I can't find anything other than the CDC is going to announce a third case later today. I can't find anything about a second case confirmed in Seattle. I'm reserving comments until more info comes out.
CORONA Main Coronavirus thread
- Thread starter Heliobas Disciple
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I can't find anything other than the CDC is going to announce a third case later today. I can't find anything about a second case confirmed in Seattle. I'm reserving comments until more info comes out.
Melodi
Disaster Cat
Sky News Breaking
@SkyNewsBreak
·
9m
France's health minister has declared there are two confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country
vector7
Dot Collector
Coronavirus news – live: UK 'hunting for 2,000 people who arrived from Wuhan' as China shuts down Disney and part of Great Wall and puts 41m under lockdown
China has shut down at least 13 cities encompassing 41 million people in an attempt to contain a deadly virus that has infected hundreds of people.
Eunice Yoon
@onlyyoontv·
1h
China restricts 16 cities pop. 46mln!
Wuhan: 11mln
Huanggang: 7.5mln
Xiangyang: 6.1mln
Yichang: 4.2mln
Jingmen: 3mln
Xianning: 2.8mln
Huangshi: 2.5mln
Suizhou: 2.2mln
Xiantao: 1.6mln
Ezhou: 1mln
Qianjiang: 962k
Enshi: 780k
Xiaogan: 780k
Zhijiang: 550k
Dangyang: 560k Chibi: 530k
Some 830 cases of the new coronavirus have been confirmed and 26 people have died, the National Health Commission said on Thursday.
Most cases are in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have originated in a market which traded in illegal wildlife, but cases have also been confirmed in the United States, Thailand, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Vietnam.
Fourteen people have been tested for the virus in the UK, with five confirmed negative and nine still awaiting results, Public Health England (PHE) said on Thursday night.
China has shut down at least 13 cities encompassing 41 million people in an attempt to contain a deadly virus that has infected hundreds of people.
Eunice Yoon
@onlyyoontv·
1h
China restricts 16 cities pop. 46mln!
Wuhan: 11mln
Huanggang: 7.5mln
Xiangyang: 6.1mln
Yichang: 4.2mln
Jingmen: 3mln
Xianning: 2.8mln
Huangshi: 2.5mln
Suizhou: 2.2mln
Xiantao: 1.6mln
Ezhou: 1mln
Qianjiang: 962k
Enshi: 780k
Xiaogan: 780k
Zhijiang: 550k
Dangyang: 560k Chibi: 530k
Some 830 cases of the new coronavirus have been confirmed and 26 people have died, the National Health Commission said on Thursday.
Most cases are in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have originated in a market which traded in illegal wildlife, but cases have also been confirmed in the United States, Thailand, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Vietnam.
Fourteen people have been tested for the virus in the UK, with five confirmed negative and nine still awaiting results, Public Health England (PHE) said on Thursday night.
SouthernBreeze
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Yeah, it's getting a bit confusing isn't it?
jward
passin' thru
Dunno hun, too many facts flying past, i barely remember those cases. Will update if i see, tho.
Hope this helps lol
marsh
On TB every waking moment
The closure of the Chinese cities is concerning. When the government does this, they must assume responsibility for taking over supplying and distributing food and other things to residents that they will need to survive. It seems that the population is used to shopping daily for produce, fish and meat. This generally means that those vendors are bringing in fresh supplies every day from rural areas. I don't see how they can be allowed to continue to do this without breaking quarantine. It likely will have to be done by the military. If that falls outside the stream of commerce, it will also have to be distributed somehow.
Last edited:
That's actually not what you want at all. There was a game for smart phones, that was all the rage a few years ago - I think it was called Plague, Inc. I never played it, but my kids did. You actually went in and designed a virus and then "released it to the world". The goal was to kill as many people as possible. (I won't get in to the lecture to my kids on crowd-sourcing the apocalypse...)
They quickly found that you did NOT want one that killed quickly. Actually, and this is very disturbing if the latest reports are true, they found that you wanted a 2-part virus that had an incubation period of 10-14 days. That way you infected as many people as possible (the initial infection was mild) and then the killer part hit after you've been walking around infecting everyone for 2 weeks.... If you killed people too quickly it quickly died out because it didn't have enough time to spread (like Ebola usually does).
Does any of this sound familiar ??? Dang, who knew my crowd-sourcing the apocalypse lecture was actually prophetic.
They quickly found that you did NOT want one that killed quickly. Actually, and this is very disturbing if the latest reports are true, they found that you wanted a 2-part virus that had an incubation period of 10-14 days. That way you infected as many people as possible (the initial infection was mild) and then the killer part hit after you've been walking around infecting everyone for 2 weeks.... If you killed people too quickly it quickly died out because it didn't have enough time to spread (like Ebola usually does).
Does any of this sound familiar ??? Dang, who knew my crowd-sourcing the apocalypse lecture was actually prophetic.
SouthernBreeze
Has No Life - Lives on TB
That's why it's getting so confusing. Cases being reported everywhere, but there seems to be a lack of info on how many of those cases have been confirmed.
jward
passin' thru
Official two seattle. One chicago
22 or more students testing in tx from yesterday...
RUMOURS of second in chi town...
CaryC
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Since there are no antibiotics that work for this outbreak, here are a few natural herbal support and supplementation notes for the corona virus. They could save your life:
Vitamin D The only supplement I recommend adding if your diet is adequately plant based. Recommended blood test levels are around 35 ng/mL, but that’s just for adequate calcium metabolism. For immune function, required levels are closer to 50 ng/mL. Supplementation with 5,000 IU daily is necessary.
Andrographis Also called the “king of bitters”, this herb has shown excellent results when combined with Siberian Ginseng in large trials for the flu. It has antiviral effect and also improves GI tract function and may help regulate cytokine activity and prevent the cytokine storm. dried herb - 1.5- 5 g/day; tea- 1/2- 1 teasp. steeped in 8 oz water, drink 4oz 3 X day tincture- 20-60 drops 3 X day. standardized tablets- 100mg. w/ 5mg andrographolide and deoxyandrographolide, take 4 tablets 3Xday
Astragalus as a preventative, it should be withdrawn once symptoms begin. Take 3-5 grams of root daily in capsule, or simmer 2-3 TBS in a pint of water and drink through the day. Tinctures are taken at 1 tsp doses once or twice daily.
Garlic Directly antiviral, ameliorates influenza symptoms, and its pungent compounds have been found to reduce cytokine storm. 3-4 cloves daily is ideal, as close to freshly cut as possible (chop first).
Herbs that are directly anti-influenza: Note: for most antiviral herbs, frequent dosing is relatively important in order to maintain physiological levels of herbal medicine ahead of the viral replication curves. Viral populations can easily more than double in an 8 hour period, so it is beneficial to work with antiviral and anti-inflammatory herbs on a 6-8 dose/day schedule.
