Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak

[Harry]

5 hours ago, nudge said:

Midnight (CET) update: 

2052 total cases (+358 in in the last 24 hours) and 26 deaths (+8) outside of China. South Korea reported 169 new cases and 4 fatalities; Italy 92 new cases and 1 fatality, Iran 15 new cases and 3 fatalities today. New cases also reported in Japan (+12 and 1 death), the UK and Hongkong (+4 each), Taiwan (+2),  as well as in Australia, Canada and Israel (1 new case each). 57 additional new cases confirmed onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

Italy has surpassed Japan in total number of confirmed cases. South Korean numbers continue to grow with new reports coming in; apparently 11 soldiers infected and over 7000 in quarantine (will be included in the next update).

In better news, train services on Italy-Austria line have been restored as the two passengers tested negative.

If anyone would like to see any specific data/graphs, let me know and I'll do my best.

What are the latest figures from China or is it no longer being reported?

[Azeem]

6 hours ago, nudge said:

If anyone would like to see any specific data/graphs, let me know and I'll do my best.

Integrate the total number of cases with taking the number of deaths as the lower limit and the no of countries as the upper limit and graph it on the venn diagram

[Fairy In Boots]

6 hours ago, nudge said:

Midnight (CET) update: 

2052 total cases (+358 in in the last 24 hours) and 26 deaths (+8) outside of China. South Korea reported 169 new cases and 4 fatalities; Italy 92 new cases and 1 fatality, Iran 15 new cases and 3 fatalities today. New cases also reported in Japan (+12 and 1 death), the UK and Hongkong (+4 each), Taiwan (+2),  as well as in Australia, Canada and Israel (1 new case each). 57 additional new cases confirmed onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

Italy has surpassed Japan in total number of confirmed cases. South Korean numbers continue to grow with new reports coming in; apparently 11 soldiers infected and over 7000 in quarantine (will be included in the next update).

In better news, train services on Italy-Austria line have been restored as the two passengers tested negative.

If anyone would like to see any specific data/graphs, let me know and I'll do my best.

Seems to be a lot of Iranians dying, any particular reason like shit medical care? 

[Michael]

I am currently in transit at Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport waiting for my plane. There are loads of people wearing face masks, the only problem being, is that they are the type of face masks that are useless. Airports are actually not the best place to be at this moment in time, with the spread of this coronavirus, but I take solace from the fact that Turkey apparently has no cases of people carrying this virus.

 

Edited February 24, 2020 by Michael

[Azeem]

So there is another corona virus reported in Saudi Arabia ? MERS corona ? Probably a rumour

Edited February 24, 2020 by Azeem

[Stan]

47 minutes ago, Michael said:

I am currently in transit at Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport waiting for my plane. There are loads of people wearing face masks, the only problem being, is that they are the type of face masks that are useless. Airports are actually not the best place to be at this moment in time, with the spread of this coronavirus, but I take solace from the fact that Turkey apparently has no cases of people carrying this virus.

 

Saw a lot of this in Spain recently. Madrid specifically both airport and city. I think it's just people choosing to be cautious. 

[Harry]

2 hours ago, Michael said:

I am currently in transit at Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport waiting for my plane. There are loads of people wearing face masks, the only problem being, is that they are the type of face masks that are useless. Airports are actually not the best place to be at this moment in time, with the spread of this coronavirus, but I take solace from the fact that Turkey apparently has no cases of people carrying this virus.

I read an article recently from someone from Indonesia who want sure whether the lack of identified cases in his country was a good thing or it meant his government and medical profession were just so behind the ball that they hadn't even registered it yet.

It is genuinely scary with this lag time between contagion and symptom development.

[DeadLinesman]

2 hours ago, Azeem said:

So there is another corona virus reported in Saudi Arabia ? MERS corona ? Probably a rumour

There’s a fair few types of Corona out there. MERS was about in 2012.

[Harry]

I'd like to know if all the cases identified where they can pinpoint the date of infection based on contact with the host what was the median incubation time between the infection event and the development of flu onset symptoms...

Two weeks just seems way too long to be the common onset period

[nudge+]

5 hours ago, Harry said:

What are the latest figures from China or is it no longer being reported?

They are still being reported, but lately the reports have been coming in later than normal (e.g. Last day's report from Hubei province was 2 hours late while the one for the rest of the provinces was released 4 hours later). I'll post them when I'm on my laptop but in general there has been a significant dip in their numbers; both in new cases and deaths. However, they've been changing the definitions of what is considered to be a confirmed case too often and revising their already released numbers from previous days several times, it's kind of hard to keep track of and make sense of that. But anyway, if the numbers reported are to be taken at face value then it seems their containment measures are definitely working. 

