Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

Post Reply New Topic

The Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (COBR) are a group of meeting rooms in the Cabinet Office at 70 Whitehall in London, often used for different committees which co-ordinate the actions of bodies within the Government of the United Kingdom in response to instances of national or regional crisis, or during events abroad with major implications for the UK.

The first COBR meeting took place in the 1970s to oversee the government's response to the 1972 miners' strike. Other events that have led to meetings being convened include the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege, the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak, the 11 September 2001 attacks, the 7 July 2005 London bombings, the refugee crisis in Calais, the 2015 Paris attacks, and the Manchester Arena bombing.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock chaired a COBRA meeting this afternoon as the coronavirus crisis deepens. It comes as the World Health Organisation announced it will hold a meeting tomorrow to decide whether or not to declare an international emergency over the illness.

The UK Foreign Office has warned against all but essential to mainland China. The death toll in the country has risen to 132, with confirmed infections surging to nearly 6,000. Officials are looking at quarantining British passengers returning from China at a military base once they arrive home, the Department of Health said. A flight is due to leave Wuhan in China on Thursday.

They are reporting there is165 people in the US "That are so called under investigation" That number jumped from 100 to 165 in two days.

After spending the day at the YMCA and swimming a mile, I watched the local news and found out there was a suspected case of the Coronavirus in Indiana (my state). A woman visiting Porter County, Indiana from Wuhan is a suspected carrier of the coronavirus. Porter County is Gary, Indiana and adjacent to Chicago. It is on the other end of the State from me.

I know Brehus and cyberdad have been discussing the theory that the virus was man-made. Basically the BioWeapon Research Lab located in Wuhan created the virus and accidentally released it into the general population. I would put that in the category of "Conspiracy Theory". Many things are possible but most things are not probable. But I would propose another theory. One of the differences between the Chinese approach to this coronavirus and past ones is the fact that China almost at the onset released the genetic code of the virus to the World Health Organization. I suspect that when the virus was first uncovered, the Chinese used all assets available including their Wuhan Institute of Virology to pin down the genetic code for the virus. And that is why this was available very early in the process. And that is a very good thing.

In general all suspected coronavirus cases in the US are currently being tested at the CDC's lab, using a protocol the agency has developed. Specifically, if a person is identified with a travel history or contact that could have led to exposure [[[Wuhan Province, China]]] — and also has a fever and respiratory illness — typically a health department is alerted. Through discussion with CDC, it is determined whether diagnostics are merited, and a sample is sent to CDC.

"The time lag between the decision that a patient needs further laboratory testing and a [test] result is somewhere around a day, depending on geographically where that patient is being seen and how we can most efficiently ship" the sample. The agency is currently prioritizes testing patients based the patients' risk of exposure.

That approach is fine if the suspected carrier came from China. But what about if the virus appears in the general population (who is also in the middle of the annual occurrence of the flu). The suspected carrier got the flu from Aunt Mabel, who received it from Uncle George, who received it from a checkout lady at Krogers, who received it from a Chinese gentleman in the jacuzzi at the YMCA, who received it from ...... In other words, what if they received it from the general population. Then the current approach has a major weakness. You would swamp all that assets available at the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

For that reason, coronavirus testing kits, are needed. They would allow local and state government health agencies to manage the testing of suspected carriers. They would plug the hole if the virus becomes endemic in the general population.

The CDC diagnostic test is a reverse transcriptase real-time PCR (rRT-PCR) assay developed for respiratory and blood serum samples. The protocol to make the assay was made publicly available on Friday. "This is essentially a blueprint to make the test," Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases said. "Currently we are refining the use of this test so we can provide optimal guidance to states and laboratorians on how to use it."

The agency is also putting the test into a kit format. "We are working on a plan now so that priority states get these kits as soon as possible," Messonnier said, adding that in the coming one to two weeks the agency will share these kits with domestic and international partners so they can test for the virus themselves.

"We understand that for patients, clinicians, and health departments, it is preferable to have that kit as close as possible to the patient geographically, so that we can efficiently provide a result, but it is going to be another week or two" until the kits are available, she said.

Source: CDC Provides Test Protocol for Novel Coronavirus, Preps Kits for Local Use

So the fact that the Chinese quickly obtained the genetic sequencing for this virus and passed this information onto the CDC, dramatically shortened the timeline for the development of these test kits. And that is a very good thing, if the coronavirus enters the U.S. general population.

One of the other concerns is if this coronavirus mutates, perhaps becoming more deadly in the process. The agency has also uploaded the genome of the virus from the first and second reported US cases to GenBank. The sequences are similar to the one posted by researchers in China earlier this month. "Based on CDC's analysis of the available data, it doesn't look like the virus has mutated," Messonnier said.

I just heard on the radio that people think the coronavirus has to do with Corona beer. Ziilions of peeps have googled "Corona beer virus".

If we are to believe the data we are being given world wide there are 7783 known case of those cases 170 have died and 133 have recovered there have been more deaths then recoveries so far and it seems the people who are infected stay sick for a long while before they die or recover.

5 know cases in the US with 165 people being investigated.

SIGNS OF PANIC SETTING IN

The rumor began late Monday night in a reply to a post on the University of Southern California (USC) Twitter account. The rumors claimed that a student was diagnosed with the coronavirus. The rumor quickly took hold on the social media platform, leading to hundreds of tweets and even a petition to cancel class amid the alleged “outbreak” at the university. The rumors seemingly cropped up after an unnamed student living at the off-campus Lorenzo Apartments was transported by ambulance to a local hospital.

