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First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

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Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#181

Post by yorwba »

nickczj wrote: post #122
exposay wrote: post #108

China has been covering it up for 2 months. Minimal action was taken to prevent the disease from spreading and they kept denying until a couple days ago when it was no longer possible to cover it up because it is spreading to neighboring countries who have been complaining for the whole time. Regional/local governments have been trying to downplay it because it makes them "look bad". It is essentially a replay of SAR…

China doesn't get to decide the scientific consensus. Teams of scientists spanning multiple countries + NGOs like the WHO make the risk assessment. The reason the scientific consensus was that there was no human-human transmission was because...there was no evidence of human-human transmission. All previous cases could be directly traced back to the market, and there were previously no clear evidence of healthcare wo…

Well, in this case professional scientists actually made claims about the classification of the virus as soon as they had evidence, and before the government had put out an official statement. But then they got prosecuted for "spreading rumors" and people stopped talking publicly about the progress of their research.

Now the government is getting criticized for this by e.g. Hu Fanzhu of East China Normal University's National Discourse Environment Research Center, whose open letter you might want to read if you think stopping people from "spreading false information" is what's important here.

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/toFmfLsLn_x6PhGFliictg

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#182

Post by Fomite »

knolax wrote: post #176
corporate_shi11 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they're describing is different from the hunting culture that persists in developed societies. It's more like hunter gatherer hunting for bushmeat embedded in an agricultural and livestock raising society where such hunting is unnecessary so the hunt is more about status, which is a bit unique.

> It's more like hunter gatherer hunting for bushmeat embedded in an agricultural and livestock raising society where such hunting is unnecessary so the hunt is more about status It seems like you just described "the hunting culture that persists in developed societies".

Just like with Ebola, we really like using "bushmeat" as othering language to describe hunting.

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#183

Post by Fomite »

hanniabu wrote: post #19
tptacek wrote: post #13

Coronaviruses are transmitted in what seems to be the same manner as influenza and generate some of the same symptoms. Why do the worst coronaviruses, like SARS, transmit so slowly, while the flu is practically ubiquitous?

Probably has to do with the conditions it can survive in. For example they may both be able to be spread by coughing, but the coronaviruses may not survive as long at room temperature and therefore have a smaller window to inoculate. Granted, this is purely just my guess as I have no actual idea.

Both of them are enveloped viruses, so differential survival is somewhat unlikely. But there are a lot of things that go into how transmissible a virus is.

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#184

Post by [deleted] »

Fomite wrote: post #133
yingw787 wrote: post #38

I read on Reddit that Chinese New Year is the largest regularly occurring human migration event in the world. Millions of Chinese people gather on public transport and planes To go home to celebrate. It’s in a few days I think. Also I’m not sure how the CDC is preparing for this under 45, but given the state of the federal government I would guess it’s less prepared than the days of the Ebola scare. Hopefully things…

A couple notes, from an infectious disease epidemiologist: - The CDC Director is, in rare form for this administration, not someone devoted to dismantling the agency he's in charge of. I work with the CDC fairly frequently, and they're in pretty good shape. - This is our third novel coronavirus, and the 2nd out of China. There's been a lot of prep work for this.

[deleted]

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#185

Post by avcdsuia »

tanilama wrote: post #139
Aperocky wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? From wikipedia: > The first suspected cases were reported on 31 December 2019

It is just pointless bashing, covering up 2 months? Think how this pandemic had escalated in a week, and neighboring countries will not notice it for 2 months? Some people have some weird imagination

There were no new cases in China except Wuhan and HongKong a week ago, how's that possible if they weren't covering up?

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#186

Post by dx034 »

Fomite wrote: post #133
yingw787 wrote: post #38

I read on Reddit that Chinese New Year is the largest regularly occurring human migration event in the world. Millions of Chinese people gather on public transport and planes To go home to celebrate. It’s in a few days I think. Also I’m not sure how the CDC is preparing for this under 45, but given the state of the federal government I would guess it’s less prepared than the days of the Ebola scare. Hopefully things…

A couple notes, from an infectious disease epidemiologist: - The CDC Director is, in rare form for this administration, not someone devoted to dismantling the agency he's in charge of. I work with the CDC fairly frequently, and they're in pretty good shape. - This is our third novel coronavirus, and the 2nd out of China. There's been a lot of prep work for this.

But wouldn't prevention require to screen all returning passengers from China and/or other Asian countries after Chinese New Year? I'm not sure how feasible that would be with the number of connecting flights with passengers from China arriving in the US each day. Or is it enough to isolate patients once they are ill enough to seek treatment?

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#187

Post by Fomite »

kadoban wrote: post #2

Anyone have a sober perspective of how bad this is likely to get? Is this comparable to a bad but forgetten-by-the-next-year flu strain? To SARS? To the Spanish Flu?

I'm an infectious disease epidemiologist who has worked on Ebola and MERS (along with some other stuff).

I'd peg it, right now, at SARS-levels of bad. Most early modeling estimates, from people who know their stuff, are estimating the number of infections at a few thousand. Bad in China, likely sporadic outbreaks elsewhere due to infection control failures treating hospitalized patients (i.e. the South Korean MERS cases).

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#188

Post by dx034 »

dmix wrote: post #125
lazyasciiart wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be on January 25th.

Like a coming tsunami of people travelling. At least it's all over the country, not just in one place, but still tons of close contact on the train systems. There are some good docs on Chinese New Year transit on trains and it gets dicy and competitive for space.

To make it worse, Wuhan is one of the major hubs for people traveling east/west. It's a 11 million city that will see a lot more visitors and connecting traffic over the next weeks.

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#189

Post by Fomite »

bart_spoon wrote: post #14
kadoban wrote: post #2

Anyone have a sober perspective of how bad this is likely to get? Is this comparable to a bad but forgetten-by-the-next-year flu strain? To SARS? To the Spanish Flu?

I don't think we can know yet. It's infected around 300 people, 6 of whom have died, putting a mortality rate of around 2%. Thats not as bad as SARS, which was 10%, but its early. SARS ended up being restricted to around 8000 people, mostly concentrated in China, though eventually spreading to dozens of countries, but its impossible to say how far and wide this one could spread, especially given that the outbreak is…

That mortality rate isn't at all reliable at this point - we have lots of unconfirmed cases which messes with the denominator, and we haven't had all the people who do have it develop their outcome.

2% is very much a best-case estimate right now.

Re: First Case of New Coronavirus Detected in U.S.

#190

Post by Fomite »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #68
davidw wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just reporting on the gist of what was said, that our current leadership is not up to the challenge of something really serious. I mean... it's hard to disagree. This is the guy who rants about windmill cancer, stared directly at the sun during the eclipse and thinks Article II of the constitution allows him to do "whatever he wants".

He also proposed some pretty serious cuts to the CDC last year. Not sure how much of those actually made it out of budget committee, I suspect most of them didn't make it through, but certainly is an indication of his priorities.

Very few of them, and the CDC director is a serious and experienced scientist who believes in the mission of the agency.
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