[nudge+]

4 hours ago, Fairy In Boots said:

Seems to be a lot of Iranians dying, any particular reason like shit medical care? 

Health care in Iran is far from being shit. I'm sure @Dr. Gonzo can shed more light on it, but it's modern enough and the personell are qualified and well trained too. Sanctions obviously make it worse though as I believe they are now facing shortages as a result.

The relatively high number of deaths probably indicates a much higher number of infected than officially confirmed so far. 

[nudge+]

22 minutes ago, Harry said:

I'd like to know if all the cases identified where they can pinpoint the date of infection based on contact with the host what was the median incubation time between the infection event and the development of flu onset symptoms...

Two weeks just seems way too long to be the common onset period

The biggest case study so far (based on 1300+) estimates the range of onset period from zero to 24 days, with the median of 3 days. 

A smaller study (400+) found the median to be around 5 days with a range from 4 to 7 days. 

There have also been many outliers (someone only started showing symptoms only after 27 days, but it's suspected that it could actually be a result of secondary exposure), and the period appears to vary greatly among the patients. 

2-14 days is the current official estimated range of incubation period.

Singapore did a nice mapping of all their cluster cases including the time periods and the links between the infected. I'll see if I can find it. 

[Azeem]

Iran has one of the best primary health care system in Asia

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 hour ago, nudge said:

Health care in Iran is far from being shit. I'm sure @Dr. Gonzo can shed more light on it, but it's modern enough and the personell are qualified and well trained too. Sanctions obviously make it worse though as I believe they are now facing shortages as a result.

The relatively high number of deaths probably indicates a much higher number of infected than officially confirmed so far. 

A few weeks ago a group of Iranian doctors were complaining about a shortage of medical resources due to the sanctions.

It’s only going to get worse with the coronavirus outbreak. Hospitals already under strain are overwhelmed.

I know fuck all about Iran’s healthcare system, so I’ll have to take your word and @Azeem’s as well.

[Azeem]

3 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

A few weeks ago a group of Iranian doctors were complaining about a shortage of medical resources due to the sanctions.

It’s only going to get worse with the coronavirus outbreak. Hospitals already under strain are overwhelmed.

I know fuck all about Iran’s healthcare system, so I’ll have to take your word and @Azeem’s as well.

Despite the sanctions Iran has done well in some things, some of them were projects carried on from the Pahlavi era like primary health, higher education etc

[nudge+]

16 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

A few weeks ago a group of Iranian doctors were complaining about a shortage of medical resources due to the sanctions.

It’s only going to get worse with the coronavirus outbreak. Hospitals already under strain are overwhelmed.

I know fuck all about Iran’s healthcare system, so I’ll have to take your word and @Azeem’s as well.

@Azeem knows more about their primary health system than I do; what I know is that similar to Thailand, their medical tourism industry is kind of big due to them having higher quality, better specialised and at the same time affordable health care compared to most of the countries in the continent so they attract a lot of people from abroad seeking medical services. 

Their medical science and research are also top notch; used to consistently be in top 10 in the world when it comes to nanotech, biotechnology, biomedical engineering and the likes. 

[nudge+]

@Harry:

Current China numbers from the China Health Emergency Office (as of 24:00 on February 23):

77150 confirmed cases (9915 of those in severe condition).
2592 deaths.
3434 suspected cases.
25007 recoveries.
635531 close contacts traced; 97481 of those remain in medical observation.

[Mpache]

7 hours ago, Michael said:

I am currently in transit at Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport waiting for my plane. There are loads of people wearing face masks, the only problem being, is that they are the type of face masks that are useless. Airports are actually not the best place to be at this moment in time, with the spread of this coronavirus, but I take solace from the fact that Turkey apparently has no cases of people carrying this virus.

 

Yeah when I arrived in Lima the other day I saw a lot of Peruvians wearing masks. Not even Asians. That's uncommon, there is a genuine worry. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

I think there's a global shortage of N95 masks (the sort of masks that actually provide any sort of protection from the virus) - so you'll just see people with the more useless ones but I think people like them because of the placebo effect. Although I saw some for sale that claim to be "anti-viral."

