This, I believe, is evolving into a global catastrophic event. National security professionals need to take proactive and decisive action now. Technocratic policy choices of the past will not suffice. Before the virus emerges and evolves in the interior, shut down all ports of entry, implement wide area surveillance technology, and mobilize every hospital, state agency and research institution to prepare for the worst case scenario. Don't wait for the WHO, our sovereignty is at stake.
69
@Alex Perhaps universal health care would help. People with insurance seek help and they will be quarantined and treated instead of infecting others.
29
@QED
We can safely assume that the number of confirmed cases in China significantly underestimates the true population burden.
Given that this virus appears to incubate for 7-14 days and is apparently transmissible during this period, for each symptomatic person we must assume several others are current carriers. Further compared to Ebola, the R(o) transmissibility factor appears to be at least twice as high, in the 2.5-3.5 range, so each carrier can be expected to infect on average 3 others.
Combine that with a shortage of test kits, over-burdened Chinese medical facilities, pathological under-reporting of negative news by the CPC and many who would rather stay home than sit stewing in the Petri dish of a hospital waiting room, I think we can assert that this cat has exited the bag.
Absent massive intra- and international travel / cargo bans which would grind global trade to a halt, a logarithmic pandemic with deaths in the hundreds of thousands if not millions seems in the offing. Let's hope for the best.
14
Absolutely! With big pharma "rushing" to create a vaccine...hmmmm??? Also I wonder why it is that we dont see the ages of those who have died? Appears to be elderly with compromised immune systems. Its alos worthy of noting tha China has a terrible medical system. Overcrowded and often times people are waiting for hours and hours to get care. Media nets to put out all the facts and stop the hysteria!
What is not discussed much is what is happening in the countries without strong surveillance systems. It is probably not a coincidence that no case is reported from Africa. Given the number of Chinese in the contingent (millions) it is not very likely that there is no case. A stark contrast with countries that follow every probably case and have identified infected among non symptomatic evacuees (and can provide good health care) like Japan. We need to worry much the spread in the countries from where we are not hearing anything.
5
British Airways has taken the lead and stopped all flights from China. Why haven't the American airlines followed suit? Is it always about the money? Delta and United need to Stop now. It is a huge risk and Americans will likely die over it.
6
@Nora
During the largest Ebola virus outbreak, all the major airlines stopped flights into the affected areas with the exception of one... Off the top of my head, it was Brussels Airlines that kept flying (or something called that.)
The problem that was created was that when the airlines stopped flying in. It created a logistics nightmare for the nurses, doctors and other respondents because it interfered with needed medicine, equipment and other required supply deliveries!
That one airline, (I think it was Brussels Airlines) really saved the day for thousands of people, if not millions!
Now it is one thing to stop people from traveling unnecessarily to and from affected areas, which is what I think you are calling for.
It is another thing to prevent airlines (modern transportation) from delivering needed supplies!
So what we need is a plan that protects people who are brave and willing to fly needed emergency supplies to affected areas with minimal risk. In other words, fly in, deliver the supplies with minimal contact with locals and fly out the say day and avoid being forced to spend the night in the affected areas... like what Brussels Airline did!
2
@Nora probably because the much larger Chinese population in the US?
This is a GLOBAL issue that won't go away by setting up a virtual wall against 1.7 billion people
3
Given that their were 2 cases of asymptomatic Japanese persons on the the evacuation flight, could we say that there is a chance the US will have 2 cases on its repatriation flight that came into the military base today? As I understand they have been checked, will continue to be checked and quarantined for 3 days at the base and will then be released to travel home and self quarantine for 14 days...not sure how prudent it is to allow returning people on flights with hundreds of others after only being quarantined for 3 days. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. I would at least like to know what airports and flights they are on so I have a choice and stay as far away as I can. Some European countries are initially quarantining for 14 days.
3
China should teach all of their citizens the importance of washing their hands with soap after restroom use, with food prep, etc., a basic public health principle that lowers the spread of disease which they do not seem to practice, at least not when I visited a few years ago. They did not provide soap in their restrooms except in Beijing and Shanghai.
3
Medical,dental, and aesthetic staff all - Please stop wearing your scrubs and work clothes on public transit and if you go out for coffee or meals.Clinics, hospitals,etc. should mandate this common sense practice. Thank you.
3
I live in China. I went to get more N95 masks today but the local pharmacy was shuttered. I was stocking up on water and was coming back to a huge apartment complex. The streets of the immense city I live in are largely deserted. All the restaurants are closed - only a few convenience stores are open.
Since yesterday, there is only one way into my complex (which has eight connected towers of thirty stories).
Through that one entrance there are now two cops (usually there was just one). You must get tested with an electronic thermometer before they let you in. They put it to your forehead and it takes about 3 seconds and there is a beep.
Today was really scary because I was carrying a lot of water and vegetables and I must have been flushed - the cop hesitated after the first beep of the thermometer. After a second check he waved me through. Whew!
It's a very eerie, creepy situation. I wash my hands a lot of stay home as best I can.
1
How fast is the infection rate doubling and how fast is the death rate doubling? A graph would be helpful. I have heard unconfirmed reports that the death rate is about 2% of the infection rate.
It seems that we are well past possibly containing this. The question is, have we been effective at slowing the spread.
2
The most terrifying is the German man and the Japanese bus driver. Seriously, what are the odds, unless there is rampant infection and many asymptomatic carriers? Super sick people don't attend conferences or go on bus tours. There must be many times more infected people than on the official tallies. This thing is likely to explode in a couple of weeks as there must be many many people walking around infected without knowing it. And then we can expect the death rate to rise. There is no treatment. only supportive care while the host fights the virus. Unfortunately, supportive care takes a lot of resources and if we get an explosion of sick people, care facilities will be quickly overwhelmed.
165
@The F.A.D. this virus doesn't make people super sick unless they are very elderly or have preexisting health issues.
That's what makes it so active.
9
@The F.A.D. ... The total deaths will rise, but the case fatality rates will actually drop (dead/infected). Typically, lethality rates tend to be way higher during initial outbreak and taper as we learn true extent of total infections. So far this beast comes in under SARS, way under bird flu, and even under typical strains of yearly cold/flu. That doesn't mean nCOV19 couldn't mutate and really give humanity something to fear, but so far it's not looking that way. It's also very good that the symptoms present relatively quickly (a couple days isn't too bad). It's still going to get around the planet (sneezes, coughs, and door handles), no question, but it isn't stalking us from the shadows for years like AIDS did.
16
@The F.A.D. The Japanese and German cases make sense when you actually look into the reporting on these two people. The Japanese man was a bus driver for Chinese tourists and the German man got it from a colleague who was visiting from Shanghai.
7
Noting that there were 2 coronavirus positive but asymptomatic Japanese citizens among the 200 airlifted from Wuhan to Japan, we might estimate that approximately 2% of all people in Wuhan are currently coronavirus positive but asymptomatic.
If so (and it's of course quite a brave extrapolation) then Wunan may have 200,000 currently asymptomatic but infected.
The published deaths at around 350 at time of writing would represent a rather low mortality rate in that case - though deaths may have been misattributed and will lag behind infection rates.
3
Interesting about the Americans evacuated from China being quarantined on an airbase in California. Sounds like a very prudent course of action, and hopefully one not opposed by civil libertarian zealots. It was, of course, the discharge of infected soldiers returning from Europe in 1918 from an army base in Maine that incubated the domestic Spanish Flu epidemic which subsequently killed 675,000 Americans.
1
@Patrick it is thought that the "Spanish" Flu originated in the US, not the other way around.
The "Spanish" moniker came from the fact that the Spanish press was more open than any other at the time and reported what other nations kept quiet
1
This nasty virus is clever.
Its predominant characteristic is the ease at which it is spread.
Better for a virus bent on domination to cause fatalities in lets say 10 percent of cases if it can spread to 50% of the population.
We need to focus upon containment. Urgently. No time for political correctness. Just good old fashioned quarantine.
2
China has more reported cases. Reporting and testing facilities and behavior have changed radically since 2003. I've been in China during both outbreaks, there is no comparison to the degree of precautions and public/private intervention during the two events.
3
Why don’t they keep the people on that flight to LA quarantined in one location for the full 2 weeks? Allowing everyone to go back to their home in 3 days after preliminary tests are negative does not seem wise. There is some controversy as to whether they can be contagious during the incubation period. How long before they test positive for the virus if they have been exposed/are a carrier? So much Is still unknown.
21
I wonder how Mr Tough Guy of North Korea will freak out when this virus tears through his poor, no lights on at night country?
3
As I've pointed out elsewhere, the number of reported cases is meaningless by itself. Think about the current headline:
"Coronavirus Live Updates: China Now Has More Cases Than It Had of SARS."
Wouldn't you expect better reporting nearly 20 years after a major outbreak? Did IQs suddenly drop since SARS has been away? We should be alarmed when China reports lower than expected infection rates. Higher numbers suggest an improvement in competency and transparency.
By the same token, lower death rates per infection aren't a bad thing. We would expect healthcare outcomes to improve over 20 years. We want lower death-to-infection ratios. We are only concerned if China is obscuring the true cause of death or failing to report deaths at all.
The question isn't whether the numbers are alarming. They aren't. The question is how much do we trust these numbers compared to anything we can compare these numbers against. That's the uncertainty we're grappling with.
8
This proves the WHO is a joke. How many more people have to die before these idiots finally decide this is a major problem?
2
They’ve decided it’s a major problem last week already.
But people shouldn’t panic, especially in the west as there are thousands dying unnecessarily of the normal flu.
People running and buying face masks now while probably not even being vaccinated against the flu is a hilarious example of availability bias.
8
If only "Matt" were in chart of this epidemic. Then all would be well.
1
The Chinese Communist Party condemns “Western values” and America to its people. It has maligned the West’s values for dozens of years. It’s vitriol and propaganda seeks to distract its people from judging for themselves the failures of the CCP. China’s proof of its failure of governance and incompetence is the Wuhan coronavirus (after the CCP received years of credible warnings from its own scientists after the SARS and MERS pandemics). Negligence kills people.
While it condemns America to its people, it is American scientists, not Chinese scientists that just developed a vaccine against African Swine Fever Virus that has killed off a huge part of China’s livestock supply, threatening its national food security.
It is also reasonable to expect that America’s or Australia’s or another democracy’s scientists will soon find a cure or vaccine for China’s corona virus. Yet the communist leadership will continue to gaslight with propaganda worldwide against liberal western democracies. It has used its power to exclude Taiwan from the World Health Organization (WHO).
Under these circumstances the best defense will be to broadcast the truth to the world AND to the Chinese people that it was America than developed a vaccine for African swine flu.
And when a cure is found for the Wuhan coronavirus, it must be clear to every backward rural Chinese peasant, that while China started the deadly virus, it was liberal Western democracies that found the cure.
10
@Charlie Chan Is this part of the propaganda?
Traffic goes both ways. I see some Chinese disparage Americans, I see some Americans blame everything on the Chinese as well.
As I mentioned, a vaccine was already developed by HongKong University, and is being developed both in and outside China as well. The reason the scientific world can act so fast this time is because the Chinese researchers have published the DNA sequence of the virus publicly. Surely the savior isn't "liberal Western democracies" this time.
We need to face the facts to be objective.
8
While I generally agree with the condemnation of China (and support Taiwan), the tone is disturbingly racist and undermines your point - ‘backward rural peasant’, and signed by ‘Charlie Chan’ ?
As if America didn’t have its own ignorant citizens denying science and the very vaccines you celebrate.
5
Good news if what you say is accurate. No, I do not gaslight - ever.
I am praying that none of my many and much beloved Chinese friends and extended family in Asia and America, Canada and Australia, are sickened by it. I am a brother to so many Chinese.
I am reading and hearing the most inane and insane theories from Chinese trolls in chat groups.
Three out of 200 (I'm rounding) Japanese evacuees had the virus. One was symptomatic, two were not. If you assume the same rate of infection among the population of Wuhan (approximately 10 million), 150,000 people are infected and 50,000 have symptoms.
These are very rough numbers but I think they are closer to the truth than the statistics that the Chinese authorities have announced. Note that I do not blame the Chinese authorities; because of the shortage of testing kits, it is impossible to test everyone who is ill.
7
adding to that not everyone who has mild symptoms (majority of infected don’t get severely ill) will be running to a hospital to queue for several hours among other sicker people.
Seems to me the way to nip this whole thing is literally at our fingertips. Not a vaccine, no.. electronic communication.
In the age of Skype and FaceTime, there is not really any need for people to physically travel to other countries right now. At all. Just stay home.
Yes, some might miss a wedding or a baby being born, but set up your tripod. You could buy the latest iPhone with amazing video quality and a tripod for cheaper than international plane tickets.
Business travel is pure luxury and completely unnecessary given our technological tools (even without a viral outbreak). Just stay home and video conference.
It would be better for containing this outbreak and better for the planet. Some of the people who whine about global warming fly the most, which I find completely hypocritical.
Just stay home.
11
@BT so, everybody can stay in their jammies all day!
2
@BT How're going to get the electronics which make it possible? Where is this equipment made, again?
1
It's not the latest gadget only that will be affected. Hotels, restaurants and anything related to tourism. Then you have supply lines for parts - - all kinds of parts (auto, electronic, medical, on and on). That in turn slows down or stops the related industries which require them. Wood and other resources stop going to China, because no transport in, no unloading there, so no logging (okay, that is good actually), mining stops, etc. Truckers have nothing to truck, so they have no work either. The knock-on effects in our interconnected world are exponential.
