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January 2020 China Coronavirus

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The World Health Organization (WHO) played down media reports of "breakthrough" drugs being discovered to treat people infected with the new coronavirus.

A Chinese TV report said that a research team at Zhejiang University had found an effective drug for the virus, while Britain's Sky News said researchers had made a "significant breakthrough" in developing a vaccine.

Asked about the reports, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said: "There are no known effective therapeutics against this 2019-nCoV
China's efforts to control a coronavirus outbreak are at a crucial stage and authorities must prevent the epidemic from spreading, Xinhua news agency quoted President Xi Jinping as saying.
Pregnant women infected with the new coronavirus may be able to pass it to their unborn child, doctors at the Wuhan Children's Hospital said, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

 
Chinese researchers have applied for a local patent on an experimental Gilead Sciences drug that they believe might fight the novel coronavirus.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology - based in the central Chinese city at the epicentre of the epidemic - has applied for a patent in China for the use of the antiviral drug, known as remdesivir, in treating the ailment. The application was made on Jan 21 along with a military academy, according to a Feb 4 statement on the institute's website.

The move is a sign that China wants more say over a drug it deems as one of the most promising candidates against the infection that has killed almost 500 people. The decision to seek a patent, instead of invoking the heavy-handed "compulsory licence" option that lets nations override drug patents in national emergencies, underscores the delicate balancing act before China as it signals commitment towards intellectual property rights alongside curbing the virus outbreak.

 
Strange that China is so vehement about "intellectual property rights" considering they are one of the worst offenders when it comes to stealing them.
 
North Korea has confirmed 7 cases of coronavirus on its territory

Army training appears to have been interrupted due to an urgent order from Kim Jong-un. due to the confirmed epidemic of pneumonia
 
China's Hubei province, the epicenter of a coronavirus outbreak, reported 70 new deaths and 2,987 new confirmed cases on Wednesday, the local health commission said in a notice on Thursday.

The increase brings the total number of deaths in the province to 549 .

 
The number of people in serious and critical condition in Hubei province has risen to 3,084, up from 2,520 yesterday
Coronavirus outbreak: 6-month-old baby among 4 new cases in Singapore, 3 of them linked to local transmission cluster

As of Wednesday noon, 28 people in Singapore have tested positive for the #coronavirus.


#CoronavirusOutbreak #WuhanCoronavirus
 
North Korea has confirmed 7 cases of coronavirus on its territory

Army training appears to have been interrupted due to an urgent order from Kim Jong-un. due to the confirmed epidemic of pneumonia

This is what the WHO is worried about- sustained transmission in countries with weaker health systems.

That being said, with continued aggressive surveillance and detection of cases, we should be able to keep these "embers" from catching fire. There is some evidence among models that my colleagues are running that shows that the R0 is slowly being brought down due to effective social distancing and education.

For Mainland China, however, they are in for a long and protracted battle. I disagree with the WHO Director's need to keep "international trade and travel open".

The risk for the general public continues to remain low, and as long as sustained transmission doesn't begin to take off within the next couple of days, we actually have a decent shot at containing this!

Again, I stress that the biggest risk from this outbreak is economic and travel disruptions, not a direct threat to your health, at least not yet.
 
Tencent may have accidentally leaked real data on Wuhan virus deaths


On late Saturday evening (Feb. 1), Tencent, on its webpage titled "Epidemic Situation Tracker," showed confirmed cases of novel coronavirus (2019nCoV) in China as standing at 154,023, 10 times the official figure at the time. It listed the number of suspected cases as 79,808, four times the official figure.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. Honestly, epidemiologists are more concerned right now about case spread outside of Mainland China. They're the ones who really screwed the pooch on this one.

Also keep in mind that, so far, the high death rate in Mainland China, especially Wuhan, could be from medical services being overwhelmed.

We're really on knife's edge for this turning into a pandemic. I've never seen anything like this throughout my career.
 
So far, I'm unable to confirm any reports of the coronavirus in North Korea. It also appears that around 25% of those infected require hospitalization and intensive care.
 
We're really on knife's edge for this turning into a pandemic. I've never seen anything like this throughout my career.

What would it take to turn into a pandemic? As I noted before, we don't seem to have a whole lot of people outside China being infected. You'd think there'd be a lot more with a 7-14 day infectious period.
 
What would it take to turn into a pandemic? As I noted before, we don't seem to have a whole lot of people outside China being infected. You'd think there'd be a lot more with a 7-14 day infectious period.
In order for it to become a pandemic, we would need to see self-sustaining outbreaks of this disease on at least two continents. So far, that has not quite happened yet.

