Leading US health experts predicted a different type of coronavirus could kill 65million people in a year (1 Viewer)

[Max Power]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7925475/US-health-experts-predicted-coronavirus-kill-65million-people-year-THREE-months-ago.html

Leading US health experts predicted a coronavirus could kill tens of millions of people in a chilling warning three months before the deadly outbreak in China.

Scientists at the prestigious Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security modeled a hypothetical pandemic on a computer as part of research last October.

The simulation predicted 65million people from every corner of the world would be wiped out in just 18 months.  

So far the highly contagious disease currently ravaging China has killed 41 people and infected more than 1,200 - but experts predict the true number to be thousands.

2 confirmed cases in the U.S.     There are some concerning photos posted online from China.  

******

Joe edited the title to be more clear

 

[msommer]

2 confirmed cases in the U.S.     There are some concerning photos posted online from China.  

"A" coronavirus. Not this coronavirus.

The virus in Toner's simulation would be resistant to any modern vaccine. It would be deadlier than SARS, but about as easy to catch as the flu.

An initial first impression is that this is significantly milder than SARS. So that's reassuring. On the other hand, it may be more transmissible than SARS, at least in the community setting.'

So, the 65 million is a case where the virus is very different and more deadly.

 

[HellToupee]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-plans-to-evacuate-citizens-from-epidemic-stricken-chinese-city-11579951256
US to evacuate citizens from Wuhan

 

[HellToupee]

 China coronavirus spread is accelerating, Xi Jinping warns 
 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51249208

The story has a tweeted video from a checkpoint 

 

[Joe Bryant]

"A" coronavirus. Not this coronavirus.

So, the 65 million is a case where the virus is very different and more deadly.

Thanks for the clarification. 

Is anyone saying THIS virus could have that kind of destruction?

 

[msommer]

Thanks for the clarification. 

Is anyone saying THIS virus could have that kind of destruction?

Not at the moment that I've seen. We're all still going off official news from China, though.
With more sightings cropping up around the world we'll see if we get data points that contradict official news.

ETA: At current calculated death rates (between 2 and 4% but trending to the lower end so far)  there would have to be between 1.5 and 3 billion confirmed cases to reach 65 million deaths

 

[Lutherman2112]

This virus is relatively new, or young; between 10-12 weeks. Researchers believe the incubation period is about 14 days.

If you look at data on deaths a majority are 50+ years old and male. 

People are catching this virus and getting over it more than are dying.

A ounce of prevention, pound of cure and all that, but I think some people just like to freak out.

ETA: my link

 

[Joe Bryant]

Also - purely FWIW, I flew commercial airlines a good bit recently. From Hawaii to Las Vegas Friday. Then Las Vegas to Nashville yesterday.

Airport stuff seemed completely normal. A few folks (mostly Asian) wearing masks but that's not all that unusual anytime. 

Definitely no hysteria or anything remotely like that. 

 

[The General]

Also - purely FWIW, I flew commercial airlines a good bit recently. From Hawaii to Las Vegas Friday. Then Las Vegas to Nashville yesterday.

Airport stuff seemed completely normal. A few folks (mostly Asian) wearing masks but that's not all that unusual anytime. 

Definitely no hysteria or anything remotely like that. 

I live in an area that has a bit higher Asian population and was a bit disconcerting to see people (Asians) shopping at the grocery store last week. Just flew out of an international terminal and there were tons of people wearing masks. 

It's a sensational and scary story but I'm much more worried about getting some bad food or just typical flu/bug that are around different parts of the country.

Trying not to read these threads as much to keep from freaking myself out but can't help it.

 

[HellToupee]

 


Coronavirus: China has quarantined 50 million people. Experts worry that might backfire

The race to curb the spread of the new strain of coronavirus that has killed more than 100 people worldwide has triggered a massive public health experiment in China that is being closely watched by health experts around the globe.

