Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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Every disposable face mask of every variety is completely sold out at two different home improvement stores in my town and have been since last week.

Some interesting developments out of China.

What is one of the most common items passed between people?

A study from 2014 stated: "Paper currency and coins may be a public health risk when associated with the simultaneous handling of food and could lead to the spread of nosocomial infections. Banknotes recovered from hospitals may be highly contaminated by Staphylococcus aureus. Salmonella species, Escherichia coli and S. aureus are commonly isolated from banknotes from food outlets. Laboratory simulations revealed that methicillin-resistant S. aureus can easily survive on coins, whereas E. coli, Salmonella species and viruses, including human influenza virus, Norovirus, Rhinovirus, hepatitis A virus, and Rotavirus, can be transmitted through hand contact. Large-scale, 16S rRNA, metagenomic studies and culturomics have the capacity to dramatically expand the known diversity of bacteria and viruses on money and fomites. This review summarizes the latest research on the potential of paper currency and coins to serve as sources of pathogenic agents." Source: Paper money and coins as potential vectors of transmissible disease.

So China has put it focus on this potential vector - paper money.

A branch of China’s central bank is gathering old paper currency from areas deemed high-risk for the coronavirus and destroying the cash to prevent the contagion from spreading, reports said Sunday.

The Guangzhou branch of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) ordered the destruction of all paper banknotes from hospitals, fresh food markets and buses in areas exposed to the COVID-19 outbreak to ensure the safety of cash dealings, the South China Morning Post reported.

“Money from key virus-hit areas will be sanitized with ultraviolet rays or heated and locked up for at least 14 days before it is distributed again,” Fan said.

The bank removed 7.8 billion yuan ($1.1 billion) from the southern province of Guangdong between Feb. 3 and Feb. 13, while adding nearly 3 billion yuan ($430,000) back into circulation, the Morning Post reported.

As billions in banknotes are being collected for disinfection or destruction, the PBOC has already distributed 600 billion yuan ($85.6 billion) in fresh currency throughout the country since Jan. 17, according to the outlet.

Source: Coronavirus triggers China to destroy, quarantine cash in outbreak hotspots, reports say



The other interesting story is out of Hong Kong, where people are hoarding goods and even resorting to theft. And of all things stealing toilet paper.

A group of three men wearing masks approached a delivery man around 6 a.m. local time outside the Wellcome Supermarket in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok district. One man wielded a knife. They then stole more than 600 rolls of toilet paper worth about $130 from the delivery truck, police said.

Social media images showed Hong Kong residents hoarding supplies in their small apartments, the New York Post reported. The supermarket where the robbery occurred denounced the “senseless” toilet paper heist, assuring residents that recent, temporary shortages were caused by people overbuying.

“We want to emphasize that we have sufficient toilet roll supply to meet demand,” Wellcome Supermarket said in a statement. “The temporary shortage was caused by the sudden and unusual surge in demand.”

Source: Coronavirus panic led to Hong Kong toilet paper theft at knifepoint: police

This is a sign that panic has begun in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has enormous numbers of foreigners who will be wanting to return home. Will they have to be quarantined as well when and if they get back?

In Australia people who are sick are being asked to stay home. But yesterday a older Asian woman with a bad cough had enough with people staring at her at a supermarket and coughed incessantly over three different self-serve terminals in what appeared to be a deliberate and spiteful attempt to spread her cough. Unfortunately people using the terminals after her had no idea of what she did.

Even if she didn't have coronavirus it's likely others are going to catch her chest infection.

Coronavirus is highly infective as demonstrated yesterday when the director of the Wuhan hospital died.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/17/asia ... index.html

Something is not right when people with the best precautions against the virus are succumbing? this seems to be the elephant in the room that the CHinese authorities are not really dealing with

SARS-like damage' seen in dead coronavirus patient in China, report says
Morgan Phillips

A lung biopsy found that a man who died in China from the new coronavirus last month had lung damage reminiscent of two prior coronavirus-related outbreaks, SARS and MERS.

