From the Chinese Coronavirus Crisis, 3 Early Lessons

The Daily Signal ^ | January 30, 2020 | Peter Brookes and Brayden Helwig

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The United Nations’ World Health Organization on Jan. 9 announced an outbreak of a new—or novel—coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Wuhan, China.

In the three weeks since the announcement, the virus has intensified in China, infecting thousands there and is now spreading across the globe, far beyond its origin in Hubei province.

Indeed, this new coronavirus has taken nearly 200 lives in China.

As Chinese public health officials strive to contain the virus, it’s important to identify three early lessons that can be drawn from the outbreak and the initial response to it to prevent this Chinese epidemic—and others that will undoubtedly follow—from becoming a pandemic in our highly mobile, interconnected world.

1. China’s wild- and exotic-game markets must be shut down—for good.

In China, wild and exotic game is found in so-called “wet markets”—a common food outlet in the country. At these markets, it’s not uncommon for merchants to sell a variety of wild and exotic animals, both dead or alive, for human consumption and perceived medicinal benefits.

In 2002, a viral cousin of the 2019-nCoV called SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) surfaced in China, killing nearly 800 people and affecting 26 countries.

In 2017, researchers determined that the virus originated with bats, which are coronavirus carriers, and was transmitted to civet cats, which were then sold at a wet market in China’s Guangdong province.

The virus then passed from those animals to human victims.

Trade in all wild game was reportedly banned in China in 2003 after the SARS epidemic, but restrictions on some animals were loosened over time. It’s not clear how rigorously regulations were enforced.

Consequently, while the exact transmission path of this outbreak is being investigated, the presence of these wild- and exotic-animal markets very likely poses a significant threat to public health in China and beyond.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

PING!

[grey_whiskers]

Anand Ranganathan
@ARanganathan72
Oh my god. Indian scientists have just found HIV (AIDS) virus-like insertions in the 2019-nCov virus that are not found in any other coronavirus. They hint at the possibility that this Chinese virus was designed [”not fortuitous’]. Scary if true

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/1223320879162986496

h/t FReeper janetjanet998

[Pearls Before Swine]

That’s a definite OMG.

It will be denied, of course. If it is true, the blowback could be intense.

[MeganC]

Expecting the Chinese Communist Party to act with honor, integrity, and with the best interests of the Chinese people and the world is foolishness.

The CCP is nothing but a bunch of low-born, ignorant, bandits and just to be sure the Chinese scumbags who monitor FR are paying attention let me make clear that I curse them and their bandit leader to a hundred generations of their ancestors!!!

[Spktyr]

I would wait for confirmation. Indian viral researchers have proven, shall we say, rather inaccurate in the past.

Also, this is an RNA virus. They are notorious for ‘copying’ things they ‘see’ around them, which is one reason they’re so hard to create vaccines for (and why we still don’t have one for HIV/AIDS). They can recombine and you get a new virus that’s suddenly gotten parts from other viruses it encountered in a host. Chances are that this is how it picked up AIDS sequences - it was in a host infected with AIDS and it spread from there.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3324781/

[familyop]

Investors are protecting their assets through their media sponsorships. We won’t even see it coming.

‘There’s no doubt’: Top US infectious disease doctor says Wuhan coronavirus can spread even when people have no symptoms
https://us.cnn.com/2020/01/31/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread-study/index.html

Facebook will delete posts with conspiracy theories about coronavirus
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3812574/posts

China ‘is covering up number of dead’ says teacher stranded in Wuhan
https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/31/china-covering-number-dead-says-teacher-stranded-wuhan-12160410/?ito=newsnow-feed

[ifinnegan]

“China’s wild- and exotic-game markets must be shut down—for good.”

I don’t think that market is considered the source anymore.

Notice how knee jerk reactions are always to limit people’s freedom.

[DoughtyOne]

1. China’s wild- and exotic-game markets must be shut down—for good.

I think a good rule of thumb to go by would be the description of clean and unclean meats in the Bible.

The premise of this goes back far beyond the Flood.

2. Covering up an outbreak is unacceptable.

In China’s defense, Johns Hopkins was aware of this disease and has been keeping statistics since 01/20/20, when the known number of cases was 278.

