I’m thinking bats are the most likely vectors. Reptiles are more likely to transmit fungal infections to humans.
A jump from a snake to a bat seems unlikely, simply because snakes are cold blooded and bats the very opposite extreme. As it is winter in China, the snake’s temperatures would likely be fairly low, particularly if these weird meat markets are open air.
The penchant the PRC Chinese have for eating the most god awful stuff and calling it a delicacy, is beyond me. And the dog meat festivals are gruesome and cruel and btw, not traditional. They are a recent phenomenon.
I guess it comes from a tradition of past famines. Sorry if this sounds racist. We have customs that are equally strange. Botox, breast augmentation, butt implants, for example.
Anyway, all of my siblings live in Vancouver, which could end up North America’s ground zero due to all the back and forth travel between China and Vancouver. So I am a little concerned but not in full freak out mode, yet.
But have to develop an action plan with them, if things get worse. I feel safe on this island. We have almost zero back and forth between here and China…but still…that doesn’t insure complete safety at all.
When they fly, bats increase their energy expenditure (metabolic rate) and body temperature, resulting in body temperatures similar to those seen in other mammals that have a fever (100 to 105 degrees Fahrenheit), the researchers said. This suggests that flight protects bats from infection in the same way that fever protects mammals — by boosting their immune response, the researchers said.If the high metabolic rates and high body temperatures that accompany flight activate the immune system, then flight could be the ultimate explanation "for the evolution of viral infections without overt signs of illness in bats," the researchers wrote in a paper in the May issue of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
https://www.livescience.com/44870-bats-viruses-flight.html
Whereas China is able to wheel out a sick passenger in a bubble-boy containment facility from the airport, the UK is apparently suffering from post-empire stagnation.
By comparison, here’s the UK plan for treating coronavirus victims - I believe they call this the “Sir Robin”: Run away! Run away!
Bat dishes are also known in the southern regions of China, while in Cantonese cuisine the bat meat is considered an exotic dish. In Taiwan, in some shops it is possible to find fried bats. Also known in Sichuan cuisine is a soup made from undigested mosquito from bat droppings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_as_food
What could possibly go wrong??
Statement on the meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee regarding the outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)
Human-to-human transmission is occurring and a preliminary R0 estimate of 1.4-2.5 was presented. Amplification has occurred in one health care facility. Of confirmed cases, 25% are reported to be severe. The source is still unknown (most likely an animal reservoir) and the extent of human-to-human transmission is still not clear.
The Chinese Centre for Disease Control has identified 15 hospital staff as being infected in the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan city, but two sources with direct knowledge of the situation said doctors and nurses were being stricken at a much faster pace.
…One patient – a suspected super-spreader, or highly virulent carrier of the disease – is thought to have infected 14 staff in one hospital alone, Yuen Kwok-yung, a doctor and infectious diseases specialist at Hong Kong University, said at a press conference.
A Wuhan doctor said at least one dormitory building at a hospital in the city was being used to house quarantined medical workers.
“Definitely more than 15 medical workers are infected,” the doctor said, declining to give his name because he was not authorised to speak publicly about the issue.
“We are worried about infected colleagues, but for the rest of us there is no other option but to carry on.”
The Hubei Health Commission confirmed on Tuesday that five medical workers from the nearby city of Huanggang were also infected.
and:
A leading Chinese virology expert has warned that the Wuhan coronavirus epidemic could be 10 times as bad as the Sars outbreak that killed almost 800 people around the world in 2002-03.
Guan Yi, director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases at Hong Kong University, said in an interview with Caixin magazine on Thursday that after a brief visit to the central China city on Tuesday and Wednesday, he “chose to become a deserter” and left.
“My conservative estimate is that this epidemic could end up at least 10 times the scale of Sars [severe acute respiratory disease],” he said.
Does anyone know why these things so often seem to come out of Asia?
No special precautions here. Always stocked up on food, fuel, and water. Always try to get adequate sleep, stay hydrated, and eat well (especially avoiding refined carbs in all their forms). Sugar is definitely not good on my immune system. Always try to maintain good micro-nutrient intake (including vitamins C and D and zinc) and consume pro-biotics (in the form of yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, miso, kombucha, etc.). Always stocked up on anti-viral/anti-microbial supplements/substances including N-acetyl cysteine, olive leaf extract, and monolaurin for prevention; Sambucol/Sambucus (proprietary elderberry formula), oregon oil (for gargle), and AHCC for treatment; Robuvit for recovery. Have colloidal silver on hand for special situations such as ventilating lung fields with a mist if things get really serious. Always try to exercise but avoid doing it to the point of absolute exhaustion (keeping in mind ARE response to stress: adaptation, resistance, exhaustion) or when it just doesn’t feel right. Always wash hands. Our problem now comes from occasional exposure to our first grandchild who is 400 miles away and already gave my wife the most serious bug I think she’s had in our entire marriage of 40 years (come Sunday).
I don’t worry on masks but have some NP95s on hand. If it gets bad, we’re not going out. Have a flamethrower on hand to burn everything and anything within 100 yards of The Redoubt (just kidding).
I don’t get too worked up about these things since my experience of 41 years in health care suggests that those who seem to be the most worried about these things seem to be the ones most prone to contracting them. Oh yeah. Meditation and prayer always help to keep mind and spirit healthy. If I learned nothing else in those 41 years it’s that proper management of your emotions and mental state seems to be at least as important as anything physical.
