Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic, Experts Say

[AKing]

Source: New York Times

The Wuhan coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to become a pandemic that circles the globe, according to many of the world’s leading infectious disease experts.

The prospect is daunting. A pandemic — an ongoing epidemic on two or more continents — may well have global consequences, despite the extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now imposed by China and other countries, including the United States.

Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much damage a pandemic might cause. But there is growing consensus that the pathogen is readily transmitted between humans.

The Wuhan coronavirus is spreading more like influenza, which is highly transmissible, than like its slow-moving viral cousins, SARS and MERS, scientists have found.



Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/health/coronavirus-pandemic-china.html

[cstanleytech]

1. It sounds alot like its going to be similar as when we have a strain of the flu virus

that they were not expecting hits in which case they can largely only treat it with supportive care and most of those that die will more than likely be the sick, elderly and young children.
About the only thing we can do if thats the case is take some basic precautions the biggest of which is to be vigours in washing our hands and not touching our faces.
Not much we can do about the spread via people sneezing though as from what I read the masks most people can buy do little to prevent that as they are rather loose on the edges but the washing of the hands will be one we can all do.

[Warpy]

4. Masks do work, but the cheap tie on variety are too hard to fit

The hard fiber ones with the elastic in back and the strip of metal over the nose are easier to fit and will do a good job on keeping virus particles on the surface. They're also uncomfortable as hell, they get soggy really fast.

What the cotton and paper ones used in Asia do best is prevent people from touching their noses or mouths and that can reduce the spread from contaminated surfaces. To provide droplet protection, people will need stacks of them because they need to be changed as soon as they get wet.

Right now, it doesn't even look like much of an epidemic but that can change quickly. Stingy sick leave policies at most service jobs are going to do the work of spreading it quickly since marginal workers can't afford to stay home if they're running fevers and you know Republicans won't provide any relief for them.

[cstanleytech]

6. "Stingy sick leave policies......" True enough its just to bad the ones that set those policies are

unlikely to pay for what they do to millions of people.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. I'm not sure it's accurate to say that we don't know just how much damage it might cause.

It's reasonably infectious, almost as much as influenza, with a death rate of about 2%. And that number is based on actual cases reported. In reality, a lot of people who get sick with the Cornonavirus aren't sick enough to seek medical help, so that death rate is somewhat less.

And those who have died are almost all older people and those who have underlying health issues. Which means they'd be susceptible to almost anything.

My guess? This is going to burn out quickly.

[Apple Fritter]

3. Scary stuff

It started small and snowballed to 10000 in a single month. It's highly contangous and has really scary traits for a virus.

[dewsgirl]

5. It's beyond alarming, I'm very, very concerned.

The fact that MSM keeps spouting talking points about the flu, is also deeply concerning.

[Aussie105]

7. The two week incubation period is the problem.

Catch it from someone with no symptoms, and you too have 2 weeks to pass it on before you even know you are not well.

Isolation doesn't work, shutting down and boarding up whole cities doesn't work, because of this.

Two possible solutions:

A home kit for self administering blood prick test to ID the presence of the antibody to the virus in your body. Needs to be cheap and readily available in bulk purchases. 10 for each member of the family.
Get up in the morning, test yourself, if positive ring work and stay home for weeks.

An effective vaccine to immunise people.
If it mutates like the flu virus though, that's a never ending battle.

Of course, poorer countries will be the last to get these things, if they ever get developed.

Bet they are working on those, though.

[Skittles]

24. in America

people cannot afford to "stay home for weeks"

[yaesu]

8. I'm not convinced, its not as lethal as the Swine flu pandemic of 2009, doesn't compare to how

contagious is was either. From what I'm seeing its more like the common flu in those categories. 3rd world countries that have poor healthcare (US included) will suffer the worst. People can't afford to go to the doctor or miss a paycheck=disaster in the making.

[Ms. Toad]

14. It is more contagious

The 2009 swine flu had an R0 of 1.2-1.6. Current estimates for this version of the coronavirus are 2.6-3.8 (most likely the 2.6 end fo the range - but still significantly more contagious than the 2009 swine flu).

It is also likely to be more deadly. Based on the BBC report below, the death rate for the 2009 swine flu is estimated at .03% (perhaps UK only - I didn't dive back into the underlying articles). Calculated from CDC estimates - using the highest numerator (number of deats) and the lowest denominator (number infected), I get .04% - consistent with the BBC report here: https://web.archive.org/web/20091213070053/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8406723.stm

The death rate of the coronavirus is currently about 2%, and likely to be higher because that compares deaths (which typically occur in the 2nd or 3rd week of illness) to the number of confrmed infections. In other words, those recently infected (the vast majority of the confirmed cases) have not yet had a chance to die.

