Did China's New Plague Really Start In An Illegal Animal Market?

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I compare the two for this reason: Both are super scary for different reasons.

*If* you manage to get ebola, you will almost certainly die a nasty, nasty death. The trick is to get it.

*When* you get this, you may die a nasty, nasty death. The trick is to avoid getting it.

Both are things you don't want because we have a tough time treating either one and no cure really. One you probably won't get, but if you do, you'll die. With the other, you probably won't die, but you're almost certainly getting it. Either way, it's Russian roulette.

If it's a high health concern, you'd think they'd be treating each disease with the same care just for reasons on opposite ends of the disease spectrum.

a reply to: ketsuko

Valid points.

Very well worded.

BTW...I was not trying to minimize this corona virus, because as you can see above I commented about the isolation facilities they've been showing in Chinese media. I guess I was just referring more to the death stats.

a reply to: ketsuko

There are 12 possible cases in the US with only 2 confirmed if I'm reading right. So far I guess nobody has been infected other than people who traveled. I suspect if it gets worse they will take more extreme measures.

I'd imagine most major hospitals now have setups to handle it in house. Being caught off guard before led to that I think. No more need to transport them across the country.

a reply to: Blaine91555

The relatively low cases abroad mixed with the panic we seem to be seeing in China leads me to believe it isn't quite as wildfire contagious as they fear.

That's not to say it isn't very bad in parts of China or bad news stuff to get, but it may not pass quite as easily from person to person as all that. It might take some extended contact for example.

a reply to: Blaine91555

I completely ignored the SARS hype, but for some reason this one just feels different.

I don't usually worry about such things, but the reporting gives me a 12 Monkeys vibe. China—>Japan—>Asia (etc)—>US—>France.

Very odd, plus with the 2 week incubation period wherein people are asymptomatic as they travel.

I'm not worried, I just find it interesting.

ETA:

Tracking coronavirus: Map, data and timeline

a reply to: ketsuko

but it may not pass quite as easily from person to person as all that. It might take some extended contact for example.

But if it can survive outside the body on surfaces, which I read, that is troubling, but not as transmissible as airborne, to be sure.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: burdman30ott6

I'm not sure I understand your reply.

What timing?

The timing of THIS being the global illness where the media finally realize they overplayed their Chicken Little act in the past and decides to not sensationalize it, instead downplaying the virus' severity. I was saying it just adds to the list of amazing coincidences that are making this particular outbreak feel different and more significant than the previous issues that ultimately were small blips at worst.

a reply to: Liquesence

It's lack of information. China doesn't want anyone to really know, so they do their best to cover things up.

People fill in the blanks and we want to create the worst case scenario.

I've been waiting to hear more about our own domestic situation in Washington, but they've stopped saying anything about it. Either there is nothing to tell ... or ....

Lack of information during Spanish Flu was its own killer. People actually died because our own government tried to do what China is doing right now. Ignorance is its own danger.

a reply to: ketsuko

I've been waiting to hear more about our own domestic situation in Washington, but they've stopped saying anything about it. Either there is nothing to tell ... or ....

What I find interesting is they're saying it's potentially in 22 states other than Washington and Illinois...but won't yet say which states. Waiting for a confirmation to avoid panic, or...?

ETA:

Read that NY is evaluating several people.

originally posted by: ketsuko
So why is the patient in Washington not in high containment? This thing, if advertised, would be more radioactively contagious right? But he is being handled in ways insufficient to contain the far less contagious ebola.

www.businessinsider.com...

Dr. George Diaz, the head of the center's infectious-disease program, told The Guardian that the patient was being kept in a small, 20-foot-by-20-foot bio-containment room.

The patient is also being treated by a robot that has a camera, microphone, and stethoscope to minimize doctors' contact with the virus, Diaz said.

For Ebola:
www.livescience.com...

The first patient to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States is receiving treatment while isolated in a Texas hospital, but what does such isolation involve, and how exactly do doctors ensure the deadly virus doesn't spread to others?

Experts say that hospitals routinely isolate patients with infectious diseases, and the type of isolation required for an Ebola patient would be the same as what is already done for hospital patients with the flu or meningitis.

Yesterday, health officials announced that a patient at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas tested positive for the Ebola virus and was in isolation. The man recently flew to the United States from West Africa, a region that is currently experiencing the worst outbreak of Ebola in history. The man has been identified as Thomas Eric Duncan, a resident of Liberia, according to the New York Times.

The first step in isolation involves putting a patient in a private hospital room, or in a room with someone with the same infection, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease physician at the University of Pittsburgh.

It's exactly the same, except I can find no mention of the doctors treating Ebola patients via robots. If anything, a "bio-containment" room sounds a bit more serious than the isolation rooms they used for Ebola patients. I don't think you're helping your position of this not being that serious by comparing it to Ebola because the indications are that the guy in Washington is being handled even more tightly than the Ebola cases were.

originally posted by: Liquesence
a reply to: ketsuko

but it may not pass quite as easily from person to person as all that. It might take some extended contact for example.

