Merged 2019-nCoV / Corona virus

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On the plus side, dying laughing at all the "European audio" companies somehow unable to deliver their microphones and magical placebo recording devices....Ahhh foolmewunz if you could be here with the last laugh right now :(
 
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My ex-girlfriend sent me photos of her with a mask on at the airport somewhere in East Asia, arriving from Chicago.

Makes me a bit uneasy.
 
Venom said:
My ex-girlfriend sent me photos of her with a mask on at the airport somewhere in East Asia, arriving from Chicago.

Makes me a bit uneasy.
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Okay...

...anyway, the sumo tournament that takes place in Osaka every March has been called off.

The Japanese government is asking all event-holders to "think about" cancelling events for the next two weeks.

A lot of schools are now making attendance optional, and some are closing altogether.
 
dudalb said:
And, frankly, how it originated is sort of a side issue at this point. We have more urgent problems to deal with.
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I know, right. Yesterday I saw a news report about it being urgent to find the animal source for this strain. I laughed, guess that reporter saw the Dustin Hoffman movie Outbreak where he supposedly found the source and they magically made a vaccine or something from it.
 
News here is reporting someone in Hokkaido has died.

Hokkaido has decided to close all schools and events for the next two weeks. Kanagawa, where another person has died from the virus, has done the same.
 
marting said:
Ars-Technica has a new article covering Bruce Aylward's comments after returning from China.

Good piece.


https://arstechnica.com/science/202...n-us-not-if-but-when-and-how-severe-cdc-says/
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I've been watching some of Aylward's talk here:



I suppose the assessment is much more upbeat that I would have expected.

In the piece you linked to...

Aylward also noted that based on the large amount of disease screening that’s been done in China so far, there does not seem to be a huge number of mild cases that are going undetected. And while asymptomatic spread of disease may happen, it does not seem to be a driver of the outbreak, he said. This assessment may dampen concern that the virus will become a pandemic by spreading widely in communities from unrecognized asymptomatic or mild cases. So far, household-level transmission appears to be the main driver of the outbreak, he said.
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The Atheist said:
I'd like to think I'm being realistic rather than paranoid. I'm not quoting any numbers that aren't established and reported by health officials and experts.

<snip>
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No reason why you cannot be both. The rest depends on definitions of words. An issue I am not going to get dragged into.


dudalb said:
That is just it:Corona Virus would make a lousy biological weapon.
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See my response here http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=13001797#post13001797



Skeptic Ginger said:
You work it out:

It only takes one person unloading cargo to spread it to a dock worker.
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Let us see.
- Crew isolated from the rest of the world for the time it takes to go between one port to the next
- Maybe, when at port, they live like hermits so they cannot get the virus, let alone spread it to others
- Health checks on arrival
- Crew and the islanders do not go near each other, so they could not pass it on even if they had the virus
- Islanders paranoid (think attitudes like The Atheist's are being slack) about the issue
- Islanders getting advice from people who know what they are talking about
- I do not think I need go on.


Yes, I agree, even with the best precautions it could get to Hawaii as everyone is only human and they make mistakes. But with suitable precautions (much better than the above) it would be very unlikely to spread to Hawaii. They actually need to decide that they will do this now or it will be too late.

As for other islands they also can take similar precautions.
 
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marting said:
Ars-Technica has a new article covering Bruce Aylward's comments after returning from China.
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Yeah, good piece. Ars Technica has been on it right from the start - one of my favourite sites.

Nice to see a positive spin from an expert who's been on the ground.

Just a note for the China-haters that have been active in the thread - from the link:

While Aylward was impressed with the Chinese government response, he noted early in the briefing that he was also taken by the response of Chinese citizens—their cooperation and individual sense of duty to try to help quash the outbreak. “We spoke to hundreds of people... and they all shared this sense of responsibility, accountability to be part of this,” Aylward said, noting that there didn’t appear to be any government pressure or presence forcing that sense of duty. People were adhering to quarantine protocols on their own, he noted, and medical staff were volunteering to go to the hardest hit areas in Hubei province.
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Already I’m getting ads for various kinds of super face-masks that are fortified with various things and guaranteed to stop viruses....
I would say that panic has not struck the university here, despite our nearly 40% Asian student population. I don’t see any more kids than usual running around with masks and such.
 
