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+--- Thread: Chinese Wuhan Virus (/thread-8118.html)
Chinese Wuhan Virus - Yazata - Feb 6, 2020
I suspect that this is a lot worse than we are being told. It's not just the equivalent of a new strain of flu.
There's lots of scary stuff on twitter. Hospitals mobbed, people dropping dead in the streets...
January 22: Soldiers blocking the Wuhan train station.
https://twitter.com/HuXijin_GT/status/1220216412716691456
January 23:Hospitals totally mobbed.
https://twitter.com/Taihoku1895/status/1220327417954226176
January 24: People collapsed on hospital floor
https://twitter.com/Taihoku1895/status/1220930885328859137
January 24: Corpses in overcrowded hospital
https://twitter.com/Taihoku1895/status/1220680935659597824
January 25: Medical worker claims situation far worse than is being reported
https://twitter.com/Terrence_STR/status/1221100970521829377?s=20
January 27: People dropping dead in the streets
https://twitter.com/Maheen83086711/status/1221883810381471753
Feb 4: body bags awaiting cremation
https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/status/1224621556200083457
Feb 5: Military quarantine camp
https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/status/1225183685621751808
Feb 5: Collecting dead bodies
https://twitter.com/HimalayaGlobal/status/1224992809591037952
There are even unconfirmed (and likely false) rumors circulating on the Chinese internet that this is something that escaped from a biological warfare laboratory. Here's an Israeli biological warfare consultant commenting on that.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/24/virus-hit-wuhan-has-two-laboratories-linked-chines/
......................................................................................
Numbers from Johns Hopkins University
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wQVypefm946ch4XDp37uZ-wartW4V7ILdg-qYiDXUHM/htmlview?usp=sharing&sle=true
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
As of 2-5-20, 16:43 (local time, I assume):
16,678 confirmed cases in Hubei province alone. (It was 1/10 that a week ago.) And this is just the official number, the real number might be 10x this.
479 reported deaths in Hubei.
And 538 reported recoveries in Hubei.
So...
If we calculate mortality rate by reported deaths/confirmed cases, which is how it's normally done, it's something like 2.87%. Not too bad. (This seems to assume that everyone infected who hasn't yet been reported as having died isn't going to die.)
but...
If we calculate mortality rate by reported deaths/all the cases whose outcomes we know (reported deaths + reported recoveries), it's a whopping 47.09% mortality rate!
I expect that's much too high, but I also suspect that the 2% number is way too low. The most accurate number might be somewhere in the middle. 20-30% perhaps. Some of the others probably only survive with aggressive medical care, which won't be possible as numbers of stricken increase.
If many sick people linger before dying, so that most of the people dying now were infected when the disease was much smaller (just a week ago!), we would expect the number of fatalities to grow exponentially into the thousands (or even tens of thousands), just like the rate of infections already is. And this is just one Chinese province. It's spreading all over China. There's also the problem that an unknown number of people may be infected but not obviously ill, but still contagious.
The truth is that we don't know what the real situation is. The way that the Chinese and now the world are responding makes me suspect that it's much worse than they are telling us. (You don't lock down 50 million people with armed soldiers and military roadblocks for a new strain of flu.)
So I'm just not convinced that the numbers that we are getting are entirely reliable. I still suspect massive scale underreporting by the Chinese government, perhaps unintentional because hospitals are swamped and are turning people away, and perhaps intentional to prevent panic and preserve social stability.
I believe that the United States has advised all US citizens in China to leave. All visitors from mainland China are temporarily excluded. (China isn't happy about that. It will play havoc with some companies' supply chains.) Two additional US evacuation aircraft have arrived from Wuhan after collecting more of the estimated 800 Americans trapped there. I think that one went to northern California (Travis air force base?) and the other to southern California (March air force base, which received the first batch?) The US says they will all have to undergo testing and 14 day quarantine.
gb
RE: Chinese Wuhan Virus - C C - Feb 6, 2020
Wow, great assemblage of tweets and other info, Yazata. So much for the Party's iron hand in terms of internet censorship and communication barriers.
