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[elbows]

Cool - I'm going to tell my employer I've been to Wuhan over the weekend and need several weeks off.

For bonus points, ask them to bring some food round and then cough at them through the letterbox.

Meanwhile I've just seen that 33 environmental samples from the implicated Wuhan seafood market tested positive for the new coronavirus. But I've only seen a dodgy translation from a state news agency, and I havnt had the energy to check whether its been reported in the english-speaking press already in recent days. Plus its not surprising.

 

[two sheds]

Cool - I'm going to tell my employer I've been to Wuhan over the weekend and need several weeks off.

I'm not going down the shop tomorrow

and may only start accepting packages with a facemask

 

[elbows]

and may only start accepting packages with a facemask

If you have to sign for anything using the delivery persons phone or other modern fangled device, keep your hands away from the rest of you and everything else until you've washed them. Touchscreens could be a modern vector and the delivery ones always leap out in my mind when I consider this stuff.

 

[two sheds]

If you have to sign for anything using the delivery persons phone or other modern fangled device, keep your hands away from the rest of you and everything else until you've washed them. Touchscreens could be a modern vector and the delivery ones always leap out in my mind when I consider this stuff.

yes indeed i don't have a car so pretty well all I buy is across the web.

Interesting idea that facemasks are basically to stop you touching mouth and nose afterwards.

I've often thought we should stop bush/tree imports to avoid sudden oak death and ash dieback and things. Human version coming soon

 

[WWWeed]

Bats have long been implicated as coronavirus hosts. And an intermediate animal is often thought to be involved in the animal->human outbreaks in the past. But expert opinion did not seem kind towards the snake theory, I'm probably not going to get a chance to go back and check but I think they thought the methodology of the study that implicated snakes was flawed.

I guess it's early days still but it is the most plausible explanation I've heard so far. I don't think bats are sold for food in the wet markets but I know snakes are.

From https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30183-5/fulltext:

By Jan 2, 2020, 41 admitted hospital patients had been identified as having laboratory-confirmed 2019-nCoV infection. Most of the infected patients were men (30 [73%] of 41); less than half had underlying diseases (13 [32%]), including diabetes (eight [20%]), hypertension (six [15%]), and cardiovascular disease (six [15%]). Median age was 49·0 years (IQR 41·0–58·0). 27 (66%) of 41 patients had been exposed to Huanan seafood market. One family cluster was found. Common symptoms at onset of illness were fever (40 [98%] of 41 patients), cough (31 [76%]), and myalgia or fatigue (18 [44%]); less common symptoms were sputum production (11 [28%] of 39), headache (three [8%] of 38), haemoptysis (two [5%] of 39), and diarrhoea (one [3%] of 38). Dyspnoea developed in 22 (55%) of 40 patients (median time from illness onset to dyspnoea 8·0 days [IQR 5·0–13·0]). 26 (63%) of 41 patients had lymphopenia. All 41 patients had pneumonia with abnormal findings on chest CT. Complications included acute respiratory distress syndrome (12 [29%]), RNAaemia (six [15%]), acute cardiac injury (five [12%]) and secondary infection (four [10%]). 13 (32%) patients were admitted to an ICU and six (15%) died. Compared with non-ICU patients, ICU patients had higher plasma levels of IL2, IL7, IL10, GSCF, IP10, MCP1, MIP1A, and TNFα.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

If you have to sign for anything using the delivery persons phone or other modern fangled device, keep your hands away from the rest of you and everything else until you've washed them.

I religiously wash my hands every time I've been outside - you never know what germs you come into contact with, especially chip and pin devices and touchscreens. I've taken to using knuckles to punch in train ticket booking reference numbers on the fast ticket machines, and then using that gel hand sanitiser afterwards. People are filthy.

 

[elbows]

I guess it's early days still but it is the most plausible explanation I've heard so far. I don't think bats are sold for food in the wet markets but I know snakes are.

The problem was that the snake idea in particular was based on some genetic analysis which others involved in the field thought was flawed. Its way too technical a discussion for me, but if people would like to see a good example of it, see here: nCoV-2019 codon usage and reservoir (not snakes v2)

 

[elbows]

By the way, its quite possible that the 'suspected cases' official figure from China is based on much more than suspicion, and involves lots of cases that have tested positive at the local level, but wont be counted as confirmed until a 2nd test done centrally comes back positive.

Maybe I was right about this, but either way the number seems to have taken a big leap, which is not surprising at this stage. I've not read it from the normal sources yet but on one of those nice map graphical things its shot up to 4474 confirmed cases and 107 deaths for mainland China.

Link to map in question, which has probably been posted before: Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS

 

[elbows]

Well I'm seeing slightly different numbers from different places compared to the ones I mentioned in last message, but in the same ballpark.

