Coronavirus

CathyMe. · Post by **CathyMe.** » Wed Feb 05, 2020 5:38 am

Gabes wrote:Wash hands, avoid large crowds, up Vit D, eat cleanly. Most of all don't panic or obsess.

GREAT advice Gabes.

Gabes-Apg · Post by **Gabes-Apg** » Wed Feb 05, 2020 3:39 pm

yes there are some risks regarding this virus

not wanting to sound like a conspiratory theorist but I dont trust the information the world and media is getting from china and some of the articles in currently in the media

to put things into some perspective regarding my thoughts on the current outbreak
USA currently has 11 confirmed cases - with total population of 327.2 million
Aus currently has 13 confirmed cases - with a total population of 25.415 million

there were 350,000 Chinese students in USA education system in 2017-2018
there were 2 million Chinese students in Australian education system in 2018

In 2019 the country of origin of the largest source of overseas visitors to Australia was China

based on this I am trusting the information in trusted Australian media sites.
the risk of serious issues are far far higher to the Australian public compared to the USA.

Erica P-G · Post by **Erica P-G** » Wed Feb 05, 2020 5:45 pm

In my readings...I came across a strange statement that said the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation on the East Coast (USA) was working on the probability of a "corona virus" back in October of 2019....that sounds like their company knew something the general public did not and it didn't become general knowledge until just recently....

My only hope is that the labs get its variation figured out for a vaccine or symptom reliever and that no other countries have harsh realities from it.

Nice to see you Gabes....I hope the smoke is not altering your living conditions where you live in AUS.
Hugs
Erica

Here · Post by **Here** » Wed Feb 05, 2020 7:22 pm

It is difficult to correctly phrase a statistical statement. And that is after trying toi figure out the relevant perspectives. It is difficult to correctly phrase a statistical statement. I try, and I edit, and I re-edit.

If you are proposing a link between the stats, they are consistent. Australia has ten times as many potential sources of the virus (Chinese students), and a 10 times higher per-capita infection rate. It underscores the importance of containment.

The thing to keep in mind is that it hasn't yet proliferated outside of China because many people have individually paid the price. Meaning paid the price in terms of disrupted travel plans, 14 day quarantines, excessive medical scrutiny, and so on. With out their sacrifice, there would be no containment. And without containment we'd be seeing more than 100,000 deaths worldwide from the Wuhan coronavirus. Their sacrifice has kept the number below 600.

In a way, asking for or dictating their sacrifice is an absurdity. Statistically, a person living in Hubei has almost zero chance of catching the virus. The province has 58,000,000 residents, and only 20,000 are infected. In effect, 3,000 healthy people are needlessly blocked from travel or quarantined for every 1 person that is actually sick.

What is the risk? For example, in the epicenter province of Hubei? Hubei hosts 20,000 known infections to date. The province has a population of 58,000,000. The infection rate is about 1/3rd of one 1/10 of 1% of the population. Current outcomes are 1 death per 2 recoveries (about the same as the 10 year survival rate of breast cancer). That sets the coronavirus death rate at 1/10 of 1/10 of 1%. That is equal to the annual prevalence of suicide in the US, which in recent years has surpassed the annual prevalence of automobile fatalities. And that is in hardest hit region (Hubei).

Gabes-Apg · Post by **Gabes-Apg** » Wed Feb 05, 2020 7:39 pm

I dont think the current restrictions are an absurdity.
in the case of Ebola that has a 50-70% fatality rate equivalent restrictions kept contamination mostly 'contained' until the vaccine could be created, tested and produced.

I think one of the reasons it didnt spread quickly outside of china is the time of year. It was chinese new year, lots of factories/manufacturing plants were in shut down. and the people from outside china that would travel there for work etc didnt travel
Culturally there was already a containment.

I am aware that companies like Orica have not re-opened their manufacturing plant in china after the scheduled new year shutdown.

Gabes-Apg · Post by **Gabes-Apg** » Wed Feb 05, 2020 7:48 pm

and I thought one of the main reasons for the restrictions and cautiousness is that the health systems and hospitals of majority of countries are no way prepared or geared up to handle thousands of people seriously ill.
the australian health system didnt cope with high demand during 2019 winter flu season (we had approx 300 deaths)

Here · Post by **Here** » Wed Feb 05, 2020 11:23 pm

A 14 day quarantine of 3000 healthy people eats up 115 person-years, almost two lifetimes. Plus the other impingements on their lives. Plus the expended medical resources. ... to find one infected person.

115 person-years is like 3 people spending their entire adult careers searching for infected people, and in the end finding only one.

