WHO Declares Global Health Emergency as Wuhan Coronavirus Continues To Spread (gizmodo.com) 141
The World Health Organization on Thursday declared an international public health emergency over the deadly new coronavirus that has hit China hard. From a report: The announcement comes as nearly a hundred cases have been spotted in countries outside of China, including the first case of human-to-human transmission in the U.S., also reported on Thursday. The WHO's decision on the outbreak of virus, known as 2019-nCoV, was made following a lengthy discussion by experts assembled by the agency. Last week, the same committee deliberated for two days about whether to call for a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), as it's officially known, but declined to do so. While China has reported a large surge of cases since then -- over 7,700 cases and 170 deaths as of early January 30 -- the move to now call for an international emergency was motivated by the worsening situation outside of China, according to WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. As of Thursday, there have been 98 cases reported outside of mainland China in at least 18 countries, but no deaths outside of China. "The main reason for this declaration is not because of what is happening in China, but because of what is happening in other countries," Tedros said at the press conference announcing the PHEIC today. "We don't know what sort of damage this virus could do if it were to spread in a country with a weaker health system. We must act now to help countries prepare for that possibility."
There is no vaccine, correct? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:There is no vaccine, correct? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
There will be soon, I am sure.
The genome for this virus has already been sequenced, and I'd be surprised if we don't have a vaccine out before the end of March, pehaps even much sooner.
Re:There is no vaccine, correct? (Score:5, Informative)
There will be soon, I am sure.
The genome for this virus has already been sequenced, and I'd be surprised if we don't have a vaccine out before the end of March, pehaps even much sooner.
May still take a while. Remember they do this for the flu every year and it still takes several months.
Re:There is no vaccine, correct? (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect 2020 is not going to be a banner year for the tourism trade...
Re: (Score:2)
Assuming it doesn't mutate by the time the vaccine is ready. Unluckily this seems to be one of those viruses that does readily mutate.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
One has to be american in order to believe that bullshit.
Re: (Score:2)
Is that the equivalent of saying someone has to be a Ukranian to believe Hitler had death camps?
Re: (Score:2)
It is the equivalent of saying you must be american too. The whole western hemisphere suffers from it but nobody is indoctrinated like the Americans. The terrorist scare, the Russian scare, the Chinese scare, it's just a product being turned out 24/7. People who don't buy the product get labeled fake news disseminators, Russian stooges, or when ordinary stupid is not enough, holocaust deniers.
Re: (Score:2)
So why were european pundits screeching the "russian scare" over the last 4 years with every election including with brexit?
Re: (Score:2)
Because they are in the US periphery and the information goes downstream. Do you really want to know?
AFAIK nobody gets a public voice if they are not pro NATO. Most journalists have to get approval from the German Marshall Fund to have a career in international politics. The GMF and similar NATO thinktanks select the right journalists and connects them to people. Gives them a career.
Obama still put the brakes on the anti Russia campaign but since he left it's gone all out. The British are a major driver beh
It's too late to rely on vaccination. (Score:5, Informative)
I've seen estimates of an adapted SARS vaccine being ready for Phase 1 clinical trials on this coronavirus by some time in April. From a technological standpoint that is outstanding, but even if everything goes well it'll be months after that before we're able to manufacture and distribute it in quantity.
There is a parameter in epidemiology called "R0" (pronounced "R naught"). It's the average number of new infections that result from a single new infection. If R0 is less than one, an epidemic will burn itself out with no intervention. If R0 is greater than one, then the epidemic will grow at an exponential rate . Current R0 estimates for this virus range from 1.4 all the way up to 5.5. For now the consensus is between 2 and 3: every new infection will in turn infect at least two more people.
If that parameter isn't significantly reduced, then we could be looking at a situation where we just can't manufacture vaccine fast enough. Mathematically, it's almost like an epidemic has momentum. The faster it is growing, the harder it is to stop.
Re: (Score:2)
Mathematically, it's almost like an epidemic has momentum. The faster it is growing, the harder it is to stop.
positive feedback loop.
Re: (Score:3)
What they actually have to offer is early warning. If the world can reduce the infection-rate enough, this will just fizzle out. If not, many people will get a shot at the 2.5% mortality. Of course, there may be oodles of undetected light cases, but if so the mortality will be far lower as well. Also, the longer this goes, the better treatment will get and the lower the mortality. Just remember that the flu kills a lot of people every year. Of course, there is a usually effective vaccine for the flu as well
Re: (Score:2)
It's a bit like that. Almost all the cases are in China and they are not worrying about that because China will get it under control. But the fact that it takes organized effort to get it under control and that means there are a lot of countries at risk.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The calculation is a lot harder than that because it takes time to die. Imagine you have it takes exactly 10 days to die or survive from the start of the illness, then you have to compare the death count of today with the number of newly ill patients 10 days ago.Suppose a death rate of 100%. If the epidemic evolves very fast then the ratio of dead vs affected people will include all people affected 10 days ago but most ill people arrived later so it is a serious underestimate.
