COVID-19

[Tom_Mazanec]

Germany, Japan, and Taiwan Report First Coronavirus Cases in People Who Haven't Visited China [Updated]
https://gizmodo.com/germany-and-japan-report-first-coronavirus-cases-in-peo-1841298312

Germany, Japan, and Taiwan have all reported the first cases of a new SARS-like virus in people who haven’t recently visited China. The announcements, made on Tuesday, come as the number of confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV worldwide reached 4,587 and the death toll hit 106.

So now it's spreading in four countries at least.
How many does the WHO need to declare a pandemic?

[KiwiGriff]

Up date 1800 Zulu.
4690 cases.
106 deaths.
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

[Tom_Mazanec]

A blast from the past which might become prescient if worst comes to worse:

Ebola and the Five Stages of Collapse
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2014/10/ebola-and-five-stages-of-collapse.html

And so, for the benefit of those who are not particularly panic-prone, I am going to trot out my old technique of examining collapse as consisting of five distinct stages: financial, commercial, political, social and cultural, and briefly discuss the various ramifications of a swift 50% global population collapse when viewed through that prism. If you want to know all about the five stages, my book is widely available.

[Grubbegrabben]

The WHO situation reports are here:
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports

A bit slower than the news outlets but hopefully higher quality. One fact from the latest report is interesting/worrying:

"Patients with 2019-nCoV infection, are presenting with a wide range of symptoms. Most seem to have mild disease, and about 20% appear to progress to severe disease, including pneumonia, respiratory failure and in some cases death."

The news and local government here (Sweden) are comparing the coronavirus with the seasonal flu. However, 20% of the flu cases are not "severe" and the flu isn't anywhere near the death rate of the coronavirus.

I guess I'm misreading something, but what?

If 20% of the cases progress to a severe condition, no country will have nearly enough intensive care capacity to treat all patients if an outbreak occurs. For example, Sweden as a country can treat about 500 intensive care patients. In the latest situation report 926 cases are severe with just 4537 confirmed cases.

[Archimid]

One interesting fact about for-profit hospitals. Low occupancy is bad for business. The closer to 100% occupancy the better for their bottom line.

[Sam]

The WHO situation reports are here:
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports

A bit slower than the news outlets but hopefully higher quality. One fact from the latest report is interesting/worrying:

"Patients with 2019-nCoV infection, are presenting with a wide range of symptoms. Most seem to have mild disease, and about 20% appear to progress to severe disease, including pneumonia, respiratory failure and in some cases death."

The news and local government here (Sweden) are comparing the coronavirus with the seasonal flu. However, 20% of the flu cases are not "severe" and the flu isn't anywhere near the death rate of the coronavirus.

I guess I'm misreading something, but what?

If 20% of the cases progress to a severe condition, no country will have nearly enough intensive care capacity to treat all patients if an outbreak occurs. For example, Sweden as a country can treat about 500 intensive care patients. In the latest situation report 926 cases are severe with just 4537 confirmed cases.

And then there is the follow-on impact. Elective procedures and needs can be postponed. However, urgent care remains. And all urgent care will both have to compete with the need for care for the nCoV patients, and be at risk for infection in tight quarters.

As a direct consequence, people will go untreated or be inadequately treated. The resulting deaths though not directly caused by the virus are also attributable to its impacts.

[vox_mundi]

China Coronavirus: Death Toll Reaches 131 as Number of Cases Surpasses that of Sars
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3047979/china-coronavirus-death-toll-reaches-131-number-cases-surpasses

The number of confirmed cases of the rapidly spreading coronavirus infection in mainland China has reached 5,496, health authorities said on Wednesday, a total that surpasses that of Sars, the epidemic in 2003 that killed more than 600 people worldwide.

The death toll has climbed to 131, they announced, with 840 newly confirmed cases in Hubei province.

The total death counts with the new coronavirus infection are all reported in mainland China, with 125 in Hubei province, where the outbreak began, and six in other provinces. About 3,300 people are hospitalised in Hubei province, with more than 20,000 being observed for infection.

Zhong Nanshan, one of China’s top respiratory diseases experts, said on Tuesday that the outbreak has yet to reach its peak and that he expected to come within a week to 10 days, adding that there should be “no massive increase afterwards”.