There is also a lot of misconception as to what a pandemic really means. People tend to assume that it means that it will infect the vast majority of the population, causing doomsday level damage, etc. This is simply not the case.

Take, for example, a current ongoing pandemic that most people don't think too much about these days: HIV/AIDS. While it has spread to every inhabited continent, for the most part, we have been able to greatly bring that disease under control, thanks to greater developments in treatment, and education about preventing its spread.

As of right now, based on the data and modeling that I'm looking at, it's extremely difficult to predict where this is going to go. There are just too many variables. Have the lockdowns in China done enough to bring the R0 value down to prevent self-sustaining outbreaks in major cities? Are we able to contain some of the locally acquired transmission clusters that we've seen in places like Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong?

Also, it's very difficult to pin down an actual mortality rate on this virus, but so far, based on the trajectory of this outbreak compared to the SARS outbreak in 2003, I expect that eventually the mortality rate should start to come down. At the beginning of SARS, there were few deaths, and then the death rate in Mainland China skyrocketed to around 25% as the healthcare systems were overwhelmed. But once greater access to healthcare was established, the mortality rate dropped down to about 10%.

As of right now, the important number to look at is the case fatality ratios outside of Hubei Province and especially globally. While it's still really early, and if indeed the numbers from China are bogus, as some people claim (who knows?), the encouraging thing to note is that mortality rate outside of China is estimated to be between 0.5 and 1 percent. To put that in perspective, the H1N1 pandemic of 2009 was around 0.1 percent, while the 1918 pandemic was between 2-4%.

Some pieces of good news, however. While it is possible to transmit respiratory viruses during the asymptomatic period, this almost always only contributes negligibly to an outbreak, especially lower respiratory infections. It also appears that those most at risk for contracting this illness are those in close contact with someone with visible symptoms, as well as contact with any infected surfaces, especially via the fecal-oral route.

That's why the WHO cannot stress enough that we all follow good coughing ettiquette. Cover your coughs in a tissue, dispose of it, and disinfect your hands. Wash your hands frequently, and keep your hands away from your face. If you notice someone visibly coughing, maintain a distance of at least 2 meters (7 feet) away from them at all times.

Now is not quite the time to start putting on surgical masks in the majority of places. The best time to do that is only if there is a confirmed, self-sustaining outbreak in your area.

If anybody has any further questions, I will be happy to answer them to the best of my knowledge.
 
The death toll from a new coronavirus in mainland China jumped by 73 to 563 on Thursday, its third-consecutive record daily rise, as experts stepped up efforts to find a vaccine for a disease that has shut down Chinese cities and forced thousands of others into quarantine around the world.
Only a handful of children have come down with the virus, which has killed 563 people and infected 28,018.
 
Tencent may have accidentally leaked real data on Wuhan virus deaths

This is completely untrue.
Although China is propaganda coronavirus, this image shows false figures.
Explanation: just change the numbers in HTML on the console of this page (https://news.qq.com/zt2020/page/feiyan.htm)
 
A 2,000-square-metre emergency test laboratory has opened in Wuhan to accelerate the testing of samples and allow cases of suspected infection to be eliminated or confirmed more quickly.

The Huo-Yan or “Fire Eye” Laboratory is operated by BGI and designed to handle 10,000 samples a day, the company said in a statement.

China angrily accused the United States and allied countries of hyping the exclusion of the Taiwan authorities from meetings at the World Health Organization (WHO) on the coronavirus emergency.

"Stop hyping-up about the so-called Taiwan issue. Don't waste our time," China's delegate told the WHO Executive Board.

Chinese city with only eight confirmed cases of a new coronavirus has been accused of intercepting a shipment of surgical masks bound for a municipality with 400 cases, prompting outrage on social media.

The government of Dali city, in the southwestern province of Yunnan, was accused this week of making an "emergency requisition" of a shipment of masks bound for the hard-hit municipality of Chongqing, state media reported.

The Chinese city of Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi province, which neighbours Hubei, will strictly monitor the entry and exit of residents from villages and residential compounds as it steps up its efforts to control the spread of the coronavirus.
 
Two more cases of the coronavirus infection were confirmed by the Ministry of Health (MOH) on Thursday (Feb 6), with one who did not travel to China recently and does not seem to be linked to previous cases.

The other case also has no recent travel history to China and is linked to a conference at the Grand Hyatt Singapore hotel last month.

 
Due to the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, Malaysia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (KLN) announced Wednesday (Feb. 5) that it will bring home all civil servants from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China.
 
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