Merged 2019-nCoV / Corona virus

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The Atheist said:
On the back of a couple of encouraging points, some less encouraging points that suggest we're getting close to out of control.

A British man has been diagnosed with the disease, despite having been no closer to China than Singapore. Also from Singapore, at least three delegates at a 100-person conference in Singapore have been diagnosed with the novel virus.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/l...iruses-outbreak-death-toll-latest-update-news

Seems to me that if people are coming down with it far outside China, the cat is probably out of the bag and a global pandemic is under way.
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There have already been people who contracted the virus outside of China. At least one in Germany, and at least one that I know of in Japan.
 
Conspiracies about the coronavirus being an American bioweapon are going around more and more and apparently even being spread by party officials. It makes living here a little scary.
 
Roboramma said:
Conspiracies about the coronavirus being an American bioweapon are going around more and more and apparently even being spread by party officials. It makes living here a little scary.
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Frankly, in these times and in this climate, it's extremely difficult to believe that the people in the US (or "the west") with the required skill and scientific training would consent to participating in any sort of bioweapon programme (which, after all, would be a huge contravention of international law and treaties...). And likewise, it's extremely difficult to believe that the people with the authority and means to carry it out - in other words either the CIA (plus its black-ops affiliates) or the US military - would ever accede to instigate such a programme.
 
LondonJohn said:
Frankly, in these times and in this climate, it's extremely difficult to believe that the people in the US (or "the west") with the required skill and scientific training would consent to participating in any sort of bioweapon programme (which, after all, would be a huge contravention of international law and treaties...). And likewise, it's extremely difficult to believe that the people with the authority and means to carry it out - in other words either the CIA (plus its black-ops affiliates) or the US military - would ever accede to instigate such a programme.
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Let me be clear, I think the conspiracies are ridiculous and say so whenever I hear them. I mean it's worrying to be in an environment of frightened people whose animosity may turn toward me because of their irrational conspiracy theories.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Did you round up to get that number? :rolleyes:

And once again, no source. Or is this from your Wiki page again?
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What the hell are you on about?

The number of cases outside China as of yesterday was about 200 and with 2 deaths, I make that a simple 1%.

Skeptic Ginger said:
BTW, there were 2 cases in the Philippines and one death. I'm surprised you didn't claim the death rate was 50%.
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For someone who has still not retracted the insane claim that influenza is thousands of times more dangerous than this coronavirus, I suggest you keep the rolly eyes and idiot snarky comments for yourself.

Given the WHO estimate that mortality here is 2% and Mexican 'flu was 0.02%, I make you out by a factor of hundreds of thousands.
 
The point was your 1% number is bull ****. It's one thing to say there's little data. It's another to draw conclusions based on meaningless numbers.

No epidemiologist would agree with your baseless conclusions.

https://www.ynhhs.org/patient-care/urgent-care/flu-or-coronavirus
Coronavirus vs. the flu: Which is a greater threat?
To date, there have been 11 confirmed cases of this new coronavirus in the United States, and 0 confirmed in Connecticut. In contrast, there have been at least 15-million flu illnesses reported in the United States since the start of flu season in October 2019.
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https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html
So far, the new coronavirus, dubbed 2019-nCoV, has led to more than 20,000 illnesses and 427 deaths in China, as well as more than 200 illnesses and two deaths outside of mainland China. But that's nothing compared with the flu, also called influenza. In the U.S. alone, the flu has already caused an estimated 19 million illnesses, 180,000 hospitalizations and 10,000 deaths this season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

That said, scientists have studied seasonal flu for decades. So, despite the danger of it, we know a lot about flu viruses and what to expect each season. In contrast, very little is known about 2019-nCoV because it's so new. This means 2019-nCoV is something of a wild card in terms of how far it will spread and how many deaths it will cause.
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Wild card does not mean worse than flu.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsa...to-the-new-coronavirus-has-been-so-aggressive
The number of people who are infected with the new coronavirus that is spreading from China is dwarfed by those affected by a far more common respiratory illness: seasonal flu.

Every year there are as many as 5 million severe flu cases worldwide and hundreds of thousands of deaths. By contrast, so far there have been about 20,000 (and rising) cases of coronavirus, most of them mild.
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I stand by what I said.
 
a_unique_person said:
The coronavirus infections on the cruise ship rise to 61. This is when everyone is now supposed to be confined to their cabins. Interesting lab experiment.

Coronavirus live updates: cruise ship cases rise to 61 as China mourns whistleblower doctor – latest news

https://www.theguardian.com/world/l...-japan?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard
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I think those 61 cases were incubating when isolation was implemented. Though I don't have detailed information.