Reportedly the virus can spread with no symptoms and it can take 14 days to develop symptoms. Why only check people for 3 days and then send them on their way? They could be asymptomatic but contagious. Are they placing them on various commercial airliners to fly them to their various homes around the country with thousands of members of the general flying public before they get home and THEN self quarantining for 14 days? Potentially exposing all those random people on their flights, and all then all the people the people on their flights come in contact with, and on and on? This is a novel virus which we know very little about. Are they so sure the they will be able to conduct lab tests that rule out the coronavirus in three days? What if the levels are so low as to be undetectable but then grow in a week? If they have enough room to house these people in isolation on this base for 3 days why not house them for 14 days and eliminate the risk to all their fellow passengers and the rest of us?
12
@Sara It is that they don't show symptoms, it isn't that the disease cannot be detected without symptoms. It can.
2
EXCELLENT POINTS .
2
So ”Wuhan is the outbreak's epicenter"? So the virus has moved underground???
1
China's CDC reports tonight that the numbers of suspected cases and new cases has doubled in the past 48 hours, from roughly 6,000 to 12,000. No one claims they are keeping up with the numbers, but even so....
http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/news/TrackingtheEpidemic.htm#NHCJan29
Why aren't the evacuees sequestered for the full 14 days? The CDC will monitor them to determine if they develop symptoms during that period while potentially spreading it? It was previously stated that people with no symptoms can be carriers, only becoming ill later. Has this changed? If the initial test can determine if a person is a symptom-free carrier, why monitor them for 14 days?
8
I HATE writing this. I am hearing Chinese talking and writing amongst themselves (in the last hour) that SARS and the Wuhan corona virus was developed in an American military lab outside New York. They, the trolls, are spreading the rumor that it is and SARS was a designer biological weapon designed for use against only Han Chinese. My God, the evil depth of that lie is appalling. So many Han Chinese are fully intwined in Caucasian families and Caucasians love Han Chinese in families and social settings, such nonsense is unthinkable. I dearly love and have loved my Han Chinese friends, male and female. There are millions of loving Chinese-American couples in America and around the world. The fact is that SARS, MERS and the Wuhan corona virus was and is a threat to any breathing human being.
9
I understand ur frustration but we can never know the truth. There is a traditional Chinese Proverb “if there is no wind there won’t be waves” which means we can’t completely eliminate this conspiracy. But yeah, it’s an virus for all human beings we need to stand together and be responsible
1
@Charlie Chan
Relax, buddy.
Another conspiracy I heard more often these days is that the Chinese fabricated the virus as a biological weapon, and it got accidentally released. This theory was said to be traced back to a popular American conspiracy website. Another theory is that this virus was stolen from a Canadian lab by a Chinese, and then released in China.
As long as you don't believe them lightly, these conspiracies will just remain, well, conspiracies.
2
I suppose that Chinese proverb was created before the invention of the internet and social media.
Lots of fabricated waves without any trace of wind. It’s a hobby for people to plant those theories. Some for fun others for political reasons.
Folks, there have been a lot of good comments today, which have given me more to think about.
First, one of the Chinese Health Officials referred to this problem as the Coronavirus Pneumonia, which is why I call it the Wuhan Pneumonia Virus. This might be a better description of how a percentage of people are dying!
Second, first recorded case was Dec 1st, 2019 and I suspect that it was going at least a few weeks earlier than that, if not a month. Chinese officials worked very hard suppressing the outbreak for almost the entire month of December.
Third: All parts/regions of China are now reporting cases of the Wuhan Pneumonia Virus. This would indicate that the historical mass quarantine has only slowed the spread and not stopped it.
Fourth: Having the virus in the US, UK, France, Germany or Australia isn't as scary to me as having it in India, Bangladesh or Africa. If the Wuhan Pneumonia Virus gets going in those areas, then I would say, "We have a major problem!"
Fifth: The only people panicking are the media and Governments. The public is doing just fine and I don't see people panicking. Yes there are runs on face masks. You will always have a small group who prepares at the first sign of trouble.
Sixth: There is a saying, the public is about 3 days from panicking (I give it 7 days) - When you see a run on the grocery stores, then you will understand what I am saying.
My advice, get your vaccinations, including the pneumonia shot, wash your hands often!
11
You can’t get a shot against pneumonia. It’s a lung inflammation sometimes following a respiratory infection.
Amazon and eBay need to ban resellers from hiking up the prices of masks. I think people might be buying them in bulk in order to resell them on Amazon or eBay for a profit. This should not be allowed. I hope Amazon and eBay ban sellers from doing this.
2
@Ashley and masks are not effective against this anyway
2
@Ashley
There are already state laws against price gouging!
Heck, Amazon can't watch everything or do anything unless people complain against the vendors.
6. US boarders need to immediately close or we’ll have a pandemic larger than any thermonuclear explosion that is according to professor from Harvard
In the words of Harvard Epidemologist Erik Feigl- Ding:
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD - the new coronavirus is a 3.8!!! How bad is that reproductive R0 value? It is thermonuclear pandemic level bad - never seen an actual virality coefficient outside of Twitter in my entire career. I’m not exaggerating... #WuhanCoronovirus #CoronavirusOutbreak
Do your own research
Even that Feigl-Ding guy admits now that its rather below 2. Which is still pretty infectious but more in line with usual respiratory illnesses.
$20.19 a package or a single mask I'm wondering — never mind — this person should be dragged around ina pit with deceased coronavirus victims... Make sure ya mix it in real well... And then forced to wear used dust masks that were once worn by the inspection personnel that were screening the common and notorious criminals.. Oh wait , maybe I'm off a little bit on my geography that supposedly in North Korea!
1
Vaccines saved the human species from measles, mumps, smallpox, seasonal flu and other plagues. Multiple companies are racing to develop a broad spectrum vaccine for this. Scientists are the heroes of the hour.
5
@M Davis
Making vaccines for a brand new and very novel virus isn't easy and I wouldn't be holding my breath that one will be ready anytime soon!
They have been working on the MERS vaccine for years now... nothing, NADA. no luck so far!
Now the good news is that because they have been working on the MERS vaccine for so long, it might help them for the Wuhan Pneumonia Virus Vaccine - but that is just speculation.
Scientists have been warning about this for years. They have also been advising people to get vaccinated and to keep them updated.
Yes, the scientist are heroes... but nobody was listening. Not the media, not the Governments and not even the public - who have been inundated with warnings about swine flu, bird flu, climate change, mass extinctions, measles outbreaks, Ebola outbreaks, AIDS. over-population and the list goes on and on!
Peter has cried wolf so many times that when it actually happens, nobody saw it and were frightened!
2
@The Critic By the report of SCMP of Hongkong, a vaccine was already developed by the Chair of Infectious Disease of HongKong University. It just needs to go through more tests and the test on humans.
As a matter of fact, it is mentioned in the article that several versions of vaccine are being developed both in and outside of China. A race is going on to be the first to market. Surely good news to us.
Chinese scientists have claimed at least three months before the vaccine officially available to public
1
A proven method (by movie and television examples) to gain dominance by fear.
Not merely fear of death but fear of economic chaos and psychological confusion.
But let’s not be paranoid.
3
@julia this isn't the movies, television, or the funny papers.
This is real life
7
@Last We survived SARS, we survived Ebola. Surely we will survive this one as well.
Canada a country of 35 mil , reported that last year , 3500 people died from the flu. Why the mass hysteria?
1
I get it - this is a scary virus but so are the various versions of influenza that circle the globe every year. Several colleagues and friends have had to take their kids to the ER for flu this year. I hope those of you panicking and calling for a shut down of travel from China also get your annual flu shots, cover your mouths when you cough and sneeze, and wash your hands frequently.
7
This is why the world needs to put a halt to China’s “one belt on road” global colonization aspirations.
They are incompetent and dangerous due to their highly autocratic and secretive form of governance.
4
One road to your back door! You better watch out buddy, one belt one road is a coming through.
2
While being prepped for a checkup this morning in the doctor’s office, I asked her assistant if the doctors were getting worried about coronavirus, even though it may not have hit NYC yet. She looked left and right and then silently nodded her head yes.
I’m getting worried too.
18
@Judy I'm sure Mayor deBlasio has this in hand.
If not, Governor Cuomo will throw on his crisis khakis, hop on FDR's Packard and save the day.
2
It’s 10 cases in Singapore at time of writing, was only 5 2 days ago.
I wonder what else here is patchy...
4
This is getting scary. I can't belive the Chinese went back to eating the wild animals that caused the coronavirus after these same animals caused SARS in 2003. The U.S needs to ban all travel from China until they deal with this disease. They were fully aware that these animals they were eating could start another epidemic, and they chose to take that chance WE DID NOT. The scary part is there are Chinese travelling throughout Africa and the Caribbean where they do not have the resources to screen and contain this disease.
12
WHO is said to be concerned about an outbreak in Africa because of the limited resources in many countries.
3
Let’s stop eating animals and most of these problems go away.
13
“So far, 8,200 people have died and 140,000 people have been hospitalized during the 2019-2020 flu season, according to preliminary estimates from the CDC.”
I realize that the coronavirus is an unknown and makes for more exciting news but a relatively bad flu season is well under way and doesn’t seem to get any attention.
If the CDC announced that there was a vaccine available for the Wuhan strain of this coronavirus, how many would go their doctor to get it? Probably more than a few. And yet, influenza kills more and likely will continue to kill more each year but many refuse to get the vaccine.
8
@Andy g
That is because the seasonal flu is boring to people. It doesn't matter to people if it is a bad year, they don't want to read about it, let alone get one of those horrible vaccines that causes (insert imaginary problem here).
Anti-vaxers, have caused a lot of problems when it comes to the overall public safety issue. Their false propaganda, which is based on fraudulent science be a incompetent UK doctor, has caused more deaths than all of the vaccines combined. Recently, 6,000 children died of measles and that was just in one country during an outbreak.
We can't even get people to get their yearly flu shot because the falsely claim that they are allergic to eggs and had a really bad reaction... I would love for those people to spend time in a nursing home and see how their selfishness caused so many problems for our elderly. (What's worse is the RN's who claim they know so much more than our scientists and doctors and refuse to get vaccinated... and spread infections and disease in the facilities they work.)
I want to give you a hint about vaccines... this new virus can be referred to as the Wuhan Pneumonia Virus. A lot of the deaths are because of pre-existing medical conditions and they end up dying from a secondary infection like pneumonia!
How many people do you see rushing to get a pneumonia vaccine?
It might take years for a vaccine to be developed.
Want to fight the virus, get all of your vaccinations and wash your hands often!
10
China has 7,700 cases of coronavirus and 170 deaths in a population of 1.4 billion people. Meanwhile, an estimated 60,000 people in the USA die from influenza every year since 2010.
10
True, but you can’t pass the flu virus unless you have symptoms. With this you have no sign of symptoms and can still spread the virus. Big difference!
1
You can spread the flu without symptoms. Many are the most contagious in the few days leading to the onset of symptoms...that’s why it’s everywhere.
For the person who talked about nurses getting their patients sick- many many hospitals and long term care facilities are making it mandatory to get your flu shot each year. It’s almost impossible to get an exemption and if you don’t get it you’re terminated immediately at the end of the immunization period offered. Healthcare workers are doing their part at most places. Now if only the employers would not penalize those who call in when they are actually ill we could lessen the spread of the flu and RSV (for pediatric populations). But, because they make it impossible to call in sick without having to get a doc note people come to work sick because it’s easier and cheaper then a doc visit. This goes for both health care facilities and most other jobs in the US these days.
6
@Jenni
Many places will fire staff who refuse vaccinations. That part you are correct!
The problem is that not all nurses, or doctors, or hospital staff, or the support vendors that go into hospitals, are getting vaccinated.
In addition, because of the lack of attention to details, these same people are directly responsible for the spread of fungus's, bacteria, antibiotic resistant bacteria. If we can't get hospitals and their staff to clean up their act and just follow basic common sense, then we will continue to have 1.7 million Americans acquiring Hospital caused infections each year!
The sad reality is that 99,000 Americans die each year because nurses, RN's, doctors, hospitals, vendors, staff can't clean up their act.
Vaccination is just one small part!
1
Please stop calling it mysterious. Scientists have sequenced the genome and have made the results available publicly. They know where it came from and how it jumped to humans.
"Notably, 2019-nCoV was closely related (with 88 percent identity) to two bat-derived severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-like coronaviruses, bat-SL-CoVZC45 and bat-SL-CoVZXC21, collected in 2018 in Zhoushan, eastern China, but were more distant from SARS-CoV (about 79 percent) and MERS-CoV (about 50 percent). Phylogenetic analysis.. and so on."
10
We might know it’s biological nature, but we don’t know so many other things about it that make it very scary.
The number of American evacuees from China started out reported at 201 (much less than the plane’s capacity) and now I’m reading reports of 195 arriving at March AirForce Base. If quarantine is critical then I
where did those 6 people go?
6
@NYTfan I read from the Times that somebody missed the plane. Cause the whole city is locked down, no public transportation available, and private cars are banned from the road.
I have heard that people in China communicating with friends in the West are saying the the number of sick people is many thousands more than their regime is admitting. Of course, how can the Western media verify this since it's a dictatorship with strict censorship and control of the press and internet. Horrifying.
9
Makes sense. Most mild cases won’t report. I wouldn’t walk to a hospital and queue for hours among much sicker people just because a sore throat and some coughing.
That puts the fatality rate down a notch as well.
5
Of course it is. Not everyone having a runny nose and a cough is running to a hospital. Especially not if you’ve got to queue for hours among much sicker people.
