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Topic: Wuhan virus  (Read 12989 times)

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Re: Wuhan virus
« Reply #30 on: March 01, 2020, 09:05:17 AM »
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.

Yeah, exactly. I hope it doesn't come down to forced confinement.

Without meaning to be Captain Obvious here, if it's true that 1 out of 5 becomes ill enough to require hospitalization to be kept alive, a lot of people will die. In the USA you may be able to get the best medical care in the world, but you have to be able to pay for it and there has to be a bed. On a "regular" night there are often people on gurneys in the hallways at the emergency rooms, and although medicaid will pick up the bills for emergency care for the indigent, the care you get as a medicaid patient is not of the same quality as that you receive as a "paying" customer. (Been there, done that.) You don't get access to all the treatments or necessarily the same medications.

So with a massive influx? My guess is that in the USA they'll set up cots at the National Guard armories, like they did in the 1918, and triage the worst cases out of there.  It's my understanding that here in the UK a lot of the NHS hospitals are running at 100% capacity most of the time anyway, so even if they postpone non-critical admissions, they're not going to be able to handle the influx. At least any care one would get would be free, as long as the care remains available. There are visiting doctors and nurses here, but they are already stretched thin. With the EU professionals leaving the UK on top of that, I don't know how things will work here. Nobody can be in three places at the same time. And, of course, since the precursors of a lot of the medications are made in China these days, I would guess there will be some rationing of available medications.

I was somewhat disheartened to see a piece on the BBC (I think it was BBC) on their news channel telling people how to care for a sick person. Separate dishes, towels, room (if possible), use of paper tissues and bagging and disposing of them carefully, etc. As if this was all something new.  Perhaps it's been different here, or it may be my age - when I was a child polio, measles, chickenpox, mumps, etc., were running in the wild and so your basic housewife knew all about taking care of sick family members. Including cooking special meals. I remember our house going into a virtual lock-down many times, when one of us caught some obnoxious, contagious disease. (Despite my mother's best efforts, which were significant, the illness usually cycled through each of us. Unfortunately for her, usually sequentially, so she was "on duty" for many weeks at a shot.) I guess that knowledge has all fallen out of the general consciousness these days? 

I remember we had a book that showed how to make a rudimentary equivalent to a surgical mask out of cloth. It would, of course, not stop a particle as small as a virus, but it would inhibit droplet spread. I think I'll research that a bit. Something I have noticed here that I never saw at home - people coughing without covering their mouths, or sneezing, spitting on the sidewalks - hell, pissing on the sidewalks! Is that just a Glasgow thing, or is it a UK thing? It's terribly unsanitary. And gross.

« Last Edit: March 01, 2020, 09:08:46 AM by Nan D. »


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Re: Wuhan virus
« Reply #31 on: March 01, 2020, 01:16:27 PM »
I think it may be a class thing, because I certainly saw a lot of people do all of those things back home but it wasn't exactly in well off neighbourhoods.

A lot of people have forgotten how to care for others. I have everything needed to protect myself if my other half is sick. We've been sleeping in separate rooms while I adjusted to needing to be awake much earlier than him, and it's definitely going to stay that way for a while. We both change clothes and wash face/hands the moment we come home from work too, mostly because of the fragrance attached to clothes (they get a soak in sodium bicarbonate before washing) but it also helps reduce transmission of any regular bacteria/viruses we might have picked up. I was catching a new cold every week at my old job because coworkers were engaging with service users at medical practices and had kids, which meant they were constantly vectors for stuff.

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Re: Wuhan virus
« Reply #32 on: March 01, 2020, 06:21:30 PM »
So I just saw an interview with a guy from the CDC (I believe it was CDC) who said that they have at least two cases in Washington State that they have tested that are identical matches to each other, and that apparently the persons had to have been infected like at least 8 weeks ago. So... it HAS been in the wild somewhere other than in China alone for some time.  ::)


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Re: Wuhan virus
« Reply #33 on: March 02, 2020, 10:19:59 AM »
I think it may be a class thing, because I certainly saw a lot of people do all of those things back home but it wasn't exactly in well off neighbourhoods.

A lot of people have forgotten how to care for others. I have everything needed to protect myself if my other half is sick. We've been sleeping in separate rooms while I adjusted to needing to be awake much earlier than him, and it's definitely going to stay that way for a while. We both change clothes and wash face/hands the moment we come home from work too, mostly because of the fragrance attached to clothes (they get a soak in sodium bicarbonate before washing) but it also helps reduce transmission of any regular bacteria/viruses we might have picked up. I was catching a new cold every week at my old job because coworkers were engaging with service users at medical practices and had kids, which meant they were constantly vectors for stuff.

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Maybe. I used to live in the "low rent" neighborhoods for many, many years. The only time I saw anyone spit on the sidewalk it was a very old guy, not younger people. It just wasn't done. And  I don't remember people just coughing in your face... it was considered extremely rude to not cover your mouth. And the only time I noticed people peeing against a wall was when they were seriously drunk, not like a mom holding their kid on the sidewalk and leaning them over so they could pee without wetting their clothes or a guy stepping away from the bus stop to whup it out and whiz on the side of a building in broad daylight.

