Locked In
China Lock Down Comparison
S&P Falls After Possible Third U.S. Case
Bloomberg reports S&P Falls After Possible Third U.S. Case
U.S. lawmakers said health authorities are expected to confirm a third case of coronavirus in the U.S., following a closed-door briefing between lawmakers in Washington and federal health officials. Senators John Barrasso of Wyoming and Josh Hawley of Missouri said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told lawmakers about the new case at the briefing. The CDC earlier Friday announced a second case, in Illinois, and has said it expects more to emerge as it monitors more than 60 people.
U.S. federal and local health authorities are monitoring more than 60 people as they attempt to catch new cases of coronavirus in travelers from China, where the outbreak is centered. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed a second case in Illinois Friday.
The Illinois patient developed symptoms after returning from Wuhan, China. The woman, in her 60s, is in stable condition and has been isolated in a hospital to try and avoid infecting more people, said Jennifer Layden, chief medical officer and state epidemiologist for the Illinois Department of Public Health. She didn’t have close contact with people outside her home after her return, and authorities haven’t seen symptoms in others associated with her.
The virus has an incubation period of about two weeks before infected people start to show symptoms, which resemble a cold or flu, the CDC said. U.S. authorities have screened more than 2,000 travelers from China on 200 flights without identifying any new patients.
China’s Unproven Antiviral Solution: Quarantine of 40 Million
Please consider China’s Unproven Antiviral Solution: Quarantine of 40 Million
The effectiveness of attempting to cordon off the epicenter of the disease — an area of roughly 40 million people — will probably be scrutinized far into the future.
“The containment of a city hasn’t been done in the history of international public health policy,” said Shigeru Omi, who headed the World Health Organization’s Western Pacific Region during the SARS outbreak in the early 2000s. “It’s a balance between respecting freedom of movement of people, and also prevention of further disease and public interest. It’s not a simple sort of thing; it’s very complex.”
Some argue the authorities may have had no choice, since certain patients appear to have milder symptoms that can go undetected, allowing them to unwittingly spread the disease. Saturday also marks the start of the Lunar New Year holiday, when more than 500 million trips by plane and rail may be taken within and out of China.
“It’s a tremendous legal, institutional, not to mention logistical challenge, but it’s an authoritarian state with a top leader who happens to have centralized power,” said Yanzhong Huang, director of the Center for Global Health Studies at Seton Hall University.
In modern times, quarantines have yielded limited results. A study in the Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology determined Toronto’s use of quarantine wasn’t effective in slowing SARS. An impoverished neighborhood in Liberia quarantined during an Ebola outbreak in 2014 responded with violent riots.
Estimated Cases
China Virus Overwhelms Wuhan’s Health System
The Wall Street Journal reports China Virus Overwhelms Wuhan’s Health System, as City Rushes to Build New Hospital
China’s viral outbreak is straining the resources of front-line hospital staff in epidemic-stricken Wuhan, who have been forced to turn away patients because of a lack of beds and basic medical supplies.
Hospitals throughout Hubei province, home of the vast majority of the confirmed cases, posted messages on social media in recent days pleading for donated supplies as panicked consumers emptied store shelves of face masks and hand sanitizer.
“There’s a shortage of medical supplies, help!!!” the Wuhan Children’s Hospital posted Thursday on China’s Twitter-like Weibo service.
Local businessman Xiang Dong, 52 years old, said he had visited five major hospitals across Wuhan on Thursday, all with massive crowds and hourslong waits.
Screening Starts at Chicago O’Hare Airport
By the time symptoms are spotted in others it’s too late to stop the spreading.
The woman in Chicago, now confirmed, arrived 11 days ago.
ZeroHedge comments “This Time I’m Petrified”: Virologist Who Helped Discover SARS Offers Chilling Take On Coronavirus Outbreak
What is One to Do?
Quarantine the entire country? Ban all incoming travel from China?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
There are richer countries. But it is pathetic how poor hygiene is in Asia after so many centuries of existence. I know because I am Asian and was born there. America is certainly superior in hygiene.
