The deadliest form of plague has infected two people in China, and information is scarce

Washongton POst ^ | 11/13/2019 | Michael Brice-Saddler

[BenLurkin]

Two people in China were diagnosed with a severe form of the plague, according to reports in Chinese media — raising alarms for citizens despite promises from health authorities that control measures are in place.

Local health officials confirmed the two cases of pneumonic plague on Tuesday, according to Xinhua News, China’s state-run news agency. The two patients, who authorities say received “proper treatment,” hail from China’s Inner Mongolia region. Additional information on the patients and their health status was not available Wednesday, and it’s not clear when the cases were identified. Officials told Xinhua that “relevant disease prevention and control measures have been taken.”

Caixin, a Chinese financial news outlet, reported that the patients were first treated at the Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, which replaced all of the chairs in its emergency room after the patients’ arrival. They have since been transferred to another hospital.

The pneumonic plague is the most serious form of the disease, according to the World Health Organization, and the only type that can spread from person to person through the inhalation of respiratory droplets. It is sometimes caused by untreated cases of the more common bubonic plague, and symptoms include fever, shortness of breath and rapidly developing pneumonia.

But the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday told Beijing residents not to worry about contracting the disease...

[maddog55]

2 / 1.43B = 1.3986013986013986013986013986014e-9‬ % have been infected.

[redshawk]

That’s one of the reasons many folks in Japan were the masks when traveling about. One person can infect thousands in one day.

[tired&retired]

I’m headed to the region for 2 months in January and February so I watch the disease outbreaks. Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand , Bhutan, and Myanmar...

[Flaming Conservative]

Don’t buy anything from China! Could be their version of blankets with smallpox!

[EQAndyBuzz]

Plane would be quarantined before it let off passengers.

[circlecity]

famine, pestilence and the sword......

[mumblypeg]

It’s just a kiss away, kiss away, oh children

[Robert DeLong]

I thought you were tired and retired. I guess you rested up and saw retirement was not all it's cracked up to be. 8>)

Or are you just going on a long pleasure trip? 8>)

[trisham]

Scary.

[mumblypeg]

“..the pneumonic form is much more related to their lack of being seen by a medical professional than by some looming epidemic.”

But in the pneumonic form, it can spread quickly — and exponentially— from human to human, and can **cause** an epidemic.
One infected person sneezing in crowded quarters— say, in a transit terminal— can potentially infect many other travellers.
The general public and most doctors aren’t necessarily familiar with the disease. Its early symptoms can be mistaken for the flu.

[mumblypeg]

A lot of the homeless population are in fact employed, and anyway, the housed population passes them on sidewalks, in parks, subway stations, etc.
Not like there’s a bacteria shield protecting humans from one another.

[rlmorel]

And I’ll bet a large number of those types of patients would quickly overwhelm medical capabilities.

[tired&retired]

“Or are you just going on a long pleasure trip? 8>)”

It is a long pleasure trip, but life itself is pretty much a pleasure trip. I follow the wonderful bizarre coincidences that keep happening in my life, in spite of me. Thus I can pretty much live a life of gratitude. God has been beyond wonderful to me.

At the same time, if I die again today, that is fine too. I live my life to be a servant. Having already experienced death, it is my destination of choice. In the interim, having fun.

I spent two months backpacking across Europe this past year. Then a month in Alaska. Just returned from a week long film festival on Coronado Island. And headed off on a three week road trip tomorrow that includes some lecture presentations.

Australia and New Zealand are on deck for 2020, plus a month in Europe. I enjoy meeting the people on this earth. All cultures, everywhere. Getting the travel in before the turmoil starts.

[Robert DeLong]

I hear that. He has been good to me as well, but I prefer to just stay in the U.S. I don’t want to be accused of something I didn’t do, but if it happens at least the U.S. prison system, while still bad, is far better than those of foreign countries. Call me a chicken, LOL.

[null and void]

Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

So far the false positive rate is 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

If a quarantine saves just one child's life, it's worth it.

Side note, I can't get too distressed since thanks to the city fathers of San Fransisco, I can get plague in my own back yard.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

And then some people in Beijing pick up the virus, travel to America for whatever reason, then . . .

PING!

[null and void]

Various people familiar with plague-like diseases have openly said that it’s only a matter of time before something starts up in either SF or LA. The one scenario floated around would suggest that local doctors would try to warn the mayor or city council of the city of an outbreak, and be told to shut up...it’s only affecting the homeless....then a week later, you’d end up with a non-homeless teenager dying from the disease, and this getting out into the public.

Precisely what happened in San Fransisco. It's why you can catch plague anywhere in the western US today.

San Francisco plague of 1900–1904

[dp0622]

The Black Death’s a disease??

I thought it’s what you got if you were white and walked in Brownsville, Brooklyn after midnight.

[Abathar]

You know, maybe having a bottle of this stashed away in the back of the cabinet isn’t such a bad thing after all..

https://fishmoxfishflex.com/collections/ciprofloxacin-fish-flox-fish-antibiotic/products/fish-flox-forte-ciprofloxacin-500-mg-tablets-100-count

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

bgill :" the patients were first treated at the Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, which replaced all of the chairs in its emergency room after the patients’ arrival..."

Infectious Disease Ping - China - pneumonic plague (lung infection)

Two people were reportedly diagnosed with the highly infectious,
potentially fatal pneumonic plague in a hospital in Beijing, Chinese authorities revealed Tuesday.
While only two people infected, it required the isolation of 127 others who were possibly exposed.
Officials said the patients came from a remote part of Inner Mongolia in Northern China.

The plague is usually contracted after being bitten by a rodent flea
carrying the Yersinia pestis bacterium or by handling an infected animal,
according to the CDC.

Symptoms of pneumonic plague include fever, cough, chest pain trouble breathing
and bloody sputum (phlegm),
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The disease is easily transmitted by airborne droplets, infecting the lungs.
Between 2010 and 2015, 3,248 cases were reported globally and 584 patients died from the disease,
according to the World Health Organization.