Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)

Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
Up to 10 per cent of recovered coronavirus patients in Wuhan study tested positive later, doctors say
  • Hospital staff in the city say there is no evidence that these patients became infectious after recovery
  • Tests carried out on patients suggest between 3 to 10 per cent gave positive tests after being discharged
while reading
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I thought perhaps the virus might stay forever in some people??

whatever, I'll now put my wife's scarf on and leave for work

Mutation?
 

Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
Chinese doctors and nurses --- all veterans of Wuhan --- being sent to a region in Italy.

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La Chine va envoyer 50 médecins, 80 infirmières et 30 techniciens pour construire un hôpital de campagne de 60 lits à Ancône, capitale des Marches. Ces personnels soignants chinois avaient tous travaillé à Wuhan cette année.
Translated from French by Google
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China will send 50 doctors, 80 nurses and 30 technicians to build a 60-bed field hospital in Ancona, capital of the Marche. These Chinese health workers had all worked in Wuhan this year.

 

vesicles

Colonel
COVID-19 and the great Chinese puzzle:
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Would like to know the opinion of forum members. @vesicles may I know what's your take on this. Thanks in advance.

First of all, let me just say that I strongly disagree with this article. I am deeply disappointed that a virologist would say these nonsense things. Literally nonsense.

The central theme of this article is that the downturn of an epidemic requires at least 70% of its population infected to achieve a herd immunity. China's infection rate is far below that. Therefore, their data is faked.

OK, in the US, everyone is now talking about "flattening the curve", which means decreasing the amount of people getting infected. If successful, everyone hopes that the percentage infected will be well below 70%. When that happens, does that mean the US has faked our data too?

Virtually all infected regions in the world have implemented some sort of isolation protocol in an attempt to "flatten the curve" and prevent the nightmarish 70% infection rate from happening. Does that mean every country is in the middle of trying to fake data?

The herd immunity of 70% infection rate is based on a single premise: nobody does anything to interfere with the natural progression of a virus. By the time ~70% of the population is infected, the virus will slowly die off because vast majority of the population has acquired antibodies and immunity. The UK tried to claim to do this a few weeks ago, and was hugely criticized by its own people and ridiculed by everyone else in the world. They have since changed their policies to more proactively prevent this nightmare from happening.

The China puzzle, claimed by the article, is actually very simple to solve: their "draconian" measures to isolate the infected population and the virus. Every other country is trying to do similar things, accepting that what the Chinese have done is effective and valid. With various methods to interfere with the natural course of the virus, it is very easy to understand how China's number is well below the 70% mark. As a matter of fact, at this point, no one in their right mind would predict the infection rate of any country would go even near 70%.

Further, the authors say "All diseased are infected, the reverse is not true. Not all infected are sick or tested. Hence, information from China is unhelpful to confidently project the probabilities/proportions that will get infected; get COVID-19 symptoms; develop pneumonia; die." Well, how do they propose to find out the number of infected people who are not sick in any country? In the US as of today, you will have to show symptoms, not just one symptom but ALL major symptoms, in order to get tested. In Texas, we have been told to call the hospitals first and conduct phone interviews. Only when your symptoms meet all the criteria, you will be issued a code. You will need this code to get tested. If you go to a testing site without a code, you will be turned away even if you suspect that you have the virus. So how do they suppose we will find out how many infected-but-not-sick people in the US, or any other country?

If this article has been written by a regular journalist, I would be willing to give them some benefit of the doubt. However, one of the authors was a virologist. He should know better. In fact, I am sure that he knows better. When virtually everyone in the world knows that various intervention methods implemented by the governments have been intended to keep the infection rate to the lowest possible, a professional virologist claims that anything less than the worse case scenario of 70% infection rate would be lying???

Lastly, if you compare the progression of the virus in China and elsewhere in the world, you will see that China's curves, time line, exponential growth rates, fatality, etc, match those of the vast majority of the countries. Since China experienced the outbreak first and has generated these curves before anyone else, they would have to travel to the future to learn how everyone else will be doing and fake their own numbers to match others'.

My 2-cents
 

vesicles

Colonel
Mutation?

Nah, mostly because of the improper techniques of acquiring patient samples, which yields false negative results. Because this virus infects the lower respiratory tract, you will have to go down deep in the throat or noses to collect fluid samples. this is very very uncomfortable for the patients. Many nurses end up collecting samples in the wrong places, which contain much lower viral counts, thus, false negative.
 

KYli

Brigadier
It should have done sooner but better late than never. Now, Shanghai please reintroduces 14 days mandatory quarantine for Japanese. It is ridiculous to lift the mandatory quarantine.

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Guangdong to enforce quarantine to Macau, HK and Taiwan residents

Guangdong authorities announced today that starting from 6:00am of March 27 any residents from Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan entering through its border checkpoints will have to undergo 14-day quarantine at designated locations and at their own cost.

Exemptions will be granted for some people working in logistics of essentials goods between Mainland China to Macau and Hong Kong.

The announcement comes after both SARs this week
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several new stricter regulations, with local residents now effectively blocked from entering Guangdong and Hong Kong without having to be subject to quarantine.

The number of imported Covid-19 cases reported in Macau has increased in the last week, with 21 new cases confirmed, all imported, and bringing the total tally to 31.
 

supersnoop

Major
Registered Member
Question
There was some previous discussion regarding ECMO machines which is supposed to be more effective than traditional ventilator. It is also the machine of choice for most severe cases.
However, the cost of the machine is expensive (Typically ~$200,000 US, a company in China claims it can do it for "only" $160,000 US)

However, it seems that the distribution of these machines is very uneven. I read that there are zero in all of Scotland (population 5 million) and Northern Ireland. In Vancouver General Hospital there are 9 such machines (Greater Vancouver population 2.5 million).

There was one article posted before that mentioned one of the hospitals the WHO team visited was surprised there were 6 such machines in that hospital alone.

Anyone familiar with this technology/medical professionals shed some light?
 
I've now probably experienced a reading comprehension problem:

at
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25 March 01:00 gmt — The outbreak in Italy went undetected for weeks

begins with

"The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was present in northern Italy as early as 1 January."

and later links

The early phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in Lombardy, Italy
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so I opened the PDF document
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but couldn't quickly find inside (after jumping what's found using Ctrl+F January)

a backup of "The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was present in northern Italy as early as 1 January." claim,

but it's nature.com making that claim
 

superdog

Junior Member
Question
There was some previous discussion regarding ECMO machines which is supposed to be more effective than traditional ventilator. It is also the machine of choice for most severe cases.
However, the cost of the machine is expensive (Typically ~$200,000 US, a company in China claims it can do it for "only" $160,000 US)

However, it seems that the distribution of these machines is very uneven. I read that there are zero in all of Scotland (population 5 million) and Northern Ireland. In Vancouver General Hospital there are 9 such machines (Greater Vancouver population 2.5 million).

There was one article posted before that mentioned one of the hospitals the WHO team visited was surprised there were 6 such machines in that hospital alone.

Anyone familiar with this technology/medical professionals shed some light?
It's not just that the machine is expensive, you also need a whole team of multiple doctors, nurses and specialists working together to apply this procedure for each patient. Raising the fund for ECMO machines may be the easiest part, it'd be harder to actually secure a unit when there is global shortage, and even harder to get enough people with specialized training to use these machines. This is not included in your regular medical training for doctors and nurses.

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