6 ms·
Nothing. They're just one of the early hot spots. This virus evolves somewhat slowly- up to 2 weeks incubation period plus another 3-6 weeks of illness. But be
by allovernow 7y ago
Nothing. They're just one of the early hot spots.
This virus evolves somewhat slowly- up to 2 weeks incubation period plus another 3-6 weeks of illness. But because it spreads during incubation, and has a high R0 value, once it starts spreading it does extremely rapidly in dense areas, after the 1-3 week lull. It is allegedly aerosolized and one paper reported surface contamination for >1 week.
The us is in week ≈2 now. Week ≈3 is where the whole country lights up with outbreak and the government is pressed into extreme measures. This is based primarily on South Korea's timeline.
On the bright side, the sprawl of the US may make this easier to deal with, but you can probably expect some domestic travel restrictions soon. I don't know if states have authority to close borders but I won't be surprised to hear about it.
- Zolomon 7y agoWhere have you read that it spreads during the incubation time? So far Swedish epidemiologs have not seen any evidence of that fact.
- swsieber 7y agoI've heard 1-14 days with an average of 3 days, but I'd have to dig up sources. But even if the long incubation periods are rare, they'll still have an outsized impact.
- toohotatopic 7y ago>average of 3 days That should be 'mean'
- vikramkr 7y agoMean is a type of average. And for communicating to the public, unless there's a strong reason otherwise, statistical jargon should absolutely be avoided in favor of more universally understood terminology.
- toohotatopic 7y agoEven worse, this is a total blunder, I meant 'median'.
- mariushn 7y agohttps://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses
- Someone 7y agoAlso, what would the mechanism be? Coughing is the ‘normal’ mechanism to move viruses out of your lungs. If it spreads before the coughing starts, i.e. during normal breathing, doesn’t it get out of your body too easily?
- Blahah 7y agoThe virus accumulates in digestive organs and sheds in fecal matter. Gastrointestinal (fecal-oral) infection route seems likely. See: - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.14.20022939v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.14.20022939v... - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.20.20025601v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.20.20025601v... > Compared with SARS, COVID-19 was transmitted in a more diverse way, from person to person, asymptomatic infected people and possible fecal-oral transmission, created the conditions for a large-scale spread. - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.17.20023721v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.17.20023721v...
- allovernow 7y agoI've grown tired of pulling up sources on mobile but publications claim the virus accumulates in nasal passaged during incubation. Also thought to play a role in the high false negative rates for testing.
- Blahah 7y agoThis is also true - digestive and respiratory organs appear to accumulate the virus most. Also heart and liver, which explains the high co-morbidity for people with damage to those organs. See http://www.chinaxiv.org/abs/202002.00082 http://www.chinaxiv.org/abs/202002.00082
- allovernow 7y agoLooks like any organ with ACE2 receptors.
- Blahah 7y agoLots of reports of this, for example: http://www.chinaxiv.org/abs/202002.00078 http://www.chinaxiv.org/abs/202002.00078
- leggomylibro 7y agoThen why are countries like Germany, which were exposed earlier, not experiencing similar problems and lockdowns? I am deeply troubled by this sort of isolated authoritarian overreach and the eagerness with which people accept it. If states in the US do try to lock down their borders, I might drive across a few just to reinforce the fact that such measures are unconstitutional and anti-American. This is all starting to feel like mass hysteria, considering how much reports vary from country to country and the whiplash speed at which the overton window is moving. How long until Congress passes the Pandemic-triot act to suspend the 1st amendment in the same way that the Patriot act suspended the 4th and 5th? This happens every 5 years or so; SARS, swine flu, and H1N1 were all more severe, and we didn't destroy our societies over them. We just have more access to information and mediums of emotional contagion nowadays. I understand that most people disagree with me on this, but that's what happens with mass hysteria and emotional contagion. Know that not everyone buys into it, and if you are keeping calm you are not alone :) Personally, I'm thinking of visiting Venice in a few weeks once the planes and trains are operating again. This seems like a great opportunity to avoid the crowds and get a good deal on seeing the city before it is submerged for good.
- allovernow 7y agoNormally I lean heavily libertarian and I agree with your concerns, but all of the literature out of China on lancet, pubmed, etc are demonstrating that this is far worse than SARS or anything else that's hit. At the very least the rate of spread is .25-4 times higher than the Spanish flu and lethality is comparable. China shut down it's entire industry for two months. Knowing full well the risk of losing global business permanently. Perhaps it is time for drastic measures.
- leggomylibro 7y agoI don't understand how people can keep saying this with a straight face. It's been months since the infections started in Wuhan, people keep predicting imminent doom within the next week, and it keeps not happening. I think we need to acknowledge that the worst-cast predictions are laughably inaccurate, and a little bit of fear of the unknown is not worth losing our civil rights over.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y agoSouth Korea's timeline is very likely to be atypical, because a majority of the cases in the country are linked with one particular religious group.