[Tom_Mazanec]

Another factor is if, say this takes one quarter of the population out of circulation because of illness, and another quarter out of circulation caring for the first quarter. With half the population unavailable for maybe several weeks or more, especially if it happens at the peak of the Spring Planting Season, what will that do to the economy, food supply, etc.?

[Sigmetnow]

Wonder how the #coronavirus stricken city of Wuhan looks on lockdown? Here is the aerial view.
Credit: 联盟营地
https://twitter.com/ray4tesla/status/1222198309256716288
Drone video at the link.  No pedestrians, and almost no traffic on city streets, or highways.

[KiwiGriff]

Up date 2300 Zulu
World wide .
Confirmed Cases 5578.
Deaths 131.
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Reach a peak in seven to ten days.
How many tens of thousands will that be?

[KiwiGriff]

Four infected within Germany.
https://www.stmgp.bayern.de/presse/drei-weitere-coronavirus-faelle-in-bayern-zusammenhang-mit-dem-ersten-fall-bayerns/
Translation.

The Bavarian Ministry of Health was informed on Tuesday evening that three other people in Bavaria had been infected with the novel corona virus. These patients are also employees of the company from the district of Starnberg, where the first person affected is already employed. This man had apparently contracted a Chinese colleague during a training session on January 21. This colleague flew back to China on January 23. On January 27, the company informed the health department of the Chinese woman's illness.

It was decided that the three new patients should also be admitted to the Munich Clinic Schwabing, where they would be medically monitored and isolated. A few other contact persons are currently testing whether they are infected with the corona virus. The Bavarian Ministry of Health and the State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL) will report on details in a press release on Wednesday.

Reports are the original vector had no symptoms at the time of transmission .

[Sigmetnow]

Ray4️⃣Tesla (@ray4tesla) 1/28/20, 10:08 AM
#Coronavirus outbreak in China is affecting public transportation. Since people are urged to stay home, this driver has no passengers to pick up after having driven 1 1/2 hours and passed 60 stops. He has been a bus driver for 10 years and feels very lonely today.

https://twitter.com/ray4tesla/status/1222174556493733890
Video clip inside empty bus.

—-
Second drone vid:

Ray4️⃣Tesla (@ray4tesla) 1/28/20, 1:06 PM
I’ve been to #Wuhan before. The most famous shopping street-Jianghanlu, used to be where the hustle-and-bustle is. Plagued by #coronavirus scare, the street looks empty. Locals are urged to stay home. Here is another drone footage from 联盟营地. My best wish for Wuhan.

https://twitter.com/ray4tesla/status/1222219524868427777
Drone footage over Wuhan at the link.

[vox_mundi]

The official death toll in China has risen to 132, with 5,974 cases confirmed

[Lewis]

Australian scientists have managed to replicate the coronavirus in laboratory conditions in a medical breakthrough that could help speed up the development of a vaccine to combat the deadly virus.

Now the replicated virus can be used to create a vaccine.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australian-scientists-create-lab-grown-version-of-deadly-coronavirus-paving-way-for-vaccine

[KiwiGriff]

Up date 0400 Zulu.
6057 confirmed cases.
132 deaths.
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

[Sam]

With the extensive quarantine having begun 6 days ago, hopefully we will begin to see the impacts of that action with a dramatic decline in the R0.

All sorts of parameter combinations can approximate the spread so far.

One such is an average R0 of 3.6, a mean generation time of 3 days, 2 days infective without systems, then a mean appearance of symptoms at day 5, hospitalization then and formal confirmation on day 7 and death 6 days later on average for 10% of those infected. If as has been suggested, 15% of people are essentially insusceptible to it, then the CFR needs to be increased to 12%.

This is not in any way a formal analysis. This is an overly simplistic model. And it is just one set of parameters that approximately fits the data. It should not be extrapolated more than a few days. This set of parameters results in a daily rate of confirmed cases at a factor of 1.52. Some suggested fits have daily rates as low as 1.32 or as high as 1.61. One analysis I’ve seen suggests an increasing rate through that range from 1.3 to 1.6.

At 6 days since people quit moving in Wuhan and restricted themselves, the spread should have dramatically slowed. However that takes significant time to show up in the data. We should only begin to see the impact of that in 2 to 5 days from now. Death rate counts will take another week to begin to slow down.

Many of the data fits have similar parameters. Generally they suggest generation times between 3 and 4.5 days.  And what those suggest is that we should hopefully see a strong decline in the increase (a slowing in the rate of increase) in confirmed case numbers in just a few days.

