Decker

It seems kind of amazing that we don't yet have a thread on this outbreak yet. This has become a huge international deal and I think we are just getting started.

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Novel coronavirus cases top 80,000 as markets plunge on pandemic fears

: The novel coronavirus outbreak


Photos: The novel coronavirus outbreak
A worker in protective gear stacks plastic buckets containing medical waste from coronavirus patients at a medical center in Daegu, South Korea, on February 24.

South Korea in crisis

Even as the outbreak appeared to be stabilizing in parts of China, with six provinces on Monday lowering their response level, the number of cases worldwide has continued to grow.
In South Korea, all flights have been suspended to Daegu, the southern city where the initial outbreak occurred. Several countries and territories have announced restrictions on travel from South Korea, or new warnings for citizens traveling to the country.
The Daegu outbreak had been centered around the Shincheonji religious group, but the virus appears to have spread now beyond practitioners.
Several hundred members of the group have tested positive for the virus, and more than 9,000 practitioners have been put into self-isolation while they are tested by health authorities. The infection is believed to have transmitted rapidly because of the mass worship sessions the group holds, which puts them in close contact with one another for long periods of time.
Shincheonji has said they are the "biggest victims" of the outbreak, and warned people against "groundless attacks" against them because of the outbreak. They have said they are cooperating with the authorities amid accusations of secret member rolls making it difficult to track potential cases through the country.
Speaking late Monday, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said military commanders in Korea "are looking at scaling back the command post training due to concerns about the coronavirus."
Esper said he is confident the US and South Korea will "remain fully ready to deal with any threats that we might face together."
Hundreds of cases of the virus have been confirmed across the country, including among the military. Soldiers often live in close confines and there are fears of a self-sustaining outbreak among forces based in various areas.

Italian outbreak

Outside of Asia, one of the worst outbreak is in Italy, where around 100,000 people in the northern regions of Lombary and Veneto are facing travel and other restrictions as the country struggles to contain a sudden spike in cases that has so far seen at least 219 confirmed cases.
Strict emergency measures were put in place over the weekend, including a ban on public events in at least 10 municipalities, after a spike in confirmed cases in both regions.
Italy still has not identified "patient zero," the source of the coronavirus outbreak in the country, two officials said Monday.
"The important thing is to identify 'patient zero,' where he/she is from, and to stop this chain of infection," Angelo Borrelli, the head of Italy's civil protection agency, said.
Luca Zaia, the governor of the Veneto region, said "no news" when asked Monday by CNN affiliate Sky 24 about the hunt for the carrier.
Borrelli suggested an explanation for the sudden spike in cases over the weekend: "I believe that the incubation period meant that the infections all exploded at a certain moment."
In a statement Monday, the European Commission said was providing aid worth $250 million to affected regions and sectors of the EU.
"As cases continue to rise, public health is the number one priority. Whether it be boosting preparedness in Europe, in China or elsewhere, the international community must work together. Europe is here to play a leading role," said Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission.
The Commission added that it was stepping up support for Member States following developments in Italy.
Stella Kyriakides, Commissioner for Health and Food Safety said: "In view of the rapidly evolving situation, we stand ready to increase our assistance. In this vein, a joint expert mission of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the World Health Organisation will depart to Italy this week to support the Italian authorities."

Iran struggling to contain

Across the Middle East, flights from Iran have stopped and borders with the country have been closed as the region tries to keep the spread of a deadly coronavirus at bay.
Iran is on the front line of the outbreak -- the health ministry has confirmed 61 cases and 12 deaths.
One Iranian lawmaker, Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani from the holy city of Qom, criticized the government's handling of the outbreak, accusing officials of covering up numbers. Farahani said 50 people had died from the virus in Qom, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Iran, though the country's health ministry has denied his claims.
The heavy economic sanctions imposed against Iran by the US and other bodies have made tackling the disease harder, with the country struggling to access novel coronavirus test kits, a board member of Iran's Association of Medical Equipment Importers told the semi-official news agency ILNA on Sunday.
Ramin Fallah told ILNA that "many international companies are ready to supply Iran with coronavirus test kits, but we can't send them money" because of the US sanctions.



World markets shaken by coronavirus spread 02:56

Not a pandemic?

Despite the rapid spread of the virus around the world in the past week, health officials are not yet calling this a pandemic -- though they're close.
William Schaffner, a longtime adviser to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CNN that "we're on the knife's edge."
There is no precise, mathematical definition of a pandemic. Outbreaks get characterized as pandemics by epidemiologists -- who are not yet using the term. They'll be looking for evidence of sustained transmission among people who have not recently traveled to China or has close contact with someone who recently traveled to China.As more information emerges over how the virus is being spread in Italy, Iran and South Korea, among other countries, that evidence may soon arise.
Markets have plunged on fears of an imminent pandemic declaration. The Dow has lost more than 1,400 points in the last three trading days, wiping out any gains for the year so far. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq also fell, and Asian markets have been suffering due to the virus and fears of a wider economic downturn.