Then again, there's a lot about Glasgow that kind of makes me give it the side-eye. While I very much have liked living here, and where most of the people have been really nice to us* the level of what my grandmother used to call "couth" is not what I expected. And we're in one of the nicer parts of town, so I kind of wince wondering about the lower-rent zones.

Oh, well. Hopefully people will wise up and not play mini Typhoid Marys and we'll all get through this ok.



*(Except a very few - like the Ikea delivery guys snarking about "more Americans" and the installer of the ill-fated washing machine fiasco commenting on people living in "social housing" in a rather derogatory way and trying to play the bully, not realizing we are not s.h., although the building is owned by an association as a money-maker to support it. I wonder how he enjoyed the chewing out I assume he got from his bosses after I reported him? And a few poshie English accented types of the "oh, so you're staying then" with the wrong intonation.)
« Last Edit: March 02, 2020, 02:39:22 PM by Nan D. »


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Re: Wuhan virus
« Reply #34 on: March 02, 2020, 02:53:27 PM »
This morning I listened to the BBC interviewing the shadow health minister about the UK's approach to the Coronavirus. (This is the opposition party).

It was good to hear him giving absolute support to the government who are following the advice of the Chief Medical Officer. When pressed to give an opinion on when and where to implement measures such as quarantines, mass testing etc, he refused to be drawn and said the opposition would support all recommendations given by the CMO and would not be party to sending out mixed messages.

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Re: Wuhan virus
« Reply #35 on: March 02, 2020, 03:44:45 PM »
This morning I listened to the BBC interviewing the shadow health minister about the UK's approach to the Coronavirus. (This is the opposition party).

It was good to hear him giving absolute support to the government who are following the advice of the Chief Medical Officer. When pressed to give an opinion on when and where to implement measures such as quarantines, mass testing etc, he refused to be drawn and said the opposition would support all recommendations given by the CMO and would not be party to sending out mixed messages.

It's really refreshing to hear that!


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Re: Wuhan virus
« Reply #36 on: March 05, 2020, 01:53:36 AM »
So now it's not one strain, but two. So far.  [smiley=blank.gif]

From ABC news....

Scientists say they've identified 2 strains of COVID-19
One strain was common in Wuhan, China, then dropped off significantly.


Scientists from China said they've identified two strains of COVID-19 linked to the recent outbreak.  Coronaviruses are a large family of RNA viruses, and when RNA viruses replicate quickly, they often mutate.  Researchers analyzed 103 sequenced genomes using strains from China, and found that 70% of strains were one type, which they called "L." The "L" strain was more aggressive than the remaining 30% of strains, which were dubbed "S."  The first strain was more common at the beginning of the outbreak, in Wuhan, China, but its frequency decreased after early January. That drop-off could be a result of the strict measures China put in place to try and stem the spread of the virus.  The new paper, published Tuesday in the National Science Review from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is preliminary, the paper's authors cautioned.  The scientists only analyzed strains from China, so more information is needed about strains from other countries to determine whether the same viruses have spread worldwide. 

Dr. Stanley Perlman, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Iowa who has researched SARS and MERS, said that the new paper didn't prove that one strain was more aggressive or faster spreading than the other.  "For now, it looks like there are two strains, but we do not know exactly what this means," said Perlman, who is not connected to the new paper.


The journal article itself is here  https://academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nsr/nwaa036/5775463?searchresult=1
« Last Edit: March 05, 2020, 02:10:24 AM by Nan D. »


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Re: Wuhan virus
« Reply #37 on: March 05, 2020, 02:35:35 AM »
Perhaps staying in the UK a litttttle bit longer is not such a bad idea.  See the links below.  :o :o :o  I kinda forgot it works that way, really, there.

https://god.dailydot.com/coronavirus-twitter-story/  and
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-americas-lack-of-paid-sick-time-may-raise-coronavirus-risk/

And HOORAY for New York!   ;D  Andrew Cuomo @NYGovCuomo  Mar 3
BREAKING: I am announcing a new directive requiring NY health insurers to waive cost sharing associated with testing for #coronavirus, including emergency room, urgent care and office visits. We can't let cost be a barrier to access to COVID-19 testing for any New Yorker.
Andrew Cuomo @NYGovCuomo Mar 3 New Yorkers receiving Medicaid coverage will not have to pay a co-pay for any testing related to #coronavirus. Currently all COVID-19 tests being conducted at the State's Wadsworth Lab are fully covered.


