What about this virus? Covid-19

[Emmie2016]

Originally Posted by Kd0758

What are the actual symptoms of it and how is it diagnosed?

Something very weird about it.

See more...

It has normal flu symtoms then evolves into an upper respiratory symtoms. There has been a test for Coronavirus (this is just a different strain) for years, they take swabs of the mouth, throat and nose and test. In the country over 1300 have been tested and only 8 had been confirmed.

It's not weird as it's just a strain of flu, flu viruses mutate very quick and this strain is very contagious.

[YorkshireT]

Just looking on Twitter as Id heard concerning stuff coming out of China. No way to verify of course but videos claim to show (I took these screenshots, leaving out some more disturbing images):

Folks including the elderly being forcibly and roughly rounded up:

Buildings being sealed up- the poster of this one says the people are inside:

Armed police with biohazard suits on the streets (some claim shooting people, but I’m sceptical of that):

If true, would this be happening if it’s not as bad as flu?

[Clare]

I think China is extremely concerned about its economy and will take whatever steps are needed to contain this virus. It also knows the world is watching and it will not want to be seen to be losing control of containment of the virus.
Although thankfully the mortality rate is small if this does turn into a worldwide pandemic it may well incapacitate a large portion of the world’s population which would have negative consequences for the world’s economy.

[YorkshireT]

They are now suggesting it’s so virulent it can spread through pipes- so someone in your block of flats uses the toilet, and it gets up from the pipes if there’s a problem with the vent.

edition.cnn/2020/02/12/a...hnk/index.html

[Floridatilly]

I just find it strange. Flu is bad and effects a lot of people and a lot of people sadly pass away.
But I have never known such measures put into place before, hazard gear, quarantine etc
It is that which I find scary

[YorkshireT]

My personal belief is this is a lot more serious than being let on.
Hong Kong university say if it kills 1%, 50 million people could die.
Estimates of the real death rate in Wuhan are 18% mortality rate. But that may be high for reasons given and it may be nearer 5% But even at that it could mean 250 million deaths.
It’s all here in New Scientist, not my wild speculation:

google/amp/s/n...ly-to-get/amp/

This is why the Chinese have locked down 35 million people, airlines have stopped flights etc.

[PoohBears#1fan]

Originally Posted by Floridatilly

I just find it strange. Flu is bad and effects a lot of people and a lot of people sadly pass away.
But I have never known such measures put into place before, hazard gear, quarantine etc
It is that which I find scary

See more...

Flu regularly closes down hospital wards, it's a massive concern, just not publicised.

[Feebee2]

Originally Posted by YorkshireT

My personal belief is this is a lot more serious than being let on.
Hong Kong university say if it kills 1%, 50 million people could die.
Estimates of the real death rate in Wuhan are 18% mortality rate. But that may be high for reasons given and it may be nearer 5% But even at that it could mean 250 million deaths.
It’s all here in New Scientist, not my wild speculation:

google/amp/s/n...ly-to-get/amp/

This is why the Chinese have locked down 35 million people, airlines have stopped flights etc.

See more...

Got to agree. If the symptoms are mild and the mortality rate low, why all this fuss?

[sky13]

As some Dibbers know, I live in Singapore, which now has a number of cases.

The Singapore Ministry of Health has been very open with the case numbers and information about each case. They currently have daily press releases giving information about the current situation, new patients identified (with a bit of information about each patient), total number of cases, number of critically ill patients, and number of discharged patients. As of today's press release, there are 50 cases, of which 15 have been discharged and 8 are critically ill in the ICU (moh.gov.sg/news-highligh...tion-confirmed).

What I am worried with with this virus is that it appears to be fairly easily spread, a fairly high percentage of patients need intensive care, and there is a not insignificant mortality rate.

Easily spread - the Diamond Princess cruise ship has about 3700 people on board, of which 175 have tested positive (plus 1 quarantine officer) (channelnewsasia/news...virus-12425154). This puts the percentage of people who catch the virus at 4.7% (could well be higher as they have not tested everyone on board, and there might still be people infected who have not manifested symptoms).

Need for intensive care and risk of mortality - One recent paper looking at 138 hospitalised cases from Wuhan (jamanetwork/journals/jam...rticle/2761044) found that 26.1% of these patients were transferred to the ICU, with 4.3% of patients dying (noting that about half of their patients are still hospitalised). Another case series (thelancet/journals/l...183-5/fulltext) also looking at hospitalised Wuhan patients (41 admitted patients) had 13 patients (32%) admitted to ICU with 6 patients (15%) dying. Admittedly, right now the numbers are still very much in flux and both these papers quoted here only show hospitalised patients, so the percentages quoted here would not account for fairly well asymptomatic patients who do not need hospitalisation.

Initially I was less worried about the need for intensive care and risk of mortality, as the cases outside of China appeared to be fairly well. However, over the last few days the number of patients in Singapore needing intensive care has risen - Singapore's current numbers is 8/50 in the ICU, which is 16%. (And Singapore's 50 cases include fairly well asymptomatic patients who are hospitalised mainly for isolation purposes.) And at least one of Singapore's patients is a young 39 year old who appears to have gone from fairly well (visited a polyclinic) to critically ill (admitted to the intensive care unit) in a very short span of time (moh.gov.sg/news-highligh...irus-infection)

I guess the concern is also that if the coronavirus spreads very quickly, that the health system might become overwhelmed. There is a finite number of hospital beds (and especially so for intensive care beds and isolation beds). If the percentage of people who require hospitalisation/intensive care grows so quickly, then you might end up with a situation like Wuhan where the health system is completely overwhelmed. (Back of the envelope calculation for Singapore - population of 5.5 million, at a rate of 4.7% infected (going by the Diamond Princess percentage), would be about 250,000 cases. If 16% require intensive care, that is 40,000. We don’t even have anywhere close to 40,000 hospital beds, let alone intensive care beds. But if the spread can be slowed down, then not all 40,000 would descend on intensive care units at once, and the health system might have a chance of catching up.)

Since influenza has been brought up as a comparison multiple times, I’m going to use some USA CDC figures (available here cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html). Assuming USA population of 330 million, in 2018-2019 they had 35 million people with symptomatic flu (about 10% of population), with 490,561 hospitalisations (1.4% of symptomatic cases) and 34,157 deaths (0.1% of symptomatic cases). The % of deaths appears to be far smaller than what the coronavirus seems to be currently - it’s just that flu is so widespread that so many people are infected by it in any flu season. The flu vaccine (imperfect as it is) and the availability of antivirals (including oseltamivir and zanamivir) probably help to bring down the mortality rate for flu.

This has turned out to be much longer than I expected to write… but the TL;DR is that I am worried about this given that it appears easily transmissible, and the percentage of people requiring intensive care and the mortality rate appear high.

I’m hoping that these reported percentages turn out to be overestimates once more information is known - the problem right now is that this is really a new, emerging infection, and there are still many unknowns about it.

[bluedave]

I’m immunocompromised due to medication I take and am due to be going to Thailand soon on holiday. Now I could catch this virus anywhere but tbh I wish I was able to swap the holiday for somewhere not so near China.