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posted by martyb on Saturday January 25 2020, @04:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the happy-new-year? dept.

Chinese Authorities Begin Quarantine Of Wuhan City As Coronavirus Cases Multiply:

Wuhan's public health authorities say they are in a "state of war" as they quarantine the Chinese city in an attempt to halt the spread of a never-before-seen strain of coronavirus. "Strictly implement emergency response requirements, enter into a state of war and implement wartime measures to resolutely curb the spread of this epidemic," urged a committee of Wuhan's top officials. "Homes must be segregated, neighbors must be watched."

Later Thursday, health officials from the World Health Organization decided not to declare the outbreak an international health emergency. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that after two days of meetings in Geneva with the organization's Emergency Committee, the group was divided. "Make no mistake. This is an emergency in China, but it has not yet become a global health emergency," Tedros said. "It may yet become one." The WHO is not recommending any international restrictions on trade or travel, but does recommend exit screenings at airports.

Beginning at 10 a.m. local time (9 p.m. Wednesday ET), authorities in Wuhan, about 500 miles west of Shanghai, started sealing off public transportation, including its metro system, airport, train station and long-haul bus hubs. Livestreamed videos from the city show soldiers wearing face masks barricading the entrances to the city's train station Thursday morning to prevent passengers from entering and leaving the city.

Wuhan, China, is scrambling to build a hospital in just 6 days to treat coronavirus patients as its health system gets overwhelmed:

The Chinese city of Wuhan is rushing to build a new hospital within six days to treat patients of the coronavirus that has killed at least 26 people across the country and is overwhelming the quarantined city's health system.

The 2019-nCoV virus, which had infected more than 870 people as of Friday morning, originated in Wuhan. China has closed down public-transport links in the city and at least nine others, sealing off a combined 30 million people.

Chinese tourist says she evaded coronavirus checks to fly to France

The Chinese embassy in France has urged its citizens to comply with airport coronavirus checks after a woman from Wuhan said she had evaded screenings in order to fly to France and dine in restaurants there.

The woman told on social media how she took fever medicine to mask flu-like symptoms to bypass temperature checks. Wuhan has temporarily shut down public transport to contain the deadly virus.

Coronavirus has reached Chicago, North Carolina, Minnesota, Washington, etc. 😷

See also: Wuhan's 11 Million People Face Quarantine as Virus Fears Spread
Scientist who simulated the global impact of a coronavirus outbreak says 'the cat's already out of the bag' and China's efforts to contain the disease 'unlikely to be effective'
Inside the Chinese lab poised to study world's most dangerous pathogens

Previously:
China Reports 3rd Death, Nearly 140 New Cases of Coronavirus
China Confirms Human-To-Human Transmission of New Coronavirus; CDC Confirms First US Case


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @04:48AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @04:48AM (#948355)

    The woman told on social media how she took fever medicine to mask flu-like symptoms to bypass temperature checks

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @05:01AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @05:01AM (#948362)

      It is really hard to tell from the info out there.

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by Coward, Anonymous on Saturday January 25 2020, @05:22AM (1 child)

    by Coward, Anonymous (7017) on Saturday January 25 2020, @05:22AM (#948365) Journal

    If you visit China, stay away from the bat soup [thesun.co.uk].

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @07:42AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @07:42AM (#948394)

      is joker soup ok?

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @05:38AM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @05:38AM (#948367)

    Tell us:

    1) Number of people tested for this virus
    2) Number of people tested who were ill
    3) Number of people tested who did not end up ill
    4) Number/precent of people ill who tested negative

    That is not exclusive but would be a start.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @06:52AM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @06:52AM (#948386)

      All rapidly shifting. Literally on the order of hours. 1k confirmed infected in China. They're literally building at least one hospital just for this right now from scratch to be opening in 13 days, to give you an idea of the local impact. Global, we'll see where it reaches, it won't be pandemic but it might be a global air travel lockdown within the month.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:41AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:41AM (#948409)

        We are going to build a hospital in five days. Who said five days, it will be done in six. What do you mean six days? It will be done in ten. This hospital will be done in twelve days!

        All in all, best of luck china.

      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:58PM (3 children)

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:58PM (#948605) Journal

        That "hospital" will certainly be one jury-rigged one. I guess you could to a single floor version with minimal plumbing and electrics. It would keep off the wind and the rain, and hold beds. No time to cure the foundations. Or they could co-opt an existing department store and remodel it.

