May I ask, do you own/use a thermometer when you are ill?
Another endorsement of KarlGauss’ post.
Public health experts are very correct to consider worst case possibilities and to advise reasonable precautions. But I look at the current numbers and see them as very reassuring, not as reason to “panic”.
Population of Wuhan? Over 11 million living fairly densely.
Diagnosed cases? Under 1400.
Deaths? A few dozen, mostly in higher risk individuals.
If this was something both highly contagious and of high morbidity and mortality then in a place like Wuhan we’d be seeing much more than that by now.
My bet is that it is of moderate contagiousness and fairly low morbidity and mortality with the diagnosed number of cases being a small fraction of the total number out there, most being of cold symptoms that never come to any medical attention let alone to diagnostic testing. If so the next month or so will see the numbers of diagnosed cases increasing and the morbidity and mortality rates decreasing, even without any mutations of the virus to less virulence.
Still that is the reasonable bet and is not known.
Containing it as best as is possible is the prudent action and good practice of systems for other future potential threats. “Panic”? I don’t think so.
FWIW I do not personally own a thermometer. As a physician (other than for the babies under 2 months) I care much less about the exact number on a thermometer than how an individual is feeling and acting, and the pattern of the illness. As a society we are often excessively feverphobic.
For sure I do. Always good to have more relevant data. High fevers are dangerous in and of themselves, in addition to possibly indicating which diagnoses are more or less likely. But it takes training and experience to make those judgements
I’ve worked with a few Mexican-Americans who swore by the antibiotics they bought at a Mexican grocery store.
I’ve also heard of bats as food being a possible source of both the Chinese coronavirus and Ebola.
This morning I was tutoring a middle school student at the Company facility. My other 2 students for the hour were absent, one calling in sick and the other a no-call-no-show. The director came to give me a heads up, and we agreed that there are many people sick right now (many students at my school have gone home sick this week). The student I was working with today seemed honestly scared when he asked me if everyone had the flu or that disease that comes from Japan. Straightened which nation out first, but them reassured him that so far the disease was not here in our city, and people here just have the usual seasonal colds and viruses. I told him to wash his hand often and use hand sanitizer at school, and we should be fine.
So sad that the media has to needlessly scare kids when hyping a news story.
Loach, I am with you on the Mad Cow thing. Is 35 years long enough for JK disease to incubate?
I don’t mean to make **Qagdop **blanche, but:
Placebos frequently work even when the patient knows they’re being given a placebo.
Going a little further than the article linked, “placebo” doesn’t necessarily mean “an inert pill” or any kind of medication at all. Just going to the doctor and being tended to for a bit seems to help a lot of people. Sure, it’s all in our heads – but if it works, it works.
On the non-placebo side of things … when a viral infection causes inflammation in the respiratory system, an injection of prednisone does largely alleviate that inflammation.
Until my early 30s, I used to never go to a doctor for common colds, the “flu” (severe upper respiratory stuff), etc. Then I started noticing it was taking me several weeks at a time to shake these illnesses instead of a few days or a week. These days, I go to the local urgent care, get my prednisone and Z-pack (bad overprescription!), and I’m back to normal within a week or so – sometimes quicker. Yeah … it’s all anecotes and placebo effect – but I don’t care. I feel better in the end. Mind over matter.
Using antibiotics as placebos is a practice that leads to drug resistance and increased mortality rates. Too many docs are still handing out antibiotics for viral infections in low risk individuals. Pleasing the patient still too often overrides proper health care. 
Last night, just coincidentally, I happened to be talking to a guy I know who’s an epidemiologist at the Royal Melbourne (which is the hospital which has just announced Australia’s first case of coronavirus). This was in the context of everyone congratulating him for having an exciting new disease to study 
. Which congratulations he seemed quite happy to accept.
So I’m figuring if front line medical staff don’t appear to be worried for the health of themselves, their spouses and their teenage daughters, I’m going to take that as permission not to be worried myself
(Full disclosure - I already wasn’t)
Sometimes I wonder if azithromycin has just been (largely) ceded to placebo use, and other antibiotics are prescribed for fighting off real, verified, “I saw them in the microscope!” bacterial infections.
