The SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 coronavirus

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Third case of the virus has showed up in Britain, not actually contracted in China but Singapore, so testing is now recommended for travellers in a wider number of East Asian countries.

The cruise ship Diamond Princess sits in quarantine off the Port of Yokohama in Japan after 10 passengers tested positive for the virus, the passengers on board the ship are stuck there for the next two weeks.

Chinese doctor Li Wenliang who issued warning about coronavirus dies from illness. Sad, but the cynic in me wonders if the official version is what actually happened. China has a reputation for making people they dislike disappear.

[madd0ct0r]

Unless his seven other colleagues disappeared too, I'd say it was more likely he died working as a front line doctor in an epidemic he'd been tracking since early on.
A tragic, heroic death.


As for the idiocy...
I think that the Chinese government is not a monolithic block. At a local level, officials are selected for their ability to calm and keep the population in check. A good story here tells it. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n02/long-ling/diary
At higher levels, special department/systems swing into action. Partly it's a bad boyaz/good tsar approach to keep the center untainted by corruption. Partly it's the sheer damn scale of the country.
In the SARS epidemic the urge to keep the news secret for stability and calmness really hampered the disease response and drew international condemnation. Since then a high level CDC equivalent has been ramped up, and once the news got through the local idiots suppressing bad news, we saw that new department swing into action with full reporting, DNA of virus, quaratine of ten million, then fifty million and temporary hospitals thrown up to support.

I suspect, following on, that the CDC equiv will look into establish ing some better way to let doctors report potential outbreaks directly without the local idiots filter.

[FireNexus]

Fox News was on in the office and talking about the coronavirus. They’re both not stoking xenophobia about the virus and are conspicuously downplaying its potential danger. Those two things make me much more nervous about this virus than literally any other facts I’ve heard about it.

[mr friendly guy]

Unless his seven other colleagues disappeared too, I'd say it was more likely he died working as a front line doctor in an epidemic he'd been tracking since early on.
A tragic, heroic death.


As for the idiocy...
I think that the Chinese government is not a monolithic block. At a local level, officials are selected for their ability to calm and keep the population in check. A good story here tells it. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n02/long-ling/diary
At higher levels, special department/systems swing into action. Partly it's a bad boyaz/good tsar approach to keep the center untainted by corruption. Partly it's the sheer damn scale of the country.
In the SARS epidemic the urge to keep the news secret for stability and calmness really hampered the disease response and drew international condemnation. Since then a high level CDC equivalent has been ramped up, and once the news got through the local idiots suppressing bad news, we saw that new department swing into action with full reporting, DNA of virus, quaratine of ten million, then fifty million and temporary hospitals thrown up to support.

I suspect, following on, that the CDC equiv will look into establish ing some better way to let doctors report potential outbreaks directly without the local idiots filter.

My understanding is that it had already been reported by someone else, and he shared on a private Wechat group about what some other colleagues told him. This guy was an opthamologist, ie he is an eye doctor, so it wasn't one of those working actively to treat people with respiratory conditions. But because the virus had already spread, he likely got it from a patient he was seeing for an eye condition. The other thing is, he was to be punished for saying it was SARS, while they were still trying to confirm it, and as we know, it turned out not to be a new virus. Later on a Chinese court struck down whatever punishment he and the other colleagues were supposed to have done because even if the information that it was SARS is wrong, they still felt it should of been released to the public.

[mr friendly guy]

Did a bit more digging, and there are translated tweets from Chinese news about timelines.
https://twitter.com/CordelinaDazir/stat ... 3211141120

But to put it in persepctive

December 26 - Dr. Zhang Dingyu and Dr. Zhang Jixianji noticed something different about these pneumonia patients. Zhang Jixian became suspicious when he reviewed a CT scan.

Dec 30: China’s CDC announced an outbreak

Dec 31: Wuhan market shut down

Jan 8: Full genomic sequence of the new virus completed

Dr Li posted on wechat on December 30, 4 days after authorities were notified. My understanding is, he posted what he heard from colleagues. He was reprimanded for spreading rumours. At this time authorities were still in the process of responding to the reports of a new virus.

Of course, media outlets like BBC won't mention it had already been formally reported by doctors who were actually in the front line and will never ask why an opthamologist would notice this first before all the respiratory doctors who presumably are seeing it on the front line. They will describe him as a whistleblower without context that others had already reported to the authorities the new disease.

[aerius]

Well this is gonna be fun. Foxconn was shut down earlier this week and the restart has been denied by the Chinese government.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coron ... us-sources

So production of pretty much every Apple product plus a whole bunch of other consumer electronics is indefinitely on hold. If this goes on long enough, we might just see a global shortage of consumer electronics especially once word gets out and hoarding kicks in.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well... I'm glad I bought my new laptop a week ago.

[Gandalf]

It's also forced a major crypto mining op to shut down too. That's an interesting one, albeit in a niche area.