But if it can survive outside the body on surfaces, which I read, that is troubling, but not as transmissible as airborne, to be sure.

I think it generally can pass on like a cold or flu, meaning lives on surfaces, if you get sneezed on coughed on, if you get your hands contaminated and wipe your nose, eyes, etc.

I'm just not sure it passes through the air as casually as flu or measles do.

We also need to know when/how long a person is contagious. Incubation tells us nothing except how far they might go and how long before getting ill themselves. We also need to know when they become a risk to those around them and how long they stay that way.

And yeah, we do need to see people who have survived it. So far, we're all just getting doom porn.

a reply to: ketsuko

I agree, and I have no idea. Just looking at it as logically as possible considering what (little) we know.

I'm not worried, just trying to understand it as information comes out.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

I just recall after the first patient spread it to a nurse, they packed the others off to high level containment and made a big thing out of how there were only four facilities that could handle that level of care.

I never said they weren't taking measures to handle it.

My point was that if you have something that you think spreads like the virus from Contagion (or Outbreak) as some are suggesting based on the China doom porn and makes people fall over dead in pools of blood, what level of containment would you choose for it?

I am suggesting that the way he is being handled should tell us it is serious, but not apocalyptic level. I was not suggesting they were doing it wrong necessarily.

a reply to: Liquesence

Another interesting sidenote.

North Korea will close its border to all foreign tourists in an effort to prevent an outbreak of coronavirus, which has sickened more than 300 people in neighboring China, according to two travel companies. One case has also been reported in South Korea.

Young Pioneer Tours, which is one of only a few companies providing tours to North Korea, said the measure to ban foreign tourists would take effect on Wednesday. A second company, Koryo Tours, confirmed the news and said it was waiting for additional information.

That brings to mind how some countries, ill prepared to deal with this, would pose a real risk to the world. Imagine if a bad one gets loose in some third world locations. Push comes to shove, some might need to be cut off from travel.

originally posted by: Blaine91555
a reply to: Liquesence

Another interesting sidenote.

North Korea will close its border to all foreign tourists in an effort to prevent an outbreak of coronavirus, which has sickened more than 300 people in neighboring China, according to two travel companies. One case has also been reported in South Korea.

Young Pioneer Tours, which is one of only a few companies providing tours to North Korea, said the measure to ban foreign tourists would take effect on Wednesday. A second company, Koryo Tours, confirmed the news and said it was waiting for additional information.

That brings to mind how some countries, ill prepared to deal with this, would pose a real risk to the world. Imagine if a bad one gets loose in some third world locations. Push comes to shove, some might need to be cut off from travel.

And travel restriction might be in order, especially when you have idiots like this:

Coronavirus: Woman traced in France after boasting about evading airport health check

A woman who travelled to France from Wuhan has been tracked down after claiming she took drugs to mask potential symptoms of a deadly virus at the airport, according to authorities.

Ms Yan posted on Chinese social media that she “took antipyretics and managed to pass through checks at the airport and enter French territory” after suffering from a fever and a cough, according to the Chinese embassy in France.

She had reportedly come from Wuhan, the city at the heart of a coronavirus outbreak that has now been placed on lockdown.

a reply to: Liquesence

She's like that reporter who was asked to self-quarantine after returning from the infectious ebola zone who flagrantly went out and bought soup. At least the reporter wasn't ill, but she was equally self-entitled.

a reply to: Blaine91555

Like that part in WWZ (the book) where North Korea ... just disappeared. They closed their borders and were gone.

a reply to: Liquesence

If we ever do really get hit with something like the Spanish Flu again, it almost scares me more than any war would. No doubt some countries would be quarantined from the world and their resident idiots would simply ignore it. Heck, 2 to 3% of us are sociopaths to begin with.

Are we really much better off in that regard than during the Spanish Flu. Lot's of bells and whistles, but none of it controls peoples actions. My own father, youngest of 11 children and born in 1913 lost 6 of his siblings while on a ranch literally in the middle of nowhere USA. I'm skeptical it would be much better now.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Blaine91555

Like that part in WWZ (the book) where North Korea ... just disappeared. They closed their borders and were gone.

That sounds like a book I'd enjoy. Never read that, but I will now. Thanks

I doubt NK can deal with any disease outbreak. God help us if they go into bio-warfare.

a reply to: Blaine91555

I honestly think it would be worse.

Spanish Flu nearly collapsed the social fabric at a time when disease and death by disease was a familiar thing to people because most of the common deadly childhood illnesses were still around. Vaccines were still brand new.

Now look at us. We're freaking out over the mere thought of this. We've gotten so insulated from disease death that we no longer really understand what it's like. Our own vaccines are scarier to us. If Spanish Flu almost destroyed the social order of a much more acclimated people ... what do you think it will do to us?