Elderberry Amazing clinical results against most influenza strains. Safe for H1N1, perhaps caution in H5N1 or other cytokine-storm-inducing strains due to potential TNF stimulation. Use syrups (1TBS 3-5 times daily) or a fresh preserved succus / juice at the rate of 1tsp every 2-3 hours. Elder flower tea is useful also, as a cooling way to induce sweating in the latter phases. Echinacea There is evidence of activity against influenza viruses, especially when combined with Thuja and Wild Indigo (Esberitox). It is potentially contraindicated in cytokine-storm influenza. Use Esberitox, or a good fresh tincture at doses of 1tsp. every 3-4 hours. Usually best at the first signs of imbalance – fatigue, sore throat, headache.
Herbs that reduce cytokine storm activity and buffer “hot” influenza symptoms:
Baikal Scullcap root Reduces cytokine storm and acts as an inhibitor of influenza symptoms. Take 60-90 drops three times a day of a good tincture. Avoid in cases of diarrhea.
Salvia milthiorrhiza root Immunomodulant for cytokine storm, esp. with a constricted, wiry pulse. Take ½ tsp. of a good tincture three times daily.
Ginger and Turmeric Both rhizomes are anti-inflammatory and inhibit inflammatory cytokines. This protects respiratory tissue as well as relieving symptoms. Most indicated in the initial phases of the flu as warming agents. Add fresh ginger to teas, or use powders of both at doses of 1- 3 grams 2-3 times daily (about ¼ to ½ tsp.).
St. John’s wort This is a potent antiviral herb, prized as a restorative in deficient, depleted constitutions. Modern evidence points not only to its pharmacological effect on dampening the cytokine storm by suppressing IL-6 and MAPK, but also to its targeted and specific antiviral effect against the H5N1 strains of bird flu, both in the petri dish and in infected poultry. The dose of tincture is 90-120 drops three times daily.
Adjuvant herbs (beyond the virus and inflammation):
Dry, spasmodic cough: A very intense and painful cough can accompany H1N1 2009 influenza. It usually appears after the first 24 hours or so, and affects the beginning of the bronchial tree causing violent coughing with whole-body spasms. The warm drying expectorants (such as Elecampane, Mullein, and Aster) are probably best avoided in favor of the soothing, demulcent expectorants listed below.
Licorice Its antiviral action may be due in part to the inhibition of virulence factors such as the hemagglutin proteins on the viral capsule. While it is still unclear if it has specific inhibitory effect on H1N1 or H5N1 strains, it remains an excellent demulcent for people of all ages and reliably loosens the dry cough within a day or at most two. This is especially important to help with disturbed sleep. Tincture, 2 droppers in a little water every 2-4 hours. Infusion, 1 TBS of root per cup. 1-2 TBS of infusion every 2-4 hours.
Pleurisy root, Butterfly weed This demulcent expectorant is particularly indicated if the re is a burning sensation in the chest wall that accompanies the cough. Any spitting of blood, while perhaps a clear sign of cytokine storm and certainly of the need for immediate treatment, was traditionally an indication for this herb. It is also relaxing and mildly diaphoretic. Take 30-60 drops of the tincture 3 times a day.
Lobelia Strongly antispasmodic, it relieves the whole-body paroxysms associated with the dry bronchial cough and is also a gentle expectorant. Use 10-30 drops of tincture every 3 hours or so, depending on tolerance because it is quite nauseating if given in excess.
Wild Cherry, Peach pit These herbs contain glycosides of hydrogen cyanide (HCN), which in small doses is calmative and strongly antispasmodic to the lungs. They are valuable as part of a comprehensive protocol that also includes expectorants and antiviral herbs. Cold-infusion is best. Heating dissipates HCN readily tincture is dosed 5-30 drops bid. Wild Cherry bark syrup: 1 pint overnight cold infusion of 1 oz bark; strain, add 2 lbs honey.
Honeysuckle flower This remedy from the Chinese pharmacopoeia helps to cool and break a fever. Best during the first and early second stages of the flu to release internal heat and bring warmth to the surface. Usually infused, along with Platycodon for the lungs, Catnip as another antiviral diaphoretic, peach pit as a pulmonary antispasmodic, and Licorice. Catnip herb Especially useful as a mildly calmative antiviral diaphoretic for kids. Usually added to tea blends, perhaps with a little Ginger and/or Licorice.
Peppermint Has some mild antiviral quality, and certainly is cooling and helps break a fever, as well as improve the flavor of herbs such as Boneset. A classic formula: equal parts of Peppermint, Boneset, Elderflower, and Yarrow in the late first / early second stage of the flu, when heat is manifest but the skin still dry and the body still achy, with a tense, tight pulse.
Bitter tonic herbs with antiviral / mucosal tonic effect: Goldenseal Not antiviral, but astringent and tonifying to the upper respiratory mucosa. Can alleviate congestion and improve appetite in the second or third stages of the flu.
Vitamin D The only supplement I recommend adding if your diet is adequately plant based. Recommended blood test levels are around 35 ng/mL, but that’s just for adequate calcium metabolism. For immune function, required levels are closer to 50 ng/mL. Supplementation with 5,000 IU daily is necessary.
Andrographis Also called the “king of bitters”, this herb has shown excellent results when combined with Siberian Ginseng in large trials for the flu. It has antiviral effect and also improves GI tract function and may help regulate cytokine activity and prevent the cytokine storm. dried herb - 1.5- 5 g/day; tea- 1/2- 1 teasp. steeped in 8 oz water, drink 4oz 3 X day tincture- 20-60 drops 3 X day. standardized tablets- 100mg. w/ 5mg andrographolide and deoxyandrographolide, take 4 tablets 3Xday
Astragalus as a preventative, it should be withdrawn once symptoms begin. Take 3-5 grams of root daily in capsule, or simmer 2-3 TBS in a pint of water and drink through the day. Tinctures are taken at 1 tsp doses once or twice daily.
Garlic Directly antiviral, ameliorates influenza symptoms, and its pungent compounds have been found to reduce cytokine storm. 3-4 cloves daily is ideal, as close to freshly cut as possible (chop first).
Herbs that are directly anti-influenza: Note: for most antiviral herbs, frequent dosing is relatively important in order to maintain physiological levels of herbal medicine ahead of the viral replication curves. Viral populations can easily more than double in an 8 hour period, so it is beneficial to work with antiviral and anti-inflammatory herbs on a 6-8 dose/day schedule.