There was a known outbreak of some sort back into December too, and it was recognized as some sort of Corona Virus event. Has China done everything it could to get info out?

It may not have been as forthcoming as it should have been, but the reporting of infections from across the nation doesn’t exactly seem an indication of clamping down on information.

If tens of thousands of infected people crept up here, we wouldn’t be able to produce exact numbers either. I suspect the medical community has a pretty good handle on what is going on inside China.

We are probably not informed on everything they know.

3. International coordination and cooperation is critical.

We learned that here? We’ve had these types of outbreaks prior to this. We have known this for a long time.

Look folks, China’s leadership is not optimal. We know that. It doesn’t mean they are gaming us on all of this.

We will be able to study how this went down farther in to all this. I’d suggest we take all the news into account, and stay tuned in to see what develops over time.

[ifinnegan]

“my god. Indian scientists have just found HIV (AIDS) virus-like insertions in the 2019-nCov virus that are not found in any other coronavirus. They hint at the possibility that this Chinese virus was designed [”not fortuitous’]. Scary if true”

True but nonsense. These “insertions” are small amino acid (5 aa) sequences common to hundreds of organisms and all sorts of proteins.

[ifinnegan]

“I would wait for confirmation. Indian viral researchers have proven, shall we say, rather inaccurate in the past.”

It’s not inaccurate but it’s meaningless. So I guess the importance they tacitly imply is inaccurate.

[grey_whiskers]

Fair enough, I’m not a virologist.

However,

1) another FReeper has posted that interim guidance from the CDC is 25% - 32% of cases will require hospitalization, and that in the ICU the CFR is 15%

2) The White House placed a FEDERAL quarantine on that US flight out of Wuhan that landed in California, first time in 50 years.
3) The White House just had a press conference.

Azar repeating WHO warnings. Trump states Coronavirus an emergency
Hopes China can contain SUN FEB 2, US govt will implement certain measures to contain virus:
Anyone from Wuhan = 14 day quarantine and health screen. ONLY applies to US citizens whom from Wuhan.
Anyone else in other areas of China will undergo more self quarantine and health screens
Presidential proclamation 2-12-F Immigration Act suspends foreign nationals capable of transmitting virus. (family of US citizens exempt). Most will be denied entry.
Effective 5PM 02 FEB 2020.
Expedite return of US citizens once they are screened.
Risk of infection LOW.

Up next: Ken Cuccinelli, Acting Deputy Secretary, Department of Homeland Security:
Homeland Security is implementing several security measures at Border, Ports and Airports (TSA).
US medical doctors advising TSA at airports.
Coast guard dealing with incoming shipping
Presidents proclomation will assist US citizens in coming back to US after screening and quarantine.
Customs border protection will be at seven (7) airports for any funneling to :

JFK
Chicago Ohare
Seattle
Honolulu
Atlanta
San Fran
LAX

[grey_whiskers]

What you are saying is that accuracy != significance.

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

Infectious Disease - Wuhan virus - now an official U.S. Health Concern
Homeland Security is implementing several security measures

See Post #9 for controls which should have been implemented by China,but weren't.
See Post #12 for US healthcare response that is being implemented by the Fed. govt.
See Fox Business for how the stock market responded to the Wuhan Virus
(down by 600 pts.,or more than 2%)

[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.

[grey_whiskers]

[palmer]

25% - 32% of cases will require hospitalization, and that in the ICU the CFR is 15%

With 2% fatality, the hospital to ICU rate is about 50%. The 2% is probably high, but we don't know yet.

[grey_whiskers]

Yeah, I wish somebody would have done a followup besides that early Lancet paper which showed 11% fatality.
It’d be nice to take a nice cross section of 1000 confirmed patients or so, and get the longitudinal numbers on *them*.

[palmer]

The problem in Chain is all the cases are self-selected and probably very sick. Here in the west the cases are selected when they step off the plane running a fever. That will be a much better selection process.

[HartleyMBaldwin]

“Trade in all wild game was reportedly banned in China in 2003.... It’s not clear how rigorously regulations were enforced.”

I would not bet a flattened penny that the regulations were enforced very rigorously at all.