowly throughout. If everyone is locked at home and no testing or assistance is being given, doesn't mean it still isn't spreading. Plenty of stories from SARs where the virus was spread through the shared systems, such as home plumbing.

Odds are high that China is a glimpse at our own futures in 2 months. Best stock up and be prepared.