Coronavirus COVID-19 (a.k.a. 2019-nCoV) outbreak in China

[Stwood]

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/uk-researcher-predicts-over-250000-people-china-will-have-coronavirus-ten-days

Don't panic.

I clicked and....

You are not authorized to access this page.

[Carver]

I clicked and....

You are not authorized to access this page.

That's interesting, it is gone! I wonder what that is all about, try this: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/56-million-chinese-lockdown-virus-spreads-australia-malaysia

[Stwood]

That opened up. 
My first thought on the other was that it was a subscription page, but maybe not.

[iam4liberty]

Just a reminder that while it is always good to check your preps to ensure that practical bases are covered, there is no need to panic. 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/coronavirus-dont-panic-least-not-yet/amp/
Is coronavirus really the next 'Big One'? How worried we should be about the outbreak

But is this so-called “Wuhan flu” really the oft-predicted “Big One” – the start of a pandemic like the 1918-19 Spanish flu? Is that horseman on the horizon an outrider for the coming Apocalypse, or merely a reminder of pandemics past?

The fact is, no one knows whether the new coronavirus, which was first detected six weeks ago in Wuhan will prove as contagious as the Spanish flu, much less SARS, a related coronavirus which, in 2002 and 2003, sparked a major scare and the meltdown of Asian stock markets.

The good news, at present, is that the Wuhan virus doesn’t appear to be as catchy as SARS. And while it could become as virulent as Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), another type of coronavirus, so far that doesn’t appear to have happened. Indeed, reports coming out of China suggest that the virus is relatively stable.

[Stwood]

We just went through our medical stash this week.
Had added some items from our amazon subscribe&save. So with some added hospital grade masks coming, I think we're good.

I noticed yesterday that several of the mask selections on amazon were out of stock.

[FreeLancer]

BBC:  Coronavirus: How can China build a hospital so quickly?

[mountainmoma]

Not much.

Well, quarantine upon entry for 5 days -- but I guess we are not there -- yet

[FreeLancer]

For those of us already here the risks are low to begin with, but it doesn't hurt to take the same precautions for cold and flu season.  I'd probably stay away from any Chinese New Year celebrations out here on the left coast, though.

[iam4liberty]

For those of us already here the risks are low to begin with, but it doesn't hurt to take the same precautions for cold and flu season.  I'd probably stay away from any Chinese New Year celebrations out here on the left coast, though.

Sage advise. There are some nasty flu pockets.

[Carver]

From Zerohedge January 25:
Summary

    1497 Cases Worldwide; 42 Deaths: 3% official mortality rate (SARS was 11%)
    18 Chinese cities - 56 million people - quarantined
    President Xi said China faces a 'grave situation' as the spread is 'accelerating'
    US and Russia planning evacuation of citizens from Wuhan
    Australia and Malaysia join the list of global nations with CoV cases, in addition to France, Pakistan, Singapore, the US and Nepal
    Chinese President Xi Jinping empowered local governments and said teams from Beijing will be sent to severely impacted areas to strengthen front-line prevention and containment
    The US and France chartered planes to evacuate diplomats and nationals in containment zones
    The director of the CDC says she expects cases of human-to-human transmission in the US
    China banned all domestic tour groups immediately and overseas group tours from Jan 27
    Starbucks and China said they were closing some stores in China
    Wuhan is building a second emergency hospital, this one with 1300 beds
    3 doctors in Beijing who visited Wuhan are confirmed to have the virus

[iam4liberty]

Balanced perspective.

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/experts-say-flu-is-bigger-threat-to-middle-tennesseans-than-coronavirus
Experts say flu is bigger threat to Middle Tennesseans than Coronavirus
Tenn. Tech student tests negative for the virus

[Gamer]

If anybody fancies some weekend viewing, this opening episode of Survivors (1975) gives a step-by-step account of what happens after a butterfingered Chinese lab worker drops a flask of germs..

https://youtu.be/zAyjkaFYnzE

[FreeLancer]

U.S. Sets Evacuation Plan From Coronavirus-Infected Wuhan

In an email to U.S. citizens in China, the State Department said a flight would leave Wuhan on Tuesday and fly to San Francisco. It invited U.S. citizens with a valid passport to contact the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. Private citizens are expected to later repay the travel costs, the notice said.

