So apparently the virus is taking some time to actually kill people and there are confirmed deaths of younger people starting to occur. It may be that the elderly just died quicker.

A 36 year old male, Li, is the youngest confirmed dead and died on January 23, 17 days after symptoms started.
Original source: The Beijing News

The previous youngest was a 48-year-old woman, Yin, who died on Monday, more than a month after her symptoms were first recorded.

From the article:

"As of 24:00 on January 23, 2020, Hubei Province has reported a total of 549 cases of pneumonia caused by new coronavirus infection (including 495 cases in Wuhan, 22 in Xiaogan, 12 in Huanggang, 8 in Jingzhou, 8 in Jingmen, 2 cases in Xiantao City, 1 case in Yichang City, 1 case in Shiyan City), 31 cases have been cured and 24 cases have died. At present, 494 patients are still being treated in the hospital, of which 106 are critically ill and 23 are critically ill. They are all under isolation treatment at designated medical institutions. A total of 3,653 close contacts have been tracked, 877 medical observations have been lifted, and 2776 people are still receiving medical observations."

So of the 549 cases in this province, 494 are still hospitalized. 31 were cured and 24 died.

So it may be more telling to look at the cure/ death rates.
Another thing that is skewing statistics is confirmed versus suspected cases and what's being reported. Some places in China are running out of tests and can't "confirm".

An article out of China yesterday showed...
7 deaths, 105 new confirmed cases over a 20 hour span.

We won't know the truth for another two weeks when it blows up in western countries.

foleyt said:

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Talk about rearranging the deck chairs!

Science Vs. had a pretty good podcast episode about pandemics and what we'd see if one broke out today.

Science Vs. - Pandemic!!

A couple of notes:

It will take 6 months to create a new vaccine as they still use eggs - 6 months would be after the peak of the pandemic
The mortality rate will eventually drop as the virus mutates - does the virus no good to kill off all hosts
CDC generally does not recommend closing off borders as it generally makes it worse: disease has already spread, all you're doing is cutting off supplies, medicine, and assistance
Hospitals will run out of ventilators, beds, etc.

The stock market doesn't believe this is a severe event

The panic and hysteria reminds me of the Ebola outbreak. Every day there were new "cases" reported in Dallas, people claiming it was hundreds or more infected or being tested for it.

Thus the age of Twitter when anyone can post anything, and it gets retweeted and posted elsewhere millions of times, all without any verification.

That has to be the first time anyone has ever built a hospital using nothing but excavators.

I'm skeptical those clips are of any hospital development to be built in a week.

Quote:

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CDC generally does not recommend closing off borders as it generally makes it worse: disease has already spread, all you're doing is cutting off supplies, medicine, and assistance

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I think this makes sense as closing borders likely insights more panic. Its similar to a bank run.

Rapier108 said:

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The panic and hysteria reminds me of the Ebola outbreak. Every day there were new "cases" reported in Dallas, people claiming it was hundreds or more infected or being tested for it.

Thus the age of Twitter when anyone can post anything, and it gets retweeted and posted elsewhere millions of times, all without any verification.

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This isn't something to panic about yet. It is something to keep a wary eye on though. Three main differences, Ebola is has a terrible transmission rate largely due to the fact that it isn't an aerosol or a very very ineffective aerosol transmission virus. It appears that the coronovirus is with legions in the lungs. The Ebola outbreaks did not occur during what is the annual largest mass movement of people in a country or region in the world. The hajj is 2-3 million, Thanksgiving is 55 million, Christmas was 110 million in the US. Getting numbers for Christmas travel in Europe is harder. During lunar new year hundreds of millions of Chinese are travelling. The travel period lasts over a month and as of 2016 included as much as 3 billion passenger trips (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunyun). Lastly the Chinese population is significantly more affluent than West Africa. Yes you had some people make it out of there while sick to Western countries. You're already seeing that behavior now. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1231898/coronavirus-latest-chinese-woman-france-sneaked-in-infected-corona-virus-wuhan-weibo and https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/lax-passenger-quarantined-due-to-concerns-over-possible-coronavirus-symptoms/2296746/.

So my suspicion is that IF this is serious and novel, and the Chinese are covering up a really, really bad situation then yes it is something to worry about. The timing is incredibly poor. It would require a major event to lock down 35 million people in the West. That's not exactly the case in China, but it's still enough to be concerning in a "hmmm, that's not normal behavior for flu season" kind of way. Could it be overreaction after a pretty deadly SARS outbreak? Yup sure could. Could it be worse? Yup sure could. It's too early for casual civilians relying on media reports and piecing together clues from Reddit, shaky translations off of Weibo and other items to put together a clear picture.

It is, however, worth keeping an eye on. My wife had dinner with her company's teams from Germany, Canada, the US and China last week. She doesn't know where the Chinese team is based but by God I told her to find out. Seems like basic prudence.

Second us case - in Chicago
CDC monitoring 63 possible cases

Paper just published discussing clinical features of ~60 cases

Says avg was 8 days from disease onset to difficulty breathing

foleyt said:

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Second us case - in Chicago
CDC monitoring 63 possible cases

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Wouldn't that be the 3rd since there is one at TAMU-CS?

Scruffy said:

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foleyt said:

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Second us case - in Chicago
CDC monitoring 63 possible cases

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Wouldn't that be the 3rd since there is one at TAMU-CS?

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The A&M case hasn't been confirmed yet. He/she would be included in the 63 possible cases.

Hasn't been confirmed.

Scruffy said:

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foleyt said:

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Second us case - in Chicago
CDC monitoring 63 possible cases

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Wouldn't that be the 3rd since there is one at TAMU-CS?