Elderberry Amazing clinical results against most influenza strains. Safe for H1N1, perhaps caution in H5N1 or other cytokine-storm-inducing strains due to potential TNF stimulation. Use syrups (1TBS 3-5 times daily) or a fresh preserved succus / juice at the rate of 1tsp every 2-3 hours. Elder flower tea is useful also, as a cooling way to induce sweating in the latter phases. Echinacea There is evidence of activity against influenza viruses, especially when combined with Thuja and Wild Indigo (Esberitox). It is potentially contraindicated in cytokine-storm influenza. Use Esberitox, or a good fresh tincture at doses of 1tsp. every 3-4 hours. Usually best at the first signs of imbalance – fatigue, sore throat, headache.
Herbs that reduce cytokine storm activity and buffer “hot” influenza symptoms:
Baikal Scullcap root Reduces cytokine storm and acts as an inhibitor of influenza symptoms. Take 60-90 drops three times a day of a good tincture. Avoid in cases of diarrhea.
Salvia milthiorrhiza root Immunomodulant for cytokine storm, esp. with a constricted, wiry pulse. Take ½ tsp. of a good tincture three times daily.
Ginger and Turmeric Both rhizomes are anti-inflammatory and inhibit inflammatory cytokines. This protects respiratory tissue as well as relieving symptoms. Most indicated in the initial phases of the flu as warming agents. Add fresh ginger to teas, or use powders of both at doses of 1- 3 grams 2-3 times daily (about ¼ to ½ tsp.).
St. John’s wort This is a potent antiviral herb, prized as a restorative in deficient, depleted constitutions. Modern evidence points not only to its pharmacological effect on dampening the cytokine storm by suppressing IL-6 and MAPK, but also to its targeted and specific antiviral effect against the H5N1 strains of bird flu, both in the petri dish and in infected poultry. The dose of tincture is 90-120 drops three times daily.
Adjuvant herbs (beyond the virus and inflammation):
Dry, spasmodic cough: A very intense and painful cough can accompany H1N1 2009 influenza. It usually appears after the first 24 hours or so, and affects the beginning of the bronchial tree causing violent coughing with whole-body spasms. The warm drying expectorants (such as Elecampane, Mullein, and Aster) are probably best avoided in favor of the soothing, demulcent expectorants listed below.
Licorice Its antiviral action may be due in part to the inhibition of virulence factors such as the hemagglutin proteins on the viral capsule. While it is still unclear if it has specific inhibitory effect on H1N1 or H5N1 strains, it remains an excellent demulcent for people of all ages and reliably loosens the dry cough within a day or at most two. This is especially important to help with disturbed sleep. Tincture, 2 droppers in a little water every 2-4 hours. Infusion, 1 TBS of root per cup. 1-2 TBS of infusion every 2-4 hours.
Pleurisy root, Butterfly weed This demulcent expectorant is particularly indicated if the re is a burning sensation in the chest wall that accompanies the cough. Any spitting of blood, while perhaps a clear sign of cytokine storm and certainly of the need for immediate treatment, was traditionally an indication for this herb. It is also relaxing and mildly diaphoretic. Take 30-60 drops of the tincture 3 times a day.
Lobelia Strongly antispasmodic, it relieves the whole-body paroxysms associated with the dry bronchial cough and is also a gentle expectorant. Use 10-30 drops of tincture every 3 hours or so, depending on tolerance because it is quite nauseating if given in excess.
Wild Cherry, Peach pit These herbs contain glycosides of hydrogen cyanide (HCN), which in small doses is calmative and strongly antispasmodic to the lungs. They are valuable as part of a comprehensive protocol that also includes expectorants and antiviral herbs. Cold-infusion is best. Heating dissipates HCN readily tincture is dosed 5-30 drops bid. Wild Cherry bark syrup: 1 pint overnight cold infusion of 1 oz bark; strain, add 2 lbs honey.
Honeysuckle flower This remedy from the Chinese pharmacopoeia helps to cool and break a fever. Best during the first and early second stages of the flu to release internal heat and bring warmth to the surface. Usually infused, along with Platycodon for the lungs, Catnip as another antiviral diaphoretic, peach pit as a pulmonary antispasmodic, and Licorice. Catnip herb Especially useful as a mildly calmative antiviral diaphoretic for kids. Usually added to tea blends, perhaps with a little Ginger and/or Licorice.
Peppermint Has some mild antiviral quality, and certainly is cooling and helps break a fever, as well as improve the flavor of herbs such as Boneset. A classic formula: equal parts of Peppermint, Boneset, Elderflower, and Yarrow in the late first / early second stage of the flu, when heat is manifest but the skin still dry and the body still achy, with a tense, tight pulse.
Bitter tonic herbs with antiviral / mucosal tonic effect: Goldenseal Not antiviral, but astringent and tonifying to the upper respiratory mucosa. Can alleviate congestion and improve appetite in the second or third stages of the flu.
Heliobas Disciple
TB Fanatic
A virus manufactured by China would not be targeting Chinese. If I were writing this movie, a Chinese lab would be experimenting on a biological genetic weapon for warfare and when it got to the testing phase, the only population they could use would be Chinese prisoners so they experiment with Chinese DNA. That test is the one that would escape from the lab in my movie. but this isn't a movie... As for the Chinese blaming the Americans - classic projection. The dem/liberals didn't invent it, they just use it well (projection).
Hubby just sent text and said he has come down with a cold today. No big deal I suppose. The guy that just came back from Wuhan is prancing around the office fine as can be... And I'm sure it's just a cold. But makes me nervous nonetheless. They are having their annual CNY office party tonight. I'm not going. Wish the recent traveler to Wuhan would work from home for the next week.
I'm sure it's a coincidence and we're all hypervigilant right now, but I'd be nervous too. Not all carriers are symptomatic, the company should have asked the Wuhan guys to stay home for a week when they got back. Couldn't hurt to start the elderberry on yourself now and on your husband as soon as he gets home, just to be safe. I have been more aware of people coughing around me than I have ever been. Anyone coughs in the same store that I'm in, now I hear it. It's that hypervigilance kicking in. A side effect of reading about this all day and night I suppose...
HD
Can you name a source, Jward? Is this another traveler from China or is it a secondary infection from the group the hospital was monitoring who were interacting with the first Seattle case.
jward
passin' thru
You need to look at the tables i share from wHo, and flu trackers...both do scholorly work at tracking cases...deciphering double reports, updating outcomes etc....here we will be more cutting edge and chaotic, although if i make a list stating confirmation it will come from rigourous sources...
Heliobas Disciple
TB Fanatic
Thank you for this information. I copied it to Old Gray Mare's post on prepping for this virus in the other room.
Contagion - Preps for coronavirus
I recall when the SARS epidemic was a concern that a nurse recommended keeping the patient "on the dry side". I took that to mean don't push the fluids. Maybe because of the potential for fluid perfusion to the lungs. Anyone have any thoughts on that? I would give them what they wanted to...