And the folks at the University of Washington!  ;D ;D   Seattle Coronavirus Updates  @Seattle2019nCov @UW @UWVirology  has developed it's own #COVID19 test & expects to be testing 1k-1.5k people per day by the end of the week. Preparation began @ end of 2019, *just in case* it reached U.S.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2020, 03:47:47 AM by Nan D. »


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Re: Wuhan virus
« Reply #38 on: March 05, 2020, 07:50:17 AM »
Regardless of what strain it is, the case-fatality rates by country are as follows:

CountryDeathsRecoveredTotal CasesCase-Fatality % *
Mainland China301352174804103.75%
South Korea354157660.61 %
Italy10727630893.46%
Iran9255229223.15%
Japan6433311.81%
United States1181596.92%

There's data available for all the countries that have at least 1 infection, but the sample sizes are too small for many of them to bother reporting here.  Really, the US is too small, but it seemed relevant to our interests.

The Global totals are:
CountryDeathsRecoveredTotal CasesCase-Fatality % *
Global328653398954253.44%

* The case-fatality figure is the number of deaths divided by the total number of cases.  It does not factor in the existing cases in which people have not yet recovered or died.  So, for example, in South Korea where the case-fatality ratio seems so low, that is because a lot of people were infected in a short amount of time, and their illness has not run its course yet.  Only 35 have died out of 5766, but only 41 more of those 5766 have recovered... the rest remain infected and their outcome to be determined.  In the US, the case-fatality ratio seems very high because an infection cluster occurred in a Seattle care home where several vulnerable patients became ill and died.  Meanwhile, the overall sample size for the country is still very low at 159 so the results are likely skewed by the care home cluster.

These figures are as of 7:23:12 UK time on 5 March, 2020, as collected by Johns Hopkins CSSE.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2020, 08:12:01 AM by jfkimberly »
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Re: Wuhan virus
« Reply #39 on: March 05, 2020, 06:11:04 PM »
Yeah, and how many other people who have it and don't know it (and may never know). That'd skew the figures.

I still think that, since it was obviously around in China prior to the end of the year, and so many people from there visited the rest of the world as tourists or students on ed abroad (the Uni up the road from us has a ton of Chinese students propping up the business school with their "foreign" status tuition), or on work or family-related trips, that the original S version is probably puttering around all over the place. The later "L" mutation that kicked in the more virulent form may not have mutated early enough for people to really transmit globally. Or, until now.

This is going to be one of those "look back in ten years" to sort it out kind of things, I think.


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Re: Wuhan virus
« Reply #40 on: March 05, 2020, 06:24:10 PM »
They caught it in the UK, not far from where I live. This leaves me with lots of confidence the UK has the ability to contain things... https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51759602

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Re: Wuhan virus
« Reply #41 on: March 06, 2020, 08:07:18 AM »
They caught it in the UK, not far from where I live. This leaves me with lots of confidence the UK has the ability to contain things... (video)

The UK was never going to contain it.  If China can put an entire large city on complete lockdown and it still spreads, why would anybody think containment was possible?  It's not like the Western world is going to go to the measures that China can do with their authoritarian government.
9/1/2013 - "fiancée" (marriage) visa issued
4/6/2013 - married (certificate issued same-day)
5/6/2013 - FLR(M)#1 in person -- approved!
8/1/2016 - FLR(M)#2 by post -- approved!
8/5/2018 - ILR in person -- approved!
22/11/2018 - Citizenship (online, with NDRS+JCAP) -- approved!
14/12/2018 - I became a British citizen.  :)


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Re: Wuhan virus
« Reply #42 on: March 06, 2020, 08:18:58 AM »
Updated figures for 6 March, 2020, and I'm adding the UK even though the sample size is still too small to give us an accurate idea of fatality.  I'll also add any region that has suitable numbers or seems relevant to us.

CountryDeathsRecoveredTotal CasesCase-Fatality % *
Mainland China304253758805553.78%
South Korea4013565930.61%
Italy14841438583.84%
Iran10773935133.05%
Germany0165450%
France712423166%
Japan6433601.67%
United States1282335.15%
United Kingdom181160.86%

The Global totals are:
CountryDeathsRecoveredTotal CasesCase-Fatality % *
Global338355444983873.44%

These figures are as of 8:33:03 UK time on 6 March, 2020, as collected by Johns Hopkins CSSE.
« Last Edit: March 06, 2020, 09:01:25 AM by jfkimberly »
9/1/2013 - "fiancée" (marriage) visa issued
4/6/2013 - married (certificate issued same-day)
5/6/2013 - FLR(M)#1 in person -- approved!
8/1/2016 - FLR(M)#2 by post -- approved!
8/5/2018 - ILR in person -- approved!
22/11/2018 - Citizenship (online, with NDRS+JCAP) -- approved!
14/12/2018 - I became a British citizen.  :)


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Re: Wuhan virus
« Reply #43 on: March 07, 2020, 05:47:30 PM »


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Re: Wuhan virus
« Reply #44 on: March 07, 2020, 06:36:11 PM »
I'll just leave this link here.

https://survivalblog.com/letter-elderberry-wuhan/?fbclid=IwAR3ei8YlnpVgEprrbOMq37ykDu5bsWH3jhbtvryl7nT4RN3IzNmKZDLhBBw

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I don’t click “naked links”, they might contain viruses  :)
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