Prince Philip isn't dead yet, so we at least know that the virus isn't the result of him reincarnating as such. But I bet China is where he'd first like to pop-up at afterwards. Huge, dense population and it being such a travel hub for the whole world since becoming an economic superpower.
RE: Chinese Wuhan Virus - confused2 - Feb 6, 2020
The BBC reports (5/02/202) :-
564 dead
1,153 cured
28,018 confirmed cases
24,702 suspected cases
186,354 under medical watch
The ratio of dead to cured does look fairly high. It will be interesting (interesting?!!!!!!!) to see if the confirmed cases follow the same pattern.
RE: Chinese Wuhan Virus - Yazata - Feb 6, 2020
178 evacuees from Wuhan have indeed arrived at Travis Air Force Base, a huge military airlift base about halfway between the SF bay area and Sacramento. (I've been past it many times.) So it looks like one of the planes referred to above ended up at Travis. I'm assuming the other plane went to March AFB outside Riverside.
https://www.kcra.com/article/5-things-to-know-evacuees-from-china-housed-travis-air-force-base/30786210
Or maybe both planes went to Travis.
https://twitter.com/RecordBee/status/1225468602947637248
https://www.travis.af.mil/News/Article/2072159/air-force-supports-repatriation-efforts-at-travis-afb/
Edit: The second evacuation flight went to Southern California, but not to March AFB. It flew to Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego.
Photo of the flight landing at Miramar:
![[Image: FXMXBTCIPAI6VELE2MKUVWFFZU.jpg&w=767]](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/FXMXBTCIPAI6VELE2MKUVWFFZU.jpg&w=767)
Here's the young Wuhan doctor who first raised the alarm about Wuhan virus on December 30, when he told a group of visiting medical students about his worries about several cases of an unknown SARS like illness that had arrived at the hospital where he worked, warning the students to wear protective clothing. One of the students apparently reported him and he was hauled off to the 'Public Security Bureau' and forced to sign a confession that he had been telling "lies". The police announced that he was one of six people under investigation for "starting rumors". He soon fell ill with the illness himself and was reported to have died yesterday. Other news/propaganda outlets insist that he's still alive, although in critical condition. Life (and Death) in China...
https://www.foxnews.com/health/doctor-sounded-alarm-coronavirus-dies
![[Image: Dr-Li-Wenliang.jpg?ve=1&tl=1]](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2020/02/1862/1048/Dr-Li-Wenliang.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
gb
RE: Chinese Wuhan Virus - Secular Sanity - Feb 6, 2020
More contagious but less deadly than the SARS-coronavirus, right? Similar origins, perhaps?
RE: Chinese Wuhan Virus - stryder - Feb 6, 2020
It is possible that one of the many reasons for its mortality level is down to the air quality. Some parts of the larger Chinese cities tend to have high levels of smog which over time would likely effect peoples respiratory system. So to get a virus that effects the lungs would be bad for people that already suffer from weakened lungs due to the pollution levels.
RE: Chinese Wuhan Virus - Yazata - Feb 8, 2020
(Feb 6, 2020 11:38 PM)stryder Wrote: It is possible that one of the many reasons for its mortality level is down to the air quality. Some parts of the larger Chinese cities tend to have high levels of smog which over time would likely effect peoples respiratory system. So to get a virus that effects the lungs would be bad for people that already suffer from weakened lungs due to the pollution levels.
Hi Stryder. Yes. I agree.
It appears that the spread of this disease and its mortality is higher some places. Hubei province for one. The ratio of deaths to recoveries seems to be higher there than some other places.
It's conceivable that some kind of local environmental factor exacerbates that. If people already have damaged lungs from air pollution, that could be something that makes a respiratory illness worse.
(Feb 6, 2020 09:59 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: More contagious but less deadly than the SARS-coronavirus, right? Similar origins, perhaps?
They seem to be closely related viruses.
I'm not convinced that we really know how deadly this new virus will be in the long run.