Decker

This topic is really becoming a big deal to me. My daughter is in college overseas in Italy and the school is being immediately evacuated for at least a month. It's scary.

zyzzle

The good news is people should STAY HOME, not travel, and strengthen their sense of community by coming together to cooperate and not do stupid thinings which foster the spread of the virus. More good news: Perhaps people might appreciate and value scientists, epidemiologists, and virologists more if these undervalued allied, unsung heroes are able to come together quickly and SOLVE the crisis. Less worship of Kobe Bryant, and more appreciation of the people who truly will make a difference. One can fervently hope, but it's an uphill battle...

Psi

I am glad you started the thread. Most people in the US are not aware, but this is a huge problem in most of Asia. China has been essentially shut down for a month, first for the Chinese New Year then this virus outbreak, and just when they are starting to re-open, the outbreak is spreading to Japan, South Korea, Italy, Iran and other countries. Many manufacturing companies have seen the impact due to drastic reduction of shipment from and to China for several weeks.

Flights in China have been cut by 90%, not only to contain the outbreak but also due to reduced passenger load. Flight map below is from two weeks ago. Now it's worse.



People in South Korea lining up to buy face masks.



I see a lot of this from my work and have been following closely due to friends in Asia. As far as I know, the only public comment from Trump was to downplay it and say that maybe summer heat will take care of the virus if it's not gone by then. Inspiring leadership as usual.

For anyone interested here is a brief history of the SARS outbreak in 2003. Watch how the virus spread from China to Toronto from just one infected person,

DVD Polizei

And I'm going to downplay it as well. 14,000 people have already died from basic flu this year. Average is around 70,000 in the US per year.

Until the Corona V gets to that level, I'm not too concerned.

Psi

Looks like flu and Covid-19 are not the only things that spread.

mspmms

Deadman31

RichC2

0.1% of infected die from flu every year, so far this is at 2.3% which is a bit of a jump from that. There's a good reason to at least pay attention to it.

35.5m got flu in the US last year, 34,000 died. Scaled, that would be 816,500 deaths with COVID-19.

It's no SARS (15% mortality rate, or 5.3m dead by that same scale) but they're trying to prevent a repeat of the 1918 Spanish Flu which killed about 30m people worldwide (in the US it killed about 675,000 of the 29m infected).

VinVega

Smudge knows what's up.

I think this is something to keep an eye on, but I'm not in panic mode at this point.

Draven

Look, stop bringing facts into the discussion. Armchair medical experts are WEIGHING IN.

morriscroy

This is not likely to happen, even if college/university education is free. If the latter happens, the college/university curriculum will be "dumbed down" even further than it already is.

As a past precedent, many college/university degree programs (including engineering) have been significantly "dumbed down" over the past 60+ years, ever since college/university education was subsidized in many countries over the 20th century.

Science will most likely be persistently underfunded or outright cancelled, when the politicians/investors do not believe in science and/or the research conclusions are contradicting their hard held beliefs/agendas.

morriscroy

In the case of worship of celebrities and other individuals with very little to no political power (ie. youtube stars, late night tv, movie stars, rockstars, etc ....), I use to think it was completely frivolous and stupid.

As I got older, I have come to the realization that such "frivolous" individuals serve a very vital political function in this world: bread and circuses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

For the folks in power who call the shots, such "bread and circuses" keeps a large enough proportion of the population complacent and apathy. As long as the vast majority of the population is eating big meals and spending their time watching tv and movies and/or netsurfing for celebrity gossip, they're not going to be angry at much of anything that is politically relevant.

Otherwise the internet, video games and scifi / superhero tv shows/movies are the best thing ever invented, which keeps most of the non-complacent folks to waste their energy, time, and cash on frivolous stuff. This effectively minimizes any production of future potential "Leon Trotsky", "Adolf Hitler", "Osama Bin Laden", "Che Guevara", etc ... type individuals from ever becoming a "problem".

The remaining hardcore "riff raff" who are not complacent at all who resort to violent means, end up being a law enforcement issue to deal with if it comes to that. (ie. They're not a "problem" which requires military intervention).

Psi

Over-reaction or not, there is a lot of fear and disruptive actions taken around the world:

- A whole city of 11 million people in China basicallly shut down for one month. In the rest of the country, essentially two weeks of paralysis, no school, no work except from home, drastically reduced air travel.
- Similar quarantine now started for some cities and provinces in South Korea and Italy.
- Many countries immediately banned all flights from South Korea after one death from Covid-19 in South Korea. They just don’t want to have it come to their country. Such is the fear.
- A whole cruise ship quarantined in Japan for two weeks. Hundreds of Americans from that ship brought back to the US and quarantined for another two weeks.