Official numbers would be 10 times lower even in the US in that situation.
@Miriam
Actually it was reported that thousands more were infected and couldn't get the hospital. Those that could, were not even tested and sent home. Some were even told that they were infected and to come back if it became worse.
One of the first cases was recorded on Dec 1st, 2019 and as the epidemic became worse, Chinese officials stamped out reports by people, even the police made threats against people for spreading false rumors. It was sometime before China admitted they had a problem.
What makes this situation so bad is that some people might be sick, but because they think it is mild, they refuse to call in sick and end up spreading it to their coworkers (these are the same people who don't want to stand in line at a hospital!)
I wouldn't call this horrifying by any stretch of the imagination.
MERS has been coming and going for years - no vaccine yet.
Measles recently killed over 6,000 children during an outbreak and that was just in on country. Heck, on a small island, over a 1,000 children died from measles because so anti-vaxer convinced the parents that vaccines are bad...
The seasonal flu is currently killing thousands around the world and this years vaccine is a good match.
What I find horrifying is the fact that so many people refuse to do the right thing and get their vaccinations, and keep them updated.
3
The testing and confirmation process here in the states seem painfully slow. Why are all suspected cases only sent to the CDC? What’s being done with all suspected cases and their contacts?
2
Novel coronavirus death rate assessment
If you divide the current confirmed deaths by the current confirmed case number you get
170 / 7771 = 2.2% death rate
However, this assumes that the 170 deaths all occurred today
A more accurate death rate needs to reflect that the deaths occur after a period of illness...that the 170 deaths we now see were of people who became ill a few days ago.
If you assume that most deaths are occurring after 4 days of illness, you need to use the confirmed cases number of 4 days age which is 2700 so the math becomes
170 / 2700 = 6.3% death rate
If the illness period before death is more than 4 days, the death rate goes higher because the denominator gets smaller.
The US death rate for the common flu is very low even though we see between 12,000 to 61,000 influenza related deaths every year...it is just that the denominator of flu illnesses is huge as in 9 million to 45 million cases
The bottom line...this new coronavirus has a meaningfully higher death rate
5
Most western experts estimate the number of infections to be around ten times the official numbers. Most mild cases aren’t reporting at this point, especially not if it means hours of queuing and exposure to sicker people.
Which would put the death rate much lower.
4
And I have read that many deaths that likely occurred on account of the virus have been reported as due to other things, like "acute pneumonia," apparently due at least in part to lack of testing capability.
The List view on the Northeastern/London reporting web dashboards have Dr and Hospital reports that track admission to death, admission to recovery. After they had a spate of eight deaths quickly, I sampled three of those reports. In each of the three, contributing factors for improve/decline are described in fair detail, and each described as caused by other than the virus in question. When this virus was detected it’s made clear in the report.
1
Food and disease seems to bring out latent xenophobia. People eat weird stuff. Yes, eating wild animals may be problematic environmentally in some cases, but lets recognize the tendency to be very ethnocentric in our analysis of acceptable foods, and to realize that this deep-seated reaction may color our logic. Let's not pretend that western food practices aren't without dangers (Factory farms, GMOs, etc.).
13
@Peter Jenkins The French eat foie gras and rabbits, frogs and snails, and we used to eat horse meat too. I discovered that some Americans eat squirrels, and even frozen iguanas. From a public health standpoint, the problem isn’t really which animals we eat, but whether veterinary inspections are in place. Ethically, of course, there’s no condoning sparing the duck and eating the squirrel.
1
Please consider equipment to exchange gases in blood to save those near death due to pneumonia. I think it would work.
Also, 38 years ago, I wanted to make artificial lungs utilizing hydroscopic or hydrophibic plastic film depending on molecule sizes. Please let that out to companies.
I would like to know more about the age profile of those who have died from the virus. Are they mostly the elderly and infants, or are they evenly distributed across the age spectrum?
6
You can get good age profiles from this website https://www.mobs-lab.org/2019ncov.html
The site is ssl protected, and has good detail on the
‘Situation Report Mainland China Dashboard’. The list tab pushes out a csv file with demographics and links to Hospital and Dr reports, individually.
@Dan Holton
Thank you!
Please consider equipment to exchange gases in blood to save those near death due to pneumonia. I think it would work.
Also, 38 years ago, I wanted to make artificial lungs utilizing hydroscopic or hydrophobic plastic film depending on molecule sizes. Please let that out to companies.
The death toll is what the Chines government is reporting--speculate that it is much higher. We should ban all travel to and from China. Need to communicate with someone there--email or phone.
4
I’d guess if anything the number of infections is much higher probably 10 times as many. Most mild cases aren’t reporting. Who’s queuing in a hospital with hundreds of sick people because of a sore throat and nasal congestion?
Which would put the fatality down to flu levels.
I bought some extra masks, and they are for my doctor's office as a last resort, so don't be too quick to ridicule people for the run on masks. It will put pressure on manufacturers to fill the need, but please do advise those with extra to share with others later when needed. That is the idea.
1
Time for the amazing medical and scientific community in the United States to come to the aid of the immense numbers suffering.
2
I think it's important to keep this virus in context. Although it does seem to be spreading quickly (as upper respiratory viruses do), the number of deaths attributed to this virus are extremely low in comparison to deaths due to flu - it is estimated that there have been over 8,000 deaths related to flu this season. As a health care provider, I'm frustrated to hear patients frantically concerned about the spread of this coronavirus, but unwilling to be vaccinated for a virus that kills thousands of people each year. If not to protect yourself, at least consider a yearly flu vaccine to protect the elderly, immunocompromised, infants...those who are at highest risk of death when exposed to the flu virus.
13
That's a 2.2% death rate.
How's that compare with a bad flu?
Anyone?
1
too early to confirm a death rate as it can’t be calculated from today’s infection numbers. Some of those could still be fatal. While the dead might be the infected from a week ago.
5
@Robert H
But still, whats the death rate for a bad flu year?
I know, no complete records, but one would think with AI and sophisticated algorithms a close rate could be sussed out about the flu data that exists.
I've looked at sites, but raw numbers only.
Useless.
1
Common flu is .1 death rate from what I have read. so the Coronavirus is much higher, by all accounts.
6
This coronavirus spreading clearly shows how the communist party and dictatorship without the freedom of press can be a massive threat to not only to its people, but world.
11
I would guess that nearly all face masks and vinyl gloves are manufactured in China courtesy of US corporations outsourcing nearly everything. China is scrambling for medical barriers for their own population so good luck with getting additional supplies of gloves and masks.
6
The plane pictured in the article is a Kalitta Air 747-400 freighter. Can someone please explain how they managed to transport 195 passengers in a cargo aircraft?
4
I was thinking the same thing.
2
Southwest without the perks
6
So I went online to buy face masks, a precaution that's truly unusual for me, since I rarely get sick and never worry about it. Guess what? You can barely find a single mask online. Not Amazon, not Target, not whatever. (Some sellers said out of stock and back in March or something.) Then I even went into a Walmart today because it was supposed to have seven. Nothing. The pharmacist told me to go to the sports department and see if there were some kind of mask there. (?) Out of curiosity, I checked the first aid kits in the camping section. No masks. Etsy had some cloth ones, though, if you feel compelled. Anyway, who is buying them? Does everyone have one already and I'm just out of the loop? Last thought: Pretty scary when people compete for resources.
9
@PS
Home Depot or any local home supply store have dust masks for people to use when sanding, etc. Far more effective and cheaper than surgical "masks".
6
@Viv Good tip. Just looked them up, can't buy online, have to pick up in store (which is fine). I could make one so not really a problem, just curious about it all.
Funny how people panic about this and stock surgical masks but almost no one gets vaccinated for the flu the far more prevalent and at least as dangerous virus infection.
Availability bias I guess.
7
2019 in Germany 25.000 patients died of the flu. 3,8 Mio. consulted a physian because of respective infections. China has 1,4 Billion inhabitants and 6.000 confirmed cases this does not seem to be too big a problem. In addition the cases - at lesat the ones in Munich - are fairly mild and, so far, not even close to endanger the lives of the very few patients who have caught the virus from a Chinese collegue from Wuhan who had no symptoms at the time of transmission.
To me the reporting - not only of the NYT, also in the German press - seems to be exaggerated and a bigger danger to the economy than the virus itself.
6
it is growing. and fast.
1
Many more people get the flu as well.
The point is that this is a new virus, it’s spreading and humanity doesn’t really want another flu creating havoc. Although they might deserve one.
2
The media is acting extremely irresponsibly when it comes to reporting on this epidemic. Breathless recaps of the number of infections and deaths without any underlying epidemiological analysis is worse than useless - it just stokes rumors and fear.
16
facts are breathless? it's called information. you choose to panic that's up to you.
6
These " fresh markets" and the viruses that come from them are the Achilles Heel of China.
8
Elizabeth Warren suggested fighting climate change to combat the virus. Is she serious? Socialism is the end all cure all snake oil I guess. I still think the globalists punished China for signing the 1st phase of the trade agreement. Nothing like fear to punish & control governments.
2
All flights to and from China should be stopped. Our Government owes that towards our safety.
11
There is a scene in “The Godfather part 2” where a young Vito Corelone enters Ellis Island along with thousands of other immigrants, before he sets foot in America he is examined by a doctor who discovers he has small pox, he is the quarantined for 2 months.
Everything happens in its time, diseases such as small pox have been wiped out, at the same time airplanes can bring infectious people across the ocean in a day.
Something much worse then Corona is coming , when it will arrive nobody knows but unless the leaders of this world come up with a game plan to avert a pandemic the human race will be wiped out.
Every time one if these events takes place people panic because it seems there is no clear plan.
In this modern age we should have won the war against the microbe look ago, but as we see with an annual Flu epidemic which last year took 60,000 lives , we just are way behind the microbe.
Our overconfidence will be are undoing, and if the world can’t learn that we have much more in common than we have that separates us, such as a respiratory system that is 100 percent exactly the same and a way in for deadly bacteria. Skin color, different religions, different culture none of that matters to the bacteria that seems to be getting smarter and more pernicious every time. This is the moment in time where the world must come together and be led by the best and brightest or it faces a dark future,a power greater than ourselves is talking to us.
7
About 6000 cases and 120 deaths. That's about 2% lethality, compared to close to 50% for ebola. This is not a very lethal disease--about the same as the usual flu.
What I am worried about is that this sensational coverage will deflect attention from flu and measles, both of which are much greater hazards, and don't get enough attention.
A flu pandemic would be much worse.
15
@dr. c.c.
I agree, The flu is actually much worse. Influenza has already sickened at least 13 million Americans this winter, hospitalizing 120,000 and killing 6,600, according to the CDC. And flu season hasn’t even peaked. In a bad year, the flu kills up to 61,000 Americans. The flu hits us every year in the USA and we've just gotten used to it. It doesn't make headlines very often. (Think about that, all of us who skip the flu shot every year.) I'm not saying that this Wuhan virus isn't a problem. It's a major problem for Wuhan and surrounding areas. It could turn into a worldwide problem but it would be hard pressed to do even a small fraction of the killing that influenza does every year.
1
So here is the question that the media doesn't want to tackle:
"With our government flying diplomats home, why are they bothering with a 72 hour quarantine when the rest of the world like China, UK, Australia are doing a two-week quarantine?"
What makes our diplomats so special that they only have to do a 72 hour quarantine?
China reports that the virus can be spread by people who show no symptoms. China also insists that people from the Wuhan area quarantine themselves for 2 weeks.
Australia is flying their citizens to Christmas Island, 1,200 miles away from the mainland, for a 2 week quarantine. Everybody is saying "2 week quarantine" but when it comes to our diplomats... they're special and only need 72 hours!
Keep in mind, our experts have been working on a vaccine for the MERS virus for years... so far... nothing. NADA. No vaccine!
How's that AIDS vaccine doing? How's the vaccine for the common cold doing? How effective is the yearly flu vaccine?
So our Diplomats are so special, and the medical care is so good, and the tests are so foolproof... that all they need is 72 hours of quarantine?
Seems like the CDC and Health Officials are taking a big risk on a virus they know so little about!
38
@The Critic
Yup.
4
Just so I understand. You think 72 hours isn’t enough. Right?
4
If you read the whole article, you’ll see that they will be monitored for 14 days, unless there is any indication of the virus.
5
This is a large and unpredictable concern fir the US and whoever believes otherwise is dreaming and/or in denial.
6
There were 8,200 deaths in the United States attributed to "The Flu". That is not a typographical error.
Where is the outrage for that statistic?
Instead, the World is melting down over the spread of a strain of coronavirus that is not as deadly as "The Flu"
1
@Allen82
The "common flu" has vaccine availability and treatment options. The coronavirus has neither.
I'm betting that many affected by flu in our country were not vaccinated.
11
@HotGumption
The "common flu" vaccine protects only against two strains of flu. It's success depends on how prevalent those two strains of flu are in a flu season.
The efficacy of the flu vaccine hovers around 50%, per the CDC's own stats.
1
How can we continue to be so lax in combatting the spread in America. First we waited to see then we just screened lax and jfk . Then we get our first case. Every person from that region if not China itself should have and should be screened. Now we bring the people from the epicenter of the outbreak directly into the states and will let them go in 3 days . How unbelievably stupid is that. Should have flown them to Guantanamo or anywhere else. But fine they brought them here. They literally do not know how the virus is spreading and feel the need for 14 days of evaluation yet will let these people fly I assume on a commercial jet after only 3 days of observation. But watch for symptoms !!!!! Keep them for 14 days in quarantine very simple and 99 percent more effective in containment. I cannot believe the sheer stupidity.
