Numbers from Johns Hopkins University https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wQVypefm946ch4XDp37uZ-wartW4V7ILdg-qYiDXUHM/htmlview?usp=sharing&sle=true https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 As of 2-5-20, 16:43 (local time, I assume): 16,678 confirmed cases in Hubei province alone. 479 reported deaths in Hubei. And 538 reported recoveries in Hubei. So... If we calculate mortality rate by reported deaths/confirmed cases, which is how it's normally done, it's something like 2.87%. Not too bad. (This seems to assume that everyone infected who hasn't yet been reported as having died isn't going to die.) but... If we calculate mortality rate by reported deaths/reported deaths + reported recoveries (all the cases whose final outcomes we know), it's a whopping 47.09%! I expect that's much too high, but I also suspect that the 2% number is way too low. The most accurate number might be somewhere in the middle. (Not unlike SARS perhaps.) If many sick people linger a long time before dying, so that most of the people dying now were infected when the disease was much smaller, we would expect the number of fatalities to grow exponentially into the thousands (or even tens of thousands), just like the rate of infections already has. And this is just one Chinese province. There's also the problem that an unknown number of people may be infected but not obviously ill, but still contagious. The truth is that we don't know what the real situation is. The way that the Chinese and now the world are responding makes me suspect that it's much worse than they are telling us. (You don't lock down 50 million people with military roadblocks for a new strain of flu.) So I'm just not convinced that the numbers that we are getting are entirely reliable. I still suspect massive scale underreporting by the Chinese government, perhaps unintentional because hospitals are swamped and are turning people away, and perhaps intentional to prevent panic and preserve social stability. I believe that the United States has advised all US citizens in China to leave. All visitors from mainland China are temporarily excluded. (China isn't happy about that. It will play havoc with some companies' supply chains.) Two additional US evacuation aircraft are currently in Wuhan collecting more of the estimated 800 Americans trapped there. Not clear where they will all go. Maybe some to March air force base in California that received the first batch, others elsewhere. The US says they will all have to undergo testing and 14 day quarantine.
I think it's important to point out that all the news/videos we're seeing is coming from the cities. There are huge tracts of rural/agricultural lands all throughout the area. The people who live in these areas do not have immediate access to modern hospitals, etc. and the government is less aware of what goes on there than in the larger metropolitan areas.
Chinese MD dies https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/02/06/doctor-coronavirus-death-epidemic-wuhan-china-spread/4678344002/
I'm a little hesitant to post this, since I don't want to contribute to spreading panic. On the other hand, this is the End of the World Thread. Just keep in mind that the scarier stuff at the end is a worst-case scenario. More twitter stuff, for what it's worth... (It could be an apocalyptic end-of-the-world Science Fiction movie. At least no zombies... yet.) And just think, all this will be in your neighborhood in a few weeks... Life (and Death) in Wuhan Inside one of the US evacuation flights from Wuhan to the United States. Note the 'nbc' nuclear, biological and chemical suits that the American crew are wearing. https://twitter.com/IsChinar/status/1225642223506579457 Drone video from an Australian TV station showing Wuhan (a city of 10 million) as a ghost city. Empty streets, airplanes parked and seemingly forgotten at an unused airport. https://twitter.com/msrsonline/status/1225629549917958150 There are still living people in the city though. Thousands of Wuhan apartment dwellers, told to remain in their homes, shouting out their windows and off their balconies. https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/status/1225821711247069185 Inside that 1000 bed "hospital" that China proudly built in just a few days in Wuhan. Little things like toilets and plumbing are minimal. No medicines or medical equipment. No apparent ability to provide intensive care that many of these patients will need. Note how beds are crammed close together, almost ensuring cross infection. Complaint that it's a 'death camp' and people are just being sent there to die while the government can pretend it's "taking all necessary steps". https://twitter.com/CriticalCezanne/status/1225432827765805056 And here's a government PR guy all proud of the "Chinese speed" which which the new hospital was built. https://twitter.com/zlj517/status/1225691290177658880 Video of unknown provenance that shows what may or may not be doctors at a small Wuhan clinic discussing the situation. They claim that people are dying in their facility and nobody is taking the bodies (views of body bags at the end), complaining how due to lack of test kits, virus tests confirming a diagnosis can only be conducted for people who have already been admitted to a hospital... while nobody is allowed to be admitted to a hospital without a confirmed diagnosis. (A great 'catch 22' which will almost guarantee under-reporting.) Complaints about doctors being arrested for telling the truth about how bad the situation is and how people higher up in the government should be the ones arrested. https://twitter.com/DarrenPlymouth/status/1225417537460088834 Suspected cases are being involuntarily and at times forcibly committed to quarantine facilities. https://twitter.com/Anfield_king/status/1225674232719298560 Chinese military now operating checkpoints in Wuhan. Reports that the quarantine zones are now under martial law. (Note the logo in the green circle on what looks like the soldier's cell-phone pocket. A skull inside what looks like a virus outline. (Is that the logo of a special biological warfare unit?) https://twitter.com/VictorLeonardi2/status/1225871309835505666 Here's an epidemiologist from Imperial College London who based on his mathematical models of disease spread, thinks that less than 10% of infections in China are known, that maybe 25% of the infections outside China are known. Inside China he estimates that there are maybe 50,000 new infections a day. He estimates that the epidemic is doubling every 5 days inside China. It sounds like he fully expects it to spread worldwide. https://twitter.com/StephenMcDonell/status/1225361167381495810 And here is something equally scary... For a short time the epidemic tracker on Tencent, the Chinese social media site, was showing dramatically higher figures, then it abruptly took them down and started showing the official government numbers. The uncorrected/uncensored numbers were: 154,023 confirmed cases, 24,549 deaths and 269 'cures'. That works out to a 15.94% mortality rate if we go with deaths/confirmed cases. And a 98.92% mortality rate if we just go with cases whose final outcome is known: deaths/(deaths+ cures) The latter numbers make the otherwise outlandish rumor that was going around the Chinese internet a few days ago that this is something that escaped from a germ warfare lab more plausible. https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/387159 So there you have it: The End of the World!
