More info to add to what I thought and posted was a possibility from the beginning.

Please do, they are important.

All embassy personnel too, I saw.

All for a big Nothingburger that will have been forgotten in ~ a month.

"I’m of the opinion that that thier is low risk of a pandemic here in the states based off of data."

Would you please share that data???

I'd also advise (at least for now) avoiding major airports and getting on planes, even if it's only a routine domestic flight (e.g., Chicago ---> Miami FL).

Likewise, not hanging out in major public venues, like malls and sporting events packed with people from who-knows-where, as anyone might be a carrier.

Traveling about means you're rolling the dice with the probabilities. Staying risk-adverse is a prudent strategy.

I am going to bangkok in three weeks for a two week business trip.

My wife is still maintaining that this isn’t going to be huge. (She isn’t as paranoid as me )

Many scientists are saying this isn’t as bad as SARS. The virus has been identified and sequenced and should have a vaccine ready in 3 months.  This will be dealt with just like any other outbreak like SARS, Ebola, etc.: identification and containment.  Wife also says an epidemiologist would have better predictions than her.

It must be very scary in China right now because of how widespread it is there.  Shutting down cities feels ominous, but is probably the right thing to do.  It probably won’t be widespread at all in the States because we now have the ability to identify the virus, so the infected can be contained.  We are probably the best equipped in the world to handle something like this.

Because this is Arfcom and the Survival Forum, I had to press her for how she could be wrong and this turns in to SHTF. Possible ways this can turn out worse than it seems now:

If China is not being upfront about a lot of facts, including number infected and dead, but especially if there is more than one strain they haven’t told us about.

If it mutates, it has the potential to evade screening and spread much further. However, the likelihood of this seems low as these groups of viruses don’t seem to mutate nearly as fast as something like the flu virus.

Regarding the theory that this is something that escaped from the BSL-4 lab in Wuhan, possibly a bio weapon, this seems unlikely. A BSL-4 bioweapon would be a lot more interesting. Also, SARS is only BSL-3. But, you never know...

One thing that is concerning about nCoV is that the symptoms are not as pronounced as SARS, so though the symptoms appear in a short incubation period, they take a while to get severe enough for an infected person to seek medical care. This essentially lengthens the incubation period, which means higher infectivity (r0).

Highly unlikely, but if there was an error in the methods of detecting the virus, this would lead to much greater spread.

If person-to-person transmission is easier than expected, the virus would sweep through hospitals like SARS did.

Further reading:

This is the most alarmist paper out now. They are predicting a higher r0 value and only 5% of infected identified. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.23.20018549v1.full.pdf

This is a discussion on predicting the impact of the virus:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2000929

Attached File

Great info, thank you!

This may be way out of left field, but has anyone considered the possibility of secondary bacterial infections being in play?

I"m just attempting to think outside the box here, but the CCP's heavy handed response to a virus that appears to be less virulent than SARS has me wondering and then there's all the talk about BSL-4s on the web. Could the CCP be covering something else up? Take pneumonic plague for example. It would have symptoms that mirror viral pneumonia, is a BSL-4 organism, and China has a long history with plague. Unit 731 dropped a ton of infected fleas there. To this day a few cases crop up every now and then. Wiki even reported there was an outbreak in November.

Could someone have slipped quarantine or carried it out on their shoe just as a novel coronavirus came on the scene and tied up all the medical resources? Would you even want to keep something like that under wraps vs telling the public and issuing antibiotics to everyone?

It's China, anything is possible.

I'm kind of skeptical about a vaccine being available in 3 months equates to a billion+ doses available in that time frame.

And how much lag will be involved with making it available and disseminated after that.

How much time would be required after receiving the vaccine until it is effective in an individual?

I see a lot of people who won't be first in line to getting protected in a reasonable time frame if the virus gets into general population starting now until the vaccine is a real solution to the issue.

Subtitled video at date link from Chinese citizen.

Viral video going on YT shows a Wuhan citizen telling the real grave situation and true feels for his gov, and he asks us to spread the word!

