Where I work we had our first inappropriate transfer due to overreaction by the initial provider. The patient had been traveling in Asia and presented with respiratory symptoms. They unfortunately saw an outside provider whose grasp of geography is so weak that they’re apparently unaware that there are countries in Asia besides China. So they transferred the patient to us for further evaluation. The doc who saw them at our institution got all gowned up in isolation equipment to interview the patient - and discovered that they had been nowhere near the danger area. Patient has a cold, no further testing necessary, recommend standard symptomatic management. Sigh. I anticipate this will not be the only such patient.
The “through his eyes” doesn’t mean that’s the primary way the disease is transmitted. It’s likely through transfer to any mucous membrane. I seem to remember a study that showed people touch their own faces an average of 24 times an hour and about 4 of those touches are around the eyes. However, around half the touches are to mucosal areas. In the cited case above, the only exposed mucosal area was the eyes.
Found it- here’s a summary of the study
ETA: Geez, how many times am I going to get ninja’d?
Yep the eyes are a very common route for many respiratory infections, maybe even higher risk than the mouth.
People constantly rub their eyes and tear ducts drain into the nasal passage.
Yes masks are already being rationed here (not to alarm your family even more; it’s just when a population of 1.3 billion is being told to wear masks to go outside, that’s a pretty big demand. So pharmacies are limiting 5 masks per customer per day).
Regarding the dust masks, did the rating include blocking pathogens / fluids? Because even a top-notch $30 professional dust or pollution mask may not do this because it’s not their usual function.
Cheapo surgical masks may give better protection in many cases.
Nope, not at all. They’re N95 dust masks, which block fine dust but not something as small as a virus. But my in-laws are frightened beyond the point of reason. They say their friends told them to get these, and they wouldn’t lie to them so it must be true. :smack:
FWIW you’re not needing to filter so small as a virus. You just need to filter the droplets that contain the viruses.
Australian scientists at Melbourne’s Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity on Tuesday became the world’s first scientific lab outside of China to recreate the virus.
penultima thule, a quote from your post:
Does anyone know what that means? How are thousands getting sick if there is no human to human transmission?
I know that it probably jumped from another species, but it didn’t jump to thousands of people at once?
It sounds like what he means is that there’s been no human to human transmission in Australia. The current cases were contracted in China?
I agree. In Germany, there has apparently been human-to-human transmission within the country. In Australia, no human-to-human transmission within the country has been found to have occurred.
For those who are still panicky, my advice (IANAD) is:
Be/get vaccinated for the flu (it won’t protect you from this virus, but if you are already infected by the flu, your immune system will be less able to fight this virus)
Get 7-9 hours of sleep each day
Eat a balanced diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables
Stay well hydrated
Wash your hands often throughout the day
TLDR- Cultivate a healthy, robust immune system
If you are already sick or have a compromised immune system, then some of the other precautions (minimal exposure to other people, wearing gloves, a mask, and glasses to prevent the all to human habit of touching everything around us and then shoving our fingers into our eyes or mouth) are probably warranted.
I just heard on the news that an orchestra from Shanghai (which is hundreds of miles from Wuhan) is scheduled to perform at a school in my region, and authorities are telling people, primarily assuring parents and children, that there is nothing to worry about WRT this.
Per blue infinity’s excellent source;
cases 5578
deaths 131
Still seems contained.
With high speed rail, “hundreds of miles” is meaningless - the two cities might as well be next door. But with that being said, the numbers still aren’t high enough to worry me. I have to assume exponentially higher numbers of people die from the flu every week.
This one is no duh.
One of the lessons learned from SARS (and from the common cold for that matter), is that one common person to person contact is to shake hands, touch an elevator button, grab a handrail, etc, and THEN rub your nose or eyes.
Hand sanitizers and washing your hands frequently can cut down on even catching the common cold.
From my SARS experience, I never touch an elevator button with my finger. Usually a knuckle on my left hand. During the SARS outbreak, most people started pressing elevator buttons with their keys.
Go them!
(same institute the friend I was referencing upthread works for. reflected glory ftw ;))
Hong Kong has partially shut it’s border with China. HK is stopping the “commuter” transportation of subways, trains and high speed ferries. Sucks if you live in Shenzhen and work in HK. It will stop the thousands of people that cross the border each day to shop in HK, carry the goods back across the border for resell. There are loads of folks that do this all day long to buy things at the border stops that are either cheaper or guaranteed to be genuine (like baby formula owing to a past scandal).
Person to person anecdotally seems to be generally in cases of prolonged contact (within the family members living together, a tour bus driver, etc).
Welp, it’s the end times.
:smack:
… and youse guys are worried about fundamentalist Islam?
BTW, here’s a piece in the NY Times by a doctor who lived in China with her family during SARS. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/opinion/coronavirus-prevention-tips.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Long story short, wash your hands frequently.
I thought the HIV virus was supposed to do that. What, that didn’t work? Now God is trying again?
Also a death rate of 2.3% rather than 3% - contrary to fears of an increase, this would be consistent with more of the less serious infections being found. Of course that could change, and no doubt those who have severe illness but recover are miserable and I don’t want to trivialize their suffering, but longer that rate stays the low the more encouraged I am.