Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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The various nations have set up firewalls. Some are better than others. As firewalls fail, the unaffected nations will modify their firewalls to compensate. But for the individual nations that are affected, panic can set in. It is best to prepare a little for such a possibility should the firewall fail. It is a proactive approach.

Italy has the third highest infection count and the joint third highest death count for a country. Many municipalities in Northern Italy have been placed under quarantine. As of late February, Italy was hit harder than anywhere else in the EU by the COVID-19 outbreak. However, Italy was one of only two countries in Europe to suspend all direct flight to and from China and the earliest to do so, treating the outbreak with one of the toughest measures in the EU, adding onto the confusion amongst Italian politicians and experts.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been informed of the first U.S. coronavirus case of an unknown origin, an indication that the virus may be spreading. According to The Washington Post, the Northern California patient did not recently return from a foreign country or have contact with a confirmed case. Officials have begun tracing the contacts of the individual to find out how the person was infected and who they potentially exposed.

The California Department of Public Health reported Wednesday the individual is a resident of Solano County who had no known exposure to the virus through travel or close contact with a known infected individual.

An email sent out Wednesday by two UC Davis officials said the patient arrived at the medical center in Sacramento last Wednesday but was only tested for the virus on Sunday despite a request made by med center officials that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conduct a test when the patient was admitted.

“Today the CDC confirmed the patient’s test was positive,” said the email from David Lubarsky, vice-chancellor of human health services, and Brad Simmons, interim CEO of UC Davis Medical Center.

...

“Upon admission, our team asked public health officials if this case could be COVID-19. We requested COVID-19 testing by the CDC, since neither Sacramento County nor (the California Department of Public Health) is doing testing for coronavirus at this time. Since the patient did not fit the existing CDC criteria for COVID-19, a test was not immediately administered,” said the email, which added that, “UC Davis Health does not control the testing process.”

On Sunday, the CDC ordered COVID-19 testing of the patient and the patient was put on airborne precautions and strict contact precautions. The positive test results were announced on Wednesday.

This would be the first known instance of person-to-person transmission in the general public in the United States. Previously known instances of person-to-person transmission in the United States include one instance in Chicago, Illinois, and one in San Benito County, California. Both cases were after close, prolonged interaction with a family member who returned from Wuhan, China and had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by novel coronavirus. As of today, including this case, California has had 7 travel-related cases, one close contact case, and now one community transmission.

They could mean an extra 500K , on top of the figure you quoted .

( and as you say above this would be in addition to normal deaths )

"Would" or "could". It is all speculation, atm.
I have been through so many scares in my life that I have developed panic fatigue. Always time to panic later.

... the existing data so far indicates that if containment fails, as it seems it is doing, and if the virus isn't completely wiped out by warmer drier weather over the summer, ( as if the Southern Hemisphere didn't exist ), and if it doesn't mutate to a milder strain, ( unlikely apparently because of something about the RNA/DNA strand structure of this virus ), and if, as reliably indicated, a vaccine ( even if discovered now ) would not be available for at least a year, it *is* capable of infecting 40%-70% of the population, of making 20% of those infected very ill requiring hospitalisation/serious medical care, and of killing 10% of them, or approximately 2%-3% of the generally infected, ( which in the case of the UK, for example, would mean between 500K - 900K dead people ).

It is apparently much more infectious/"easily spreadable" than SARS, contagious in the absence of symptoms, and 10-25 times more deadly than most flu strains. This is the threat.

.... and as the WHO has been saying, virtually *no* country appears to be prepared to deal with this specific threat, most particularly the whole of Africa, much of the Middle East and near Asia, including as those do many war zones, refugee camps, porous borders and exhausted health system infrastructure, etc, and even some of the over-stretched health services of many Western nations, especially as many are already struggling to cope ( "corridor care" a new normal ), with the increasing numbers of old people, and younger, with chronic degenerative illnesses like diabetes and heart disease, both of which are apparently significant additional risk factors in Covid-19 fatality rates.

I think that it is important to take this seriously and think about how to prepare for the potentially widespread disruption that it may cause, whether that of sudden quarantine restrictions and associated loss of freedoms, disrupted trade routes resulting in shortages of food and other essential supplies such as medicines, etc, among other things in the short term, and in the longer term who knows, as countries face pressure over how much to spend on saving people ... ( not just from dying, but also from job loss, bankruptcy, etc ... ) ...

NB. .... .... which political decision-making I'm thinking might turn out to be the biggest challenge ... as it tends to end up being in a lot of infection/zombie/catastrophe stories.

You're young . There's a very good chance you'd survive . There's talk of rationing care in the UK based on likelihood to survive . At 63 there's a good chance I'd not be on the care list .

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/heal ... 61916.html

I do think the world is making such a big thing out of this. Yes it can be dangerous to the elderly or those with illnesses but so can about 500 other viruses and diseases that people die of every day. You can never be too careful. Yes, be hygienic and warn the public not to go out if they think they may have the coronavirus, but shutting schools and doctors surgeries or keeping people on a cruise ship for days just because a person sneezed is really going over the top in my opinion.

For comparison/reference, here's the weekly national flu map — influenza is currently widespread in every state except Idaho and Oregon (where it's regionally present).

Yes, don't panic, there's actually never any point doing that, but preparation can be useful, eg. stocking up on basic dry and tinned food stores, medicines, etc, as Fnord's posted quote ( at bottom of page 28 ), from a blog, suggests doing.

Lots of people stocked up for Y2K