This #coronavirus is a lot worse (must watch in full)

Via YT: https://t.co/z7idwhbkVy pic.twitter.com/gXnfgZ2JRD

— woppa \uD83C\uDF97\uD83D\uDE37 (@Woppa1Woppa) January 26, 2020

Another as above.

Voice message from a medical staff in #Wuhan. "There are more than 100,000 infected. The government provides no medical supplies... People are dying right in front of our eyes...Don't EVER trust the government. We are on our own."

En subtitle#WuhanOutbreak #WuhanCoronovirus pic.twitter.com/fmZPhDjtLi

Himalaya Global  (@HimalayaGlobal) January 25, 2020

Vaccines take longer to develop than treatments (antivirals). Any word on identifying one that will work? I know they said oseltamavir is a no-go, as well as a couple others.

Coronavirus Disinfection Advice:

Summary from a review article on environmental resistance on human coronaviruses.  The tests in this study were done on SARS and Coronavirus surrogates, NCOV should behave similarly.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3509683/

-The virus can survive on surfaces up to 6 days at room temp and 50% humidity, 96 hours in bodily fluids
-Survives well at low temperatures, but not high temperatures (56 C for 90 min, 67C for 60 min, 75 for 30 min)
-The most effective disinfectants for this are alcohol-based (see table 3, >3 is effective)
-Bleach is not very effective in normal concentrations

Attached File

Been watching this for a couple of weeks now.  Here's what I find disconcerting.  Chinese gov reported that the average incubation period is 10 days.  Bad part is that they can transfer the virus during the incubation period.

Also, Zerohedge is reporting that 5 million people left Wuhan for the Holiday and that the virus may be mutating to be more transmissible.  Link  I've seen similar information about the mass exodus on various youtube channels, facebook posts, etc.

Zerohedge also has a twitter feed of a Harvard epidemiologist who appears to be pretty damn scared.  Small rebuttal to the epidemiologist's tweets at the end of the article.  link

-CDC:  SARS was different because it transmitted when symptoms are apparent, NCOV appears to be transmissible before symptoms appear
-New Lancet article suggests incubation period might be shorter than SARS
-Director of Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security:  Urges countries to plan for global spread
-Virus from several patients has now been sequenced, they are all basically the same, indicating that transmission has been more person-to-person than animal-person

While a few days ago scientists were saying “not as bad as SARS,” today more are saying “worse than SARS”

Wife’s alert level is up a notch now, but not full blown panic yet.

Patience.

Latest from China:

The good and the very bad:

- most people are on self-imposed lockdown or privately meeting with close family for lunar new year....streets are eerily quiet.  One thing China is really good for and that is family communication - they all talk and gossip and talk more all the time.  That means they share info, and people are sharing what they know and talking about staying put without visiting one another.
- nearly all the folks I've talked to are now exhausted...just the worry and the effort of wondering what to do, the stress, is knocking them off their feet...I have lost contact with the person I was talking to from inside Wuhan, so I cannot say what is going on there now.
- medical supplies cannot be found anywhere...no masks, gloves, nothing, no OTC meds.
- areas outside Wuhan (and outside Hubei province) are now showing significant growth in sickened individuals.  One town between Wuhan and Shanghai ( population a little over 1 million, but I leave out the name for discretion of the reporting individual) went from no cases to 63 in two days.
- it is also clear people are still leaving Wuhan despite quarantine procedures.
- seems like some shops are out of supply, others are open and have tons of goods but no buyers...outside the quarantine area, shops still seem to have plenty of food.
- hospitals are overcrowded to the point they can no longer function
- still not much clarity from local, provincial or national gov except daily numbers on infections and "it's going to be ok" public programming

My opinion:
- the shit is going to get really crazy when people want to leave after Lunar New Year.  That's when you'll have tons of international travelers wanting and trying like hell to get out.
- my guess is that some people are using their contacts within the system to get around the quarantine.  Obviously, this is something these people are not going to talk about, and it is doubtful that the gov will publicize the leakage.
- while all the numbers are way low compared to other epidemics, I really wonder what China knows that is driving them to try to build TWO 1000 bed hospitals in a month - the case count is over 1400, but still nowhere near SARS and they did not take this kind of dramatic action back then.
- I think it's time to pay more attention to the emerging cases OUTSIDE China....that will tell us if super spreading is occurring at a rate that will affect us.

