Wuhan virus

It's all about the hype and attention sadly.  Reporting on a commonplace illness that occurs all the time isn't nearly as exciting as reporting on a newly discovered one that we're just learning about.  To normalize things, I've always thought that news reports should have references for scale when spouting numbers.  Two people were diagnosed with coronavirus in the UK and the news treats that like it's devastating; that same level of hype doesn't come into play when people die in road traffic accidents (which I think is about 5 fatalities per day).

If he was in a vulnerable category, why didn't you get him a flu jab? I don't know how accurate it is, but WebMD states that the flu jab increases your odds of NOT getting the flu by 60%.....I thought it would be a bit higher, maybe 80%.

Under 2’s are a vulnerable group.  But the NHS doesn’t vaccinate for flu until over 2.  The only clinics that offer vaccinations for under 2’s are in London.... and I don’t live in London. 

Trust me, I feel plenty of guilt for not getting the vaccine.

Under 2’s are a vulnerable group.  But the NHS doesn’t vaccinate for flu until over 2.  The only clinics that offer vaccinations for under 2’s are in London.... and I don’t live in London. 

Trust me, I feel plenty of guilt for not getting the vaccine.

Well, I'm learning new stuff all the time. Just looked up the requirements. I didn't know that under 2's couldn't have the nasal spray......but if I'm reading this right they could have the injection?? Seems a bit confusing to me. Copied the NHS info below.
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This year (2019-20) it's routinely being offered to all children aged 2 and 3 (on 31 August 2019), plus all children in primary school.

All children with a health condition that puts them at greater risk from flu should have a flu vaccination every year from the age of 6 months onwards.

Most will have the nasal spray vaccine, but it should not be given to children under the age of 2 years or the small number of older children who cannot have it. These children will be offered an injected vaccine.

Strange thing - So China has continued to stop operations - Companies I work with (not even in Hubei Province) are on forced shutdowns for at least another week.  This will have a (probably major) impact on their economy, and yet, they're still trying to stop the stem of it. 
China has released the DNA strain, and are trying their best to contain this there. This is pretty crazy.

Bog standard flu, it's pretty nasty too. And it's a bad year for it this season.  I know a lot of people who have gotten the flu this year in the US especially- and several have had flu shots.   Still, we seem 'okay' with the flu. 
Good quote from this article  "Savoy, who also serves on the American Academy of Family Physician's board of directors, said the novelty of emerging infections can overshadow the flu. People are less panicked about the flu because healthcare providers "appear to have control" over the infection." 

I think the difference is that flu, while it infects a lot of people every year, typically has a 0.1% fatality rate, whereas Wuhan Coronavirus seems to have somewhere around 2% fatality rate.  And it's communicable before symptoms are apparent, so in these early days it's difficult to know how fast and how far it is spreading.  If the coronavirus proves to be as infectious as influenza, that would be very bad (about 20 times the deaths from flu).  Fortunately, I think they're determining that Wuhan might not be as easy to spread as influenza.  We shall see.

huh.

Well, the governmental responses tell me it's not just the press going nuts.

Apparently so far this one is hitting people over 60 worse than younger adults. Of course, there's no way to know if that's because older people haven't been exposed to something in the past that younger people have (and so primed their immune systems) or if it's because older people, as a group, tend to have more "underlying conditions" to start with?

Ok, so serious to critical outcomes in 20% of the afflicted. THAT is cause for concern.   

Ok, so serious to critical outcomes in 20% of the afflicted. THAT is cause for concern.   

Local kids were on a trip in the affected area of Italy last week. Only some are quarantined. NHS in this area is *definitely* not ready for this, and our office is full of people who travel regularly. Definitely a bit concerned.

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Yeah, the Daughter is going to an event tomorrow with people from all over Europe. Fingers are crossed. In our household we have lung issues, immuno-compromised issues, diabetes, and a few other issues. We do ~not~ want to be one of the statistics. 

On the good side, we have enough groceries in the house to hole up for a month without blinking an eye. Hopefully we won't be in a position where we are one of those who have to self-quarantine. But at least we could if we had to.

Ya know, I have to wonder if this virus was already loose in the wild before it clustered in Wuhan and was detected?