Getting back to trusting your intuition and extra-sensory perceptions, my wife and I had a scheduled month long trip to 10 Asian countries. Even though initially we were very excited about seeing this part of the world, for some reason, we both kept feeling uneasy about it. Finally, because of circumstances that arose coupled with this uneasy feeling, we cancelled the trip. With what’s going on now, I don’t know what we were picking up on but I’m glad we acted on it.
There’s a big jump in the probability of a sustained outbreak when third generation transmission happens and yet another when fourth generation transmission is part of the game.
Looks like that’s on the table now:
Emerging data on the new virus circulating in China adds to evidence there is sustained human-to-human transmission in the city of Wuhan, and that a single case was able to ignite a chain of other infections.
The World Health Organization reported Thursday that there have been at least four generations of spread of the new virus, provisionally called 2019-nCoV, meaning a person who contracted the virus from a non-human source — presumably an animal — has infected a person, who infected another person, who then infected another person.
It’s not clear from a WHO statement whether transmission petered out after that point, or whether further generations of cases from those chains are still to come.
The WHO said the current estimate of the reproductive rate of the virus — the number of people, on average, that each infected person infects — is between 1.4 and 2.5. To stop an outbreak, the reproduction number has to be brought below one.
(Source)
I'm still seeing the R0 as being reported as between 1.4 and 2.5. I cannot confirm how they got this figure yet, or find an original source to see if it was measured or modeled.
Next - now it's eight cities.
China has effectively quarantined eight cities — home to tens of millions of people — to try to contain spread of the virus. The move comes as much of the country is traveling to be with family to celebrate the Lunar New Year, which is Saturday. Guangdong province, which has reported rising numbers of cases, has declared a public health emergency.
I'm going out on a limb here to suggest that China would not be quarantining tens of millions of people without cause.
One thing that caught my attention was noting that even though more than 800 have contracted the disease (a reported 800, that is), some 25 have died while 34 are reported to have recovered.
Hold on there...we went through this with ebola. One cannot develop a CFR by dividing those who died by those who are currently ill. You need to wait until it's all over and then divide those who died by everybody who caught the disease and later recovered.
Here we see that 34 have recovered and 25 have died. To me that suggests something more lethal than 3%. That would align with the Chinese authorities' freaking out.
Again, I don't really trust any of the numbers so who the heck knows? Just have to keep sifting the news to see what comes of it.
If true, then the numbers really suck.
177/830 = 21.3% "severe."
25/(25+34) = a 42% fatality rate.
I'm sure that's way too high because, well, it just is. But it suggests that the fatality rate is pretty damn high.
Again, we don't know how many people have been miscounted in either direction, nor have much confidence that the true numbers are being reported.
Just parsing what we've got.
“The coronavirus in China is spreading, and largely could have been prevented. A town 7 km from where the virus was discovered in Wuhan had a state run banquet with 100,000 people eating off of the same dishes. This was 2 days after 49 cases were confirmed in Wuhan, China. The Chinese government is trying to save face, and now it is backfiring.”
I feel as if the numbers are less important right now (because we can’t trust them anyway), and instead focus on the reaction. In my mind, the images I’m seeing and reactions the CCP is taking tell me this thing is way, way deadlier than they are saying. If not, then they are popping pimples with broadswords for no reason.
Apparently the new coronavirus-specific nucleic acid test kits were not developed and distributed to Wuhan and other cities and provinces until on/about Jan. 16th, which likely contributed to undercounting of cases initially. Source
Per 1/21/2020 CDC update, “CDC has developed a real time Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (rRT-PCR) test that can diagnose 2019-nCoV. Currently, testing for this virus must take place at CDC, but in the coming days and weeks, CDC will share these tests with domestic and international partners through the agency’s International Reagent Resourceexternal icon.” Source
We use the essential oil called “thieves” when traveling on airplanes to clean our hands and then we cup our hands to our face and breath in through the mouth and nose. I feel like it might kill germs but this is obviously anecdotal.
Supposedly…this might be total BS…this oil vapor was used by people robbing the catacombs where they needed protection from disease. Hence the name thieves oil. It has a very strong essence.
I just ordered some on Amazon with spray tops.
Population density alone wouldn’t seem to be the cause. Otherwise, NYC would be generating epidemics. Animal density alone also wouldn’t be the cause. Otherwise factory farms would be generating epidemics. The combination of the two would seem to up the ante a bit and certainly, the addition of unsanitary conditions would up it even more. I know times have changed dramatically but an old timer I knew who served in the Marines in China just prior to WW2 said he didn’t realize such filth and squalor could exist (and he grew up in a poor farm family during the Depression). Then consuming strange animals less than well cooked would seem to up the ante even more. I still wonder though how these diseases are “created”. I guess the amalgamation of conditions noted by posters here creates the optimal condition for viruses to mutate into new and strange forms.
I wonder about personal hygiene habits though. The Japanese have high population density living areas and eat a lot of raw foods (though, admittedly, not of the same strangeness and variety as the Chinese) but don’t seem to have these same problems. They do, however, seem to be very fastidious about personal hygiene.
So my takeaway is, live in a low population density area, live in a low density housing/family situation, keep your drinking and washing water separate from your sewage and garbage, let your food animals have plenty of breathing and foraging space, realize you’re safer with plant foods than animal foods, don’t eat things raw that should be cooked, don’t eat things that most non-starving people would avoid, and be careful about your personal hygiene (but not to the point of being an obsessive-compulsive germophobe).
