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President Xi has warned that the virus is spreading. His intervention seems to be unprecedented. Is it worse than what it seems to be? They have quarantined wh

President Xi has warned that the virus is spreading. His intervention seems to be unprecedented. Is it worse than what it seems to be? They have quarantined whole cities and are building a hospital at war scale especially for this. Maybe the Chinese know something that the world doesn't know yet.

akiselev 7y ago
So far the virus is believed to have a two week incubation period with unknown transmissability during that time, which makes it particularly hard to contain, especially with a migration like Chinese New Year. The lockdown is unprecedented in China but the Soviet Union used to do similar lockdowns (at a smaller scale) during cholera outbreaks. I think this is just a massive overcorrection due to China's 2003 SARS outbreak but we'll start seeing more and more of these large scale quarantines as our civilization comes to terms with the realities of cheap air travel.
- chewz 7y ago
  In 1963 during last outbreak of smallpox epidemic in Europe Wroclaw in Poland had been quarantined for 47 days. [] https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/6nhzqd/54_years_ago_in_wroclaw_was_declared_a_state_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/6nhzqd/54_years_ago...
  - perakojotgenije 7y ago
    Correction - 1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak was the last in Europe [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Yugoslav_smallpox_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Yugoslav_smallpox_outbrea...
    - sadfklsjlkjwt 7y ago
      Actually it was in the UK. This was also (hopefully) the last death ever. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_smallpox_outbreak_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_smallpox_outbreak_in_the_...
ceedan 7y ago
They had to deal with SARS and are trying a more aggressive approach this time.
Leary 7y ago
It's clear that there are many infected people who have not been confirmed, possibly on the scale of 100,000. Most will probably show mild to moderate symptoms but expect total deaths to rise into four figures.
howmayiannoyyou 7y ago
Anecdotal (not official) reports suggest as many as 100,000 infections in Wuhan area. There are claims the virus may be spread through eyes as well as inhalation. Additional unsubstantiated claims suggest low to no fever during incubation period, making detection difficult. The most sensationalist claim making the rounds is that a known Wuhan area PLA biolab may have failed to contain this pathogen. In the end none of the above matters at all. What matters is the willingness globally to take political and economic action to contain transmission. The World Health Organization's failure to declare this a global emergency is risky if the characteristics stated above turn out to be accurate. Timing is key.
- refurb 7y ago
  Is transmission through eyes that odd? The common cold already is. You rub your eyes, the virus enters your tears, which drain to your nose.
  - ilugaslifk 7y ago
    Yeah, the "this one spreads through eyes!!!!!!!" shit I keep seeing pop up is actually helping to moderate my panic, somewhat. It reminds me how much of the "panic!" signal I've been really starting to see explode in the last ~24h, which humans are highly sympathetically attuned to when they suddenly see it spreading everywhere around them, is just from a sheer mass of other idiots who actually don't know anything either coming online on the issue, and reflects internet meme virality, and only very indirectly the uptick in actual danger (ie, from having been loosely following the outbreak, prior to this latest popularization). Still looks pretty fucking bad, though.
  - howmayiannoyyou 7y ago
    It matters because face masks are not enough to prevent transmission, which matters relative to the common cold only because this virus kills. The common cold does not.
    - Fomite 7y ago
      But this is taken care of by face marks and hand washing, because what would be happening is you touch your eyes. If you're using a face mask, you should be washing your hands anyway, because if you think it's working, the moment you touch it you've come in contact with virus.
tempsy 7y ago
I would be more concerned if the ones that are outside of China were dying at high rates. So far I haven’t heard any of those quarantined people actually dying. The ones in the US have been listed in fair condition and recovering.
- SomewhatLikely 7y ago
  The deaths are mostly among older ages, 60s, 70s, 80s. This group is probably less likely to be traveling.
  - djmips 7y ago
    But does that matter when young infected people are traveling.
