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

[FreeLancer]

Number of confirmed infections on Japan cruise ship jumped up to 135 overnight. 

[iam4liberty]

Number of confirmed infections on Japan cruise ship jumped up to 135 overnight.

Makes me wonder if Spanish Flu was exacerbated by the large scale ship transport.  Seems like airplanes have much lower rates then ships.  They are tighter quarters but much less exposure time and air is partially filtered.

[FreeLancer]

UK is closing an entire school due to coronavirus possibility. 

[FreeLancer]

The World Health Organization proposed an official name: COVID-19. The acronym stands for COronaVIrus Disease 2019, as the illness was first detected the end of last year.


UC San Diego is treating the 13th confirmed case in the US (California's 7th).  They were one of the 167 citizens evacuated from China to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar last week.


The total number of confirmed infections just surpassed 43,000, of which more than 10% have recovered and 2.3% have died.  These favorable odds of survival, currently better than 4 to 1, will continue to improve as additional data comes in over the coming weeks.

[iam4liberty]

On radio they are doing interviews with people in first US group released from quarantine.  General sentiment was that they were actually happy with quarentine as they were worried they might have been infected and didnt want to spread to family or community. All were happy to be back in US.

[iam4liberty]

https://www.foxnews.com/health/first-american-coronavirus-evacuees-set-to-be-released-from-quarantine.amp
First American coronavirus evacuees released from quarantine

The first Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China, amid the deadly coronavirus outbreak were released on Tuesday after a two-week quarantine at March Air Reserve Base in California. Most of the 195 evacuees left by bus for nearby airports to continue on to their final destination.
...
Jarred Evans, a professional football player among the evacuees, previously told Fox News that he was “ready to go home and see family and friends.”

“They’re doing an amazing job here, the Department of State is definitely doing their work and we appreciate them,” he said.

The evacuees, who have according to several accounts become a close-knit group, threw themselves a Super Bowl party with chicken wings and beer, Evans said, although they were all still taking major precautions while under quarantine.

“This is a very serious matter and the cases [in China] are still rising to this day,” Evans said. “You have to take very important consideration of your hygiene and make sure you are completely healthy and take care of your body.”

[FreeLancer]

NYT:  Coronavirus Cases Seemed to Be Leveling Off. Not Anymore.

But on Thursday, officials added more than 14,840 new cases to the tally of the infected in Hubei Province alone, bringing the total number to 48,206 — the largest one-day increase so far recorded. The death toll in the province rose to 1,310, including 242 new deaths.

Officials now seem to be including infections observed on lung scans alone. This shortcut will help get more patients into needed care, provincial officials said, but it also shows the enormous number of people who are sick and have not been counted in the official tally of the outbreak.

“We’re in unknown territory,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

Doctors in China probably don’t have the chemicals necessary to perform complicated testing, and perhaps insufficient numbers of technicians, he speculated.

But lung scans are a perilous means to diagnose patients. Even patients with seasonal flu may develop pneumonia visible on a lung scan. “They’re talking about using this as another diagnostic test, but we haven’t seen it validated by data,” Dr. Schaffner said.

[FreeLancer]

WaPo:  Most coronavirus cases are mild, complicating the response

But the virus’s destructive potential has overshadowed one encouraging aspect of this outbreak: So far, about 82 percent of the cases — including all 14 in the United States — have been mild, with symptoms that require little or no medical intervention. And that proportion may be an undercount.

Health authorities managing the outbreak are trying to understand what that critical fact portends. Are the 45,000 sick people tallied so far just a portion of a vast reservoir of uncounted victims, some of whom may be spreading the disease? And do the mild illnesses reveal characteristics of the virus itself — something that could be useful in crafting a more effective response?

“The fact that there are so many mild cases is a real hallmark of this disease and makes it so different from SARS,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Health Security. “It’s also really challenging. Most of our surveillance is oriented around finding people who require medical intervention.”

At a presentation on the disease hosted Tuesday by the Aspen Institute in Washington, Nancy Messonnier, an official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noted that only a few of the 14 U.S. patients required oxygen during convalescence.

Currently, the death rate of the disease is hovering around ­2.5 percent, a remarkably high level, about the rate of the 1918 flu pandemic that killed roughly ­50 million people around the world. Normal seasonal flu kills less than one-tenth of one percent of people who contract the virus.

