Is this strain of Coronavirus worse than the strain we see every year?
It is a new strain. It seemed to have spread rather fast and killed three people so far. That sounds worse to me. Initially, they thought it couldnāt transmit from human to human, only from animal to human. Now they think it spreads through saliva.
I spent a week in China adopting my younger daughter during SARS. In fact, they temporarily closed down adoptions two days after we got home for fear of it spreading.
I came home with a bad cough from the pollution (happened on my first trip too). My mother was freaked out about SARS, and wouldnāt stop until I went to the doctor. He confirmed I just had pollution crud.
Iām not saying this doesnāt have the potential to be serious. But, in my experience, itās nothing to be overly freaked out about.
Maybe SARS didnāt become a disaster it could have been if people didnāt freak out and took steps to contain it. You donāt need to shut down your life but urgent measures should be taken to stop the spread. IOW, we should be freaked out without disrupting our lives.
What a great opportunity to reinforce the importance of hand washing - and to give our college-bound kids a reason to roll their eyes!
(Based on personal experience this morning, your mileage may vary).
Up to 9 people according to my reading.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/22/asia/china-wuhan-coronavirus-deadly-intl-hnk/index.html
9! It was 3 yesterday. They confirmed it spreads human to human. It is fast moving and seems highly contagious according to
What does āVCā stand for?
Iām guessing venture capital.
Just an FYIIā¦ The people who died of this infection in China were over 60
and also had some underlying health issues. (60 can be pretty old in China).
VC - yes, venture capitalists, like those who blew billions on that imperorās with no clothes real estate scheme.
Itās 17 now, according to the NYT.
@BunsenBurner @doschicos, it just dawned on me. Duh. My first thought was Viet Cong and I was like āwhat?ā
Venture Capitalists pay my kid so I canāt be too critical.
āChinese newborns can look forward to 68.7 years of healthy life ahead of them, compared with 68.5 years for American babies, the data - which relates to 2016 - showed.ā
Maybe. But not people who are ALREADY over 60.
@emilybee - there are some VCs that do support biotech. My hat is off to them. Those who toss billions at clowns like that Adam Neumann deserve to lose their shirts and get a cold every winter month. 
Canāt say my sonās company is saving the world but the VCās are quite pleased with their investments. They are sill investing about $150M each funding round and itās been like for about the last 8 years. Co has been in business since 2008 but they bootstrapped for the first 4 years. The company is worth about a billion now, so just uses these news funds to buy existing companies. Bought one in France and another in Canada over the last few years. S has stock so he is quite the happy camper (for now.)
All public transportation into and out of the city of Wuhan is now shut down by government orderā¦
Yikes! City of 9 million.
I have a family member deployed for screening incoming passengers at one of the U.S. airports. Hoping the swift response is effective.
Some perspectives, according to CDC, so far this flu season, more than 6,600 people have died from flu with over 12 millions cases identified. I think the Chinese government yet has good estimate about the approximate number of people who have infected with this new coronavirus, since the symptoms seemed to be from mild to severe. I have read news of at least 15 health professionals infected with the virus, which indicated the ease of transmission.
It is going to be a Herculean task to contain the infection during Chinese New Year time.
And Wuhan has 11 million people!