Coronavirus - those in China, and general discussion

[BanjoSlice]

Curious, how was student life affected during SARS? I searched for info on this on the site but the closest thread I got had been closed for discussion. Did school need to be extended or stopped altogether? Is that likely to happen this time(again?)?

[ChTTay]

Local expressway near us has set up a temperature check. You can still use all roads though. It’s a toll road but I wouldn’t have said a major one. 
 

Still being hit with wechat rumours started by local idiots. In Beijing there was on about a plane spraying the city.  Where I am now there was an “announcement” that suddenly 150+ people had the virus and the city would shut down all transport. 

[艾墨本]

School in Beijing has been canceled right now (gaokao prep stuff). Schools in Hubei will all extend winter break. For how long, exactly, is yet to be determined. There is talk that the Gaokao might be delayed which would be a very big deal.

 

As for actual numbers, the closest I can get is through people working as medical professions in China and it seems that numbers are for 10000 for sure with some closer to 20000. Predictions for total infected is at 40000-60000 depending on the effectiveness of the actions taken from now on.

 

Some info missing from this thread:

 

This became big as a consequence of Wuhan officials refusing to report the discovery of the virus as to avoid problems during some big meetings that were going on. To delay, despite the official place to test the virus being in Wuhan, the samples were sent to Shanghai and tested as a strain of corona viruses. Warnings from doctors were ignored for several weeks until it went viral. Some important doctor spoke out in contradiction of the official line that it wasn’t person to person transferable and said that it was. At the same time, a medicine that was said to exist as a result of SARS and could treat this was found not to exist despite years of claims which was resulted in doctor-patient conflicts.

 

at this point several weeks had passed, official numbers were in the dozens of infected while hospitals of people dying from it and videos of it were being passed around along with unofficial numbers of 1500ish being infected. 
 

So with the new viral attention someone compiled a heat map of where the people who shopped at the market were (北京上海广州). Official numbers started coming up with netizens pointing out how HK had a few confirmed with hundreds suspected while mainland had very few suspected despite rising numbers of confirmed leading to suspicion of continued injuries information suppression.

 

presently, knowledge of Wuhan officials blunders are common knowledge with the CCP coming out saying all officials from Wuhan will be punished. 

 

working in a school, all students are required to report if they have been to Wuhan, come into contact with someone from Wuhan or had plans to. All school activities must be cancelled (Shanghai) and regular spraying of a disinfectant. Similar plans are taking place at my relatives and friends in various areas of China that have few or no cases so far.

Shanghai is currently building a new hospital (in ten days) to deal with the impending influx of patients after spring festival ends. I hope it’s kept low as face masked in all of Shanghai have sold out. They currently go for 10 times the normal price on Tao so.

 

This way my way of answering the question of whether or not the media is overblowing this. I think not. If you need lots of cited sources for this to be real, then it’s best you wait for this to become history and researched as a case study of worst-case scenarios for infectious disease. 
 

typing this on phone so please forgive my unwillingness to get all the punctuation and formatting right.

[roddy]

US getting its folk out of Wuhan. 
https://www.theguardian.com/science/live/2020/jan/25/coronavirus-china-death-tolls-rises-to-41-as-france-confirms-three-cases?page=with%3Ablock-5e2c29c38f08e97ed212a2f0

[somethingfunny]

Heard a rumour at dinner last night that there is a suspected case at my local hospital here in the UK.

[roddy]

Buses between other provinces and Beijing suspended as of tomorrow. Source. 
 

That’s quite big. 

[BanjoSlice]

57 minutes ago, 艾墨本 said:

All school activities must be cancelled (Shanghai)

This one's really bad news for me. Anyway, let's hope the containment process can take less time than it took for SARS.

[Tomsima]

(some?) petrol stations in wuhan are apparently going to be shut from tomorrow, presumably in an attempt to stop people fleeing on small back roads. Most major roads in hubei now have checkpoints, and minor roads have big dirt mounds or log piles blocking them. we have friends who went away to hainan before new years who have not been allowed to come back - but not only that, they (and many other people from but not currently in hubei) have been quite literally thrown out of their hotel. Nobody is letting hubeiers stay at hotels. Our friend ended up finding one that finally agreed to let them stay if they first went to the hospital and completed a check up to say their temperature was normal.

 

Were going into day four of not leaving the house now and starting to get a bit of cabin fever. ive taken to learning how to write 千字文 out in full (I only learnt it orally back in 2018). Ive forgotten a lot, so that's been keeping me busy.

 

As for 方言, I can only speak in phrases, once I get into an actual conversation I just revert to putonghua while everyone else speaks in dialect. It will be years and years before I could ever hope to confidently sound out the correct tones in a dialect - there's no materials to refer to, pretty much every time I encounter a word I have to write down the tone contour based on what I heard (eg "he11 ca21 黑茶 (later said as he13 ca21)" and try and figure out why it was slightly different from the last time I heard it (tone sandhi? maybe. emphatic? maybe. etc) Rinse and repeat, gradually building up phrases and perhaps Ill get there one day…

[suMMit]

I ended flying out of the country for a while

[Flickserve]

10 hours ago, Jan Finster said:

You could also get yourself some disposable silicone gloves. But do not reuse them.

