blackjeep
The end times are here.
All these poorly run countries do a terrible job of getting supplies out to where they are needed. Very frustrating to see!
CORONA Main Coronavirus thread
- Thread starter Heliobas Disciple
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marsh
On TB every waking moment
This is the rate of the very sick who have been hospitalized. It does not include all those who are infected but asymptomatic or have a lite case - at least not enough to be hospitalized. The death rate among all cases seems to be the high 2-4%.
i just read that he hasn't been seen in public for 5 days and the last time seen he was coughing while giving a speech (video,
View: https://twitter.com/5xyxh/status/1222755563773276160
not sure if it is "real")
Tristan
Has No Life - Lives on TB
The original movie with Vincent Price hewed closest to the story line in the novel, "The Omega Man" by Richard Matheson.
And, the book was better than all three, of course.
Last edited:
marsh
On TB every waking moment
It
The Aussies were successful in replicating the original strain and have distributed live virus to labs in advanced countries so they can develop vaccines and fast antibody diagnostic tests.
As I understand it, the Chicago woman who got the flu in Wuhan transferred it to her hubby. It was found to be the same strain without change. That is why they think the mutation rate is relatively low. However, the Chicago strain appears to be different from the California one, so it is mutating.
It is an RNA virus. HIV is also an RNA virus, which is, apparently, why the drugs used on HIV patients are having some success.
The Aussies were successful in replicating the original strain and have distributed live virus to labs in advanced countries so they can develop vaccines and fast antibody diagnostic tests.
As I understand it, the Chicago woman who got the flu in Wuhan transferred it to her hubby. It was found to be the same strain without change. That is why they think the mutation rate is relatively low. However, the Chicago strain appears to be different from the California one, so it is mutating.
Last edited:
Tristan
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Tristan
Has No Life - Lives on TB
AlfaMan
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Depending on the vehicle, you might want to stock some extra cabin air filters AND a serpentine belt or two. If you're in a studio on a work assignment, you might consider laying in a stock of food. Easy to prepare stuff-and if you're on an expense account perhaps you could expense the items (as a "dinner" or lunch etc). Also lay in a stock of over the counter meds. All of these items if unused can go back home with you too, to add to your home preps.
Tarryn
Senior Member
So I just saw this little tidbit.. It's behind a paywall though
Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic, Experts Say
Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic, Experts Say
Rapidly rising caseloads alarm researchers, who fear the virus may make its way across the globe. But scientists cannot yet predict how many deaths may result.
A man on a nearly deserted street in Beijing. Experts fear a coronavirus pandemic, but its severity is uncertain.Credit...Nicolas Asfouri/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Donald G. McNeil Jr.
The prospect is daunting. A pandemic — an ongoing epidemic on two or more continents — may well have global consequences, despite the extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now imposed by China and other countries, including the United States.
Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much damage a pandemic might cause. But there is growing consensus that the pathogen is readily transmitted between humans.
The Wuhan coronavirus is spreading more like influenza, which is highly transmissible, than like its slow-moving viral cousins, SARS and MERS, scientists have found.
“It’s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
“But will it be catastrophic? I don’t know.”
In the last three weeks, the number of lab-confirmed cases has soared from about 50 in China to 14,000 in 23 countries; there have been over 300 deaths, all but one in China.
But various epidemiological models estimate that the real number of cases is 100,000 or even more. While that expansion is not as rapid as that of flu or measles, it is an enormous leap beyond what virologists saw when SARS and MERS emerged.
When SARS was vanquished in July 2003 after spreading for nine months, only 8,098 cases had been confirmed. MERS has been circulating since 2012, but there have been only about 2,500 known cases.
The biggest uncertainty now, experts said, is how many people around the world will die. SARS killed about 10 percent of those who got it, and MERS now kills about one of three.
The 1918 “Spanish flu” killed only about 2.5 percent of its victims — but because it infected so many people and medical care was much cruder then, 20 to 50 million died.
By contrast, the highly transmissible H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic of 2009 killed about 285,000, fewer than seasonal flu normally does, and had a relatively low fatality rate, estimated at .02 percent.
The mortality rate for known cases of the Wuhan coronavirus has been running about 2 percent, although that is likely to drop as more tests are done and more mild cases are found.
It is “increasingly unlikely that the virus can be contained,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who now runs Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit devoted to fighting epidemics.
“It is therefore likely that it will spread, as flu and other organisms do, but we still don’t know how far, wide or deadly it will be.”
In the early days of the 2009 flu pandemic, “they were talking about Armageddon in Mexico,” Dr. Fauci said. (That virus first emerged in pig-farming areas in Mexico’s Veracruz State.) “But it turned out to not be that severe.”
Coronavirus Live Updates: Death in Philippines Is First Outside China
Feb. 2, 2020
An accurate estimate of the virus’s lethality will not be possible until certain kinds of studies can be done: blood tests to see how many people have antibodies, household studies to learn how often it infects family members, and genetic sequencing to determine whether some strains are more dangerous than others.
Wuhan Coronavirus
READ MORE
Closing borders to highly infectious pathogens never succeeds completely, experts said, because all frontiers are somewhat porous. Nonetheless, closings and rigorous screening may slow the spread, which will buy time for the development of drug treatments and vaccines.
Other important unknowns include who is most at risk, whether coughing or contaminated surfaces are more likely to transmit the virus, how fast the virus can mutate and whether it will fade out when the weather warms.
Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Spread of the Outbreak
The virus has sickened more than 14,500 people in China and 23 other countries.
The effects of a pandemic would probably be harsher in some countries than in others. While the United States and other wealthy countries may be able to detect and quarantine the first carriers, countries with fragile health care systems will not. The virus has already reached Cambodia, India, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines and rural Russia.
“This looks far more like H1N1’s spread than SARS, and I am increasingly alarmed,” said Dr. Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “Even 1 percent mortality would mean 10,000 deaths in each million people.”
Other experts were more cautious.