Melodi
Disaster Cat
EMICT
Veteran Member
Just a klick (upper left corner of the screen).
Seeker22
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Here's your third case-
Minnesota sends two suspected cases of coronavirus to CDC
State and national health officials on Friday announced steps to confront the global spread of a novel coronavirus that emerged in China last month, following the discovery of a second confirmed U.S. infection in Illinois and 63 suspected cases — including two in Minnesota. By Jeremy Olson Star Tribune January 24, 2020 — 1:30pm
Willie Siau/SOPA Images – TNSPassengers on a tram wear surgical masks on Jan. 24, 2020, in Hong Kong, China. A woman in Chicago who traveled to China earlier this month has been diagnosed with coronavirus.
StarTribune.com Email this: Minnesota sends suspected cases of coronavirus to CDC
State and national health officials on Friday announced steps to confront the global spread of a novel coronavirus that emerged in China last month, following the discovery of a second confirmed U.S. infection in Illinois and 63 suspected cases — including two in Minnesota. The Minnesota Department of Health issued an alert to doctors and other health care providers in the state this week asking them to alert authorities about any patients with respiratory symptoms or fevers who recently traveled in Wuhan, China. The callbacks from doctors resulted in officials sending lab samples from suspect patients for testing by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“While the available information suggests a low immediate health risk for the general public, we consider any new infectious disease a serious concern and we are taking precautions,” the state Health Department said in a statement released Friday morning.
CDC confirmed two cases among travelers returning to Washington state and Illinois from travels in the Wuhan region of China. Testing ruled out infection in 11 suspect cases, and are ongoing in the remaining suspect cases, the CDC reported on Friday.
In the two confirmed U.S. cases, the travelers returned from China before symptoms emerged. CDC officials said that delay could make it hard to catch cases via heightened airport screening as infected travelers return. The CDC advised that no Americans take nonessential travel to Wuhan, and to take appropriate public health precautions such as wearing masks and washing hands while traveling to other regions of China.
“This is what we are preparing for,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, CDC’s director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD). “We have an aggressive response with a goal of identifying these cases early.”
Glen Stubbe, Star Tribune Infectious disease director Kris Ehresmann and state epidemiologist Dr. Ruth Lynfield listen as Minnesota Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm speaks at a briefing to outline how the state is preparing for the 2019 coronavirus and how MDH and the public health community would respond if a case were to be identified in Minnesota.
While coronaviruses are common causes of colds, new strains are troubling for public health officials because they can spread rapidly among people who have no immunity to them, and they sometimes cause more severe illnesses. The global SARS outbreak, which caused 774 deaths in 17 countries from 2002 to 2004, was due to a coronavirus, according to the World Health Organization.
Some health officials have predicted that this new virus, formally known as 2019-nCoV, spreads faster but causes milder symptoms than the SARS virus, but Messonnier said there is still much that is unknown about this developing outbreak.
Screening at five airports in Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles and San Francisco is checking broadly for anyone returning from China with fever, cough and other respiratory symptoms that are very common at this time of year due to the spread of influenza and other viruses, she said.
The Illinois case involved a Chicago woman in her 60s who returned from the Wuhan region on Jan. 13. Fortunately, the woman is in stable condition and appears not to have interacted closely with others or used public transportation or attended public events since her return, said Allison Arwady, Chicago public health commissioner. She was placed in isolation at a hospital in Chicago shortly after discussing her symptoms and travel history with her doctor.
“That is reassuring,” Arwady said.
Health officials urged recent travelers from China with respiratory symptoms to call their doctors first before going into clinics, so they can be diverted if necessary to hospitals or clinics that are equipped to handle infectious diseases and to limit their spread to others.
Jeremy Olson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter covering health care for the Star Tribune. Trained in investigative and computer-assisted reporting, Olson has covered politics, social services, and family issues.
jeremy.olson@startribune.com
Minnesota sends two suspected cases of coronavirus to CDC
Minnesota sends two suspected cases of coronavirus to CDC
State and national health officials on Friday announced steps to confront the global spread of a novel coronavirus that emerged in China last month, following the discovery of a second confirmed U.S. infection in Illinois and 63 suspected cases — including two in Minnesota. By Jeremy Olson Star Tribune January 24, 2020 — 1:30pm
Willie Siau/SOPA Images – TNSPassengers on a tram wear surgical masks on Jan. 24, 2020, in Hong Kong, China. A woman in Chicago who traveled to China earlier this month has been diagnosed with coronavirus.
StarTribune.com Email this: Minnesota sends suspected cases of coronavirus to CDC
State and national health officials on Friday announced steps to confront the global spread of a novel coronavirus that emerged in China last month, following the discovery of a second confirmed U.S. infection in Illinois and 63 suspected cases — including two in Minnesota. The Minnesota Department of Health issued an alert to doctors and other health care providers in the state this week asking them to alert authorities about any patients with respiratory symptoms or fevers who recently traveled in Wuhan, China. The callbacks from doctors resulted in officials sending lab samples from suspect patients for testing by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“While the available information suggests a low immediate health risk for the general public, we consider any new infectious disease a serious concern and we are taking precautions,” the state Health Department said in a statement released Friday morning.
CDC confirmed two cases among travelers returning to Washington state and Illinois from travels in the Wuhan region of China. Testing ruled out infection in 11 suspect cases, and are ongoing in the remaining suspect cases, the CDC reported on Friday.
In the two confirmed U.S. cases, the travelers returned from China before symptoms emerged. CDC officials said that delay could make it hard to catch cases via heightened airport screening as infected travelers return. The CDC advised that no Americans take nonessential travel to Wuhan, and to take appropriate public health precautions such as wearing masks and washing hands while traveling to other regions of China.
“This is what we are preparing for,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, CDC’s director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD). “We have an aggressive response with a goal of identifying these cases early.”
Glen Stubbe, Star Tribune Infectious disease director Kris Ehresmann and state epidemiologist Dr. Ruth Lynfield listen as Minnesota Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm speaks at a briefing to outline how the state is preparing for the 2019 coronavirus and how MDH and the public health community would respond if a case were to be identified in Minnesota.
While coronaviruses are common causes of colds, new strains are troubling for public health officials because they can spread rapidly among people who have no immunity to them, and they sometimes cause more severe illnesses. The global SARS outbreak, which caused 774 deaths in 17 countries from 2002 to 2004, was due to a coronavirus, according to the World Health Organization.
Some health officials have predicted that this new virus, formally known as 2019-nCoV, spreads faster but causes milder symptoms than the SARS virus, but Messonnier said there is still much that is unknown about this developing outbreak.
Screening at five airports in Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles and San Francisco is checking broadly for anyone returning from China with fever, cough and other respiratory symptoms that are very common at this time of year due to the spread of influenza and other viruses, she said.