11
New York Times needs to check its sources. They keep reporting Singapore as having only 5 confirmed cases when they only need to check the government’s official site to learn the true number : https://www.moh.gov.sg/2019-ncov-wuhan
5
The numbers are changing quite quickly.
3
In addition to our Government giving special treatment to our diplomats by only placing them in a 72 hour quarantine, while the rest of the world places a two-week quarantine on their citizens... I think that it is important to point out that the only people I see panicking is the media and Government officials!
So what!
Okay, so there is a run on masks... Again, so what. That is not panicking.
There will always be a small group of people who will go out and stock-up on items, which is a human thing... not a panicking thing!
What is frustrating is the fact that we have officials who think that they should withhold information so as not to create a panic... which is what the Chinese government did when the Wuhan Pneumonia Virus first appeared.
When a hurricane threatens, people go to the store and stock up... that isn't panicking. Think about it, people who live in earthquake prone zones and take the time to stock up are not panicking. People who build a tornado shelter and plan ahead... are not panicking.
Buying face-mask's in advance is not panicking!
9
I can't think of a better argument for universal health care than a global pandemic. Do you want sick people afraid to visit a hospital because of the cost? I don't. We are living in an increasingly interconnected world. Your health and the health of our community can be affected by one ill person. Since multinational corporations have been the driving force behind globalization, perhaps they should bear the brunt of paying for universal healthcare?
22
It doesn’t seem to be working well in China at the moment
4
@Bill
It is not working well in the UK, which is stretched to the max because of the seasonal flu.
The Universal Health Care is so bad in the UK that, depending on where you're at, if you have a heart attack, it can take over an hour for someone to even show up.
Heck, Sweden, which all the politicians to point at as an great example... if you make 35k US, your tax bracket is in the 60% range!
3
The best hope is a vaccine that targets a broad range of flu pathogens, including versions in bats, swine, etc. Measles, mumps, polio and smallpox have largely been eradicated using this method. Microscopic viruses cannot be corralled but we can boost the human ability to withstand them.
Could someone please explain why a single temperature reading at a specific time, e.g., disembarking a plane, would be indicative of carrying the CoV virus? Temperatures flux hourly and per my understanding there is an approximate 10 day asymptomatic period. Seems it shows well on TV but is ridiculous -> guarantine every person separately from known/suspected areas in isolation 14 days. Also, German News showed entire cities in China quarantining themselves. Absolutely no-one enters these cities. They have 24/7 watchman with barriers at all entry points. I think this was done in the USA during the influenza outbreak sometime between 1915-1920 . . . So we would not be setting precedent to restrict travel.
9
@-K
Very astute observations. First, in answer to the single reading... its magic. People think that the authorities are doing something. It is about as effective as spraying the pathway in a park with disinfectant!
You are correct that during the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic, towns and cities barricaded themselves in. One town that tried that failed because it was later determined that the postman most likely had introduced the virus. The cities that did not take drastic action suffered the most. The first wave was known as the three day fever and wasn't as bad as the second wave, which was when the virus had evolved into a more deadly version - people woke up feeling fine and were dead by the evening. It has been suggested that a "cytokine storm" was what caused so many people to die. The third wave wasn't as bad because the survivors of the first two waves had built up immunity!
Actually, China's action are setting a precedent, never in history has such a large scale quarantine been attempted.
Last, the first recorded case of the Wuhan Pneumonia Virus was Dec 1st 2019 and at the beginning, Chinese authorities attempted to silence people about the large number of deaths that were occurring.
Also there is evidence that this virus did not originate from the open air market as is being reported. In other words, factual information is lacking on this very new and novel coronavirus, the seventh that now can infect people (three months ago, there were only six!)
3
People had better understand that this is a world problem and not just a China problem.
It can be slowed down with travel restrictions, but it's already gotten past the border.
12
America... Please: Evaluation of this brand spanking new Coronavirus cannot be completed effectively in three days. More like three weeks. 201 citizens could decimate your nation - regardless of their distribution. Be safe or, be sorry.
8
@DieselEstate
Agreed.
3
This outbreak will be the first of many more viral epidemics given the urbanization and overpopulation of the planet. A few hundred thousand years ago, this coronavirus would have burned through a single small hunter-gatherer group and vanished. Even in early civilized times, the virus may have affected a small village or trading post before disappearing for lack of new hosts. Today, the virus strikes in the heart of a teeming megalopolis with hourly international flights around the world. It is not if, but when, a viral species develops into a 'perfect' infection vector: long asymptomatic period, easy airborne transmission among human hosts, and high mortality in all health subgroups. Countries like China and India, with billions of people (aka potential petri dishes) living side-by-side squalor and animal hosts, will be the source of these viral threats until public health measures change living conditions. The alternative is that Nature itself will find a biological way to curb human population, and it will not be pretty.
23
CDC to cut by 80 percent efforts to prevent global disease outbreak. Thanks Trump, now what?
Four years after the United States (Obama administration) pledged to help the world fight infectious-disease epidemics such as Ebola, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is dramatically downsizing its epidemic prevention activities in 39 out of 49 countries because money is running out, U.S. government officials said.
29
Question is what is the mortality rate.
Flu seems to be 0.05%
8500/15000000
This virus seems to be around 2%
132/6078
A factor of 40 greater mortality rate
Experts/authorities need to figure this out.
Press needs to get on the ball re potential mortality rate.
Really hope the early reported numbers are wrong or misleading.
3
death occurs after the incubation period. 132 deaths result from the old patients which was much less than 6000. considering the 3 days to 14 days incubation period, the death rate is much higher than 2 percent.
4
0 people outside China have died. Of the 5 that have been diagnosed in USA, from having returned directly from wuhan, 0 are sick anymore or dead.
Please report facts instead of instigating pointless fear. Sure it’s potentially dangerous and China has gone out of its way to contain it to the degree that people are home bound. This is not a raging epidemic or anything.
6
The article clearly stated there have been no deaths outside of China.
7
This is on you, Chinese government. You knew those markets with live wild animals were problematic (see: Ebola) and yet your local officials wink wink nudge nudge let them continue.
14
In short, Blame it on China!
1
The real reason people are so concerned about the coronavirus is that we need something to distract us. That is what ‘news’ is all about. Human beings cannot live without a life or death mission. This is also why we are so concerned with the impeachment, with climate disruption, and with Kobe Bryant. That’s not to say these aren’t important issues. Let’s try to be a bit realistic though – our lives are so bland that we need something to distract us.
7
it can mutate, that is what is scary about it.
5
@Geoff
My life is not bland for a minute.
5
You would not feel so if you lived in Wuhan. Perhaps your comfortable life has numbed you to the very real dangers which threaten it.
4
No question that coronavirus is very fearful, globally. It is an epidemic of major proportions.
But, in this country, over the past 2 decades and more, our man-made epidemic--that kills at the rate of more than 150 lives per day and now accounts for more than 400,000 deaths---by opioids and other related drugs, made by our own drug companies, distributed by our manufacturers and their cohorts, systematically ignored by our federal and state health agencies---THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC is the worst man-made epidemic the world has seen, born in the USA, received scant attention if not negligible notice when people were dying at the rate of 150 people per day. No one, save a very few isolated physicians united by PROP, who believed in the medical oath of DO NO HARM, tried to stop it. We as a nation must look into our own mirror.
10
Serious question: Why is are there such dramatic steps being taken to control the spread of a virus that doesnt seem to be much dealier than the flu?
2
If you do come down with this disease a good read is The Passage by Cronin
The Stand by Stephen King is closer, unless vampirism is a result of Coronavirus
3
Why am I reminded of "World War Z"?
4
Where did they report zombies reported in Hunan?
1
It’s time we halt all travel from China. This has nothing to do with one’s nationality and everything to do with trying to stop an epidemic. At the same time, China must, once and for all time, shut down those open air ‘markets’ as well as any and all selling, killing and consuming wild animals.
322
How will this occur? More importantly, when???
7
Closing organized markets will only drive them underground. Besides, the hogs eat bats that nest above their pens, then pass the virus onto humans. A vaccine which targets a broad range of flu pathogens is the best hope (Measles, mumps and polio have largely been eradicated using this method).
4
@Peter
There were 8200 deaths in the United States, alone, in 2019-2020. That's not a typo...CDC statistics.
~"It’s time we halt all travel from the United States"~
4
The FBI just arrested a Harvard researcher and department chair who was being paid $ 50,000 a month (!) by the Chinese government, with the intent to gain technical knowledge; meanwhile their hospitals are routinely understaffed, and under-supplied, even in non-emergency times.
This tells you where their priorities are, despite ample resources, with public health towards the bottom. What’s a few thousand, or perhaps even millions lives to the government, when you have more than a billion people. As long as internal ‘stability’ and its image to the West are retained.
87
Xenophobe anyone?
I think tourism and business travel is far more of an issue that immigration. You do realise that the timelines for ‘chain migration’ are measured in years and even decades?
15
@ml People in glass houses and all that.
5
What about the underfunded public hospitals in your country?
What about the 44 million Americans
44 million Americans are uninsured, and eight out of ten of these are workers or their dependents. Why is being uninsured a problem? About 44 million people in this country have no health insurance, and another 38 million have inadequate health insurance.
1
This is almost certainly neither here nor there but around Christmas I (39 year old male) flew to Boston and soon after, contracted the strangest, strongest virus (?) I’ve ever experienced. Onset marked by horrible pain allllll over, then came severe flu symptoms. After a week, it seemed to largely disappear. Two days later, it regenerated (something I’ve never heard of), with symptoms that were different and even more severe. My face leaked fluid from my eyes and nose for days (never experienced anything like it. It was so constantly agitating that I actually wanted to cry). I threw up multiple times and I haven’t thrown up from illness...ever?
I’m betting I just caught a nasty bug. But is it possible there were cases of the corona virus that early swirling around the planet?
6
@Joey Blum
You ought to have seen a doctor, now we would never know, would we. Besides, this is not the forum for a medical diagnosis, dude.
16
The 1917/18 Spanish flu hit young people between 20-40, "regenerated" after a seeming recovery & was characterized by pain, fluid in the lungs, runny nose & your other symptoms. Wuhan seems less severe than that, perhaps you went through a time warp & picked something up there?
4
See I knew I shouldn’t have leapt into that swirling vortex in the Logan Airport restroom! Plus, now it makes sense why those people were cursing the Kaiser!
8
Impossible Burger needs to be introduced to China. If ever there was a country that needs to be vegetarian for health, theirs and the rest of the world, reasons China is it. Stop eating exotic wildlife and getting the world sick China.
337
@Rebecca actually The average Chinese actually consumes more and a greater variety of vegetables than the average American who eats more highly processed food. Don't forget about Swine flu, which originated from pigs in the U.S. and killed ~10-20% of the world population. Look in the mirror first. And stop getting the rest of the world fat first.
185
Impossible Burger is in China. . . Have you been to China?
24
@Linda If you are talking about the 2009 pandemic, that percentage figure is way off. The total number of deaths from swine flu was 14,500 globally.
40
What this says to Virologists like me is that the current Wuhan Corona Virus (WCV) is more virulent, invasive and infectious than the SARS corona virus. Also it has already spread within a short time to all continents except Africa and Antarctica. All observations from the SARS Corona virus are not therefore applicable to the WCV. It is misleading and irresponsible for an International expert to state that a person who is asymptomatic or symptom free is Corona virus free. Any virologist will tell you that after exposure to infection there is an incubation period during which viruses multiply without symptoms and could potentially transmit infection to a person in contact with them or are sharing the same air. Agreed that once symptoms are manifested as fever, sneezing, coughing, shortness of breath the rate of transmission will be much higher. Sensitive testing of patients suspected of exposure will be required to detect the virus during early stages of the Corona infection.
53
@Robert from NY. Who told you there is no effective treatment? Do you know less than 10%of those who were infected have died. That is because a patient can in theory recover if the symptoms are treated or if the patient's immune systems beats the virus and wins the race against the virus rapidly multiplying. Why are seniors dying faster than younger patients? That is because as we age our immune system gets weaker.
6
It is not panicking or being paranoid to state that the world seems to be rushing towards a public health emergency. The World Health Organization will say as such any minute now, too many absurd business obstacles in their way to not have done so already. The facts are the facts - this one spreads very easily, people get very sick, plus no vaccine for some time. I’d err on the side of caution, not denial.
16
Americans are not making sense with their panic. If Americans feared diabetes the way they are acting about the latest strange virus on the other side of the planet, then gyms would be popping up everywhere, and Oreos/Ben and Jerry's/Coke would have gone out of business already.
Yet, every diabetic I know is still drinking Mountain Dew while sitting on the couch complaining about the cost of insulin.
If every American feared automobile deaths as much as they are reacting to this virus, the highways would be completely empty. Yet, everyone sits in traffic a couple of hours a day even though its the number one killer in this country.
People are just looking for another reason to be afraid. Why not just rent a copy of "The Joker" or watch an episode of Ellen? You stand a much better chance of a heart attack watching either than dying from Ebola, SARS, Zika, AIDS, or any host of terrifying bugs that nature throws at us.
22
@tom harrison
Not everyone is selfish enough to worry only about one's self. People are concerned for others, people in other countries. So it's not about being afraid for oneself but rather being worried for all the people in the world, especially in China. It's a tragedy and we are all members of the same human race.
6
@tom harrison
I take care of my health in every way that is humanly possible, but I, like every American, would/will be entirely vulnerable to a flu strain that is perplexing the medical world.