1 hour ago, Inti Brian said:

Yeah when I arrived in Lima the other day I saw a lot of Peruvians wearing masks. Not even Asians. That's uncommon, there is a genuine worry. 

Were they at the airport?

I think it makes sense to be precautious right now around airports and planes. International airports are going to have people from all over who've been on a plane for however long with people who have been all over and who knows who's come in contact with the virus and who hasn't. Even airports that aren't international may have had people connecting from international flights - places like that where people come and go quickly to all over the world... that's where I think the most dangerous spots to be if you're worried about catching the virus are.

[Harry]

2 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I think there's a global shortage of N95 masks (the sort of masks that actually provide any sort of protection from the virus) - so you'll just see people with the more useless ones but I think people like them because of the placebo effect. Although I saw some for sale that claim to be "anti-viral."

Were they at the airport?

I think it makes sense to be precautious right now around airports and planes. International airports are going to have people from all over who've been on a plane for however long with people who have been all over and who knows who's come in contact with the virus and who hasn't. Even airports that aren't international may have had people connecting from international flights - places like that where people come and go quickly to all over the world... that's where I think the most dangerous spots to be if you're worried about catching the virus are.

It's annoying theres no consensus on masks. If everyone wore even basic shitty ones surely it helps the spread of virus to others, albeit to a lesser degree than significant hand hygeine and other facets.

[Harry]

A good friend is flying back from Japan on Thursday, and on Saturday my brother in law returns from Germany via Singapore.

To think they could be infected and contagious for a week before they even know they have the virus does make me concerned, particularly given I have young kids, which are surely a high risk category of person to be affected by this.

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 hour ago, Harry said:

A good friend is flying back from Japan on Thursday, and on Saturday my brother in law returns from Germany via Singapore.

To think they could be infected and contagious for a week before they even know they have the virus does make me concerned, particularly given I have young kids, which are surely a high risk category of person to be affected by this.

I don't know how it works, but I'd assume that they'd be screened at the airport? Although, I know there's some issues with the accuracy of coronavirus testing. Either way, I'd not go around them for about 3 weeks so as to not get it.

It's a bit worrying for Iran though. Because the number of infected people when compared to the number of casualties there goes well beyond 3% - which indicates either the mortality rate is well wrong... or there's a shitload of more infected people in Iran that just have no idea because they've not been diagnosed. Today the government's said on PressTV (granted, it's state media of an authoritarian theocracy, so take a pinch of salt. Or a handful) that Iran's had issues importing the coronavirus testing kits because of the sanctions.

And even more concerning, an Iranian MP suggested that the government is lying about the numbers and that there are at least 50 casualties in Qom alone (which would indicate... the number of infected would be much higher than what's currently being reported). This MP was one of the ones barred from running in the parliamentary elections due to the political fallout of the Iran nuclear deal, though, so the Iranian govt has suggested he's bitter he's losing his job and rubbished his claims. But I wouldn't be surprised if Iran had been trying to keep the extent of the virus under wrap - much like China; authoritarian governments like to project strength... and having a virus outbreak that seems out of control doesn't project that image of strength at all.

It's spreading throughout the Middle East now. I think it's only a matter of time before it hits Africa.

[nudge+]

Midnight's update for international cases outside of mainland China in the last 24 hours (00:00 to 24:00 CET Feb 24):

377 new cases and 10 new deaths.
South Korea reported most new cases again (231 new cases and 2 deaths), followed by Italy (74 new cases and 4 deaths), Iran (18 new cases and 4 deaths) and USA (18 new cases - all former passengers of the Diamond Princess cruise ship). Other countries that reported new cases today are Japan (+13), Honkong (+7), Taiwan (+2) and Singapore, Malaysia and Spain (+1 each).
5 new countries also reported their first ever cases - Kuwait (5 cases), Bahrain and Oman (2 each), Iraq and Afghanistan (1 each).

As it stands now, the current total is 2429 cases and 36 deaths in 37 countries.

 

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

Are there still people on the cruise ship? Like do the new 18 cases from that ship count towards the US's total or the Diamond Princess total?

[nudge+]

30 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Are there still people on the cruise ship? Like do the new 18 cases from that ship count towards the US's total or the Diamond Princess total?

I believe that there might be some overlap somewhere(I think the US repatriated 14 confirmed cases because their tests turned negative at the start of the evaluation process but then showed positive on the second test before leaving and they were allowed to board nevertheless) but these 18 new cases are newly diagnosed so they weren't included in the Diamond Princess total!