Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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eikonabridge earlier provided the following interesting graph to this thread on 25 January.


The graph shows the progression of the SARS coronavirus over time. From my perception, the SARS coronavirus and the COVID-19 coronavirus will follow a similar trajectory. This would mean that during the month of May, the number of cases of COVID-19 will nose dive. But May is a very long ways off and the number of individuals infected with COVID-19 has already exceeded the total number of infections during the SARS pandemic.

So off hand the total number of infections worldwide could reach 4-5 million by the end of May 2020.

The coronavirus epidemic could spread to about two-thirds of the world’s population if it cannot be controlled, according to Hong Kong’s leading public health epidemiologist. His warning came after the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said recent cases of coronavirus patients who had never visited China could be the “tip of the iceberg”.

Prof Gabriel Leung, the chair of public health medicine at Hong Kong University, said the overriding question was to figure out the size and shape of the iceberg. Most experts thought that each person infected would go on to transmit the virus to about 2.5 other people. That gave an “attack rate” of 60-80%.

Source: Coronavirus 'could infect 60% of global population if unchecked'

But the key words there is "if unchecked".

When I wake in the morning after a good sleep, that is generally the point in time that my mind explodes in wonder. So as I woke this morning, my thoughts were on this coronavirus.

From my perspective much of this threat could be controlled by the indoor environment which basically evolves around facility design. By facilities, I mean homes, businesses, hospitals, malls, cruise ships, etc.

The first observation IMHO is that you need not kill every virus. That is because the body has a built in immune system that deals with most of the threat. But you do not want to overload the immune system and you want to allow the body time to develop the antibodies that will be needed to provide protection. So you basically want to minimize the exposure.

There are two factors in facility design that will minimize exposure.

The first is relative humidity levels should be maintained between 40 and 60 percent relative humidity. The rationale for this is provided in the following article: This Inexpensive Action Lowers Hospital Infections And Protects Against Flu Season

At the personal level this is fairly easy to do. All you need is an inexpensive but accurate temperature/humidity thermometer so you can measure the indoor humidity levels and a means of interjecting humidity into the air.


I heat with a wood stove and a simple pot that you periodically fill with water will do the trick.

Most people will use a humidifier for this approach. But there are other ways such as using a diffuser (cool mist humidifier). I would bring in an empty spray bottle to work and set it for fine mist and whenever the humidity levels were low, I would pull it out of my desk and spray the area I worked in.

The second factor is to remove the saturation of viruses in the room air. How is this achieved? It is done using ultraviolet light. Some homes and business are equipped with this feature built into their HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems. Ultraviolet light eliminate many types of fungi, bacteria, germs, viruses and pathogens. This dramatically reduces the level of the viruses within buildings. Separating Fact from Myth on HVAC UV Light Benefits

The other thing that passed through my mind this morning was the dilemma with face mask. There are many problems with face mask. To list a few of the problems are (1) many people buy the wrong type, (2) they are not reusable and as a result can be expensive, and (3) they are out-of-stock.

My wife was in Lowes Home Improvement Store a few days ago and a woman had a clerk pull down a box of face mask from a high shelf. She went off and bought the entire box. But what she bought was construction face mask and they are absolutely useless against this type of threat. Viruses are extremely tiny and will easily pass through this type of face mask.

The face mask that should be worn for this type of coronavirus threat are N95. They will filter out extremely small particulates including viruses.

Brehus also indicated N100 and P100 face mask are also useable. My particular choice would be a salt impregnated face mask, such as the Respokare Anti-Viral Mask, which kills greater than 99.99% of similar coronaviruses in 1 minute. RespoKare Anti-Viral Face Mask

That is the type I will buy after this current pandemic is over with and they will become available again. I will buy a few boxes of them and store them in nitrogen filled environment for long term storage for the next pandemic.

Most of the face masks are designed as throw away items. Use them once and then toss them. But that is the heart of another problem. As people throw them away, they need to buy replacements. Due to demand, stocks are quickly depleted. Store selves empty and they become an out-of-stock item. Try buying an N95 mask today and the virus is not even endemic in the U.S. yet! Some people have resorted to washing the used mask in water but that destroys the mask. They are working on research for developing a futuristic face mask that is washable. But I suspect that is way in the future.

Some current guidelines for wearing face mask are:

Masks contain filters that prevent germs from being spread. For hygiene reasons, use disposable masks and replace them when they get moist. Masks can only be worn for a maximum of eight hours and it is best to change them regularly so they can remain effective.

So my mind turned to a different solution - a reconditioning box. After the face mask is worn, place it into a reconditioning box that will kill any viruses present on the mask and remove the moisture. It is basically a drying box that also bathes the interior with ultraviolet light to kill the virus. UV radiation can be harmful to people so this process must be performed in a sealed box. I don't think it would be difficult to prototype. Most of the parts are off-the-shelf.

This is what happens when people don't take warnings seriously...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... oronavirus

That’s not good....but it still doesn’t mean there’s a pandemic at this moment.

The 2,200 or so passengers should be rescreened when they get to their nations of residence.

The American passengers of the Diamond Princess will be quarantined for 14 days upon arrival in the US.