The actual calculation will be
Re: (Score:2)
They have a booming blackmarket and "undocumented labor" (slave trade) back and forth across the Chinese border, though. We'll never hear about it but there will absolutely be plenty of cases if this thing continues to spread as it has been.
Re: (Score:2)
Only ~10% of colds are caused by coronavirus. The vast majority are caused by rhinovirus. If the mortality rate for the common cold were anything like 3% in the general population, then 10s of millions of people would be dead each year in the US alone.
This is bad (Score:5, Funny)
With most of the human population wiped out by the SARS epidemic I am expecting this new virus to wipe out the rest. Shame. The human race had so much potential.
Re: (Score:2)
"With most of the human population wiped out by the SARS epidemic I am expecting this new virus to wipe out the rest."
I still have a full box of face masks from the SARS scare, I'm going to make a fortune. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
But do they protect the eyes?! Didn't you see the news? This flu is transmitted through the eyes! The face masks do NOTHING!!!
(In point of fact the "eye" transmission was caused by one of the doctors touching an infected surface and then rubbing his eyes or the patient coughing/sneezing and the particles getting in through the eyes - like every other cold or flu virus. But what great click baiting!)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Actually masks on other people protect you to some degree if they sneeze. But, yes, wash your hands, keep your hands away from your eyes and face when out and about and that is basically it. A virus does not survive (well stay active, really, as they are not living things) outside of the body.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed.
Re:This is bad (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
In the western world we still go out when sick without face masks as that's the only thing possible to do. But whine on Mr. I'm-feeling-a-little-bit-throat-ache-and-staying-home-without-food-and-loosing-my-job, I'm sure your sacrifice is worth it.
Re: (Score:2)
My point is that when you know someone realizes they are sick enough that they might feel like they need a face mask to mitigate transmission, then they *have* already actively considered the presence of other people and in spite of this have felt like their own agenda was more important than that. Typically, we might not use a face mask not because we don't care about transmitting something to other people but because we might not generally (perhaps naively or incorrectly) believe we are contagious enoug
Re: (Score:2)
[masks] *do* apparently strongly mitigate transmitting it to others.
Only as long as the masks are dry. If they are wet from catching sneezes and nose mucus, they are worse than wearing no mask because they help aerosolizing infectious fluids whenever you cough. In practice, this means you have to replace the mask after half an hour.
Re: (Score:2)
Double layer mask with antimicrobial treatment perhaps? Don't think it'd work to stop transmission but maybe for earning some cash.
Re: This is bad (Score:2)
Wonder nobody has invented a silver or copper particle laced face mask yet.. I sense a niche wanting to be filled
Re: This is bad (Score:5, Funny)
Re: This is bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Zombie apocalypse confirmed.
Re: This is bad (Score:4, Funny)
I was killed by the SARS virus, you unfeeling bastard!
You were? Damn, that thing did a bad, bad job of it!
Re: (Score:2)
You seem able to post to /. (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: This is bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell me about it. For the 2017-2018 flu season, just in the USA there were 980,000 hospitalizations and 80,000 deaths. In feb of 18 there were 4000 deaths per week. Oh noes.. coronavirus killed 150 people. Oh noes!! Pandemic everyone. It might even spread from people to people. Thats worse than flu i tell ya.
Re: This is bad (Score:4)
There's no reason to panic about it if you're not in one of the heavily hit areas, as ongoing efforts to halt or slow the disease's spread have been at least reasonably effective so far. But dismissing it because the number of people it has killed in the small handful of cities where it is widespread doesn't match the number of people killed by an illness whose scope is currently global -- that just demonstrates your ignorance.
Re: This is bad (Score:3)
Go pedal your propaganda elsewhere. Unless you are old as shit with comorbidities you are not going to die. Unlike the flu that can kill you all by itself.
Update - Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)
Colleagues:
As you are aware, a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) originally identified in Wuhan, China, continues to circulate, with over 7,700 confirmed cases in China and 68 cases in 18 other countries.
