Coronavirus - Global Health Emergency, 2019-nCoV #3

[Betty P]

Overreaction, my bootie! How about if they had reacted more intelligently in the beginning? We would not be in this situation now.

JMO, the undercurrent of this discussion is the impact on business in China. Their leaders are more interested in protecting profits over public safety. There's likely very heavy pressure on the leaders of all developed nations to protect business interests.

 

[beatrixpotter]

Yes, and that article linked has already been challenged (as bad science moo) by other scientists for making such a claim with only 8 specimens, as there was only one Asian male and 7 other caucasian/african samples. (Don't want to get into it, but Twitter Inc has banned financial market website Zero Hedge after it published an article about that author, he's not well respected it appears MOO)

One of the publications stated about the article you sited challenged that article's findings and found "Here, we analyzed four large-scale datasets of normal lung tissue to
investigate the disparities related to race, age, gender and smoking status in ACE2 gene
expression..... No significant disparities in ACE2 gene expression were found between racial groups (Asian vs Caucasian). " Tobacco-Use Disparity in Gene Expression of ACE2, the Receptor of 2019-nCov

I think it's extreme to ban a financial group from posting on Twitter due to one article about someone others find not that respectable. It sounds more like something I'd expect to see out of China. I'm increasingly concerned at the constant attempt online to limit opinions and treating the population as too stupid to think for themselves so they need to limit their access to other opinions or ideas. MOO

 

[beatrixpotter]

JMO, the undercurrent of this discussion is the impact on business in China. Their leaders are more interested in protecting profits over public safety. There's likely very heavy pressure on the leaders of all developed nations to protect business interests.

This is a concern of mine even though I also worry about economic fall out from the whole thing. 2007-2008 financial crisis flash backs.

 

[beatrixpotter]

Sure. But i think the intent of these facilities were twofold, confinement and testing.

When entering medical care it’s a medical right to have informed consent.

Chinese authorities - in MOO, failed to obtain this.

I was not trying to imply that they did give informed consent. It's clear there is not a lot of consent involved in this crisis let alone informed consent.

 

[beatrixpotter]

From the last thread:

“Dylan Boles on Twitter
Chinese authorities are also spraying what appears to be a disinfectant in cities across central China.”

It is insane watching all this disinfectant being sprayed in these videos! (I’m not stating an opinion on the use of disinfectant, just saying they are spraying a lot of “what appears to be a disinfectant”. ) They’re using what appears to be similar apparatus to what we see used by exterminators when they spray for bugs, moo.

Healthcare theater? I'd say it's about making a big show of doing something.

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

Agree with all you've said, but the virus appears also to be spreading via plane transport. No idea about how clean the planes are or the status of fellow passengers who are breathing the same air as everyone on the plane.

Any enclosed environment can result in stale air. Interior cruise ship staterooms are havens for germs, so we always get a balcony. DH and I wear masks on flights. We used to feel conspicuous doing so, but my asthma/allergy specialist recommended the mouth/nose protection when I fly. I've stopped caring what others think

 

[Betty P]

This is a concern of mine even though I also worry about economic fall out from the whole thing. 2007-2008 financial crisis flash backs.

The 2008 recession happened for much different reasons - mostly from subprime loans and fraud in the banking and finance sectors.

Markets outside of China are still strong. The US market demand is still strong - people have some money and need to buy things. If China can't provide products, we can make them here in the US. We have our own raw materials and agricultural base.

 

[JerseyGirl]

Critics Say China Has Suppressed And Censored Information In Coronavirus Outbreak

On Thursday, a top Chinese official urged local officials and residents in Wuhan to report anyone they see with symptoms and to send loved ones with symptoms to new, mass quarantine centers.

"There must be no deserters during a state of war. Those that do will be nailed to the pillar of shame for all of history," vice premier Sun Chunlan warned in an article in the party's flagship newspaper after visiting Hubei province. "Be selfless, and race against time. We must go all out to solve the problem of inaccurate, inadequate implementation."

 

[beatrixpotter]

Coronavirus: Five Brits in French ski chalet catch virus

So 5 Brits caught it from 1 Brit visiting Singapore and yet Singapore only has 33 officially diagnosed...what are the chances he/she just happened to interact with one of those 33 people? I'm going to go with wildly under diagnosed over there right now.

 

[Medstudies]

I've not heard/read anywhere that they are going to be skipping 1st round safety/efficacy studies with animals and going straight to human subjects... Has anyone?