Dr. Michael Ryan, head of emergency responses for the World Health Organization, said in an interview with STAT News on Saturday that there was “evidence to suggest this virus can still be contained” and that the world needed to “keep trying.”
Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a virus-hunter at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health who is in China advising its Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that although the virus is clearly being transmitted through casual contact, labs are still behind in processing samples.
Image
In Hyderabad, India, doctors left an isolation ward for people kept under observation after returning from China.Credit...Mahesh Kumar/Associated Press
But life in China has radically changed in the last two weeks. Streets are deserted, public events are canceled, and citizens are wearing masks and washing their hands, Dr. Lipkin said. All of that may have slowed down what lab testing indicated was exponential growth in the infection.
It’s unclear exactly how accurate tests done in overwhelmed Chinese laboratories are. On the one hand, Chinese state media have reported test kit shortages and processing bottlenecks, which could produce an undercount.
But Dr. Lipkin said he knew of one lab running 5,000 samples a day, which might produce some false-positive results, inflating the count. “You can’t possibly do quality control at that rate,” he said.
Anecdotal reports from China, and one published study from Germany, indicate that some people infected with the Wuhan coronavirus can pass it on before they show symptoms. That may make border-screening much harder, scientists said.
Epidemiological modeling released Friday by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control estimated that 75 percent of infected people reaching Europe from China would still be in the incubation periods upon arrival, and therefore not detected by airport screening, which looks for fevers, coughs and breathing difficulties.
But if thermal cameras miss victims who are beyond incubation and actively infecting others, the real number of missed carriers may be higher than 75 percent.
Still, asymptomatic carriers “are not normally major drivers of epidemics,” Dr. Fauci said. Most people get ill from someone they know to be sick — a family member, a co-worker or a patient, for example.
The virus’s most vulnerable target is Africa, many experts said. More than 1 million expatriate Chinese work there, mostly on mining, drilling or engineering projects. Also, many Africans work and study in China and other countries where the virus has been found.
If anyone on the continent has the virus now, “I’m not sure the diagnostic systems are in place to detect it,” said Dr. Daniel Bausch, head of scientific programs for the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, who is consulting with the W.H.O. on the outbreak.
South Africa and Senegal could probably diagnose it, he said. Nigeria and some other countries have asked the W.H.O. for the genetic materials and training they need to perform diagnostic tests, but that will take time.
At least four African countries have suspect cases quarantined, according to an article published Friday in The South China Morning Post. They have sent samples to France, Germany, India and South Africa for testing.
[Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.]
At the moment, it seems unlikely that the virus will spread widely in countries with vigorous, alert public health systems, said Dr. William Schaffner, a preventive medicine specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
“Every doctor in the U.S. has this top of mind,” he said. “Any patient with fever or respiratory problems will get two questions. ‘Have you been to China? Have you had contact with anyone who has?’ If the answer is yes, they’ll be put in isolation right away.”
Assuming the virus spreads globally, tourism to and trade with countries besides China may be affected — and the urgency to find ways to halt the virus and prevent deaths will grow.
Image
Men in protective suits greeted a plane carrying 32 Mongolian citizens evacuated from Wuhan, China, as it arrived in Ulaanbaatar.Credit...Byambasuren Byamba-Ochir/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
It is possible that the Wuhan coronavirus will fade out as weather warms. Many viruses, like flu, measles and norovirus, thrive in cold, dry air. The SARS outbreak began in winter, and MERS transmission also peaks then, though that may be related to transmission in newborn camels.
Four mild coronaviruses cause about a quarter of the nation’s common colds, which also peak in winter.
But even if an outbreak fades in June, there could be a second wave in the fall, as has occurred in every major flu pandemic, including those that began in 1918 and 2009.
By that time, some remedies might be on hand, although they will need rigorous testing and perhaps political pressure to make them available and affordable.
In China, several antiviral drugs are being prescribed. A common combination is pills containing lopinavir and ritonavir with infusions of interferon, a signaling protein that wakes up the immune system.
In the United States, the combination is sold as Kaletra by AbbVie for H.I.V. therapy, and it is relatively expensive. In India, a dozen generic makers produce the drugs at rock-bottom prices for use against H.I.V. in Africa, and their products are W.H.O.-approved.
Another option may be an experimental drug, remdesivir, on which the patent is held by Gilead. The drug has not yet been approved for use against any disease. Nonetheless, there is some evidence that it works against coronaviruses, and Gilead has donated doses to China.
Several American companies are working on a vaccine, using various combinations of their own funds, taxpayer money and foundation grants.
Although modern gene-chemistry techniques have made it possible to build vaccine candidates within just days, medical ethics require that they then be carefully tested on animals and small numbers of healthy humans for safety and effectiveness.
That aspect of the process cannot be sped up, because dangerous side effects may take time to appear and because human immune systems need time to produce the antibodies that show whether a vaccine is working.
Whether or not what is being tried in China will be acceptable elsewhere will depend on how rigorously Chinese doctors run their clinical trials.
“In God we trust,” Dr. Schaffner said. “All others must provide data.”
Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic, Experts Say
Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic, Experts Say
Rapidly rising caseloads alarm researchers, who fear the virus may make its way across the globe. But scientists cannot yet predict how many deaths may result.
A man on a nearly deserted street in Beijing. Experts fear a coronavirus pandemic, but its severity is uncertain.Credit...Nicolas Asfouri/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Donald G. McNeil Jr.
- Feb. 2, 2020, 2:35 p.m. ET
The prospect is daunting. A pandemic — an ongoing epidemic on two or more continents — may well have global consequences, despite the extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now imposed by China and other countries, including the United States.
Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much damage a pandemic might cause. But there is growing consensus that the pathogen is readily transmitted between humans.
The Wuhan coronavirus is spreading more like influenza, which is highly transmissible, than like its slow-moving viral cousins, SARS and MERS, scientists have found.
“It’s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
“But will it be catastrophic? I don’t know.”
In the last three weeks, the number of lab-confirmed cases has soared from about 50 in China to 14,000 in 23 countries; there have been over 300 deaths, all but one in China.
- Unlock more free articles.
