Coronavirus - those in China, and general discussion

[Ruben von Zwack]

@realmayo, I can only speak for Munich. All the German infections were contracted in a small, sleepy suburb of Munich, right where I happen to live. So I can answer your question with... no. The only people who seem even aware are the Asian tourists, who are wearing face masks and keeping a distance on the subway. Every German person I ask if they think we should take some sort of precautions ridicules me ?

[Flickserve]

https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1506394-20200203.htm?fbclid=IwAR2-6HZ10P2WGYNbMVP3R_vYArGuD5eiWbkLzCE0HRg2esYS0nGVfRuv-0I
 

In HK, more immigration checkpoints are closing. 

[roddy]

27 minutes ago, realmayo said:

perhaps Admin might prefer a breakaway thread so that this one is limited to reports from the PRC?).

Admin might prefer that if there was a snowball's chance of maintaining the distinction. I may do it at some point though. 

 

No signs of any concern here in Edinburgh. Seen a couple of (I assume) Chinese people with masks on, but that's not hugely surprising in winter. I'd imagine the universities are just waiting for the suspected cases to start appearing, and it's certainly going to wreak havoc on exchange programs and the like. University of Edinburgh seems to be re-issuing standard guidance for their staff and students. Would be interesting to know if Chinese restaurants are suffering, but I can't justify a trip into town to visit the ones usually full of Chinese folk.

[Jan Finster]

A Chinese friend of mine, who works in Germany just returned from a trip to Taiwan. His bosses put him on a 14 day quarantine (= "do whatever you like, but do not come to work")....

[Lu]

2 hours ago, Jan Finster said:

A Chinese friend of mine, who works in Germany just returned from a trip to Taiwan.

That seems misguided (ill-informed, racist, whatever). There are, what, 10 cases in Taiwan?

[StChris]

Here's an archived link to a Caijin article that claimed that the number of deaths is greater than has been officially reported (it was taken down)

[Jan Finster]

23 minutes ago, Lu said:

That seems misguided (ill-informed, racist, whatever).

It is 100% not racist. I know his bosses and they absolutely love him. My Chinese colleague actually was not offended at all and understood. Other colleagues were scared,  but again not racist. 

 

Ill-informed? Maybe! Excessive? Most likely! However, the incidence that caused the 8 cases in Germany essentially lead to a temporary shut-down of that company. It is cheaper for his bosses to extend his holidays than to shut down  the business. 

[Tomsima]

@vellocetive noticed evidence/rumours of the coronavirus having originated in the wuhan sars research lab seem to be gaining more traction on weibo recently

[vellocet]

7 hours ago, Ruben von Zwack said:

Whow, 加油 Vellocet! Did you, or would you, consider an evacuation flight?

Nah.  The one flight out of Wuhan was arranged by the US State Department for its own personnel.   The rest of Americans in China can go die in a fire as far as they're concerned.  They have nothing but contempt for us, considering all Americans abroad as either fugitives from justice or tax evaders.  State thinks that its job is government-to-government relations and US citizen services are an unwanted chore.  

 

India and other countries have sent evacuation flights for their citizens.  They were surprised when I asked how much the tickets were.  Of course it was free, it's just something a government does for its own people.  Those few Americans who managed to get a seat on the one flight out got charged $1000 each.  For a one-way flight.  When a round-trip flight is $800-900. 

[feihong]

6 minutes ago, vellocet said:

India and other countries have sent evacuation flights for their citizens.  They were surprised when I asked how much the tickets were.  Of course it was free, it's just something a government does for its own people.  Those few Americans who managed to get a seat on the one flight out got charged $1000 each.  For a one-way flight.  When a round-trip flight is $800-900.

“The passengers include US diplomats and their families. The State Department said other US citizens could board on a reimbursable basis if space was available.“

The private citizens on the US evacuation flight will get their money back. Of course, it is a bit weird that they’ve been charged for a flight that you figure was already paid for by the government.

[mikelove]

FWIW, I was in Flushing, Queens last weekend (NYC's largest Chinatown) and there were far more face masks in use than normal, particularly among families with children and food service workers; the New World Mall food court actually has a Hubei place (which I am a great fan of - NYC has been trapped in a Sichuan rut for like two decades now) and while they were of course all wearing masks (if for no other reason than to reassure worried customers) the volume of business seemed to be fairly normal. Have not noticed significantly more masks than usual in Manhattan though.

 

Also, we're taking the kids on a cruise next week and the cruise company has sent out several increasingly alarmed emails about coronavirus and it now seems like they'll be banning anybody who's even set foot in China within 3 weeks of the departure date. (we're also going to Disney World so that's going to be interesting, Disney is so sensitive to cast member appearances that I doubt anybody who works there will be allowed to wear a mask but I'm sure there'll be a great many masked tourists)

[vellocet]

Well, I sure hope people had $1000 laying around that they could give the US government for God knows how long!  It was a complete dick move no matter what and it's shameful that other, far less wealthier countries didn't charge a penny.  Just State saving its own people, and the rest of us can go to the Devil as far as they care.

 

Cruise ships are a notorious breeding ground for viruses.  Not surprised they're paranoid about it.  

[889]

"The one flight out of Wuhan was arranged by the US State Department for its own personnel.   The rest of Americans in China can go die in a fire as far as they're concerned."

 

They are plannng more evacuation flights from Wuhan, so don't completely abandon hope.