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A&M is NOT confirmed.

Thanks for the article link very helpful.

From that Lancet article of the first 41 patients 55% developed shortness of breath and 29% acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). 32% admitted to ICU and 15% died.

That is concerning.

have they decided how it spreads?

VaultingChemist said:

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webgem08 said:

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That has to be the first time anyone has ever built a hospital using nothing but excavators.

I'm skeptical those clips are of any hospital development to be built in a week.

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There is a more grisly reason for excavators to be working.

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Man, that's awful to think about.

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cbr said:

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TacosaurusRex said:

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I guess the good news is, they seem to be moving after they are picked up by the people in white suits.

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wtf, flu doesnt drop people fully dressed in the streets, even sars.

and all that quarantine/clean suits/masks/whatever and hospitals only works when the health care service people out number the sick people. once you hit a tipping point, it could get ugly.

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I have a heavy skepticism about all these videos claiming to depict multiple otherwise totally normal persons suddenly collapsing in the street solely due to this virus.

There has been so much knee-jerk drama over this, that people in a culture such as China are in the perfect conditions for a panic-induced social contagion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_contagion

Reminds me of the famous British boarding school hysteria where dozens of girls were hospitalized due to a contagion, which ended up being totally psychosomatic and most likely the echos of fear from a very real polio contagion in the past -- the same as Chinese have been sensitized toward SARS.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1944262/
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/29/carol-morley-the-falling-mass-hysteria-is-a-powerful-group-activity

The dense, collectivist and still quasi-primitive culture of Asia is much more heavily predisposed to this kind of thing. Remember the Indian monkey-man scare 20 years ago? People died not because some murderous monkey creature was climbing up buildings and invading their homes, but because their urban-legend-induced fear of the monkey man made them do stupid sh-t.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey-man_of_Delhi

Nuclear Scramjet said:

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Ah yes we can certainly count on the ever trustful Chinese people to self report their illness and not hide it.

Why do our politicians continue to think that everyone on the planet behaves like Westerners? These people are utterly brain dead.

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LOL at thinking most Westerners aren't "brain dead" either.

Senators should be getting a briefing now at an "undisclosed location" I think we will find out the severity of this based on how they approach the impeachment trial after.

Chuckie is back on the podium in a presser so...I'm guessing it ain't that bad for them.

wannaggie said:

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cbr said:

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TacosaurusRex said:

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I guess the good news is, they seem to be moving after they are picked up by the people in white suits.

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wtf, flu doesnt drop people fully dressed in the streets, even sars.

and all that quarantine/clean suits/masks/whatever and hospitals only works when the health care service people out number the sick people. once you hit a tipping point, it could get ugly.

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I have a heavy skepticism about all these videos claiming to depict multiple otherwise totally normal persons suddenly collapsing in the street solely due to this virus.

There has been so much knee-jerk drama over this, that people in a culture such as China are in the perfect conditions for a panic-induced social contagion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_contagion

Reminds me of the famous British boarding school hysteria where dozens of girls were hospitalized due to a contagion, which ended up being totally psychosomatic and most likely the echos of fear from a very real polio contagion in the past -- the same as Chinese have been sensitized toward SARS.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1944262/
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/29/carol-morley-the-falling-mass-hysteria-is-a-powerful-group-activity

The dense, collectivist and still quasi-primitive culture of Asia is much more heavily predisposed to this kind of thing. Remember the Indian monkey-man scare 20 years ago? People died not because some murderous monkey creature was climbing up buildings and invading their homes, but because their urban-legend-induced fear of the monkey man made them do stupid sh-t.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey-man_of_Delhi

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That Lancet article is really depressing.

VaultingChemist said:

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KidDoc said:

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From that Lancet article of the first 41 patients 55% developed shortness of breath and 29% acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). 32% admitted to ICU and 15% died.

That is concerning.

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15% Mortality rate is very concerning!

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If those statistics are remotely true, it's no wonder China is closing cities. As someone mentioned though if no food/medical supplies/people in it out it's going to get bad very quickly.

I don't think the Chinese are right to quarantine cities, but closing their borders and air travel would be a good step to prevent the spread to other places in the world.

scottimus said:

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Senators should be getting a briefing now at an "undisclosed location" I think we will find out the severity of this based on how they approach the impeachment trial after.

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You're seriously overestimating our leadership.

Rapier108 said:

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The panic and hysteria reminds me of the Ebola outbreak. Every day there were new "cases" reported in Dallas, people claiming it was hundreds or more infected or being tested for it.

Thus the age of Twitter when anyone can post anything, and it gets retweeted and posted elsewhere millions of times, all without any verification.

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The one-click retweeting / sharing / reposting of modern social media is terrible for information integrity.
A handful of incidents can spread virally (ironic) and echo back and forth so quickly that the "chatter" ends up appearing to be hundreds or even thousands of incidents, when really it's just one or two barely-confirmed incidents amplified by a million internet megaphones shouting at each other.

The plural of "anecdote" is not "statistics".

15% is what it kills. Think about those that survive. Pneumonia is a brutal illness that takes weeks to recover from.

Per the Lancet article there were 41 confirmed cases is Wuhan as of January 2. How does that tie with any of the numbers coming from the Chinese government?

It's been 22 days and only 800 cases more, but they are shutting down cities? Why quarantine 35 million for 25 people dying? If that 15% mortality rate is correct, and it's spreading rapidly and takes 8 days to have symptoms. My guesstimate us at least 10,000 cases and 1500 dead.

I believe absolutely nothing coming out if the Chinese government.