One thing that worries me is that nobody seems to be talking about how long it takes to recover. Combine that with the very low numbers of reported recoveries compared to reported infections, and the possibility that this thing might be chronic arises. Catch it and it doesn't quickly go away.
The young doctor up above was an early case from a month or so ago and only just died. If the vast majority of people who have caught it since it erupted have had it for a shorter time, and if many/most of them are still ill (we don't really know that), then we don't really know their long-term prognosis.
I want to see better numbers on people who recover, more on how long that takes, and more on the severity of the illness before recovery happens.
Regarding severity, there's this CDC guidance for physicians, which is much scarier than what's been put out publicly in the mass media. Nothing much about how long a typical case lasts. They do say that between 1/4 and 1/3 of all hospitalized patients need intensive care ventilation, but don't say how long it is likely to be needed or what percentage of confirmed cases will need hospitalization. They might not know, this is all a work-in-progress and medicine is scrambling to keep up with it. They do warn physicians that milder flu-like symptoms sometimes seem to worsen about two weeks in and that's when hospitalization might become necessary.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-guidance-management-patients.html
The good news is that this new virus has already been sequenced and multiple projects on multiple immunological/molecular biological fronts are already underway around the world to produce a vaccine or other effective treatments.
RE: Chinese Wuhan Virus - Yazata - Feb 8, 2020
More twitter stuff, for what it's worth... (It could be an apocalyptic end-of-the-world Science Fiction movie. At least no zombies... yet.) And just think, it will be everywhere in a few weeks...
Life (and Death) in Wuhan
Inside one of the US evacuation flights from Wuhan to the United States. Note the 'nbc' nuclear, biological and chemical suits that the American crew are wearing.
https://twitter.com/IsChinar/status/1225642223506579457
Drone video from an Australian TV station showing Wuhan (a city of 10 million) as a ghost city. Empty streets, airplanes lined up at unused airport.
https://twitter.com/msrsonline/status/1225629549917958150
There are still living people in the city though. Thousands of Wuhan apartment dwellers, told to remain in their homes, shouting out their windows and off their balconies.
https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/status/1225821711247069185
Inside that 1000 bed "hospital" that China proudly built in just a few days in Wuhan. Little things like toilets and plumbing are minimal. No medicines or medical equipment. No apparent ability to provide intensive care that many of these patients will need. Note how beds are crammed close together, almost ensuring cross infection. Complaint that it's a 'death camp' and people are just being sent there to die while the government can pretend it's "taking all necessary steps".
https://twitter.com/CriticalCezanne/status/1225432827765805056
And here's a government PR guy all proud of the "Chinese speed" which which the new hospital was built.
https://twitter.com/zlj517/status/1225691290177658880
Video of unknown provenance that shows what may or may not be doctors at a small Wuhan clinic discussing the situation. They claim that people are dying in their facility and nobody is taking the bodies (views of body bags at the end), complaining how due to lack of test kits, virus tests confirming a diagnosis can only be conducted for people who have already been admitted to hospital... while nobody is allowed to be admitted to hospital without a confirmed diagnosis. (A great 'catch 22' which will almost guarantee under-reporting.) Complaints about doctors being arrested for telling the truth about how bad the situation is and how people higher up in the government should be the ones arrested.
https://twitter.com/DarrenPlymouth/status/1225417537460088834
Suspected cases are being involuntarily and at times forcibly committed to quarantine facilities.
https://twitter.com/Anfield_king/status/1225674232719298560
Chinese military now operating checkpoints in Wuhan. Reports that the quarantine zones are now under martial law. (Note the logo in the green circle on what looks like the soldier's cell-phone pocket. A skull inside what looks like a virus outline.
https://twitter.com/VictorLeonardi2/status/1225871309835505666
Here's an epidemiologist from Imperial College London who based on his mathematical models of disease spread, thinks that less than 10% of infections in China are known, that maybe 25% of the infections outside China are known. Inside China he estimates that there are maybe 50,000 new infections a day. He estimates that the epidemic is doubling every 5 days inside China. It sounds like he fully expects it to spread worldwide.
https://twitter.com/StephenMcDonell/status/1225361167381495810
And here is something equally scary...