4
I'm sure I don't have the exact numbers correct, but it appears to me this virus was only discovered about 10 or 12 days ago. The first couple of days there were 1000 cases. Then it quickly went to 2000 cases. Then to 6,000 cases. All this in 10 short days. if you run the math out for 1 month the numbers are astronomical. Like that game a giving a person $0.01 the first day and doubling it every day for 30 days . People who keep comparing this to the flu are looking at total final flu numbers after the episode subsided and the virus came under control. In addition to that fact vaccines were made available and many people were vaccinated ahead of the flu. It could take many months before we have a vaccine for the Coronavirus. The 14-day incubation period does not help as that could mean the numbers or actual carriers could be highly underestimated. This virus is in its early stages so it seems that to the flu cannot be carried out yet. But who cares --the stock market is booming.
11
@kat no, we have known about this since December 1st. More cases started to emerge around December 31st. This has been going on much longer than 10 days.
4
There are reports from other sources about the American evacuation has left behind upwards of three times as many in and around Wuhan, compared to those evacuated.
AP, for instance, is saying Americans couldn't find transportation to the airport.
When American citizens tried to reach American representatives in China, they got nothing but recorded messages.
Non American spouses and children that haven't cleared bureaucratic red tape are separated and left behind.
Mr Trump has a habit of disenfranchising Americans while most of America doesn't.
Lets bring our citizens and loved ones home
10
Yes, I have heard, going back a week or so that American State Dept employees, both at embassy in Beijing and consulate in Wuhan, were not answering phones and had left unuseful recordings saying things like "don't travel to Wuhan," which were of no use to people stuck in Wuhan and looking for way out.
1
A very good sign: Mike Pompeo said that Americans shouldn't overreact to the corona virus.
5
SARS is a type of coronavirus
I can't help but feel that if Obama were President he would have already held a National press conference calming the worlds fears, but also taking significant action as president. I doubt this President can pronounce Coronavirus.
32
Yes, and “if you cross this red line”... or this one or, wait, this one”..... so calming.
2
There are over 6,000 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus infection in China and 132 death, Most of the death if not all are from Wuhan. Within one month, every city or region have reported their cases except Tibet. This has demonstrated the highly infectious or contagious of this new virus. From the available reported data, it appears that the mortality rate for this new coronavirus is between 2-4% which is less than SARS 9-10% and MERS 30%.
There are at least 72 cases reported outside China involved almost 15 countries with no death. We would expect 1-2 death if the same mortality rate apply to this outside population. Some of the cases are from Wuhan and then passed on second or third persons which represent second or could be third wave of infection. If this trend continues to hold truth with no death, could the new coronavirus mutated and is less virulent when it passes on from person to person ? At least, this is a hope and a thought.
4
Terrible situation all around, and scary. I also feel bad for people like me with hearing loss who rely on lipreading to understand spoken language. It’s impossible to lipread when everyone is wearing masks.
3
Not looking forward to the likely spread to south Florida with the upcoming Super Bowl. Are any precautions being taken to prevent those with symptoms from attending?
3
Certainly everything that has happened this year has been so tragic for the whole world.
We need to stop wasting our time on things like "impeachment". We all need to get together and do something about this virus which is the real threat to humanity. and then we can get back to political charade.
6
Meanwhile there have been 6,600 US deaths from the fly this year. But I guess dying from flu isn’t as sexy as “New Illness” whatever it is this year.
4
@MP
Bet many of the flu victims did not get vaccinated. There is no vaccine for this new flu.
4
Who can my family sue should I catch this and die from it? The government of China?
Where does the buck stop? That’s all I want to know right now.
China, yes glorious China with all its stolen technology and science...find a cure. You let the cat out of the bag...YOU FIX THIS!!
6
This event duplicates almost exactly Event 201, an exercise enacted last year by Johns Hopkins and the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation. Coincidence? One shouldn't really worry until the Bud Lite virus emerges.
3
The media report # of cases of coronavirus and # died. How about telling us about recoveries. Is everyone who has beeninfected still ill or are many better? And, how long did it take to recover?
This information is as important as the sensationalist stats we're being fed. Why isn't it shared?
5
@Ann I have read last night that 106 confirmed people have recovered already, this may be less than the actual amount that have not be diagnosed. I have a feeling that this virus was circulating quietly for at least a month before anyone even realized it wasn't the common cold or flu. The problem with the media is that they are not giving us the whole picture, meaning confirmed cases, suspected cases, projected cases, recovered cases, etc. We just get the confirmed infections and the confirmed deaths usually.
3
@Ann The assumption is that the people who were infected and didn't die are getting better, right? The press is focused on mortality rates, not what happens after someone doesn't die. Morbidity is still unknown.
2
@Ann
Quite a few recoveries, which is excellent! Below is a live and interactive map with statistics.
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
2
According the CDC there are now 36 states with patients under investigation for the virus and 92 samples currently pending for testing. However, the majority of samples that have been tested were negative for the virus.
I sincerely hope the president's sharpie does not get anywhere near the CDC or their work.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html
1
I think the Western press is engaging in hysteria in its coverage of this illness. Although the Chinese have every reason to be alarmed here are the numbers for last year's flu epidemic for comparison. 42.9 million sick. 647,000 hospitalized. 61,200 dead. Having a flue vaccine available doesn't seem to have helped much. The major problem in China seems to be an overburdened health care system as this disease seems to be treatable if people can get to care. That is not the case here. So stop scaring people who do have access to health care. Obviously we should stay out of China, that's a no brainer.
6
@hazel18 Based on your numbers and the numbers provided in this article, this coronavirus has a death rate 15 times greater than last year's flu.
10
@hazel18
And imagine what the numbers would be if we didn't have a vaccine? That's what we're dealing with here with the new virus and it hasn't even been around for a month.
3
Except nowhere in all this reporting is the key stat: how many of these died and how many recovered completely and went home. See? That’s how math works.
1
I'm flying tomorrow, and you can be sure I'm wearing a topnotch face mask on the plane. But not in the airport, or the Lyft to the airport. I'll take clean wipes to wipe down the tray table, and maybe the bathroom door handle, but will still eat food from an airport restaurant. Partial is better than zero, and partial is better than obsession. At least, today.
4
@Snowball
Partial is not better than zero. It's inadequate.
2
At this point we need a 3 week quarantine for all inbound travelers from China. Flights from China should be rerouted to military bases and travelers should be held there until they are known to be virus free. The US government should provide salary compensation and child care assistance to the people being held. After being released from quarantine travelers should carry a tracker app on their smart phone for 6 months so that their contacts should be traced if they become sick later on.
Why 3 weeks? Our knowledge of the virus is rapidly evolving and we cannot be certain that the reported incubation time of 2 to 14 days is accurate. 3 weeks would provide a 50% safety margin over what we currently think is necessary.
Very limited exceptions to quarantine should be granted to people involved in fighting the outbreak. Being an infectious disease doctor might merit an exception. Being a billionaire with business interests in China like Sheldon Adelson would not. Secret exceptions would not be allowed under any circumstances.
The threat of virus particles on dry goods coming in from China is probably fairly low. Certain classes of imports may pose more of a threat. In the case of frozen catfish, I would be concerned that the freezing process might preserve viable virus particles. Items like blood products would be an even greater concern. Imports from China should be reviewed for contagion hazards and certain classes of imports should probably be banned.
18
So I am still keeping busy not thinking about the Coronavirus by ordering items from Amazon and eBay from China. Now I am wondering if there is any possibility of this virus being able to live on packing materials and items sent to me from China? This epidemic might be better than Trump's tariffs at getting trade surpluses down.
6
Imagine the global economic consequences if people suspect container ships from China are infected?
This is an airborne virus. It gets in your eyes, your nose, etc. from a sneeze or a cough or touching something.
We don't know how long it lives on surfaces, what the incubation period is from exposure to symptoms and we don't know if it has already mutated.
Who knows if the Chinese government is telling all they know?
I'm carrying hand sanitizer, clorox wipes and a mini-bottle of Lysol. Better safe than sorry.
6
@Erbal a cororna virus is a RNA Virus. so it can survive some hours at surfaces, because the protein base who save him. so who knows. If you want use sanitizer, only alc over 70% could help. Better wash your hand often real good, this helps a lot more.
and stay calm, waitng what WHO spread out tomorow.
Here a good source of a real update map about the spread.
As you can see, today the raising seens to be come down a bit.
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
It has already been known since yesterday that Germany has four cases. All work in the same company and were probably infected by a Chinese colleague visiting a training in that company in Germany, and who only started showing symptoms on her way back. It is regarded to be an important observation that it is an early, (at the time) symptom-free case of transmission
9
One aspect I'd like to see more coverage of is the apparently still lacking ability of health departments at the State and local level to test for this virus. The technique used by most laboratories in the world currently set up for this test -RT-PCR- is readily and widely available, and the exact protocol (primer sequences etc) published. Having to send samples to the CDC and waiting for the results puts an unnecessary restriction on larger-scale screening of possible infected individuals. If Governor Cuomo wants to show leadership, he'd make setting this test up here in New York City a priority. It would help calm people down, and help contain any outbreak around here before it takes off.
3
@Pete in Downtown Yes it's a bit frustrating to see how slow the US testing is compared to UK who have finished at least 79 tests already. It's not that reassuring to make people wait so long for the tests to come in and it creates hysteria in the whole country.
One of the positive outcomes of this hysteria could be that our annual flu cases might go down due to more vigilance and better hygiene in general.
2
Is something missing here ?
The death rate increased from 106 to 135 over the last 24 hours, so basic math indicates something like 30% more deaths in 24 hours; presuming we are getting the actual numbers.
This thing is about to get very ugly ...
I think we need to immediately declare a planet wide crises and start closing borders, unless a proven vaccine is available within the next few days.
There will be no economy anywhere, left to salvage, if this thing keeps increasing at a 30% rate.
7
Most of these viruses usually go away by May or earlier!
Let us hope
4
Why are our elected officials not protecting us? The UK is setting a 14 day quarantine for individuals returning from Wuhan. What is the US doing? 3 days quarantine in one of the most populous states in the country. This is absurd.
13
More cases than SARS? No surprise if you keep up with information. That was predicted days ago. It's more infectious, less lethal. Besides staying healthy, the challenge we have is to be forever skeptical of scary headlines that are in themselves misleading written by journalists whose interest is to grab our attention and our clicks and less interested in providing a well balanced understanding. Like with current US politics, we readers are better off if we do less reading.
5
At the very least, the WHO should declare this a world health emergency. WQhy? Simply because it is better to be safe than sorry. This goes for every single living person on the planet.
2
@Easy Goer WHO make a press conference tomorrow where they decide to push it up to a world wild medical emercency Alarm or not. They already raised it to High risk worldwide before some Days. What is higher it ever was.
Europe is placing its evacuated citizens in 14-day quarantine. I hope we will be doing the same thing.
6
We also have to remember that viruses mutate and become stronger and harder to overcome. This needs to be contained at all costs.
5
This is the inevitable outcome of human encroachment on nature --the Chinese merely hastened its peripheral impacts. This virus appears rather benign in its mortality rate, in its current form. I fear the day when a virus emerges that can infect 20 people for every 1 carrier and has a kill rate is 30% or higher. If we truly learn from this and act to curtail our invasion of natural space, then it may have been a worthwhile exercise. I fear it is all in vain and the inevitable will remain so.
1
My husband and I are retired and in our mid to late 60s. The minute the Wuhan Coronavirus hits our region we will go into voluntary quarantine so we can stay healthy and avoid obscenely expensive hospital stays during what very well may become a lengthy worldwide pandemic. We will order our groceries online and pick them up at the local supermarket once a week on Tuesdays at 2 am.
Other than that, we will stay put inside the house and avoid all contact with other people. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
22
@Nancy Robertson - I'm your same age and the virus has already hit my area. The first case is about 10-15 miles from me. I am not the slightest bit afraid even though my landlady's mother-in-law works at Sea-Tac where the first case landed.
Just picking up your groceries at the market will expose you.
I didn't die when I got hit by a truck while riding a bike at age 6. Nor when I had measles, mumps, and chickenpox all while practicing Duck and Cover. I have not died from having HIV for 20 years. I did not die the three different times my heart stopped during grand-mal seizures. Nor from the three suicide attempts due to wrong epilepsy meds.
I wasn't eaten by coyotes, black bears, or cougars during my week long solo ventures into the Cascade Mountains.
I haven't been shot while waiting for a bus downtown.
I don't know about you but I know that someday I'm going to die. Even the Messiah died. The question is - am I going to live first? And I really, truly don't believe that the reason I still breath is to hide in my apartment for the rest of my life in fear of every new virus that pops up on the other side of the planet.
What you should really fear is getting into an automobile because that is the number one cause of death in this country. Yet you think nothing of driving to the supermarket at 2 a.m. when the drunks are driving home from the bars? Relax - its not your time yet.
16
@Nancy Robertson Good for you for having a plan in place, but the luxury of self-imposed quarantine isn’t realistic for much of the country, including the people who will keep groceries on the shelves and pack your pick-up order.
2
@Beth
Undertaking a voluntary self-quarantine isn't just a "luxury." It can lower the infection rate and help ease the skyrocketing demand for hospital beds and medical treatment.
3
I feel like the virus is a part of conspiracy. It is possible that it was planned to be Chinese bio weapon and then leaked from lab, or it may be a bio weapon of another country. Nevertheless, China is likely to take a huge loss in her economical and political strength.
