#COVID19: China's numbers for Feb 17 are up.
1886 new confirmed cases.
98 new deaths.
Those bring China's confirmed totals to 72,436 cases & 1868 deaths.
Globally there are roughly 73,230 cases & 1871 deaths. https://t.co/dRT0v6nBwT pic.twitter.com/UoHIolnvVV— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) February 18, 2020
To date, outside of China there are 3 deaths from 694 cases (0.4%) of the novel #coronavirus (#covid19), shedding light on our emerging understanding of diseases severity.
Sadly there are >1700 deaths so far in China. https://t.co/F1mtgScvRu
— Isaac Bogoch (@BogochIsaac) February 18, 2020
Great roundup again from @cidrap More outbreak details emerge as COVID-19 cases top 70,000 https://t.co/luJDheTNji
— Marc Lipsitch (@mlipsitch) February 17, 2020
Health authorities around the world are mobilizing to prevent a further spread of the coronavirus after an American was found to be infected https://t.co/8VpZiaThK4
— Bloomberg (@business) February 18, 2020
Despite appearances, Tom Cotton isn’t actually an illiterate moron — he just plays one, for career advancement. When he starts his ‘just raising the question’ spiel, you can see the Harvard Law training:
1/ I guess I won’t be on Sen Cotton’s Christmas card list. First, it’s not a bioweapon, let’s agree on that. Because it would be a galactically terrible bioweapon: too communicable and not all that lethal. https://t.co/QR2tWIiAow
— Vipin Narang (@NarangVipin) February 17, 2020
2/ Second, could it have “escaped” accidentally from the Wuhan BSL-4 facility? Sure, it’s possible. But there’s no evidence for that, as of now. And more importantly, how does it matter? Assigning blame—since it’s not a bioweapon—doesn’t help us contain or respond to COVID-19.
— Vipin Narang (@NarangVipin) February 17, 2020
Here is an author of the paper on origins of #SARSCoV2 #COVID19 #coronavirus, expressly discussing the evidence against a laboratory origin of the virus. https://t.co/KEdT04cnMd
— Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@angie_rasmussen) February 17, 2020
“The quarantine on the ship ended up being an unprecedented failure,” said Eiji Kusumi, a doctor specializing in infectious diseases at Navitas Clinic, Tokyo. “We should learn from this lesson that a quarantine on a ship is impossible, and we should not repeat this in the future”
— Motoko Rich (@motokorich) February 17, 2020
Cermet
Interestingly enough, outside of China (and its high levels of air pollution and smoking culture) the death rate is all of 0.4%; still more than the ‘common’ cold but hardly anything remotely comparable to SARS. Like West Nile Virus, this is being overblown by the media that does not understand anything remotely as complex as simple athematic nor facts.
Even in China, the number of unreported mild cases is likely to be vastly greater than the number reported/recorded and that would bring down the death rate a great deal there too. Likely this is more dangerous (to older people) than the common flu but not by much and that, people are happy to skip vaccinations and get ill … go figure.
YY_Sima Qian
The good news today is that the daily increase in confirmed cases in China ex-Wuhan has really plummeted in the past week. Only two provinces posted double digit increases (Sichuan with 13 cases and Henan with 11), most of the rest in low single digits, and six provinces (and Macau) posting 0 new cases. So, the lock down of Hubei province, the extended Chinese New Year break, and the extensive localized lock down measures taken by various provincial and municipal governments around China, and the additional measures taken by all enterprises, appear to be having the intended effect. With much of China ex-Hubei having officially returned to work on 2/10, if there is significant spread from the returning migration, it should have shown up by now. Instead, the Beijing-Tianjin region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Pearl River Delta, regions with the largest migrant populations, are only seeing a few new cases a day. A few million would be returnees are stuck in Hubei. A large number of would be returnees living in rural areas are temporarily stuck even if they are outside of Hubei, with all the road blockage and closures in the countryside. Those who have returned are often under 14 day self-quarantine mandated by their employers, or stuck in locked down communities, and encouraged to work from home. So the annual torrent of migration have slowed to a steady stream.