- ComputerGuru 7y ago
  Dying at a high rate doesn’t matter if they do so quickly. That’s why Ebola has failed to become a global pandemic: it’s too potent and kills hosts before they have a chance to infect enough others.
  - adrr 7y ago
    Ebola is also not airborne it’s spread by bodily fluids. You can’t get it from someone coughing. People flew on planes infected with Ebola and didn’t spread it. It was overhyped by the media. In 1st world nations, it had no means to really spread like cholera.
    - Scea91 7y ago
      Ebola was also contained because of tremendous effort of many people, often risking their own lives. Thanks to them you now have the luxury to call it overhyped.
- tunesmith 7y ago
  General consensus so far seems to be about twice as fatal as the annual flu. (Which says nothing about transmissibility rate / R0, which they are still figuring out.) Really rough numbers, annual flu is around 0.1% , while the spanish flu was more like 2.5% So, not a pandemic in terms of fatality. General sense so far seems to be it's more of a big deal than the (run-of-the-mill) flu, less of a big deal than SARS. (Keep in mind that the run-of-the-mill flu is kind of a big deal.)
C14L 7y ago
My guess is, this is done because of Chunjie. For Chinese New year, people usually travel home to visit relatives. If the Chinese government wants to limit that, they need a very good reason, otherwise people will freak. So they have to exaggerate the danger, in order to be able to keep social peace when they quarantine cities.
celticmusic 7y ago
I have a friend who teaches in China and according to him everyone is extremely worried. People aren't going out, wearing masks when they do, and so forth.
- maverick2007 7y ago
  For what it's worth I'm flying back home to the US from the UAE and at the airport as I was waiting to check my bag I saw many (10+) groups of Chinese tourists checking entire boxes of 3M N95 masks. My guess is that they're running out at home and these tourists saw an opportunity to make some money or help people out (or both).
  - radicaldreamer 7y ago
    Can an N95 mask prevent viral infection? Those things are typically for particulates and are charged so things like dust attach to the fibers. I’m not sure they’re effective for aerosolized particles
    - jhlkuiou08 7y ago
      I did research this topic many years ago during the bird flu panic, and the short answer is yes, a PROPERLY USED N95 mask prevents infection. The properly used part is quite tricky though, for example you touch the outside of the mask with your fingers when you remove it, and then rub your eyes... There's a reason those guys are in a full suit and not just a mask. But even if it's not 100% effective, even if it's just 90% it's still a massive win.
    - Fomite 7y ago
      There's very little evidence N95 masks work better than surgical masks, which are cheaper and easier to use.
      - mensetmanusman 7y ago
        Umm, properly used N95 masks have been shown to filter particles <10 nm...
dkarl 7y ago
They want to prove the value of a tightly controlled society. What better occasion than an infectious disease outbreak? If they can control this outbreak successfully, they can use it as a validation of the system, and I don't doubt they will let their citizens know how many more people would have died in a poorly governed society with an improper balance of freedom and authority.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
They built a 1,000 bed isolation hospital for SARS too, near Beijing. Also in a week. It was demolished about ten years ago.
contingencies 7y ago
Here is a map I made of the spread yesterday (only). https://github.com/globalcitizen/2019-wuhan-coronavirus-data/ https://github.com/globalcitizen/2019-wuhan-coronavirus-data... While making it, I was watching the numbers quite closely. An observation I made is that the official statistics were ~900 officially confirmed cases on the 24th evening, ~1200 officially confirmed cases 25th (morning), yet only 1300 officially confirmed cases on the 25th (evening). Why ~50% jump then nothing? All previous figures had followed this hyperbolic path. A few possible reasons (conjecture): overwhelmed doctors, possible low level bureaucratic pressures not to report or admit new cases, people dying at home, undiagnosed infections, geographic spread and Chinese New Year resulting in slower diagnosis. All we can really take from this is that clearly the official statistics are only part of the story. In terms of the speed of the domestic geographic spread, it is horrifying. The cat is truly out of the bag.
- liuliu 7y ago
  It jumped to 1900 again in the morning. That is just a reporting pipeline delay I think. Not diverging from "hyperbolic growth" as far as I can tell.