Chinese authorities have indefinitely barred 50 million people from traveling and advised them to stay home to contain the rapidly spreading virus, known as 2019-nCoV.

A quarantine of this scope is "absolutely unprecedented," said Lauren Sauer, an emergency medicine professor at Johns Hopkins University. "I can't think of anything that comes even remotely close."

On Tuesday, as case counts rose, Chinese authorities agreed to allow the World Health Organization to send international experts to China to assist with research and containment of the virus. It is unclear whether or how that will affect the standing quarantine orders.

The virus has so far infected nearly 5,000 people on four continents after it was first detected late last year in Wuhan, China. Five cases have been reported in the United States, including two in Southern California.

China's containment measures could theoretically prevent infected people from introducing the virus elsewhere in the country or world, experts say. The virus is believed to be spreading from person to person through coughing and sneezing, though information evolves daily.

But the lockdown orders were likely put into effect too late and could lead to food and medicine shortages that worsen the outbreak, said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law.

Many experts also worry that the measures, which some consider inhumane, could stoke panic and mistrust in the government and ultimately impede prevention efforts.

"There's reason to believe that this could backfire," Gostin said.

In December, cases of a pneumonia-like illness began to mount in Wuhan, a major city in central China. Chinese authorities who sequenced the virus learned it had never been seen before but was genetically similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome, also known as SARS, which killed 800 people worldwide in 2003.

In an attempt to contain the outbreak, Chinese officials last week began sealing off highways and closing bus and subway systems in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people. Lockdown orders have since been expanded and now apply to more than 50 million people across 17 cities.

John McGory, 65, has been mostly confined for the past week to his apartment on a Wuhan university campus where he teaches English.

He can leave the grounds through a single gate, if he is wearing a mask, but most friends are unwilling to meet up because of fears of falling ill, he said. Nearly 3,000 coronavirus cases have been in Hubei, the province of which Wuhan is the capital.

Streets and stores in the usually bustling city, the seventh-most populous in China, are largely deserted, he said.

"It's just a ghost town now," said McGory, an American who has lived in Wuhan for six years.

In public health lingo, "quarantine" typically refers to confining people who have likely been infected with a virus. Measures that limit the movement of large swaths of people, like entire cities, are called "cordon sanitaire," a French term that has been adopted into English meaning sanitary barrier.

Cordons were widely used to control the Black Plague during the Middle Ages. A cordon was implemented in West Africa in 2014 during an Ebola outbreak, prompting cries that it was inhumane to trap people in an infected area while waiting for a fatal disease to run its course.

Though Ebola is far more deadly than this coronavirus, the people left in Wuhan and other cities are still likely to "feel like they're kind of being left as guinea pigs," Gostin said.

And the most important thing in public health is maintaining the public's trust so they will cooperate with prevention measures, he added.

"It will provoke fear and panic, and people will not come into the hospital, and so you'll drive the epidemic underground," said Gostin, a Georgetown University law professor. "You might even amplify the epidemic."

Little is definitively known about 2019-nCoV. Officials are unsure how likely people who get it are to die, whether it can be transmitted before people show symptoms, where it originated and when exactly it began circulating.

Gostin added that the barrier was implemented too late to keep the disease from spreading beyond the region. When the cordon was announced last week, people in other countries had already been diagnosed with 2019-nCoV. There have also been reports that in the days before the quarantine was enacted, thousands fled their homes.

Some experts hypothesized that China's response is an overcorrection to its handling of the SARS outbreak in 2003. Chinese authorities were criticized for not acting quickly enough, allowing the deadly virus to infect 8,000 people worldwide.

"People were very angry that they failed to share what was going on rapidly," said New York University bioethics professor Arthur Caplan. "They definitely may be trying to look transparent or do the best they can."

And if there's one country that could pull off these large-scale quarantines, it's China, he said.