For example, I have been surprised in recent years to see my wife occasionally get prescribed Cipro (ciprofloxacin) from her ENT specialist. I always remember that as the anti-anthrax drug that was in the news in the six months or so post-9/11. Based on that and my layman’s understanding of anthrax’s severity, I had thought Cipro was practically an antibiotic-of-last-resort – and maybe it was at the time.
(Hmmm … this MedPageToday opinion piece from 2018 makes me think I’m on to something :dubious: )
Not necessarily.
Human body temperature is variable anyway. If you engage in heavy exercise you might well be running a “fever” in that your body temperature is temporarily elevated, as just one example. Many people can run a 99-100 fever and not feel particularly bad.
The reason for screening travelers for body temperature is precisely that - to catch early stages of an infection before the person feels deathly ill, or to find mild cases that, while not debilitating for the infected, can nonetheless spread a disease. People with elevated temperatures need to be further screened to distinguish between those running hot due to stress, running for transport, perhaps too many layers of clothes on for the destination, and so forth.
It’s a screening tool, a long with questions like “How do you feel?” and “have you been to this location in the last month?”. Also observations like whether or not they’re coughing or having a runny nose.
I’m not sure you understand how and why temperature is taken, or the reliability of modern thermometers.
And, as I said, a person can be running a significant fever and still function quite well.
You can “feel fine” or only feel a little ill but still be deathly ill.
Why do doctors take your pulse? Or your blood pressure? Or measure your height and weight? Or ask you how you feel? It’s part of an overall picture.
Personally, I like “Kung Flu”. Nice ring to it.
I saw a video today of Chinese people collapsing in the street and ambulances picking them up wearing haz mat. They labeled it Chinese collapsing in the street from this new virus. I think they just put together videos of people collapsing over a several years period.
We have our first case at my hospital (and Toronto’s first).
(Earlier we had been asked to refrain from ‘social media’ announcements of this sort. But it’s now on TV for chrissakes)
Canada’s first actually.
Are you involved at all, given your SARS experience?
The hospital, and in fact every hospital in Canada now is hugely better prepared for something like this. So, if I take care of patients with this virus (as I expect I will), it won’t be as part of an ad hoc effort like it was with SARS in 2003. Back then, we had to cobble together a team in real time after the province designated us as the hospital for SARS. Today, I will just be one player (thank gawd).
I dont disagree with anything you wrote, but please everybody do not automatically believe anything the Chinese government tells us. Their political culture is very different from ours. They have a history of lying about conditions on the ground. During the Great Leap Forward, Local officials lied to Beijing about meeting food quotas. As a result, several million people starved to death. But that was 60 years ago!! True, but the same government and the same party still rule China.
Madsircool, china’s lifetime credibility score is low. That said, in the aftermath of SARS they have done a credible job. Frankly, the WHO are not complaining about a lack of transparency.
It is not the same government or party that run china today as during the great leap era. You might as well say the post ww2 era is the same government, party, economy in the US now as it was back then.
Howsabout eyes wide open but assume China and the rest of the world is in the same boat to stop this from becoming an epidemic? It is in no ones best interest to hide this.
Technically, it would be true that “normal” influenza kills - and is killing - more people in China at all times than this Wuhan coronavirus, but just gets less attention due to lower mortality rate, right?
That, and the flu has been around forever and people are familiar with it and what it does. MOST people will recover just fine, we have a good idea who the high risk groups are, there’s a vaccine that, even if not perfect, is helpful…
Wuhan corona virus is new, for most it’s an unknown, people are not familiar with what it does…
Given time this new virus will become an “old virus” and will not be so alarming. Right now, though, new is also mysterious.
Or it could become more serious.
IANAVirologist, but AIUI, as it’s a virus that has presumably only recently mutated to become transmissible to humans, and transmissible between humans, it may be on the cusp of another mutation that would make it more severe or more contagious.
So it makes sense to very closely monitor novel viruses like this.
Additionally I gather that the speed with which the virus was identified, sequenced and the sequence published, may be the fastest ever.
I’m happy to criticize the chinese government on many topics, but in this case it seems they are doing everything they can, and a lot of the online criticism comes from people working from their own conception of China and not knowing much about this situation.