On a side note, I saw some news today where an epidemiologist was talking about people being asymptomatic but also contagious.  That means a faster transmission rate due to many spreaders being around.  It also means that checking people's temperature won't catch at least some of the infected people.   Add that to the above post on viricidal agents effectiveness...and this thing keeps walking down the path to further spread rather than containment.

Will post anything significant that I hear...

RW

59 deaths, 43 recovered. Your math be wrong foo. This shit is going to be deadly af

So roughly 40% survival rate?  That’s pretty low.

Keep in mind that coronaviruses in general account for a significant percentage (30%?) of colds and we have not done so well at developing anything effective on that.

I just wanted to say I really appreciate this community.  The GD thread while filled with some good information has kind of devolved into the typical GD thread.

Lysol IC is effective after 2 minutes

https://www.rjschinner.com/blog/literature/reckitt/RB-305%20APC%20and%20IC%20Sell%20Sheet_v14.pdf

Yeah s some really shoddy stuff out there, not just on GD, but all over the net.

Lets get practical now....

Lets assume a near worst case scenario:
1. Most people have it
2. Assume its 100% contagious..if you meet somebody with it, you're gonna get it
3.  Assume no changes to the current low lethality of 3 to 5%, because if you change that then anything is possible

Seems to me under these circumstances you would still try to help others, go out and get supplies, etc...

Also, there is more data I would want to know, such as:
1. If i get it and survive it, will my body produce antibodies to improve my resistance to it?  Because if i get it, have a 95% chance of survival, and then can no longer get it, that's a bet I'll take.   In emerging countries, parents sometimes scratch kids smallpox vaccinations and rub them on their own/other kid's arms..why? Cause they know they wont get smallpox and will be immune after it.
Also, 95 percent chance of survival means nothing if i am going to get exposed over and over and get sick over and over..I'll NOT take THAT bet.
2. Can coronavirus mutate? What are the consequences of a mutation, good and bad?
3. What are the real numbers coming out of China?

The way things stand today, we face unknowns related to this outbreak. Lets find answers to those unknowns.  Let's keep an eye on what's going on and keep your bullshit meter by your side.

Is this bad? Personally, i think it has some serious potential. But its not TEOTWAWKI.

Most people are not infected. We still dont know how this will play out outside China... Its time to prepare(and it has been for years btw), not don hazmat suits and open the armory up.

Night time in China now, lets see what the morning holds.

China's health minister came out yesterday and said some disturbing things.  A couple of quotes:

"The transmissibility shows signs of increasing and the 'walking source of infection' [where patients have few signs of disease] has made it difficult to control and prevent the disease."

The R0 (or how transmissible it is) has been a hotly argued topic among the experts, some stating it's around 1.6 and others as high as 3.8.  Meaning an infected person will infect 1.6-3.8 people.  More than enough for the virus to continue spreading.  But now the health minister states it is increasing.  It could be that China was bullshitting on how transmissible it was before and is now admitting to facts being shown by scientists outside of China.

"For this new coronavirus we have not identified the source of the infection and we are not clear about the risk of its mutation and how it spreads. Since this is a new coronavirus there might be some changes in the coming days and weeks, and the danger it poses to people of different ages is also changing."

This virus has been particularly lethal to those 50 and above, especially those above 70, but now it's being pointed out that the danger is changing.  It really only was one way to go and that is down, meaning younger people are becoming more susceptible to it.

Pointing out the obvious, but China is absolutely lying about the numbers, last I saw, it is indicating 2700 cases and 80 deaths.  From numbers I've read, Wuhan has 49 hospitals, yet China is rushing to build a 1000 bed hospital?!

Link to Source article

There are still flights out of Wuhan to various parts of the world and the supposed intervention of taking people's temps as they deplane is pure garbage.

Hopefully, the transmission rates in other countries do not mirror what has happened in China, if they do it could be a bumpy ride.

could be as simple as their world class communist health care system isnt as great as they say it is with resources spread thin on a normal day.