If we don’t see a decline in the rate within a week it suggests that the quarantine is less effective than we all may hope and wish.

Sam.

[silkman]

Pretty draconian but probably too little, too late actions being taken in Singapore:

https://www.moh.gov.sg/news-highlights/details/additional-precautionary-measures-to-minimise-risk-of-community-spread-in-singapore

One of their seven confirmed cases was staying at the Marina Bay Sands hotel, the most iconic building in the City state.

I have family there. It's all too close for comfort.

[Tom_Mazanec]

The Economics Of Pandemics And Quarantines
https://www.aier.org/article/the-economics-of-pandemics-and-quarantines/

The story is unfolding in a manner very similar to the Ebola outbreak a few years back. Authorities react with strong measures such as quarantines and travel bans to restrict contagion. On its face, such measures appear – purely from the vantage point of public health issues – reasonable. However, economic theory suggests the possibility that extreme measures such as sealing off a city, a travel ban or quarantines may actually make things worse.

[Archimid]

I think Ebola and this coronavirus are two different beasts that must be approached in a different manner. If my understanding is correct, while Ebola is much more deadly, this coronavirus (needs nickname) spreads like the common cold. We still haven't figured out how to stop the common cold other than by yearly vaccinations.

Since there are isn't a vaccine for this(even if there was, it can't be deployed in time), then the spread must be stopped through physical means. That is done by decreasing the rate of interaction of the population and increasing hygiene ( handwashing, face masks).

That's the biology side of it. On the sociology side of it, China has a large central control and resources. The African countries affected by Ebola don't.

[El Cid]

This is one of those very rare occasions, that I completely agree with Archimid

[Rodius]

This is one of those very rare occasions, that I completely agree with Archimid

Do you have a fever? 

[KiwiGriff]

Umm I disagree with both of you .
No effective vaccination for the common cold has ever been developed.
What is called a common  cold can be any  of about 200 different virus which mutate quickly..
We have vaccination for the flue virus but it is highly dependent on the strains in circulation .

What concerns  about this new virus is that it quickly proceeds to pneumonia for a large percentage of victims. If it does become  prevalent health resources will be strained beyond ability to cope . That means some will inevitably die due to substandard health care  in the west.

[Archimid]

I agree with your disagreement KiwiGriff. Your specificity is welcomed.

Ironically, by agreeing with your disagreement I'm in a state of disagreement with El Cid.

El Cid, can we make it two in a row?

[KiwiGriff]

 

[Tom_Mazanec]

I think Ebola and this coronavirus are two different beasts that must be approached in a different manner. If my understanding is correct, while Ebola is much more deadly, this coronavirus (needs nickname) spreads like the common cold. We still haven't figured out how to stop the common cold other than by yearly vaccinations.

Since there are isn't a vaccine for this(even if there was, it can't be deployed in time), then the spread must be stopped through physical means. That is done by decreasing the rate of interaction of the population and increasing hygiene ( handwashing, face masks).

That's the biology side of it. On the sociology side of it, China has a large central control and resources. The African countries affected by Ebola don't.

But does that work for influenzas? We still get flu pandemics, don’ We?

[Jim Hunt]

If the link works this seems to be the JHU spreadsheet, which I don't think has been mentioned previously?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yZv9w9zRKwrGTaR-YzmAqMefw4wMlaXocejdxZaTs6w/htmlview

[blumenkraft]

This post will surprise you. You’ll think I am nuts, it took me some time to decide to write all of this down. Please read til the end, there’s links all along so you can fact check everything. Please share it, so truth is spread. It's about coronavirus. Enter thread:

Link >> https://twitter.com/daninovaramaen/status/1221835088842973185?s=21

[Archimid]

Forgot this link and some comments on it:

Inside Wuhan: Daily life in China's coronavirus quarantine zone



@ 0:16
 Facemasks are certainly effective. Any barrier reduces the probability of fluids to get in or out of the mouth and nose. Some masks are better than others, but any mask is better than no mask.

Disposable or sterilizable masks are a must. If the mask worked, it probably carries a few copies of the virus with it. Water, soap or laundry detergent may not be enough to "kill" it. In Bleach We Trust. Also boiling water or an autoclave, if you happen to have one at home.