To date, 170 deaths have been reported (2% mortality rate) and appear to have occurred primarily in the elderly popula
Bunch of ignorant ingrates (Score:5, Interesting)
SARS had a case-fatality rate of 11%-15%. It was completely off the charts compared to past infections diseases. Probability-wise, there's about a 3%-5% chance that you're alive today because WHO, the medical community, and governments took decisive steps to contain SARS before it could become a pandemic. If they hadn't acted in time, humanity probably would have experienced the worst mass die-off since the Black Plague. You're making jokes thinking it was all an exaggeration, when the reason it didn't blow up was because they succeeded in saving your lives.
And FYI, this Wuhan coronavirus initially had a 3% case-fatality rate. Though the latest stats (released today - 171 deaths in 8200 cases) put it at 2.1%. That's why they're being so cautious about it. It's not as bad as SARS, but has the potential to become another Spanish Flu. (Ebola is about 50%, but it kills so quickly it inhibits its own ability to spread itself.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The potential severity of a disease epidemic is measured by its case-fatality rate. What percentage of people who get an illness die from it. A 2% case-fatality rate is considered the top of the pandemic index scale. ...
And FYI, this Wuhan coronavirus initially had a 3% case-fatality rate. Though the latest stats (released today - 171 deaths in 8200 cases) put it at 2.1%. That's why they're being so cautious about it. It's not as bad as SARS, but has the potential to become another Spanish Flu. (Ebola is about 50%, but it kills so quickly it inhibits its own ability to spread itself.)
Official "confirmed" figures are pure nonsense disconnected from any resemblance of reality. Using these as a metric for determining fatality rates yields commensurately nonsensical results.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
171 deaths in 8200 cases put it at 2.1%
I don't think this is the right way to calculate the fatality rate in this case. Many of those 8200 people are still in the process of either dying to or recovering from this coronavirus. The latest stats also give the recovered count at 143 -- in other words, of the 8200 cases, the final outcome of 96.2% of them is still undecided, and you can't assume that every single one of those people will survive.
Of the 3.8% of cases with an outcome, 54% got over it by dying.
I don't think that percentage is comparabl
Re: (Score:2)
I think this kind of thing is true of many problems. If you do a really good job of dealing with the issue most people think you did nothing at all and don't see why you are needed and maybe money could be saved by cutting back. Y2K would have been a disaster would massive work. Most sysadmins are never recognized for what they prevent. The CDC and WHO prevent MANY pandemics and get almost no credit for it.
It is such a strange thing where the better you do your job the less useful people think your job is b
Re: (Score:2)
It is true that people deduce from the lack of pandemic that there was no problem in the first place. Either -because the measures worked. Corona in China could turn out to be such a case though it's still possible that it causes devastation in other parts of the world
- because of the false sense of safety derived from surviving a game of russian roulette. As with our nuclear weapons
But yes, the millenium bug may have been underrated afterwards because of all the fixes, but it was vastly exaggerated beforeh
Re: This is bad (Score:2)
The Black Death wiped out half of Europe's population in about a four year period, and from a modern public health standpoint plague is no big deal. It's endemic in the Western United States, bit nobody worries about visiting Arizona or talks about quarantining New Mexico.
If you don't have the scientific knowledge or organizational capacity to control plague, it's a hellish nightmare. If you do it's an obscure historical footnote..
The fact that SARS didn't kill millions of people like the 1918 flu doesn't
Re: (Score:2)
And the emergence of the Coronovirus coincides roughly with her campaign across the world?
Coincidence? I think not!!!
Quarantine Greta!
Is this a population control virus? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Mumps doesn't cause 50% infertility. More like 1%.
Re: Is this a population control virus? (Score:2)
Well, it would be the best thing to happen to this planet since the black plague or the sugar industry! :)
Go Corona Virus 2020! The killin' squadron!
Re: Is this a population control virus? (Score:2)
If it leads to a giant space elevator, space travel, and an ability to transfer the consciousness of old people into new, young, incredibly fit but green bodies, I'm all for it.
A weaker health system? (Score:5, Interesting)
"We don't know what sort of damage this virus could do if it were to spread in a country with a weaker health system."
A weaker health system? Than China's? That's a pretty high bar.
Don't get me wrong. You can buy good healthcare in China, but you have to both seek it out and pay a pretty penny. But the healthcare for your average mainland Chinese citizen is best described as medieval. One would hope that there are few countries that are less fortunate than mainland China.
Re:A weaker health system? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
One would hope that there are few countries that are less fortunate than mainland China.
You're talking about a country which none the less has a healthcare system. Remember a poor person getting sick is not a problem for the "system". All your poor people getting sick is a problem for the "system" and as such it gets a response, wealth of the person is irrelevant.