But experts have said the coronavirus fatality rate is likely to decline substantially as they compile a more accurate count of the people who contract the virus and survive. At the Aspen Institute presentation, Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he hoped the rate could decline toward 1 percent.

[David in MN]

WaPo:  Most coronavirus cases are mild, complicating the response

Isn't that kind of the big headline? We have this new magical boogeyman that requires anyone with a headcold or seasonal flu (during flu season) to be whisked away to quarantine while we could be massively under-reporting because a normal healthy adult shakes it off like a normal cold.

The more this plays out the more I think something really shady went on in China. I don't know what happened here but there seems like a lot of smoke and very little fire.

Perhaps the unsung heroes are the people at the American CDC. They have handled this with aplomb despite getting false and conflicting data from China.

[Carver]

https://www.zerohedge.com/health/us-military-initiates-global-campaign-plan-pandemic

And if we do start seeing tens of thousands of confirmed cases here, the level of fear is going to rise dramatically and a lot of people are going to go completely nuts.
In fact, we are already starting to see some really strange things.
For example, a couple of “pranksters” in New York thought it would be really funny to spill a bucket of “coronavirus” in the middle of a crowded subway car…
David Flores and Morris Cordewell donned hazmats suits for the stunt while holding a container filled with liquid that had biological hazard markings on it.
In the video Cordewell gets up and spills the liquid over the floor as train passengers quickly jump out of harm’s way. However, it turns out their bucket contained Kool-Aid juice.

Is this yelling "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater?

[Morning Sunshine]

Isn't that kind of the big headline? We have this new magical boogeyman that requires anyone with a headcold or seasonal flu (during flu season) to be whisked away to quarantine while we could be massively under-reporting because a normal healthy adult shakes it off like a normal cold.

The more this plays out the more I think something really shady went on in China. I don't know what happened here but there seems like a lot of smoke and very little fire.

Perhaps the unsung heroes are the people at the American CDC. They have handled this with aplomb despite getting false and conflicting data from China.

as usual, you succinctly speak my thoughts.

[David in MN]

Twitter banned Zerohedge for their speculation on the root cause of the corona virus.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccabellan/2020/02/03/twitter-bans-zerohedge-for-publishing-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-doxxing-chinese-doctor/#780328b371b3

All these actions just align a little too well for me. Zerohedge? They've written way crazier stuff.

[DrJohn]

The question I keep asking myself: Why would China do what they are doing unless this is way more serious than they are letting on?  This is affecting their economy and the stability of the CCP.  It seems like a foolish tact for something that is only slightly more serious than seasonal flu.

[Mr. Bill]

The question I keep asking myself: Why would China do what they are doing unless this is way more serious than they are letting on?  This is affecting their economy and the stability of the CCP.  It seems like a foolish tact for something that is only slightly more serious than seasonal flu.

• "Out of an abundance of caution", in case it's worse than it seems.  (Consistent with initial data, which were pretty alarming.)
• Practice for the next virus, in case that one is worse.
• Saving face, not looking like the world's central supplier of respiratory diseases like they did with the SARS coronavirus.
• They already have a police state, they might as well use it for something.
• Incompetence and poor communication.

[DrJohn]

• "Out of an abundance of caution", in case it's worse than it seems.  (Consistent with initial data, which were pretty alarming.)
• Practice for the next virus, in case that one is worse.
• Saving face, not looking like the world's central supplier of respiratory diseases like they did with the SARS coronavirus.
• They already have a police state, they might as well use it for something.
• Incompetence and poor communication.

Well, number 5 is always on the table, the rest maybe a bit of a reach.  I think that we still need to see how the virus behaves outside of China to really decided what is what.

[mountainmoma]

WaPo:  Most coronavirus cases are mild, complicating the response

The thing is that 3 out of 13 people,  the first wave of USA patients, that is first a large percentage, 3/13 is 23% , and second, it seems that the illness starts out mild and it gets much worse ( if it is going to get worse)  after a week or more -- so it seems premature to talk about how many get serious symptoms.  ( the 3 out of the first number, 13 cases, that I am referring to are teh case in Washington state and the 2 in california moved to hospital in San Francisco.  I have not heard much about the other early cases yet...)