But various epidemiological models estimate that the real number of cases is 100,000 or even more. While that expansion is not as rapid as that of flu or measles, it is an enormous leap beyond what virologists saw when SARS and MERS emerged.
When SARS was vanquished in July 2003 after spreading for nine months, only 8,098 cases had been confirmed. MERS has been circulating since 2012, but there have been only about 2,500 known cases.
The biggest uncertainty now, experts said, is how many people around the world will die. SARS killed about 10 percent of those who got it, and MERS now kills about one of three.
The 1918 “Spanish flu” killed only about 2.5 percent of its victims — but because it infected so many people and medical care was much cruder then, 20 to 50 million died.
By contrast, the highly transmissible H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic of 2009 killed about 285,000, fewer than seasonal flu normally does, and had a relatively low fatality rate, estimated at .02 percent.
The mortality rate for known cases of the Wuhan coronavirus has been running about 2 percent, although that is likely to drop as more tests are done and more mild cases are found.
It is “increasingly unlikely that the virus can be contained,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who now runs Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit devoted to fighting epidemics.
“It is therefore likely that it will spread, as flu and other organisms do, but we still don’t know how far, wide or deadly it will be.”
In the early days of the 2009 flu pandemic, “they were talking about Armageddon in Mexico,” Dr. Fauci said. (That virus first emerged in pig-farming areas in Mexico’s Veracruz State.) “But it turned out to not be that severe.”
Coronavirus Live Updates: Death in Philippines Is First Outside China
Feb. 2, 2020
An accurate estimate of the virus’s lethality will not be possible until certain kinds of studies can be done: blood tests to see how many people have antibodies, household studies to learn how often it infects family members, and genetic sequencing to determine whether some strains are more dangerous than others.
Wuhan Coronavirus
- Impact in the U.S.
Updated Jan. 31, 2020- There have been seven confirmed cases in the U.S., but no deaths. Anxiety is intense on college campuses.
- The 195 Americans who were evacuated from Wuhan to California have been quarantined as one person tried to flee.
- If you live in California, here’s what this means for you.
- President Trump has temporarily suspended entry into the U.S. for any foreign nationals who have traveled to China.
- Delta, United and American Airlines are suspending service from the U.S. and China.
READ MORE
Closing borders to highly infectious pathogens never succeeds completely, experts said, because all frontiers are somewhat porous. Nonetheless, closings and rigorous screening may slow the spread, which will buy time for the development of drug treatments and vaccines.
Other important unknowns include who is most at risk, whether coughing or contaminated surfaces are more likely to transmit the virus, how fast the virus can mutate and whether it will fade out when the weather warms.
Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Spread of the Outbreak
The virus has sickened more than 14,500 people in China and 23 other countries.
The effects of a pandemic would probably be harsher in some countries than in others. While the United States and other wealthy countries may be able to detect and quarantine the first carriers, countries with fragile health care systems will not. The virus has already reached Cambodia, India, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines and rural Russia.
“This looks far more like H1N1’s spread than SARS, and I am increasingly alarmed,” said Dr. Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “Even 1 percent mortality would mean 10,000 deaths in each million people.”
Other experts were more cautious.
Dr. Michael Ryan, head of emergency responses for the World Health Organization, said in an interview with STAT News on Saturday that there was “evidence to suggest this virus can still be contained” and that the world needed to “keep trying.”
Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a virus-hunter at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health who is in China advising its Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that although the virus is clearly being transmitted through casual contact, labs are still behind in processing samples.
Image
In Hyderabad, India, doctors left an isolation ward for people kept under observation after returning from China.Credit...Mahesh Kumar/Associated Press
But life in China has radically changed in the last two weeks. Streets are deserted, public events are canceled, and citizens are wearing masks and washing their hands, Dr. Lipkin said. All of that may have slowed down what lab testing indicated was exponential growth in the infection.
It’s unclear exactly how accurate tests done in overwhelmed Chinese laboratories are. On the one hand, Chinese state media have reported test kit shortages and processing bottlenecks, which could produce an undercount.
But Dr. Lipkin said he knew of one lab running 5,000 samples a day, which might produce some false-positive results, inflating the count. “You can’t possibly do quality control at that rate,” he said.
Anecdotal reports from China, and one published study from Germany, indicate that some people infected with the Wuhan coronavirus can pass it on before they show symptoms. That may make border-screening much harder, scientists said.
Epidemiological modeling released Friday by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control estimated that 75 percent of infected people reaching Europe from China would still be in the incubation periods upon arrival, and therefore not detected by airport screening, which looks for fevers, coughs and breathing difficulties.
But if thermal cameras miss victims who are beyond incubation and actively infecting others, the real number of missed carriers may be higher than 75 percent.
Still, asymptomatic carriers “are not normally major drivers of epidemics,” Dr. Fauci said. Most people get ill from someone they know to be sick — a family member, a co-worker or a patient, for example.
The virus’s most vulnerable target is Africa, many experts said. More than 1 million expatriate Chinese work there, mostly on mining, drilling or engineering projects. Also, many Africans work and study in China and other countries where the virus has been found.
If anyone on the continent has the virus now, “I’m not sure the diagnostic systems are in place to detect it,” said Dr. Daniel Bausch, head of scientific programs for the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, who is consulting with the W.H.O. on the outbreak.
South Africa and Senegal could probably diagnose it, he said. Nigeria and some other countries have asked the W.H.O. for the genetic materials and training they need to perform diagnostic tests, but that will take time.
At least four African countries have suspect cases quarantined, according to an article published Friday in The South China Morning Post. They have sent samples to France, Germany, India and South Africa for testing.
[Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.]
At the moment, it seems unlikely that the virus will spread widely in countries with vigorous, alert public health systems, said Dr. William Schaffner, a preventive medicine specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
“Every doctor in the U.S. has this top of mind,” he said. “Any patient with fever or respiratory problems will get two questions. ‘Have you been to China? Have you had contact with anyone who has?’ If the answer is yes, they’ll be put in isolation right away.”
