JoNova 02/01/2020
Been trying to do a Corona thread for three days, but every time it was half finished everything changed.
The WHO have finally declared
a state of emergency, something that seemed inevitable as soon as we knew the virus could be transmitted by people without symptoms. Russia, Mongolia, and North Korea closed their borders Thursday. Hong Kong announced a temporary closure. Singapore has now closed its borders too. Mark Steyn meanwhile, marvels that healthy US citizens are being advised not to go to China, but it’s apparently fine for sick people to travel the other way. Extraordinarily a cruise ship with 6,000 passengers was “stuck†off Italy, waiting for clearance for two Chinese people who had symptoms like a flu. Fortunately they must have just had the flu. The ship was cleared. And so it is around the world with a mosaic pattern of super actions, versus business as usual.
British Airways has suspended all flights to and from China, as have many other airlines, but in a city by city way. The virus is now present in every region of China. It’s not clear why all flights to and from China have not been stopped. On ABC news Australia’s supposedly top medico didn’t explain why, just palmed off the decision as advice from the WHO. Red flags anyone? A union of pilots in the US is so concerned they are suing American Airlines in a bid to stop them flying there to protect crews. They are calling for staff to refuse work trips to high risk locations. On #CoronaOutbreak there are photos of shelves emptying in Shanghai, people are wearing giant juice bottles on their heads, and not wearing a face mask is considered a bad thing — indeed, people are being arrested for not wearing face masks. Videos apparently show people being forcibly locked inside houses because of their suspected infections.
The first case of human to human transmission has been confirmed in the US and 168 people are now on a watchlist. Passengers on one flight in Australia have just been advised they were travelling on Monday night with a man who has been diagnosed. 200 people are being contacted. The plane flew another 13 legs or so before it got a proper clean and that contact list might, yeah. Well. The sick man was part of a group of eight who toured the risky part of China, four of the either have symptoms and all eight are in isolation.
The live map and official Corona Virus tally (for whatever that means) is 213 deaths and 9,776 confirmed infections, plus or minus 2,000 or 80,000 (Uni HK below). But 100 or so cases are now confirmed outside China, so we are on the cusp of a global epidemic.
And yes, apparently, before that even happens, the Climate Doomsters are already predicting Climate Change will increase the odds of the next one. Never let a good crisis go to waste. h.t Pat
WHO says the death rates are
2% though no one really knows. A recent paper in
Lancet estimates 11%. The fact is, there are no facts we can rely on. (h.t Mishtalk) But if that Lancet paper is closer to the mark, there is a gargantuan trainwreck coming. Quick, someone explain exponential curves to the people in power. We need to act like lightning to head this off.
Some estimate put the number of people infected at tens of thousands higher (see estimates below). It did seem odd that a city of 11 million suddenly needed new “2-minute-hospitals†to cope with a few thousand patients. Someone knew something. Indeed, there are many fishy things about this, including those fish markets which may or may not be the source. There is that odd coincidence of China’s first high level biosafety laboratory being also in Wuhan and working with Corona viruses as well as Ebola and SARS. There were warnings.
Below is the official trajectory. What we really want to see on this graph below is any kind of leveling off. Instead, we see 1000 become 10,000 in a week. And the more people infected, the more opportunity for mutations. And if there are wildlife vectors, it will run amok and stick around.
More:
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/02/corona-virus-and-those-exponential-curves/