akiselev 7y ago

So far the virus is believed to have a two week incubation period with unknown transmissability during that time, which makes it particularly hard to contain, especially with a migration like Chinese New Year. The lockdown is unprecedented in China but the Soviet Union used to do similar lockdowns (at a smaller scale) during cholera outbreaks. I think this is just a massive overcorrection due to China's 2003 SARS outbreak but we'll start seeing more and more of these large scale quarantines as our civilization comes to terms with the realities of cheap air travel.

chewz 7y ago
In 1963 during last outbreak of smallpox epidemic in Europe Wroclaw in Poland had been quarantined for 47 days. [] https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/6nhzqd/54_years_ago_in_wroclaw_was_declared_a_state_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/6nhzqd/54_years_ago...
- perakojotgenije 7y ago
  Correction - 1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak was the last in Europe [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Yugoslav_smallpox_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Yugoslav_smallpox_outbrea...
  - sadfklsjlkjwt 7y ago
    Actually it was in the UK. This was also (hopefully) the last death ever. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_smallpox_outbreak_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_smallpox_outbreak_in_the_...

ceedan 7y ago

They had to deal with SARS and are trying a more aggressive approach this time.

Leary 7y ago

It's clear that there are many infected people who have not been confirmed, possibly on the scale of 100,000. Most will probably show mild to moderate symptoms but expect total deaths to rise into four figures.

howmayiannoyyou 7y ago

Anecdotal (not official) reports suggest as many as 100,000 infections in Wuhan area. There are claims the virus may be spread through eyes as well as inhalation. Additional unsubstantiated claims suggest low to no fever during incubation period, making detection difficult. The most sensationalist claim making the rounds is that a known Wuhan area PLA biolab may have failed to contain this pathogen. In the end none of the above matters at all. What matters is the willingness globally to take political and economic action to contain transmission. The World Health Organization's failure to declare this a global emergency is risky if the characteristics stated above turn out to be accurate. Timing is key.

refurb 7y ago
Is transmission through eyes that odd? The common cold already is. You rub your eyes, the virus enters your tears, which drain to your nose.
- ilugaslifk 7y ago
  Yeah, the "this one spreads through eyes!!!!!!!" shit I keep seeing pop up is actually helping to moderate my panic, somewhat. It reminds me how much of the "panic!" signal I've been really starting to see explode in the last ~24h, which humans are highly sympathetically attuned to when they suddenly see it spreading everywhere around them, is just from a sheer mass of other idiots who actually don't know anything either coming online on the issue, and reflects internet meme virality, and only very indirectly the uptick in actual danger (ie, from having been loosely following the outbreak, prior to this latest popularization). Still looks pretty fucking bad, though.
- howmayiannoyyou 7y ago
  It matters because face masks are not enough to prevent transmission, which matters relative to the common cold only because this virus kills. The common cold does not.
  - Fomite 7y ago
    But this is taken care of by face marks and hand washing, because what would be happening is you touch your eyes. If you're using a face mask, you should be washing your hands anyway, because if you think it's working, the moment you touch it you've come in contact with virus.

tempsy 7y ago

I would be more concerned if the ones that are outside of China were dying at high rates. So far I haven’t heard any of those quarantined people actually dying. The ones in the US have been listed in fair condition and recovering.