Assuming the virus spreads globally, tourism to and trade with countries besides China may be affected — and the urgency to find ways to halt the virus and prevent deaths will grow.
Image
Men in protective suits greeted a plane carrying 32 Mongolian citizens evacuated from Wuhan, China, as it arrived in Ulaanbaatar.Credit...Byambasuren Byamba-Ochir/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
It is possible that the Wuhan coronavirus will fade out as weather warms. Many viruses, like flu, measles and norovirus, thrive in cold, dry air. The SARS outbreak began in winter, and MERS transmission also peaks then, though that may be related to transmission in newborn camels.
Four mild coronaviruses cause about a quarter of the nation’s common colds, which also peak in winter.
But even if an outbreak fades in June, there could be a second wave in the fall, as has occurred in every major flu pandemic, including those that began in 1918 and 2009.
By that time, some remedies might be on hand, although they will need rigorous testing and perhaps political pressure to make them available and affordable.
In China, several antiviral drugs are being prescribed. A common combination is pills containing lopinavir and ritonavir with infusions of interferon, a signaling protein that wakes up the immune system.
In the United States, the combination is sold as Kaletra by AbbVie for H.I.V. therapy, and it is relatively expensive. In India, a dozen generic makers produce the drugs at rock-bottom prices for use against H.I.V. in Africa, and their products are W.H.O.-approved.
Another option may be an experimental drug, remdesivir, on which the patent is held by Gilead. The drug has not yet been approved for use against any disease. Nonetheless, there is some evidence that it works against coronaviruses, and Gilead has donated doses to China.
Several American companies are working on a vaccine, using various combinations of their own funds, taxpayer money and foundation grants.
Although modern gene-chemistry techniques have made it possible to build vaccine candidates within just days, medical ethics require that they then be carefully tested on animals and small numbers of healthy humans for safety and effectiveness.
That aspect of the process cannot be sped up, because dangerous side effects may take time to appear and because human immune systems need time to produce the antibodies that show whether a vaccine is working.
Whether or not what is being tried in China will be acceptable elsewhere will depend on how rigorously Chinese doctors run their clinical trials.
“In God we trust,” Dr. Schaffner said. “All others must provide data.”
Tarryn
Senior Member
Ninth US case confirmed in California as White House studies economic impact of coronavirus outbreak
The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus worldwide is nearly 14,380. The death toll has risen to at least 304.
Coronavirus live updates: Ninth US case confirmed in San Francisco Bay area
PUBLISHED SUN, FEB 2 20209:44 AM ESTUPDATED MOMENTS AGO
Emma Newburger@EMMA_NEWBURGER
Members of a Chinese lion dance team wear face masks during a performance in Mong Kok district of Hong Kong on February 1, 2020.
Philip Fong | AFP | Getty Images
This is a live blog. Please check back for updates.
All times in U.S. eastern standard time
The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus worldwide is now 14,557, most of which are in China, according to World Health Organization (WHO) data. The death toll has risen to at least 304. A 44-year-old man in the Philippines died of the virus on Saturday, making him the first reported death outside of China. All territories and provinces in China have now been impacted by the virus.
5:00 pm: Santa Clara County reports ninth US case of coronavirus
The ninth U.S. case of coronavirus was confirmed in Santa Clara County on Sunday. It’s the second case in the San Francisco Bay area. The case is in a woman who was recently in Wuhan, China, and visited the U.S. to see family on Jan 23, according to the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department.
jward
passin' thru
BNO Newsroom
@BNODesk
24m
BREAKING: Epicenter of coronavirus outbreak reports 2,103 new cases and 56 new deaths
@BNODesk
24m
BREAKING: Epicenter of coronavirus outbreak reports 2,103 new cases and 56 new deaths
1911user
Veteran Member
If you click on the main article link, I get the full article and don't have a subsctiption to NYT.So I just saw this little tidbit.. It's behind a paywall though
Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic, Experts Say
Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic, Experts Say
Rapidly rising caseloads alarm researchers, who fear the virus may make its way across the globe. But scientists cannot yet predict how many deaths may result.
A man on a nearly deserted street in Beijing. Experts fear a coronavirus pandemic, but its severity is uncertain.Credit...Nicolas Asfouri/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Donald G. McNeil Jr.
The Wuhan coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to become a pandemic that circles the globe, according to many of the world’s leading infectious disease experts.
- Feb. 2, 2020, 2:35 p.m. ET
The prospect is daunting. A pandemic — an ongoing epidemic on two or more continents — may well have global consequences, despite the extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now imposed by China and other countries, including the United States.
Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much damage a pandemic might cause. But there is growing consensus that the pathogen is readily transmitted between humans.
The Wuhan coronavirus is spreading more like influenza, which is highly transmissible, than like its slow-moving viral cousins, SARS and MERS, scientists have found.
“It’s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
“But will it be catastrophic? I don’t know.”
In the last three weeks, the number of lab-confirmed cases has soared from about 50 in China to 14,000 in 23 countries; there have been over 300 deaths, all but one in China.
Create an account or log in
- Unlock more free articles.
But various epidemiological models estimate that the real number of cases is 100,000 or even more. While that expansion is not as rapid as that of flu or measles, it is an enormous leap beyond what virologists saw when SARS and MERS emerged.
When SARS was vanquished in July 2003 after spreading for nine months, only 8,098 cases had been confirmed. MERS has been circulating since 2012, but there have been only about 2,500 known cases.
The biggest uncertainty now, experts said, is how many people around the world will die. SARS killed about 10 percent of those who got it, and MERS now kills about one of three.
The 1918 “Spanish flu” killed only about 2.5 percent of its victims — but because it infected so many people and medical care was much cruder then, 20 to 50 million died.
By contrast, the highly transmissible H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic of 2009 killed about 285,000, fewer than seasonal flu normally does, and had a relatively low fatality rate, estimated at .02 percent.
The mortality rate for known cases of the Wuhan coronavirus has been running about 2 percent, although that is likely to drop as more tests are done and more mild cases are found.
