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: 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 ^_^