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Coronavirus declared global health emergency by WHO
The new coronavirus has been declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization, as the outbreak continues to spread outside China.
"The main reason for this declaration is not what is happening in China but what is happening in other countries," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The concern is that it could spread to countries with weaker health systems.
1st Person-To-Person Spread Of Coronavirus Has Occurred In U.S., CDC Says
Coronavirus: US reports first person-to-person transmission
Chicago health officials have reported the first US case of human-to-human transmission of the deadly coronavirus.
The new patient is the spouse of a Chicago woman who carried the infection back from Wuhan, China, the US Centers for Disease Control said on Thursday.
The discovery marks the second report of the virus in Illinois and the sixth confirmed case in the US.
This paper provides early estimates of 2019-nCoV epidemiological parameters: Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV: early estimation of epidemiological parameters and epidemic predictions (open, DOI: 10.1101/2020.01.23.20018549) (DX)
Used model does not offer much grounds for optimism.
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
Coronavirus: Millions Quarantined in Wuhan City
China Battles Coronavirus Outbreak: All the Latest Updates
In The Pipeline: Coronavirus
Plague Inc. Maker: Don't use our Game for Coronavirus Modeling
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3
(Score: 0, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 31 2020, @12:37AM (38 children)
Just an idea put out there by a talk show host. Did this coronavirus escape the military's biological warfare laboratories? I haven't even really worked up an opinion, but it's something to think about.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @12:43AM (2 children)
Apparently Wuhan has an animal/meat market, and they sell live wild animals, though supposed to be illegal. So they suspect some animal virus jumped to human there, but who the fuck knows.
I'm staying away from Chinese food till this thing blows over.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @12:58AM (1 child)
Taking a break from snacking on bat penis?
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @01:13AM
Stir-fried bat's penis in cream sauce, yum.
Nothing beats it (yeah) while watching a buxom blonde getting banged in the ass balls deep with a horse phallus on pornhub.
(Score: 4, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Friday January 31 2020, @12:58AM (17 children)
I shouldn't think it is a biological warfare virus. It is not really lethal enough for that is it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @01:15AM (5 children)
For now, it doesn't seem more lethal than your average annual flu, does it? "Regular" flu kills thousands (millions?) annually.
(Score: 1) by Adam on Friday January 31 2020, @01:33AM (4 children)
Regular flu kills 0.1% of people who catch it (these days). This coronavirus has killed ~2% of the infected at this point.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @03:04AM (1 child)
That's inaccurate. Maybe 0.1% of a vulnerable sub-population. The 1,000 student high school by me doesn't have a death a year to influenza. Envelope check your math - a 0.1% death rate, assuming half the population catches the flu twice a year, would be staggering.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @03:58AM
I've got to partly agree with this. I had what I suspect was the flu once several years ago. Almost two weeks of high fever, sweating, and generalised pain. I lost more than 20lb (even after it was over and I was rehydrated I was 20lb lighter). But I didn't go to a doctor, and that case would not be recorded in any statistics, either as a flu case or as a survivor.
But not with this. Assuming half get it twice per year is the same as everybody getting it every year. That is ridiculous. Wikipedia says 5 million cases per year worldwide which is a 1 in a 1400 chance of getting it each year. I think that estimate might be low due to the reason in the first part, but not by a factor of 1400.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @07:37AM (1 child)
More like 2% of those who were identified to have it. Not the same as 2% of those infected.
Not all who are infected would go to a hospital to contribute to the statistics.
I'd only go to the hospital if I'm sick enough. If I was sick but not feeling that bad I wouldn't go to the hospital (especially at this time) - because that's where lots of people with germs, including superbugs are... So I might have the coronavirus or it could be flu or something with similar symptoms but nobody would know what it was.
I'd stay home, load up on zinc, vitamin C, lie in bed, keep body warm and head not too warm.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @12:53PM
> "I'd stay home, load up on zinc, vitamin C, lie in bed, keep body warm and head not too warm."
Don't forget lots of fluids and chicken soup.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @01:28AM (3 children)
Why would you think the best weaponized virus is the most lethal?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @07:43AM (2 children)
Strawman. OP didn't say best is most lethal. It's just not lethal enough. It doesn't really appear more dangerous than the nastier flus of recent decades.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @08:16AM (1 child)
I don't think you want it to be lethal at all. Zero lethality is ideal. Max morbidity causes the biggest drain on resources.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @10:35AM
1) it's below par in terms of morbidity too.
2) Max morbidity doesn't cause as much drain on resources as you think because less resources will be spent on you if you're too sick. Max resource drain might be something like a disease where you stay fairly healthy and active but you go around secretly destroying resources and infecting other people...
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday January 31 2020, @03:05AM (6 children)
First thing you learn is you want as long an incubation period as possible without any symptoms. If a symptom pops up (like coughing) you try to squash it ASAP, else those clever bumpkins notice your little science fair project.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday January 31 2020, @06:54AM
Username checks out.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @07:52AM (4 children)
If I were a bioweapons researcher I'd try to make a combination weapon. e.g. you normally only die if you get infected by both viruses within a certain time period. If you get infected by one it's only like the common cold or something - e.g very contagious but doesn't kill.