The Illinois case involved a Chicago woman in her 60s who returned from the Wuhan region on Jan. 13. Fortunately, the woman is in stable condition and appears not to have interacted closely with others or used public transportation or attended public events since her return, said Allison Arwady, Chicago public health commissioner. She was placed in isolation at a hospital in Chicago shortly after discussing her symptoms and travel history with her doctor.
“That is reassuring,” Arwady said.
Health officials urged recent travelers from China with respiratory symptoms to call their doctors first before going into clinics, so they can be diverted if necessary to hospitals or clinics that are equipped to handle infectious diseases and to limit their spread to others.
Jeremy Olson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter covering health care for the Star Tribune. Trained in investigative and computer-assisted reporting, Olson has covered politics, social services, and family issues.
jeremy.olson@startribune.com
Minnesota sends two suspected cases of coronavirus to CDC
bw
Fringe Ranger
No problem there!
Hurricanehic
Veteran Member
Carolinas mobile hospital. Not big in beds but quick response time
Atrium Health MED-1 Mobile Hospital Unit
In case of an emergency or natural disaster, Atrium Health provides patients with on-the-go care through MED-1, our mobile hospital.
atriumhealth.org
Blacknarwhal
Let's Go Brandon!
I believe this is where the President Madagascar meme came from. In that game, the hardest thing to do was infect Madagascar because it only had one seaport, and it would get downright paranoid about keeping it open.
Old Gray Mare
TB Fanatic
Piece of useless trivia: the 1918 flu skipped one of the islands of American Samoa because the ships were keep in quarantine and no one was allowed to land until after the contagious period had passed and those on board got a clean bill of health.
rafter
Since 1999
I totally believe this. Check this out. Not sure if it has been posted or not.
Coronavirus isolated from humans
Abstract
Disclosed herein is a newly isolated human coronavirus (SARS-CoV), the causative agent of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Also provided are the nucleic acid sequence of the SARS-CoV genome and the amino acid sequences of the SARS-CoV open reading frames, as well as methods of using these molecules to detect a SARS-CoV and detect infections therewith. Immune stimulatory compositions are also provided, along with methods of their use.
Images (7)
rafter
Since 1999
Had one yesterday. Gone now!Who else reading this thread has a sore throat?
Blacknarwhal
Let's Go Brandon!
And the moral of the story: "If you're an island, you probably won't catch communicable diseases that weren't already there to catch."
rafter
Since 1999
I saw somewhere that it is DC
Old Gray Mare
TB Fanatic
There was anecdotal records somewhere on Flutrackers of a small town managed to do the same. They blockaged both the road into town and going out of it.
Hfcomms
EN66iq
Probably a N.D. As he sure knows his herbals.
EMICT
Veteran Member
Bio says Chiropractor/Writer.
jward
passin' thru
U of T infectious disease expert Allison McGeer on Wuhan coronavirus risks – and uncertainties
A new strain of coronavirus that originated in China has killed 17 people and infected hundreds. Chinese authorities have closed off Wuhan, the port city of 11 million at the centre of the outbreak, and suspended travel from other cities.
The respiratory virus has spread beyond mainland China, with cases detected in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and the United States.
In Canada, Health Minister Patty Hajdu says the risk remains low though some people are being monitored for the virus. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization held a second emergency meeting today to decide if the outbreak meets the definition of a “public health emergency of international concern,” but decided against making such a declaration since the number of cases in countries outside China remains relatively small.
“At this time, there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director general, said at a news conference today in Geneva, according to a report in the New York Times. “That doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”
U of T News spoke with Dr. Allison McGeer (left) on Wednesday about what we know and still don’t know about the mysterious illness, and the risk of a global pandemic.
McGeer is a professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, a professor in the departments of medicine and laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Faculty of Medicine, as well as director of the Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Research Unit at Mount Sinai Hospital. She contracted SARS when she was on the front lines of that outbreak in Toronto in 2003.
(photo by Chris So/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
Is this a global emergency yet?
As a reflection of the disagreement (at the WHO), it is very close to being yes. Remember, you may be thinking of global health emergency in small letters, but they're thinking of Global Health Emergency with capital letters. It's a defined circumstance and the naming of it has a defined purpose. And so they're not just looking at the risk to the population, they're looking at whether calling it a global health emergency is going to help the situation or make it worse.
How could calling it a global health emergency make things better or worse?
I think making people more worried about it than they need to be is one downside. Potentially restricting travel is another downside of it.
What people might do with borders is clearly of concern.
The benefits of it are that people do pay more attention, to some degree. I'm not sure that's a benefit in this case, but it helped with people in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) recently (in context of Ebola).
It also helps at the WHO level to mobilize funding for additional investigations and for support for the people on the ground dealing with the outbreak and trying to interpret data and trying to get protocols in place for treatment trials and all the other things that need to be done.
It does cut both ways. Every time the subject comes up we learn more about what the advantages and disadvantages of the naming is.
Setting aside the WHO definition, is this something the world should be worried about?
Too early to tell.
What do we know about the Wuhan coronavirus so far?
It's a coronavirus. It causes respiratory infections. Some of those respiratory infections are fatal. It is transmitted from person to person in some circumstances in close-contact in households, and also in health-care settings at least occasionally. That's about the size of it.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks during a press conference in Geneva on Jan. 22 (photo by Pierre Albouy/AFP via Getty Images)
What are some important things we still don't know about it?
There are three big questions we don't know the answer to that people are working on. The first one is the spectrum of disease: When people get sick, how likely are they to be hospitalized or to die from it? And that discovery is a gradual process.
We know when investigations are initially done that you are worried about people who are more severely ill. With coronaviruses, we worry about transmission in hospitals. Those people are more likely to get tested and so almost certainly we see a more severe spectrum of disease.
But it's very hard to assess what the total spectrum is. In order to understand that, you have to have the resources to do a lot more testing and that takes time to build and organize. And you also have to have serologic testing, so you have to be able to measure antibodies. That's a more difficult test setup than just testing for the virus and secretions – if you want to detect infections that don’t cause symptoms. Many viruses, in a proportion of people, cause infections where people don't get sick at all. And if you can't measure the potential response to illness, you don't get that full spectrum.
You also need to wait to measure antibody development. It can take two or three or sometimes four weeks to develop antibodies so you're not even going to be able to do that testing until a month out.
For all those reasons, it is going to take time to know the full spectrum of disease. Probably months until we have a really good idea.
That's question number one.
Question number two is: Is there sustained human-to-human transmission? What we've seen so far, what the WHO said (Wednesday), is that there is first-generation transmission from patients to close contacts in their households. And there's been some transmission in hospitals that we don't know very much about at the moment. What they said was there has not been third- or fourth-generation spread.