In addition to being ruled by an authoritarian government, Chinese people tend to be more community-oriented and willing to do things for the greater good than Americans, who are more focused on their individual liberties and freedoms, Caplan said.

"Those values have muted some of the protesting and dissent that you might get if you tried to do it elsewhere," he said. "China can clearly enforce."

Caplan pointed out that telling people to stay inside the boundaries of a massive city is less restrictive than a traditional quarantine that forces people to stay inside their homes all day. Most people who live in Los Angeles, for example, don't leave the city on a daily basis.

Still, any restrictions on freedom are touchy in the United States. Here, public health officials often refrain from using the word quarantine as to not stir backlash. When a nurse flying into Newark airport was quarantined because officials feared she had Ebola, she, with the help of the ACLU, later sued then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

For that reason, U.S. officials opt for a different tack during outbreaks. During a swine flu pandemic in 2009, U.S. officials considered canceling public events, closing schools and recommending that people wash their hands, said Dartmouth College professor Dr. Elizabeth Talbot.

"We would almost certainly not do any quarantine on the scope that China is doing now," she said. "We have a different cultural acceptance of restriction of our rights, and quarantine always bumps up against that."

Currently in the United States, the risk of catching the coronavirus is extremely low, experts say.

Anyone worried about falling ill should remember to wash their hands and take other routine prevention measures that will also protect people during flu season, which is ongoing and will run through May.

Before the coronavirus outbreak, McGory had resigned from his job and was planning on moving back to Ohio, where he is from. For now, however, he is stuck in Wuhan.

Authorities have provided no information about when the quarantine orders will be lifted. McGory said the grocery stores were already running low on food and other supplies last week.

As the measures go on longer, he said he anticipates that anxiety will build. At the very least, people will likely begin — if they haven't already — obsessing about sore throats and other cold symptoms, worried they have caught the coronavirus.

McGory compared what's happening in Wuhan to shutting down Chicago, as both are major university-filled cities in the middle of the country.

"How long could you shut Chicago down before chaos ensues?" he said. "We'll see."

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©2020 the Los Angeles Times

Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com

 

[adonis]

In a completely unrelated note, I'm re-reading The Stand.

 

[OrtonToOlsen]

In a completely unrelated note, I'm re-reading The Stand.

Can you dig your man?

 

[roadkill1292]

In a completely unrelated note, I'm re-reading The Stand.

This board has always been underappreciative, imo, of pandemic/apocalyptic discussions. 

 

[msommer]

This board has always been underappreciative, imo, of pandemic/apocalyptic discussions. 

Maybe you, Ham and icon should petition for a SHTF forum

 

[unckeyherb]

In a completely unrelated note, I'm re-reading The Stand.

Also unrelated, Contagion just happened to be on tv yesterday...so I watched.

 

[roadkill1292]

Maybe you, Ham and icon should petition for a SHTF forum

At another board -- one even nerdier than this one -- a hypothetical case where 20% of the nation's population dies suddenly of illness would trigger pages and pages of debate about how existing daily life would be affected. Would the power stay on? Would food transportation continue to meet demands in the urban areas? Would the nukes begin to fly?

Here, crickets.

 

[lod001]

Coronavirus shows that if a real killer virus gets unleashed anywhere in the civilized world, people will drop dead way faster than it can be contained. What we are seeing is the exact denial that would happen and in that case, it would be catastrophic. 

 

[Sand]

At another board -- one even nerdier than this one -- a hypothetical case where 20% of the nation's population dies suddenly of illness would trigger pages and pages of debate about how existing daily life would be affected. Would the power stay on? Would food transportation continue to meet demands in the urban areas? Would the nukes begin to fly?

Here, crickets.

Which nerdier board?  That just seems to be similar to the hypothetical "how many six year olds could you take in a fight".  We take on real issues here.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Coronavirus shows that if a real killer virus gets unleashed anywhere in the civilized world, people will drop dead way faster than it can be contained. What we are seeing is the exact denial that would happen and in that case, it would be catastrophic. 