@ 0:24

The goggles. This thing may actually pass through the eye barrier. 

@ 0:40

The gloves. I would keep a pair of gloves with my "going out " clothes. I wouldn't bring either the gloves or the unwashed clothes inside the home. I would wash them with bleach and water and store them on their own pile along with the masks and other "sterile" PPE.

Also, I would wear latex gloves under the gloves.

@ 1:04

Now he may have some copies on his jeans. He wore gloves as a barrier when interacting with the world. Use them, then get home and sterilize them with 10% bleach.


@ the groceries

If everyone wore gloves and facemasks, the risk of a droplet laying on top of a box of Oreos would be ridiculously low.

[Archimid]

But does that work for influenzas? We still get flu pandemics, don’ We?

Yes. The mortality rate of common colds is not very high. It is not worth stopping the world to avoid a few days of sickness. However, if the numbers on this are true, this is a killer cold. If it became common it would be a huge hit to world population and order.  If it is contained it will eventually disappear with the change of seasons. ( I assume)

[vox_mundi]

Confirmed: 6145
Dead: 132

----------------------

China Coronavirus: UAE Confirms Four Members of Chinese Family First Cases in Middle East
https://www.scmp.com/topics/china-coronavirus-outbreak

Four people from the same Chinese family are reported to be in a stable condition and are under medical observation.

Gulf airports, including Dubai is home to one of the world’s biggest aviation hubs.

... It wasn’t immediately clear how the family left Wuhan and made it all the way to the UAE. China shut down Wuhan’s airport and other transport in the city last Thursday to stop the spread of the virus.

---------------------------

Coronavirus: First Reported Cases of Foreigners Infected in China

At least three foreigners – two from Australia and one from Pakistan – have contracted the coronavirus while in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, according to provincial authorities

-------------------------

China Coronavirus: Hong Kong Professor Yuen Kwok-yung Says Effectiveness of Drugs Could be Judged Within Weeks, with Tests Due to Start in City

University of Hong Kong scientists looking at whether drugs used during Sars epidemic will work for those infected with Wuhan coronavirus.

... Yuen, the chairman for infectious diseases at the University of Hong Kong, said the protease inhibitor Kaletra had been effective in treating severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) in 2003.

-------------------------

Cross Infection at China’s Coronavirus Epicentre?

Li Ruiqi’s mother went into a Wuhan hospital for an operation. Now she has the infection but nowhere to go for treatment

One doctor says many medical staff lacked an awareness of infectious diseases and were unprepared for crisis

---------------------------

China Coronavirus: Fears of Economic Contagion Grow as Cities Turn into Ghost Towns

As coronavirus has spread from Wuhan, many Chinese cities have become virtual ghost towns amid aggressive measures to contain the disease

There are signs the economic impact could be deeper than during the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic in 2002-2003

------------------------

Long Queues at Outlets Across Hong Kong Selling Masks, as Panic Buying Continues Amid Wuhan Coronavirus Outbreak
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3048097/long-queues-outlets-across-hong-kong-selling

Hundreds of people queued up for face masks across Hong Kong on Wednesday amid a shortfall of protective gear in a city gripped by the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.

At some outlets of Thai lifestyle chain AbouThai – which has 14 stores citywide – some buyers showed up as early as 7am – five hours before new batches of masks arrived for retailers

Commerce and Economic Development Bureau says it has met retailers and urged those with shipment issues to contact it for help

... “For a person who needs to go outside … they will use up to three disposable masks,” Ho said. “If 1 million belong to this category, that’s 3 million masks per day, 90 million per month.”

He also said health care workers in public hospitals used as many as 300,000 masks daily at the peak of the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic.

Lam Wai-man, chairman of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Pharmacy, said 80 per cent of surgical masks sold in the city were manufactured on the mainland. As the virus has spread to almost all provinces in China, he said the internal demand for masks was large and Hong Kong “will have to queue”.

“We’ve asked Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, who all said they have no stock,” Lam added.

Meanwhile, two distributors of surgical masks in Hong Kong said they were out of stock and unsure of when next shipments were due.

---------------------------

China’s Virus Outbreak Triggers a Global Run on Face Masks
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-01-29/china-s-virus-outbreak-triggers-a-global-run-on-face-masks

On Amazon and Alibaba, many shops peddling anti-virus masks had run out of stock as of Wednesday. Across China, Hong Kong and Singapore, people lined up for hours at stores and pharmacies hoping to secure dwindling supplies. People from San Francisco to Orlando said they were unable to find surgical masks at their usual outlets.

