Posted on 02/11/2020 5:21:10 AM PST by TigerClaws
The coronavirus epidemic could spread to about two-thirds of the world’s population if it cannot be controlled, according to Hong Kong’s leading public health epidemiologist.
His warning came after the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said recent cases of coronavirus patients who had never visited China could be the “tip of the iceberg”.
Prof Gabriel Leung, the chair of public health medicine at Hong Kong University, said the overriding question was to figure out the size and shape of the iceberg. Most experts thought that each person infected would go on to transmit the virus to about 2.5 other people. That gave an “attack rate” of 60-80%.
“Sixty per cent of the world’s population is an awfully big number,” Leung told the Guardian in London, en route to an expert meeting at the WHO in Geneva on Tuesday.
Even if the general fatality rate is as low as 1%, which Leung thinks is possible once milder cases are taken into account, the death toll would be massive.
He will tell the WHO meeting that the main issue is the scale of the growing worldwide epidemic and the second priority is to find out whether the drastic measures taken by China to prevent the spread have worked – because if so, other countries should think about adopting them.
The Geneva meeting brings together more than 400 researchers and national authorities, including some participating by video conference from mainland China and Taiwan. “With 99% of cases in China, this remains very much an emergency for that country, but one that holds a very grave threat for the rest of the world,” the WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in his opening remarks. To date China has reported 42,708 confirmed cases, including 1,017 deaths, Tedros said.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Seems to have blown up in their faces. Sort of like jihadi bomb makers making a wiring error.
How is Japan being affected by this? Should they not be the model for sanitary practices in all this?
Can we volunteer the House Chambers? /ba-dum t’sssh>
Japan has 163 cases, 4 recovered (including 135 from the quarantine ship)
https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/
Ridiculous hype. 6 months from now, this virus will be completely forgotten.
Re: 19 - Thanks for the comments, here and elsewhere on this topic. It provides a good counter to the nutty garbage that some people are posting.
8 billion x 60% = 4.8 billion infected
4.8 billion x 1% = 48 million deaths
On par with the Spanish flu
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-china-health-xi-economy-idUKKBN2050K5
Xi is reported to be telling authorities to cut back on anti virus measures because of the economic effect they’re having.
re: “Ridiculous hype. 6 months from now, this virus will be completely forgotten.”
Yes ... what is this, like the sixth or seventh such perceived pandemic we’ve discussed since FR came on the air circa 1997?
NY POST story. One guy has infected at least 11 others.
https://nypost.com/2020/02/11/uk-coronavirus-super-spreader-fears-hes-infected-at-least-11-others/
The incubation period is up to 24 days, according to a Taiwanese scientist.
On par with the Spanish flu. It collapses the medical infrastructure by infecting doctors, nurses, and urgent care providers.
re: “On par with the Spanish flu”
What was the state of “germ theory” in that era?
Civil Rights such as freedom of speech, and control over one's own body are under attack by more than just a virus.
Fake news is already echoing PRC propaganda that its drastic measures are working, while the world's plutocrats eager not "to let a good crisis go to waste" may utilize the crisis to erode civil rights and possibly justify martial law.
Of course the mortality is probably higher than reported. It could be much higher. But it is more likely for cases to be underreported by multiples than mortality to be underreported by those same multiples.
From another thread:
Chat with acquaintance in HK.
1. If you don’t keep your shoes outside of your house or scrupulously manage them just inside your door and handle them as if you were removing a diseased kidney from an AIDS patient, including immediately scrubbing your hands, forget about the masks, etc. Streets are always filthy, and now they are contagious.
2. 27 Chinese cities are under quarantine, including three major coastal cities. This is a catastrophe. 3. Economic activity has been essentially zeroed out. He has knowledge of a large liquor/food distribution company. Revenues of that company have fallen to zero. Not down, zero. No one is eating in restaurants or bars. Other consumer businesses are likewise in free fall. And no business, not even Microsoft or Apple, can survive for more than a month or two with zero revenues. Zero, not down, zero. Entire factory districts are empty. Not just one factory, miles of them.
4. The Chinese banking system will collapse. When your loan customers have zero revenues, you have zero revenues. Of course, the government will print money, but so what.
5. All modern distribution systems are built around just in time delivery. If you quarantine a modern city for more that 48 hours, everything starts to run out.
6. The quarantines make no sense in light of what has been publicly stated about the disease. To be effective, a quarantine must be longer than the incubation period and the infectious period. That period means probably a month. China will not survive a month long quarantine.Thus, why bother?
7. The gov is now driving large trucks up and down city streets with fogging equipment. Giant clouds of who knows what.
7. HK has four routes in, and weirdly, only three have been cut off. It appears, that keeping a road open into HK (heavily guarded and checked, but nevertheless open) is more important to the commies than keeping 27 huge cities open. Hmmm..... He observes that HK has always been the way out of China.
8. He was already in the US when the SHTF, his issue is he can’t go back (not that he’s all fired up about that). But he was standing in the local big airport, and heard a US customs person ask a person of Chinese persuasion if they had been to Wuhan in the last month. My friend almost burst out laughing. A. Saying yes is an automatic 14 day quarantine, so no one in their right mind answers yes. And the US has no means of verifying the answer. B. Just Wuhan? 9. The Party’s response to the published nature of the disease is entirely disproportionate. The Party’s actions are consistent with an end of the world disease. Not a bad case of the flu. 27 closed cities?
Fogging trucks? If one assumes the leadership has a reasonable level of IQ, an instinct for self preservation, and some reasonable level of IQ among its advisers, something much worse than a bad case of the flu is on the loose.
Other than that, everyone’s doing great. /I’m not buying masks, I’m buying disposable booties.
//oh, forgot. The countries sending aircraft in for their nationals are not being nice. They are being scared sh*tless that said nationals will make it back into their home countries on their own, if left to their own devices. The planes are flying prisons.
re: “Japan has ...”
How many in the general population of Japan?
(PS. You totally avoided the spirit of my first question too.)
You just love projecting your ignorance: It’s an order of magnitude worse...for Asians.
Correct, very important, has to be said over and over.
Each death yields a body. Yes, they can be disposed of discreetly, but somebody, somewhere, knows.
Minor illnesses where the person recovers? We have no idea.
Dearth rate is lot higher than 2%. china has mandated the doctors list other causes of death. Plus anyone too sick is not admitted to hospitals and die outside. Not tested? OK died of food poisoning or something.
Once the hits India, ME, and Africa,there will be no stopping it.
The China are holding the line but they need our help. Now its time for everyone to pitch in.
The fate of humanity is on the line.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.