Customers in El Salvador are asking our regional rep for Central and South America if we have any disinfectants that can be applied to a large area by fogger. The problem is that nobody reputable does. A number of years ago the EPA contacted every company with fogging directions on their labels and required them to either submit new efficacy data using a newly developed testing protocol to show their product actually worked when fogged, or remove fogging from their label. There were concerns that fogging wouldn't apply enough active ingredient to surfaces to achieve the same efficacy as direct application.
I found one product approved for fogging, but when applied by fog it only kills two specific bacteria and clostridium difficile spores. Killing viruses still requires directly applying the liquid.
 
One of the problems with the numbers in Japan, is that so few people appear to have been tested.

According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, only 1061 people have been PCR-tested for the virus.

Of those, according to the statistics here, 149 have tested positive.

https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/newpage_00032.html

BUT... these numbers are certain to be far higher.

Hokkaido is one of the main clusters, and have had one person die in Hakodate at the southern tip. But many of the other cases are spread out all over the prefecture, hundreds of kilometres from each other.

Apparently one person found to have the virus was on a trip from...wait for it...Osaka!

Well, there is no way that the official figures of 1 (one!) case in Osaka is real. This is one of the most visited cities from tourists from China, and it has very crowded public transportation.
 
Belz... said:
My wife was going back to her native Japan two weeks from now, in part to see a concert, but she has decided to cancel her trip.

I can't say I'm unhappy about that.
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I was going to say that there is a good chance that the concert will be cancelled anyway.
 
theprestige said:
Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome doesn't really fit this.

SARS is so named because it it gets very bad very fast. Coronavirus is more of a creeper.
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Nevertheless, the virus is named SARS-CoV-19, but not so much for its effects as for its lineage:


Why do the virus and the disease have different names?
Viruses, and the diseases they cause, often have different names. For example, HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. People often know the name of a disease, such as measles, but not the name of the virus that causes it (rubeola).

There are different processes, and purposes, for naming viruses and diseases.

Viruses are named based on their genetic structure to facilitate the development of diagnostic tests, vaccines and medicines. Virologists and the wider scientific community do this work, so viruses are named by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV).

Diseases are named to enable discussion on disease prevention, spread, transmissibility, severity and treatment. Human disease preparedness and response is WHO’s role, so diseases are officially named by WHO in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD).

ICTV announced “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)” as the name of the new virus on 11 February 2020. This name was chosen because the virus is genetically related to the coronavirus responsible for the SARS outbreak of 2003. While related, the two viruses are different.
WHO announced “COVID-19” as the name of this new disease on 11 February 2020, following guidelines previously developed with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
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https://www.who.int/emergencies/dis...ase-(covid-2019)-and-the-virus-that-causes-it
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
WTF?

This was all about a hypothetically isolating Hawaii. What is it you want, said nurse to come up with the plan to do so? :rolleyes:
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Getting supplies off a ship while minimizing contamination risk seems like a reasonable thought experiment. Don't hospitals and clinics have similar protocols in place for infectious diseases already?.

And aren't at least the basics of epidemiology and outbreak prevention taught as part of the curriculum?
 
angrysoba said:
Well, there is no way that the official figures of 1 (one!) case in Osaka is real. This is one of the most visited cities from tourists from China, and it has very crowded public transportation.
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I remain really surprised at Japan's lackadaisical attitude - compare theirs to Singapore, which hasn't just protected clusters of infection, they've identified exactly how it all happened: https://www.straitstimes.com/singap...mega-cluster-linked-to-2-wuhan-tourists-via-a
 
As Dr. Stephen Hoge, president of Moderna, told TIME earlier this month, “mRNA is really like a software molecule in biology. So our vaccine is like the software program to the body, which then goes and makes the [viral] proteins that can generate an immune response.” That means that this vaccine method can be scaled up quickly, saving critical time when a new disease like COVID-19 emerges and starts infecting tens of thousands of people.

https://time.com/5790545/first-covid-19-vaccine/
 
Belz... said:
So do I. They're usually so well-organised.
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Organized ? Yes. Proactive ? No.

Japanese are very good at following rules. But if the rules don't exists, or don't apply exactly to the situation, they are lost. They are also good in promoting incompetent people to top positions. In crisis, this might be deadly.
We Czech are kinda on the opposite side of the spectrum. At least as far as following rules and independent thinking. We to do promote idiots to top position. But after that we don't rely on their commands.
 