China’s government has responded to the worsening shortage by cracking down on vendors who sell fake masks or overcharge online. Over 80 shops on e-commerce platform Taobao, run by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., allegedly sold counterfeit 3M and N95 face masks, Chinese state-media reported Monday. The company said on its official Weibo account it removed shops found to engage in false advertising or price rigging. The e-commerce site said it sold 80 million face masks through Taobao within two days.

.... Good hand hygiene, including the regular use of an alcohol-based sanitizer, may be more effective than face masks at preventing transmission of the 2019-nCoV virus, said Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician and microbiologist at Australia’s Canberra Hospital.

----------------------------

[vox_mundi]

Excellent Infographic Link
Includes maps, population movement, timelines, symptoms, statistics ...
https://multimedia.scmp.com/infographics/news/china/article/3047038/wuhan-virus/index.html

----------------------------

China Coronavirus: Shelves Cleared of Essentials as Spread sparks Hong Kong panic buying
https://www.scmp.com/topics/china-coronavirus-outbreak

Food and disinfectants sell out at some city supermarkets.

Stores in Yuen Long had sold out of greens by early Wednesday afternoon

... One employee, who declined to be named, said supply had stayed the same but demand had surged. “Just like surgical face masks. It’s a special period right now,” he said.

--------------------

Singapore Reports Three More China Coronavirus Cases, Bringing Its Total to 10

--------------------------

Coronavirus Testing Expands Beyond Airports to El Paso Border Crossings
https://kvia.com/health/2020/01/28/coronavirus-testing-expands-to-el-paso-including-airport-border-crossings/

[Alexander555]

With the extensive quarantine having begun 6 days ago, hopefully we will begin to see the impacts of that action with a dramatic decline in the R0.

All sorts of parameter combinations can approximate the spread so far.

One such is an average R0 of 3.6, a mean generation time of 3 days, 2 days infective without systems, then a mean appearance of symptoms at day 5, hospitalization then and formal confirmation on day 7 and death 6 days later on average for 10% of those infected. If as has been suggested, 15% of people are essentially insusceptible to it, then the CFR needs to be increased to 12%.

This is not in any way a formal analysis. This is an overly simplistic model. And it is just one set of parameters that approximately fits the data. It should not be extrapolated more than a few days. This set of parameters results in a daily rate of confirmed cases at a factor of 1.52. Some suggested fits have daily rates as low as 1.32 or as high as 1.61. One analysis I’ve seen suggests an increasing rate through that range from 1.3 to 1.6.

At 6 days since people quit moving in Wuhan and restricted themselves, the spread should have dramatically slowed. However that takes significant time to show up in the data. We should only begin to see the impact of that in 2 to 5 days from now. Death rate counts will take another week to begin to slow down.

Many of the data fits have similar parameters. Generally they suggest generation times between 3 and 4.5 days.  And what those suggest is that we should hopefully see a strong decline in the increase (a slowing in the rate of increase) in confirmed case numbers in just a few days.

If we don’t see a decline in the rate within a week it suggests that the quarantine is less effective than we all may hope and wish.

Sam.

I think you can add an extra week to these 2 to 5 days. If you look at the incubation periode, than most of the cases you have today come from people that were already infected before the lockdown on the 23th. And just before the lockdown 5 million peope left Wuhan. That's almost half the city. Why would these 5 million people be less infected than the ones that stayed ? And in the most extreme cases, an incubation of 14 days. They are not going to have any symptons for another 5 to 6 days. And how many people did they infected on their way out of Wuhan, and at the place where they are now. Almost al the cases are from Wuhan so far. Very little signes from these 5 million people that left the city. Or there has to be a reason why they would be less infected.

[bluice]

The virus is spreading far and wide.

Finland's first coronavirus case confirmed in Lapland
A Chinese tourist in Lapland has tested positive for novel coronavirus.
https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/finlands_first_coronavirus_case_confirmed_in_lapland/11182855

[wili]

Arch wrote: " Facemasks are certainly effective..."

I just heard an expert on the radio (US National Public Radio) claim that there is actually no study that shows that the kinds of facemasks that are widely available have any effect on stopping the spread of the flu or the common cold.