 

[elbows]

From some Guardian live updates page at Coronavirus: China death toll climbs to 106 with first fatality in Beijing – live updates

 

[Yu_Gi_Oh]

The US is now advising against all but essential travel, as is Germany, I believe. In line with the rest of the country, my employer (a university) has delayed the start of the semester without a revised date. We were meant to start back on 24th Feb, so this is quite a possible extension.

Although things aren't locked down in the sense that they are in poor Hubei Province, much is closed here now. We were previously in the southern province of Yunnan, but all restaurants and the majority of shops were abruptly closed on Sunday afternoon. I believe a lot of guesthouses were also instructed to not take new guests.

We had to take several flights across China to get home yesterday - airports are calm and running normally, although there is regular temperature screening. Most people are wearing masks, although not all.

 

[cupid_stunt]

This video is a bit spooky TBH.

Video clips on Chinese social media have emerged showing residents shouting encouragement and singing songs from their apartment windows at night, in an effort to boost each other's morale.


Does anyone know why some are shouting 'add oil'?

 

[Yu_Gi_Oh]

"Add oil" is like "Let's go!" or "Power!"

 

[cupid_stunt]

Thanks.

 

[Yossarian]

Apparently Carrie Lam also needs a lesson in mask-wearing, though at least the Hong Kong mask ban is definitely over.

 

[maomao]

"Add oil" is like "Let's go!" or "Power!"

Or just 'come on' when shouted at a football team.

 

[Cid]

Or ‘keep your pecker up’. Many things. You can say it to encourage sports people, or when someone is revising for exams, or when someone is is having a hard time. Very useful. We need an English version really. Korea has ‘fighting’ for some reason.

 

[Supine]

Being reported as a case in Cambodia

Coronavirus confirmed in Cambodia - Khmer Times

www.khmertimeskh.com

 

[elbows]

Starting to see a few cases of human to human transmission outside China now - Japan and Germany seem to have confirmed such things but I dont have proper stories to link to yet.

 

[Yu_Gi_Oh]

Starting to see a few cases of human to human transmission outside China now - Japan and Germany seem to have confirmed such things but I dont have proper stories to link to yet.

The Germany example is being summarized in The Guardian's Live Feed.

 

[elbows]

The Germany example is being summarized in The Guardian's Live Feed.

Thanks! It turns out the Japan one is mentioned slightly further down that live feed too.

 

[Winot]

Rail travel from HK to the mainland has been suspended so that’s the end of my Guangdong trip

 

[8ball]

Certainly looks like its been spending its mutation points on transmission, after the slip with becoming virulent too early.

 

[maomao]

Rail travel from HK to the mainland has been suspended so that’s the end of my Guangdong trip

Could last months I guess. If my wife hadn't been made redundant end of last year she was planning a trip with the kids in April. Luck's a funny thing.

 

[2hats]

Certainly looks like its been spending its mutation points on transmission, after the slip with becoming virulent too early.

All coronaviruses mutate regularly. It's one of the features of RNA based viruses (eg common cold, rabies, ebola, SARS, flu, polio, measles) as opposed to DNA ones (eg smallpox, herpes, HPV, adenoviruses which cause UTIs, conjunctivitis, diarrhoea) which makes it harder to fight them effectively (limited window of use for a vaccine, needs focussed targeting). The one blessing might be that coronaviruses tend to be at the lower end of this higher rate (it having a larger genome which does 'error-checking' as it replicates).

 

[8ball]

You missed HIV.

 

[elbows]

Certainly looks like its been spending its mutation points on transmission, after the slip with becoming virulent too early.

Some dont think it has changed hardly at all since it first appeared in humans. This gets all mixed in with stuff I've mentioned before about the media stories of mutation-related risks having taken on something of a life of their own. Quite reasonable concepts from the past, with simple tales of 'more deadly and less spreadable' evolving into 'less deadly but more spreadable' probably do a disservice to the realities, or at least its not so straightforward in every disease outbreak and evolution.

Dunno really though, we need people to analyse a lot more samples genetic sequences to see if there are still hardly any changes happening.

Personally, in the meantime, I tend to imagine the virus already had its current characteristics at an early stae of the outbreak, ie it may have had this spread potential since the very first case (or close to it). I cant tell though, but certainly I dont take language from authorities about the virus changing and becomign more likely to infecct the young at face value. It might be that the virus has not changed recently, and its just our understanding of its thats evolving.

 

[8ball]

Some dont think it has changed hardly at all since it first appeared in humans...

It was a video game reference, dammit!

 

[elbows]

A whole bunch of UK expert reaction to the suggestion that emerged in recent days that this coronavirus may spread even when there are no symptoms in the carrier:

expert reaction to news reports that the China coronavirus may spread before symptoms show | Science Media Centre

www.sciencemediacentre.org

I've not read every word yet but would expect that there will be a range of opinion on display, not universal harmony over this issue.

 

[elbows]

It was a video game reference, dammit!

Well when I fail to spot such reference hopefully my serious replies will still be useful!