A piece of that is it takes time for that to happen.
What does that mean, third- or fourth-generation spread?
You identify a case you think is exposed to the virus at the seafood market. And then they might transmit it to their spouse. Then the question is: Does the spouse transmit it to other people?
If the first person gets it from an animal and a second person can get it if they're in really close contact, but it doesn't go further than that – then it’s not a problem. I mean, it’s a problem figuring out what the original cause is, but it’s not a problem with it spreading around the world because it’s not transmissible enough.
That question of second-, third- or fourth-generation spread is critical, and so far what we're being told is that has not been seen.
Then the third question is: Where is this coming from? If it's not person-to-person spread, then how the heck are people getting infected?
That's a less important question from the perspective of risk to Canadians, but it's a critically important question in terms of understanding what's going on.
A Chinese passenger who arrived on a bullet train from Wuhan is checked for a fever by a health worker at a Beijing railway station (photo by Kevin Frayer via Getty Images)
What are the warning signs you're looking for right now?
The two critical issues are: Is there sustainable person-to-person transmission? And how severe is it?
It's both of those things that will tell us whether it will be a problem around the world. If there's sustainable human-to-human transmission, but the real case fatality rate is 1 in 80,000 – well that's another cold. It's not nothing but it's not a big deal.
If there's not sustainable person-to-person transmission, it doesn't matter how severe it is – we can deal with it.
It's those two things that drive risk and we just don't know enough yet.
A lot of people are making parallels with SARS, another coronavirus. Can you tell me what the biggest similarities and differences are in this case?
It's a little hard to know. At the moment it looks like there are two important differences. The first is that the case fatality rate appears to be lower. That's good news. The second is that there doesn't seem to be nearly as much transmission to health-care workers. During the SARS outbreak, about 20 per cent of the cases worldwide occurred in health-care workers.
That's good news on two fronts. First of all, it tells you that it's not as transmissible person-to-person since health-care workers are up close and personal with severely ill patients and, secondly, it means it's much less disruptive to the health-care system because we don't have to be as worried. Not that we don't have to be worried at all about transmission. We don't have to be as worried because it doesn't seem to be transmitted nearly as much.
If you think about it, the first case was Dec. 12. They didn't identify it as an outbreak until Dec. 29. There were 30 cases in that time period. Nobody would have been taking extra precautions for those cases or worried about them and no health-care workers got sick.
So we had one case [of SARS] in Toronto and then 50 health-care workers got sick before the week was out.
What has Canada specifically learned from SARS and how can we use those lessons now?
I think we are using lessons at a global level. The degree of transparency and discussion about this, the sharing of viral sequences and viral strains, the implementation of airport screening to detect the spread around the world. All of those things rose directly out of SARS and are obviously functional. They're working well.
I think the openness, the discussion at the WHO, the existence of international emergencies of public health concern – all of that structure that was built after SARS is working here.
And it may be less than perfect, but it's really working well.
We've become much better at asking about travel and screening people, and making sure that we're aware of people with communicable diseases. And we are adequately training health-care workers and maintaining those people and precautions to protect health-care workers. No question we are better at that than we were 17 years ago.
A patient is transferred by an ambulance to hospital on Jan. 22, 2020 in Hong Kong, China (photo by Anthony Kwan via Getty Images)
You contracted SARS yourself in 2003. Can you tell me what precautions can we take to protect health-care workers?
The most important things are who needs the precautions, the availability of these precautions and the availability of tests. At the beginning of the SARS outbreak in Toronto, we didn't know what it was. We didn't know how it was transmitted. We had no tests available for it. All of the emergency department records we were working with were on paper.
So the situation then was very, very different.
So almost all of the infections that occurred during SARS occurred because patients were not recognized as having SARS. Because we understand that now, we have become much better about how we identify those patients and how we deal with them.
Can you tell me about your experience with SARS? It's one thing to read about the symptoms and another to hear directly from someone who had it.
It's just pneumonia. There's hundreds of pneumonias all the time. It's not any different.
You noted that people are travelling more now. Globalization has increased since 17 years ago. How susceptible does that make us to global pandemics?
Oh, not at all actually.
The big pandemics we've had in the world are HIV infection and influenza. We've recurrently had influenza pandemics. Influenza pandemics have always occurred. Four hundred years ago, there were influenza pandemics. Influenza viruses may use aircraft, but they don't need them. If you think about the HIV pandemic, it's the same thing. It's maybe spread a little bit faster because we travel more, but it would have spread regardless of the degree of travel.
Globalization may alter how quickly some pandemics spread – not flu – but probably contributed to the speed of the HIV pandemic spread. But it's not critical to them.
How long do you expect it to take to develop a vaccine for the Wuhan virus?
It depends. We don't at the moment have effective vaccines for coronaviruses. We've had MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) for nearly seven years and we don't have a vaccine. Usually vaccines take 10 or 15 years to develop.
How hard people work on it depends on how important the disease is. What we do with developing vaccines for this disease depends on how it declares itself in the next few weeks or months. Coronaviruses are not the easiest things to develop vaccines for. It makes it a little unpredictable how long it might take.
I read that the number of infections could be under-reported right now because only people with serious symptoms would be presenting in hospital, and that the spread could be larger. What do you make of that?
Yes. I think that's probably true. It is often true that, when you're working on containing an outbreak and you have limited testing capacity, you're going to focus on people who are more severely ill in hospital. Of course, there are so many other illnesses going around, right? People get mild respiratory illness and they might not recognize that they're at risk. If they turn up to the hospital, you're going to test them, but if they never actually see a physician, they're not going to know. So I think most of us believe (under-reporting) is likely, but it's not nefarious and it's not deliberate. It's just the way investigations into new outbreaks go – that it's going to be a while before we are testing those who are mildly ill in enough numbers to get a sense of what that is.
You do get a sense of it. The American patient – he's not hospitalized because he needs to be hospitalized. He's hospitalized because that was the easy way to keep him away from other people in a guaranteed way. It's hard to be isolated at home, particularly if you live in a house with a lot of other people. So he's not actually very ill and that's good news.
I gather from what you're saying that it's too soon to worry about this if you live in Canada. Even so, what can people do to protect themselves and limit the possibility of spreading the virus?
At the moment, you don't need to do anything about that unless you're travelling to Wuhan.
There are a bunch of things you want to do that help protect us from respiratory viral illnesses period right? Staying home when you're sick, washing your hands, the usual stuff. But you want to do that because you don't want influenza (the flu causes about 3,500 deaths in Canada each year.)
If you want to worry about something, worry about influenza. That's what matters. It doesn't feel like that's what matters, but that's what matters.
www.utoronto.ca
A new strain of coronavirus that originated in China has killed 17 people and infected hundreds. Chinese authorities have closed off Wuhan, the port city of 11 million at the centre of the outbreak, and suspended travel from other cities.