On the other hand, we have many things on our side that would make it less likely for as many people to get serious complications here.  First, we are more likely to have heating.  The part of China where the outbreak started, in general there is not heating in the apartments, it is not provided in the apartment blocks.  If you look at photos/videos of their new mass quarantine rows of beds places ( "hospitals" built in a week) the workers are walking around in insulated coats, so looks like no heat in at least that facility.  Second,  2/3 of Chinese men smoke, and most of those smoke heavily ( very few women smoke) in addition to much more air pollution in those cities than here.  We may also have a cleaner food supply, sewage treatment ( ?) etc....  We may have differences in our healthcare facilities and the care able to provide to a larger proportion of patients ( dont know, but sounds plausible)

[mountainmoma]

Data from Singapore today says they have 58 cases and 8 are critical, so that is 8/58 which is .13ish, so around 13%

[antsyaunt]

This is interesting.  https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-vows-put-end-lab-leakage-pathogenic-samples

[FreeLancer]

CNN:  CDC director: Novel coronavirus 'is probably with us beyond this season, beyond this year'

"Right now we're in an aggressive containment mode," CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta in an interview on Thursday.
"We don't know a lot about this virus," he said. "This virus is probably with us beyond this season, beyond this year, and I think eventually the virus will find a foothold and we will get community-based transmission."

"Frankly, some people criticized when we decided that we wanted to temporarily suspend travel into the United States from individuals who were not Americans or permanent residents who had been in the hot zone in the last 14 days. Some people didn't think that that was what they would do," Redfield told Gupta on Thursday.
"Well, we felt very strongly that our obligation was to do all we can to protect the American public," Redfield said. "I would rather be criticized for over-protecting America than under-protecting America at this stage."

"There's been good communication with our colleagues to confirm asymptomatic infection, to confirm asymptomatic transmission, to be able to get a better handle on the clinical spectrum of illness in China. What we don't know though is how much of the asymptomatic cases are driving transmission," Redfield said.
"What I've learned in the last two weeks is that the spectrum of this illness is much broader than was originally presented. There's much more asymptomatic illness," Redfield said. "A number of the confirmed cases that we confirmed actually just presented with a little sore throat."

Meanwhile, Redfield said that the CDC has been eager to help China in its efforts to fight this outbreak. Nearly six weeks after the CDC first offered to help China with the coronavirus outbreak, the offer still has not been accepted.

[FreeLancer]

NYT:  China Expands Chaotic Dragnet in Coronavirus Crackdown

China’s leaders expanded a mass roundup of people possibly sickened with the coronavirus on Thursday, widening their dragnet well beyond the epicenter of the outbreak to at least two more cities in what the government has called a “wartime” campaign to stamp out the epidemic.

But the campaign, first announced last week in the city of Wuhan, already has been marred by chaotic conditions that have isolated vulnerable patients without adequate care and, in some cases, left them alone to die.

The expansion of the decree to “round up everyone who should be rounded up” in the Wuhan area of central China has deepened the nation’s sense of anxiety.

In their zeal to execute the edict, officials in Wuhan, a metropolis of 11 million, have haphazardly seized patients who have not yet tested positive for the coronavirus, in some cases herding them onto buses with no protective measures where they risked infection from others, their relatives said.

Deng Chao, 30, said that although doctors had told him he almost certainly had the coronavirus, he hadn’t yet received the official results from the test that is needed for hospital admission.

Instead he was sent to a Wuhan hotel where he has been in a government-imposed quarantine for nearly a week. Now, he said, he was getting progressively sicker and finding it more difficult to breathe. He said security guards had been stationed at the hotel entrance to prevent patients from escaping — and there were no doctors or medicine.

“This is really like a prison,” Mr. Deng said.

“Send me to a hospital, please, I need treatment,“ he said, in between bouts of coughing. “There is no one to take care of us here.”

Peng Bangze, whose father was sent on a crowded bus to a converted hotel for isolation, recalled visiting last Saturday, after his father had been unreachable all day.

He found his father in a comatose state alone in his room.

