@Happytimes2001 I’m sorry it comes off as disrespectful but the poster has posted several panicked posts and it’s helping no one and I’m sure very much raising their anxiety. I don’t take back what I said.
I explained in my post why it can be dangerous to start panicking. Especially when it has undercurrents of xenophobia. Chinese doesn’t mean diseased and it had already been explained why there was an extremely low chance that they were infected.
We as a country have a bad history of treating Chinese Americans and Chinese nationals as diseased. As I said before, there was already a physical assault on one Asian American while the attacker accused them of being diseased.
I have not accused the poster of being xenophobic and I won’t. But I can still call out statements that are illogical and xenophobic.
“Adopting one of the most restrictive responses to the coronavirus outbreak, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines announced Friday it would bar any traveler with a passport from China, Hong Kong or Macao from its ships throughout the month of February.”
"An initial analysis of 17,000 coronavirus infections in mainland China shows that 82 per cent of the cases are classified as mild and 15 per cent as severe, and that 3 per cent of patients have developed critical symptoms, the World Health Organisation said on Friday.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical lead in the world health body’s emergency programme, said the data obtained from Chinese authorities also showed that “2 per cent or less than 2 per cent” of reported cases have resulted in deaths."
More details:
Reiteration that older people and those with underlying conditions are most at risk.
Acknowledgement that many people with no or mild symptoms aren’t being counted and that the system is overburdened.
And this was mentioned with talk of shortages of protective masks and clothing:
“40 out of 138 people hospitalised in Zhongnan Hospital in the city of Wuhan – the epicentre of the crisis – were health care workers, with 10 of them presumed to have been infected by a single patient.”
US offers $100m to China, others to fight coronavirus
The United States offered up to $100m to China, and other impacted countries, to combat the fast-spreading coronavirus.
In a statement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: "This commitment - along with the hundreds of millions generously donated by the American private sector - demonstrates strong US leadership in response to the outbreak.
“We encourage the rest of the world to match our commitment. Working together, we can have a profound impact to contain this growing threat.” (Telegraph UK)
Daily tallies, all of China and worldwide:
China virus death toll rises by 86 today to 722, and 724 worldwide.
Newly confirmed cases increase by 3,399 to 34,546 in China and 34,879 +/- worldwide
The quarantine on the ship off Japan could go on for a lot longer. NPR reports that any new case of coronavirus found on the ship extends the quarantine period for the other passengers.
NY Times is reporting that both WHO and CDC have offered to send teams of medical experts to China, and China has not responded. WHO offered two weeks ago, and has gotten the cold shoulder. “A possible reason, experts noted, is that outsiders could discover aspects of the outbreak that are embarrassing to China. For example, the country has not revealed how many of its doctors and nurses have died fighting the disease.”
3 more confirmed cases on the Diamond Princess in Yokohama harbor. Total is now 64.
“The Princess Cruise website describes the ship as “your home away from home” and it will remain so for most passengers at least until February 19. The quarantine period could be extended if necessary, a Japanese government official said. Mike Ryan, the World Health Organisation’s top emergency expert, said new cases would push back the quarantine.“We need to find a way to break that vicious cycle and find a way of organising the patients on board in a way that we can get people off the ship in due course, Ryan said. On board, passengers were finding out about the new infections from the internet before they were announced on the ship, said a Hong Kong man, who declined to be identified.” (SCMP)
Until the statistics coming out of China are trusted - or a substantial outbreak occurs in a country more transparent - reporting of total infection/mortality rates seem kind of pointless. There’s enough odds and ends reporting out there to suggest the numbers are higher than the official ones. How much higher is the question.
What would be interesting numberwise to see is the age distribution of the infected. (Interesting to me, anyway, since I’m old enough to consider myself… well, old enough to maybe be in the cohort that might not shrug it off as a cold.)
Not sure if any of this will fall into the rumor-mongering category but would suggest that whoever disagrees might try explaining their particular issues with it. Preferably, without using terms like ‘BS’ and ‘calm down’.
I do wish they would let in the experts from the CDC and,WHO. Even if it doesn’t help, it would surely do no harm and an extra set of medical hands would be helpful, I imagine. My sympathy to those quarantined-it must be very stressful and tedious at the same time.
Worried about the impact this will have on the global economy the longer it continues, too.
I am still struggling to understand how - 30 miles from where I live - a ship with thousands of passengers was hurriedly disembarked so that the ship could “turn around” for it’s next cruise to leave this evening. The cruise line is complaining that they have to wait until Saturday to depart.
They cleaned and fumigated the ship in a matter of hours? This while 4 patients who happen to be Chinese are still in a hospital after being tested for the virus. Their first test turned up negative - however one patient has the standard flu.
Hasn’t it been said that patients can have negative results when first tested - only to come up positive on a later test?
Additionally , two dozen other Chinese passengers were hurriedly taken to Newark airport for a flight back to China.
According to reports, the Chinese passengers hadn’t been in China since January 26th. Didn’t the Coronavirus start in late December???
Is there some magic to the 14 day limit? Does anyone really know if an infected person will show symptoms by Day 14?
I find it very concerning - even though I am “calm” at this time.
“Is there some magic to the 14 day limit? Does anyone really know if an infected person will show symptoms by Day 14?”
There has been info posted here by myself and others (though people are expressing distrust of the info - who really knows? We can only report what is given out. Better than nothing), that the long end of the contagiousness is 14 days (actually short - the tail end was in the 12-13 day range). It’s in this thread somewhere in some post or link but I’m not going to go back and dig it up.
Makes me wonder how many of the people who died presumably of this virus actually died of a secondary infection like TB. China is one of the highest TB burden countries.