COVID* STANDFORD MASK STUDY---Elsevier journal to retract widely debunked masks study whose author claimed a Stanford affiliation p345

New Cidrap Not sure if posted

All pretty much material already covered, but my head is kinda spinning at this point.

[link to www.cidrap.umn.edu]

Last Edited by Feistylorax on 01/27/2020 08:52 PM

Shit, I'll try it. No downside I can see.

San Diego County Health Department is investigating a possible case of the coronavirus.
Test samples from the patient have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control for confirmation.


Thanks

OP you are doing a great job!!

Thanks. For the most part, the trolls have left us alone.

And, those who started trolling, have dialed it back and are contributing.

This is a team effort.

You run a tight ship...you scared the trolls off.

Germany confirmed

One does what one can.

And if you survive you will still have severe sequelae in your lungs.

I'm seeing reports of a case in Ecuador. Not sure if confirmed or suspect.

If this is the case, then that covers every continent except Antarctica, as I see it. Every continent has suspects except way south.

Now we wait for the H2H to appear.

Yeah. I suspect this is so. I'm sure we won't see survivors interviewed until after this is over.

[link to www.scientificamerican.com (secure)]

Helen Branswell article. She gets it.


Experts Warn of Possible Sustained Global Spread of New Coronavirus

Some infectious disease experts are warning that it may no longer be feasible to contain the new coronavirus circulating in China. Failure to stop it there could see the virus spread in a sustained way around the world and even perhaps join the ranks of respiratory viruses that regularly infect people.

“The more we learn about it, the greater the possibility is that transmission will not be able to be controlled with public health measures,” said Dr. Allison McGeer, a Toronto-based infectious disease specialist who contracted SARS in 2003 and who helped Saudi Arabia control several hospital-based outbreaks of MERS.

If that’s the case, she said, “we’re living with a new human virus, and we’re going to find out if it will spread around the globe.” McGeer cautioned that because the true severity of the outbreak isn’t yet known, it’s impossible to predict what the impact of that spread would be, though she noted it would likely pose significant challenges to health care facilities.

The pessimistic assessment comes from both researchers studying the dynamics of the outbreak—the rate at which cases are rising in and emerging from China—and infectious diseases experts who are parsing the first published studies describing cases to see if public health tools such as isolation and quarantine could as effective in this outbreak as they were in the 2003 SARS epidemic.

[link to www.sciencealert.com (secure)]

WHO Has Admitted an Error in Its Assessment of Wuhan Coronavirus Risk
DARIO THUBURN, AFP
28 JAN 2020

The World Health Organization, which has sometimes been criticised for its handling of past disease outbreaks, admitted an error on Monday in its risk assessment of China's deadly virus.

The Geneva-based UN agency said in a situation report late Sunday that the risk was "very high in China, high at the regional level and high at the global level."

In a footnote, the WHO explained that it had stated "incorrectly" in its previous reports on Thursday, Friday and Saturday that the global risk was "moderate".

Anyone know if there's a He-Man "I Have the Power" smiley?

"China Wuhan Citizen Shares the Real Truth on the Ground Behind the Viral Epidemic"

I think this might have been re-uploaded by someone other than the original creator. First time seeing this one.

Oh dear
[link to www.sciencealert.com (secure)]

yeah, they tried to sneak it by everyone by using a footnote to fix problem.

I know it was caught this morning by Treyfish at Flutrackers, amongst others.

Fuck the WHO

4573 confirmed

Here's the WHO sit. rep. for Jan. 27, 2020:

[link to www.who.int (secure)]

[link to twitter.com (secure)]

video supposedly in a Wuhan hospital. If this is accurate, God help us all.

If anyone believes in what China officials say about the #coronavirus they are idiots. Please add at least two more zeros behind the number they announced. Inside hospital in Wuhan.

Hong Kong closing all public cultural and leisure facilities

Something you have to remember is some of those people would have died anyway and were probably already sick from other problems.

Press conference in 6 minutes:


[link to www.youtube.com (secure)]

I'll post this here too since your thread is pinned.
====

I hate to point to another forum, but people must read the presentation that the Dean of Medicine at Hong Kong University gave earlier.

Reddit linking seems to be forbidden so you'll have to find it on your own in the China_Flu subreddit.