        But in 13 days you won't build a decent hospital from scratch, no matter how you work. Maybe an office building would be a better place to start than a department store. That way you wouldn't need to finish the conversion before you started moving patients in.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
        • (Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday January 25 2020, @09:47PM

          by sjames (2882) on Saturday January 25 2020, @09:47PM (#948623) Journal

          I'm sure that it's based on the proven management principle of 9 women making a baby in a month. Or the even more cutting edge principle that shows you only need 4 1/2 women if they are constantly told to work smarter, not harder and other platitudes backed up with "inspirational" posters stuck to the wall at regular intervals.

        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:58PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:58PM (#948839)

          What are you talking about? They are working shifts 24h/day to build it, and they're not yet off schedule.

          From an article about it:

          In 2003, during the Sars outbreak 7,000 workers in Beijing built the Xiaotangshan hospital in the northern suburbs in just a week [which] featured individual isolation units that looked like rows of tiny cabins. Within two months, it treated a seventh of all the country’s Sars patients

          from https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/24/chinese-city-wuhan-plans-to-build-coronavirus-hospital-in-six-days [theguardian.com]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @02:52PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @02:52PM (#948858)

          Some in China have been building stuff quickly for years:
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6ViuDT0PM4 [youtube.com]
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwvmru5JmXk [youtube.com] (they actually took a bit longer for this one than their claims but it's still fast compared to more conventional methods).

          And before these, 17 years ago they built a hospital in less than a week and got it running quite quickly.

          So in 2020 I'm sure they can build another hospital as quickly.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @01:24PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @01:24PM (#948454)

      The R0 estimates were initially 3.5, now recalculated at 2.5. That's similar to SARS which was effectively reduced to 0.38 via control measures. There are videos from China of people dropping in the streets, if verified this isn't a "mild cold" as some are claiming.

      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday January 25 2020, @09:00PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 25 2020, @09:00PM (#948606) Journal

        That "if verified" is a crucial qualifier. There's so much known garbage information circulating that my first inclination is to doubt the truth of it.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @05:44AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @05:44AM (#948371)

    Did nobody in China ever play Shadowrun?

    Bug City, man. It's not a good scene. There will be pain.

    Well, at least there probably hasn't been a tac nuke yet.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Saturday January 25 2020, @07:58AM (11 children)

    by deimtee (3272) on Saturday January 25 2020, @07:58AM (#948398) Journal
    --
    If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:04AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:04AM (#948400)

      Believe in the fires, they will protect you from Corona-chan.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:06AM (9 children)

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:06AM (#948401)

      Meanwhile our government is saying the likelihood of it reaching here is "very low" despite the fact thousands of Chinese students will arrive next month for the start of the school year.

      Yeah, we're getting it shortly.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:50AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:50AM (#948410)

        Is somebody being funny with the soylent QOTD ?

        Death comes on every passing breeze, He lurks in every flower;
        Each season has its own disease, Its peril -- every hour. -- Reginald Heber

      • (Score: 1) by Sulla on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:51AM (1 child)

        by Sulla (5173) on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:51AM (#948412) Journal

        Four scenarios,

        We don't close the borders and shut down air travel
        1. China manages containment
        2. China fails containment and we demand to know why the US gov't didn't shut it all down

        We close the borders
        3. China manages containment and we demand to know why the US gov't overreacted and damaged the world economy so much (SARS was like 1% China's GDP
        4. China fails containment and everyone is okay with it

        I prefer option three although it might have been pointless because even by the time we knew we already had pretty significant world spread. This thing kicked off in mid to late December with a 14 day incubation period some people being able to spread but not show symptoms.

        RO 3.8, earlier today of the total CCP reported numbers ~20% of those infected were critical, 3% died, and 3% were not getting worse.

        --
        Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 25 2020, @10:00AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 25 2020, @10:00AM (#948428) Journal
          Keep in mind that we don't know the percentage that are asymptomatic. For example, if 1% infected show symptoms, it's going to be a vastly different scenario than if 50% do.
      • (Score: 2, Troll) by Chocolate on Saturday January 25 2020, @09:02AM (5 children)

        by Chocolate (8044) on Saturday January 25 2020, @09:02AM (#948415) Journal

        Ban people from China. Fixes this problem and the housing market at the same time.

        --
        Bit-choco-coin anyone?
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @05:29PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @05:29PM (#948508)

          What will germophobe Trump do?