The respiratory virus has spread beyond mainland China, with cases detected in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and the United States.
In Canada, Health Minister Patty Hajdu says the risk remains low though some people are being monitored for the virus. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization held a second emergency meeting today to decide if the outbreak meets the definition of a “public health emergency of international concern,” but decided against making such a declaration since the number of cases in countries outside China remains relatively small.
“At this time, there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director general, said at a news conference today in Geneva, according to a report in the New York Times. “That doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”
U of T News spoke with Dr. Allison McGeer (left) on Wednesday about what we know and still don’t know about the mysterious illness, and the risk of a global pandemic.
McGeer is a professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, a professor in the departments of medicine and laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Faculty of Medicine, as well as director of the Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Research Unit at Mount Sinai Hospital. She contracted SARS when she was on the front lines of that outbreak in Toronto in 2003.
(photo by Chris So/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
Is this a global emergency yet?
As a reflection of the disagreement (at the WHO), it is very close to being yes. Remember, you may be thinking of global health emergency in small letters, but they're thinking of Global Health Emergency with capital letters. It's a defined circumstance and the naming of it has a defined purpose. And so they're not just looking at the risk to the population, they're looking at whether calling it a global health emergency is going to help the situation or make it worse.
How could calling it a global health emergency make things better or worse?
I think making people more worried about it than they need to be is one downside. Potentially restricting travel is another downside of it.
What people might do with borders is clearly of concern.
The benefits of it are that people do pay more attention, to some degree. I'm not sure that's a benefit in this case, but it helped with people in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) recently (in context of Ebola).
It also helps at the WHO level to mobilize funding for additional investigations and for support for the people on the ground dealing with the outbreak and trying to interpret data and trying to get protocols in place for treatment trials and all the other things that need to be done.
It does cut both ways. Every time the subject comes up we learn more about what the advantages and disadvantages of the naming is.
Setting aside the WHO definition, is this something the world should be worried about?
Too early to tell.
What do we know about the Wuhan coronavirus so far?
It's a coronavirus. It causes respiratory infections. Some of those respiratory infections are fatal. It is transmitted from person to person in some circumstances in close-contact in households, and also in health-care settings at least occasionally. That's about the size of it.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks during a press conference in Geneva on Jan. 22 (photo by Pierre Albouy/AFP via Getty Images)
What are some important things we still don't know about it?
There are three big questions we don't know the answer to that people are working on. The first one is the spectrum of disease: When people get sick, how likely are they to be hospitalized or to die from it? And that discovery is a gradual process.
We know when investigations are initially done that you are worried about people who are more severely ill. With coronaviruses, we worry about transmission in hospitals. Those people are more likely to get tested and so almost certainly we see a more severe spectrum of disease.
But it's very hard to assess what the total spectrum is. In order to understand that, you have to have the resources to do a lot more testing and that takes time to build and organize. And you also have to have serologic testing, so you have to be able to measure antibodies. That's a more difficult test setup than just testing for the virus and secretions – if you want to detect infections that don’t cause symptoms. Many viruses, in a proportion of people, cause infections where people don't get sick at all. And if you can't measure the potential response to illness, you don't get that full spectrum.
You also need to wait to measure antibody development. It can take two or three or sometimes four weeks to develop antibodies so you're not even going to be able to do that testing until a month out.
For all those reasons, it is going to take time to know the full spectrum of disease. Probably months until we have a really good idea.
That's question number one.
Question number two is: Is there sustained human-to-human transmission? What we've seen so far, what the WHO said (Wednesday), is that there is first-generation transmission from patients to close contacts in their households. And there's been some transmission in hospitals that we don't know very much about at the moment. What they said was there has not been third- or fourth-generation spread.
A piece of that is it takes time for that to happen.
What does that mean, third- or fourth-generation spread?
You identify a case you think is exposed to the virus at the seafood market. And then they might transmit it to their spouse. Then the question is: Does the spouse transmit it to other people?
If the first person gets it from an animal and a second person can get it if they're in really close contact, but it doesn't go further than that – then it’s not a problem. I mean, it’s a problem figuring out what the original cause is, but it’s not a problem with it spreading around the world because it’s not transmissible enough.
That question of second-, third- or fourth-generation spread is critical, and so far what we're being told is that has not been seen.
Then the third question is: Where is this coming from? If it's not person-to-person spread, then how the heck are people getting infected?
That's a less important question from the perspective of risk to Canadians, but it's a critically important question in terms of understanding what's going on.
A Chinese passenger who arrived on a bullet train from Wuhan is checked for a fever by a health worker at a Beijing railway station (photo by Kevin Frayer via Getty Images)
What are the warning signs you're looking for right now?
The two critical issues are: Is there sustainable person-to-person transmission? And how severe is it?
It's both of those things that will tell us whether it will be a problem around the world. If there's sustainable human-to-human transmission, but the real case fatality rate is 1 in 80,000 – well that's another cold. It's not nothing but it's not a big deal.
If there's not sustainable person-to-person transmission, it doesn't matter how severe it is – we can deal with it.
It's those two things that drive risk and we just don't know enough yet.
A lot of people are making parallels with SARS, another coronavirus. Can you tell me what the biggest similarities and differences are in this case?
It's a little hard to know. At the moment it looks like there are two important differences. The first is that the case fatality rate appears to be lower. That's good news. The second is that there doesn't seem to be nearly as much transmission to health-care workers. During the SARS outbreak, about 20 per cent of the cases worldwide occurred in health-care workers.
That's good news on two fronts. First of all, it tells you that it's not as transmissible person-to-person since health-care workers are up close and personal with severely ill patients and, secondly, it means it's much less disruptive to the health-care system because we don't have to be as worried. Not that we don't have to be worried at all about transmission. We don't have to be as worried because it doesn't seem to be transmitted nearly as much.
If you think about it, the first case was Dec. 12. They didn't identify it as an outbreak until Dec. 29. There were 30 cases in that time period. Nobody would have been taking extra precautions for those cases or worried about them and no health-care workers got sick.
So we had one case [of SARS] in Toronto and then 50 health-care workers got sick before the week was out.
What has Canada specifically learned from SARS and how can we use those lessons now?
I think we are using lessons at a global level. The degree of transparency and discussion about this, the sharing of viral sequences and viral strains, the implementation of airport screening to detect the spread around the world. All of those things rose directly out of SARS and are obviously functional. They're working well.
I think the openness, the discussion at the WHO, the existence of international emergencies of public health concern – all of that structure that was built after SARS is working here.
And it may be less than perfect, but it's really working well.
We've become much better at asking about travel and screening people, and making sure that we're aware of people with communicable diseases. And we are adequately training health-care workers and maintaining those people and precautions to protect health-care workers. No question we are better at that than we were 17 years ago.