See also: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170131124205.htm [sciencedaily.com]
That way it's easier to control who dies and maybe harder to figure out what's going on. Also if one gets loose it's not as big a problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @08:26AM (3 children)
Why would you want the enemy to die instead of continuing to consume resources in a hospital bed? The best bioweapon is probably something like HFCS...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @10:37AM
Go ask the others making lethal weapons if you can't figure out why.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @12:56PM (1 child)
High Fructose Corn Syrup ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @02:25PM
Yes, simply drain the enemys resources by making them so unhealthy they require constant medical care for their entire lives.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday January 31 2020, @01:27AM (5 children)
Canada arc:
Chinese researcher escorted from infectious disease lab amid RCMP investigation [www.cbc.ca]
Canadian government scientist under investigation trained staff at Level 4 lab in China [www.cbc.ca]
Online claims that Chinese scientists stole coronavirus from Winnipeg lab have 'no factual basis' [www.cbc.ca]
The recent indictment [justice.gov] of Zaosong Zheng and others appears to be unrelated to pathogens, but it points to ongoing efforts by China to steal biological materials (and everything else).
This article might be discussing the radio host you heard:
The Wuhan Virus Is Not a Lab-Made Bioweapon [foreignpolicy.com] (archive [archive.is])
The article attempts to debunk some of the bioweapon conspiracy theories.
The widely cited Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market is within about 20 miles from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, also referred to as Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, etc.:
Inside the Chinese lab poised to study world's most dangerous pathogens [nature.com]
The practices of the meat markets [businessinsider.com] alone could cause these issues, no bioweapon lab needed. These markets are being shuttered, at least temporarily [cnn.com].
One point of contention is the term "bioweapon". Is an inadvertently released virus a "bioweapon" if it wasn't specifically engineered to become more deadly? Are the facilities in Wuhan for the purposes of "biological warfare" or "biosafety"?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @01:30AM (1 child)
> Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market is within about 20 miles from the Wuhan Institute of Virolog
Fake, China uses km not miles.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday January 31 2020, @01:34AM
*160 furlongs (bat)
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @07:54AM (1 child)
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/wuhan-seafood-market-may-not-be-source-novel-virus-spreading-globally [sciencemag.org]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday January 31 2020, @01:31PM
There is, however, a quite reasonable explanation:
1) Many cases of the coronavirus don't have severe symptoms, so they wouldn't be recorded.
2) Even cases that are recorded are contagious well before the symptoms appear.
So if a vendor of food is passing around something that infects a few people, it's quite likely that there will be no obvious link, because the first cases didn't have noticeable symptoms, or had symptoms that appeared to be something else, say a bad cold or asthma.
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 Friday January 31 2020, @03:20PM
preeeetttyyy sure the benign virus mutated out of of chinese PV module factories, infected a grid-tie inverter factory and became stronger in the process.
infectious to humans happened when a team of oil and gas barons visited china and their yaw dropped to the ground after seeing the massive amount of infection ^_^
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday January 31 2020, @02:08AM (2 children)
No, it was caused by 5G, which has been widely deployed in Wuhan. Huawei has stepped in to help victims, so obviously they're behind it. Now that the initial testing has been done, they'll use it to assassinate Western politicians in countries using Huawei 5G gear.
It's true, Alex Jones told me! Do your own research!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday January 31 2020, @02:18AM (1 child)
They should have waited for 6G.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday January 31 2020, @04:02AM
No, they can get the stragglers with 6G. They should get as many as possible now with 5G.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday January 31 2020, @04:31AM (5 children)
Why do you think it would even matter?
(I'm just curious about the mechanism by which "talk show host"'s can be so successful in directing the public opinion on points irrelevant to the matter at hand. I have my hypotheses, but I'm happy to collect other data points)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @06:17AM (1 child)
What difference, at this point, does it make?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday January 31 2020, @06:38AM
For who?
If it's for me, you find the explanations in the small print underneath my question - valid at any point for at least a while.
If it's for another party, then I cannot answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 31 2020, @07:54AM (2 children)
The talk show host was blabbing, as all such hosts do, for the audience. He got some ears, so his speculation was successful, from his point of view.
As for how it matters whether the bug escaped a military lab, well, world opinion and all that jazz. Note that no one speculated (as of yet) that Chine intentionally unleashed the bug. That would be an entirely different event than allowing the bug to escape through negligence or whatever.
The fish and game market? How handy to have a scapegoat located so close at hand, ehh?
Do I think that's what really happened? Uhhhhmmmmm, I guess I'd give it a 2 or 3% chance of being so. I mean, how many dummies are going to believe that China DOES NOT do NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) warfare research? Hell, we've known that they've had nukes for decades now, right? Surely they do at least limited work on the B and C parts of NBC.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday January 31 2020, @08:08AM (1 child)
Thanks.
(my fault, should have been more precise with the context of my question.
I was actually targeting the final part, the "... it's something to think about." and I intended to ask "Why do you think it's important enough that we should think about? Why having me/us/public/whoever thinking about this matters at this stage?"
I don't want to impose on your time with my reformulated question, though)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @09:53PM
https://biorxiv-cache.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2020.01.30.927871.full.pdf [amazonaws.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday January 31 2020, @05:41PM (1 child)
The second sentence seems the more interesting. Leaving the reader wanting more supporting facts either way.
But the first sentence is going to draw the most attention and questions about what talk show host, what talk show, which network was it on, etc.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 31 2020, @05:52PM
https://waltonandjohnson.com/pages/listen-live [waltonandjohnson.com]
Walton and Johnson - or, actually not Walton and Johnson anymore, because Walton died recently. It's Johnson and Ken and Kenneth and Mr. O, and maybe Walton's ghost. A couple of odd couples, sort of, with a libertarian bent, and strong opinions on almost everything. Crazy bastids, I tell you! But they keep me laughing on the way home from work each morning. :^)