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china scan all arrivals at borders as a matter course- internal travel less so but present at major stations iirc.busy couple of weeks ahead as well.the pig virus meant the slaughter of 200m pigs - they dont fuck about in the PRC
 
It seems it all started in Wuhan
..
They say the death was recorded in the eastern city of Wuhan, where the outbreak began in December.

Meanwhile, Japan confirmed its first case of the virus - the second country outside China after Thailand to do so.
..
Click to expand...
 
not-bono-ever said:
china scan all arrivals at borders as a matter course- internal travel less so but present at major stations iirc.busy couple of weeks ahead as well.the pig virus meant the slaughter of 200m pigs - they dont fuck about in the PRC
Click to expand...
I vaguely heard something about temperature scanners which went along the lines of 'they don't really work as an actual line of defence but they are a visible way of reassuring the public and they deter people who are ill from traveling' .... Which sounded to me a bit like they did work.
 
wiskey said:
I vaguely heard something about temperature scanners which went along the lines of 'they don't really work as an actual line of defence but they are a visible way of reassuring the public and they deter people who are ill from traveling' .... Which sounded to me a bit like they did work.
Click to expand...
I had to face one of them when I arrived in Tokyo. Very offputting!
 
not-bono-ever said:
china scan all arrivals at borders as a matter course- internal travel less so but present at major stations iirc.busy couple of weeks ahead as well.the pig virus meant the slaughter of 200m pigs - they dont fuck about in the PRC
Click to expand...

Busy is something of an understatement...

chinese-new-year-travel.jpg


Hundreds of millions of people will be moving through various transport hubs. Not a snowball's chance in hell those scanners are going to be properly and consistently monitored. Let's just hope the spread is limited somehow.
 
Cid said:
Busy is something of an understatement...

chinese-new-year-travel.jpg


Hundreds of millions of people will be moving through various transport hubs. Not a snowball's chance in hell those scanners are going to be properly and consistently monitored. Let's just hope the spread is limited somehow.
Click to expand...

Worst possible time of year, and worst possible location as well. Wuhan is a central transport hub, something like Chicago or Frankfurt, lots of people will be transferring through there.
 
Cid said:
Hundreds of millions of people will be moving through various transport hubs. Not a snowball's chance in hell those scanners are going to be properly and consistently monitored. Let's just hope the spread is limited somehow.
Click to expand...

Frankly when it comes to things that spread via the respiratory tract, if there is efficient human to human transmission then I dont think we've ever been equipped to prevent the spread, its mission impossible even under much kinder circumstances. So even without the Chinese new year travel and population densities of China, if this new coronavirus is well adjusted to humans then it will not be stopped or even notably slowed. If on the other hand it is only just managing some limited human to human transmission then there is more hope, as happened so far with MERS and SARS.
 
Videos from Wuhan look like something out of a disaster movie, if people there weren't panicking already I think they will be now,



 
www.bbc.co.uk

Coronavirus: Wuhan shuts public transport over outbreak

Wuhan, a city of eleven million, temporarily shuts down all its public transport amid the outbreak.
www.bbc.co.uk

Limiting transport will cut the chance of the virus reaching other cities in China and other countries around the world.

This all comes just as millions of people are travelling across China for the week-long holiday that is Lunar New Year.

If you're struggling for context - imagine shutting down London in the week before Christmas.

The big question left is the roads - and whether any of Wuhan's 8.9 million inhabitants will be able to simply drive away.
Click to expand...
 
The horse has probably already bolted. Because when you see hundreds of cases showing up, that usually means there have actually been many thousands of cases already (because plenty will be asymptomatic or too mild to have raised any flags). The number of cases detected abroad (people who travelled from Wuhan) gives further clues to the scale of the problem at source (larger than originally suggested for sure, hence rising estimates in recent days).

Initial mortality data (which should be taken with a pinch of salt at this stage) suggests the usual picture - the old, and those with chronic underlying health problems are most likely to end up with severe consequences after catching this coronavirus. The wider picture will take a while to become clear. For example one possible scenario is that this coronavirus could quickly become endemic, joining the other things which we have always lumped together as 'the common cold'. Possible with not very different mortality and severe disease rates to what we already have to deal with. Slightly or much worse scenarios exist too though.
 
It might have arrived in the UK

Four people in Scotland are being tested for suspected coronavirus and there will be many more cases in other cities across the country, the head of infection medicine at the University of Edinburgh has said.


Professor Jurgen said three cases are in Edinburgh and the other is believed to be in Glasgow.

Tests are currently being carried out and none of the patients have been confirmed as having the disease.

They all travelled to Scotland from Wuhan, where the outbreak is thought to have originated, within the past two weeks and are showing symptoms of respiratory trouble, a red flag for the virus.
Click to expand...



HuffPost is now part of Verizon Media
 
elbows said:
The horse has probably already bolted. Because when you see hundreds of cases showing up, that usually means there have actually been many thousands of cases already (because plenty will be asymptomatic or too mild to have raised any flags). The number of cases detected abroad (people who travelled from Wuhan) gives further clues to the scale of the problem at source (larger than originally suggested for sure, hence rising estimates in recent days).

Initial mortality data (which should be taken with a pinch of salt at this stage) suggests the usual picture - the old, and those with chronic underlying health problems are most likely to end up with severe consequences after catching this coronavirus. The wider picture will take a while to become clear. For example one possible scenario is that this coronavirus could quickly become endemic, joining the other things which we have always lumped together as 'the common cold'. Possible with not very different mortality and severe disease rates to what we already have to deal with. Slightly or much worse scenarios exist too though.
Click to expand...

Nice summing up. We're basically talking about a quite nasty cold (coronaviruses in general being one of the families of viruses that always came under the broad heading of "colds"). Quite a lot of people die from colds generally (well, usually complications arising from them) - we don't talk about it much.

Usually, killing your host isn't an ideal evolutionary strategy, so mutation in the direction of lesser virulence wouldn't be a surprise.
 
8ball said:
Usually, killing your host isn't an ideal evolutionary strategy, so mutation in the direction of lesser virulence wouldn't be a surprise.
Click to expand...

I dont have any sense of how bad the virulence is to start with. Enough to show up and cause concern, but still possible that things like mortality rate wont end up being much different to stuff we are already used to. There is a question of co-infection with this sort of thing too, eg most cases might still be relatively mild and more confined to upper respiratory tract, but co-infection with another seasonal respiratory illness might promote lower respiratory tract issues and complications.
 
elbows said:
I dont have any sense of how bad the virulence is to start with. Enough to show up and cause concern, but still possible that things like mortality rate wont end up being much different to stuff we are already used to.
Click to expand...

I kind of figured it must be quite a lot worse than a common-or-garden cold for us to be discussing it in the first place.
edit: 17 people dead out of 550 cases seems like a lot to me
 
Assuming we are being given all the information, which is usually what happens in these situations, I'm sure everything is under control and it won't be that bad, it's usually the way with these things. I don't think theres any need to panic about this at this stage. We have the demograpic info of the first lot of patients, which is very useful. Also, over half of these had already existing serious health conditions that could complicate things which is also useful to know. One concern is that not everyone had a fever, that's quite worrying but it's not enough to panic over. Surveillance of a threat like this is key and is being undertaken which is just what we need. Some of the steps may seem dramitic and unnerving but there you go. The media always treats any situation like this as if it's going to be the worst outbreak ever, which doesn't help.
 
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