COVID-19 — Coronavirus

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Ebola and SARS started with bats too.

good job I had the chicken chop Suey on Saturday.
 
Have to laugh at the Chinese people who insist on walking around with masks over there faces, but are quite happy to eat a live bat or other dangerously idiotic food.
 
Gabriel said:
Fascinating piece on the history of mask wearing.
https://qz.com/299003/a-quick-history-of-why-asians-wear-surgical-masks-in-public/
Click to expand...

A few Chinese / Japanese mates of mine ave all said the same thing about these, and its usually to do with smell, a lot of them come scented and are used to hide smells rather than anything functional.

doesn't seem to be mentioned in that article though.

Here's one.
https://japantoday.com/category/fea...gical-masks-its-not-always-for-health-reasons
 
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Ban-jani said:
You’re quite correct on the need for accuracy and factoring in those who have actually recovered.

Yes, please share the article.

The BBC did say that only a minority of the cases are severe and there’s different levels of the virus also I think.

Let’s just hope they get it under control.
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This was the article.

https://www.wired.com/story/could-chinas-new-coronavirus-become-a-global-epidemic/

Calculation quotes from

https://maimunamajumder.com/

"
So far, Chinese health authorities have followed 1,070 people who’ve come into contact with infected patients in Wuhan, cleared 739 of them, and are still monitoring 331, according to official reports. They have yet to share information about individual cases with the rest of the world—essential details such as what their age and sex are, when they started developing symptoms, what they might have been exposed to, and what condition they’re currently in. That information could be vital to assessing the mortality risk factors associated with 2019-nCoV, says Maia Majumder, a public health researcher at the Computational Health Informatics Program based out of Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital. “Then we could analyze what makes people who die from the infection different from the ones that recover.”

Lacking this data, researchers can only make vague estimates of the virus’s fatality. The math is pretty simple: Divide the number of deaths by the number of people known to have died or survived. It can be tempting to include hospitalized individuals, but because their outcomes are unknown, they can provide a false sense of security. In mainland China, nine out of 471 infected people have died. Doesn’t seem so bad. But if you exclude the hundreds of patients who are still hospitalized—who may yet die or survive—now you have a death rate approaching 20 percent. Is that closer to the real death rate? Hard to say. The point is, it’s all just guesses if you only have case numbers at this point in an outbreak."

its also from the 22nd so quite out of date now and appears to have been edited in places.
 
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grunge said:
This was the article.

https://www.wired.com/story/could-chinas-new-coronavirus-become-a-global-epidemic/

Calculation quotes from

https://maimunamajumder.com/

"
So far, Chinese health authorities have followed 1,070 people who’ve come into contact with infected patients in Wuhan, cleared 739 of them, and are still monitoring 331, according to official reports. They have yet to share information about individual cases with the rest of the world—essential details such as what their age and sex are, when they started developing symptoms, what they might have been exposed to, and what condition they’re currently in. That information could be vital to assessing the mortality risk factors associated with 2019-nCoV, says Maia Majumder, a public health researcher at the Computational Health Informatics Program based out of Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital. “Then we could analyze what makes people who die from the infection different from the ones that recover.”

Lacking this data, researchers can only make vague estimates of the virus’s fatality. The math is pretty simple: Divide the number of deaths by the number of people known to have died or survived. It can be tempting to include hospitalized individuals, but because their outcomes are unknown, they can provide a false sense of security. In mainland China, nine out of 471 infected people have died. Doesn’t seem so bad. But if you exclude the hundreds of patients who are still hospitalized—who may yet die or survive—now you have a death rate approaching 20 percent. Is that closer to the real death rate? Hard to say. The point is, it’s all just guesses if you only have case numbers at this point in an outbreak."

its also from the 22nd so quite out of date now and appears to have been edited in places.
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Thanks for sharing.
 
I'm due to be travelling to China in March and April for work, to Hangzhou and Ningbo first trip and then to Hong Kong and Guangzhou for Trade Fairs the second.

