Corona Virus Updates Part 3

a reply to: burdman30ott6

I moved mostly to cash last week. I'd imagine it'll be at least through the end of the quarter before things have stabilized and hit bottom.

a reply to: fleabit
a reply to: Vasa Croe
a reply to: texasgirl
a reply to: ketsuko

For those asking about whether nCoV can be carried by birds, educated guess would be no.

Like I've said before, it's not my field, but from the stacks of papers I've read it seems nCoV is a beta-Coronavirus.

From memory I think you get alpha beta gamma and delta. I think alpha and beta are transmitted by mammals, and delta and gamma cover fish and birds etc, though I think delta may also transmit to mammals.

I don't know if beta could mutate to delta though. I don't think so, but hopefully someone will chime in with more experience.

a reply to: Oppenheimer67

Wondering about raptors - they could eat infected mammals, then shed virus in their feces possibly?

a reply to: burdman30ott6

I mean officially calling this a pandemic. So far they have not made any official announcement labeling it a pandemic.
Not to say that wont be happening soon. It is in several countries now.
How many countries or what kind of coverage is necessary for an official pandemic?

finance.yahoo.com...

Is coronavirus a pandemic?
Fox Business
Evie Fordham
Fox BusinessFebruary 25, 2020
The World Health Organization (WHO) has yet to declare the global coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, but such a declaration is not key to fighting the virus on an international scale, global health law expert Nicholas Diamond told FOX Business.

WHO defines a pandemic as "the worldwide spread of a new disease." The virus meets two out of three criteria for a pandemic, Nancy Messonnier, the CDC’s director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said Tuesday.

Off to see what the three criteria for labeling it a pandemic are.



an hour later...
Well all I can find is that it is the widespread occurrence of a disease that crosses international borders and effects large numbers of people. www.who.int...

The numbers may sound large but are not when compared to world population.

The article notes that every year during flu season the world endures a pandemic.
It also goes on to note that pandemic does not refer to communicability or severity only numbers affected.

I wonder what areas of the US the CDC and other Federal agencies will prioritize? States/ cities/ counties with a high population density per
mile(possible higher infection rate but lower death rate due to younger average age population) or areas with higher average age and chronic illnesses ( lower infection rate but higher death rate.)

Also, what resources can the feds even provide? I'm not sure the way the feds throw money at a crisis, such as the opioid crisis, will help. The State's and counties can not quickly hired and train surveillance people to track people possibly exposed Large sums of money don't help much in the short term.

originally posted by: GlobalGold
a reply to: Oppenheimer67

Wondering about raptors - they could eat infected mammals, then shed virus in their feces possibly?

Good point! I have no idea I'm afraid. I guess it would come down to how long the virus could survive in digestion with no reproduction and hostile environment... I'd guess no, but I wouldn't bet my life on it!

originally posted by: Cmajlz
The State's and counties can not quickly hired and train surveillance people to track people possibly exposed Large sums of money don't help much in the short term.

I'm sure there will soon be a phone App for that! Let the people do the tracking for you. Sounds like a great excuse to restrict privacy even more in the name of national security. Follow the lead of the Chinese, as the WHO keeps promoting.

a reply to: Oppenheimer67

owls regurgitate pellets that are available to buy. Classrooms use them for students to learn about what raptors eat

a reply to: burdman30ott6

I disagree it is big. This city gets a lot of people not from New Orleans here.

a reply to: puzzled2
Not sure what to make of that. Especially since this is a new disease.
From what I can tell it takes years to develop a vaccine.

Vaccine Development, Testing, and Regulation
Paul Offit, MD, describes the general process of making a vaccine.
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia

Offit 5: How to Make a Vaccine Offit 6: Vaccine Safety Monitoring Diphtheria Antitoxin Influenza Research
Vaccine development is a long, complex process, often lasting 10-15 years and involving a combination of public and private involvement.

The current system for developing, testing, and regulating vaccines developed during the 20th century as the groups involved standardized their procedures and regulations.

www.historyofvaccines.org...

a reply to: tetra50

Said the same thing. How you ask. I live here.

originally posted by: GlobalGold
a reply to: Oppenheimer67

owl feces or pellets as they are called are available to buy. Classrooms use them for students to learn about what raptors eat

I was just thinking about owl pellets, because don't they actually regurgitate those? Still pretty hostile to the virus you'd think, but I really don't know.

a reply to: Oppenheimer67

yes they're regurgitated (fixed post), so they do not run through the entire digestive system

The public press release on the Italians in the Canaries is happening now ( twitter.com... ), will update this post if something new is stated in it.

