If anyone wants to wade into the scientific details, a “team of virologists at the Wuhan Institute for Virology released a detailed paper showing that the new coronaviruses’ genetic makeup is 96 per cent identical to that of a coronavirus found in bats. Bats were also the original source of the Sars virus.” (Wired)
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.22.914952v1.full.pdf
Stephen King wrote an intro to The Hot Zone and said that the first chapter is the scariest thing he has ever read. One of its most fascinating and horrifying chapters was about a version of Ebola that appeared to be airborne and spreading rapidly among 100 monkeys in a building without contact with each other.
The building was in Reston, VA. It took a directed effort between the Army and CDC to safely exterminate the monkeys and sterilize the building. Nobody wanted to find out if this disease could cross over to people.
I thought it was tiny body fluid participants that carried Ebola virus. they are so tiny and floats in the air. It was almost like transmitting by air.
They knew it was a lot like SARS but they also found snake in it. Last I heard, they were scratch their head. They said it is highly unusual virus live both on warm blooded and cold blooded hosts.
@Iglooo You can read up here. Heavy droplets from things like sneezing are a risk but WHO says it is not airborne.
https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/ebola/06-october-2014/en/
"Theoretically, wet and bigger droplets from a heavily infected individual, who has respiratory symptoms caused by other conditions or who vomits violently, could transmit the virus – over a short distance – to another nearby person.
This could happen when virus-laden heavy droplets are directly propelled, by coughing or sneezing (which does not mean airborne transmission) onto the mucus membranes or skin with cuts or abrasions of another person."
Read the link for a more thorough understanding.
Dos is correct that Ebola does not fall within the definition of airborne.
But for the sake of this thread, let’s cut Ebola out of this conversation. Back in the day, Ebola was expressly made off limits per TOS 
The fact that a thing has sequence 96% identical to the sequence of another thing does not mean the thing originated from there. Need more time to read that paper to see what else it says.
@hebegebe - I really liked “The Hot Zone” too. It turns out that there may be other strains of Ebola that don’t “burn out” - currently there’s an epidemic of Ebola that’s been occurring in Congo since August of 2018. So this is more of a “simmering” epidemic than a “flaming” one?
Richard Preston (the author of “The Hot Zone”):
Here’s an interview with Preston (after the miniseries version of “The Hot Zone” came out): https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/27/18639111/hot-zone-ebola-richard-preston-national-geographic-tv-show-interview
Thanks @scout59 for that info. But I will follow @BunsenBurner suggestion that we discontinue the Ebola discussion.
^^ Agreed! This coronavirus stuff is interesting in its own right…
FYI…Richard Preston published a new book this year: Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come.
I haven’t read it, but just put it on hold at the library.
Recent outbreaks of deadly diseases have often shown how far modern medicine has come in being able to turn once deadly illnesses to treatable ones (ebola was just one of them that we can look to in the US).
The problem, however, remains: If a serious disease infects enough people, modern medicine won’t get the chance to cure everyone. There are limited numbers of ICU beds, of ventilators, of staff, etc., available to treat such serious cases. You get 5 cases in a city, okay, give them round the clock intensive care, throw every medicine you can think of at them, etc., and all is right with the world.
That whole success story goes to heck if you have thousands ill in a given city. Resources are exhausted quickly and you might as well be living in the Dark Ages for all practical purposes.
It’s that which probably keeps epidemioloists up at night.
Here’s an article with some somewhat pessimistic commentary about containing the virus from scientists around the world. Much focused on discussion around talk of Ro (again stating Ro estimates in the 2-3 range or higher) and this bit:
"One of the luckiest breaks the world got with the SARS outbreak was the fact that the virus did not transmit before people developed symptoms…
Tools like quarantine and isolation—which were key to controlling SARS—are unlikely stop spread of a virus that can transmit during the period from infection to symptoms, experts say."
One comment of many from specialists:
"Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the agency knows transmission of the virus within the United States may be on the horizon.
“We’re leaning far forward. And we have been every step of the way with an aggressive stance to everything we can do in the U.S.,” she told STAT. “And yet those of us who have been around long enough know that everything we do might not be enough to stop this from spreading in the U.S.”
One ray of sunshine:
“The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced Sunday it is donating $10 million to the response to the virus. Half the money will be given to Chinese groups to help them in containment efforts. The other half will be given to the African Center for Disease Control to fund its efforts to help African countries prepare to have to cope with the new infection.”
^I have thought about countries without the resources of the US to help contain and treat. $10 million won’t go far but its something.
I suggest reading the article to hear different thoughts from folks who know more than we do.
ETA: I see it is actually a reprint of the STAT article @scout59 posted in #215
Ha ha @doschicos - I was reading your post and thinking “man, that sounds familiar!”
What the health system looks like in China and why it can’t deal efficiently with such outbreaks:
An interesting read. No primary docs, reliance on a system of hospitals, and a push for traditional medicine.
I keep bringing up the Netflix docuseries but it had storylines that were similar to the above - one in rural Oklahoma that only had one hospital in the entire county, the other in India during an H1N1 outbreak - lots of poorer people who were uninsured or underinsured, no primaries, overworked staff, people delaying coming in from rural areas until things were really bad, limited resources, in the case of India extreme urban density. Definitely factors faced in China but in a lot of other areas in the world as well which increase the chances of such viruses spreading and becoming pandemic.
I agree with @Nrdsb4 that it would be easy for even the best medical systems to get overwhelmed.
the WSJ* had an interesting article last Saturday about our readiness:
*for those that have a subscription
“China’s largest steelmaking city of Tangshan – about 200km east of Beijing – has announced it is suspending all public transit in an effort to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. The city has a population of around 7.5 million people.”
*Germany confirms its first case.
Any word on how US schools are handling their study abroad students in China?
US evacuation was supposed to end at SFO. Now connecting through Anchorage then Ontario, CA.
One of my students (I’m an independent college counselor) who lives in Beijing told me that after the two week holiday break ends, they won’t be going back to school. School will be conducted online. She is basically homebound. Her SAT prep class also switched to online.
^^Are these evacuees going to be quarantined for observation? Or are they going to be immediately released upon landing in Ontario, even with all the health screenings on board and at the airports?