Financial media blames Friday’s decline in US markets due to the virus, despite the 1.3% gain in the Germany DAX. I’m pretty sure Europeans are flying to China, and Chinese are flying to Europe. A virus can’t simultaneously hurt one market and help another; do financial journalists never gave their writing any thought.
Financial “markets” haven’t had anything in common with reality based price discovery, economic, markets for at least 50 years. They’re merely a foil for the central bank mediated progressive project of robbing the competent and productive, for the benefit of the idle (or at best/worst makeworking) incompetent and universally mediocre connected. As such, they are specifically rigged to resist competence at anything whatsoever, including journalism.
Well the virus news can only get worse over the weekend so it’s an anxious wait for the open if you’re long of stocks. Particularly if they’re expensive stocks bought in a ponzi like rally.
Let’s put what is happening in context against what happens with the common flu:
Influenza has already sickened at least 13 million Americans this winter, hospitalizing 120,000 and killing 6,600, according to the CDC. And flu season hasn’t even peaked. In a bad year, the flu kills up to 61,000 Americans.
Worldwide, the flu causes up to 5 million cases of severe illness worldwide and kills up to 650,000 people every year, according to the World Health Organization.
Good point, because if nCoV sickens thirteen million due to it spreading like (or easier than) flu as is suggested , there will be 100 to 400 thousand dead from it by current estimates of its mortality.
Yet no-one quarantines any cities?
For the same reason you don’t have security checkpoints, and very strict mandated maintenance routines before being allowed to leave, at parking structures, despite traffic fatalities outnumbering air travel ones immensely.
It is incredibly early in the spread of this illness, the first Chinese cluster was identified only a month ago. This is more like August in the northern hemisphere’s flu season. Hopefully you all are right and it will end there. No need for panic, but it is quite serious.
I think the patient surge and related panic as well as the outbreak is real. China will take very large economic losses from this locally (due to cancelled Lunar New Year) and internationally (evidenced by dropping stock prices there). I doubt they would impose these restrictions if there weren’t a real problem.
just read that too, assumes R0 value of 3.6 to 4. scarier conclusion in the article is that the infections will not be contained to china, but spread throughout asia and uk, usa and from there everywhere else. Guess we will know in 10 days. People dismissing the 17 deaths are missing the bigger picture. Mortality rates remain around 3% based on reported cases/deaths. 41 reported deaths now. Wondering if US universities are at risk, there are many foreign students at us universities. Can’t believe that it hasn’t been reported in NY yet.
I simply do not know enough to comment. In the past, I dissed every such story, and accurately. Now I don’t know.
I sense China is hiding something but I have no facts on which to make the claim other than they did it before.
Latest infected estimates have risen over 1300 while the fatality list remains at 41.
No correlation between the figures? Or the authorities just delaying announcements.
My wife is Chinese – been married for 40 years plus. She constantly communicates with friends and relatives all over Asia. According to some contacts in China there’s long delays at the hospitals and medical centres. There are people dying before getting looked at by medical staff. These last fatalities aren’t in the statistics yet.
Another family member says that there is a sense of panic and desperation everywhere. I don’t know how the central government will be able to contain this.
page up and page down working for me on firefox and chrome. no scroll bar issues.
Anyone else having issues?
Yes, I still have no comment box, I can only reply to other posts, that’s using Safari on my IPad, haven’t checked the PC since the changes.
There is no sidebar as before
Text and link darkness is a reported problem
I’m not seeing full images when I click through to a story from your home page. For example, I see about a tenth of the twitter image at the start of this article.
No one else reported that
What OS?
OS v 12.4.1 with Safari
No amount of government can contain something like this. Best thing you can do is maintain your own health and be prepared for a situation where you may have to stay in your house for a couple months. Stay alert. Panic is not helpful to anyone.
Correct. Can’t be contained. The horse has bolted.
It seems that the vast majority of deaths have been elderly persons with compromised immune systems. There is one doctor who has already been through the virus – contracted it at hospital and has recovered.
The fatality rate seems to be doubling daily.
3,7,21 and now 40+ in the same amount of days.
There are videos of bodies lying around in the waiting rooms in hospitals – yet to be seen by health professionals – they wont yet be in the official figures.