4
@Davlat It's highly improbable that our Administration and/or the CIA would plant a viral bio weapon in a Chinese city to curtail its powerful economic and commercial progress that it's so frightened of.
It might use other means such as computer viruses et al, but biological viruses and kill people? No way.
3
As long as governments and organizations consider avoiding 'public panic' and loss of tourism and other business to be more important than safeguarding the health and lives of their citizens, we will continue to respond ineffectively to this and other outbreaks of new illnesses. It is better to over react and damage your economy than to under react and risk the lives of millions.
Strangely enough, North Korea is the only country who seems to be getting it right. They closed their borders early. Helps to be an isolated backward brutal dictatorship sometimes. If this gets worse, we might all end up wishing we were ruled by comrade Kim. More than 50 million people died during the Spanish flu.
19
A very bad sign: Mike Pompeo said that Americans shouldn't overreact to the corona virus.
30
Countries should sign an agreement to prevent the deployment of bioweapons. Not saying this virus is a bio weapon but just in case a country tries to isolate this virus and use it.
4
The US CDC will surely make recommendations to the president. The administration will make its final statements about what is happening after consulting Fox and Friends.
20
@Shack LOL LOL, kinda sad if you really think about it....what has US become?
Meanwhile the World Health Organization is twiddling its thumbs and playing politics. People's lives are at stake!!! A health emergency should have been declared a week ago.
10
It'd be great if NYT has a coverage section specifically on NYC regarding this outbreak, considering it's NYT home city...
1
As a sidebar, this is where Xi could reall step up and halt all black market selling of pangolins, rhino horn and tigers. It would make him look good to the rest of the world!
12
Britons coming from Wuhan, quarantined for 14 days, Americans who just arrived in CA, 3 days...
15
Please note that face masks fill two important functions:
1. They generally reduce the number of virus particles one inhales, not by 100%, but by a meaningful amount.
2. Masks also reduce the number of virus particles expelled by infected persons when they cough or sneeze, not by 100% but by a meaningful amount. This is why you see pictures of infected patients wearing masks even in isolation wards, to reduce the chances they will infect others.
Thought for the day: If you are sitting on a plane and your seatmate starts sneezing or coughing, put on your own mask and offer your seatmate one, too.
Due to the coronavirus outbreak I have started carrying several masks with me when I travel in order to deal with just such eventualities.
Oh, and don't forget the personal-size hand sanitizer bottles or packets in case it is not possible to wash your hands frequently.
119
@Mon Ray Actually, CDC does not recommend that people who do not have direct exposure to the outbreak area (Wuhan, and other parts of China) wear a mask. The only people who are recommended to wear masks are people exposed directly to the virus and medical workers caring for the ill.
It is much more effective to wash your hands. That is the message that we are trying to get across. Wash wash wash and then wash some more. Don't touch your face. Practice good respiratory etiquette: cover your face when you sneeze or cough.
18
@CB still don't understand why you wouldn't do both. masks are fairly inexpensive and even the disposable surgical ones may have some utility. Wear a mask should in no way preclude handwashing or use of hand sanitizer. Masks may even help with preventing fomite transmission as one is made more conscious about touching one's face.
17
@Mon Ray I have worn the regular surgical masks from the drug store for three years in the winter, when I go out in public. Have not had a cold in three years. I think they help avoid winter illnesses, in general.
I also carry hand wipe packets to use before eating something in public.
10
One thing I have not yet seen/heard discussed is the role that smoking has played in potentially weakening the immune systems of those who have died from the coronavirus. As someone who travels to China regularly for work, I can attest to the fact that chain smoking is widespread there. Could an already weakened respiratory and immune system be the nail in the coffin (no pun intended) for those who have died from the virus?
8
The confirmed cases will exploded in the coming days as more testing kits will be at best adequately available in China due to manufacturing limited capacity. Thus, underreporting of infected cases is a given. The countries in the region which are mostly poor and with inadequate health care systems should take drastic measures, due to asymptomatic infections and shortage of testing kits, to limit the spreading of the coronavirus including closing their land borders with China and halt all flights from and to China like the UK has done.
6
I have flown into and out of Ontario International Airport many times, and lived near and had friends and family who worked at March Field, to which the evacuation flight originally slated to land at Ontario was diverted.
Ontario Intl has been a designated recipient of medical and other evacuees for going on ten years, though this would have been its first such use.
One possible reason for diverting the flight to March Field (officially known as March Air Reserve Base) is that it is much easier to control public--and media--access on a US military airfield than it is at a public airport like Ontario.
23
@Mon Ray
more importantly is has facilities to house the more than 200 passengers who will be quarantined for up to two weeks...maybe longer.
4
Why are people comparing this coronavirus to the flu ?
When flu patients appear at my local hospital or doctor's offices, the medical staff does not change into hazmat gear.
Are you certain that we are receiving all the information necessary to make an educated assessment here ?
261
@JaneK
At the hospital where I work as a pediatrician, patients who present with respiratory symptoms that could be due to influenza or another respiratory virus are routinely placed in isolation rooms and the staff all wear disposable gowns, gloves and masks while caring for them. This is a long term policy aimed to trying to reduce transmission of the routine respiratory viruses, not something new due to the Wuhan coronavirus.
55
@JaneK
The flu is actually much worse. Influenza has already sickened at least 13 million Americans this winter, hospitalizing 120,000 and killing 6,600, according to the CDC. And flu season hasn’t even peaked. In a bad year, the flu kills up to 61,000 Americans.
The flu hits us every year in the USA and we've just gotten used to it. It doesn't make headlines very often. (Think about that all of us who skip the flu shot every year.)
I'm not saying that this Wuhan virus isn't a problem. It's a major problem for Wuhan and surrounding areas. It could turn into a worldwide problem but it would be hard pressed to do even a small fraction of the killing that influenza does every year.
4
@JaneK
This coronavirus right now figures at 2.2% fatality rate, so 2,200 per 100K.
Just asking, so please don't get mad, but how does that compare to a bad flu year?
I understand the sample is much smaller with this C.V.
7
Although this virus may be no deadlier than flu, it's a lot more prolific. There is no vaccine. No one in the United States - or anywhere else - has any immunity to it, and once it gets a toehold, it will spread quickly. As someone who is immune compromised, I would ask everyone to please wash your hands thoroughly many times a day. Please cover your cough. Please stay home if you are sick. These are basic steps we can all take to prevent this, and any other corona virus, from spreading.
327
@Lee
Please note that face masks fill two important functions:
1. They generally reduce the number of virus particles one inhales, not by 100%, but by a meaningful amount.
2. Masks also reduce the number of virus particles expelled by infected persons when they cough or sneeze, not by 100% but by a meaningful amount. This is why you see pictures of infected patients wearing masks even in isolation wards, to reduce the chances they will infect others.
Thought for the day: If you are sitting on a plane and your seatmate starts sneezing or coughing, put on your own mask and offer your seatmate one, too.
Due to the coronavirus outbreak I have started carrying several masks with me when I travel in order to deal with just such eventualities.
Oh, and don't forget the personal-size hand sanitizer bottles or packets in case it is not possible to wash your hands frequently.
8
@Lee. As for covering ones cough: Yes, please. Not just because of this new virus, but it's good basic hygiene and civilized behavior at all times. And, in case it helps: unless one has a large-enough tissue to contain the sneeze or cough, cover the cough with the arm, not the hand! This and most other viruses are primarily spread from people's contaminated hands.
17
@Lee
The flu vaccine from 2019 is NOT effective against a strain this year's flu hatched in CA. Vaccination cuts down but does not eliminate risk.
Live healthfully and keep your hands away from your face- nose and eyes!!
ALSO wipe down door knobs in public places and computer keyboards
along with handwashing and masks... or a scarf across your gace.
7
CDC clearly corrupt now and negligent for not declaring global emergency. Hope CAnada follows UK and stop all flight from China until the epidemic is stopped. Why isn’t USA stopping flights since they have so many cases and the disease spreads so easily, even without symptoms. It’s easier to stop before it spreads to general population.
121
@Stephen Gergely Economic fears.
14
@Stephen Gergely Blame TRUMP.
9
The CDC judgement has obviously been compromised by politics. The meeting tomorrow, the third this week...will be enlightening on several levels.
8
Why are countries bringing back citizens who
may have been exposed to the virus ?
Why risk their bringing the virus with them ?
Why is anyone in China allowed to travel ?
51
@John Brown
They can test for the virus by its DNA so even someone not showing symptoms like a fever will be identified as infected if they in fact are. They are also going to be quarantined again after that screening before they just go on with their lives here. Governments have a responsibility to their citizens and exist for this reason.
9
@GregP
I have no doubt that tens if not hundreds
or even thousands of people have traveled
around the world since being infected.
What evidence do you have that those put on
airplanes to come back "home" have been
adequately tested and are being quarantined ?
3
@John Brown
It doesn't matter if they bring the virus "home" what matters is if they pass the virus to others. By knowing who they are and where they are and testing them repeatedly; we can actually ensure that they do not infect anybody else. We can isolate them if infected, track down all their contacts (for testing) and all these other effective basic epidemiological interventions. On the other hand if we ban them and they sneak across the border to get home - and hide from any contact with health care authorities (for fear of being discovered) - they could infect a lot of people before they finally give up and surrender to authorities.
3
Apparently, a Chinese National research scientist was accused of stealing coronavirus from an infectious disease lab in Canada in July 2019. This all sounds like paranoid conspiracy theory, but Chinese agents have been caught in various research areas of academia and private industry accessing high level biotech research and development. I’m skeptical that this all started with raw snake meat.
16
Many comments here re: ascertaining relative risk from nCoV versus seasonal flu are misguided. I agree that where I live my risk of morbidity & mortality is greater from the seasonal flu because of the "prevalence" of it in my area. However, fatality rates, transmission rates (think exponential fct), incubation periods, & avail. meds & vaccine to treat ARE vastly different between the two. So if nCoV spreads rapidly in US (or mutates significantly) -it's a whole new ballgame. See: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ for reliable stats. Halting flights from hot zones or quarantines of incoming R ways to mitigate rapid exponential spread until treatments & testing further developed.
8
Yes, these kinds of viruses can have devastating consequences when bats are eaten and traded in livestock markets and when their territory is invaded. This is how the ebola virus started in Africa. The message here that doesn’t seem to be getting through is to stop hunting, eating and killing bats and just leave them alone. Of course the Chinese will eat anything that walks, crawls, flies or swims.
8
Great article...but, you failed to answer questions about the virus. How is it spread...airborne? Physical contact? Food? Water?
What is the best defense? Hand washing? Masks?
What is the incubation period? What are the first symptoms?
Please...more information. I think the CDC would know the answers. Thanks
3
We noticed another side effect of the New Year holiday combined with this quarantine of cities and areas in the PRC – the air is much cleaner in Seoul since industries there are idle now!
4
OK, let's do some math. The population of the US is 327.2 million. According to the CDC, on average, 5% to 20% of the population gets the flu each year. The case mortality rate of the 2019-nCoV (CDC-ese for this virus) is about 2.1%. If this virus were to have a transmission rate similar to that of a typical seasonal flu, this would result in anywhere from about 343,500 to 1,374,200 deaths in the US. In one year.
For perspective, from 2010 through 2017 (the most recent year for which the CDC has finalized statistics), seasonal flu has killed an estimated 12,000 to 51,000 people per year in the US. The (much more virulent) 1918-1919 flu is thought to have killed about 500,000 to 750,000 Americans.
Wash your hands frequently, stay home from work/school if you are sick, and try not to think about it too much.
11
you know the governmental health officials are gas lighting when they tout "...even people who are infected who don’t get sick at all..." as a good thing.
those infected people who don't get sick at all are busily transmitting the contagion like an army of Typhoid Marys because they were screened and let loose into the population.
if a virus pandemic won't kill you the pandemic of willful ignorance surely will.
13
Flying internationally this weekend. I hope Duane Reade has not sold out of surgical masks and hand sanitizer!
1
They are as are all online pharmacies like CVs, Walgreens etc.
1
I appreciate the NYTimes coverage of this story, but there is some information that I haven't yet seen: What is happening with people who survive this virus? More specifically, of the 6000+ confirmed cases who have not died, are people recovering and, healthy again, going about their daily lives? Or are they still sick, perhaps getting sicker, and perhaps eventually to be counted among the dead?
12
@scrim1 you can use the over 70 people that are confirmed cases in non-China countries as a gage. So far no one has died yet and some have them have had symptoms and been quarantine for a week already. Most of the hospitals have said the patients are either doing well or stable. There is one mention severe case of an 80 year old man in France. It's possible that some people may have already recovered from it earlier and didn't realize that they even had it.
2
@scrim1
Also very curious about this
Just to let you know, the German man from Munich probably caught the Virus from a Woman who came to his company from China to teach a group of employees. She developed Symptoms on the plane on the way back to China.
8
Today, the BBC news reported that in France, there are overtly racist incidents against All Asian people. Contrast that with America, in Southern California, there is 1 incident of a carrier but no identification of which city that person is in. Perhaps this is to minimize potential stigmatization, but this sort of leadership non victim blaming behavior is typical of American culture. At school, kids are not stigmatized / identified, even if an anti vaccer has pertussis or recently an outbreak of strep throat. Appreciate the difference in cultural tolerance, that is why in Chinese, America is called "beautiful country".
4
There are four cases of infection in Germany, not one.
www.dw.com/en/germany-confirms-three-further-cases-of-coronavirus/a-52181064
1
As a friend in China who is mostly trapped in her apartment wrote on Chinese social media, after years of being caged by humans, wild animals have used this virus to turn the tables, and have managed to cage a billion people. Payback, I guess.