It is “increasingly unlikely that the virus can be contained,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who now runs Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit devoted to fighting epidemics.
“It is therefore likely that it will spread, as flu and other organisms do, but we still don’t know how far, wide or deadly it will be.”
In the early days of the 2009 flu pandemic, “they were talking about Armageddon in Mexico,” Dr. Fauci said. (That virus first emerged in pig-farming areas in Mexico’s Veracruz State.) “But it turned out to not be that severe.”
Coronavirus Live Updates: Death in Philippines Is First Outside China
Feb. 2, 2020
An accurate estimate of the virus’s lethality will not be possible until certain kinds of studies can be done: blood tests to see how many people have antibodies, household studies to learn how often it infects family members, and genetic sequencing to determine whether some strains are more dangerous than others.
Wuhan Coronavirus
- Impact in the U.S.
Updated Jan. 31, 2020
- There have been seven confirmed cases in the U.S., but no deaths. Anxiety is intense on college campuses.
- The 195 Americans who were evacuated from Wuhan to California have been quarantined as one person tried to flee.
- If you live in California, here’s what this means for you.
- President Trump has temporarily suspended entry into the U.S. for any foreign nationals who have traveled to China.
- Delta, United and American Airlines are suspending service from the U.S. and China.
READ MORE
Closing borders to highly infectious pathogens never succeeds completely, experts said, because all frontiers are somewhat porous. Nonetheless, closings and rigorous screening may slow the spread, which will buy time for the development of drug treatments and vaccines.
Other important unknowns include who is most at risk, whether coughing or contaminated surfaces are more likely to transmit the virus, how fast the virus can mutate and whether it will fade out when the weather warms.
Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Spread of the Outbreak
The virus has sickened more than 14,500 people in China and 23 other countries.
The effects of a pandemic would probably be harsher in some countries than in others. While the United States and other wealthy countries may be able to detect and quarantine the first carriers, countries with fragile health care systems will not. The virus has already reached Cambodia, India, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines and rural Russia.
“This looks far more like H1N1’s spread than SARS, and I am increasingly alarmed,” said Dr. Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “Even 1 percent mortality would mean 10,000 deaths in each million people.”
Other experts were more cautious.
Dr. Michael Ryan, head of emergency responses for the World Health Organization, said in an interview with STAT News on Saturday that there was “evidence to suggest this virus can still be contained” and that the world needed to “keep trying.”
Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a virus-hunter at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health who is in China advising its Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that although the virus is clearly being transmitted through casual contact, labs are still behind in processing samples.
Image
In Hyderabad, India, doctors left an isolation ward for people kept under observation after returning from China.Credit...Mahesh Kumar/Associated Press
But life in China has radically changed in the last two weeks. Streets are deserted, public events are canceled, and citizens are wearing masks and washing their hands, Dr. Lipkin said. All of that may have slowed down what lab testing indicated was exponential growth in the infection.
It’s unclear exactly how accurate tests done in overwhelmed Chinese laboratories are. On the one hand, Chinese state media have reported test kit shortages and processing bottlenecks, which could produce an undercount.
But Dr. Lipkin said he knew of one lab running 5,000 samples a day, which might produce some false-positive results, inflating the count. “You can’t possibly do quality control at that rate,” he said.
Anecdotal reports from China, and one published study from Germany, indicate that some people infected with the Wuhan coronavirus can pass it on before they show symptoms. That may make border-screening much harder, scientists said.
Epidemiological modeling released Friday by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control estimated that 75 percent of infected people reaching Europe from China would still be in the incubation periods upon arrival, and therefore not detected by airport screening, which looks for fevers, coughs and breathing difficulties.
But if thermal cameras miss victims who are beyond incubation and actively infecting others, the real number of missed carriers may be higher than 75 percent.
Still, asymptomatic carriers “are not normally major drivers of epidemics,” Dr. Fauci said. Most people get ill from someone they know to be sick — a family member, a co-worker or a patient, for example.
The virus’s most vulnerable target is Africa, many experts said. More than 1 million expatriate Chinese work there, mostly on mining, drilling or engineering projects. Also, many Africans work and study in China and other countries where the virus has been found.
If anyone on the continent has the virus now, “I’m not sure the diagnostic systems are in place to detect it,” said Dr. Daniel Bausch, head of scientific programs for the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, who is consulting with the W.H.O. on the outbreak.
South Africa and Senegal could probably diagnose it, he said. Nigeria and some other countries have asked the W.H.O. for the genetic materials and training they need to perform diagnostic tests, but that will take time.
At least four African countries have suspect cases quarantined, according to an article published Friday in The South China Morning Post. They have sent samples to France, Germany, India and South Africa for testing.
[Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.]
At the moment, it seems unlikely that the virus will spread widely in countries with vigorous, alert public health systems, said Dr. William Schaffner, a preventive medicine specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
“Every doctor in the U.S. has this top of mind,” he said. “Any patient with fever or respiratory problems will get two questions. ‘Have you been to China? Have you had contact with anyone who has?’ If the answer is yes, they’ll be put in isolation right away.”
Assuming the virus spreads globally, tourism to and trade with countries besides China may be affected — and the urgency to find ways to halt the virus and prevent deaths will grow.
Image
Men in protective suits greeted a plane carrying 32 Mongolian citizens evacuated from Wuhan, China, as it arrived in Ulaanbaatar.Credit...Byambasuren Byamba-Ochir/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
It is possible that the Wuhan coronavirus will fade out as weather warms. Many viruses, like flu, measles and norovirus, thrive in cold, dry air. The SARS outbreak began in winter, and MERS transmission also peaks then, though that may be related to transmission in newborn camels.
Four mild coronaviruses cause about a quarter of the nation’s common colds, which also peak in winter.
But even if an outbreak fades in June, there could be a second wave in the fall, as has occurred in every major flu pandemic, including those that began in 1918 and 2009.
By that time, some remedies might be on hand, although they will need rigorous testing and perhaps political pressure to make them available and affordable.