[mr friendly guy]

Huh? I thought China banned bitcoin mining a year or so ago.

[Gandalf]

Huh? I thought China banned bitcoin mining a year or so ago.

BTC.top (the group in question) apparently have farms in Sichuan, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia, and has users from various top universities, so maybe some sort of special dispensation is in place.

[AniThyng]

Whats the credibility of this re: aerosol transmission?

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202002/ ... 75fc3.html

Shanghai officials reveal novel coronavirus transmission modes
By Zhou Wenting in Shanghai | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2020-02-08 17:21

[Photo/Agencies]
Confirmed transmission routes of the novel coronavirus include direct transmission, contact transmission and aerosol transmission, a Shanghai official said on Saturday.

“Aerosol transmission refers to the mixing of the virus with droplets in the air to form aerosols, which causes infection after inhalation, according to medical experts,” said Zeng Qun, deputy head of the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau.

“As such, we have called on the public to raise their awareness of the prevention and control of the disease caused by family gatherings,” said Zeng during at a daily media briefing by the municipal government regarding efforts to contain the spread of the virus.

Experts explained that direct transmission refers to infection caused by inhalation of air close to a patient who sneezes and coughs, while contact transmission occurs when a person touches an object tainted with droplets containing the virus before infecting himself through subsequent contact with the membranes of his mouth, nose and eyes.

The government has urged residents to avoid gatherings, open windows to help with ventilation, practice good personal hygiene and regularly disinfect their homes, especially areas like door handles, dinner tables and toilet seats.

[AniThyng]

Ehh nevermind

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202002/ ... 760f4.html

No evidence of novel coronavirus transmitted via aerosol: Chinese expert
Source: Xinhua| 2020-02-09 19:21:43|Editor: huaxia
BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The novel coronavirus normally does not suspend or float in the air for long, and currently no evidence has shown that the new virus can be transmitted through aerosol, a Chinese expert said Sunday.

Feng Luzhao, a researcher of infectious diseases with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, made the remarks at a press conference.

Currently, the virus is mainly transmitted via respiratory droplets and contact, said Feng, adding that the virus is normally transmitted within a range of one to two meters.

He suggested that people use napkins, hands or arms to cover their mouths and noses when coughing or sneezing to prevent splashing droplets.

[madd0ct0r]

The UK is upping it's readiness status as more cases are identified.
My work has decided to pause all travel for meetings to a list of countries, with the short version of the message being "we are not going to be the ones spreading it. Use Skype instead yah morons".

My fil was supposed to come over in three weeks but this probably is the wrong time for a 60+ guy with heart conditions, sleep trouble and minimal English to fly from Vietnam to the UK and back. I think I agree with wife. Cancel tickets and wait till this summer when the heat will kill the virus back

[ray245]

The UK is upping it's readiness status as more cases are identified.
My work has decided to pause all travel for meetings to a list of countries, with the short version of the message being "we are not going to be the ones spreading it. Use Skype instead yah morons".

My fil was supposed to come over in three weeks but this probably is the wrong time for a 60+ guy with heart conditions, sleep trouble and minimal English to fly from Vietnam to the UK and back. I think I agree with wife. Cancel tickets and wait till this summer when the heat will kill the virus back

I doubt heat alone will limit the spread of the virus by much, considering how rapidly it is spreading in hot humid tropical countries like Singapore. It is looking like this might reach the level of the 2009 Swine flu epidemic.

[AniThyng]

The UK is upping it's readiness status as more cases are identified.
My work has decided to pause all travel for meetings to a list of countries, with the short version of the message being "we are not going to be the ones spreading it. Use Skype instead yah morons".

My fil was supposed to come over in three weeks but this probably is the wrong time for a 60+ guy with heart conditions, sleep trouble and minimal English to fly from Vietnam to the UK and back. I think I agree with wife. Cancel tickets and wait till this summer when the heat will kill the virus back

I doubt heat alone will limit the spread of the virus by much, considering how rapidly it is spreading in hot humid tropical countries like Singapore. It is looking like this might reach the level of the 2009 Swine flu epidemic.

Any thoughts on how it's so that Indonesia still reports no cases, even unofficially?

[ray245]

Any thoughts on how it's so that Indonesia still reports no cases, even unofficially?

Given that many of the symptoms are mild, it would require a proactive search for such cases.

[AniThyng]

Any thoughts on how it's so that Indonesia still reports no cases, even unofficially?

Given that many of the symptoms are mild, it would require a proactive search for such cases.

Maybe it's just media bias (i guess I should spend more time reading Indonesian media instead) but you'd think there would be some indication of increased hospital visits or slowdowns as more people than expected call in sick, but nope, none of that either. I'm just curious how that might be given Indonesia is a generally open society (at least, relative to the PRC) and they haven't really been restricting flights or travel with the rest of SEA and China. But I suppose given even Singapore's numbers are relatively low (for now) and so are Malaysia's, this isn't really surprising.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics ... its-making

Coronavirus: Indonesia has 0 infections so far, and it’s making people fearful
Scarred by the memory of the badly-handled H5N1 bird flu, many have been wary of the government’s insistence no one has yet tested positive for the coronavirus
Nevertheless, officials are preparing for the worst, and businesses are bracing for the inevitable impact on the economy

[mr friendly guy]

New York Times showing that is is totally not a hack rag.