Research on folks in the US has already been done on the guy from Washington who was very sick, given Remdesivir under the compassionate exemption. He got better. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub=pubmed First Case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus in the United States Remdesivir was already approved for use in humans during the Ebola outbreak. (didn't work, but went through approval process for safety in humans)

To allow it to be used when the compassionate exemption ends, potential treatments must go through a double blind study, where unfortunately some folks will be getting a placebo, and others the drug. Possibly by end of April these trials can be completed in China, and the WHO is convening on that next week as to next steps.

This youtube explains it well starting at 2:25

- I prefaced and ended with -MOO.

I base my opinion on historical records of the Chinese government. Of systemic human rights abuse. Tibet. Christians. Falun Gong. Dissenters.
Tiananmen. Formosa/Taiwan. Diaspora of millions, organ harvesting. Detaining and the forced confession of Dr. Li Wenliang..
World Report 2019: Rights Trends in China

It’s doubtful that they will suddenly walk the straight and narrow of human rights, of a few thousand sick citizens, when they are in the throws of a massive epidemic. Not when they have declined medical help from the EU and CDC.

Also: Ethics review of studies during public health emergencies - the experience of the WHO ethics review committee during the Ebola virus disease epidemic
“Ethics review of studies during public health emergencies - the experience of the WHO ethics review committee during the Ebola virus disease epidemic”

(There have been exceptions to testing human subjects as phase 1 trials. It’s included in the area of...)

Beneficence: Research places participants at known or potential risk with uncertain benefit to the participants for the potential benefit of future patients, i.e. future social value.

there is also those who just push the envelop : https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/01/09/health/unethical-experiments/index.html. (Something the Chinese government have done for ages. Chairman Mao...)


Of course - this is just my opinion.

 

[beatrixpotter]

The 2008 recession happened for much different reasons - mostly from subprime loans and fraud in the banking and finance sectors.

Markets outside of China are still strong. The US market demand is still strong - people have some money and need to buy things. If China can't provide products, we can make them here in the US. We have our own raw materials and agricultural base.

I don't see how we can rapidly start manufacturing and producing what we currently get from China. Almost everything we get in the stores is manufactured in China. However if it moved a lot of production back here in the long term I think that would be one plus for the U.S.

However regardless of the previous recession starting with mostly subprime loans it literally spiraled and affected the rest of the world and certainly not even remotely just those involved in that sector. This has only been going on for a couple of weeks and will almost certainly worsen. We aren't out of the woods yet economy wise. The market really isn't stable. It's going to be "fine" only so long as it's actually contained and seen as containable. Do you think that's likely? I don't. Not at this rate. "After heavy selling last week, share prices have been rebounding because investors think coronavirus is containable. " This article has a ton of information on various risk factors and current optimism just shows the lack of stability. It's really all about governments trying to keep people from freaking out. There's nothing stable about that. MOO

"So could coronavirus prove to be the equivalent of the collapse of the US sub-prime mortgage market: a black swan? Those of a cautious bent, like El-Erian, think it could.

A black swan event has a number of characteristics. It has to come as a complete surprise. It has to have profound consequences. And, once the dust has settled, people who never saw the crisis coming say that it was glaringly obvious that there was trouble ahead.

The coronavirus outbreak would seem to tick all three boxes."
Will coronavirus make markets take a 'black swan' dive?

 

[JerseyGirl]

A recent interview with the British gentleman on the Diamond Princess docked in Japan:

“Things are happening. Literally every hour, something is changing,” David Abel, 74, told Sky News in a video interview.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases on the ship, which was first quarantined Tuesday, rose to 61 Friday.

Abel said that one of those confirmed cases involves a friend of his who was on his honeymoon and is “going to be split from his wife.

“He is going to be taken to a medical facility, and she will have to remain on board. That is going very, very, very tough indeed,” Abel said, adding, “It must be dreadful. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like for them.”

Abel also has been providing regular updates about the situation on Facebook.

“Passengers in the small inside cabins have no window, there is no daylight, and no fresh air… but the captain has announced those passengers will be allowed access to open deck for exercise and fresh air,” he wrote.

“If we are permitted out on open deck, we have to wear a mask when we’re outside. We have to keep one meter apart from everyone else and are not allowed to congregate in groups.

“All of the luxury of having a steward come to make the bed and put a chocolate on the pillow – those days are gone. We have to take care of the cleanliness and hygiene of our own room.

“We’re going through all the clothes we put into our dirty wash bag and we’re just re-wearing them now. Our underwear we’re washing by hand – we don’t have anything other than hand soap,” Abel lamented.

https://nypost.com/2020/02/07/briti...1VZWk1fUS1VdTF6YmUzOGhqOGxNNXg2aTUyanNLa3ZkMA..