There are approximately 16 million people each year in the U.S. transported by ambulance to a hospital emergency room. If every one of these results in a coronavirus scare, we are in a world of trouble. This is social media exploding in paranoia.

A similar situation occurred in Arizona. This one had a little more substance to it, but it still was a panic situation.

Students at Arizona State University are demanding the cancellation of classes after the nation’s fifth and most recent case of the novel coronavirus was confirmed in Arizona. The patient involved in the fifth case is a part of the ASU community, according to a news release from the school. This patient “does not live in university housing, is not severely ill and is currently in isolation to keep the illness from spreading.”

Confirmation of the case caused panic at the Tempe university; local drug stores have sold out of surgical masks and students have called for classes to be canceled, reports the student newspaper, The State Press. “The students of ASU do not feel comfortable attending classes due to the outbreak of the Novel Coronavirus,” the petition, which had more than 21,000 signatures as of this writing, begins. “We do not want to risk our lives by attending class.”

Some Asian students at Arizona State University (ASU) claim they are being treated differently by the rest of the student body following confirmation of the nation’s fifth case of the deadly coronavirus at the school.

“I cough in class and everybody looks at me. I’m paranoid of coughing,” one freshman, who was not identified, told Business Insider. The same student told the outlet that the “social and cultural divide” between international students from China and the rest of the student body has become starker since the case was confirmed last weekend. As of 2018, there were more than 3,000 Chinese students at the university.

----------------------------

In another example, a taxi driver in Beijing, China (650 miles from Wuhan) picked up passengers in a full hazmat safety suit. When questioned about this he said “These are extraordinary times. I’m being responsible for myself, and for my family. It’s important to have awareness.”

In cities like Hong Kong and Shanghai, residents wait in extremely long lines more than three hours to collect surgical face masks to help protect them from the Wuhan coronavirus.

-----------------------------

In Wuhan, things are right out of a sci-fi movie. The place is essentially on lockdown; citizens are venturing out in face masks for food and supplies and little else. They are sheltering in place at home. When they go to the grocery store to stock up on food and supplies, they have to line up and have their temperature tested with a thermal gun before they are admitted into the store. The hospitals are overrun and people suffering from "mild symptoms" are being advised to stay away. "Even the government made an official announcement in Chinese saying that ... if you're 'a little bit sick', do not come to the hospitals, we're overrun." Food deliveries had not come through in recent days. The city’s overwhelmed hospitals pleaded for urgent help to replenish diminishing supplies.

Medical supplies are running dangerously low in central China, despite gear being delivered in bulk from around the world. The Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan wrote on Weibo, a social media platform, that the city had received 240,000 masks, 25,000 protective gowns and 4,000 pairs of medical goggles from its alumni group in Germany. The Chinese community in Singapore sent 75,000 medical masks.

Every village around Wuhan is putting up barriers, worried about the disease. The maze of road checks, make it difficult to bring in supplies into the region.

Exhausted medical workers have described an incredibly intense environment, where they must balance dealing with the overload of patients and suspected patients while also keeping themselves safe. Health care workers in Wuhan have said hospitals are running low on supplies as they treat an increasing number of patients. One hospital staff member said health care workers have resorted to wearing diapers to work so as to avoid having to remove their hazmat suits, which they say are in short supply.

--------------

* At least 170 people are dead and more than 8,100 cases have been confirmed in mainland China. More than 1,300 of these cases of coronavirus in mainland China are considered severe.
* There are more than 100 confirmed cases in 20 places outside of China, with India and the Philippines reporting their first cases. Russia is closing many of its borders with China.
* The first case of person to person transmission has been reported in the U.S. The individual that contacted the coronavirus by traveling to Wuhun returned home to Chicago, Illinois and infected their spouse who did not go on the trip.
* Researchers at Imperial College London who have modeled the spread of the Wuhan virus based on available data from the first month of the outbreak have given a low estimate of 20,000 infections in China alone by the end of the month, with high estimates of over 100,000. With a fatality rate of around 2%, which experts agree appears to be the current level for the virus, that would translate to between 400 and 2,000 deaths.

----------------------

A student studying abroad in Shanghai, China sending a message home:

The World Health Organization (WHO) has just declared the coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency.

Roughly 99 percent of all cases of the virus -- 7,736 infected people -- have appeared in China but it has spread to at least 18 countries.

There now have been 98 cases of the virus outside of China -- including eight cases of human-to-human transmission in four countries: Germany, Japan, Vietnam and the U.S.

The WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus applauded the Chinese government's "speed" in which it "detected the outbreak, isolated the virus, sequenced the genome and shared it with WHO," and said China set "a new standard for outbreak response."

Source: World Health Organization declares coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency

A global health emergency is reserved for unusual and serious public health events that have the potential to spread disease worldwide. "This declaration may make it easier to access and mobilize further funds for resource-poor countries, and promote the need for further global cooperation," The W.H.O. has made such declarations just five times since its power to do so was established in 2005: for the pandemic influenza in 2009, a polio resurgence in 2014, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa that same year, the Zika virus outbreak in 2016 and an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo last year.

The W.H.O.’s declaration — officially called a “public health emergency of international concern” a PHEIC — does not have the force of law. But it serves notice to all United Nations member states that the world’s top health advisory body thinks the situation is grave. Governments then make their own decisions about whether to close their borders, cancel flights, screen people arriving at airports or take other protective measures.

Source: W.H.O. Declares Global Emergency as Wuhan Coronavirus Spreads



Passengers in a subway station in Hong Kong on Wednesday wear masks amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Source: Kin Cheung/AP

That's it. I'm not leaving my room until March.