[nitpicker]

9. I hope the slightly diminished percentage of daily increase in "China"

Is a sign that once an extended group has all infected each other and then shut themselves up, new cases per day will start to drop.

((Otherwise, at a 20% daily increase rate, we might be talking about almost 200,000 total cases by mid-month in greater China.))

But it takes only one, let's say a business traveler, to go from group to group, shaking hands and talking, to start off other clusters.

[bucolic_frolic]

10. I do have a battle plan

Boost immunity, get plenty of sleep, keep sugar intake low, now, before any possible contact with coronavirus. I've been through many a convetional flu, and some things doctors could not diagnose. One doctor told me to take LOTS of vitamins, which did rouse my immune system, and was the most timely advice a doctor ever gave me. I would say a rested body with quality intake and low sugar is ready to confront whatever. I use OTC flu remedies, herb teas, tea tree eucalyptus and thyme oil, and stay warm. As a side note fever in me gets to around 103.5 - 104 with a flu. Once I had 105.2 and that was a scare and not flu related! I did go to the ER, but to them nothing much was wrong, I had a fever.

I never did try a recipe for immune boost soup. This is not the recipe I have somewhere which it seems to me had a couple varieties of mushrooms, but I would give it a try, and there are many others online.

https://www.thehealthymaven.com/the-ultimate-immune-boosting-soup/

I bet Chinese restaurant traffic is way, way down!

[Kaleva]

11. Properly washing your hands is possibly the single most effective thing one can do

"Wash Your Hands Often to Stay Healthy
You can help yourself and your loved ones stay healthy by washing your hands often, especially during these key times when you are likely to get and spread germs:

Before, during, and after preparing food
Before eating food
Before and after caring for someone at home who is sick with vomiting or diarrhea
Before and after treating a cut or wound
After using the toilet
After changing diapers or cleaning up a child who has used the toilet
After blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing
After touching an animal, animal feed, or animal waste
After handling pet food or pet treats
After touching garbage
washing hands under faucet

Follow Five Steps to Wash Your Hands the Right Way
Washing your hands is easy, and it’s one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of germs. Clean hands can stop germs from spreading from one person to another and throughout an entire community—from your home and workplace to childcare facilities and hospitals.

Follow these five steps every time.

Wet your hands with clean, running water (warm or cold), turn off the tap, and apply soap.
Lather your hands by rubbing them together with the soap. Lather the backs of your hands, between your fingers, and under your nails.
Scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds. Need a timer? Hum the “Happy Birthday” song from beginning to end twice.
Rinse your hands well under clean, running water.
Dry your hands using a clean towel or air dry them."

"Why? Read the science behind the recommendations."

https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/when-how-handwashing.html

[mr_lebowski]

19. My hands would be like saddle leather if I followed those instructions to the letter

U kidding me? No way I'm scrubbing my hands for 20 seconds what would amount to, I dunno ... 20 times a day, minimum?

Not happening.

Guess I'm doomed ... my 30 year run of not spending a day in bed sick is about to come to horrible end.

[csziggy]

20. Use a good moisturizer - that will help with soothing your skin

My skin tends to get very dry, so much it will crack and bleed on my knuckles. If I will be working outside in difficult weather I use Bag Balm to help weatherize my hands. If I am doing a lot of cooking, and will be washing my hands a lot, Aquaphor helps a lot if I put it on before beginning. If I will be doing needlework and not want something as greasy as those two, I use Eucerin Original Formula (their other lines are not as good for healing very dry hands).

Yesterday I did a lot of cooking and forgot to put on the Aquaphor. My hands are pretty raw so I need to go apply Eucerin before I head out.

My Mom was a RN who trained before antibiotics were available. She taught me how to wash my hands properly - but she also had seriously dry hands, worse when she was working. She kept just about every kind of lotion made around, and tried them all.

[Kaleva]

22. Bag balm works great.

[csziggy]

23. I like bag balm but it is too gasy to use if I am doing needlework

I stitch with silks and some specialty fibers that cannot be washed, so my hands not only have to be smooth, but they also have to be grease free. Needlework stores sell special non-greasy creams but they are extremely expensive. The best substitute I have found is Eucerin, but I have to put it on, let it soak in, and wash my hands before stitching. I use it after every shower and most mornings to keep my hands from cracking.

When I was running the farm, I used Bag Balm every morning before I went out to do chores. It kept my hands in great shape, even when mucking out stalls in the cold and rain.

[Kaleva]

21. Being a babysitter, I wash my hands at least that many times a day.

I apply lotion to my hands at the end of the day before going to bed.

Properly washing hands ins't just about you as you could pick up some bugs with your hands and transmit them to others by handling items they later touch themselves. While you yourself may never been bed ridden in the past 30 years, it's quite possible you've gotten others sick.