The Atheist said:
Unless you think WHO is a propaganda arm of the Chinese gov't I see no reason not to.
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Are you seriously saying that the people being dragged out kicking and screaming or being welded into houses are

"there didn’t appear to be any government pressure or presence forcing that sense of duty. People were adhering to quarantine protocols on their own"?

And yes, the idea that giant organizations like the NBA or companies like Nike, Disney or EA games will willingly regurgitate chinese government propganda and/or suck up to them but the WHO wouldn't seem silly, its the cost of doing business there, and you could even say you could morally justify it in order to at least get the WHO in or something

The WHO has a long and quite disgusting history or running apologetics and propping up chinese "medicine" quackery that causes the extinction of animals and pushing the alleged efficacy of nonsense like acupuncture.

That whole press conference really did just sound like suckup nonsense to me, I was actually pretty shocked, but the WHO so often lets me down so I guess I wasn't super surprised in the end
 
Armitage72 said:
Customers in El Salvador are asking our regional rep for Central and South America if we have any disinfectants that can be applied to a large area by fogger. The problem is that nobody reputable does. A number of years ago the EPA contacted every company with fogging directions on their labels and required them to either submit new efficacy data using a newly developed testing protocol to show their product actually worked when fogged, or remove fogging from their label. There were concerns that fogging wouldn't apply enough active ingredient to surfaces to achieve the same efficacy as direct application.
I found one product approved for fogging, but when applied by fog it only kills two specific bacteria and clostridium difficile spores. Killing viruses still requires directly applying the liquid.
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Your post is consistent with my understanding of fogging, although my information is dated.

Which is why it surprises me to see so many foggers on the news when they show places being treated to control the outbreak.
 
Dr. Keith said:
Your post is consistent with my understanding of fogging, although my information is dated.

Which is why it surprises me to see so many foggers on the news when they show places being treated to control the outbreak.
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This science blog suspects that it's just "safety theater" to make people feel safer.

Someone in the comments referenced a fogging virucidal product called Virosil, which is a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and silver. It's a Swiss product that isn't sold in the US, but the EPA has registered a product called Halomist, which uses the same ingredients. That's the product I referenced before. The label says:

Product effectively kills the following pathogens:
HaloFogger:
Bacteria:
Clostridium difficile (spore form) (ATCC # 43598)
Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Pseudomonas) (ATCC #15442)
Staphylococcus aureus (Staphylococcus) (Staph) (ATCC 6538)

Sprayer:
Effective disinfectant against the following (10 minute contact time):
...
Viruses:
(list of viruses)


No demonstrated efficacy against viruses when fogged.

And now that I look at Virusil's product literature online, they only claim efficacy against bacteria and fungi, not viruses. A misleading name in that case.
 
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I wonder if some paranoid millionaires are already planning on going "The Masque Of The Red Death" route on this. Probably work as well for them in the long run as it did for the noblemen in the Poe Story.
 
Bikewer said:
Already I’m getting ads for various kinds of super face-masks that are fortified with various things and guaranteed to stop viruses....
I would say that panic has not struck the university here, despite our nearly 40% Asian student population. I don’t see any more kids than usual running around with masks and such.
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I was playing a game on my phone and since I have the free version I usually have to watch an ad every few levels. This morning I saw one for a face mask.
 
dudalb said:
I wonder if some paranoid millionaires are already planning on going "The Masque Of The Red Death" route on this. Probably work as well for them in the long run as it did for the noblemen in the Poe Story.
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I doubt paranoid millionaires would agree to lock themselves up in a mansion with a large crowd of other paranoid millionaires.

Also, millionaires in general probably don't have to go that route. As a class, they are already able to segregate themselves from society at large, and to delegate risky work. They don't need to while away the hours of the plague with a private party. They can continue to do business as usual, from their penthouses, their corner offices, their private clinics and the back seats of their limousines.
 
Maybe I wasn't paying that much attention but I don't recall this kind of hysteria for the H1N1 virus which apparently infected tens of millions in the US.

From April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010, CDC estimated there were 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (range: 195,086-402,719), and 12,469 deaths (range: 8868-18,306) in the United States due to the (H1N1)pdm09 virus.
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