In China, several antiviral drugs are being prescribed. A common combination is pills containing lopinavir and ritonavir with infusions of interferon, a signaling protein that wakes up the immune system.
In the United States, the combination is sold as Kaletra by AbbVie for H.I.V. therapy, and it is relatively expensive. In India, a dozen generic makers produce the drugs at rock-bottom prices for use against H.I.V. in Africa, and their products are W.H.O.-approved.
Another option may be an experimental drug, remdesivir, on which the patent is held by Gilead. The drug has not yet been approved for use against any disease. Nonetheless, there is some evidence that it works against coronaviruses, and Gilead has donated doses to China.
Several American companies are working on a vaccine, using various combinations of their own funds, taxpayer money and foundation grants.
Although modern gene-chemistry techniques have made it possible to build vaccine candidates within just days, medical ethics require that they then be carefully tested on animals and small numbers of healthy humans for safety and effectiveness.
That aspect of the process cannot be sped up, because dangerous side effects may take time to appear and because human immune systems need time to produce the antibodies that show whether a vaccine is working.
Whether or not what is being tried in China will be acceptable elsewhere will depend on how rigorously Chinese doctors run their clinical trials.
“In God we trust,” Dr. Schaffner said. “All others must provide data.”
EDIT: the quoted part is now showing the full article.
marsh
On TB every waking moment
This was the very thing that was anticipated in the death of the petro-dollar. Other countries would refuse to accept the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Supply chains for the US would begin to wither. The tax revisions for business implemented by Trump to bring international corporation's dollars back home and to stoke investment in US facilities were, partially, intended to make us more resilient. So were the tariffs and new trade agreements, as well as Trump's desire for infrastructure investment. I believe he was astute enough to see that we had become far to dependent upon foreign supply and were very vulnerable.
Unfortunately, many of the corporations used their tax money to buy their own stocks - making CEOs and stock holders wealthier with their stock options, but not investing in home facilities and training.
Tarryn
Senior Member
View: https://mobile.twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1224097197358243840
BNO Newsroom
@BNODesk
Coronavirus update: - 16,758 confirmed cases worldwide - 19,544 suspected cases - 361 fatalities - 2,148 in serious/critical condition - 408 in China recovered - Vast majority of cases in China - 24 countries reporting cases
5:28 PM · Feb 2, 2020·TweetDeck
193
Retweets
263
Likes
@Shockwave8422
·
8m
Replying to
@BNODesk
Does this include the national update?
BNO Newsroom
@BNODesk
·
7m
No, the national update is in 90 minutes
BNO Newsroom
@BNODesk
Coronavirus update: - 16,758 confirmed cases worldwide - 19,544 suspected cases - 361 fatalities - 2,148 in serious/critical condition - 408 in China recovered - Vast majority of cases in China - 24 countries reporting cases
5:28 PM · Feb 2, 2020·TweetDeck
193
Retweets
263
Likes
@Shockwave8422
·
8m
Replying to
@BNODesk
Does this include the national update?
BNO Newsroom
@BNODesk
·
7m
No, the national update is in 90 minutes
Tarryn
Senior Member
I have a strong adblocker so a bunch of sites automatically paywall me. I did post the whole article from a different browser with ad block disabled
naturallysweet
Has No Life - Lives on TB
My worry.
Woods drugs don't cure aids. They just knock it back. when people stop taking them, their problems come back.
this disease is already one that the test is iffy with. People test negative and positive repeatedly.
what if the 'cured' patients are just in temporary remission?
Woods drugs don't cure aids. They just knock it back. when people stop taking them, their problems come back.
this disease is already one that the test is iffy with. People test negative and positive repeatedly.
what if the 'cured' patients are just in temporary remission?
jward
passin' thru
Coronavirus could be ‘death blow’ for many of China’s small manufacturers if not under control by April
He Huifeng
Published: 6:15am, 3 Feb, 2020
Concerns among small and medium-sized manufacturers in China over the impact of the
coronavirus outbreak
have risen sharply, with many worrying about going bust if the situation is not brought under control soon.
Anxiety is most acute among labour-intensive manufacturing firms, as local governments have restricted business where numerous people congregate in an effort to contain the deadly virus.
If the outbreak is not brought under control by March or April, when many foreign customers place orders for the rest of the year, some Chinese companies fret business will shift to suppliers outside China, accelerating a move to alternative manufacturing bases,
especially in Southeast Asia
.
“Foreign customers will definitely wait and see how the epidemic situation develops and may place new orders in other regions, instead of China,” said Tom Wang, who runs a footwear factory in the city of Dongguan in Guangdong province.
Foreign customers will definitely wait and see how the epidemic situation develops and may place new orders in other regions, instead of China Tom Wang
Small shops, restaurants and local logistics firms have suffered most from
government controls
, with many saying they can only hold out for two or three months before they are forced to close for good.
The rapidly spreading virus, which has killed at least 304 people and infected more than 14,000 in mainland China, has prompted authorities to close factories, shopping malls and tourist attractions, as well as put severe curbs on transport. Several governments have extended the Lunar New Year holiday, ordering firms not to reopen until at least February 10.
In Guangdong province, one of China’s manufacturing hubs, small business owners, who are already grappling with rising costs and the effects of the
trade war
, are bracing for a downturn should the epidemic continue.
“The number of workers resuming work [at factories] in Dongguan will definitely be affected in the coming couple of months, as well as at logistics operations and supply chain firms,” Wang said.
“In the first quarter, a drop in orders is certain, and most of [Dongguan’s] factories are labour-intensive. We are very afraid of possible contagion in our factory, so we dare not take any big orders in the first quarter.”
New coronavirus deaths and cases in China reach record daily highs
He said he was not confident about the outlook for export orders in the second quarter, either.
The impact of the coronavirus – which has been declared a global health emergency – will be much larger than that of the
Sars epidemic in 2002-2003
for China’s small and medium-sized factories (SMEs), Wang said.