The fatality rate isn’t doubling. It would be doubling if there were double the deaths for the same amount of infected people.
Fear porn. Out of context videos. Who knows what is really going on there.
If the statistics are indeed true.
4,000/11,000,000=.0003636 Is the Corona Virus really more of a test bed of their social credit system?
Saw that the R0 of the corona virus is estimated to be 2. The normal flu that goes around has a R0 of 1.3. That means that this virus is more easily transmitted from person to person than the flu. Although the Spanish flu R0 was 2-3, so it seems it would be slightly less than that. It is also now confirmed in France.
2 is high, I hope it is wrong.
Spanish flu mortality was 1 to 2 %. nCoV is said over 1%.
Some R values.
” The median R value for 1918 was 1.80 (interquartile range [IQR]: 1.47–2.27). Six studies reported seven 1957 pandemic R values. The median R value for 1957 was 1.65 (IQR: 1.53–1.70). Four studies reported seven 1968 pandemic R values. The median R value for 1968 was 1.80 (IQR: 1.56–1.85). Fifty-seven studies reported 78 2009 pandemic R values. The median R value for 2009 was 1.46 (IQR: 1.30–1.70) and was similar across the two waves of illness: 1.46 for the first wave and 1.48 for the second wave. Twenty-four studies reported 47 seasonal epidemic R values. The median R value for seasonal influenza was 1.28 (IQR: 1.19–1.37). Four studies reported six novel influenza R values. Four out of six R values were <1 “
Via BMC InfectDis
Panicked Chinese citizens demand to be locked into Uighur detention camps.
We have a slightly different format now. Some of your defaults may have changed.
I prefer a compact view to get more articles on the main page. The default may be “medium”. You can switch at any time.
Mish
Real trouble accessing the site, no login logo nor in sidebar sometimes, no reply field, sidebar not opening on some browsers etc. Android with modern and older browser versions.
Me too but I found clearing history & website data got the login logo back temporarily.
Haha. I clear cache and data often which is why I login frequently. On an older opera browser ( which works fine for every other site) , I had to catch login button top right after accepting cookies before it dissappeared from screen. Images were always cut slightly and the text jumpy from loading ads etc. That browser no longer works with this site, not even a login, plus the menu button, and reply buttons, grey when clicked but do nothing.
On updated monument browser now, which I have to use just for this site, at fresh start there is no login button, nor from the side menu, so I turn to portrait mode and get +follow in the top bar which then gives an option to login.
Links are light blue on white. Very vague. Text, itself, is light gray on white.
The popularity of ultra low contrast UI has made me wonder whether the designers want their content to be identifiable as ignore-able – sort of a visual up-speak.
Login now happens from the menu in the upper left corner. If you open that menu, you’ll see the login icon (or My Account if you’re logged in) at the bottom
I still have no comment box. I can only reply to other users posts.
Page loading is faster and the layout is cleaner, but the new look take a bit of getting used to. Didn’t have to login yet, but the the pop-up is/was a true dinosaur.
What a great time to have a b-list reality show star with dementia for a president!
“What is One to Do?”
…
Watch The Stand?
it’s a much better read
If no vaccine is available and 10% of those who are confirmed infected ultimately die (similar to SARS), then Corona Virus is definitely the winner versus Fed “not QE.” Exactly how much shopping and eating out will people do while everyone is sick? How much disposable income will people have if they take unpaid extra time off work?
Regarding sarcastic remarks about 3 cases in the US not being a big deal; it is very early. Day before yesterday it was zero cases. Hopefully it will be stopped early over here, but that will actually require some hard work and care. We have awful habits in the US when it comes to communicable diseases. Everyone sends their kids to school sick. Everyone goes to work sick. Many people extend their hand to shake hands despite being sick. People think something is wrong with you if you wear an ear loop mask in public, despite that doing so probably helps protect the people not wearing a mask.
Remember the fist bump and then elbow bump public health campaigns that were meant to stop everyone from shaking hands? Hardly anyone actually does that.
This simulation that’s been reported isn’t good.