There are cases popping up here and there in the USA that, now that they are testing for it, come up positive with the person having supposedly had no contact with anyone who could have been infected. I wonder if it wasn't brought abroad from the point of origin last year, with a lot of people who caught it thinking they just had a bad cold or the flu and who didn't go in for any treatment? Unless the local health authority in the hospital would have been looking for it if someone presented at A&E, would they even have known to check for it prior to the Wuhan cluster?

Just wondering, mostly because the both of us had a wicked illness last fall that was worse than and unlike anything I've ever had before. The Daughter is convinced she brought it home from the shop she worked at, where she had to do 8 hour shifts constantly handling money and where she was prohibited from washing her hands while on duty(!). Her hands would be noticeably gray at the end of her shift, some days. (She asked if she could use hand sanitizer and was told she could not, because it might "get on the food" she had to handle. And when she would ask to take a break every few hours to go wash her hands she got a lot of static from the line managers.)

She came home ill one day, and a few days later I had it. It was shortly after all the overseas students returned to the Uni for the year. So I have to wonder.

In any disease outbreak finding “patient zero” is incredibly difficult. They still don’t know where the Spanish Flu of 1918 originated, the prevailing theory being a place in Kansas.

In other words, I agree with you that no one knows for certain.

A year ago our daughter returned home to LA from a holiday in China and shortly afterwards came down with pneumonia and was very sick for many weeks. This could have started as a virus from the Covid family of diseases or something else quite different. She wasn’t put in isolation and went to work normally until the symptoms showed themselves.

In the modern world of frequent global  travel I think diseases are spread quickly before the first susceptible patients get really sick.

Of course the leader of the free world believes it to be a conspiracy  as per a speech he made yesterday, which presumably is why he has put Mike Pence in charge of tackling the problem.

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — President Donald Trump on Friday night tried to cast the global outbreak of the coronavirus as a liberal conspiracy intended to undermine his first term, lumping it alongside impeachment and the Mueller investigation.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/28/trump-south-carolina-rally-coronavirus-118269

My wife and I both had a pretty nasty "flu-ish" illness at X-mas last year. I never get sick.....just a very rare cold. That got me to finally get a flu shot this year for the first time. But....there was something going around at the time that was a bit nastier than usual.... Just keep yourself reasonably healthy, get plenty of exercise, sleep etc. Might not stop anything bad, but you will be able to fight it off better. I just wish it would stop friggin' raining for a week or two.

That man makes my  hemorrhoids hurt. 

Yeah, I do wonder. There's a woman in NorCal who is deathly ill right now. She was in the hospital for like four days before anyone thought to test for Covid. And all the people she came in contact with there at the hospital are now at risk. I also heard (no idea how true it is) that as of a few days ago there were only 20 testing kits in the entire state of California. ( )

More disturbing, the passengers that were airlifted out to be quarantined in NorCal at the AFB were met by people NOT in biohazard clothing, but civilian gear.  (Yeah, it's gonna get worse.)

On the 1918, the last thing I read was that they think it was Ypres, rather than Kansas. Darned if I can remember the logic, but they did lay it out really well and it made sense.... I'll look for the TV show they did of it and post it if I can find it. Apparently something was showing up at Ypres before the time when the soldiers in Kansas got sick.

And then there's this:  https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/1/140123-spanish-flu-1918-china-origins-pandemic-science-health/

I don’t think there is much chance of containing an outbreak in the USA for a couple of reasons. Folks with no insurance, or high deductible insurance are unlikely to go to a hospital for a test as they are expensive.

Many folks cannot self isolate for long because  most don’t have paid sick leave so will work as long as they are able.

FWIW, I don’t the UK will be able to contain a major outbreak either.

I don’t think there is much chance of containing an outbreak in the USA for a couple of reasons. Folks with no insurance, or high deductible insurance are unlikely to go to a hospital for a test as they are expensive.

Many folks cannot self isolate for long because  most don’t have paid sick leave so will work as long as they are able.

FWIW, I don’t the UK will be able to contain a major outbreak either.

That last sentence is why I'm a bit concerned. The equipment and hospital beds to keep people alive just isn't available here either. There are many on this forum who fall into the "high risk" category so I hope we all stay as safe as possible!

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