The CCP is lying about their figures. You could conservatively triple (or more) the official numbers and still likely be behind the truth. That’s why the story keeps changing as more Western investigation and evidence is added.

A lot of questions regarding spread in the US are 'answered' in this thread. Subject to debate.

Latest post at bottom and earliest at top of page.

I think it's a good thread.

https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/the-pandemic-discussion-forum/822041-discussion-thread-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus/page23

Dean of University of Hong Kong's Medical School said that his team estimates the actual number of infected in Wuhan alone is 44k.    He also said the number "catching the virus appears to double every 6 days."

Link

Mongolia just shut its border with China.

Probably the same way ours would be if a few thousand people started showing up sick and an additional 20,000-30,000 though they might be sick and everybody tried to get seen at once.

How many extra beds do you think they have? It's already "illness season"; they don't get to just eject patients that are there for other illnesses when a pandemic hits.

Additionally, consider the additional severity and spread when a hospital does become overwhelmed. With patients being treated in lobbies and hallways more patients will be infected that were not infected before and they cannot effectively treat all patients. So you end up with a higher transmissibility and higher lethality than we can expe6to see here in the states (unless our system is also overwhelmed as bad as theirs is).

If you think that hospitals have pools of staff just sitting around waiting for the next pandemic, you would be wrong.

Thanks for the link. Good one.

New numbers from Chinese National Health commission.

- 4,521 confirmed cases worldwide
- 106 fatalities
- 60 treated and released
- 6,973 suspected cases

56% mortality rate from there numbers.

How do those numbers work out? 106/4521... That only works if 2475 of the people with confirmed cases die.

Mortality rate is based on deaths and people released. So people who lived through the virus divided by deaths.

ETA. You can’t count the number of people currently sick because they haven’t survived it or died yet.

So as I say there will need to be 2k + deaths within a couple of weeks to have a 50% kill rate. All the information I've read suggests a 4% mortality rate.

The information you read is garbage.

Oh good, do you have sources in China to quote?

That's the problem, there aren't any.

I have no delusions about our hospitals and staffing.  But we take a more serious approach to treatment and now that this is on the radar I don't believe the situation will get out of control like it has in Wuhan. We all know China's first reaction is deny and cover up. It's hard to attack something head-on while denying it's existence. Thus, they don't throw resources at it and hope it goes away. Which we know didn't work this time. I don't think we will have that problem here.

Wrong.

Infected people will either recover or die.
If 100 people recover and 50 die the death rate is 50.

No matter how many are infected. All will recovery or die. Death rate of 4 would be 2000 recovered 80 dead.

Not impressed by the (public) response of the CDC. Wife says the test for the virus is fast and simple and any lab can do it once they have the primer, but the CDC wants everything through them. Their screening of travelers seems weak and incomplete. They are only now considering screening people from other parts of China, not just Wuhan?  Only giving press updates every other day?  Seems they should be much more aggressive in their response to this. Official cases are already up to half of all SARS cases.

Now is a good time to evaluate your preps and fill in what is lacking. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Get this.  My wife has always been accepting and understanding of my prepping.  But never really been into it accept as an excuse to buy lots of Yankee Hill candles when they are on sale.

Today she told me she ordered a large amount of hospital grade cleansing wipes she learned about in the GD thread.  That made me laugh and proud.

We are set in all our preps so no running out and panic buying but she wanted extra hardcore wipes beyond our Clorox wipes and lysol sprays.

Monitoring happening in Thailand.  No deaths yet and of the 14 infected almost half have been released already.  Thailand has the most cases outside of China.  I would trust their reporting more then China.

https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/coronavirus/coronavirus-six-new-cases-confirmed-in-thailand

I'm not sure if epidemiological science uses a different standard of measurement for "death" rates, but normal percentages would be calculated differently than above.  If 100 live and 50 die, that is a total of 150 people, and a mortality rate of 33%.  If 2000 live and 80 die, the total that got sick was 2080, and the mortality rate was 3.8%.  For a 4% mortality, 1920 people would live and 80 would die out of a total of 2000 people.

This sort of thing always reminds me how much I hated school.  My three worst subjects were English and math.