37
France, UK, and Australia are among countries quarantining their citizens arriving from Wuhan for 14 days as a precautionary measure.
The US is bringing back citizens, diplomats and their families, holding them in quarantine at March military base in SoCal "for a period of time" - no specification that it will be the precautionary 2 weeks incubation period which other countries are taking. Dr Offit, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at UPenn, has stated that since we don't quarantine people for the flu and up to 35,000 people in the US have died from the annual flu, we should not go to extreme measures like quarantining for the corona virus.
Offit chooses to ignore some important information. The death rate so far from the corona virus is about 2-3% of those infected. The death rate from the annual flu is about 1/10 of 1%. Sounds to me like some officials are distorting the potential severity of the corona virus. Chinese officials have stated that the corona virus can be spread during the incubation period. US officials say they need to see proof of that. Hello? Wait for proof???? Should it become a pandemic (due to lack of precautionary controls like appropriate quarantines) and infect 45 million people like the annual flu did in 2017-18 season, the death rate at 2% would be 900,000 people, compared to the 35,000 people infected and dying from the annual flu which Offit cites.
No brainer. Quarantine. 14 days.
10
In an earlier story by The New York Times on Japan's reaction to the coronavirus the writer cited racism as a motive.
Will The New York Times now cite all countries as racist who place travel restrictions based on the coronavirus?
5
I just don't believe in any information sent by chineses.
I mean, let be honest, in a city with 30 millions of people, considering a virus that in ONE BUS infected 3 people, do u really believe that this number of 6k contamined is true?
Guys, I think we should be a little be more worried about it, because, as a closed nation, they gave this numbers -that is critical by the way- but far a way from the reality.
In my opinion, the number of infected, now, is about 500k (thinking positive) and the number of deaths has already reached 500 hundreds.
they're letting us know what they want us to.. but there is a limit of how u can hide the information frow the world..
if im telling the truth, and I really hope I don't, till friday the numer of deaths will have reached at least 300, and infected over 10k..
(official number of Chinese)
(all they say, u may double. rs)
good luck everyone
4
This is why publishing fake news is dangerous. Something serious like this happens, and I no longer believe anything NYT publishes because they've shown in recent history that they don't actually care about what's true.
5
Seal the borders. Clean up the mess. Then go back to being happy. I'm tired of half measures.
2
So basically avoid Chinese food?
1
This is the latest in a series of irresponsible headlines totally out of proportion to the threat.
Recommend Elizabeth Rosenthal article in the Times for those wanting something in perspective and rational. Media doing what is often done by them, spreading panic by sensationalizing without responsible education about this disease. Rosenthal points out how simple hand washing, frequently, served her family well while in China doing the SARS outbreak. She also questions the safety of all the face masks we see in the media, since they may themselves have become a source of infection, collecting infected droplets on their surfaces.
6
@blgreenie
nothing to see here...wash your hands...it is all good
The number of reported cases has already exceeded those for SARS. China’s NHC says that about 60000 people are under observation to see if they are infected ( yes the number has 4 zeroes). Hand washing is always a great idea but it is clear from examples such as the bus driver in Japan getting infected from driving around Wuhan tourists in Japan that this virus spreads easily through casual contact and that precautions are warranted. The Chinese govt. is taking this much more seriously than SARS and clearly they know a lot more than we do.
15
For all the comparisons against the common flu strains in the US - this season, there were 8,200 deaths from common flu strains in the US. If the same amount of people were infected with the Wuhan virus, assuming the number of deaths reported by China are accurate, the number of deaths would by 266,000.
12
@Michael Anthony is this a serious comment? you do realize that the common flu has been active much longer and there’s very little effort to contain it? While novel coronavirus is currently at 1 in 50 leads to death. These two diseases are not comparable. Novel coronavirus is also asymptomatic and it’s believed to be contagious in the 14-day incubation period. China has sealed off a region of 52 million people, yet the 6000+ cases trace back to that place. Imagine if they hadn’t banned travel or if people in the region weren’t fervently active in protecting against it. Hand soaps, anti-bacterial and others, hand sanitizers are all sold out. There’s tremendous effort to contain this thing. Meanwhile in America there are people waving their fingers and saying “but the flu” this and that—check the CDC website, flu in US typically kills 1 in 1800 infected. Worldwide I don’t know the numbers. Novel coronavirus has only been on the radar for a matter of weeks. At least acknowledge that it’s worth understanding and stop the whataboutism
6
Also we really don’t know the number of the infected and the dead since the Chinese government is vastly under reporting. Even with those numbers its citizens are panicking. Take a look at Twitter.
2
@Izzaball Kam Exactly! That’s why it is pointless that so many people in the US are comparing this disease to common flu strains.
2
A lot of people are comparing the Wuhan virus to the common flu strains in the USA. This flu season, for every 560 people that are infected with the common flu there is one death. For the Wuhan virus, currently, for every 46 people that are infected, there is one death.
57
We can't know yet how many people are going to die - a French specialist talked about four weeks from symptoms onset - and there's no way of telling how many people are infected. I remember hearing a virologist explain that, contrary to common belief, the flu, for example, can take more benign forms. Similarly, this virus may cause pneumonia in some but only mild symptoms in others. I don't see how, at this point, scientists have the data to accurately estimate the mortality rate of this disease.
6
"Government scientists in China, the United States and Australia, as well as those working at Johnson & Johnson, Moderna Therapeutics and Inovio Pharmaceuticals are all engaged."
When a virus like this hits, it is essential that all hands be on deck, including the government and very much including pharmaceutical companies, such as Johnson and Johnson.
A few years ago, there was understandable panic over Ebola cases in the US. Today, effective vaccines and treatments for Ebola are becoming available, in large part due to the efforts of drug companies.
With luck and a lot of work, the same thing will happen with the corona virus.
But it is worth noting that our pharmaceutical companies are today facing an existential threat: American trial lawyers. For example, multiple billion dollar verdicts have been levied by juries against Johnson and Johnson for baby powder, its alleged role in the opioid epidemic, and its drug risperdal. It takes only a few billion dollar judgments to bankrupt a company. Most of the verdicts are grossly disproportionate, and many, probably most, are based on junk science.
During the 1970's and 1980's our out of control liability system threatened the very existence of vaccine availability in the US; only when Congress passed a no-fault liability law at the 11th hour, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, was vaccine availability able to continue.
We need to reform tort law in this country, probably through a Federal law, and quickly.
10
@Alex
It is not tort reform needed-but global pharma reform. J&J caused severe harm to opioid patients (eg. fentanyl), and the talc science is far from' junk' as you claim. I had a 50 yr career in the global pharma industry and in fact observed that profit and various management incentives lead to questionable practices. Neither the FDA nor CDC adequately regulate such breeches. Let shareholders hold executives and board directors accountable when financial judgements are levied by juries. After all, money is the only thing the pharma industry responds to. And by the way, as for R&D, pharma long ago gave up on basic scientific research, now relying on NIH and academia to provide the starting points (and intellectual property) for drug and vaccine development. So lets not paint the pharma industry in glowing accolades. Yes, many fine people work in the industry. But problems exist as well.
23
Any excuse to help corporate American
@Alex Companies that are making billions of products for consumers should be held up to very high standards. If they fail those standards they should be punished.
2
The CDC and now Pompeo are playing down this virus. I understand not wanting to cause a panic but this virus is spreading extremely rapidly (a higher Rnot than the common flu strains) and is lethal (people in their thirties do not typically die from the flu). Finally, it has an incubation period of ten to fourteen days (longer than common flu strains).
Pompeo and co. will do what they can not to cause damage (temporary) to the economy but the reality is, when it comes to this virus (and viruses to come) better safe than sorry.
48
Perhaps I’ve missed it, but I’m saddened by the absence of any discussion of what brought this virus into being in the first place. The scientists appear to agree that the source are “ wild animals “, while the horrific human treatment of these accused wild animals goes unmentioned. How those animals are caught, caged, sold and butchered in those markets might give almost anyone pause and most considerable motivation to insist that the horror is ended, even before a virus erupts to threaten the perpetrators and the innocent alike.
I believe responsibility should be placed on both the horrific treatment of animals as well as those people and cultures who practice it, not the animals themselves. We should be ending it, but we are not even talking about it.
175
Thank you! I’m very tired of the exploitation of animals by humans. China is one of the worst offenders but the US has dirty hands as well. Labs who spend government funds doing egregious things to helpless sentient beings. Maybe we need a rude awakening.
30
@Robin Kennedy Thank you. My thoughts exactly. The number of pigs killed a while back was disgusting. All you had to do was not breed so many (or any) animals for food, not go into the rainforest for more exotics (this was reported here recently).
23
@Robin Kennedy
I agree with you and I want to add that wild animals ie. bats, mixing with domestic animals in large scale farming, like factory farms also has dangerous potential.
We can blame China all we want, but we had better also, take a very close look at farming practices everywhere. Antibiotics will not always work if something breaks out.
Animals being raised in close proximity and very large numbers are a ticking time bomb.
165
News media loves events of catastrophic nature. If the event is not truly catastrophic, at least it might potentially become one.
The outbreak is not worse than a seasonal flu, in terms of both infectiousness and fatality rate. Being a new coronavirus strain is the only uncertain factor. Virus mutates all the time. Flu mutates, which is why we need annual shots of flu vaccine. HIV mutates in a stunning speed, which is why we cannot design an effective vaccine yet. But mutated flu is still flu, HIV is still HIV.
7
@Minya Konka Your statements regarding transmission and fatality rates are just not accurate:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
22
@Mary Ellen
The page you provided shows that the fatality rate of seasonal flu is 1 in every 10,000 cases, which is obviously wrong (way underestimated). It more sounds like 1 in 10,000 in general population. The CDC gave the number 2.0 per 100,000 population, based on data from the year 2017.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm
Daily alarmist headlines from The New York Times that feed our anxiety and -in some cases- xenophobia.
I prefer to read well-reasoned and balanced opinions such as Ms Rosenthal's in today's NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/opinion/coronavirus-prevention-tips.html
For those who like to be alarmed, here's what the CDC tells us about our own home grown flu:
8,200 – 20,000 estimated flu deaths from October 2019 to January 18, 2020.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm
13
@Confucius People keep pointing to the flu number as a retort. It isn't. That figure is based on an estimate of 15,000,000 to 21,000,000 infections. Even taking the high-end death estimate with the low-end infection estimate, the rate of death is barely over one tenth of one percent.
With the Coronavirus, it is too early to know exactly where we are headed. But the current death rate tips a bit over two percent. If 15,000,000 are infected, that would be 300,000 deaths. However, of the first 41 victims in this long-incubation virus, almost 15% died. We don't know exactly how that figure will land.
What we do know is that it is spreading rapidly. The known infections are over 6,000, almost as many as SARS reached in two years. Given China's lack of testing kits, that is almost certainly a gross underestimate already.
Panic? Not helpful. Downplaying? Not helpful.
124
@bp I think the point about influenza is that there is still a high number of deaths, in spite of there being a vaccine. The population in China is 150 million higher in 2019 compared to 2003 so one would expect the numbers to go higher than SARS. They are also approaching it much differently this time and it is noteworthy that so far there have been no deaths outside of China.
@bp
From MacroBusiness [Australia] 29 January:
PalimpsestMEMBER
January 30, 2020 at 11:19 am
Even basic mathematics like taking today’s death total and dividing by yesterday’s infected total gives a number closer to 3%. The issue is that we are using a method for a steady state or mature epidemic (using today’s known totals for death and infection) and mistakenly applying it to an early phase where there is exponential growth. In this current situation the fact that death lags presentation by 3-5 days really matters when assessing mortality rate.
The two curves have a similar shape but offset by say 4.7 days. Therefore actual mortality rate looks about 6-8% if figures can be believed. That’s about what one would expect of a dangerous new flu. Something close to the SARS rate.--
2
I'm a little disappointed at the pumped-up rhetoric in this headline. The new virus is no deadlier than any other flu virus, according to the CDC. Fanning the flames of panic is truly not helping the situation, and it's giving hateful people more fodder to foster racism against the Chinese and East Asian communities.
58
This virus is deadlier than the flu.
18
Simply wrong on the facts. This CoV is much more lethal than any flu virus in recent memory, possibly due to the lack of preexisting immunity.
25
@Stephanie The true danger is not known at this time. Plus, the virus mutates and can become far more deadlier. There are no known treatment options.
Even if we assume that the virus is not worse than the flu, it is one additional risk factor in ADDITION to the flu. If I point a gun at you and the risk of a bullet is in the chamber is less than the risk of the flu, do you feel safe? Is that an OK risk?
9
About to board the train to Seattle, my daily commute. Also take an additional light rail train downtown plus buses every day.
It’s flu season, lots of upper respiratory stuff going around as usual.
Should I be worried? I look to the CDC for that answer. Please stay on top of this, NYT. I trust your reporting over our local coverage now.
10
OK ,here comes the xenophobe . Dual citizenship- I'm looking for clarity, Not a fight. What is the obligation of a country to people that travel on a passport of convivence , ( Whoops I meant of their country of birth), and when there is a ,"Dust Up", out pops the US passport and here comes the get out of jail card. Poorly worded question but how does this work?
10
@mark
Answer: Self preservation. You do what you have to to protect yourself.
9
@mark I have dual nationality and I am keeping it.
3
@Sarah
A reason to control giving out passports, citizenship. Each country is chartering planes to fly their citizens out of China. Not everyone.
