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 ...
Heaven help us ...
Another article designed to scare people.
I agree, we need to act swiftly, if it tears through India it’s all over, will go Pandemic no matter what we do.
Disease list ping!
re: “On par with the Spanish flu. It collapses the medical infrastructure by infecting doctors, nurses, and urgent care providers.”
Like Ebola.
It was handled.
“Once the hits India, ME, and Africa,there will be no stopping it.”
WHO It’s a cold /cool air virus and don’t think those are will be hard it. . WHO has already said once warm temps come back they think it will go away but will come back in the fall possibly.
If it ever gets a foothold in Sub-Saharan Africa then all bets are off.
Jim Noble :" That appears to be a generally sound opinion
(although the illness plays out over 21 days,with a lot of fatalities in Week 3),
so it's a bit premature."
"The problem is, there is essentially no surge capacity for that level of care."
"If true mortality is 2% and the virus spreads worldwide as it has in China,
ICU care will not be made available to people in quarantine/isolation,
because it will be impossible to do." (Emphasis mine)
HT to Jim and Dark Wing !
This is not fear mongering, but assessment of something that has the potential to cause a worldwide pandemic. Would you rather the public health officials sit back and do nothing? Or would you rather have the proper precautions done and head this off before a pandemic occurs?
One reason for doing articles like this is to inform the public so that they know what to do, both to help prevent the virus from becoming a pandemic, and to decrease number of cases should it reach that point.
Characteristics of a pandemic capable virus:
1) It spreads easily, through respiratory means. (Ebola, being a bloodborne pathogen, does not have pandemic capability.)
2) Its death rate is just high enough (2%) to cause massive deaths, but is not high enough to inhibit its spread. (Viruses like Ebola, with 30-40% or higher death rates kill off their victims before they have a chance to infect very many other people.)
3) It survives prolonged periods on surfaces and, according to some reports, is contagious before symptoms appear.
Pandemics that cause massive death occur about every 100 years. On a historical basis, we are due for one. This coronavirus has many of the characteristic hallmarks of a pandemic virus. So, yes, the public health officials are rightly concerned.
Yep, that is really unfortunate for those passengers. They were expecting a nice vacation, and instead, this happens.
Luckily, cruise ships are familiar with measures to control norovirus spread, since it affects cruise ships so often. Many of those same measures will be effective against this coronavirus.
Installing Hepa filters in the vents will help to control aerosol spread. The biosecurity research labs (like USAMRIID) use Hepa filtration to scrub the air before it leaves the high containment suites. I'm not sure if Hepa filters are sold at the local home improvement stores, but might be available on line.
There are lots of scientists and college profs who would love to wipe out 90% of the world’s population.
Thanks for posting.
There is a huge difference between Ebolavirus and coronavirus.
Ebola does not have pandemic potential because it is a bloodborne pathogen. The only way to spread it is through direct contact with bloody bodily fluids. In addition, the death rate is so high, at 40%, that it tends to kill its victims before they have a chance to infect others.
The Wuhan coronavirus, on the other hand, has known characteristics of a pandemic pathogen. It spreads through the respiratory route, and the fatality rate is low enough for victims to infect others before the virus runs its course. This was the case with the 1917-1919 influenza that swept around the world and killed millions.
Right now, the best bet for preventing a pandemic is the control measures that are already being implemented. Time will show how effective they are.
Lots of doomers in academia. Industry too now. It was bad enough with the doomer boomrs and gen Xers. But the subsequent generations have been innoculated with 30+ years of ‘global warming climate crisis’ marxism and basically all of them hate the rest of humanity (just enough of them, WAY too many of everybody else!)
30% was what my go to person said a week ago.
Yikes .. with or without passengers ?
Someone actually suggested this ?
God gave us the sense to not play games in the lab and to get off our duffs when the game gets out of hand.
Possibly, on the food handling side. But, I'm a bit concerned about the air handling problem. If you're next door to someone coughing out virus laden droplets, how sterile is your air supply? If you're in Yokohama with a balcony suite, you can open the door; but if you're in a lower-cost cabin with a fixed window, or more depressing, an interior room, you're at the mercy of the HVAC.
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