And note the quote from one of the articles vox just linked:

.... Good hand hygiene, including the regular use of an alcohol-based sanitizer, may be more effective than face masks at preventing transmission of the 2019-nCoV virus, said Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician and microbiologist at Australia’s Canberra Hospital.

[El Cid]

I agree with your disagreement KiwiGriff. Your specificity is welcomed.

Ironically, by agreeing with your disagreement I'm in a state of disagreement with El Cid.

El Cid, can we make it two in a row?

👍

[vox_mundi]

Arch wrote: " Facemasks are certainly effective..."

I just heard an expert on the radio (US National Public Radio) claim that there is actually no study that shows that the kinds of facemasks that are widely available have any effect on stopping the spread of the flu or the common cold. (...did he say anything about coronavirus?)

And note the quote from one of the articles vox just linked:

.... Good hand hygiene, including the regular use of an alcohol-based sanitizer, may be more effective than face masks at preventing transmission of the 2019-nCoV virus, said Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician and microbiologist at Australia’s Canberra Hospital.

The NPR expert might want to take a refresher with the CDC ...

Interim Guidance for the Use of Masks to Control Seasonal Influenza Virus Transmission: ... A surgical mask or fit-tested respirator should be worn by healthcare personnel who are within 6 feet of a suspected or laboratory-confirmed influenza patient. A respirator can be selected when antiviral medication supplies are expected to be limited and influenza vaccine is not available, e.g., during a pandemic. Standard and droplet precautions should be maintained until the patient has been determined to be noninfectious or for 7 days after illness onset or until 24 hours after the resolution of fever and respiratory symptoms, whichever is longer, while a patient is in a healthcare facility. In some cases, facilities may choose to apply droplet precautions for longer periods based on clinical judgment, such as in the case of young children or severely immunocompromised patients, who may shed influenza virus for longer periods of time. Further guidance is available at: Prevention Strategies for Seasonal Influenza in Healthcare Setting

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/infectioncontrol/maskguidance.htm

and

Prevention Strategies for Seasonal Influenza in Healthcare Settings: ... Health Care Provider (HCP) should don a facemask when entering the room of a patient with suspected or confirmed influenza. Remove the facemask when leaving the patient’s room, dispose of the facemask in a waste container, and perform hand hygiene.

If some facilities and organizations opt to provide employees with alternative personal protective equipment, this equipment should provide the same protection of the nose and mouth from splashes and sprays provided by facemasks (e.g., face shields and N95 respirators or powered air purifying respirators).

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/infectioncontrol/healthcaresettings.htm

and

Interim Healthcare Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations for Patients Under Investigation for 2019-nCoV:... recommended personal protective equipment or PPE (e.g., gowns, gloves, NIOSH-certified disposable N95 respirator, eye protection)

[vox_mundi]

WHO Officials Say Coronavirus Spread Outside of China is of ‘Grave Concern’
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/29/who-officials-say-coronavirus-spread-outside-of-china-is-of-grave-concern.html

The spread of a fast-moving virus outside of China is of “grave concern” and has prompted the World Health Organization to reconvene an emergency meeting this week to decide whether it’s a global health emergency.

... The coronavirus has spread to a handful of people through human-to-human contact outside of China, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s health emergencies programme, said at a press conference at the organization’s Geneva headquarters Wednesday.

“These developments in terms of the evolution of the outbreak and further development of transmission, these are of grave concern and has spurred countries into action,” he said, adding that he just returned from China on Wednesday. “What we know at this stage, this is still obviously a very active outbreak and information is being updated and changing by the hour.“

The coronavirus outbreak has killed 132 people in China and sickened more than 6,150 across more than a dozen countries across the globe. Ryan said there are currently 71 cases outside of China in 15 other countries.

One of the criteria used to determine whether the coronavirus is an international health threat is whether the disease spreads locally once it arrives in new parts of the world, “and that’s a nuanced and important distinction to make,” Ryan told reporters last week.

... WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the “continued increase in cases and the evidence of human-to-human transmission outside of China are, of course, most deeply disturbing.”

“Although the numbers outside China are still relatively small, they hold the potential for a much larger outbreak,” Tedros said.

https://twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1222543539587964930

----------------------------

Sudan suspects that two of its citizens who returned to the country from China are infected with the new coronavirus, the information minister told Reuters.