          • (Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:47PM (1 child)

            by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:47PM (#948602) Homepage

            I don't know what Trump will do, but what I do know is that all these "epidemic" jumpscares turn out to be overhyped nothingburgers like Bird flu and swine flu.

            And of course (((big pharma))) gets to profit from the resulting hysteria vaccinations.

            • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:49PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:49PM (#948604)

              Racist EF chimes in with his stupidity. Are you just so upset you aren't a billionaire yet that every rich person == jewish oppression of your potential?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @08:30AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @08:30AM (#949233)

          It's too late!
          https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/young-female-chinese-student-likely-to-be-fifth-case-in-australia-to-contract-coronavirus/news-story/f42f2e520b4a757cf748c7fba1617cba [news.com.au]

          Health officials have confirmed that a fifth case of the deadly coronavirus has been diagnosed in Australia, in a 21-year-old Chinese student

          The woman travelled on a direct flight from Wuhan to Sydney on January 22 and presented herself to hospital when she noticed symptoms.

          The University of NSW confirmed the woman had been staying in student accommodation but had kept herself isolated.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @09:58AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @09:58AM (#949245)

          This post was marked as a troll but it seems that this is exactly what should have been done to contain the outbreak.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:33AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:33AM (#948408)

    where the grass is green and the girls wear face masks.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by EJ on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:50AM (2 children)

    by EJ (2452) on Saturday January 25 2020, @08:50AM (#948411)

    I wonder if some new (old?) viruses are emerging from beneath the once-frozen permafrost that is now melting.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday January 25 2020, @09:56AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 25 2020, @09:56AM (#948427) Journal
      In Wuhan City? I doubt it's anywhere near permafrost. Meanwhile the disease is supposed to have started in a meat marketplace that also handles butchering of wild animals. That would be good conditions for getting exposed to a novel disease IMHO.
    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @11:22AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @11:22AM (#948439)
      You commented on the wrong story. Your comment would have been much more on topic for the previous story: 28 New-to-Science Virus Genera Found in 15,000-Year-Old Glacier Cores [soylentnews.org].
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @04:03PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @04:03PM (#948483)

    Keep in contained people. Just like the aids virus.

    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday January 25 2020, @09:11PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 25 2020, @09:11PM (#948611) Journal

      That depends on a couple of unknowns:
      1) How many cases are both asymptomatic and contagious?
      2) How contagious is the disease?

      If only people expressing symptoms are contagious, or if it's barely transmissible, then there appears to be no real problem. And we don't know.
      If asymptomatic people are contagious, and if it's extremely contagious (like a cold), then it's already out in the world.

      Of course, an additional concern is that viruses mutate, and just because this version is safe, doesn't mean it's not one mutation away from being horrendous.

      However, early indications are that it's only moderately contagious, and that it requires considerable contact to be transmissible. So even though the current version is often deadly, it appears relatively easily controllable. Also, that you're at least most contagious after the symptoms appear. (I've no clear idea how contagious that "most contagious" stage is, though. Just that it took awhile to confirm that human-to-human transmission was happening.)

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @09:04PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @09:04PM (#948607)

    it is always extra sad when a doctor or nurse dies before their time ... not to mention grave diggers.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @10:05AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @10:05AM (#949246)

      it's easier to train more grave diggers

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:36AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:36AM (#948697)

    I guarantee all these people dying from the virus are depleted of vitamin C. The pharmacokinetic models developed for healthy people do not work for people who are sick, which leads to an egregious underestimate of the intake required by orders of magnitude:

    Using the pharmacokinetic data from the study by
    Levine et al. [23], we constructed a four-parameter log-
    logistic response model to predict the plasma vitamin C
    concentrations for the critically ill patients on the basis
    of their enteral and/or parenteral vitamin C intakes. The
    predicted plasma concentrations, although variable, were
    significantly higher at all time points than the measured
    plasma concentrations (P < 0.0001; Fig. 3). On average,
    the measured plasma vitamin C values were approxi-
    mately one-third of the values predicted from intake.

    [...]

    Overall, the patients excreted
    approximately 15–30% of their administered vitamin C
    dose over the duration of the study.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5725835/ [nih.gov]
    The body is using up the vitamin C to fight the inflammation.

  • (Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Sunday January 26 2020, @04:02PM

    by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 26 2020, @04:02PM (#948902) Journal

    It can't be good when a public health worker starts off their tweet about the pandemic potential of a virus.

    https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1220919589623803905 [twitter.com]

    --
    В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
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