I don’t understand why the “professor” finds it concerning that a Japanese tour bus driver contracted the corona virus from a group of tourists from Wuhan. There is nothing magical about Wuhan itself, the issue is the people who live, work, or visit the area. They spread the contagion when they leave China as the Wuhan tour group did in Japan and the Chinese coworker did in Germany. It is past time to isolate China. ALL flights to and from China should be suspended. Anyone attempting to fly to the US from other countries and has been in China at any time in the past month should be screened, and if the visit was within 14 days, said individual should not be allowed aboard a US-bound flight.
40
@Lynn in DC
Americans abroad should definitely be allowed home. Quarantine them as necessary, but abandoning them to whatever is about to happen in China is irresponsible and cruel.
1
Over and over again the virus is being reported as "mysterious". This frightens people. It is known and understood as a coronavirus. It's properties are not mysterious. It is, however, new, which is why it is called a novel coronavirus.
87
@Able Ashcroft Yes, I noticed that here, too. But it's part of the apolitical deterioration of the NYT style sheet. See article--NEWS story, supposedly--on current state of Brexit, with a statement or question about what has changed--and the 'reporter' then wrote "Nothing!"
But "mysterious" in re: the coronavirus is pathetic.
2
@Able Ashcroft
This is the first exposure to this new virus. Viruses are known but in a first encounter, important characteristics of a new virus are not known yet - how spread to others, when do symptoms show themselves. how deadly.
So, what's the proper response?
3
@Able Ashcroft
Remember that Panic=Profit. Just look at the NYT picks and their selection of information provided about this outbreak. They really prefer the paranoid to the informative because panic makes people come back to seek more information. When this is all set and done it will be no different from SARS and Ebola - a lot of noise but no rain.
2
I've been alarmed by all this. But then a friend of mine, who's a nurse, suggested I Google the number of flu deaths in the US for the 2019-20 season so far.
I'm not so concerned any more.
31
GETTING YR FLU SHOT AS WELL AS 2 phnemonia shots is EASY! Most people believe they are immune to it all and laugh about getting immunized. If u EVER had the flu, you will take the availability of the shot in the USA seriously.
13
@Nick W Instead of looking at the raw numbers, look at the percentage of deaths. Also consider the rate with which this virus is spreading, especially given that whole cities are isolated (millions of people) and everyone is now wearing masks everywhere.
A nurse is not a virologist, and it’s not helpful to do an apples to apples comparison between the flu and the coronavirus at the current stage that it is. Based on the characteristics of this virus it has all the makings of a potentially sustained global pandemic—read what they are writing over at Scientific American.
1
The most concerning fact (?) I heard was that the Coronavirus can be spread while people are asymptomatic. If true, this means that allowing passengers, or any exposed person, into the US before they have been properly quarantined will only spread the virus. I think numbers will sharply rise before this thing is contained. Given the very poor and slow response from China and even the US, a pandemic of some kind will eventually happen.
62
Containment has failed-since the virus can be spread by clinically symptomatic persons via person to person contact or via symptomatic coughs or sneezes producing aerosolized moisture containing an inhalable viral load (the exact mechanism for infection is not yet dispositively understood for cases of transmission) - airport screenings are relatively useless for containment as they only identify people showing clinical symptoms and fail to identify people who are infected but asymptomatic or subclinical in regard to infection. Hence, containment fails so long as airports operate and carry hosts around the globe. At this point, the infection (which thankfully has a relatively low mortality rate but which bears alarming similarities to the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918-1920) could of course mutate into a much more virulent form and is a dire risk to elderly and immune system compromised patients or those with COPD or Asthma or other pulmonary disease. The pandemic is by its nature spread like fire and so long as combustible materials exist, contagion is difficult. The race now is to contain the spread long enough for a vaccine to become available for healthcare workers as the risk is that overburdened hospital workers walk off the job as they and their coworkers and families are put at risk. That would cause chaos and open the lid of Pandora's box further - a commercially available vaccine is months if not over a year or more from availability.
17
From reading your interesting article on how bats live with many viruses, it strikes me that in our hyper-allergic, over-excited immune system population, this virus would elicit rather a terrible response. Yes, folks are working on the vaccine, but would it not be better and more sensible to figure out if perhaps antihistamines might work to help people combat this disease? Maybe dim the response just like in bats.
Please eat homemade yoghurt, easy enough to make it ( no need to buy any special equipment) and much more friendly lactic acid bacteria to aid gut inflammation. I suspect in the end all our responses come down to the integrity of the gut lining and the gut immune system.
3
How is the Trump Administration responding to the Coronavirus? Are they placing the same pressure on the CDC to keep the US population from becoming alarmed, just as the Chinese government did in the weeks before the outbreak could no longer be controlled? It is quite possible. Donald Trump has spent the last three years slashing government spending on the very health care institutions that are needed to coordinate rapid responses to these types of epidemics. When you argue for a smaller federal government, and you promote secrecy, this is the logical outcome.
124
It wont hurt him.
If we wind up with a crisis, he will claim that it was the result of bureaucratic incompetence by “Obama hires” and Democratic legislators. He is the master of deflection and finger pointing.
22
He’ll blame Hillary!
4
@STSI People living under corrupt governments are, obviously, less likely to trust what the government experts tell them to do when an outbreak like this happens. This was a factor in the spread of the influenza of 1918 (which, as it happens, most likely originated in the mid-west, most definitely didn't originate in Spain).
2
In the picture of the mask factory, notice that the workers are wearing a different type of mask than the one they are making. The inflexible cup-like mask they are making don't conform to the face very well and are nearly useless for filtering air that you breath in. This picture tells you what type to buy if you are concerned about wearing a mask.
10
If the cup like mask is an N95 mask, then a properly fitted one is much more protective than the surgical masks they appear to be wearing.
33
This proves that China would rather save face than save lives.
30
As a New Yorker, I still don't understand why masks are not recommended. Just today, there is an opinion piece in the NYT by a physician who pronounced masks wearers, on an admittedly half empty street in China, "uninformed". Then she goes on to say that masks make sense in crowded areas with high infection rates. So, would a better informed person only don the mask when they arrive at the crowded grocery store? As I understand it, the fewer times you fuss with it the better. So, on the teeming and international streets of NYC, and the sardine can packing on mass transit, why are masks not sensible as cheap insurance? Not to mention that flu is still quite widespread.
81
I live in a very highly traveled tourist area of Ireland. MANY Asian tourists wear masks while traveling, already. I see it almost every day.
11
@The F.A.D. surgical masks have larger pores that do not stop viruses from passing through. Rather, they are meant to block larger droplets from coughs or sneezes from spreading into the air, and spreading viruses. Since they also do not seal off the nose and mouth area completely, viruses and particles that are already in the air will enter without any issue.
N95 masks on the other hand could do a better job, but they only work if you're wearing it properly (which means it should not be easy to breathe in them). Most people don't wear them correctly, making them pretty much ineffective.
The ones who *should* be wearing masks are those who are ill or showing symptoms, since the mask will prevent droplets of mucus or saliva from being dispersed into the air. Just like how doctors wear masks in an operating theatre so that they don't spread anything to the patient they are operating on.
17
@The F.A.D.
Take the lead, wear a mask! I used to live in Manhattan and would not hesitate to do so. Advanced societies like Tokyo, people wear masks all the time and nobody bats and eyelid.
5
Airlines are limiting flights to China. What about from?
57
It is already clear that nothing other than at least a two week quarantine can clear the people being evacuated from Wuhan, and possibly not even that. They need tone quarantined for two weeks and then tested for the virus by PCR to check viral replication levels, to see if people can remain symptom free but actually be carriers capable of transmitting the virus.
15
Why is no one talking about the death rate? Does the death rate not follow a similar trajectory as the infection rate.. but delayed by a week perhaps. I have seen numbers yesterday that say 110 dead, 100 "recovered". I found that unsettling. If you look at a delay in the death rate it is hard not to see a very high death rate..
10
The 1918 Spanish flu had a death rate of 3%, which is what the Wuhan corona virus is approaching in officially released numbers. It may be higher or lower. But, if that death rate is accurate, this is a virus to be reckoned with.
4
@Andrew -in Wuhan the NYT has reported numerous times that citizens have not been tested for the corona virus despite presenting at hospitals with symptoms begging for help. They have been turned away to return home only to infect elderly family members and small children in their cramped apartments.
Without testing, nobody can GUESS at the numbers of folks in Wuhan infected or how many are dying or have died in the past month of this virus, so all bets are off. These percentages are speculative.
6
The only upside of this epidemic is the cooperation that is starting to happen. The common threat compels us to realize we are ALL human beings. The PRC needs to realize that the virus cares NOTHING for political dogma.
19
@APatriot Right after saying that we are all human beings, you felt the need to point out that the whole PRC is apparently less rational than you, an american. That last sentence was completely unnecessary. Rather than spreading more hate and nationalistic propoganda, maybe we should focus on helping those who are sick, and those who are working toward a solution.
Why aren't we donating money to provide medical supplies for those in Wuhan the way we donated money to save koalas in Australia?
5
@Caleb
You are reading too much negativity into it dude.
If this is the beginning of an economic crash you need to add Boeing's Max disaster, ongoing natural ones and our utter polarity. Trump will slip on this new bug and we'll ride his shoulders into the mud or bail and start making friends we may all soon need. I would not crash our economic model for a government patronage. If your life was riding on politicians (which a government's made of) your life is at risk. Love
7
We need to suspend all flights to and from China. Big business needs to be told tough. Be proactive and we will succeed. Give in to business and the repercussions will ensue.
136
@DA You do realize that a lot of drugs come from China, and probably a lot of medical equipment too? That a lot of industries that provide vital day-to-day services rely on spare parts made in China? I am not saying I think it's a good thing that it should be so, just that it is so. Never has individualism been so high, but never has human interdependence been so extreme either.
11
I believe almost all of our Pharmaceuticals are made in China. Some in India and Mexico but mostly in China. And almost all of the raw materials that are used to create these Pharmaceuticals are made in China anyway.
3
@DA Agreed. I see the previous two replies to your comment addressed pharma imports, which is sidestepping the issue. Pharma drugs produced in China are not related to the risk. People coming from China are. One of the main reasons for the existent of taxpayer funded government is to protect its citizens. This responsibility should not be overridden by financial concern... Ever.
2
NYT should do a thorough report on the coronavirus simulation that health and business experts completed in October 2019 (yes, that was before the December 2019 outbreak in Wuhan). This simulation concluded with a list of things needed to be prepared for a coronavirus outbreak.
The public needs to be responsibly informed about the potential dangers of nCoV-2019, and informed about where the USA (and the rest of the world) stand in preparedness.
85
British Airways has canceled all flights to and from China due to this Coronavirus outbreak. United Airlines also has done that. Since there is no vaccine available for this illness, at least this is the best measure we can take to prevent the spread of this disease. This is a deadly virus.
33
My son flew to Beijing on United Airlines yesterday from San Francisco.
1
@MARY Seriously curious but ... why? I am not a panic prone person, but at this point I don't know why one would travel to Beijing if it were avoidable. Business conversations can be handled via skype, and many tourism opportunities will be unavailable. It just seems an unnecessary risk.
10
@Susi
I suggest all travel to China today is "avoidable" and should be avoided.
1
Unfortunately this virus can take up to 14 days to have an ill effect on people, which means it can travel widely, undetected. So far it has a 3 percent fatality rate. If a million people come down with the Wuhan virus, that will mean 30,000 fatalities, unless the virus mutates.
27
Why have the markets responded to the upside? If this outbreak is halting commerce and the markets are forward looking - why the disconnect?
11
@Joe A The markets are detached from reality.
22
What are we doing to help? How is public health, medicine, and pharma mobilizing and responding?
18
Yesterday Los Angeles TV station KTLA reported that the Wuhan evacuation flight of US citizens was being diverted from Ontario International Airport, California, to March Air Reserve Base near Riverside, California, where most or all passengers are likely to be quarantined for two weeks or possibly longer.
It is possible that the diversion to March air base is due to the presence of one or more likely or confirmed cases of coronavirus on the plane. Ontario International airport is heavily used by commercial airlines traveling to and from locations all over the world, whereas March air base has much less traffic and a higher level of internal and external security than Ontario airport does. It is not clear whether March air base currently has appropriate quarantine and medical facilities, and whether they can accommodate over 200 potential patients.
Why isn’t the NYT on top of this important story?
212
@Mon Ray The flight was diverted because people in Ontario objected. March doesn't have the ability to turn down orders. As long as they stay in quarantine for 2 weeks I'm okay with it (I live 5 miles from March!) No confirmed cases on the plane were the reason for the change - just locals in Ontario complaining. But if they DO get sick, will they end up in the local hospital - where my husband is an ICU doctor?? That's what I worry about. But of course we need to bring out people home. That was the right decision.
45
@Mon Ray
"It is possible that the diversion to March air base is due to the presence of one or more likely or confirmed cases of coronavirus on the plane."
And this is how the hysteria gets spread. Calm down. I'll wait for news of additional confirmed cases of coronavirus before panicking uselessly. In fact, even then, panicking will accomplish nothing. The only worrisome thing here is a very incompetent federal government that needs to take seriously its duty to contain any potential outbreak.
11
@Heidi Your husband has probably treated patients with meningitis, HIV, and countless cases of pneumonia caused by various bacteria and viruses. TB is also more contagious than this virus or the flu. I think that medical professionals in Western countries are well-prepared. I am more concerned about developing countries, where medical professionals don't have access to enough disposable supplies, and access to water/soap is not always easy.
7
There will always be something to test us. Our response to this virus is just the latest.
42