 

[dixiegirl1035]

WHO daily conference is starting (delayed) in 15 minutes ... 10:15 eastern

 

[Medstudies]

So 5 Brits caught it from 1 Brit visiting Singapore and yet Singapore only has 33 officially diagnosed...what are the chances he/she just happened to interact with one of those 33 people? I'm going to go with wildly under diagnosed over there right now.

BBM. I’m going with you

 

[Medstudies]

Video shows officials in protective suits dragging suspected coronavirus carriers from homes | Daily Mail Online


Eighty-six people die of coronavirus in a DAY in China as Beijing begins mass arrest of sufferers and videos shows hazmat suit-clad goons dragging people from their homes as the death toll hits 724

“after China's Vice Premier Sun Chunlan called on a 'people's war' against the fast-spreading epidemic.”

War... does this imply martial law?

 

[margarita25]

Hi WS, I actually read an article last week that mentioned susceptibility within the Chinese population.

"There is another matter involving racial susceptibility to this 2019-nCov infection disease. A group of Chinese virologists discovered that at least some Chinese have an extremely large number of a particular kind of cell in their lungs, which relate to regulating both viral reproduction and transmission. They claimed this as the appropriate “biological background for the epidemic investigation of the 2019-nCov.” (16) (17)"
China's Coronavirus: A Global Health Emergency is Launched. What are the Facts - Global Research

On a different note, another article which I found interesting related to a potential hidden source of the spread, being diarrhea.

"Doctors have reported diarrhea infrequently in 2019-nCoV patients admitted to Wuhan hospitals, though it’s been more prominent among reported cases outside the city, including members of a Shenzhen family infected in Wuhan, and more recently in the first U.S. case in Washington state. That patient experienced a two-day bout of diarrhea from which a sample tested positive."

Squat latrines, common in China, lacking covers and hands that aren’t washed thoroughly with soap and water after visiting the bathroom could be a source of virus transmission, said Nicholls, who was part of the research team that isolated and characterized the SARS virus.

A virus-laden aerosol plume emanating from a SARS patient with diarrhea was implicated in possibly hundreds of cases at Hong Kong’s Amoy Gardens housing complex in 2003. That led the city’s researchers to understand the importance of the virus’s spread through the gastrointestinal tract, and to recognize both the limitation of face masks and importance of cleanliness and hygiene, Nicholls said in an interview.

“I think in Wuhan, that would be a very likely place where you might get the transmission” from fecal material, he said. “If it’s using the same receptor as for SARS, I can’t see why it shouldn’t be replicating in the gut.”

Coronavirus Lurking in Feces May Reveal Hidden Risk of Spread

Yes, this “aerosol plume” is also mentioned here:

Under certain circumstances, airborne transmission of other coronaviruses is thought to have occurred via unprotected exposure to aerosols of respiratory secretions and sometimes faecal material.”

Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV): epidemiology, virology and clinical features

 

[Medstudies]

Chinese citizen journalist who has brought the world the truth on coronavirus emergency disappears | Daily Mail Online

• Chen Qiushi reported on incidents including a woman sitting by her dead relative slumped in a wheelchair as she frantically made calls
• He has not been heard from since 7pm local time Thursday, his family said
• Fellow citizen journalist Fang Bin was arrested before being released last week
• Doctor Li Wenliang, who raised the alarm over the disease, died on Friday

This is China. Silence and obedience people!

 

[dotr]

'We're definitely not prepared': Africa braces for new virus
February 8, 2020 8:01AM EST
LUSAKA, Zambia -- At a Chinese-run hospital in Zambia, some employees watched as people who recently returned from China showed up with coughs but were not placed in isolation. A doctor tending to those patients has stopped coming to work, and health workers have been ordered not to speak publicly about the new virus that has killed hundreds around the world.

The virus that has spread through much of China has yet to be confirmed in Africa, but global health authorities are increasingly worried about the threat to the continent where an estimated 1 million Chinese now live, as some health workers on the ground warn they are not ready to handle an outbreak.

Countries are racing to take precautions as hundreds of travellers arrive from China every day. Safeguards include stronger surveillance at ports of entry and improved quarantine and testing measures across Africa, home to 1.2 billion people and some of the world's weakest systems for detecting and treating disease.

But the effort has been complicated by a critical shortage of testing kits and numerous illnesses that display symptoms similar to the flu-like virus.
"The problem is, even if it's mild, it can paralyze the whole community," said Dr. Michel Yao, emergency operations manager in Africa for the World Health Organization''

 

[JerseyGirl]

Video shows officials in protective suits dragging suspected coronavirus carriers from homes | Daily Mail Online


Eighty-six people die of coronavirus in a DAY in China as Beijing begins mass arrest of sufferers and videos shows hazmat suit-clad goons dragging people from their homes as the death toll hits 724

“after China's Vice Premier Sun Chunlan called on a 'people's war' against the fast-spreading epidemic.”