For a short time the epidemic tracker on Tencent, the Chinese social media site, was showing dramatically higher figures, then it abruptly took them down and started showing the official government numbers. The uncorrected/uncensored numbers were: 154,023 confirmed cases, 24,549 deaths and 269 'cures'.
That works out to a 15.94% mortality rate if we go with deaths/confirmed cases. And a 98.92% mortality rate if we just go with cases whose final outcome is known: deaths/(deaths+ cures) The latter numbers make the otherwise outlandish rumor that was going around the Chinese internet a few days ago that this is something that escaped from a germ warfare lab more plausible.
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/387159
RE: Chinese Wuhan Virus - Yazata - Feb 10, 2020
China has put out new numbers on number of recoveries. (If you can believe their numbers.) They say that nationally, 8.2% of those infected have recovered (and 6.1% in Wuhan.)
Today's official number on infections is said to be 40,171. The official number on deaths is 908.
908/40171 = 2.26% mortality rate. (deaths/confirmed cases)
8.2% of 40,171 = 3,294
908/(908+3,294) = 908/4202 = 21.61% mortality rate (deaths/known outcomes)
The two percentages are very different because there are so many sick whose prognosis is still unknown. The percentages do seem to be converging though, which is a good sign. It suggests that this illness may not be a lifelong thing and that people do recover.
Of course, it all depends on the numbers being credible.
https://nypost.com/2020/02/10/china-says-8-2-percent-of-its-coronavirus-patients-are-cured/
RE: Chinese Wuhan Virus - Yazata - Feb 17, 2020
Time for more End of the World News (Still no zombies so far. But all the rest of World War Z.)
Ships sitting idle off coast of Singapore as Asian economy grinds to a halt
https://twitter.com/The_MoneyMade_/status/1228912653495676928
What looks like a pharmacy and their own do-it-yourself precautions. (Rather creative.)
https://twitter.com/livecrisisnews/status/1227443477732036610
What may or may not be dead bodies lying on a street. (If it was LA, they would be homeless people sleeping on the streets and there would be lots more of them than here. So it isn't clear what this is in China.)
https://twitter.com/TruthAbtChina/status/1229244987851886594
Using drones to spray 'disinfectant' in Wuhan. This suggests to me that they know that the virus remains virulent on non-living surfaces for some time and that people can catch it from touching things as well as from other people's breath and secretions. But the low concentrations of disinfectant from such a small aircraft spraying from so high can't be very effective.
https://twitter.com/detresfa_/status/1229090170189668352
So there's much more heavy-duty spraying in Luoyang. This city is a considerable distance north of Wuhan, east of Xian.
https://twitter.com/johnnyhenwood21/status/1228027341722574849
Evidence that the Naval University of Engineering in Wuhan issued a warning about an unknown pneumonia to its own people and restricted access to its facility on January 2, more than two weeks before the coronavirus was officially announced to the city and the world.
https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/status/1228435515776667649
Funeral home employee reports that only about 1/3 of corpses they receive are coming from the hospitals. The rest die at home. Unlikely that these victims were officially diagnosed or included in the official stats.
https://twitter.com/news_ntd/status/1228739478673592320
Wuhan had been strongly advising people to stay home, now that's an order and people need official permission to leave their homes.
https://twitter.com/xinyanyu/status/1228365678777962496
Suspected cases are being welded into their homes. If they die there, they will probably never show up on the official statistics.
https://twitter.com/bigapple_agent/status/1229139576947642374
Unconfirmed rumors that 49 crematories in Hubei have each cremated an average of 1,200 bodies since this started. That totals more than 50,000 dead in that province alone.
Collecting dead bodies.
https://twitter.com/EpochTimesChina/status/1227677644931633152
People posting these kind of officially unauthorized reports on social media are disappearing. Rumors about some of them being declared presumptive cases and forced into guarded quarantine facilities/death camps, where if they aren't infected, they soon will be.
https://twitter.com/ODN/status/1228020812566978560