Can't see those trade fairs being allowed to proceed if this isn't quashed quickly. 100s of thousands of people from worldwide mixing with exhibitiors from all over China. No ta.

The guys from our HK office are saying that the situation is worse than is being reported via media and there is a growing sense of panic in the central Chinese cities affected. The number of suspected cases is in the 10s of thousands based on estimates by HK scientists/experts, from people in the Wuhan area alone.

In HK itself schools are off until 17th February, already confirmed over the weekend and most of the Chinese New Year celebrations and gatherings have been none existent.
 
Robanompivenov said:
I'm due to be travelling to China in March and April for work, to Hangzhou and Ningbo first trip and then to Hong Kong and Guangzhou for Trade Fairs the second.

Can't see those trade fairs being allowed to proceed if this isn't quashed quickly. 100s of thousands of people from worldwide mixing with exhibitiors from all over China. No ta.

The guys from our HK office are saying that the situation is worse than is being reported via media and there is a growing sense of panic in the central Chinese cities affected. The number of suspected cases is in the 10s of thousands based on estimates by HK scientists/experts, from people in the Wuhan area alone.

In HK itself schools are off until 17th February, already confirmed over the weekend and most of the Chinese New Year celebrations and gatherings have been none existent.
Click to expand...
Sinapore are apparently telling teachers and students who have been to china to not return to school for 2 weeks after getting back. that one is only hearsay from a mate over there.
 
urban genie said:
We have had outbreaks before (saudi 2012)

Is it as serious as the news is scare mongering or like other virus outbreaks gonna be over not long after it starts.
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It is more serious imo because you might be infected and showing no outward symptoms of illness for upto 14 days.....imagine that, someone can pass on the virus and appear for all intents and purposes to be perfectly well.

also, it can be transmitted aerially, so likely highly contagious.

I have a regional meeting in 2 weeks and I’m thinking of asking Chinese colleagues not to attend.
 
Robanompivenov said:
I'm due to be travelling to China in March and April for work, to Hangzhou and Ningbo first trip and then to Hong Kong and Guangzhou for Trade Fairs the second.

Can't see those trade fairs being allowed to proceed if this isn't quashed quickly. 100s of thousands of people from worldwide mixing with exhibitiors from all over China. No ta.

The guys from our HK office are saying that the situation is worse than is being reported via media and there is a growing sense of panic in the central Chinese cities affected. The number of suspected cases is in the 10s of thousands based on estimates by HK scientists/experts, from people in the Wuhan area alone.

In HK itself schools are off until 17th February, already confirmed over the weekend and most of the Chinese New Year celebrations and gatherings have been none existent.
Click to expand...

ive heard from Chinese colleagues that is is far, far, worse than what’s been reported.
 
grunge said:
A few Chinese / Japanese mates of mine ave all said the same thing about these, and its usually to do with smell, a lot of them come scented and are used to hide smells rather than anything functional.

doesn't seem to be mentioned in that article though.

Here's one.
https://japantoday.com/category/fea...gical-masks-its-not-always-for-health-reasons
Click to expand...
Whenever I've asked people it'd been because they're sick rather than because they're worried about breathing something in. If you have a cold, you wear the mask as a courtesy to other people.

You do see more of them during heavy pollution though, so there's obviously a bit of both. Most of the staff in my local supermarket are wearing them at the moment.
 
DenisLawBackHeel74 said:
It is more serious imo because you might be infected and showing no outward symptoms of illness for upto 14 days.....imagine that, someone can pass on the virus and appear for all intents and purposes to be perfectly well.

also, it can be transmitted aerially, so likely highly contagious.

I have a regional meeting in 2 weeks and I’m thinking of asking Chinese colleagues not to attend.
Click to expand...

Some of my team were due to go in a couple of weeks and our company had just essentially banned all travel there. Our Shanghai office is closed by the government until Feb 10 and the general consensus is that it will be extended, possibly significantly. China plays the long game, so won’t have any qualms about creating disruption for a while.
Talking to colleagues on the ground today, they all say it’s way worse than what’s being admitted to.
 
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