He is saying the infections approached 44 thousand cases TWO DAYS AGO on January 25th (Chinese New Year).

QUOTE: We ran the model with and without the quarantines accounted for, and the forecasts are very similar.

He is saying all of the citywide lock downs will have little effect. [Many of us were saying this was just a show for the public]

Reddit post follows
===============================================
I made the following notes during the press conference by Professor Gabriel Leung. He is the Dean of Medicine at Hong Kong University and led HK's efforts against H1N1 in 2009.
I was only able to summarize the English portions. Also I apologize if I have misnamed or mistaken any Chinese cities, I did my best to transcribe them correctly.
GL: The report I am about to share with you (PDF) is also being immediately sent to the authorities in Beijing and to the WHO.
GL: The epidemic is growing at an exponential, accelerating rate. The real question is given the lag between infection, incubation, symptom onset, hospital admission, treatment, and then recovering or perishing, given that lag, we used our mathematical model to try and infer how many cases there actually are/were (as of two days ago) in Wuhan and other places in mainland China.
GL: the basic reproductive number we measure as 2.13 - this is the best estimate we have at the moment. A doubling time of six days in the absence of any public health interventions is expected.
GL: (explaining a graph presentation) The number of clinically apparent cases we model to be 25 to 26 thousand as of Chinese New Year Day. The number of total infections when including presymptomatic cases "approaches 44 thousand."
GL: Wuhan is extensively connected to the North, South, East and West of China. The number of cases exported from Wuhan to the rest of mainland China, in our model as of Jan25, range from 18 in Qingdao to a high of 318 in Chongqing. The numbers will be higher by now. But that's not the most important point. There have been megalopolis quarantines since Jan23. We ran the model with and without the quarantines accounted for, and the forecasts are very similar. The quarantines may not be able to substantially change the course of the epidemic curves in other major Chinese city clusters.
GL: We modeled epidemic curves out to August 2020 for all the major city clusters in China: Chongqing, Shanghai-Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Beijing. Chongqing is predicted to have the largest epidemic due to large population and most intense traffic volume coupled to Wuhan. The timing of the peak is sometime in April to May 2020, one to two weeks in Chonqing before the other major city clusters (except Wuhan which will peak even earlier).
GL: a special note on HK and Macao. They are also linked to G'zhou and Shenzhen by rail which may (be more important than?) the links direct from HK/Macao to Wuhan. (His speech is not clear here).
GL: We are expecting to see Self sustaining epidemic clusters - not just repeated exports from Wuhan but actually a local self sustaining epidemic - within all five?/four? of the major city clusters of China.
GL: The question is now whether those predicted self sustaining epidemics will in turn seed such local epidemics overseas. The four Bj/Sh/Gz/Shz account for 53% of all international travel in the country and 70% of all international air travel out of Asia originating from mainland China. These four are highly likely to seed local epidemics in connected ports overseas.
GL: The conclusion that we draw from this analysis - why it's important to submit it publicly immediately after sending to WHO - The epidemic in Wuhan, as a precautionary principle, we must be prepared for it to become a global epidemic. This is not a certainty but there is a "not weak," "not insubstantial," "not trivial" chance that this will happen.
GL: There is already self sustaining chains of transmission modeled in the major Chinese cities. (Because the four mega city clusters have such high population?), if these cities were in turn to become significant exporters of virus (due to the acceleration of their epidemic curves?), they would have a "NOT TRIVIAL" chance of kickstarting local epidemics in connected overseas cities.
GL: Again let me emphasize, this is not a prediction but these findings make us concerned enough to alert the authorities and the public to keep everyone informed. It is incumbent on us to prepare for this non trivial possibility.
GL: If we want to change the course of these epidemic curves, then we are looking at "SUBSTANTIAL, DRACONION MEASURES LIMITING POPULATION MOBILITY" which should be taken sooner rather than later: school closures, ban mass gatherings, work from home, but also between population clusters, we must reduce population mobility. Should containment fail and local transmission is established, mitigation measures from previous pandemics could "come off the shelf" as templates for action. The major Chinese cities would be "well advised" to review these mitigation plans and prepare to act. (Prof. Leung did not specify in English what those measures would be).
Questions and Answers Session