Beijing residents have been told to quarantine themselves for 14 days.

People are not allowed out of their their neighborhoods in Wuhan.

Measures are being implemented.

I agree that focus should be placed on preventing the spread of the coronavirus with medically underserved areas.

I notice there passenger is 83. Again begging the question of what are the demographics of this virus as far as who is contracting it and the severity of the symptoms.

The question should be: was this 83 year old person in China recently?

I read she's a woman. Somehow, I assumed the passenger was male.

She is a woman. Her husband doesn’t have the virus.

The WHO has been accused of not acting promptly in the early stages of the outbreak out of a need not to annoy the Chinese government authorities

Ironically this echoes their slow reaction to the ebola virus

Deductive reasoning, also deductive logic, is the process of reasoning from one or more statements to reach a logically certain conclusion. Deductive reasoning goes in the same direction as that of the conditionals, and links premises with conclusions.

I read an article that uses deductive reasoning to infer that the China’s novel coronavirus, COVID-19, has killed and infected many more people than officially reported.

Consider the latest numbers. In one day, total reported infections and deaths increased 44 percent and 23 percent, respectively. But not “because of any change in the shape of the outbreak,” which is nonetheless growing near-exponentially. Rather, it was merely because “the government changed the criteria by which it tracks confirmed cases.”

The official tally has been an underestimate and is still catching up to reality. As of Saturday, more than 1,500 people had reportedly died of the virus, with more than 69,000 cases reported worldwide. About 99 percent of the cases have been reported in China.

Many causes contribute to this undercounting.

First, the prevailing diagnostic test for COVID-19 may be only 30 to 40 percent accurate. Some carriers who took the diagnostic test were falsely cleared and erroneously excluded from the official tally.

Second, the diagnostic test itself is scarce. Tests are rationed for the most obviously symptomatic patients. But carriers can be asymptomatic. And they can be contagious before they even show signs of infection.

Third, Chinese hospitals have been overwhelmed with patients. Some people were turned away at the door. Others waited in day-long triage. The sickest may have been too weak to even attempt a hospital visit. Others were deterred from treatment by the wait times and shortages, so they self-quarantined. Yet only those who obtained medical treatment and also tested positive for the virus were included in the official tally.

Fourth, resources and public attention have concentrated on Wuhan, a city of 11 million, where the first cases of COVID-19 were reported. However, tens of millions more live in Wuhan’s surrounding province, Hubei, which is less equipped with healthcare services. To the extent uncounted cases exist in Wuhan, more uncounted cases exist in Wuhan’s exurbs.

Fifth, on top of these logistical challenges, politics also prevents an accurate appraisal. China’s communist government is a totalitarian, one-party state. The party justifies its monopoly by promising social stability and economic growth. News of an outbreak threatens both objectives, so the party has an existential interest in suppressing bad news.

------------------------------------------

For decades, China’s communist party has treated dissidents like an “evil” virus to be isolated and eliminated. Victims include a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights activists guilty of merely appealing to China’s own laws for relief from abusive officials. The party shoots the messenger.

In this environment, censorship is the rule. Dissenters are the exception.

The severity of the Chinese government’s actual response to COVID-19 is a more reliable indicator than the disease’s publicly acknowledged tally. While admitting to just 17 deaths from the virus, the party quarantined a region of about 60 million people. This decision guaranteed multibillion-dollar economic losses.

It is inconceivable that the Chinese government would wilfully suffer such a cost for the sake of a few dozen — or even a few hundred — lives.

The party is generally insensitive to public health. Air pollution contributes to roughly 1.6 million deaths per year. About half the country’s water is too polluted to touch. Food poisoning is routine; infants have starved to death when their parents relied on counterfeit baby formula. Approximately a quarter-million people per year die in traffic accidents, partly because perverse incentives in tort law make it cheaper for a negligent driver to kill a pedestrian than to cripple one.

In order for the party to have responded to COVID-19 this drastically, the death toll would first have had to exceed local officials’ capacity to cover it up, and then also convinced the nation’s top officials that it represents an existential threat.

Source: Lew Olowski: Coronavirus worse than reported – here's how China is catching up to reality

Saying "panicking is pointless because it will do nothing" is like saying to a grieving person "being sad is pointless because it won't bring the deceased loved one back". I'm panicking about the coronavirus because it's how it is making me feel and I'm not happy about it.

Like I said I hate China.

I think we can all agree on these points. It's the margins that are difficult to predict

The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the U.S. almost doubled overnight. I don't think I am concerned, it was the right thing to do. The U.S. began flying in its citizens from the cruise ship "Diamond Princess" back to the United States. In the group were 14 individuals with the coronavirus. They were immediately placed in quarantine. So essentially our numbers went from 15 to 29 overnight.
Source: Chartered flights carrying quarantined passengers arrive in US; 14 Americans infected, isolated

There is a tool for tracking infection rates Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by Johns Hopkins CSSE
I checked it this morning and it still shows the U.S. at 15. What is remarkable is that they created a special category for the "Diamond Princess" as a country/region. Currently it shows 369 confirmed cases aboard that ship. That number dwarfs all the other nations of the world except for China.