
Experts Warn of Possible Sustained Global Spread of New Coronavirus - nopinsight
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-warn-of-possible-sustained-global-spread-of-new-coronavirus/
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roryrjb
So reading or watching the news makes all this sound very worrying, but if you
look up the amount of deaths from influenza every year, "Up to 650,000
respiratory deaths per year"[0] then this will just become a run-of-the-mill
thing, or am I missing something here?

0\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza)

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themgt
Two points against this general "but the flu" argument:

An October 2019 novel Coronavirus simulation by Johns Hopkins Center for
Health Security, World Economic Forum, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
[1][2], projected 65 million dead and widespread knock-on economic and
societal problems during 18 months of pandemic. Not that this is a likely
outcome for nCoV-2019 (which is likely less lethal than the imaginary virus),
but it's worth understanding SARS-like viruses can be significantly more
serious than the flu.

Secondly, the flu is "baked in the cake" in our general medical and societal
infrastructure. A novel virus will be additive to flu infections and even at
similar rates of infection/death could cause a noticeable impact. As an
analogy, 1.25 million people die in road crashes each year, but if some
catastrophic, widespread automotive software bug/malware caused _an additional
1.25 million road deaths_ in 2020, it would rightfully be a massive story,
could potentially overwhelm emergency and medical services, and would be
something to be concerned about mitigating as much as possible.

[1]
[http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/scenario.htm...](http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/scenario.html)
[2] [https://youtu.be/AoLw-Q8X174](https://youtu.be/AoLw-Q8X174)

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yread
This is one scary graph

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Log-
linear_plot_of_corono...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Log-
linear_plot_of_coronovirus_cases_with_linear_regressions.png)

~~~
phreeza
A logistic curve looks exponential until it doesn't. There is no telling just
from looking at this when it will plateau.

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Animats
US State Department advisories:

Travel Alert Level 4 Do Not Travel to Hubei - Tue, 28 Jan 2020

Travel Alert Level 3 Reconsider Travel to China - Tue, 28 Jan 2020

Health Alert Update – Novel Coronavirus in China - Sun, 26 Jan 2020

China Travel Advisory Update: Level 4 – Do Not Travel to Hubei Province - Fri,
24 Jan 2020

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kenneth
Statement and statistical model of the epidemic from HKU researchers. They're
quite pessimistic.

• Likely ~75k infections in China already

• Chongqing likely the next big city to experience full uncontained outbreak

• Drastic measures required to prevent full pandemic, including a drastic
reduction in mobility (no large group gathering, no travel, etc)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwXMPsbxFfo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwXMPsbxFfo)

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xorfish
A positive effect of a higher number of infection is, that it would reduce the
fatality rate of the virus.

~~~
kenneth
Indeed, but there's also very credible rumors saying that the number of dead
patients in Wuhan is severely underreported.

For example, this video shows someone walking around a hospital in Wuhan,
where you see dead bodies in the hallways just sitting around.

That doesn't happen when you only have 100 deaths in the province. That
happens when you're so overwhelmed with dead patients that you just can't deal
with it fast enough.

If this is true, which I'm inclined to believe, then we're very likely looking
at thousands of deaths already.

[https://twitter.com/ezracheungtoto/status/122064100006384844...](https://twitter.com/ezracheungtoto/status/1220641000063848448)

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orf
Isn’t it more likely that they are asleep than dead?

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Piskvorrr
That's the thing: we don't know. We don't even have data to make a
guesstimate. That's the scary part: we can't tell _if_ that is more likely.

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crimsonalucard
Why isn't quarantining all flights to and from china not an option?

Lose a couple months of GDP vs. dying is not worth it?

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robjan
Remember that people travel to and from China. I'm pretty sure it's illegal
for a country to prevent its own citizens from returning to their homeland.

~~~
crimsonalucard
This is what I don't understand. A global pandemic of epic proportions is
about to occur and you're concerned about legality?

Ship them back on a one way trip.

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ngcc_hk
[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736\(20\)30260-9/fulltext)

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gexla
It would be interesting to see what the process is for testing for this, costs
involved and what the bottlenecks are.

For example, you might not even get treated in the Philippines if you don't
bring money with you or don't have insurance.

Once a panic sets in, can a hospital in a developing country even continue
testing? Or do they start turning people away?

Do hospitals in developing countries have the resources to mass test people?
How much total cost is involved?

Given the challenges, I imagine these confirmed cases are going to be
seriously constrained vs actual cases which might even go to the hospital to
get checked.

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carlmr
Isn't it already to late? It has two weeks incubation time roughly, it's
already been observed in Europe and America? It's not contained in a small
area in China anymore.

I would bet that enough people are infected with it as we speak that it can
sustain itself and no amount of quarantining will save us from it. The only
option would be an instant complete travel, logistics and congregation ban
around the world. Which is I without a global government.

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rimliu
If I got it right there is not a single case of transmission outside of China
reported. Yet.

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carlmr
Germany has a patient near munich that didn't travel to China.

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klohto
This one is the worst one. The guy contracted it from a lady who was at
training in the company. She contracted it when her parents from Wu-chan
visited back in China. The guy has been in contact with 40 people apparently.
No idea about the woman. This alone yields huge figures if the spread while in
incubation period is confirmed.

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kenneth
I've been following this closely since Jan 2nd. This is looking like it will
be far worse than SARS and MERS, and far harder to contain. I imagine it'll
look a lot closer to the Spanish flu.

I wonder what absolutely drastic measures China could implement to get this
under control. Short of a total curfew of the country for a few weeks, I don't
know what they can do to prevent a full blown pandemic at this stage.

~~~
gexla
I believe we're only a couple days out from the total confirmed cases of
Coronavirus to match the total confirmed cases of SARS. At that point, SARS
will still have far more deaths.

There's a lot of graphs on projections vs actual numbers since this thing
started being heavily tracked. I don't know what sources are most
authoritative. Each seem to work on different timelines but all show fast
growth.

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Scarblac
Well at the time the SARS cases were confirmed, those individuals weren't dead
yet either. That happens some time later.

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alperakgun
I'm afraid it won't be contained - and similar to other tough viruses it will
kill millions in coming years.

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guerrilla
Wuhan Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Global Cases (by Johns Hopkins CSSE) [1]

1\.
[https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...](https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6)

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inferiorhuman
Google's put the document on lockdown so if you want to save a copy of the
data yourself this will get you an ODS file (for now):

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yZv9w9zRKwrGTaR-
YzmA...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yZv9w9zRKwrGTaR-
YzmAqMefw4wMlaXocejdxZaTs6w/export?format=ods)