“China had just joined the [World Trade Organisation in December 2001], so there were a lot of foreign orders, resulting in a boom in the manufacturing sector,” he said. “Now, supply chains have begun to shift in the past couple of years because of the trade war. The epidemic situation will definitely give more factories the incentive to [shift].”
Liu Kaiming, head of the Institute of Contemporary Observation, which studies working conditions in hundreds of factories across China, warned that the uncertainty created by the coronavirus outbreak could be a “death blow” for many manufacturing firms.
“If the epidemic can be controlled by the end of February, the impact on the manufacturing industry will be manageable,” he said.
“If in early March they still see that the [virus] situation has not been brought under control, they are likely to turn to other countries to place orders.”
Supply chains have begun to shift in the past couple of years because of the trade war. The epidemic situation will definitely give more factories the incentive to [shift]. Liu Kaiming
Liu said that if the situation had not calmed by March, then “China’s supply chains and status as the ‘world’s factory’ could fall off a cliff”.
Advanced manufacturing industries and low-end, labour-intensive enterprises would be affected, he said, as the outbreak could lead to a severe drop in orders and a cash shortage for both hi-tech and traditional
manufacturing firms
.
Jason Liang, sales manager for a Guangdong-based exporter of LED lighting products, said his company had already moved some of its production overseas and predicted others would soon follow.
“LEDs are seasonal products, and most of our export orders have been completed and shipped,” he said.
“In particular, we’re so lucky we invested in a Thailand-based factory last year, which started production in January. I think this virus outbreak will spur more production capacity to be relocated abroad.”
Coronavirus outbreak: global businesses shut down operations in China
Ftech, a major supplier for Honda’s car production facilities in China, is planning to move its brake pedal production to the Philippines from Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus outbreak, according to Japanese newspaper Nikkei. If the coronavirus continues to spread, other companies are likely to follow Ftech’s move, the report said.
Honda has three production facilities in Wuhan, all of which are closed until at least February 10. Numerous Chinese and foreign carmakers, as well as semiconductor companies have production bases in Wuhan, which is also
a major logistics hub
.
The Guangdong government must act to help smaller manufacturing firms, said Peng Peng, vice-president of the Guangdong System Reform Research Society, a think tank.
“The international reaction [to the coronavirus outbreak] is more psychological,” he said. “Foreign clients cannot distinguish between Chinese goods manufactured in Wuhan from those manufactured elsewhere in China, so all Chinese goods exports may be delayed or cut back in the short term.”
Many small service firms and restaurants may not last more than two months under the current conditions, Peng said.
Coronavirus: Wuhan family struggles to get confirmation of infections and receive treatment
More than 20,000 employees of Xibei, one of China’s biggest restaurant chains, had been unable to work because of the virus outbreak, company chairman Jia Guolong was quoted as saying by Chinaventure, a leading investment research and consulting firm. Xibei had 400 stores with more than 20,000 employees in more than 60 cities across the country and at present almost all dine-in restaurants had been shut, he said.
The outbreak has cut Xibei’s revenues by about 90 per cent compared to the same period of last year.
“We pay 156 million yuan (US$22.3 million) per month for employees’ salaries. Our cash flow can only keep this up for three months,” Jia said, adding if the situation continued until April “we will have no choice but to lay off employees”.
For now, was is little small and medium-sized enterprises could do, said Wang, the owner of the footwear factory.
“We can only keep out Hubei natives and check workers’ body temperatures on a daily basis, and let the workers live outside the factory.
“However, the rent, workers’ social security and other government fees, as well as operating costs, remain unchanged and are a stranglehold on SMEs like ours,” he said.
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www.scmp.com
- The impact of the outbreak adds to rising costs and trade war uncertainty for many Chinese businesses
- Manufacturers fear foreign customers will shift orders to other countries if the situation is not brought under control by April
He Huifeng
Published: 6:15am, 3 Feb, 2020
Concerns among small and medium-sized manufacturers in China over the impact of the
coronavirus outbreak
have risen sharply, with many worrying about going bust if the situation is not brought under control soon.
Anxiety is most acute among labour-intensive manufacturing firms, as local governments have restricted business where numerous people congregate in an effort to contain the deadly virus.
If the outbreak is not brought under control by March or April, when many foreign customers place orders for the rest of the year, some Chinese companies fret business will shift to suppliers outside China, accelerating a move to alternative manufacturing bases,
especially in Southeast Asia
.
“Foreign customers will definitely wait and see how the epidemic situation develops and may place new orders in other regions, instead of China,” said Tom Wang, who runs a footwear factory in the city of Dongguan in Guangdong province.
Foreign customers will definitely wait and see how the epidemic situation develops and may place new orders in other regions, instead of China Tom Wang
Small shops, restaurants and local logistics firms have suffered most from
government controls
, with many saying they can only hold out for two or three months before they are forced to close for good.
The rapidly spreading virus, which has killed at least 304 people and infected more than 14,000 in mainland China, has prompted authorities to close factories, shopping malls and tourist attractions, as well as put severe curbs on transport. Several governments have extended the Lunar New Year holiday, ordering firms not to reopen until at least February 10.
In Guangdong province, one of China’s manufacturing hubs, small business owners, who are already grappling with rising costs and the effects of the
trade war
, are bracing for a downturn should the epidemic continue.
“The number of workers resuming work [at factories] in Dongguan will definitely be affected in the coming couple of months, as well as at logistics operations and supply chain firms,” Wang said.
“In the first quarter, a drop in orders is certain, and most of [Dongguan’s] factories are labour-intensive. We are very afraid of possible contagion in our factory, so we dare not take any big orders in the first quarter.”
New coronavirus deaths and cases in China reach record daily highs
He said he was not confident about the outlook for export orders in the second quarter, either.
The impact of the coronavirus – which has been declared a global health emergency – will be much larger than that of the
Sars epidemic in 2002-2003
for China’s small and medium-sized factories (SMEs), Wang said.
“China had just joined the [World Trade Organisation in December 2001], so there were a lot of foreign orders, resulting in a boom in the manufacturing sector,” he said. “Now, supply chains have begun to shift in the past couple of years because of the trade war. The epidemic situation will definitely give more factories the incentive to [shift].”
