Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic

[think positive]

[Pi]

The Chinese death toll may be a lot higher than the CCP reported.

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/wuhan-deaths-03272020182846.html

[think positive]

[Tannin]

[Tannin]

[stui magpie]

It's OK, it seems we're all saved.

https://twitter.com/hemantmehta/status/1244344119545208834

[Pies4shaw]

You know, don’t you, that after that goes viral half of the US will go straight back to work?

[Pi]

I checked bias here, its about the same as the Guardian.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/radio-free-asia/

As this thing escalates the official numbers coming out of china are just improbable.
No one knows what the real numbers are, but its obvious that number of infections reported and actual deaths don't add up.

[K]

[K]

"In the early days of the disease, the virus was spread mainly by people entering the country from overseas. That threat is diminishing with time and quarantine measures. We now face an even bigger threat - the sustained spread of the virus from person to person. The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 is doubling every three days and this is being driven by person-to-person contact in the resident population. The time from infection to the development of symptoms averages five to six days, though it is not uncommon for the incubation period to be 10 days or more. It is therefore very likely that we have hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Australians, many of whom may have few symptoms, spreading the disease and not being detected in our current testing regimens.
...

We won’t be able to judge the success of the current restrictions for another two to three weeks. However, I fear that even if they are being strictly adhered to (they’re not), these restrictions leave us with numerous opportunities for continued community spread. And, we don’t have the luxury of waiting two weeks. When talking about exponential growth, two to three weeks is a long, long time."


"John Dwyer is an immunologist and Emeritus Professor of Medicine at UNSW."

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/we-cannot-wait-two-weeks-we-must-go-into-lockdown-now-for-the-sake-of-our-healthcare-workers-20200329-p54f1b.html

[Tannin]

[stui magpie]

[Pi]

so...you believe the propaganda coming from the CCP?... good for you comrade...

consider this , up to 5 million people left Wuhan just about a week before the lock down, mostly for other parts of China. (Chinese new year)

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

in Henan, China , an neighboring province, they are reporting less than 2k cases, its just not probable. look at some of the other provinces. Its obvious they have been told to keep numbers down by under reporting.

[K]

The US keeps millions of chickens in secret farms to make flu vaccines. But their eggs won't work for coronavirus

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/27/health/chicken-egg-flu-vaccine-intl-hnk-scli/index.html

"For the past 80 years, much of the world has relied on chicken eggs for the production of influenza vaccines.

About 174.5 million doses of the flu vaccine were distributed across the US this flu season through the end of February, of which an estimated 82% were egg-based, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
...

There is no vaccine yet for the virus; and because it's different than the influenza virus, traditional methods like using eggs won't work. As scientists race to find a cure, the huge US stockpile of eggs won't be of any help.
...

Here's how it works today: The US CDC and other labs partner with the World Health Organization (WHO) to choose certain virus strains to send to private vaccine manufacturers. The flu can mutate and strains can change each year, meaning new vaccines are needed for every flu season.
The selected virus is injected into a fertilized hen's eggs, where it incubates and replicates for a few days -- just as it would do inside a human host.

Scientists then harvest fluid containing the virus from the egg. They inactivate the virus so it can no longer cause disease, and purify it, leaving scientists with the virus antigen.
...

The entire process, from the arrival of the egg to the publicly available vaccine, takes at least six months, according to the CDC.
...

As the coronavirus pandemic spreads, scientists and governments around the world are racing to develop a vaccine -- but eggs won't be the answer, said John Nicholls, a Hong Kong University clinical professor of pathology.

Due to having different receptors and other characteristics, the novel coronavirus isn't able to replicate inside eggs the way flu viruses can, Nicholls said.
...

Another issue is that the supply is vulnerable to deadly avian flus. "If there's a pandemic of H5N1 (avian influenza), it can kill chickens substantially and there will be a huge drop in egg supply, and you will have a problem getting enough eggs to make the vaccines," Poon said."

[Pies4shaw]

https://www.policyforum.net/sums-germs-and-fear/

In this instance, the authors have provided quite specific numerical predictions, so it will be possible to test their analysis by Wednesday or Thursday of this week:

The data tells us that for countries in the earlier phase of this pandemic, such as Australia, the number of confirmed cases, which undoubtedly underestimates the rate of infection, is doubling every few days. In Australia, the infection rate began by doubling roughly every four days, and is now doubling every seven days.

Australia had about 2,000 confirmed cases on 24 March. Given rates of infection and changes in growth, our spread model forecast of infections made on 27 March for the 29 March ranged from 3,950 to 4,460.

The actual reported number on 29 March was 3,984, near the low end of that range. It is important to note that the daily growth rate has fallen from 27 per cent on 12 March to about 9.5 per cent on 29 March. Our forecast for 6pm on 1 April now ranges from 5,080 to 5,970 cases, with 5,220 most likely, and for 2 April the range is 5,510 to 6,835, with 5,715 most likely.