The next big milestone in China is post Chinese New Year. Jan 31 is the first official work day. Factories tend to open ~3 Feb.
How long will the transportation lock down be enforced in Wuhan?
There is always a roughly 25% turnover rate among factory workers that don’t come back after Chinese New Year
Will migrant workers return to the Wuhan area? What about other areas?
Does the coronavirus spread to other major metropolitan areas and/or transportation gets shut down further?
Does the transmission vector become more clear? IE, is it only infectious when there is a fever, how infectious is it, are there “super shedders”, or can serious handwashing/mask wearing dramatically reduce the transmission?
A lesson from SARS is that factories screen employees entering and exiting the factory (minimum 2x/day), and if one has a fever then it is into formal and/or informal quarantine. Office workers work from home. Those that must go into the office tend to go in shifts, so that if one shift has a temperature, then they get quarantined but the rest can still work. Management tends to have a morning and evening checkpoint.
Everyone understands that this is a deadly virus, and treat it with utmost seriousness.
Trying hard to phrase this correctly. Amongst all other factors, it is in the Chinese Government’s best interest to 1) keep the export machine running without interruption, and 2) be viewed by the general population as solving the problem. There is no leeway for a massive cover up or denial of the challenge. Keep in mind that since SARS in 2003, China’s GDP has increased 6-8 times, smart phones have become ubiquitous, and Weibo and WeChat have let the communication genie out of the bottle. It’s a huge difference from when I was in Shanghai during SARS, and a different world from the Great Leap in the 1950’s.
TL; DW: he’s trapped and he understands that. He describes (and video shows) that the streets of this city of over 11 million people are totally deserted. Shops are closed. All of them. There are no vehicles on the streets, and no people to not see them.
He describes it as bizarre, like being in some dystopian movie and indeed, it looks like one. The first thing I thought of was the footage in 28 Days Later right after Jim wakes up from his coma.
This certainly appears to be scary, serious stuff going on. “Interesting times” indeed.
To some extent all of the above is true influenza, as it mutates so readily. Flu is also monitored, of course, but again flu is a much more known quantity. It can certainly turn into a deadly pandemic, and has, but usually doesn’t get that bad.
We’re still in early days with the Wuhan virus, but all indications we are looking at a death rate of around 3% - the stats in post 122 come out to 2.8%. As of yet, I have not seen morbidity information - are there any lingering effects? That’s almost as important as overall death rates. Hidden in the doom mongering is that people have recovered from this illness, which is of course good news.
I don’t want to sound too paranoid although the notion is interesting to think about. There are reports of biological warfare laboratories in Wuhan or close by that some have posited this virus could have escaped from such a facility. We all remember reading/watching The Stand right?
I seem to recall hearing that China has a biosafety level 4 lab in the area. Is that a “biological warfare laboratory” or a research facility like our CDC?
Which doesn’t eliminate the possibility of an escape, but not all labs are sinister
Where I live we hear a lot of rumors via Facebook or grapevine. There’s a general perception that the government tends to suppress unpleasant news; and indeed when I Search for “coronavirus Thailand” on Google news I get two-day old stories. Airport arrivees were being tested, but I’m told that that testing has been suspended. :eek: Through the grapevine I hear that Thailand has the 2nd-most cases of any country! Is this true?? There’s a feverish patient (whose home is 20+ miles from mine) recently returned from China being tested right now.
My vague impression is that this virus is spreading much faster than the SARS coronavirus that scared the world back in 2003. Is that correct?
The government here is not noted for astute problem-solving. Last week Bangkok had severe smog; the P.M. announced that the government was blameless and blamed the smog on ordinary citizens!
But what I’m getting at, is that this is a new-to-humans virus, and while it’s true that any viral or bacterial infection can mutate in any way at any time, there’s an increased risk of increased severity from novel pathogens. Apparently the first 3 months are a critical period.
Again, I’m not a virologist, but the way I would understand it is this:
Imagine influenza binds or enters cells using method A, and this new coronavirus uses method B. Method A has been mutating for many years and hit a kind of equilibrium where, yes, it mutates such that it can resist the last season’s antibodies but significant gains in commutability or mortality require a more fundamental / structural change.
Meanwhile method B is novel; and the Wuhan virus has only just gained the mutations required to be transmissible between humans; the full potential of method B in humans may not have been realized yet, and might require just a couple more mutations.
If it sounds like I’m for some reason rooting for such a prospect, bear in mind I live a couple provinces over from Wuhan. Not only am I worried about myself and the people around me, but life sucks here right now – the streets are deserted. I hoping very much for it to be over quickly.
Yes … and of significant concern to its spread. On the one hand it is good news that “2019-nCoV may be less pathogenic than MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV” but that also makes containing it more difficult.
We do know that it can cause mild and even asymptomatic infections. This was a family cluster:
We have no idea how many of those asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic cases are out there, or how contagious they are. They might not be contagious at all. Or they might be moderately contagious. The worst case for its spreading far would be its usually causing mild to no disease in healthy kids, who tend to spray infection all around them.
I am reminded of two events and I hope they are not related.
Event 1
The first was when the NK govt allegedly sent some agents to deal with the step-brother or brother-in-law of the dear leader and two female Japanese were duped into believing they were participating in one of those game shows where a practical joke was played on someone. Long story short … they rubbed some deadly virus into the face of the relative and he died a horrible death. It happened at some airport in an Asian country I believe.
Event 2
The NK dear leader was unhappy at the USA leadership and said words to the effect, “we are planning a big surprise in the new year.”
Does anyone else remember these two events? If so, what are the odds they may be related?
The virus used in the above example could not be the same as the coronavirus. I just wonder if something, somehow could have gone wrong and if there is some relation between the coronavirus and those events.
The assassination was not particularly recent. It occurred in 2017.
Sticking just with the coronavirus family, most of which cause common colds and sore throats, yes, for most of the family usually the period of contagiousness begins a day or so before symptomatic infection and is greatest the first three to four days of illness.
In general “cold viruses” like those of the coronavirus family (and even more commonly rhinoviruses) can be spread by those who have “subclinical” infections - i.e. those who are asymptomatic or at least only minimally symptomatic - but less so than those with more symptoms. Usually this family spreads by close contact and is less easily transmissible than say influenza is.
What I read recently about the SARS vaccine was that it caused severe side effects…like the side effects killed the test subjects (ie. animals)…which kind of defeats the purpose of the vaccine. Can’t remember where I read it, but I remember the phrase “cascade of effects” that described the process that killed the vaccinated animals. Further testing on human subjects was stopped before it started.
There is also the limitation that immunity even to natural disease is very short-lived for the family, lasting only about four months, and that the family is prone to rapid changes. RNA viruses like the coronavirus family mutate rapidly. Both those features make effective immunization programs very very hard to succeed in.
Here’s the thing in that though: rapid mutation rates means that those variants that spread the the fastest quickly outcompete those who do not, and those that cause milder/benign disease are much more successful at spreading themselves than those that lay patients up or kill them rapidly.
I contacted the CDC via email to see if they were interested in testing me.
I still have some hearing loss I’m attributing to 6 flights with an acute URI.