Edit: Properly washing my hands, disinfecting high touch items, sanitizing, and taking other steps isn't so much for myself, a 61 year old guy, but mainly for the my wife and more importantly, the young ones I take care who range in age from newborn to 6 years old.

[mr_lebowski]

26. Yeah I really don't believe I'm responsible for getting others sick by the means you described ...

The people in that case who are responsible are:
1) The original sick person who deposited the germs in the first place, and
2) The sick-prone person who failed to wash their own hands after touching an item that might have had germs that would make them sick on it.

I'm not responsible for the world's health.

I'd also add that the VAST majority of times diseases are transmitted from one person to another it's the sick person directly infecting the non-sick person. Not via third party intermediaries who are never sickened themselves.

Now, there are various changes that could happen in my life that would change my actions in this regard. If I was suddenly handling a newborn all the time, I'd wash my hand before THAT. If I found myself caring for someone with compromised immunity (or someone that I knew had a communicable disease), things would change.

Bottom-line, I really don't have much close contact with other human beings in my life and I'm not responsible for random others, out in public. They can wash their own hands. Just like I do when I'm worried about something I touched. Which is rare, but it happens.

But if I was around a 6 year old? I'd wash my hands to protect ME, not them. Kids are freaking germ incubators. And they're SUPPOSED to get sick. It's good for them.

[Kaleva]

27. "Not via third party intermediaries who are never sickened themselves." isn't factual

"ndirect contact transmission refers to situations where a susceptible person is infected from contact with a contaminated surface. Some organisms (such as Norwalk Virus) are capable of surviving on surfaces for an extended period of time. To reduce transmission by indirect contact, frequent touch surfaces should be properly disinfected.

Frequent touch surfaces (fomites) include:

Door knobs, door handles, handrails
Tables, beds, chairs
Washroom surfaces
Cups, dishes, cutlery, trays
Medical instruments
Computer keyboards, mice, electronic devices with buttons
Pens, pencils, phones, office supplies
Children's toys"

https://eportal.mountsinai.ca/Microbiology/faq/transmission.shtml

"Asymptomatic carrier

An asymptomatic carrier (healthy carrier or just carrier) is a person or other organism that has become infected with a pathogen, but that displays no signs or symptoms.[1]

Although unaffected by the pathogen, carriers can transmit it to others or develop symptoms in later stages of the disease. a Asymptomatic carriers play a critical role in the transmission of common infectious diseases such as typhoid, C. difficile, influenzas, and HIV."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptomatic_carrier

"How Flu Spreads

Some people can be infected with the flu virus but have no symptoms. During this time, those people may still spread the virus to others."

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/spread.htm

Again, while you may have not been bed ridden yourself in the past 30 years, it's possible you've sickened others by not practicing good hygiene.

[mr_lebowski]

28. I'm mainly saying I'm not 'responsible' in the moral sense ...

Let me ask you ... when you touch the door handle walking out of Starbucks and then walk next door to, say, Barnes and Noble ... do you get out your hand sanitizer while you're outside and sanitize before touching the door at B&N?

Just in case, you know, you might be 'responsible' for getting someone else sick cause some OTHER sick person touched the door at Starbucks? Do you wipe the door handles AFTER you used them, just in case you're completely unknowingly an 'asymptomatic carrier' of some horrible disease?

I'd imagine you don't. Of course neither do I.

It's a question of degree here ... I'm not going to wash my hands 20+ times a day, and sit there and constantly worry about who I might make sick, esp. given I don't interact with children or immunity-compromised people regularly.

People who are so sickly they pick up diseases from door handles on the regular can wash their own hands. Because I'm sure as hell not the only person going from Starbucks to B&N every day.

BTW, this:
"ndirect contact transmission refers to situations where a susceptible person is infected from contact with a contaminated surface."

Is referring to a direct transfer from sick person to unsick person who becomes sick ... via a contaminated surface. It's not via a third party who moved it from one surface to another (me, in this example) ... which, though I'm sure it's possible, is likely very rare.

[Kaleva]

31. If I can avoid using my hands when opening doors, I do so

I do have hand sanitizer in my car which I use after I leave a store or somebody's home.

All I'm saying is that by doing what I do, I believe that I'm not only reducing the chances of me getting sick but also reducing the chances of me picking up bacteria or a virus from someplace and transporting it to another which may lead to other's getting sick.

And what I'm doing is recommended by health organizations and backed up by research.

[Totally Tunsie]

32. I'd add supermarket carts to that list.

They're as close to a petri dish as can be.

Sanitize on-site, and then wash hands as soon as home.

[Kaleva]

33. One local store has wipes available by the carts to use.

I'll wipe the handle of the cart good and then pretend to be checking my phone or shopping list to give the disinfectant time to work.

