The Wuhan coronavirus has been given a temporary official name by China’s National Health Commission - NCP for novel coronavirus pneumonia.
“The naming of a new virus is decided by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses. A name has been submitted to scientific journals and the committee hopes to announce it within days, the BBC reported.” (SCMP)
7 new confirmed cases in Thailand - 3 Thais and 4 Chinese nationals - bringing Thailand’s total to 32. One Thai was evacuated from China, 2 Thais had exposure in country to tourists. For the 4 Chinese, 3 were family members of another victim of the virus and 1 was infected in China.
In addition to the American who died in Wuhan, a Japanese national also died - 60 years old, of pneumonia. He had been in the hospital since 1/22.
2 new cases in UAE (total 7) and 1 in Germany (total 14).
This link contains a short video with several American passengers on the Diamond Princess.
"Five British nationals including a child have been diagnosed with the coronavirus in France, after staying in the same ski chalet and coming into contact with a person who had been in Singapore…total number of people infected with the virus in France has now reached 11.
…newly infected with the virus were not in a serious condition.
“That original case was brought to our attention last night, it is a British national who had returned from Singapore where he had stayed between January 20 and 23, and he arrived in France on January 24 for four days,” The infected Britons had been hospitalised overnight in the region, the ministry added." (RTE)
NYTimes headline, Both CDC and WHO offered asssitsnce, but China reluctant.
Another article about US hospitals and preparedness, given the flu season.
I found this surprising, didn’t realize how stretched some hospitals are now with flu.
Just saw the Netflix a Pandemic, with better understanding of medical experts on the front line, and can’t imagine Dr Syra Madad, NYC infectious disease coordinator’s life right now,
I wonder if it is driven by hospitals’ profit driven approach. They have been under pressure to be profitable ever since MBAs took over hospital administration calculating cost and profit from each bed, HMOs dictating what doctors gotta do, etc. Not unlike always packed airplanes. Empty seats/beds lost chance for extra dollar.
US emergency rooms also serve as detox centers as well as temporary shelter for mentally unstable patients. In our town, the biggest ER has often a wait time of a few hours, especially during the weekend. From sniffles to drunks, OD and uncontrolled schizophrenics, they have to see all of them. Things started to get worse about 6-7 years ago and I don’t see an improvement coming soon. So if you will start seeing a lot of new patient with pneumonia lining up in the hallways, the system will be in trouble.
Probably not. Every manufacturing area has its own risks and benefits. Currently, China’s manufacturing benefits outweigh the risks. Two of our suppliers of components are in Wenzhou, which is now also under quarantine. The parts that one of those suppliers makes are available from other sources at 4-5 times the price. The parts that the other supplier makes are custom injection molded just for us, so if they’re shut down for long, we can get it custom injection molded elsewhere but it would cost huge amounts not just for startup (tooling, etc) but on an ongoing basis.
In theory, we could get all those parts in places other than China, but those places would have their own risks. Heck, when Swine flu was an issue a few years ago, Mexico was one of the hardest hit areas - we have suppliers in Mexico, too.
Where exactly do you think companies could source things that is not at all at risk of disease, natural disaster, political change, currency fluctuation, etc? The moon?
At least you could diversify the sources so that if one area is hit you’d have options. Also, if you involves a few smaller country rather than relying on one huge country that will dictate terms, you’d be better off. Fringe benefit of that would be you make a few countries richer instead of concentrating on one country ensuring them to be a supply monopoly. I get that why everyone is going to China for their supply but it is short sighted.
Actually I was thinking of the US. No area is immune to everything that could shut down manufacturing but relying too heavily on China seems risky to me for a lot of reasons.
The US, Canada and the EU are still pretty good bets.
But, of course, more expensive. The question is, have the risks inherent in political instability and low functioning health care systems been adequately priced in when outsourcing decisions were taken? People aren’t very good at assessing risk which are rare but catastrophic.
There are many components which are simply not manufactured in the US. It’s not a matter of choosing a US manufacturer over a foreign one - these components are only made in foreign countries, so it’s a matter of choosing which foreign country you’ll buy from.
The products that one of our Chinese suppliers makes can be bought from a few other countries, and we will be doing that if the quarantine of Wenzhou continues for more than a few months. We keep lists of alternate suppliers for just that reason.
As for the custom molded casing, we need 10,000 - 20,000 per year. We can get them from China for approximately $.60 each. The next least expensive quote we received when we were searching for alternates a few years ago was for approximately $5 each. Pricing from a US supplier was in the upper teens, think it was $17 if I remember correctly.
My son has been in the ER since Wednesday afternoon. The lack of psych beds will become a major crisis if our hospital is inundated with flu patients. ?
To end speculation on China accepting help, from AP:
“The head of the World Health Organization says it received a response from China on Saturday on the dispatch of a WHO-led international mission to the country…Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the team leader will leave on Monday or Tuesday and the rest of the experts will follow.”
Sorry, but I’m extremely skeptical of this. While the top guy/gal finally got a visa approval, “to follow” says nothing on when the rest of the experts will be approved.
I saw an interview on TV with the Secy of HHS last weekend and he said that they had already submitted a list of infection disease experts from the US (CDC, NIH, medical personnel) who were willing to go to China and help. So far, the response has been crickets.
I believe them too, but ya’ gotta put your critical reading hat on: it’s not what they said but what they didn’t say, i.e., what is the time frame for the ‘rest to follow’? One Director dropping in can do almost nothing without his/her team.
AFRICAN COUNTRIES WITH CLOSE CHINA TIES CAUGHT UNPREPARED
"The virus has yet to be confirmed in Africa, but global health authorities are increasingly worried about the threat to the continent, where an estimated 1 million Chinese now live, as some health workers warn they are not ready to handle an outbreak.
Countries are racing to take precautions as hundreds of travelers arrive from China every day. Safeguards include stronger surveillance at ports of entry and improved quarantine and testing measures across Africa, home to 1.2 billion people and some of the world’s weakest systems for detecting and treating disease.
But the effort has been complicated by a critical shortage of testing kits and numerous illnesses that display symptoms similar to the flu-like virus." (AP)