-----------------------------

Germany confirms three further cases of coronavirus
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-confirms-three-further-cases-of-coronavirus/a-52181064

Germany confirms human transmission of coronavirus
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-confirms-human-transmission-of-coronavirus/a-52169007

---------------------------------

Coronavirus: 25 Photos From Wuhan Under Quarantine
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2020/01/coronavirus-photos-wuhan-under-quarantine/605605/



...

[edmountain]

The NPR expert might want to take a refresher with the CDC ...
...

The guidelines to which you refer are for reducing the risk of transmission in healthcare settings, specifically for reducing for the risk of healthcare workers themselves acquiring an illness when involved in direct patient care from someone known (or suspected) to have an illness.

Dr. Collignon's comment was regarding the risk of reducing transmission in the community where (even in Wuhan) the majority of people do not have the illness and direct intimate contact between unacquainted individuals is rare. From a public health perspective it's more cost effective in this setting to have universal hand hygiene than millions of disposable masks.

[GoodeWeather]

Arch wrote: " Facemasks are certainly effective..."

I just heard an expert on the radio (US National Public Radio) claim that there is actually no study that shows that the kinds of facemasks that are widely available have any effect on stopping the spread of the flu or the common cold.

Correct.  Face masks are more of a control measure for sick people spreading germs to over people.  They should be prioritized to people with any symptoms and people treating those symptoms, not to people in fear of contracting the virus. 

So far it appears the majority of the cases have been connected to Wuhan and that leads me to believe that the initial outbreak so far seems to be from the first mutation stage.  The second mutation stage(human-human transmission) has happened, but the R0 of that mutation seems relatively low at this time.  This could possible be due to the extreme measures China has put in place to contain the outbreak.

As long as the virus doesn't mutate again and become airborne, then I feel this should be contained and fizzle out in a few months.

Praying i'm right about this.

[Pmt111500]

Finland's case in Lapland (A traveller from Wuhan) has been confirmed as being Corona.

I was on the belief this had already been solved that it's a virus of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Indian_civet and relatives and that's attempted to jump species before, too ( SARS and a couple other outbreaks) , but maybe it's a new one.

[Sam]

There is another issue of concern that has so far gone unremarked.

The genetic analysis of the variants of the virus trace back to an estimated common ancestor on or about November 29, 2019.

https://nextstrain.org/ncov

The first human cases were identified about December 29th, implying infection no earlier than December 17, and more likely as late as December 24.

Yet the genetic tree shows several branching events about that time, and dozens of variants before that time. Please correct me if I am wrong. I am not a virologist. But, that would seem to suggest that the commonly presented story of a single infection from a single zoonotic jump at the Wuhan market in late December must be wrong. There has to have been, or seem to have to have been multiple infections in a short time frame with more than a dozen variants.

Alternately, there was a single infection back about November 20-24. And that infected person went undetected and gave rise to the variants.

The large number of variants all at once seems odd. They do fall into four or five fairly tight clusters, so perhaps the number of seeming variants is not unusual.

Still, this seems to point to two possibilities. 1) the zoonotic jump occurred a month earlier than has been believed, or 2) the zoonotic infection occurred many times with variants in a short period.

I have no idea what to make of that. And I don't know enough to know if this is usually seen to happen this way, or if this is unusual. It does look curious.

What most concerns me is that if there is a wild pool of the virus in some other species (most likely bats, next most likely snakes) which is rapidly mutating in that population, that it may be much harder to ultimately contain the disease. And the natural pool may be a source for continued new variants of the virus to emerge.

Sam

[GoodeWeather]

There is another issue of concern that has so far gone unremarked.

The genetic analysis of the variants of the virus trace back to an estimated common ancestor on or about November 29, 2019.

https://nextstrain.org/ncov

The first human cases were identified about December 29th, implying infection no earlier than December 17, and more likely as late as December 24.

Yet the genetic tree shows several branching events about that time, and dozens of variants before that time. Please correct me if I am wrong. I am not a virologist. But, that would seem to suggest that the commonly presented story of a single infection from a single zoonotic jump at the Wuhan market in late December must be wrong. There has to have been, or seem to have to have been multiple infections in a short time frame with more than a dozen variants.

Alternately, there was a single infection back about November 20-24. And that infected person went undetected and gave rise to the variants.

The large number of variants all at once seems odd. They do fall into four or five fairly tight clusters, so perhaps the number of seeming variants is not unusual.