SomewhatLikely 7y ago
The deaths are mostly among older ages, 60s, 70s, 80s. This group is probably less likely to be traveling.
- djmips 7y ago
  But does that matter when young infected people are traveling.
ComputerGuru 7y ago
Dying at a high rate doesn’t matter if they do so quickly. That’s why Ebola has failed to become a global pandemic: it’s too potent and kills hosts before they have a chance to infect enough others.
- adrr 7y ago
  Ebola is also not airborne it’s spread by bodily fluids. You can’t get it from someone coughing. People flew on planes infected with Ebola and didn’t spread it. It was overhyped by the media. In 1st world nations, it had no means to really spread like cholera.
  - Scea91 7y ago
    Ebola was also contained because of tremendous effort of many people, often risking their own lives. Thanks to them you now have the luxury to call it overhyped.
tunesmith 7y ago
General consensus so far seems to be about twice as fatal as the annual flu. (Which says nothing about transmissibility rate / R0, which they are still figuring out.) Really rough numbers, annual flu is around 0.1% , while the spanish flu was more like 2.5% So, not a pandemic in terms of fatality. General sense so far seems to be it's more of a big deal than the (run-of-the-mill) flu, less of a big deal than SARS. (Keep in mind that the run-of-the-mill flu is kind of a big deal.)

C14L 7y ago

My guess is, this is done because of Chunjie. For Chinese New year, people usually travel home to visit relatives. If the Chinese government wants to limit that, they need a very good reason, otherwise people will freak. So they have to exaggerate the danger, in order to be able to keep social peace when they quarantine cities.

celticmusic 7y ago

I have a friend who teaches in China and according to him everyone is extremely worried. People aren't going out, wearing masks when they do, and so forth.

maverick2007 7y ago
For what it's worth I'm flying back home to the US from the UAE and at the airport as I was waiting to check my bag I saw many (10+) groups of Chinese tourists checking entire boxes of 3M N95 masks. My guess is that they're running out at home and these tourists saw an opportunity to make some money or help people out (or both).
- radicaldreamer 7y ago
  Can an N95 mask prevent viral infection? Those things are typically for particulates and are charged so things like dust attach to the fibers. I’m not sure they’re effective for aerosolized particles
  - jhlkuiou08 7y ago
    I did research this topic many years ago during the bird flu panic, and the short answer is yes, a PROPERLY USED N95 mask prevents infection. The properly used part is quite tricky though, for example you touch the outside of the mask with your fingers when you remove it, and then rub your eyes... There's a reason those guys are in a full suit and not just a mask. But even if it's not 100% effective, even if it's just 90% it's still a massive win.
  - Fomite 7y ago
    There's very little evidence N95 masks work better than surgical masks, which are cheaper and easier to use.
    - mensetmanusman 7y ago
      Umm, properly used N95 masks have been shown to filter particles <10 nm...

dkarl 7y ago

They want to prove the value of a tightly controlled society. What better occasion than an infectious disease outbreak? If they can control this outbreak successfully, they can use it as a validation of the system, and I don't doubt they will let their citizens know how many more people would have died in a poorly governed society with an improper balance of freedom and authority.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

They built a 1,000 bed isolation hospital for SARS too, near Beijing. Also in a week. It was demolished about ten years ago.

contingencies 7y ago

Here is a map I made of the spread yesterday (only). https://github.com/globalcitizen/2019-wuhan-coronavirus-data/ https://github.com/globalcitizen/2019-wuhan-coronavirus-data... While making it, I was watching the numbers quite closely. An observation I made is that the official statistics were ~900 officially confirmed cases on the 24th evening, ~1200 officially confirmed cases 25th (morning), yet only 1300 officially confirmed cases on the 25th (evening). Why ~50% jump then nothing? All previous figures had followed this hyperbolic path. A few possible reasons (conjecture): overwhelmed doctors, possible low level bureaucratic pressures not to report or admit new cases, people dying at home, undiagnosed infections, geographic spread and Chinese New Year resulting in slower diagnosis. All we can really take from this is that clearly the official statistics are only part of the story. In terms of the speed of the domestic geographic spread, it is horrifying. The cat is truly out of the bag.

liuliu 7y ago
It jumped to 1900 again in the morning. That is just a reporting pipeline delay I think. Not diverging from "hyperbolic growth" as far as I can tell.