[Mosby]

29. And yet that's what every food worker in this country does

It's required by the various health departments. When health inspectors make their visits, they watch hand washing and will fail restaurants if the employees are not washing their hands properly.

Like this:

Violations: Observed an employee touch raw bacon with gloved hands. The employee removed their gloves, lathered their hands with soap for approximately 2 seconds, rinsed their hands in the sink for approximately 5 seconds, and then dried their hands and attempted to return to food service...

That was a fail.

https://www.abc15.com/entertainment/events/restaurant-report-card-14-places-failed-their-health-inspections-in-august-2019

[mr_lebowski]

30. That's part of why I ain't a food worker ...

And that sounds like a ridiculous violation.

Not only do pigs no longer carry trichinosis (sp?) like they use to, but bacon is essentially a cooked meat to begin with ... not only has it been smoked, but it's so chalk-full of salt and nitrites that germs are highly unlikely to survive touching bacon. It's not like raw chicken ... like, at all.

Additionally, person was wearing gloves, then STILL washed their hands, even if relatively briefly.

That seems very much adequate to me, in totality.

[Skittles]

25. I'm a sugar addict and the last time I called in sick was the day the towers were hit

yup

[The Mouth]

12. I don't like idiotic panic about this

because it will desensitize people for when we finally *do* get a genuinely dangerous virus (something with a *much* higher death rate). This is really just another strain of the flu, but if it swells, it sells, and our "news" media love a good frenzy; panic is good for the bottom line.

The proper comparison is to the 'Spanish' flu of 1918-1920, which spread as fast, or faster, and had (from what we can reconstruct) both a much higher fatality rate and a profile that struck down the young and healthy more than the old and sickly (which caused an order of magnitude more economic disruption short term and many years of recovery long term).

[Kaleva]

13. You disagree with nations shutting down air service to and from China?

[Ms. Toad]

15. The current death rate is consistent with the "Spanish" flu.

The actual calculated rate is between 2 and 2.5%, which is likely below the actual value, since 88% of the confirmed infection are a week or less old (meaning it is too early to count out those recently diagnosed as safe from death).

The R0 is likley to be equivalent or higher. That influenza was estimated at 1.4 - 2.8. The coronavirus is currently estimated to have an R0 between 2.6 and 3.8.

So, based on what we know now, your assertions about speed of transmission and death rate are not correct.

[The Mouth]

16. Better data than what I've seen

So far I've seen nothing saying above 2%, and the estimates I've seen for the Spanish Flu are quite a bit higher, although all are estimates.

I don't doubt it's going to be severe, or that sensible things shouldn't be done, but panic and vastly inflated claims sell newspapers and get mouse clicks. Science will save us "The Sky Is Falling" and "Pandemic" (until proved) just desensitize people, much like all the hype over SARS.

http://www.influenzavirusnet.com/1918-flu-pandemic/mortality.html

[Ms. Toad]

17. 362/17493 .02069399

That's the actual current death toll divided by the actual confirmed cases (including cases just diagnosed yesterday).

That's over 2%. Considering that the confirmed cases midweek were only about 6,700 those folks probably shouldn't be in the denominator, since few to none of those would have reached the death stage yet. If you use, as the denominator, only those who ahve had it for more than about 4 days, the death rate is 5.3%.

The numbers I'm using to calcuate the current rates are from (1) the Johns Hopkins tracking tool, which pulls its data from WHO, CDC, ECDC, NHC, and DXY and (2) CDC or WHO data on the Spanish flu (aside from the one article noted, since I was unable to quickly find the world-wide death rates for the Spanish flu. (The highest I could find for deaths from the Spanish flu was 203,000 - but I was unable to find anything from a reliable source about the total number of infections. The death rates reported are generally phrased as a percentage of th epopulation. So I did a calculation intended to maximize the deaht ruate using the CDC data for the us (coming up with the .04%), which seemed reasonable compared it to the BBC estimate (of .03%)

That's actual scientific data - which contradicts the "the sky is not faling" information that suggests this is less deadly/less contagious than either the 2009 swine flu or the "Spanish flu"

The sky isn't falling at the moment (except in China). But it will be fall here soon enough, if people keep denying that this is a relatively highly contagious illness that - at the moment - has a death rate between 15 and 20 times the normal flu death rate.

Denying the reality of what we are facing if we are not careful is what will allow it to spread (for example, the initial plan to screen the evacuees from China and then send them home was (1) designed not to frighten people and (2) completely ignored information we already knew - there is person to person transmission and it is contagious before symptoms appear. Thank goodness we woke up in time to impose a 14-day quarantine.)

[The Mouth]

18. Great research, I stand corrected, thanks EOM