Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak

[nudge]

21 minutes ago, Mel81x said:

This is odd to me too. As a healthworker you shouldn't believe what anyone says during a quarantine. Maybe making more people watch the The Thing before you send them out in the field will teach them the importance of running your own tests versus believing what anyone says. 

Yeah; I mean even insignificant uni research questionnaires have built-in inconsistency checks because everyone knows that self-report is ridden with all sorts of bias and the data received that way is of questionable accuracy. To rely on self-report in actual epidemic seems a bit naive to say the least...

[Mpache]

4 hours ago, nudge said:

@Eco: Just saw this. Apparently one of the passengers from the cruise ship admitted on live TV that she and her husband lied about testing negative and not having symptoms in order to get on that repatriation flight back to the US 

 

Lock them up. Not sure if it’s a felony but they are literally putting the entire population at risk.

[Mel81x+]

4 minutes ago, nudge said:

Yeah; I mean even in insignificant uni research questionnaires have built-in inconsistency checks because everyone knows that self-report is ridden with all sorts of bias and the data received that way is of questionable accuracy. To rely on self-report in actual epidemic seems a bit naive to say the least...

I think the problem also goes back to healthworkers having to do a lot of work in such a short span of time they did a quick look and said its okay you have no symptoms instead of following protocol. Whoever passed these nutjobs shouldn't be anywhere near a quarantine zone because they clearly don't understand that their job isn't just to make sure people don't have the virus but to ensure that it doesn't spread using vector patterns that can't be traced.

[Harry]

22 hours ago, Inti Brian said:

The lack of updates made me think this was dying down. Damnit @nudge  

Same! Shows how good @nudge's updates are that we're relying on it as a primary news source.

[Michael]

The number of Coronavirus cases have reportedly more than doubled in one day in South Korea. Apparently officials have said that there have been 229 new cases confirmed since Friday!  The total number of Coronavirus cases in South Korea is said to now stand at 433.

This news seems pretty frightening for those living in South Korea. Especially as South Korea is a country which has a land mass that is less than half the size of the UK, but a relatively high population of over 50 million people.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51596665

[nudge]

42 minutes ago, Michael said:

The number of Coronavirus cases have reportedly more than doubled in one day in South Korea. Apparently officials have said that there have been 229 new cases confirmed since Friday!  The total number of Coronavirus cases in South Korea is said to now stand at 433.

This news seems pretty frightening for those living in South Korea. Especially as South Korea is a country which has a land mass that is less than half the size of the UK, but a relatively high population of over 50 million people.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51596665

It increased more than tenfold since Wednesday as well. Expect the number to rise further, there's a cluster of cases from a religious cult and they have now located 9336 known cult members, 1261 of them already have symptoms.

[Stan]

42 minutes ago, nudge said:

It increased more than tenfold since Wednesday as well. Expect the number to rise further, there's a cluster of cases from a religious cult and they have now located 9336 known cult members, 1261 of them already have symptoms.

what absolute cults.

[nudge]

54 confirmed cases and 2 deaths in Italy: 39 in Lombardy, 12 in Veneto and 3 in Lazio.
12 towns are put under restrictive measures.

[Fairy In Boots]

10 minutes ago, nudge said:

54 confirmed cases and 2 deaths in Italy: 39 in Lombardy, 12 in Veneto and 3 in Lazio.
12 towns are put under restrictive measures.

Chinese nationals or Italian nationals that have recently been to China? Or are we just now getting sporadic breakouts

[Honey Honey]

3 minutes ago, Fairy In Boots said:

Chinese nationals or Italian nationals that have recently been to China? Or are we just now getting sporadic breakouts

Read that the source of Lombardy is just one Italian national who came back from China on January 20th with no symptoms. Before even this thread started.

[nudge]

Just now, Fairy In Boots said:

Chinese nationals or Italian nationals that have recently been to China? Or are we just now getting sporadic breakouts

Italian nationals with no travel history to China but the first infected patient (a 38-year-old man now in intensive care) fell ill after meeting a friend who had recently been there. Seems to be an untraceable cluster in several small towns around Milan mostly (they haven't been able to trace patient zero so far). 

[Fairy In Boots]

7 minutes ago, nudge said:

Italian nationals with no travel history to China but the first infected patient (a 38-year-old man now in intensive care) fell ill after meeting a friend who had recently been there. Seems to be an untraceable cluster in several small towns around Milan mostly (they haven't been able to trace patient zero so far). 

So as you’re following it more closely than I am, can I pick your brain please? 

If they’ve not found patient zero are we to assume that they have tried to fight this illness themselves and not been to hospital or they’ve probably treated them but not worked out who caught from who? 

[nudge]

1 minute ago, Fairy In Boots said:

So as you’re following it more closely than I am, can I pick your brain please? 

If they’ve not found patient zero are we to assume that they have tried to fight this illness themselves and not been to hospital or they’ve probably treated them but not worked out who caught from who? 

The man @Harvsky mentioned who traveled to China and was suspected to be the original spreader tested negative and never had any symptoms so at this points they are not sure if he had the virus, spread it despite being asymptomatic and then recovered, or if it originated from someone else. One of those 54 confirmed cases might be patient zero too; they're currently trying to trace the links between all the cases. It appears some of them were at the same hospital about 10 days ago.