Q: Do you advise HK govt to close transit with mainland?
GL: Should HK do more than recent actions with respect to (Hubei?), yes, they must do more. The question is how do we make a plan that is feasible - keep HK fed - also implementable and enforceable.
Q: Do you advise WHO to declare global emergency?
GL: I am not an expert in this declaration but am sure the WHO can take reference from emerging scientific findings "all coming to similar conclusions."
Q: How many imported case for HK in coming days or weeks?
GL: Cannot look into crystal ball. The question is whether HK will "receive so many exposure cases whether apparent or not" that they spark a local epidemic? At the moment, nobody can tell. We must be more alert and vigilant.
Q: What is the WHO's understanding of presymptomatic transmission?
GL: We don't know the severity profile. Everyone currently is guessing. We must do extensive testing of the "full unbiased, unselected sample" of cases "sweeping down the clinical severity spectrum." There is a bias towards confirming and testing the patients who are obviously sick. We are not yet testing outpatients and everyone who comes in with mild symptoms. So we don't know the infectivity of presymptomatic patients. Healthcare workers are already at the PEAK of their capacity. Laboratory capacity constraints - surge capacity for testing - and the quality control to prevent false positives/negatives in tests - also restrain us. Whatever we are now seeing is the BEST GUESS from our clinicians who are most experienced and have lived through similar epidemics but that is no guarantee we are correct because even different coronaviruses (SARS/MERS) are very different.
GL: (clarifying) What we are hoping is that "viral shedding" (?) scales, preferably even exponentially, with symptom severity. But we don't know, it is a conclusion we can only hope for.
Q: What about overflow of patients - overcrowding, too many patients to test?
GL: We want to avoid crowds but hospitals are a magnet in the event of a epidemic. There is the possibility for major superspreading events in hospitals while people wait to be tested. Hospitals must try better to manage crowds.
Q: Does presymptomatic infectivity mean screening is now inefficient?
GL: We don't know the clinical spectrum. For example SARS - you WILL become moderately to severely sick. MERS, it's more like other respiratory viruses, there's a wide range of (clinical isotopes? clinical iceberg? I think he means there's plenty of people who barely get sick). What NCoV turns out to be, we don't know. So far NCoV looks more like MERS than SARS in clinical severity spectrum but that is based on our observations, it is still a best guess.
Q: Should uninfected people wear masks in public?
GL: Yes. If you go out, wear a mask. Don't treat it as your universal protection. Mask technique and hygiene is important. Also coronaviruses tend to spread more by airborne route than by large droplets. But it is not plausible to wear an anti-airborne (N95) mask for many people - if you're wearing it right, it really can make you dizzy. Not practical for 10hr a day.
Q: Question about fatality rate.
GL: Fatality rate is currently being measured only among people who are admitted and confirmed cases. So our best guess - of the hospitalization(?) fatality ratio is 14%. But let me emphasize that is not the CASE fatality ratio and certainly not the INFECTION fatality ratio... which will be much lower.
Q: Why advise draconian measures if so many factors are unknown? Overseas cases are being managed well currently with low fatality?
GL: Fatality ratio during the beginning of an epidemic is usually low. We learned that from SARS. For the first few weeks of SARS the WHO estimated 3-5% case fatality, it turned out to be 17% in HK. That's because of the timespan from infection to symptoms, to hospitalization, to treatment, to recovering or expiring - a full month. A cross-sectional cut will underestimate the true case fatality due to the characteristics of coronavirus (?). Secondly, overseas cases are self-screening for better prognosis (I am heavily paraphrasing that) because if you are very sick you won't travel and you can't pass the thermal screen. To base our actions on those cases which are caught early by thermal scans in otherwise healthy passengers is optimistic.

This was in the Zero Hedge article about the press conference although I have not seen it confirmed:

Though Leung warned that additional measures to contain the virus could improve projections, the team’s model predicted the number of infections in five mainland megacities – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Chongqing – would peak between late April and early May, and at the peak of the pandemic, as many as 150,000 new cases could be confirmed every day in Chongqing alone because of its large population and intense travel volume with Wuhan.

That might come from the PDF paper he announced at the press conference and not something he actually said at the event.

Team Survival is batting a solid .333