Panicked, he called for help. When the ambulance came, both the driver and the hotel security guard refused to help him move his father, a construction worker, into the vehicle for fear of getting infected, the son said. One hour later, the son was told that the hospital had no bed for his father and that he should go home and wait.

Two days — and many phone calls — later, Mr. Peng’s relatives finally received a call from the local government notifying them that a hospital bed had been arranged. But when Mr. Peng’s son arrived at the hotel to help with the transfer, his father was lying face down on the bed, lifeless, in the same position he had left him.

The workers at the isolation venue had no explanation. They disinfected the room, the father’s body was removed for cremation, and the son collected his belongings.

What the hell? 

[bigbear]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/business/wuhan-coronavirus-journalists.html 

Or if you can't get beyond that pay wall...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51486106

Two journalists have mysteriously gone silent.  Many are pointing to censorship.

[iam4liberty]

Radio reports are that Mexico is entering panic mode.  A university doctor from a Mexican border town who went to help in Wuhan came down with symproms after returning.  He used Uber so uber has suspended all drivers and passengers from there who may have been in contact with his uber driver (approximately 250 people).  People reportedly left that city.in droves which heighten fears it could spread if any were already infected. This apparently was a couple weeks ago and people are just now getting full story.  Doctor apparently was cleared (saying it was a cold) but new cases have popped up.  So people arent sure to believe that or not.

[iam4liberty]

https://sf.eater.com/platform/amp/2020/2/12/21135104/novel-coronavirus-chinatown-oakland-san-francisco
Novel Coronavirus Fears Cut Chinatown Restaurant Business by 50 Percent

Restaurants in Oakland and San Francisco Chinatowns say their business has been slashed by 50 percent or more, a decrease caused by the one-two punch of novel coronavirus panic and a precipitous drop in tourism from China.

[David in MN]

Something has to give. You can't tell data driven people that simultaneously Chinese are stacking bodies like chordwood (sorry to be vulgar) but Americans aren't even requiring medicine. Nothing about this story makes sense and the only rational honest source seems to be our CDC who I normally critique for bad statistics.

Was this some kind of experiment gone wrong? I don't know. I do know the Chinese still have forced labor camps where they do organ harvesting and slice bodies into pieces so very mentally ill Americans can go look at human organs as entertainment.

The economics are another mess. I read that the Chinese have revised their growth from 6% to 2% but my best guess from data I read is -9%. In the world of economics that's a giant lie.

And the Chinese aren't afraid of "a few broken eggs" (sorry for the vulgarity again) so to see them scramble for hospitals is a little alarming.

What makes me a little weirded out is that I can't figure out what is really going on. The best data I have are the American published stories which makes this look benign. But China looks to be having a Chernobyl event that just keeps killing. They shut down a train hub in the middle of the world's biggest manufacturing country.

Something here smells fishy. I wish I could find what I'm looking for. 'll try to get the economic impact stuff (that's my wheelhouse) but man do I feel for the victms who are at best being mistreated by the Chinese medical system.

[Morning Sunshine]

Something has to give. You can't tell data driven people that simultaneously Chinese are stacking bodies like chordwood (sorry to be vulgar) but Americans aren't even requiring medicine. Nothing about this story makes sense and the only rational honest source seems to be our CDC who I normally critique for bad statistics.

Was this some kind of experiment gone wrong? I don't know. I do know the Chinese still have forced labor camps where they do organ harvesting and slice bodies into pieces so very mentally ill Americans can go look at human organs as entertainment.

The economics are another mess. I read that the Chinese have revised their growth from 6% to 2% but my best guess from data I read is -9%. In the world of economics that's a giant lie.

And the Chinese aren't afraid of "a few broken eggs" (sorry for the vulgarity again) so to see them scramble for hospitals is a little alarming.

What makes me a little weirded out is that I can't figure out what is really going on. The best data I have are the American published stories which makes this look benign. But China looks to be having a Chernobyl event that just keeps killing. They shut down a train hub in the middle of the world's biggest manufacturing country.

Something here smells fishy. I wish I could find what I'm looking for. 'll try to get the economic impact stuff (that's my wheelhouse) but man do I feel for the victms who are at best being mistreated by the Chinese medical system.