Some of border closings are being applied not just to Hubei travelers, but to anyone from mainland China. For all of China, population 1.5 billion, there are 30,000 cases of infection. In that context, it'd be a quarantine of 50,000 healthy people to find the 1 infected person. That would eat up 2000 person-years, or about 25 lifetimes. ... to find one infected person.

2000-person years is like 50 people spending their entire adult careers searching for infected people, and in the end finding only one.

In those terms, in either the Hubei or the China-wide context, that is absurdity to me.

But enacted worldwide, say in 1000 different 3000-person quarantines, what it buys is containment. What containment has bought so far is more than 100,000 thousand averted fatalities.

In those terms, that is about a 50 to 1 return on investment.

I'm not sure what the best perspective is. But I do think that my lack of worry persists not without cost. It is just that the cost has been commandeered from all those who have paid the price. To them I am indebted.

Here · Post by **Here** » Wed Feb 05, 2020 11:53 pm

Recent figures suggest that the worldwide number of fatalities will exceed 1000 by Sunday or Monday evening.

Special note: I'm obliged to correct myself. I failed to take into account that, supposedly, deaths tend to happen earlier in a disease than do recoveries. This means my outcome ratios have likely been over estimates. There are sophisticated ways to estimate the outcome ratio, and there are also study-designs to do it empirically. I'm not sure if either of those approaches is behind the commonly quoted figure of 2-3%. It matches the deaths/cases ratio, which is known to significantly underestimate the true ratio.

Here · Post by **Here** » Thu Feb 06, 2020 10:52 am

Containment is starting to fail:

The third person to be diagnosed with coronavirus in the UK contracted the disease outside of China, it has emerged.

The patient, who it is understood was diagnosed in Brighton but is being transferred to a London hospital, did not contract the disease in the UK or mainland China but another country in Asia.

NHS doctors are now being advised to widen the pool of countries to look out for individuals returning who display symptoms.

From TheGuardian.com update feed, posted by Simon Murphy at 10:06.

Link to the feed: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/ ... pdate-news

On the upside clinical trials are beginning in Wuhan for the drug remdesvir as an antiviral therapy for 2019-nCoV :

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04252664

.

Gabes-Apg · Post by **Gabes-Apg** » Thu Feb 06, 2020 11:22 am

I heard report yesterday that a doctor in Aus told a patient that his test results were negative when 2 days later they were confirmed as positive. The patient did not follow isolation protocol.

I realised last night that the last 3 months of bush fires, loss of homes, life, and loss of millions of native animals has ?softened me to some of the intensity of an issue like corona. Maybe I am too accepting of 'shi* happens' and just going with the flow,putting my energies into things I can change/improve.

Here · Post by **Here** » Thu Feb 06, 2020 1:35 pm

For the majority of people, conforming to an isolation protocol is a non-trivial endeavor that in essence is an altruistic act.

That is interesting about the negative turned positive. Do you know which type of test was used to conclude the patient was negative, and which type to conclude positive?

Starting today, CDC is shipping PCR based test kits to appropriately equipped hospitals in the US and to other countries. The CDC is under the FDA. The FDA press release states that

"Negative results do not preclude 2019-nCoV infection and should not be used as the sole basis for treatment or other patient management decisions. Negative results must be combined with clinical observations, patient history and epidemiological information."

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-a ... tion-first

The CDC's "Instructions for Use" concludes with a Limitations Section, which mentions false negatives:

A false negative result may occur if inadequate numbers of organisms are present in the specimen due to improper collection, transport or handling.

RNA viruses in particular show substantial genetic variability. Although efforts were made to design rRT-PCR assays to conserved regions of the viral genomes, variability resulting in mis-matches between the primers and probes and the target sequences can result in diminished assay performance and possible false negative results.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nc ... st-results

Here · Post by **Here** » Thu Feb 06, 2020 1:42 pm

Regarding the outcome ratio that I've been deliberating, I posted this question:

https://medicalsciences.stackexchange.c ... ality-rate

Gabes-Apg · Post by **Gabes-Apg** » Thu Feb 06, 2020 1:42 pm

it was ??laziness / apathy / not enough education

results had not been received before a 'long weekend' Friday afternoon doctor told patient, you dont have symptoms you are negative.
Tuesday morning (monday was public holiday in Aus) results came back positive

Doctor didnt realise the results would take longer than other similar types of tests.

Erica P-G · Post by **Erica P-G** » Thu Feb 06, 2020 6:07 pm

I just got a Fox News email saying that the Dr. that was being investigated for releasing the information about the corona virus has now died after contacting it himself

Gabes-Apg · Post by **Gabes-Apg** » Thu Feb 06, 2020 7:47 pm

he was semi-arrested and went through 1-2 weeks of formal government interviews for whistle blowing!