War... does this imply martial law?

The video follows reports that China’s communist regime is rounding up the infected in Wuhan and taking them to internment camps to keep the virus from spreading. So far, the virus has killed 722 people in China, including one American, and two in other countries; the number of infected stands at nearly 35,000 in China and 330 in other countries, according to Worldometers.info, which compiles data from the World Health Organization and other agencies.

In Hangzhou, a city of nearly 10 million about 475 miles from Wuhan, authorities banned the sale of flu and cough medicine at pharmacies to force the sick to see a doctor and get tested for the virus, the New York Times reported.

The policy, which went into effect midnight Friday, was created to “strengthen the supervision of those with fevers and coughs,” the local government said in a statement.

Coronavirus crisis: Video allegedly shows Chinese officials removing people from homes

 

[Amonet]

Question,

I’ve seen and read that SARS and MERS are 80% similar to CV (moo need link).

An out of the box thought I had as I was watching a YT video of folks scrambling and racing to get fresh vegetables to China and seeing the stacks of what looked like super long green onions, I remembered some contaminations and recalls we’ve had in the US - hepatitis for green onions, e-coli, salmonella, etc. Some of these vegetable contaminations occur from cow manure contaminating the ground waters/soil, iirc, moo.

Anyway, considering the terms mentioned upstream, “fecal-oral”, “fecal swabs”, “diarrhea”, etc, I was wondering about the fecal connection.

A medical professional could probably tell me and in an instant if such an incidence could maybe be a source or not - bat droppings, maybe, things of that nature.

So I asked my friend if there is such a thinking as fecal-related respiratory syndromes, and she sent me back this:

CDC - Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS) - Hantavirus

I’m curious how genetically similar CV is to the above, for example.

Anyway, just wanted to throw that factor/idea out there - I wonder if their food is contaminated. Can one get this virus by eating something contaminated? Maybe not, I don’t know I’m not a medical professional.

But the fact remains, that they have not isolated the source(s). Dr. Mike referred to this in yesterday’s PC when he even mentioned the possibility of “one, two, three animals in various settings” (need to pull quote).

Anyway, my point is that there is obviously wide and initially fast transmission among those in Wuhan, and we know that person to person contact occurs, and there is a high population, etc etc so maybe the rapid spread is simply due to that. I’m just wondering about cross contamination in Wuhan specifically as related to the initial source(s). We know they’ve traced it to the market, but perhaps there are other sources like Dr. Mike mentioned, and/or maybe multiple sources within that whole market, one we may not expect. Maybe surface contamination plays a role - my point is I want to know exactly how it made the jump to humans, as many are also wondering.

That market could be contaminated from prior vendors, etc. The market is shown in various videos - They’re almost like garage booths.

—

I’m interested in learning about the “genetic sequencing”.

It's come from a meat market, not a vegetable market, so I don't think we need to worry about vegetables in that way.

The virus is from a part of the coronavirus family that has hosts in bats, so bats are probably where it's been living for the past few thousand years. But if you take SARS as an example, it transferred from the original bat host into civet cats, and from there it jumped into humans. With MERS, it went from bats into camels, and then into humans. Those are both coronaviruses that are 'very' closely related to this coronavirus.

I don't know about genetic similarities to viruses outside of the Coronavirus family itself. It seems to behave most similar to things like influenza or cold viruses (and some colds are caused by coronaviruses). The mode of spread and the symptoms, very similar.

The reason they're concerned about the virus being found in human fecal matter is more that when someone has loose movements there can be splashes, and if it's a child, then an adult has to clean it up...and children being how they are it can easily travel from finger to mouth. So hygiene around the toilet is important, cleaning the loo after someone has a loose movement, washing hands and making sure that children wash hands after using the toilet.

Since the market (presumably) being the source of transferring the virus from an animal into humans, it's now transferring human-to-human. Coughs, sneezes, not washing hands and then touching the face/mouth/nose/eyes, shaking someone's hand who then touches their face, etc. We know this because each time someone comes down with it, they trace back to where the person got it from, and it comes from another infected person, not from eating particular food but from contact with the people who are infected.

It also seems to be spreading very easily between husbands and wives, or anyone in that kind of relationship. Those people tend to have some of the closest contact, touching hands, faces, kissing, sharing a bed and breathing each other's air, coughing and sneezing in bed when the other person is sleeping next to you.