A lot of epidemics seem to come out of China reinforcing its historical reputation as an incubator of deadly diseases. Whether that reputation is really justified, however, is open to debate.

After being called out.

We have deleted an earlier tweet that missrepresented our reporting
-------------

Old stereotypes have contributed to unfounded portrayals of China as a source of contagion, when in fact it has progressed further than many countries in eradicating scourges.

Screenshots including the NYT saying we deleted the tweet which misrepresented our reporting

Can't expect too much from the newspaper that publishes antisemitic cartoons and hires Bari Weiss.
I also pretty sure, misrepresent only has one s, not two of the. Is the NYT becoming like Trump?

[aerius]

Massive 15k spike just happened on the tracker. Getting conflicting reports on what happened. Some say China changed the reporting criteria, some say it was an error adjustment, and others say the virus got past containment and got loose. Next few days will be interesting.

[mr friendly guy]

https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-02- ... fmredir=sm

It appears due to a new methodology. If we use the old methodology only 1508 new cases would have been reported.

Of course it will take time for news outlets to filter this need down.

[mr friendly guy]

Further elaboration, previously the virus was diagnosed by detecting its RNA. Unfortunately they don't have enough PCR kits to do this, so patients were having delayed diagnosis and treatment. So now they are ALSO reporting those as having the virus based on CT scan results, so why there is added patients.

But I think people will already start saying that the numbers had been deliberately kept under reported as a cover up.

[AniThyng]

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east- ... oronavirus

https://www.reuters.com/article/health- ... SL4N2AC0K0

Male Tokyo taxi driver tests positive for coronavirus - NHK TV
1 MIN READ

TOKYO, Feb 13 (Reuters) - A male Japanese taxi driver in Tokyo has tested positive for the coronavirus, NHK television reported on Thursday.

The driver had had passengers who appeared to be Chinese, NHK added, quoting the Health Ministry. (Reporting by David Dolan)

So, possibly in the wild in Tokyo, eh.

I'm not liking the phraseology very much. "passengers who appeared to be Chinese" huh. Somehow I don't they mean "person of any ethnicity who might have been travelling from or in mainland China".

[mr friendly guy]

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east- ... oronavirus

https://www.reuters.com/article/health- ... SL4N2AC0K0

Male Tokyo taxi driver tests positive for coronavirus - NHK TV
1 MIN READ

TOKYO, Feb 13 (Reuters) - A male Japanese taxi driver in Tokyo has tested positive for the coronavirus, NHK television reported on Thursday.

The driver had had passengers who appeared to be Chinese, NHK added, quoting the Health Ministry. (Reporting by David Dolan)

So, possibly in the wild in Tokyo, eh.

I'm not liking the phraseology very much. "passengers who appeared to be Chinese" huh. Somehow I don't they mean "person of any ethnicity who might have been travelling from or in mainland China".

Come on man, don't you know, all Asians look alike. Duh. I mean western mistakes Nepalese policeman for Chinese ones, because the darker skin totally did not give it away, because the West is colour blind you see, exactly as it should be. Or when Broadcasting Bullshit Corporation mistook those dead Vietnamese illegals who suffocated in a truck started trumpeting it was Chinese and was it Crappy News Network or the Guardian started going on about why Chinese want to migrate illegally when China is still experiencing high growth. Even the British police did not say they were Chinese. Obviously its not crappy research, its clearly genetics.

-------------------------
On another note China explains why they revised the diagnostic criteria, with English subtitles.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EofvL7Qrwc

Now I should point out, as of today, the more recent circula distributed to Australian doctors are not asking us to make a diagnosis based on clinical findings, but on nucleic acid testing as well. Which is what China has been doing until they decided to change this criteria. If they stuck to the old criteria, the 1508 new patients would actually be less than the increase previously.

[AniThyng]

My point was that it could even have been anyone of any ethnicity that was the vector, not that we all look alike and so that's why they said it must have been the Chinese passengers, but ok, that too. Also, that statement was ostensibly by Japan's health ministry, not the Western reporter. I think.

[mr friendly guy]

My point was that it could even have been anyone of any ethnicity that was the vector, not that we all look alike and so that's why they said it must have been the Chinese passengers, but ok, that too. Also, that statement was ostensibly by Japan's health ministry, not the Western reporter. I think.

No I realise it was the health minister, but I am saying people don't check these things and easily mistakes one Asian ethnicity for another (when maybe they shouldn't), so its easy to confuse the vector. Now I did however miss the main thrust of your argument, so thanks for clarifying.