The relevant part here is the wealth of a nation as the determining factor of the ability to respond to a sick nation. In that regard China's medical system is damn good compared to many countries around the world. If this broke out i
Re: (Score:2)
You're talking about a country which none the less has a healthcare system. Remember a poor person getting sick is not a problem for the "system". All your poor people getting sick is a problem for the "system" and as such it gets a response, wealth of the person is irrelevant.
The world bank puts them at 1.8 [worldbank.org] doctors per capita compared to a world average of 1.25, maybe the biggest clue that China has decent healthcare is their one(-ish) child policy that's been active for 40 years, of course the health of that child is a huge priority. Maybe it's not world leading healthcare but they're probably a better pick than 70%-80% of the countries on earth. Plus being an authoritarian regime has its advantages if you legitimately need to lock down the country, could you imagine if the CDC
Re:A weaker health system? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, there's the U.S. Here, if you can't afford the expensive healthcare, the medieval health care option is illegal so you have to settle for caveman healthcare (that is, hope it gets better on it's own).
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the US does allow free emergency room care. Which is both smart and stupid, because those that cannot afford healthcare have to use the ER, and ER care is the most expensive around - a poor person using the ER costs more than if they were given preventative care for months. And of course, because of
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, in this case, by the time your coronavirus infection gets bad enough to go to the ER, you've had time to infect plenty of other people including the entire waiting room (which is much more populated than that of a typical doctor's office.
Combine that with having no paid sick days and quite possibly a policy of show up sick or you're fired and it's a problem waiting to happen.
Of course, you still get dunned for the ER bills even if you can't possibly pay, so even though they have to treat you, man
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As you point out, a lot of people who can't afford healthcare make 'too much' for Medicaid. Medicare needs supplemental insurance to work out, but I can tell you,, having recently helped my Mom with getting supplemental insurance for her Medicare, I wish I had Medicare. It's a much better deal than I can get.
Either way, the lack of good healthcare options for so many combined with culture and workplace policies that encourage working while sick make the U.S vastly more vulnerable to a coronavirus outbreak.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Ridiculous attitude frozen in the Cold War. China built so many brand new hospitals in the last decade. All equipped with brand new imported equipment. And it's cheap, too. You can get a CT scan for about $50. Anyone can walk in to a hospital and see a doctor in about 30-60 minutes. Blood tests, prescriptions, you name it.
Before Trump's trade war you never got these ignorant racist screeds. But then we know ignorance and racism are natural partners, though. :(
Re: (Score:2)
No. My attitude is informed by Chinese expatriates, recent ones.
For your average mainland Chinese citizen, $50 is not affordable, not even close.
Re: (Score:2)
Eh. It's not that great, but there's lots way worse. China's doctors per capita is middling; one source I found online gives it as 1.51 per 1000. This is notably worse than the US at 2.3 per 1000, but is massively better than a lot of places. Subsaharan Africa clocks in at a bit over 0.1 per 1000; Chad and Liberia are both at 0.03 per 1000 and Tanzania is at 0.02. South and southeast Asia are better than Africa but still mostly worse than C
Re: (Score:2)
My wife and her family are from mainland China. Not particularly well off and not living in one of the bigger cities.
Healthcare as they and I have experienced it in China is not "medieval". It's not unaffordable either. In fact my brother in law just went back there to get some treatment because the waiting time in the UK is so long.
Re: A weaker health system? (Score:2)
I'm a frequent visitor to China. I have experienced the health system multiple times. It's really good with almost no waiting time. You can decide if you want a very experienced doctor or one just graduated. You pay 2-20 USD, more experienced cost more and might give you an hour wait.
And the quality of treatment has surpassed my expectations, compared to my home country. Way more advanced and agile.
Have you ever been to a Chinese hospital?
Re: (Score:3)
For some reason people think China is still back in the 1980's with poor services and no healthcare.
Living in bubbles is fantastic.
He means America (Score:2)
The trouble with the US system is it's more like 91.5% [nbcnews.com]. And that's before we talk about the under insured (which to be fair China might suffer from).
Herd Immunity [wikipedia.org] is valuable, but it only really works when everyone has access to healthcare.
Tedros = Thanos? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget "Theranos", Elizabeth Holmes' curse on the medical world!
I did! (Score:4, Funny)
Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all night!
And you too. Since the doors are locked!
Try the long pig,... err, veal!
Re: (Score:2)
What?
Re: (Score:2)
Confusing total mortality with mortality rate (Score:5, Informative)
Mortality rate is number of deaths divided by number of disease cases. CDC estimate of mortality rate for influenza since 2010 looks to be around 0.14% https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html
Mortality rate for Wuhan novel coronavirus is still difficult to estimate due just being in the middle of early infected peoples' progression of the disease.
W H O has an early estimate of 2% https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/
Re: (Score:2)
Automobile accidents kill more people than plane crashes.. So how is the 737 MAX a big deal that Boeing has to ground all the planes?
Re: (Score:2)
That means that about 0.055% of the people who get the flu die, and that about 5.8% of those hospitalized die.
If you believe the numbers coming out of China about 2% of the people who catch the coronavirus die.
That's a somewhat big if. It assumes that they're accurately reporting the numbers. It assumes they're accura
All China figures are worthless (Score:2, Informative)
Official numbers are being limited by testing capacity and people coming forward. There isn't any good faith estimate of true number of infected being advertised by Chinese government.
While capacity is being ramped up some US CDC people believe there could be up to two orders of magnitude more that have not been "officially" counted.
The official death rate is slightly above 2%... average yearly for Flu deaths per year over the last decade is 37k DEAD out of 29m infected from CDC data which works out to a b
Complacency at first ... (Score:2)
Followed by a complete overreaction and near mass hysteria. TB will kill about 2 million people this year and next year and every year for the foreseeable future and that is the least dangerous top 10 killer disease.
https://www.who.int/news-room/... [who.int]
Re: (Score:2)
India (Score:2)
Infection rate vs. Fatalities ... (Score:4, Informative)
First, there has been no fatalities from 2019 Coronovirus outside of China. So that is a good sign.
Despite more people have now been infected in China than during the SARS outbreak in the early 2000s [2019 Coronavirus is more contagious than SARS], but the death toll so far remains lower [Coronavirus is less fatal than SARS].Â
SARS, also a coronavirus, caused the deaths of 774 people worldwide.
Source: BBC [bbc.com].
Genetic sequence of the virus was published by China, publicly, and a US lab already developed a vaccine, but will not be available before summer. Source: BBC [bbc.com].
WHO Declares Global Heath Emergency (Score:2)
WHAT is on second.
Re: (Score:2)
Years! did you have to wait to make that joke!
Re: (Score:2)
Paid or unpaid?
Re: (Score:2)
If you've been in China in the last 2 months my company has now banned us from work for 10 days AND wants a doctor's notice that you don't have CORONAVIRUS (not as in beer) before you can return from work.
Meanwhile school district officials in Ontario where the parents wanted children whose family members have traveled to China recently told them racism would not be tolerated.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Mass Hysteria (Score:2)
Well, we're not that far from people still shooting at the moon because it hid the sun.
Or amputating an uterus for "hysteria".
Or beliving that Earth is flat and that we're the ones choosing our leaders. *ba-dum tiss*
So ... you know ... like ... you know what I mean ... like ... [youtu.be]
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, revisit this post in 2 weeks time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
See, there's the issue.
It's not "the flu".
Dunning Kruger eat your heart out.
Re: Mass Hysteria (Score:2)
MAYBE it will turn into the zombie plague we tell children at nights to get them to go to bed - but there's no evidence of that yet.
Yea, best to just wait and see if it kills everyone. Then go back in time and take it seriously.
Or we could just take precautions now, just like climate change. Don't wait until it's too late to do anything.
Re: (Score:2)
You and everyone like you sound like an anti-vaxxer by protesting common sense containment measures in the name of "fighting racism".
I had to be tested for tuberculosis when I moved to the USA, was that because Obama was racist against Canadians?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: What if Coronavirus is a bioweapon? (Score:2)
This is hilarious
Re: (Score:2)
Er, that stuff is propaganda made up by Israeli spooks and Indian nationalists. You don't have any links to Canadian government or worldwide medical sources for that bullshit do you? I know this stuff is number one on Alex Jones's show because I just found someone posting them on YouTube. But really, I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person but a global pandemic is probably not the best place for you alt-right morons to be making jokes. After all it is the absolute top near term risk for
Re: (Score:2)
Stuff being stolen or illicitly sent from our lab(Canadian National Microbiology Laboratory) in Winnipeg is legit. National post story on it [nationalpost.com] and archive incase it's paywalled/region locked [archive.ph] There was also the Chinese researcher [www.cbc.ca] ( archive [archive.ph] who was escorted off the NML site by the RCMP and is still being held in custody. Hate to break it to you, but none of that is alt-right bullshit. But some rather shady shit that's still on-going. It gets more interesting because apparently(through LE rumors) the scient