Indeed, I share your concerns about how easily the virus may spread in the US. “There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponents.” – Lao Tzu
The CCPP response doesn’t seem to match the official numbers.
However: The virus is presumably highly contagious, like the common cold, but believed to be way more lethal (as 1-5% of cases).
FWIW (a little), I suspect that the number of cases is way understated. So, are the number of death, but not as much. Therefore, we will probably find out that the percentage of death is lower than perceived at this point.
Won’t surprise me if the mortality will turn out to be much lower.
“S&P Falls After Possible Third U.S. Case”
Which is stronger? FED Not QE or a corona virus? Inquiring minds want to know.
3 cases in the USA!!! Trump must declare national emergency Now! Oh OMG, the sky has Is falling!
That is right. Our countries should at least be tracking all international arrivals and making preparation for serious outbreak. When you start counting thousands of dead and you are locked down because of it, you are going to regret saying the above, well maybe not because some people don’t, but your comment points to hysteria because you suggest it but without providing any solution at all.
Food preparation in China isn’t exactly sanitary. Is it any wonder these viruses like SARS, MERS and now Coronavirus all start in China. When you have portions of a country that will eat anything that moves, it isn’t surprising you get some quick mutations that put a bunch of people in the hospital. Just guessing that coronavirus will end up being like SARS or MERS was in the US. It may get some people sick and even put them in the hospital but few will die of it. China has a lot of problems.
Food preparation in the US isn’t exactly sanitary either. In my tiny state about a restaurant a week is closed because of dead roaches or mouse shit found in food prep areas. It’s more likely we’ve developed immunities to the pathogens. It’s all too easy to bash another culture because they aren’t as smart, clean or holy as we are. Our sanitation procedures were learned over centuries, not God given.
Centuries? Hardly. The US has only been around for less than 300 years. Of course there are places that are bad but parts of China eats rats and snakes as delicacies. It is cultural. It isn’t surprising MERS SARS AND now Coronavirus all originated in China.
Centuries? Hardly. The US has only been around for less than 300 years.
Yes, centuries. Many of the most significant medical advances occurred in Europe when the US was just starting to wear long pants. People in my childhood ate muskrat and groundhog. When you are poor you eat what you can afford. And there are many poor in China as well as in other undeveloped parts of the world. How do you know they ate bats and snakes as Delicacies? I have a number of Chinese friends who never once Those as a delicacy. All I’m saying is just because we live in the richest country in the world we shouldn’t be so goddamed smug.
Hygiene and sanitation are still lacking in Asia after centuries. I know as I am Asian and was born there. It is pathetic that a country that’s only been around few hundred years can do most things better those that have existed for thousands of years.
I am married to a Chinese person, and I must say they pretty much share your sentiments, as do other close friends who immigrated from China. They especially don’t like the increase in totalitarianism – can’t say I like it much either. However, I point out a couple of things to them. One is that China has gone from a 3rd world country to the second largest world economy in 35 years. That has got to count for something, no matter how nefarious some of the methods (many of our methods are nefarious also). And second, we learned the value of institutions like the FDA, EPA, CDC, sanitation, insurance and such over a long period of time – pretty much since the beginning of the 1900s. China is pretty much a brand new country still using its training wheels. I know western Chinese people wish it would move faster, but I think it is astonishing that it moved at all. I am fearful, however, that the movement to previously unknown levels of totalitarianism will undo much of the progress so far. Only time will tell. And in fact, if my job were to keep civil order among 1.4 billion Chinese people I’m not sure what other tool I would be able to turn to. Our experience in Iran pretty much proved that man’s natural inclination when totalitarianism is eliminated is not to democracy but to feudal war lords. The thought of 1.4 billion people engaging in mass civil unrest is not something that I find at all appealing.
I put India in a similar category. The two largest countries by population are the least sanitary imo. At some point infestation will result in a mass die off. Maybe it is starting now. I always felt the world’s population couldn’t grow exponentially forever.
Three cases in the US!
OMG!!!!
extrapolate
Apparently, the solution is to panic and behave stupidly. Going to hospital just because you have a fever is stupid. Standing in line for a face mask is stupid.