The health ministry is defending the quarantine decision and saying that,at this point, it's the best solution until the dangers are assessed. Those tourists that test positive will be taken directly to the hospital. The quarantine in the hospital won't be lifted off until every guest is tested.

Also, the patient had been feeling "unwell" from the moment he arrived, so his movements have been small, even within the hotel's building. That's a bit reassuring.


The status of the two Italian cases is "stable" and "much better from moment of admission."

They will publish press conferences every single day. They are saying that tests will be re-done on a daily basis, if everybody from the hotel come up negative, they will re-evaluate re-doing the tests altogether just in case.

They reaffirm that the Canary Islands are not a dangerous area to travel to, and that the sanitary team here has already proved it when they cured the German tourist, and "they shall prove it once again here."


They are being confronted by social media posts stating that the guy went into the hospital with no precautions and whether he could have infected somebody on the way.

The answer is that they have been tracking everybody he could have come across during the trip and in the emergency room, there is also a hotline available for free. They reaffirm the quality healthcare found in the Canaries.

He just said the percentage of deaths is lower for the coronavirus than for the common flu. He DID say "percentage", not amount or sum, percentage.


They have taken notice of everybody that had been in the hotel and left before the quarantine, they've contacted their respective countries.

They state that, going by the previous case in La Gomera, it seems to require CLOSE CONTACT.

They are not only checking the quarantined people's symptoms and subjecting them to tests, but they are also interrogating them about their whereabouts and if they have had symptoms 10 days prior to this crisis.

The Italian medic who is infected can't recall being in contact with any Italian infected. [This may mean that Italy has a lot more cases than being reported?]

8 close friends to this guy have no symptoms at all.

They will have the test results for the whole hotel soon. They want to test locals first.

Quarantine will last 14 days, at least considering the current situation.

There were ambulances at the hospital today, they confirm that no people were taken in or out through the ambulances, they were carrying medical supplies for the hotel.

a reply to: Sillyolme

I caught myself mentally asking why it matters what we name the disease and if it's branded a "pandemic," which led me to a search, based on such parameters. I found this, which may be interesting and enlightening:

Public health officials also have to consider how the population at large responds to infections. In particular, they want to avoid spreading panic, and names are a factor in how that plays out.

In light of this, in 2015 the WHO published a set of guidelines for naming illnesses. “This may seem like a trivial issue to some, but disease names really do matter to the people who are directly affected,” said Keiji Fukuda, who was serving as assistant director-general for health security at the WHO at the time, in a statement presenting the guidelines. “We’ve seen certain disease names provoke a backlash against members of particular religious or ethnic communities, create unjustified barriers to travel, commerce and trade, and trigger needless slaughtering of food animals. This can have serious consequences for people’s lives and livelihoods.”

A case in point is the virus known as HIV, and the illness it causes: AIDS. In 1981, the early days of the disease’s spread in the United States, AIDS was sometimes referred to as “gay cancer” since it was diagnosed in a cluster of gay men. Researchers later called the disease GRID for “gay-related immunodeficiency” or AID for “acquired immunodeficiency disease.” The term AIDS first appeared in the New York Times in August 1982.

But the initial name for the disease created a stigma among the gay community and served to isolate an already marginalized group. The name certainly wasn’t the only factor, but it created an environment that hampered people’s willingness to disclose infections and to seek treatment.

from here: www.vox.com...
also:

The fact that it took weeks for global health officials to settle on what to call an illness that has already infected more than 64,000 people and killed more than 1,300 shows just how fraught the naming process can be.

“We had to find a name that did not refer to a geographical location, an animal, an individual, or a group of people, and which is also pronounceable and related to the disease,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO, during a press conference this week.

The virus that causes the disease was also given a new, even clunkier name: SARS-CoV-2. It’s a change from the interim name, 2019-nCoV, and reflects the heritage of the virus, researchers say.