I think this will be a good lesson in just how easily contagious diseases spread on those cruise ships. It's good they caught it early.
 
a_unique_person said:
The coronavirus infections on the cruise ship rise to 61. This is when everyone is now supposed to be confined to their cabins. Interesting lab experiment.

Coronavirus live updates: cruise ship cases rise to 61 as China mourns whistleblower doctor – latest news

https://www.theguardian.com/world/l...-japan?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard
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I would not like to be in that situation.

I can imagine a single, large air-conditioning plant that serves the entire ship.

Worst case, a blower at one end of a row of cabins, and open registers between all the cabins. i.e. Your neighbour sneezes, you get sprayed.
 
novaphile said:
I would not like to be in that situation.

I can imagine a single, large air-conditioning plant that serves the entire ship.

Worst case, a blower at one end of a row of cabins, and open registers between all the cabins. i.e. Your neighbour sneezes, you get sprayed.
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That's pretty standard.

TB can be spread that way, from room to room via the ventilation. But it's not as hazardous as you might think. It still takes a minimum level of the organisms to cause infection. There probably will be very few cases if any spread through the vents. So not zero risk but not a high risk.
 
Currently 7 Australians infected out of 61 confirmed cases on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

The crisis began on board the Diamond Princess when an 80-year-old man from Hong Kong fell ill after disembarking the ship.

He boarded the cruise ship in Yokohama on January 20th and got off in Hong Kong five days later.
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Source:
 
The original whistleblower's death has opened a very large can of worms for Xi and the government: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51409801

Another noteworthy point in that story is that the doctor died three weeks after contracting the virus.

There's plenty more legs in this story to come.

And it's now just about certain it will trigger a worldwide recession - just how bad the recession is will depend on the outbreak and how bad it becomes. If it turns into a global pandemic, I'd say the disruption will be as bad the Great Depression, or even worse, given the vastly larger population.
 
LondonJohn said:
Do you know what a "typo" is? (Hint: it's not what happened here....)

And yes, I agree that it's perfectly clear what you meant there: you meant that DNA is a protein. Followed by your denial that you wrote that DNA is a protein. Most curious.
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I know perfectly well what DNA is. Probably far more than you do.
 
Ziggurat said:
Interesting side effect of all the face masks: it screws up facial recognition.

https://qz.com/1796833/coronavirus-face-masks-foil-facial-recognition-cameras/
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On learning that in London, every time you go out, you are likely to be captured by 30 different CCTVs - the most filmed place in the world - and not to mention data-mined when you step into a department store who track your movements via the gps on your phone (they claim this is done anonymously for logistics purposes), I was so indignant I made a point of wearing a baseball cap and putting my phone on flight mode before stepping into MNC stores (if I remembered).

There is one junk-reputation sports shop with chains across the UK where you can buy hooded sweat shirts and baseball caps really cheaply. On entering one of these stores, I was approached by a manager and told to remove the hood I had over my head (presumably so I'd come up on heir CCTV). The irony.

Re masks: Helsinki has a lot of travellers in transit from the far east as Finnair offers connecting flights all over the world to this market, although I have heard it is not particularly so profitable for them that they couldn't shut down all flights to China (it was still offering flights to Shanghai and Beijing) until recently and it is now on hold until the end of the month. I travelled at least four times during December and January through this airport via Heathrow and have always been struck by the sheer number of Asian travellers wearing (what I thought was pointless) face masks. Looking back over the last tow months, I can't help wondering if they knew something we didn't. Well, they have had the swine flu care, avian flu scare, together with SARS and MERS.

As I have been back now for about three weeks and no symptoms, at least I haven't come into contact with the current virus via Helsinki airport. Perhaps thanks to all those guys wearing face masks.
 
Vixen said:
On learning that in London, every time you go out, you are likely to be captured by 30 different CCTVs - the most filmed place in the world... snip... .
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As usual your facts are simply incorrect. I look forward to you providing a link that will provide the evidence you are wrong, also as usual.
 
25 Million CCTV Cameras: Globally it is estimated that there are approximately 25 million CCTV cameras, and Britain holds a high percentage of these with a recorded number of around 4 million. The United Kingdom has more CCTV activity than any other European country, per capita.
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Caught on Camera 300 Times: It is also a well known fact that the average person living in London will be recorded on camera 300 times in one day; an individual doesn’t need to go far without being caught on camera.
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https://www.caughtoncamera.net/news/how-many-cctv-cameras-in-london/
 
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