There are many more examples of wide-scale lockdown in many parts of Asia, and now it’s picking up in Europe and the Middle East as well. This is similar to climate change. We get dumb asses who see no problem and do nothing, and say they want to see more bad things before they react.

Sonny Corinthos

I wonder how much of an impact it will have on the Summer Olympicin Tokyo, Japan this Summer? I could see a lot of athletes, especially from the NBA, not going because of the outbreak.

Psi

That's a real concern, I think amateur athletes will go because they spent years training for this, but I'm afraid attendance by paid athletes and spectators will drop.

tasha99

I'm concerned enough to be doing some basic preparation.
https://www.cdc.gov/nonpharmaceutica...-ind-house.pdf

I've gotten teased a little about it, but I'm also making a box of stuff for my daughter and her boyfriend (because they're busy and cost would be a factor). Things like basic "flu"/cold meds that may not be on the shelves if everyone needs them at once, gatorade, gloves, masks, canned foods, water etc. I got a 3 month supply of my prescriptions, just in case.

One thing that shocked me this weekend is that medical masks and respirators are not available on the shelves in my town at all, and they're not available for delivery either, except from profiteers. Many of the respirators they're selling on ebay are expired, too. Hardware stores have even been hit. We had a small supply because my husband got sick on vacation (he wore them when visiting his dad--his fever was gone and he seemed better, but it seemed prudent not to risk exposing his elderly father).

Nesbit

I work for a major medical company in the telehealth department and this week there’s going to be 2 or 3 patients that are going to start being remotely monitored using our equipment and providers. They were scrambling to get it setup at the end of last week and my weekend goes Saturday morning to Tuesday night so a little out of the loop currently but will pass along anything interesting from this end I can.

Trevor

I’m a medevac dispatcher and some companies are asking every flight request if the patient has been to China in the last two weeks.

Mabuse

Bat soup.

Psi

What are you supposed to do if the answer is yes? Tell the personnel in contact with the patient to take more precautions, or do more?

Decker

Man it's chaos at my daughter's school. Everyone is scrambling to leave right away

NYU closing Florence campus over coronavirus fears

By Julia Marsh and Tamar Lapin

February 24, 2020 | 8:28pm
Enlarge Image

STAN HONDA/AFP/GettyImagesNew York University said it will be closing its Florence outpost over fears of the deadly new coronavirus — and students living on-campus there will have until Thursday to get out.

Classes at NYU Florence were canceled for the rest of the week as the virus spreads across Italy, the elite university said in an email to community members on Monday.

“Though there is no evidence of a pressing risk to the NYU Florence community, the past month has demonstrated that countries may swiftly and unexpectedly make decisions that can significantly affect one’s ability to travel,” the email said.

The school encouraged students in off-campus housing “to make alternative arrangements, such as returning home” until March 29.

Cases of the flu-like illness have surged in Italy, going from three on Friday to 229 on Monday, while the death toll climbed to seven.

In response, a dozens northern towns, with a total population of about 50,000, were placed under quarantine.

NYU Florence classes are set to resume March 2 — though will be taught remotely until March 29 using an online platform called Zoom, the email said.

The same platform is being used to teach students at NYU Shanghai, where in-person classes were canceled on Jan. 28 over the virus outbreak.

The father of a 20-year-old NYU Florence student named Dean Jameison told The Post he was “furious” over the school’s announcement.

“This is outrageous! We paid $33,000 for a semester and they’re basically saying, ‘Good luck get the hell out,'” said Wendell Jamieson. “No support. Nothing.”

“I understand the challenges here but NYU is just casting these kids adrift,” Jamieson added.

Plus, the email was sent out after school offices were closed for the day, “so they wouldn’t get calls from me,” he said.

NYU didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

cultshock

I've been following the story since the end of December, I was wondering why I've seen little mention of it here, but then remembered "out of sight, out of mind", it's becoming a big deal in Asia and now Europe, but not in North America, so who cares, right? I'm not saying that it's time to start running around like Chicken Little, but I've been hearing some disturbing stuff related to this outbreak in other countries. It's definitely starting to have an effect on the global market, and yeah, people in Japan are certainly worried how this will affect the Summer Olympics.

Draven

The President said that warm weather would take care of it and he's a brilliant medical scientist so why would anyone here be concerned? #MAGA

Kurt D

Cancer kills way more than Covid-19 as well. Lots more. As well as car accidents. I don't GAF.