In Wuhan and Hubei, we haven’t seen any sign of inflection since the change in definition of confirmation, possibly due to the ongoing blanket effort to find all infected in cases in the province, previously unidentified and un-captured. With the two temporary hospitals, the existing hospitals, and the temporary medical facilities converted from indoor public spaces (to house mild cases), Wuhan may be preparing for as many as 100K beds in the coming week or so, to prevent the situation of patients desperate for beds and staying home to infect their family members. > 20K medical personal have been brought in from around the country to staff these facilities. The state media organs have termed this the “Decisive Battle” against the COVID-19. Melodramatic, but also true.
The bad news is the staggering economic and human toll. Service and transportation industry are largely idle in China right now. Most manufacturer are probably running at 25 – 50% capacity, those that have reopened.
The Chinese government just admitted that nearly 3000 medical personnel may have been infected, with over 1700 confirmed cases, the vast majority in Wuhan and Hubei. A large number during the early days when symptoms and incubation periods were ill-understood, often from other departments (than respiratory diseases) working on asymptomatic or mild patients also with other illnesses or injuries. A large number during the mad crush the first couple of weeks after Wuhan was locked, when medical suppliers were in dire shortage, and doctors and nurses had to make do with equipment not quite rated for the job. Some may have contracted the virus in settings away from the hospital.
The is chaotic first days, the procurement departments of the nine biggest hospital in Wuhan took the unprecedented step of directly appealing to the general public on social media for donations of medical supplies to relieve the dire shortages (often claiming with hours of supplies left). This was essentially a mutiny against the Wuhan municipal government, the local health commission, and the local chapter of the China Red Cross. Not only were these posts not censored, they were retweeted by the state media organs at the national level.
One of the most moving quotes I have seen floating on Chinese social media says: “there are no ‘white gowned angels’, only kids following the examples of their elders, rushing headlong into harm’s way to wrestle lives away from the clutches of the God of Death.” (Chinese call nurses “white gowned angels”, most of them in their 20s).
A really sad story making the rounds on Chinese social media: the father of one of the directors working for the Hubei provincial movie studio, himself a retired professor in one of the Wuhan’s top universities, started showing symptoms after Chinese New Year. The father quickly deteriorated, the director took him to hospitals around the city, and were repeatedly turned away due to lack of available bed. He tad to take his father home, where he passed away days later in early Feb. His mother also quickly contracted the virus, deteriorated due to lack of care and also died at home shortly after his father. He and his sister also became infected, caring for his parents. They finally made into a hospital after developing severe symptoms, but both passed away on 2/14. His wife is currently holding on in an ICU. Their only son has been studying in the UK, never had a chance to say goodbye to his grandparents, his father and his aunt. Really struck a cord with the public (like with Dr. Li Wenliang). The family should have had somewhat better connections than the average pleb, given their background, yet they too fell prey. This is the kind of tragedy that will inevitably unfold and multiply, if each city/state/country is unable to quickly identify and contain outbreaks.
Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan bear watching, with clear evidence of community transmission, and cases that could not be traced to the origin. The case numbers are only ticking up, but the transmission of this virus is not easy to uncover and track, and incubation long, and the majority of infected only show mild symptoms, or none at all. These countries do not have the vast hinterland of resources and manpower to draw from, unlike China.
JPL
@YY_Sima Qian: Thank you for your comments and once the crisis has passed, I hope that you will continue to post.
Barbara
@YY_Sima Qian: Thank you for enlightening us.
@Cermet: Perhaps, but they could not have known this in the beginning. Minimizing the threat is how things spiraled in China.
satby
@Cermet: horrible levels of air pollution is a problem all over Asia and already contributes to thousands of deaths per year. Add in a highly communicable respiratory virus and the loss of life would be terrible to catastrophic for some communities.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The whole thing with Cotton; leave it to a wingtard to politicize a disease. I know they are just teaching the controversy like the do with the age of the universe, the shape of the earth and magnets. And Conservatives wonder why people loath them?
chris
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:Apparently Cotton and others get their facts from… Dean Koontz who “predicted” the virus in 1981 and just forgot to remind us.
Matt McIrvin
@Cermet: Lower mortality with a larger number of unreported mild cases is not necessarily good news; it means the disease is harder to control, and more cities may get into the position of Wuhan unless a vaccine becomes available.
J R in WV
@YY_Sima Qian:
Thanks for your reporting from the scene. Best of luck going on, I also urge you to continue to post if at all safe for you to do so.
We welcome opinion and advice from overseas! I speak for myself and my wife, but maybe others here as well… :-)