[nudge]

Daily international update (from 00:00 CET Feb 22 to 00:00 CET Feb 23):

There have been 316 new cases and 3 deaths outside of mainland China. Most of those were reported in South Korea (+229), Italy (+43), Japan (+26) and Iran (+10). New cases also reported in Singapore, Hongkong, Australia and UAE. 

In addition to that, South Korea already reported 123 new cases and 2 new deaths just past midnight today; there also have been 14 new cases in Italy. As a result, the total number of cases outside of mainland China is currently 1831 + 19 deaths.

 

[Azeem]

Qoum is the hub of religious tourism in Iran, lots of people travel to Qoum from here

[Machado]

This topic is where I come to know if it is time to get in the bunker already.

[Honey Honey]

Are there any cuisines left that are safe to eat???

[Stan]

3 hours ago, Harvsky said:

Are there any cuisines left that are safe to eat???

Indian but you just have to be ready to 'run' through the consequences after...

[Harry]

10 hours ago, nudge said:

Daily international update (from 00:00 CET Feb 22 to 00:00 CET Feb 23):

There have been 316 new cases and 3 deaths outside of mainland China. Most of those were reported in South Korea (+229), Italy (+43), Japan (+26) and Iran (+10). New cases also reported in Singapore, Hongkong, Australia and UAE. 

In addition to that, South Korea already reported 123 new cases and 2 new deaths just past midnight today; there also have been 14 new cases in Italy. As a result, the total number of cases outside of mainland China is currently 1831 + 19 deaths.

 

Australia's number was at 14 but we had 7 people on the diamond Princess who have been added to our tally and now are back in Australia

[nudge]

4 more cases in the UK (all from the Diamond Princess cruise ship).

Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Armenia have all closed their borders with Iran who reported 15 new cases and 3 new deaths today.

Italy's number of total cases is growing further (currently at 155 cases and 3 deaths); Venice carnival and other public events have been suspended, some football matches have been canceled and at least 10 towns are in partial lockdown affecting about 50000 people.

South Korea reported almost 200 new cases and one more death today and they're about to raise the alert level to red.

 

[Stan]

It's quite scary how quickly it seems to have picked up again. There was the initial outbreak and understandable precautionary actions to match the panic, then it sort of levelled out a bit, and now it's ramped up - especially in South Korea! Suppose that is more likely given proximity to China but remarkable rise in cases in Italy.

[nudge]

1 hour ago, Stan said:

It's quite scary how quickly it seems to have picked up again. There was the initial outbreak and understandable precautionary actions to match the panic, then it sort of levelled out a bit, and now it's ramped up - especially in South Korea! Suppose that is more likely given proximity to China but remarkable rise in cases in Italy.

I would say it's not that unexpected though. The first person fell ill in China in the beginning of December but the outbreak was reported 30 days later only and that's when the first precautionary actions started - and to be honest, outside of China, there weren't many precautionary measures except temperature scanners and then later stopping flights from/to Hubei province. Considering the fact that the virus is not extremely fatal and asymptomatic people can also spread it, it's quite likely that it was brought to numerous countries well before the Chinese cities were quarantined and travel restrictions were put into place. Add incubation period on top of that as well as the fact that about 80% of cases tend to have mild symptoms, and it's very likely that the spread simply went unnoticed until now. Now that more people are starting to get sick due to human-to-human transmission in numerous countries, more people also experience more serious symptoms and seek medical help, so more aggressive testing is being carried out instead of only testing those who have symptoms and have traveled to China, resulting in a sharp increase in total numbers. I think once other countries start doing the same, we'll start seeing a lot more confirmed cases there too.

Also some interesting facts about the outbreak in South Korea - most of those cases are linked to that weirdo religious cult (the leader of which - I kid you not - claims to be the second coming of Jesus and says the virus is "the test of faith" and the work of the devil hellbent on stopping the rapid growth of the cult). So anyway, the cases in the cult are pretty much all traced to one woman who got symptoms but refused to be tested and sneaked out of the hospital at least four times to attend services of the cult until she finally got tested and confirmed to have the virus. In addition to that, as more members of the cult started getting sick, they were still being encouraged to continue their "evangelical work" and to deny their affiliation to the church if public health officials asked. So all in all, a bunch of inconsiderate religious nutjobs are pretty much at fault for the outbreak in South Korea.

[Stan]

11 minutes ago, nudge said:

Also some interesting facts about the outbreak in South Korea - most of those cases are linked to that weirdo religious cult (the leader of which - I kid you not - claims to be the second coming of Jesus and says the virus is "the test of faith" and the work of the devil hellbent on stopping the rapid growth of the cult). So anyway, the cases in the cult are pretty much all traced to one woman who got symptoms but refused to be tested and sneaked out of the hospital at least four times to attend services of the cult until she finally got tested and confirmed to have the virus. In addition to that, as more members of the cult started getting sick, they were still being encouraged to continue their "evangelical work" and to deny their affiliation to the church if public health officials asked. So all in all, a bunch of inconsiderate religious nutjobs are pretty much at fault for the outbreak in South Korea.

A combination of:

explain my reaction to this.

[nudge]

Austria has stopped all passenger train connections from/to Italy after Austrian authorities were informed by their Italian colleagues about two suspected cases on the train from Venice to München via Austria. 

[nudge]

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.