This was January 30th.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Gostin added that the barrier was implemented too late to keep the disease from spreading beyond the region. When the cordon was announced last week, people in other countries had already been diagnosed with 2019-nCoV. There have also been reports that in the days before the quarantine was enacted, thousands fled their homes.

January 28, that’s ball game. Our preparedness in this country should have started then.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

 China coronavirus spread is accelerating, Xi Jinping warns 
 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51249208

The story has a tweeted video from a checkpoint 

>>Meanwhile, UK-based researchers have warned of a real possibility that China will not be able to contain the virus. 

...Scientists at the respected MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis in the UK have warned that it may not be possible to contain the virus to China. 

They say self-sustaining human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus is the "only plausible explanation" for the scale of the epidemic.

Their calculations estimate each infected person is passing it onto, on average, 2.5 other people. <<

January 25.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

The simulation predicted 65million people from every corner of the world would be wiped out in just 18 months.  

This is a totally different disease and a model but it just goes to show it’s a complete roll of the RNA dice. It could be and could have been anything and we have had our collective head up our asses about it.

 

[kface]

This is a totally different disease and a model but it just goes to show it’s a complete roll of the RNA dice. It could be and could have been anything and we have had our collective head up our asses about it.

As I keep pointing out, the major threat that we are all ignoring is the overuse of antibiotics in animal growth...the anitbiotic resistant superbug is coming for us and when it does there is nothing we are going to be able to do about it

 

[supermike80]

As I keep pointing out, the major threat that we are all ignoring is the overuse of antibiotics in animal growth...the anitbiotic resistant superbug is coming for us and when it does there is nothing we are going to be able to do about it

That and Yellowstone.  Gonna erupt and kill 1/3 of the US and lead to a global winter.  We are not prepared.  And I blame this administration for that

 

[Stealthycat]

or any other type virus / pandemic ..... its always been a threat, it just is very real now

 

[kface]

That and Yellowstone.  Gonna erupt and kill 1/3 of the US and lead to a global winter.  We are not prepared.  And I blame this administration for that

I hope they are prepared for that...

And while you are being silly and provocative for no reason, anti-biotic resistance is an issue science has been screaming about for the last decade but nobody wants to listen

 

[supermike80]

I hope they are prepared for that...

And while you are being silly and provocative for no reason, anti-biotic resistance is an issue science has been screaming about for the last decade but nobody wants to listen

Same with Yellowstone.  Exactly the same with Yellowstone.  Not prepared.  

Not to mention, asteroids.  We have been warned countless times.  Not prepared if one hits.  We have done almost nothing.   Again, this administration continues to ignore these reports.

 

[kface]

Same with Yellowstone.  Exactly the same with Yellowstone.  Not prepared.  

Not to mention, asteroids.  We have been warned countless times.  Not prepared if one hits.  We have done almost nothing.   Again, this administration continues to ignore these reports.

Again...if you can't bother to engage why do it other than to be inflammatory? We get it...you are trolling hard

 

[supermike80]

Again...if you can't bother to engage why do it other than to be inflammatory? We get it...you are trolling hard

I totally agree.  Thee are literally dozens of things out there that can kill us.  

 

[dkp993]

I hope they are prepared for that...

And while you are being silly and provocative for no reason, anti-biotic resistance is an issue science has been screaming about for the last decade but nobody wants to listen

Same with Yellowstone.  Exactly the same with Yellowstone.  Not prepared.  

Not to mention, asteroids.  We have been warned countless times.  Not prepared if one hits.  We have done almost nothing.   Again, this administration continues to ignore these reports.

One massive difference you’re dismissing in this argument. One we’re in complete control of the other we’re at the complete mercy of.  

 

[kface]

One massive difference you’re dismissing in this argument. One we’re in complete control of the other we’re at the complete mercy of.  

Hes just being inflammatory for the sake of it