But the initial name for the disease created a stigma among the gay community and served to isolate an already marginalized group. The name certainly wasn’t the only factor, but it created an environment that hampered people’s willingness to disclose infections and to seek treatment.

At the same time, identifying the disease so closely with one group underrated the risks to the rest of the population, as Rutgers University researcher Carol Goldin wrote in the journal Social Science & Medicine in 1994:

One consequence of such identification is that it allows the rest of society to simultaneously assign blame, and through contrast, define their own innocence. The contrast of innocence/guilt poses a serious health threat because it allows individuals to disassociate themselves from risk groups. Persons with AIDS who are not members of risk groups may be described as ‘innocent victims’. These include hemophiliacs, children of HIV-infected mothers, and unsuspecting wives whose husbands are bisexual or promiscuous. If these persons are to be pitied, by implication, members of risk groups who ‘infected’ them must be culpable.
The net result was that the disease continued to spread and the government dragged its feet in mounting a response. Ultimately, the disease killed thousands around the world and remains a health risk to this day.

“I think stigma is really the kind of a key danger that is associated with naming,” said Rebecca Seligman, an associate professor of anthropology and global health at Northwestern University.

Similarly, diseases named after places — the Ebola River; Lyme, Connecticut; the Zika Forest — can unfairly associate a place or people from that region with an illness.

Disease names can also mislead. In 2009, a global outbreak of a strain of influenza came to be called swine flu. It led to the widespread culling of pigs around the world to prevent infection. Notably, the Egyptian government at the time ordered the slaughter of all the pigs in the country.

But there was no evidence that the specific virus behind the outbreak infected pigs or that pigs harbored the virus. The virus got that name because scientists said it resembled influenza viruses that commonly infect swine. Health officials later adopted the much-less-controversial technical name for the virus behind the disease, H1N1, which refers to the types of proteins found on the surface of the virus.

How should you name a disease?
As the struggle to come up with Covid-19 shows, naming requires a lot of thought and careful consideration. And prior to the WHO guidelines, researchers came up with some odd solutions.

In 1993, an outbreak of a new version of the hantavirus — named for the Hantan River in South Korea — emerged in the four corners region of the southwestern US. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases recommended naming the new pathogen the Muerto Canyon virus after the region in the Navajo Nation territory where it was found.

“The Navajo people reacted strongly against any further association with the disease that had led to so much initial prejudice, and tribal elders appealed to officials to reconsider,” pulmonologist Charles J. Van Hook wrote in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Officials finally decided to call the new virus Sin Nombre, Spanish for “no name.”

That’s certainly one way around the bigger pitfalls of naming a disease, but it doesn’t tell you much about the illness itself.

The WHO guidelines say the name of a new disease should use “generic descriptive terms,” highlighting the kind of pathogen behind it, the symptoms it causes, the people it affects, and its severity. But the guidelines also say that a name should avoid “terms that incite undue fear” such as “fatal” or “epidemic.”

It’s also important to come up with a name early in the process of studying a new illness. “Once disease names are established in common usage through the Internet and social media, they are difficult to change, even if an inappropriate name is being used,” according to the WHO guidelines. “Therefore, it is important that whoever first reports on a newly identified human disease uses an appropriate name that is scientifically sound and socially acceptable.”

So it makes sense that international health officials now want to use a term like Covid-19 for the disease caused by the new SARS-CoV-2 virus.

“You can think about the name of the coronavirus as being the result of a learning curve over time,” Seligman says.

But does a watered-down, jargony name like Covid-19 mean people won’t take the disease seriously?

“There’s so much other information being said about Covid-19, and a lot of it is very scary and inflammatory,” said Seligman. “I think people are going to take it seriously even when it has a name like that, and I think having a name that’s really neutral can actually help temper some of the overreacting that people might be doing.”

The official name of the disease doesn’t mean that it will be the name people use, but it sends a strong signal. And by eliminating potential problems associated with its name, health workers can concentrate on fighting the disease itself.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
a reply to: puzzled2
Not sure what to make of that. Especially since this is a new disease.
From what I can tell it takes years to develop a vaccine.

Vaccine Development, Testing, and Regulation
Paul Offit, MD, describes the general process of making a vaccine.
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia

Offit 5: How to Make a Vaccine Offit 6: Vaccine Safety Monitoring Diphtheria Antitoxin Influenza Research
Vaccine development is a long, complex process, often lasting 10-15 years and involving a combination of public and private involvement.