“This capacity is extremely limited and if there is insufficient ability to transport everyone who expresses interest, priority will be given to individuals at greater risk from coronavirus,” the notice said.

It said the flight was tied to State Department arrangements to relocate its personnel from the U.S. consulate in Wuhan, which a person familiar with the matter said will be temporarily closed.

Probably not a bad idea. 

The chaos that comes from being locked down with 50 million people could wind up being a lot more dangerous than the disease.  Quarantine as an effective public health measure has a spotty record, at best, and usually causes more problems than it solves.

[Carver]

I noticed yesterday that several of the mask selections on amazon were out of stock.

We hit the stores yesterday and everywhere we went it was mobbed. Dollar Store had 3 peghhole hooks filled with ten-pack of face masks for $1.

[Stwood]

We hit the stores yesterday and everywhere we went it was mobbed. Dollar Store had 3 peghhole hooks filled with ten-pack of face masks for $1.

Possibly the supplies could dry up.

[FreeLancer]

Two confirmed cases hospitalized in California, LA and OC, both with travel to Wuhan. 

Wuhan is expecting their confirmed cases to go from 2000 to 3000 overnight. A US university epidemiological study projects actual infections (lab confirmed + those not in the medical system) approaching 200,000 in China a week from now.

Things are really going to suck for those under siege in Wuhan. Depending on how long China allows us a glimpse into the chaos, we’ll get to see what life and death looks like in a modern plague city.

And they’re building a third pop-up hospital.

[Carver]

The Chinese must have some secret fast-drying concrete/paint and really fast electricians, construction workers to get a hospital up in a week. They must've had a regiment of doctors and nurses looking for work to staff it. I imagine also they had warehouses filled with hospital beds and equipment and drugs to stock these new hospitals.

I see that my cynicism detector needle is buried so I better quit.

What's really going on here? Are they trying to induce global panic to induce an economic meltdown?

[Stwood]

Top of my haid, I'd say lots of calcium added to the concrete for it to set up fast.

And the building, I think they do a lot of modular setups like Japan does. Set a pre-made building down and anchor it, set another and it has electrical and water that plugs into the first.....etc.....
Japan does a lot of multi story apartments that way. I would imagine China does also.

[David in MN]

Wuhan is expecting their confirmed cases to go from 2000 to 3000 overnight. A US university epidemiological study projects actual infections (lab confirmed + those not in the medical system) approaching 200,000 in China a week from now.

Do we trust Chinese numbers? I ask because in economics we really don't. I often struggle with what to think.

Things are really going to suck for those under siege in Wuhan. Depending on how long China allows us a glimpse into the chaos, we’ll get to see what life and death looks like in a modern plague city.

I heard an unconfirmed 3rd hand rumor that OTC fever reducers are a hot commodity in Asia right now. Being found to have a fever could be very bad.

[Morning Sunshine]

Do we trust Chinese numbers? I ask because in economics we really don't. I often struggle with what to think.

This.  I have heard seen videos of seemingly-healthy people just toppling over on the streets (right next to geared-up health workers), of uncontrollable tremors on a gurney - neither of which seem very realistic to me.  They claim to be deleting "fake videos" but with the amount of control they have over their society - social credits, etc. - I don't trust their judgement on "fake."

I don't trust anything China has said publicly, and have not for years.*  I am suspicious about anything they have said re: this virus.
The Israelis seem to think that Wuhan is the base of a bio-weapons lab.... add that to the mix of crazy with this event
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/24/virus-hit-wuhan-has-two-laboratories-linked-chines/


* I think it comes down to this with Chinese culture - any culture that willingly kills babies because they are girls, and therefore worthless in a family, cannot have a healthy society.

[FreeLancer]

I don’t trust the Chinese. Period.

But they do seem to be making a better effort at transparency this time than they’ve ever managed before.  They gave the world the genetic sequence right off the bat. That’s a step in the right direction.