I feel like your fangirl on this thread.  I am not a conspiracy theorist, but when things don't make sense, they don't make sense.  And my mind is struggling to make sense of all the conflicting reports I hear added to the things I know about China.  Add in all the crazy stories coming from "citizen journalists" there, and it REALLY just doesn't add up.

[Carver]

I have family on the ground in Laos and they are alarmed. I suspect this is being used by the Chinese to weed out dissidents, but I agree it is overall very shady, from a Communist country, duh.

[antsyaunt]

I feel like your fangirl on this thread.  I am not a conspiracy theorist, but when things don't make sense, they don't make sense.  And my mind is struggling to make sense of all the conflicting reports I hear added to the things I know about China.  Add in all the crazy stories coming from "citizen journalists" there, and it REALLY just doesn't add up.

I agree.  Vietnam is now enacting  a quarantine?  For 20 days?  There is an awful lot of conflicting information out there.  https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1856784/vietnam-quarantines-area-with-10-000-residents-over-coronavirus 

[David in MN]

I feel like your fangirl on this thread.  I am not a conspiracy theorist, but when things don't make sense, they don't make sense.  And my mind is struggling to make sense of all the conflicting reports I hear added to the things I know about China.  Add in all the crazy stories coming from "citizen journalists" there, and it REALLY just doesn't add up.

Very kind. I do find this very disturbing because the metrics don't make sense. I have been called cold and calculating in my life but the core of any maths problem is knowing the metric. If I'm looking at a stress/strain curve in engineering or a  same store sales metric for a burger chain I have something useful.

The core problem here in my mind is politics. The Chinese are clearly underplaying the impact to salvage their economy and the residents of Hong Kong are playing it up because it aligns with their cause. I don't know how to use the "my relative got locked in a hotel" as any kind of metric.

So the only thing I have as a macro are 2 stories. One is the US CDC which seems to say this is the common flu. Deadly to the very young and very old but that's life. The other is kind of a whackadoodle thing about massive contagion spreading everywhere and wiping out everyone in its path. So there is something I don't know. And I'm playing in my least favorite quadrant "I don't know what I don't know".

I'm hoping reputable countries will start presenting data. As other SE Asian countries, EU, and N/S American countries seem to be getting into it the understanding may be possible. I'm also very watchful on Africa because plague tends to go off the rails there.

But I do feel something is off. The Chinese have clearly lied about this. That might not even mean anything. I'm also aware that nothing happens in a vacuum and somebody made millions going long on entertainment and shorting cruise lines. Something bigger happened here.

[mountainmoma]

I have very close family members heading into Mexico City tomorrow for a week, I will ask when they return if they felt any differences in mood and how things are being done there due to this. 

Rant:
 I cannot convince a couple of the young folks to just go to dollar store and spend $4 to buy  2 packs of pocket sized hand sanitizer and 2 quarts of hydrogen peroxide...... Seems silly to buy and mail it to them, but, maybe I buy now and mail it to them later when they cant get it on the shelf.  The smallest bit of preparedness is not panic or being scared, I'm certainly not either, but small bits of preparedness is prudent... makes me wonder where I went wrong.... Likely it wont be needed, sure, at least not right away, but it will keep until next fall.  But, if someone in the household gets sick, with anything you dont want to catch, why not be able to sanitize a couple hard surfaces ? If you never need to in the next year, it can be rotated out, pour some into a toilet bowl overnight to clean.... ( no, they dont own chlorine bleach either, the hydrogen peroxide should have been an easier sell) So the MSM sell is working on the general public in the USA, so far

[surfivor]

The question I keep asking myself: Why would China do what they are doing unless this is way more serious than they are letting on?  This is affecting their economy and the stability of the CCP.  It seems like a foolish tact for something that is only slightly more serious than seasonal flu.

Mao killed 80 million people and was considered a hero, soviets killed many people. The elites have said there are too many people, bill gates said we need to reduce the population. Oddly enough he said it in the context of vaccinations which you almost have to ask “did I hear that right?”

 In the long run have wars in the Middle East helped our economy? No it only helps certain people or it helps certain people accomplish what they want to accomplish.

Most likely it will help elites all over the world to promote mandatory vaccinations and they can have a good excuse for martial law type events.

Many details about AIDS where never even close to being truthful. The truth about pyschiatric drugs is never told and many similar things