A patient is transferred by an ambulance to hospital on Jan. 22, 2020 in Hong Kong, China (photo by Anthony Kwan via Getty Images)
You contracted SARS yourself in 2003. Can you tell me what precautions can we take to protect health-care workers?
The most important things are who needs the precautions, the availability of these precautions and the availability of tests. At the beginning of the SARS outbreak in Toronto, we didn't know what it was. We didn't know how it was transmitted. We had no tests available for it. All of the emergency department records we were working with were on paper.
So the situation then was very, very different.
So almost all of the infections that occurred during SARS occurred because patients were not recognized as having SARS. Because we understand that now, we have become much better about how we identify those patients and how we deal with them.
Can you tell me about your experience with SARS? It's one thing to read about the symptoms and another to hear directly from someone who had it.
It's just pneumonia. There's hundreds of pneumonias all the time. It's not any different.
You noted that people are travelling more now. Globalization has increased since 17 years ago. How susceptible does that make us to global pandemics?
Oh, not at all actually.
The big pandemics we've had in the world are HIV infection and influenza. We've recurrently had influenza pandemics. Influenza pandemics have always occurred. Four hundred years ago, there were influenza pandemics. Influenza viruses may use aircraft, but they don't need them. If you think about the HIV pandemic, it's the same thing. It's maybe spread a little bit faster because we travel more, but it would have spread regardless of the degree of travel.
Globalization may alter how quickly some pandemics spread – not flu – but probably contributed to the speed of the HIV pandemic spread. But it's not critical to them.
How long do you expect it to take to develop a vaccine for the Wuhan virus?
It depends. We don't at the moment have effective vaccines for coronaviruses. We've had MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) for nearly seven years and we don't have a vaccine. Usually vaccines take 10 or 15 years to develop.
How hard people work on it depends on how important the disease is. What we do with developing vaccines for this disease depends on how it declares itself in the next few weeks or months. Coronaviruses are not the easiest things to develop vaccines for. It makes it a little unpredictable how long it might take.
I read that the number of infections could be under-reported right now because only people with serious symptoms would be presenting in hospital, and that the spread could be larger. What do you make of that?
Yes. I think that's probably true. It is often true that, when you're working on containing an outbreak and you have limited testing capacity, you're going to focus on people who are more severely ill in hospital. Of course, there are so many other illnesses going around, right? People get mild respiratory illness and they might not recognize that they're at risk. If they turn up to the hospital, you're going to test them, but if they never actually see a physician, they're not going to know. So I think most of us believe (under-reporting) is likely, but it's not nefarious and it's not deliberate. It's just the way investigations into new outbreaks go – that it's going to be a while before we are testing those who are mildly ill in enough numbers to get a sense of what that is.
You do get a sense of it. The American patient – he's not hospitalized because he needs to be hospitalized. He's hospitalized because that was the easy way to keep him away from other people in a guaranteed way. It's hard to be isolated at home, particularly if you live in a house with a lot of other people. So he's not actually very ill and that's good news.
I gather from what you're saying that it's too soon to worry about this if you live in Canada. Even so, what can people do to protect themselves and limit the possibility of spreading the virus?
At the moment, you don't need to do anything about that unless you're travelling to Wuhan.
There are a bunch of things you want to do that help protect us from respiratory viral illnesses period right? Staying home when you're sick, washing your hands, the usual stuff. But you want to do that because you don't want influenza (the flu causes about 3,500 deaths in Canada each year.)
If you want to worry about something, worry about influenza. That's what matters. It doesn't feel like that's what matters, but that's what matters.
U of T infectious disease expert Allison McGeer on coronavirus risks – and uncertainties
A new strain of coronavirus that originated in China has killed 17 people and infected hundreds. Chinese authorities have closed off Wuhan, the port city of 11 million at the centre of the outbreak, and suspended travel from other cities. The respiratory virus has spread beyond mainland China...
www.utoronto.ca
Meadowlark
Has No Life - Lives on TB
| THIS! My theory too. Found this at another site. Interesting take. This virus has the characteristics of a severe respiratory flu IN ADDITION to the characteristics of a severe intestinal flu, all packaged up in a coronavirus. My virology is rusty, and its been decades since I worked in a virology lab, but I never heard of such a thing in nature. It screams of a genetically engineered recombinant bio-warfare virus that got loose. The story about it jumping from an animal to a human in a food market is just cover for it escaping from the government Wuhan Virology lab which is close by. This is a severe, highly contagious, mutating debilitating virus which is exactly what you would release on an army or population to incapacitate it. Its loose in the world now. And like I predicted yesterday, its now gaining a foot hold in India. Only God knows how it will mutate once it starts burning through that population and acquiring malicious DNA. (viral transformation, transduction or conjugation). I'm sure there are folks more current in Virology than I that can expound on this. Trump needs to shut the borders down before waves of "medical tourists" start hitting. |
Or a country like Russia to dump it and then blame
the US
jward
passin' thru
apparently there is now reports of fourth-generation caeses, as defined & discussed in article above...also read that as y'all been wondering, the temp screenings at AP didn't catch the chicago cases. j
Today, 09:56 AM
From WHO:
"They [Chinese authorities] reported fourth-generation cases in Wuhan and second-generation cases outside Wuhan, as well as some clusters outside Hubei province"
Statement on the meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee regarding the outbreak of novel coronavirus 2019 (n-CoV) on 23 January 2020
https://www.who.int
The meeting of the Emergency Committee convened by the WHO Director-General under the International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005) regarding the outbreak of novel coronavirus 2019 in the People’s Republic of China, with exportations currently reported in the Republic of Korea, Japan, Thailand and Singapore, took place on Wednesday, 22 January 2020, from 12:00 to 16:30 Geneva time (CEST) and on Thursday, 23 January 2020, from 12:00 to 15:10. The Committee’s role is to give advice to the Director-General, who makes the final decision on the determination of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
Today, 09:56 AM
From WHO:
"They [Chinese authorities] reported fourth-generation cases in Wuhan and second-generation cases outside Wuhan, as well as some clusters outside Hubei province"
Statement on the meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee regarding the outbreak of novel coronavirus 2019 (n-CoV) on 23 January 2020
https://www.who.int
The meeting of the Emergency Committee convened by the WHO Director-General under the International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005) regarding the outbreak of novel coronavirus 2019 in the People’s Republic of China, with exportations currently reported in the Republic of Korea, Japan, Thailand and Singapore, took place on Wednesday, 22 January 2020, from 12:00 to 16:30 Geneva time (CEST) and on Thursday, 23 January 2020, from 12:00 to 15:10. The Committee’s role is to give advice to the Director-General, who makes the final decision on the determination of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
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