 

https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/the-department-of-state-is-working-on-staging-additional-flights-for-u-s-citizens-to-return-to-the-united-states-from-wuhan/

 

[Balthazar]

Some potentially good news: Study claiming new coronavirus can be transmitted by people without symptoms was flawed

 

Quote

A paper published on 30 January in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) about the first four people in Germany infected with a novel coronavirus made many headlines because it seemed to confirm what public health experts feared: that someone who has no symptoms from infection with the virus, named 2019-nCoV, can still transmit it to others. That might make controlling the virus much harder.

 

Chinese researchers had previously suggested asymptomatic people might transmit the virus but had not presented clear-cut evidence. “There’s no doubt after reading [the NEJM] paper that asymptomatic transmission is occurring,” Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told journalists. “This study lays the question to rest.”

 

But now, it turns out that information was wrong. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the German government’s public health agency, has written a letter to NEJM to set the

record straight, even though it was not involved in the paper. 

 

The letter in NEJM described a cluster of infections that began after a businesswoman from Shanghai visited a company near Munich on 20 and 21 January, where she had a meeting with the first of four people who later fell ill. Crucially, she wasn’t sick at the time: “During her stay, she had been well with no sign or symptoms of infection but had become ill on her flight back to China,” the authors wrote. “The fact that asymptomatic persons are potential sources of 2019-nCoV infection may warrant a reassessment of transmission dynamics of the current outbreak.”

 

But the researchers didn’t actually speak to the woman before they published the paper. The last author, Michael Hoelscher of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich Medical Center, says the paper relied on information from the four other patients: “They told us that the patient from China did not appear to have any symptoms.” Afterward, however, RKI and the Health and Food Safety Authority of the state of Bavaria did talk to the Shanghai patient on the phone, and it turned out she did have symptoms while in Germany. According to people familiar with the call, she felt tired, suffered from muscle pain, and took paracetamol, a fever-lowering medication. (An RKI spokesperson would only confirm to Science that the woman had symptoms.)

 

 

[mackie1402]

So a quick update from Hangzhou. Some districts are getting locked down, one of which is mine. They're going block by block apparently. This was announced in a local district police WeChat subscription, so not just a rumour. People will be given a piece of paper which states only one person is allowed out to get food once per day. The police/army here are getting slightly more intimidating, too, but I suppose all in good cause! I still find the pictures a bit hard to believe, but they were sent from friends over in that area. 

 

Stay safe, everyone! 

 

Took down the pictures until I can get 100% verification. Don't want people worrying. Like @DavyJonesLocker said, they seem a bit far fetched.  

 

[abcdefg]

On 2/2/2020 at 4:54 AM, Jan Finster said:

On the plane in flight, you are probably fairly safe since the cabin completely exchanges its air every two to three minutes (20 to 30 air changes per hour). 

 

The two flights I took today from Hong Kong to Tokyo and Tokyo to Los Angeles were both on JAL. At the start of each, the Captain made an announcement about the airplane's filtration system. He said that it was cleaned before each long flight and that the recirculated air was doubly filtered, through a mechanical millipore filter that had 2.5 micron pores and a second time through charcoal. 

 

He just said it fast. I have not seen it in writing. Furthermore, it's not a subject about which I know very much. Both planes were older Boeing wide-body models, one a 777 and I'm not sure about the other. Didn't think to look at the seat-back information sheet. 

 

.

Quote

Some districts are getting locked down, one of which is mine. They're going block by block apparently. This was announced in a local district police WeChat subscription, so not just a rumour. People will be given a piece of paper which states only one person is allowed out to get food once per day.

 

I'm in Los Angeles now, Monday evening 3 Feb, and it is pretty much business as usual. Very few face masks. Seems so strange, coming from China. 

[DavyJonesLocker]

1 hour ago, mackie1402 said:

So a quick update from Hangzhou. Some districts are getting locked down, one of which is mine. They're going block by block apparently. This was announced in a local district police WeChat subscription, so not just a rumour. People will be given a piece of paper which states only one person is allowed out to get food once per day. The police/army here are getting slightly more intimidating, too, but I suppose all in good cause! I still find the pictures a bit hard to believe, but they were sent from friends over in that area. 

 

Stay safe, everyone! 

 

 

 

I doubt the pictures , the guy in the 2nd one could isn't wearing a mask and what's the point of the guns? I'd hazard a guess that was a bank, some diplomat, government meeting etc  

 

Several wechat groups I'm on has brought out a lot of the "heard from a mate facts" posters.   

 

Coverups, intentional creation of the virus etc style stories are a lot more interesting reading than the most likely cause (virus mutated from animals to humans). Several posters have been deleted for spreading false and foolish stories. 

[Jan Finster]

1 hour ago, Balthazar said:

Some potentially good news: Study claiming new coronavirus can be transmitted by people without symptoms was flawed

 

Thank you for sharing.

However, let us not get our hopes up too soon. Just because that one particular case series was flawed, the virus may still be infectious during the incubation period (=before showing signs). I posted on this on 26th January, so before that "study" came out (30th): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51254523

 

Let us wait for more evidence and be on the guard until then.

[mackie1402]

Examples of the tickets to get out of apartment blocks here. 

[889]

Hold on to 'em. By next year, all those cards and such will be collectors' items, like 粮票 and 铁路补票.