The patient died on Jan. 27 after falling ill two weeks earlier and becoming increasingly breathless. Doctors bombarded him with various medications in attempts to save his life, including anti-infection treatment alfa-2b, AIDS medicines lopinavir and ritonavir and the antibiotic moxifloxacin to prevent secondary bacterial infection. He also received a steroid to treat inflamed lungs and “serious shortness of breath” and a lack of oxygen in his blood.

He reported traveling to Wuhan, China, where the COVID-19 outbreak began, from Jan. 8-12 and experienced initial symptoms of mild chills and a dry cough on Jan. 14, the first day of the illness.

His fever decreased as a result of the treatment, but his breathing worsened and his blood-oxygen levels plummeted as he reached his final day of life.

His heart stopped after experiencing acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which occurs when fluid builds in the alveoli, the tiny elastic air sacs in the lungs that bring oxygen into the blood and expel carbon dioxide.

“The pathological features of COVID-19 greatly resemble those seen in SARS and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus infection. In addition, the liver biopsy specimens of the patient with COVID-19 showed moderate microvascular steatosis and mild lobular and portal activity (figure 2C), indicating the injury could have been caused by either SARS-CoV-2 infection or drug-induced liver injury,” the new report published in The Lancet concluded.

The new case study provides insight into how the virus attacks the lungs of patients. Such analysis has been limited by “barely accessible autopsy or biopsy” data, the study’s authors said.

The new coronavirus, COVID-19, has infected more than 72,000 people and killed over 1,868, far larger numbers than those who suffered from the SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, or MERS, Middle East respiratory syndrome, two other coronavirus epidemics of the past two decades.

In late 2002, a coronavirus nicknamed SARS broke out in Southern China, causing severe pneumonia and rapidly spreading to other countries. SARS infected more than 8,000 and killed 774, before disappearing altogether after a number of public health measures. In 2012, a similar outbreak known as MERS began infecting people in Saudi Arabia. It still causes infections in a small number of people each year, and in total has caused around 2,500 infections and more than 850 deaths.

SARS and MERS came from animals, and this newest virus almost certainly did, too. The first people infected with the coronavirus visited or worked at a seafood market in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

The SARS disease appeared to be more deadly, however, killing around 10 percent of those infected.

https://www.foxnews.com/health/sars-like-damage-seen-in-dead-coronavirus-patient-in-china-report-says

^ I didn't even think of transmission through the eyes. That makes sense though. Ugh......

There is an old saying that "Hindsight is always 20/20". First, "hindsight" means "thinking about things after they've happened". "20/20" means "perfect vision". Eye doctors measure people's vision using two numbers. So when you put those together, "Hindsight is 20/20" means that you can easily tell what you should have done in the past, but it's harder to decide what to do in the future.

So when I thought about this coronavirus this morning, I thought about a couple major decisions made in the past. The first one that came in mind was the decision by the Chinese to cancel the Lunar New Years celebration this year. That was a really gutsy decision.

The Chinese government began clamping down on travel from Hubei Province just before one of their most important holidays of the year, the Lunar New Year. But suppose they failed to make that decision? This was the biggest travel time in the country. The Chinese government would be looking at a scenario where this coronavirus would now be endemic within their entire country. Perhaps one hundred times the amount of infected cases at this point of time.

In looking at this decision, it was the right move. And those in charge of making this decision should be commended.

There is another decision that came to mind. It is quarantining the cruise ship Diamond Princess. The cruise ship was put in quarantine in Yokohama in early February after a man who disembarked in Hong Kong was found to have the virus. At least 542 passengers and crew on the Diamond Princess have so far been infected by the Covid-19 virus - the biggest cluster outside mainland China. (The ship was carrying 3,700 people in total.)

So it turns out that the quarantine of this ship was the wrong move. Confining people in close quarter is not an effective approach. So protocols onboard the ship were ineffective in controlling the spread of the virus.

What would you have done with the 3700 people on the ship?

I would have probably evacuated the people who have tested negative for the coronavirus--back to the countries who would impose the 14-day quarantine upon arrival in that country.

I would have kept the people who tested positive for the virus on the ship, and have them receive treatment on the ship.

I would have isolated those who tested negative for the virus, but whose countries would not have imposed the 14-day quarantine.

Basically, I don't feel we should harshly criticize the previous actions----but we should learn from them, nevertheless.