The current system for developing, testing, and regulating vaccines developed during the 20th century as the groups involved standardized their procedures and regulations.

www.historyofvaccines.org...

A vaccine for the flu can be developed and tested inside of a year. This isn't the flu, so the testing will be a little different.
I would expect that the Chinese would have an easier time of testing on human subjects with Falun Gong practictioners eagerly waiting to be guinea pigs.

originally posted by: JSpader
a reply to: tetra50

Said the same thing. How you ask. I live here.

Hey JSpader: Glad you did say the same. No, I didn't ask how. I already knew, vis a vis several responses on this thread that showed me that. But....why you wanna be hostile, if we are supporting and living here, just the same? Happy Mardi Gras, Mr. Spader. And hope sincerely it is not our last.
regards and stay safe,
tetra

ETA: I am wondering why we just can't all get along. Aren't we really all hoping for the same: the best outcomes for everyone? Shaking my damn head, that we're all so divided about now, we argue or insult one another based on such silly crap. Please stay safe everyone, and may we forget and rise above our apparent inherent silliness.

a reply to: butcherguy

Why would the power go out?

originally posted by: Sillyolme
a reply to: butcherguy

Why would the power go out?

lack of employees, if they all sick/quarantined?

Just to keep track - this is BNO's list of today's reported cases/deaths. It is getting difficult to keep up. I think as someone posted earlier, the next phase of reporting will be the quarantines that are in place and which systems have shut down as a result. Heck some folk round here go nuts if KFC runs out of a certain type of burger:

20:40: 1 new case in Spain. (Source)
20:13: 1 new case in Germany. (Source)
19:30: First case in Algeria. (Source)
18:10: 1 new death in Italy. (Source)
18:02: 2 new cases in France. (Source)
17:55: 4 new cases in the United States. They are former passengers of the Diamond Princess cruise ship. (Source: CDC briefing)
17:54: 1 new case in Kuwait. (Source)
17:25: 39 new cases and 3 new deaths in Italy. (Source)
16:12: 1 new case in Singapore. (Source)
16:05: 6 new cases in Bahrain. All of them had traveled from Iran. (Source)
15:20: 1 new case in Spain. (Source)
15:15: 4 new cases in Hong Kong. (Source)
15:14: 2 new cases in Oman. (Source)
15:13: 1 new case in Spain. First case on mainland Spain. (Source)
14:59: First case in Switzerland. (Source)
14:23: 1 new case in Japan. First in Tokushima Prefecture. She’s a former passenger of the Diamond Princess cruise ship. (Source)
12:50: 9 new cases in Bahrain. All of them had traveled from Iran. (Source)
11:50: First 2 confirmed cases in Austria. (Source)
11:43: First confirmed case in Croatia. (Source)
11:04: 38 new cases in Italy. (Source)
09:44: 34 new cases in Iran. (Source)
09:25: 4 new cases in Iraq. (Source)
09:14: 14 new cases in Italy. (Source 1) (Source 2) (Source 3)
08:53: 1 new death in South Korea. (Source)
08:04: 84 new cases and 1 new death in South Korea. (Source)
08:01: 1 new death in Iran, the other 2 deaths were previously reported. (Source)
07:47: 6 new cases in Bahrain. (Source)
07:36: 3 new cases in Kuwait. (Source)
06:30: 2 new deaths in Iran. (Source)
05:45: 1 new case in Taiwan. (Source)
04:51: 1 new case in Japan. First in Nagano Prefecture. (Source)
04:50: 2 new cases in Thailand. (Source)
02:05: 1 new death in South Korea. (Source)
02:02: 1 new death in Japan. Former passenger of the Diamond Princess cruise ship. (Source)
01:15: 2 new cases in Italy. (Source)
01:05: 60 new cases in South Korea. (Source)
00:51: China’s National Health Commission reports 9 new cases and 3 new deaths across the mainland, excluding Hubei province. (Source)
00:50: 499 new cases and 68 new deaths in Hubei province, China. The numbers provided in the press release do not match with the previous total. As a result, only 304 new cases have been added. (Source)