 

This is a double edged sword. You have to be alert to what you touch. I have seen health professionals wear gloves for protection, yet not take them off and touch other equipment. Then, someone can potentially touch the equipment with bare hands and boom, there's your transmission. I totally agree with your statement about not reusing gloves.

 

6 hours ago, 艾墨本 said:

As for actual numbers, the closest I can get is through people working as medical professions in China and it seems that numbers are for 10000 for sure with some closer to 20000. Predictions for total infected is at 40000-60000 depending on the effectiveness of the actions taken from now on.

 

Thanks. Really appreciate the information. Figures seem more realistic in line with the action of shutdown of the city/province. This goes back to an earlier post where I suspected numbers were higher. Looks like a lot of heads will roll in Wuhan. It's a massive embarrassment and setback to the country in its efforts to be seen as a modern society

 

Expecting to see higher figures for deaths. 41 as of present seems rather low.

 

5 hours ago, Lance said:

Anyway, let's hope the containment process can take less time than it took for SARS

 

With these numbers of infection and the delay in alerting the public, I don't think so. You need more than four weeks from the last known case to finally declare being free of the disease. It's a bit of speculation but probably we are looking at March earliest to confirm if cases are getting less. 

[Jan Finster]

19 hours ago, Shelley said:

After 2 weeks I would poke my head out of the door and see what was going on, normality? Go out and rejoin life.  No people about, tumbleweed blowing down the street? Close the door and repeat above for 2 more weeks.

 

Sadly, one of the first things you will out of in those 2 weeks is drinking water. Whenever I am in China the fact that you cannot safely drink tap water leaves me uneasy...

[Jan Finster]

2 hours ago, Flickserve said:

This is a double edged sword. You have to be alert to what you touch. I have seen health professionals wear gloves for protection, yet not take them off and touch other equipment.

Shame on them ?

 

You can use your disinfectant spray on the gloves too. For those of you with sensitive skins, using gloves means less frequent hand washing (your skin will thank you). 

 

Disinfect or wash your hands as soon as you get past the finger print scanner at customs....

[roddy]

8 hours ago, Tomsima said:

Were going into day four of not leaving the house now and starting to get a bit of cabin fever

Take a walk and get some photos of the locality for us. You need some fresh air. 

[ChTTay]

Local villages nearby have told people not to “visit relatives”. Today is the traditional day for doing that. No one has said anything here though. 
 

It’s not got as bad a village in Beijing reportedly barricading themselves in but the news seems to have finally hit home here in the sticks. 
 

As a result, people are out buying more 面粉 ? After all, that is all you need. 
 

I’m pushing to return to Beijing ASAP for fear of being trapped here. We could also leave China easily from Beijing if necessary. 

[Flickserve]

8 hours ago, Tomsima said:

Were going into day four of not leaving the house now and starting to get a bit of cabin fever.

You can go out for a walk. If you are in a particular affected area, then keep your distance from other people and gatherings.

[abcdefg]

Today the multiplex cinema in my closest shopping center is closed. (It was open and in full operation yesterday.) I looked on line, and it seems many of Kunming's other movie theaters are also closed. The few that are open have drastically reduced schedules, only two or three showings of the most popular films all day.

 

For example "Lost in Russia"   囧妈 (a big-budget holiday comedy) is only showing at one theater today or tomorrow. Nothing listed for the day after. Doubt this was planned, since it only opened yesterday and reviewers have predicted it would be a big money maker. It's a sequel to the blockbuster "Lost in Thailand" 泰囧 from 2012 or 2013.

 

[艾墨本]

3 hours ago, ChTTay said:

Local villages nearby have told people not to “visit relatives”. Today is the traditional day for doing that. No one has said anything here though. 

Where im at many (but from from everyone) did the 拜年 traditions digitally through wechat video. Normally everyone would go door to door around their neighborhood to wish a happy new year, give 红包, and catch up on gossip. 

[ChTTay]

yeah I think there were lots of phone calls! 
 

Village Roads closed as of this evening. If we hadn’t left today we’d have been stuck! 
 

Police check points after the expressway. 

 

When we went through the checkpoint they only care about cars that aren’t local. When our driver said he was from the next town over they just waved us through.

[BanjoSlice]

11 hours ago, Flickserve said:

With these numbers of infection and the delay in alerting the public, I don't think so. You need more than four weeks from the last known case to finally declare being free of the disease. It's a bit of speculation but probably we are looking at March earliest to confirm if cases are getting less. 

Sadly I've come to accept the reality that is that the best I can do is just relax and see what happens.

[mackie1402]

4 hours ago, abcdefg said:

For example "Lost in Russia"   囧妈 (a big-budget holiday comedy) is only showing at one theater today or tomorrow.

 

I just this second finished watching it on TV. My wife was telling me that because of the virus, they've made it free to watch on TV/streaming apps. I highly recommend it! Not quite as good as Lost in Thailand, though!