Not going to lecture, but you are not in a position to give this advice to people. Try to keep it constructive, i.e. better stock before and avoid crowded places, or ensure you have a physician who will make home calls. Hindsight is wonderful but you are not in the position of these people. If you are forced to move in public to survive ( e.g. food) you are going to be queuing for a mask before you queue for food. If you fear you have a deadly virus, you will queue to be tested for it. Not stupid, just the system is overwhelmed, same as might occur in any country.
Same rules of behavior should apply here as with a flu.
In theory, but we don’t know much about the new virus and mortality may be way higher than flu.
CDC claims that 61,000 people die of flu every year in the US alone. And yet there is no comparable panic and most doctors will tell you not to come and stay home unless you have complications.
Panic is a bad state of mind to make decisions. You may not like what I wrote before, but it is true. First rule should always be to minimize exposure.
Completely agree on panic.
I don’t have the figures but flu mortality from memory is 0.1% (?) or similar, here mortality is in the 1 to 10 % field (so far) , which in pandemic would be millions.
Limiting exposure in a crowded Chinese city, well I’m not sure how besides everyone staying home, which is obviously not ordinarily feasible. It may come to that by imposition though, and that would mean tens of millions on rations or something, with government distribution and full martial law.
Scaleable ways of limiting exposure have been described in my comments before – 1) if you are sick, stay home, 2) Don’t go into a crowd to buy a mask once the epidemic started. (there is more, this is just an example)
Nothing impossible or difficult about that.
Mortality will likely turn out to be much less than it is estimated right now. Most of the dead were old and many had pre-existing conditions.
In Chinese cities you step out the door and you are in a crowd.
Staying home if you have fever (assuming most cases are now nCoV) does not limit exposure, it limits transmission . No one visits you (as is understood to be the case), and goodbye plus to those who share the space also maybe.
Limiting exposure means being prepared BEFOREHAND.
So you are stocking up (just out of an abundance of caution) , right ?
If everyone tries that it = panic, right ?
So ? So this is what happens when events overtake.
But avoiding exposure by whatever means, if the virus is circulating : 100%
So… you agree with me?
Limiting transmission is the other side of avoiding exposure. When you are sick and limit transmissions, you increase the chances that others are exposed.
Sure, but there is a difference between saying what others should do, and what a person would actually do themselves. Ideally all patients get isolated (whether at home or in hospital) and receive proper care as well . That gets difficult at home when someone has pneumonia and is incapacitated for example, so I guess there is a trade off between all the different eventualities somewhere…manpower, biosecurity, transport, available places etc.
Just thankful I’m not the one trying to manage all this. Actually, I’d probably requisition some apartment blocks that are unsold or with fewer inhabitants and set up a “leper colony” somewhere, making sure it was decked out to minimise transmission between potential carriers, having all care services at hand. Anyone not taking that option gets quarantined at home, house arrest style along with the household, probably with less attention…but people do actually want to be attended to so I expect most would take the first option.
All brings up a lot of questions, because it involves the use of force combined with questions of competence.
I don’t have a separate reply box, so will just chip these in here because they are also pertinent. Various updates and advice on the Hubei official site. Ignore the link text and just click the embedded links.
https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=http://www.hubei.gov.cn/zhuanti/2020/gzxxgzbd/&xid=17259,15700002,15700019,15700186,15700190,15700256,15700259,15700262,15700265,15700271,15700301&usg=ALkJrhicpGNzPTuKHA4XJ5gmLo44f1o7Fw
Which took over from Wuhan where some info is also available
The Wuhan corona virus has a mortality of 3% at this point, much higher than the usual flu, lower than the Spanish Flu outbreak (15%) of 1918. Your “prescriptions” for public behavior in the circumstances of an epidemic amount to blaming the victim and letting public services and government off the hook. Most working people can’t afford to miss work (days? weeks?) to ride out an epidemic, or avoid mass transit, public markets, etc. Your solution is unrealistic, with a facade of “common sense” finger-wagging. A plan of action should have been prepared far in advance by public leadership bodies like CDC, FEMA, etc. We’ll see whether that turns out to be the case.