Assuming that the goal of the bio weapon is to kill the people targeted. What if it’s a weapon designed to strain infrastructure and cause mass panic in the targeted populace? Spoiler i don’t think it’s actually a weapon
I've had some weird shit of questionable origin in China. But thank God I've never had to eat a bat. I'm not sure we will get an answer to how this happened but this seems much more reasonable than the bioweapon theory.
2% mortality in Southeast Asia? Yeah this won’t be a Spanish flu situation. Mortality rates in most developed countries without crazy population density will be under 1%, so probably closer to modern day measles. If it as contagious as twitter is claiming, and the real mortality rate is likely even lower. it really will be like measles, ie. Super duper infectious but low mortality rates
China consumed more cement in 2011-13 than America consumed in the entire 20th century. It's unreal how much building and paving they do.
Probably just need to nuke the whole country just to be safe. Spoiler what are things Trump probably thinks
Well since I’m a healthcare worker I’ll almost certainly be exposed an get it. Worst case scenario: if it is as contagious as they say, we can treat it like a measles outbreak, cancel schools and public events, and keep people home during height of outbreak. I could imagine 10% of the country getting it if it is as contagious as the twitter nerds think, and we’ll lose multiple tens of thousands of old people and probably a couple thousand newborns and under 2 year olds, with a few scattered thousands of chronically ill 18-50 with asthma/obesity/heart disease. So even though that sounds bad, that’s just basically a super bad year of plain old influenza.
I agree but know that it is getting to more developed countries that have proper reporting we should get a pretty good feel for it.
Yeah but it’s way more likely china is under reporting or even more likely underdiagnosing cases than underreporting mortality imo. the whole twitter thing of posting emotional videos of a couple of medics crying in a room and bodies in bags at a hospital is almost certainly fueling an overreaction. It’s clearly a dangerous new virus, but no where as close to as lethal as Ebola and other diseases, and is worst case scenario going to be another measles-tier virus, which became so routine that almost all currently living elders had measles as children.
I wonder what timeframe they're keeping to with the recently traveled to China when patients are presenting symptoms (I've seen incubation period estimated at 1-14 days). Also curious if they've expanded to all of China or just Hubei province. I'm guessing I probably would have been designated as one of these individuals had I come back this week instead of last week
Patients tested positive for the flu. Apparently they use the same swab to test the flu and this Coronavirus. They did have to call the CDC and inform them.
Can you wait until I'm back in China? I don't like dealing with police who actually do something and/or are fascist-wannabes
A small bit of something actually that could be smart is I just received a message from a large Chinese company who is actually looking at having employees extend their holiday time off thus not potentially moving the virus. This might just make sense and worth a watch I think, as more companies ie. the government dictates this.
Administration at my school is collecting information on all personnel to determine where they've been since break started and the addresses we are staying at during the break.
I had a vendor scheduled to come to the US the first week in February and they were forced to cancel due to the virus. They are from Dongguan too, not particularly close to Wuhan.
There are double digit cases confirmed in Guangdong. If it's a vendor, they also might need to concentrate their efforts on contingencies on the home front, I imagine.
True, but this is North American sales staff, so I can't imagine they are involved in personnel. I got the vibe from their email someone forced them to cancel.
Yeah, that's not surprising at all. I think it's pretty interesting to hypothesize something like this happening in the U.S. instead. Probably not quite as bad, given the lack of population density, but have to wonder how much the independent vs. collectivist mindset would offset the response and outcomes. Even with the collectivist society in China, you still have the issue of traditional vs. modern medicine and levels of distrust in different generations.
Admittedly, I'm totally ignorant about the disease and how it's spread, but I imagine sanitation standards here would help. I think where it originates in the US would matter too in terms of local attitudes and local government response. I feel like the US has a lot wider range of attitudes about stuff like this compared to China. I'm also curious about the spread of this thing if it had happened literally any other time of the year.
Yep, the timing of all this likely makes the response disproportionate to normal times. Was surreal seeing video of an empty Forbidden City on New Year's Day. Was there on New Year's Day last February.
Vaccinate, proper hygiene and don’t let sick people around the child. Worst part is probably day care honestly.
Sanitation standards definitely help. I posted this on my home board but maybe it will help some clarity here —— Coronavirus is just a name really for a large group of viruses (this, SARS, MERS) that are all what is called enveloped viruses. Coronavirus is also what we mainly associate with the common cold. This version has a bit of pneumonia associated with it and what is most likely killing people in China. In terms of cleaning and disinfection we tend to group pathogens in large buckets (enveloped viruses, non enveloped viruses, fungi, etc) and in terms of enveloped viruses they are very easy to kill on surfaces. HIV, Herpes, Hepatitis are some pathogens you’ve heard of that fall into this bucket. So is influenza. For most of these if you spit on it and rubbed it with your elbow they would die. I was talking with some others off board and the real issue is that most of the Asian countries don’t really disinfect. They use microfiber and general purpose cleaners like scrubbing bubbles. The disinfectants China uses are slow acting cheaper types that are very hard to follow procedure with for full disinfection. So when you couple the fact that they have a ridiculous amount of people crammed in hospitals with very poor cleaning a disinfection this is what happens. Not to mention that this is 10x better than what they receive in the rural areas I would assume. I hate to sound crass but China covering this up at first like they did SARS, and then add in the not great conditions is what is most likely continuing this. Chinese culture also pushes them to go to the hospital for more care than say we would. If we have a headache or not feeling great we tend to take over the counter stuff and stay home (hopefully) quarantining this kind of stuff like the flu semi effectively. With a headache and their healthcare system most Chinese go to the hospital to get fluids for a headache. we have been shipping a ton of product over there to help and I think now that WHO and CDC are better involved it will slow a bit. You will still probably see cases pop up around the world but if you take precautions like you do the flu with good hand hygiene and cleaning or disinfecting areas around you it shouldn’t be a huge issue. If you fly a lot bring disinfectant wipes and if you wanna go a bit farther grab some Nozin. It’s like a hand sanitizer for your nose ( where most pathogens enter) and you really cover it.
That's good info. I'm still shocked at the amount of restrooms I've visited there that don't have soap and have community towels for drying. I'm sure that doesn't help with minimizing spread.
Yep, this is ultimately the crux of it. Also true with the go-to-the-hospital-for-everything ethos. I was sick within the first three months I lived in China, and I ended up going to the clinic just to get everyone around me to get off my back. It's pretty engrained in all parts of the society. Good news is that they're actively educating people NOT to go to the hospital with this outbreak. I'm connected to the doc who's the director of the public health clinic and keeps all the stats on local public health care in my city. He's been posting consistently, directing people to go to fever clinics instead of hospitals and also not to even go to those unless it's truly serious symptoms. The medical education is actually improving drastically in China these days. In a few generations, I think things will be much improved and public health crises like this will be even better handled. Still difficult to fight mother nature and sheer numbers though. That many people living on top of each other, things are gonna spread.