Still, this seems to point to two possibilities. 1) the zoonotic jump occurred a month earlier than has been believed, or 2) the zoonotic infection occurred many times with variants in a short period.

I have no idea what to make of that. And I don't know enough to know if this is usually seen to happen this way, or if this is unusual. It does look curious.

What most concerns me is that if there is a wild pool of the virus in some other species (most likely bats, next most likely snakes) which is rapidly mutating in that population, that it may be much harder to ultimately contain the disease. And the natural pool may be a source for continued new variants of the virus to emerge.

Sam

2) the zoonotic infection occurred many times with variants in a short period.
This seems to be the case as human-human transmission outside of china remains low

What most concerns me is that if there is a wild pool of the virus in some other species (most likely bats, next most likely snakes) which is rapidly mutating in that population, that it may be much harder to ultimately contain the disease. And the natural pool may be a source for continued new variants of the virus to emerge.

Nature posted this article about SARS linked to horsebats 3 years ago.  At the end the researches warned that an outbreak like SARS remained a possibility due to the often mixing of strains of the virus within the bat population.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-07766-9

[harpy]

Estimating the effective reproduction number of the 2019-nCoV in China


This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed [what does this mean?]. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.
AbstractInfo/HistoryMetrics Preview PDF

Abstract
We estimate the effective reproduction number for 2019-nCoV based on the daily reported cases from China CDC. The results indicate that 2019-nCoV has a higher effective reproduction number than SARS with a comparable fatality rate.

Can someone link a copy of the PDF here for us to read?

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.27.20018952v1

[SteveMDFP]

Estimating the effective reproduction number of the 2019-nCoV in China


This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed [what does this mean?]. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.
AbstractInfo/HistoryMetrics Preview PDF

Abstract
We estimate the effective reproduction number for 2019-nCoV based on the daily reported cases from China CDC. The results indicate that 2019-nCoV has a higher effective reproduction number than SARS with a comparable fatality rate.

Can someone link a copy of the PDF here for us to read?

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.27.20018952v1

The link to the full manuscript is on that page.  The link is:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.27.20018952v1.full.pdf

They estimate an R0 of about 4.  This is extremely worrisome. 
Unless the virus is magically less transmissible when outside of China's borders, I don't see much cause for optimism for the global situation.

Though, it might plausibly be most transmissible in populations with chronically poor air quality.  I found a reference that with the MERS epidemic, being a current smoker was a major risk factor for disease.   Living in an urban center in China may be biologically equivalent to being a current smoker. 

[FrostKing70]

Peer reviewed means it has been sent to people knowledgeable on the subject (peers) so they can review and comment on the methodology used, data set, and data analysis (if applicable).  The authors then have to address the concerns / issues raised by their peers.  This can take days, weeks, or months, depending on the seriousness of the concerns.

Most reputable science journals won't publish an article until it has been peer reviewed and the comments addressed.

[KiwiGriff]

Update 9:30 Zulu
6165 cases.
133 deaths .
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

[edmountain]

...

The link to the full manuscript is on that page.  The link is:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.27.20018952v1.full.pdf

...

Using the data described above, R is estimated to be 4.08, indicating that an infected patient infects more than four susceptible people during the outbreak. This value substantially exceeds WHO's estimate of R₀ (supposed to be smaller than R) between 1.4 and 2.5, and is also higher than a recent R₀ estimate between 3.6 and 4.0.

Hopefully the peer-review process will provide some clarification here because something doesn’t make sense. R₀ is supposed to be larger than R; this follows from the definition R = xR₀ where 0 < x < 1. I wonder if the authors transposed some of their Rs and R₀s somewhere along the way.

[Shared Humanity]

This post will surprise you. You’ll think I am nuts, it took me some time to decide to write all of this down. Please read til the end, there’s links all along so you can fact check everything. Please share it, so truth is spread. It's about coronavirus. Enter thread:

Link >> https://twitter.com/daninovaramaen/status/1221835088842973185?s=21

That guy is a nut.

[Tom_Mazanec]

^^
Here is showing how easy it is to make fake news.
BTW how long does it take for a survivor to recover?

[wili]

vox in his last quote addressing my quote mentions N95 respirators.

Yes, those are what are commonly used in medical settings, but my understanding is that they are not the ones readily available to the public that are now flying off shelves.