I can not think of a reason to believe the Chinese government has this in control https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3049588/coronavirus-what-xi-fears-most-chinese-turning-communist-party
Even the mountains are no longer safe... Outbreak at a French Ski Resort & Community. On another note, if anyone doesn't have an N95 masks... it's too late. While they normally go for $20-80 a box, the few left on Amazon are generally $400+. Industrial supply houses such as Grainger, have them on indefinite back order from China. The vast majority of all emergency medical and disaster personal protective equipment is sourced from China... and they're not producing for anyone but themselves at this point. More concerning.. a good portion of all medicine is made in China now too, we don't even produce penicillin in America anymore.
There goes the global industrial and manufacturing supply chain... 90% of all manufacturing exporters in China are shut down.
This is huge as Apple and other companies manufacture in China. Are we going to see a global shortage of products? Will this lead to financial and economic hardships, layoffs, etc? Market collapse. Why China is it divine punishment to the world?
I'm not convinced that we really know how deadly this new virus will be in the long run. One thing that worries me is that nobody seems to be talking about how long it takes to recover. Combine that with the very low numbers of reported recoveries compared to reported infections, and the possibility that this thing might be chronic arises. Catch it and it doesn't quickly go away. The young doctor up above was an early case from a month or so ago and only just died. If the vast majority of people who have caught it since it erupted have had it for a shorter time, and if many/most of them are still ill (we don't really know that), then we don't really know their long-term prognosis. I want to see better numbers on people who recover, more on how long that takes, and more on the severity of the illness before recovery happens. Regarding severity, there's this CDC guidance for physicians, which is much scarier than what's been put out publicly in the mass media. Nothing much about how long a typical case lasts. They do say that between 1/4 and 1/3 of all hospitalized patients need intensive care ventilation, but don't say how long it is likely to be needed or what percentage of confirmed cases will need hospitalization. They might not know, this is all a work-in-progress and medicine is scrambling to keep up with it. They do warn physicians that milder flu-like symptoms sometimes seem to worsen about two weeks in and that's when hospitalization might become necessary. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-guidance-management-patients.html The good news is that this new virus has already been sequenced and multiple projects on multiple immunological/molecular biological fronts are already underway around the world to produce a vaccine or other effective treatments.
And... so it begins... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7980883/Video-shows-officials-protective-suits-dragging-suspected-coronavirus-carriers-homes.html
China has put out new numbers on number of recoveries. (If you can believe their numbers.) They say that nationally, 8.2% of those infected have recovered (and 6.1% in Wuhan.) Today's official number on infections is said to be 40,171. The official number on deaths is 908. 908/40171 = 2.26% mortality rate. (deaths/confirmed cases) 8.2% of 40,171 = 3,294 908/908+3,294 = 908/4202 = 21.61% mortality rate (deaths/known outcomes) The two percentages are very different because there are so many sick whose prognosis is still unknown. The percentages do seem to be converging though, which is a good sign. It suggests that this illness may not be a lifelong thing and that people do recover. Of course, it all depends on the numbers being credible. https://nypost.com/2020/02/10/china-says-8-2-percent-of-its-coronavirus-patients-are-cured/
I have a small-time back channel into China and the indications are that things are bad. They're bad enough that people are not allowed to say how bad they really are. That's sort of normal for China but I think that it's worse than people are being led to believe. I don't have any facts about this but that's what I think. I hope I'm wrong.
China Tries to Flush Out Infected by Banning Cough and Fever Suppressants. Microbiologist who co-discovered Ebola and Aids, declares Coronavirus is likely to become a pandemic.
Coronavirus and distance learning https://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat/2020/02/coronavirus-closes-school-in-china-children-learn-online-from-del-val-teacher.html
similar https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-02-05/Over-24-000-online-courses-open-for-university-students-nationwide-NPZbpCQqvS/index.html
You might find this interesting - a conversation with a "Master Virus Hunter" https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/q-master-virus-hunter-and-contagion-adviser