I wouldn’t doubt there’s all kinds of shenanigans going on to mask fevers and respiratory symptoms in an effort to slip past controls.  Desperation does that. And quarantine further compounds that desperation.

[Carver]

But they do seem to be making a better effort at transparency this time than they’ve ever managed before.

That is what makes me suspicious.

[FreeLancer]

GIS database of confirmed infections compiled by Johns Hopkins:  https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 

It doesn't go beyond state-level precision, so the US map shows all of California's cases near Fresno (the middle of the state), which doesn't have any cases.

[Morning Sunshine]

But they do seem to be making a better effort at transparency this time than they’ve ever managed before.

That is what makes me suspicious.

yes.  this.

[FreeLancer]

It's not just China, there's been a global shift in cooperation this time around.

Scientists are unraveling the Chinese coronavirus with unprecedented speed and openness

The genome was posted on a Friday night on an open-access repository for genetic information. By Saturday morning, Andrew Mesecar, a professor of cancer structural biology at Purdue University, had redirected his laboratory to start analyzing the DNA sequence, which bore a striking resemblance to that of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the 2002 viral outbreak that sickened more than 8,000 people and killed nearly 800. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana asked a company to turn the information from a string of letters on a computer screen into actual DNA they could study in lab dishes.

At unprecedented speed, scientists are starting experiments, sharing data and revealing the secrets of the pathogen — a race that is made possible by new scientific tools and cultural norms in the face of a public health emergency.

“The pace is unmatched,” said Karla Satchell, a professor of microbiology-immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “This is really new. Lots of people [in science] still try to hide what they’re doing, don’t want to talk about what they’re doing, and everybody out there is like: This is the case where we don’t worry about egos, we don’t worry about who’s first, we just care about solving the problem. The information flow has been really fast.”

[FreeLancer]

Emerging evidence hints at possibility of virus transmission from persons who don't exhibit any fever or other clinical symptoms. 


Lancet:  A familial cluster of pneumonia associated with the 2019 novel coronavirus indicating person-to-person transmission: a study of a family cluster

In summary, an outbreak of novel coronavirus is ongoing at Wuhan in the winter of 2019–20.  Similar to the 2003 SARS outbreak in Guangzhou, Wuhan is also a rapidly flourishing capital city of the Hubei province and the traffic hub of central China. Moreover, both outbreaks were initially connected to wet markets where game animals and meat were sold. In the case of SARS, person-to-person transmission was efficient and super-spreading events had led to major outbreaks in hotels and hospitals. Learning from the SARS outbreak, which started as animal-to-human transmission during the first phase of the epidemic, all game meat trades should be optimally regulated to terminate this portal of transmission. But as shown in this study, it is still crucial to  isolate patients and trace and quarantine contacts as early as possible because asymptomatic infection appears possible (as  shown in one of our patients), educate the public on both food and personal hygiene, and alert health-care workers on compliance to infection control to prevent super-spreading events.  Unlike the 2003 SARS outbreak, the improved surveillance network and laboratory capability of China was able to recognize this outbreak within a few weeks and announced the virus genome sequences that would allow the development of rapid diagnostic tests and efficient epidemiological control. Our study showed that person-to-person transmission in family homes or hospital, and intercity spread of this novel coronavirus are possible, and therefore vigilant control measures are warranted at this early stage of the epidemic.

[Mr. Bill]

Emerging evidence hints at possibility of virus transmission from persons who don't exhibit any fever or other clinical symptoms.

Okay, I guess that's bad news and good news.  Bad because it'll spread easier.  Good because maybe lots of infected people have no symptoms or mild symptoms, which means the death rate is lower than it currently appears.

[FreeLancer]

Similar to influenza.

[Carver]

The global markets are getting the flu: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/global-stocks-crash-coronavirus-pandemic-infects-3000-china-yuan-plummet

[FreeLancer]

Mayor of Wuhan is offering to resign, hints that central government prevented him from releasing information on the outbreak earlier, and admitted that 5 million people from his city are already outside of the quarantine zone. 

A scientific assessment of the spread of the disease, assuming an optimistic 90 percent quarantine, still predicted more than 59,000 infections and 1,500 deaths — twice the toll of the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak.