US Declares Public Health Emergency Over Coronavirus (wsj.com) 68
The Trump administration on Friday declared a public healthy emergency over the coronavirus outbreak and said any foreign national who has traveled within China in the last 14 days will not be allowed to enter the country. The Wall Street Journal reports: The announcement [from U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar] came as stock markets tumbled amid concern about how the impact of the virus could slow global growth. At the same time, Mr. Azar sought to minimize fears about the virus spreading further in the U.S. "I hope that people will see that their government is taking responsible steps to protect them," he said at a White House briefing. "The risk is low... but our job is to keep that risk low."
There are six confirmed cases in the U.S. and 191 people are under investigation, officials said. Meantime, Americans who were evacuated from the epicenter of the China coronavirus outbreak will be quarantined for 14 days at a U.S. military base to prevent any spread of the infectious disease, federal health authorities said Friday. The quarantine -- the first in the U.S. ordered by the federal government in roughly 50 years -- came as the U.K. and Russia each reported their first cases of the dangerous virus, while other countries moved to limit air traffic with China as the number of people infected there approached 10,000. The quarantine applies to 195 U.S. citizens evacuated Wednesday from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the center of the outbreak, and brought to the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, Calif., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The State Department also on Friday advised Americans in China to consider leaving and requested all nonessential U.S. government personnel to postpone travel there.
The State Department's "Do Not Travel" advice placed China on the same list as Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela. It follows the WHO's designation Thursday of the coronavirus as a global public-health emergency.
Additionally, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines said they will suspend all U.S.-China flights for at least several weeks due to the outbreak. Delta's suspensions will begin Feb. 6 and last through April 30.
There are six confirmed cases in the U.S. and 191 people are under investigation, officials said. Meantime, Americans who were evacuated from the epicenter of the China coronavirus outbreak will be quarantined for 14 days at a U.S. military base to prevent any spread of the infectious disease, federal health authorities said Friday. The quarantine -- the first in the U.S. ordered by the federal government in roughly 50 years -- came as the U.K. and Russia each reported their first cases of the dangerous virus, while other countries moved to limit air traffic with China as the number of people infected there approached 10,000. The quarantine applies to 195 U.S. citizens evacuated Wednesday from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the center of the outbreak, and brought to the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, Calif., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The State Department also on Friday advised Americans in China to consider leaving and requested all nonessential U.S. government personnel to postpone travel there.
The State Department's "Do Not Travel" advice placed China on the same list as Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela. It follows the WHO's designation Thursday of the coronavirus as a global public-health emergency.
Additionally, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines said they will suspend all U.S.-China flights for at least several weeks due to the outbreak. Delta's suspensions will begin Feb. 6 and last through April 30.
Not good (Score:2)
I am not feeling to well myself. I hope AI will save us. If we were on Mars this wouldn't be a problem. Dirty unwashed masses!
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Do you not remember the billions that died from SARS and MERS? Don't worry: tech will save us all.
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Do you not remember the billions that died from SARS and MERS? Don't worry: tech will save us all.
Billions died?
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2020/01/29/coronavirus-what-are-symptoms-of-wuhan-china-novel-virus/4563892002/
How does coronavirus compare to SARS, MERS and the common flu?
Outbreaks like this have happened before, most notably with SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2015.
SARS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, is commonly used as a reference in coronavirus coverage, since both originated in China and share characteristics. In all, 8,098 SARS cases were recorded, with a death toll of 774. That’s a fatality rate of 9.6%.
MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, originated in Saudi Arabia and resulted in 2,499 cases and 861 deaths, giving it a higher fatality rate of 34.5%.
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Well...millions.
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Yes. Yes I do.
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Whoosh. Please adjust your sarcasm detector.
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The death rate is similar for the Wuhan coronavirus as SARS but the R(0) foe SARS was 2.2 and this one is 4.08 (mean model estimate). This one spreads before people are symptomatic and the virus can shed from the eyes.
The flu is 1.29 by comparison and these are geometric growth factors.
Buy food and bleach while you can.
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The death rate is similar for the Wuhan coronavirus as SARS but the R(0) foe SARS was 2.2 and this one is 4.08 (mean model estimate). This one spreads before people are symptomatic and the virus can shed from the eyes.
The flu is 1.29 by comparison and these are geometric growth factors.
Buy food and bleach while you can.
Quite right. Born of the Wuhan live air meat and animal market, multiple cross infections from animal to human and back again have readied this tiny infectious agent with some troublesome characteristics.
It doesn't kill its host often or quickly like ebola and Marburg, it evidently spreads through airborne aerosol droplets and human to human infection rates were widely underestimated in the outbreak's incipience.
Re: Yawn (Score:2)
and human to human infection rates were widely underestimated in the outbreak's incipience.
Well china told us it was contagious before symptoms showed. We denied it as long as we could since we were Western, and knew better...
Re: Yawn (Score:2)
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It is always white male nerds who go overboard with things like this.
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We won't remember this because, unlike ye olden days, we track outbreaks before they became pandemics, rather than after we're in the middle of them.
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Eventually this attitude will come back to bite us in the ass.
The last truly catastrophic pandemic was barely more than 100 years ago. And yes, technology has improved in regards to tracking and treating them. But has that offset the additional risk caused by having nearly every person on the globe within 1 or 2 days travel from one another?
This one's pretty minor, but categorize it as a near miss.
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point taken.
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HIV is not easily spread by casual contact. That's a very important factor in these matters.
And the suggestion that no one has been paying attention is nonsense. Great strides have been made in treating it, even if a cure remains elusive.
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There were vastly more vulnerable people with reduced immune response in 1918.
That's why when the same strain went around the world in the late `70s it wasn't very bad and few people even know it happened.
This is already worse than what would happen if the 1918 flu strain was going around this year. And yet, it isn't really worth being afraid.
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Does "we" include China?
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We won't remember this because, unlike ye olden days, we track outbreaks before they became pandemics, rather than after we're in the middle of them.
This.
SARS death rate 9.6%
MERS death rate 34.5%
If we hadn't jumped on it early, it could have been as bad (SARS) or much worse (MERS) as the 1918 influenza epidemic.
Poo-pooing the hazard because the measures to stop it worked is like saying it was stupid to fix all the software that had two-digit years in their dates, because "nothing happened" in the Y2K bug.
There's a dang good reason "nothing happened". "Nothing happened" because measures were taken to KEEP it from happening.
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It's like the antivaxxers. These morons live in a world where modern medical treatments and protocols make deadly outbreaks far less likely, and then try to make themselves look smart by mocking those very same protocols and treatments. They are, for a lack of a better term, contemptible fucking idiots.
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Why would you need a better term? I think 'contemptible fucking idiots' serves admirably.
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I remember that. I couldn't eat tapas for two whole years afterwards.
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We're long overdue for a pandemic.
Good, I say put it on the schedule then. People have forgotten that anything matters. Maybe they'll look up from their jeejahs for a couple days.
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quarantined for 14 days at a U.S. military base (Score:2)
Leme guess... Gitmo is below acceptable capacity in relation to operational cost?
Sounds like an intelligent business decision.
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Don't be silly. That's what Guam is for.
Concerning, but no reason to panic (Score:4, Informative)
Taking measures to prevent the 2019-nCoV form spreading is prudent.
However, widespread panic is not a logical response.
Here are some facts:
- It is far less deadly than either MERS (35% of infected) or SARS (20% of infected)
- It may be more contagious than either though, so number of infections over time is much more than with SARS.
- There are no fatalities outside China
- 3 out of 4 confirmed cases in Canada have either recovered completely or recuperating at home.
More information in this article [ctvnews.ca].
If countries follow good quarantine procedures, this virus will be under control soon.
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Without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it’s time for us to crack each other’s heads open and feast on the goo inside?
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Did you even check the link I provided?
Here is the summary:
- Three people tested positive in Canada.
- Only one needed hospitalization.
- Two just stayed at home.
- All 3 recovered.
There is a 4th case in Vancouver (don't know if s/he was hospitalized or not).
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It's a Simpsons joke. Never mind.
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No worries ...
I eat brains. Not human though. Really good fried in a sandwich.
That is not a joke, it is a delicacy around the Mediterranean.
Re: Concerning, but no reason to panic (Score:1)
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Yes. If you smoked enough angel dust to be waiting for that, just give it a try and see if it feels right.
Step away from the microscope (Score:2)
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Unfortunately the U.S. is not going to take prudent measures unless lots of people are panicking. As an example I suggest you look at the spread of HIV in the U.S.
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There are a couple of choice behaviors to do to drastically reduce your risk of getting HIV.
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Uhm, we didn't take prudent measures to deal with that even when people were, in fact, panicking over it.
When I was a child there was a period of time where public hysteria caused the average person to be scared of getting AIDS and dying gay if they drank from a glass of water that had once been sipped from by the wrong person. People were going to restaurants and demanding disposable cups.
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Unfortunately the U.S. is not going to take prudent measures unless lots of people are panicking. As an example I suggest you look at the spread of HIV in the U.S.
The chances of getting HIV in the USA is near zero unless someone abuses drugs (sharing needles and such) or participates in anal sex.
Until there were some basic screening for risk factors and testing for the virus in the blood supply there were also risks for people that received blood transfusions, primarily those that received them regularly such as hemophiliacs.
I remember this panic, and it was played up in the news and politics of the time but it was largely a non-issue outside of these high risk group
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Re:Concerning, but no reason to panic (Score:5, Funny)
If countries follow good quarantine procedures, this virus will be under control soon.
So you're saying we're doomed?
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No.
The two most recent outbreaks were successfully contained: SARS in 2003, and MERS in 2012-2015.
Even Ebola was contained despite an outbreak in several developing countries.
So, the current pandemic should be eventually contained too.
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So you're saying we're doomed?
I'd say we're fine, but China is fucked.
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China's already successfully contained SARS, bird 'flu and swine 'flu in the last 20 years. This one's going to be contained as well.
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We just had a case here in Canada where the person was fully asymptomatic until almost the end of their recovery. So it might be time to be more proactive. [www.cbc.ca]
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I know.
I live around 100 km east of there in KW.
She is at home in self isolation. Meaning that she did not need to be hospitalized, nor was her life is in danger.
And, still no fatalities outside China.
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And yet, she wasn't in self-isolation until the second test showed she tested positive. Which means she was likely an active carrier. I'm much closer to London then you are, but am in the rural SWON. We've also got the CBC trying to blame this virus on climate change.
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This is not that far fetched. It does not have to be hyperbole or alarmism either.
If the virus originated in species that is on the move because of habitat loss (or new habitat opening up as other areas warm up), then we have pathogens that did not exist before becoming common. If species get closer together because of habitat loss, viruses can jump from one to the other, just like Avian Flu and Swine Flu, which ended up in humans at least
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It's hyperbole and alarmism, no different then people claiming that this is virii has 'hiv/aids' insertions in it without any actual proof. Your other examples, lyme disease the carriers are mostly deer not birds. And since deer range into mighty cold weather that's moot. I'm old enough to remember when lyme disease didn't exist, and it was just a conspiracy theory. Zika, west nile and malaria for example has more to do with over-use of insecticides in an uncontrolled manner leading to carrier mosquitoes
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Just because some people don't like to hear about climate change does not mean it does not exist. And just because others overhype it does not mean it has scientific evidence behind it.
Migratory birds are definitely a reservoir of Borrelia,
Paper about Europe [nih.gov] and paper about Canada [asm.org]. That last paper estim
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You're taking multiple things without understanding the context of them. Borrelia carriers don't translate into lyme disease, the primary incubators are in deer. From deer into mid-size mammals which are healthy enough not to die when they're infected, and in turn become carriers. That's pretty well known.
Interesting thing with bats though, they don't have as an aggressive immune system towards virii, which makes the situation fundamentally different. It's similar to the old typhoid mary case with them,
CNN will get it solved (Score:1, Flamebait)
>"The Trump administration on Friday declared a public healthy emergency over the coronavirus outbreak"
But according to CNN, we should focus on the "diversity" of the task force, instead of working to fight the potential threat of the virus. So the threat must be not that important.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/30... [cnn.com]
But yeah, CNN reporting is so "center" and "moderate."
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Re: CNN will get it solved (Score:2)
Does that analysis offend you?
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"But according to CNN, we should focus on the "diversity" of the task force, instead of working to fight the potential threat of the virus."
CNN said no such thing, and you provided the link that disproves your claim.
If CNN is doing such a bad job, why do people like you have to lie instead of citing real examples?
we have guns though... (Score:2)
Test run, but People are Dying (Score:3)
The flippant comments are bothersome.
It looks like Coronavirus isn't the world killer.
But do you want to be prepared if such an entity comes about?
This is practice, like a fire alarm test. But people are dying so it's no laughing matter.
Containment and control. Quarantine. 50 million in a regional quarantine, go join them. 1-2-3-World Problems.
https://www.latimes.com/scienc... [latimes.com]
It is also a lesson, China needs to work on animal controls better. Make's American factory farming look good (via antibiotics I figure).
Play Plague on your phone or tablet (worth the money), educational entertainment trying to kill off the world.
Key factors:
1. Human-to-human transmission.
2. Ability to pass before symptoms arise
3. Mortality rate
4. Vaccine dev time (if possible)
I'd prefer overreaction for new viruses rather than "Yawn". If you underestimate the real one, well, good night, sleep tight.
How to minimize the impact/spread of viral illness (Score:2)
We basically know how to greatly reduce the impact of viral outbreaks, not just coronovirus but the much more common and dangerous influenza. This advice won't save everyone, but it would save a lot of people if they followed it.
1. Vitamin D. Absolutely critical to proper immune system function, and most people are deficient.
2. Vitamin C. Ditto.
3. Basic sanitation.
4. Avoid toxins, which for most people means eating a more healthy diet. (Sugar is one of the absolute worst, and temporarily, but seriously,