Liu Kaiming, head of the Institute of Contemporary Observation, which studies working conditions in hundreds of factories across China, warned that the uncertainty created by the coronavirus outbreak could be a “death blow” for many manufacturing firms.
“If the epidemic can be controlled by the end of February, the impact on the manufacturing industry will be manageable,” he said.
“If in early March they still see that the [virus] situation has not been brought under control, they are likely to turn to other countries to place orders.”
Supply chains have begun to shift in the past couple of years because of the trade war. The epidemic situation will definitely give more factories the incentive to [shift]. Liu Kaiming
Liu said that if the situation had not calmed by March, then “China’s supply chains and status as the ‘world’s factory’ could fall off a cliff”.
Advanced manufacturing industries and low-end, labour-intensive enterprises would be affected, he said, as the outbreak could lead to a severe drop in orders and a cash shortage for both hi-tech and traditional
manufacturing firms
.
Jason Liang, sales manager for a Guangdong-based exporter of LED lighting products, said his company had already moved some of its production overseas and predicted others would soon follow.
“LEDs are seasonal products, and most of our export orders have been completed and shipped,” he said.
“In particular, we’re so lucky we invested in a Thailand-based factory last year, which started production in January. I think this virus outbreak will spur more production capacity to be relocated abroad.”
Coronavirus outbreak: global businesses shut down operations in China
Ftech, a major supplier for Honda’s car production facilities in China, is planning to move its brake pedal production to the Philippines from Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus outbreak, according to Japanese newspaper Nikkei. If the coronavirus continues to spread, other companies are likely to follow Ftech’s move, the report said.
Honda has three production facilities in Wuhan, all of which are closed until at least February 10. Numerous Chinese and foreign carmakers, as well as semiconductor companies have production bases in Wuhan, which is also
a major logistics hub
.
The Guangdong government must act to help smaller manufacturing firms, said Peng Peng, vice-president of the Guangdong System Reform Research Society, a think tank.
“The international reaction [to the coronavirus outbreak] is more psychological,” he said. “Foreign clients cannot distinguish between Chinese goods manufactured in Wuhan from those manufactured elsewhere in China, so all Chinese goods exports may be delayed or cut back in the short term.”
Many small service firms and restaurants may not last more than two months under the current conditions, Peng said.
Coronavirus: Wuhan family struggles to get confirmation of infections and receive treatment
More than 20,000 employees of Xibei, one of China’s biggest restaurant chains, had been unable to work because of the virus outbreak, company chairman Jia Guolong was quoted as saying by Chinaventure, a leading investment research and consulting firm. Xibei had 400 stores with more than 20,000 employees in more than 60 cities across the country and at present almost all dine-in restaurants had been shut, he said.
The outbreak has cut Xibei’s revenues by about 90 per cent compared to the same period of last year.
“We pay 156 million yuan (US$22.3 million) per month for employees’ salaries. Our cash flow can only keep this up for three months,” Jia said, adding if the situation continued until April “we will have no choice but to lay off employees”.
For now, was is little small and medium-sized enterprises could do, said Wang, the owner of the footwear factory.
“We can only keep out Hubei natives and check workers’ body temperatures on a daily basis, and let the workers live outside the factory.
“However, the rent, workers’ social security and other government fees, as well as operating costs, remain unchanged and are a stranglehold on SMEs like ours,” he said.
Sign up now
for our 50% early bird offer from SCMP Research: China AI Report. The all new SCMP China AI Report gives you exclusive first-hand insights and analysis into the latest industry developments, and actionable and objective intelligence about China AI that you should be equipped with.
Coronavirus could be ‘death blow’ for small Chinese manufacturers
China’s small and medium-sized manufacturers, already grappling with rising costs and the trade war, are bracing for a downturn.
www.scmp.com
Telescope Steve
Veteran Member
jward
passin' thru
I would be ok with just buying the time--- this thing will be one that a vaccine can be dev. for eventually...we just need to not overwhelm our resources in the short term.
Intestinal Fortitude
Have Faith
China readies cushion for virus shock when markets re-open
China readies cushion for virus shock when markets re-open
BEIJING >> China’s central bank announced plans today to inject 1.2 trillion yuan ($173 billion) into the economy to cushion the shock to financial markets from the outbreak of a new virus when trading resumes on Monday after a prolonged Lunar New Year holiday.
The People’s Bank of China announced several measures over the weekend aimed at stabilizing the economy as the impact of the virus spreads with cancelled flights, stepped up quarantines and other controls.
Beijing extended the usual week-long holiday by three days but markets are due to reopen Monday and many expect they will drop sharply. Elsewhere in the region, worries over the potential harm to businesses and trade from the outbreak have triggered wide swings in share prices.
On Friday, jitters over the virus caused share prices to plunge.
The central bank statement issued today said the open market operation was aimed at ensuring sufficient liquidity.
In a separate statement Saturday, the PBOC said that while markets would reopen, financial institutions should follow local quarantine regulations and try to minimize gatherings to reduce risks of spreading the virus, which has infected more than 14,000 people and killed more than 300.
That includes allowing rotating shifts, working online from home and other strategies, it said.
Regulators have also urged banks and other financial institutions to boost lending and avoid calling in debts in areas severely affected by the pandemic.
Some cities, particularly the central Chinese city Wuhan where the disease first surfaced, and nearby cities, are still in lockdown. Shanghai authorities extended the Lunar New Year holiday until Feb. 9. Universities remain closed for now.
Mainland China’s main share benchmark, the Shanghai Composite index, sank 2.8% to 2,976.53 on Jan. 23, its last day of trading before the Lunar New Year.
Chinese authorities have massive resources for intervening to staunch panic selling of shares and have deployed them in past times of crisis.
A large share of the 1.2 trillion yuan to be injected into markets will go to meeting payment obligations falling due on Monday, analysts said.
But it’s still a massive amount of funding.
“This is well beyond the band-aid fix, and if this deluge doesn’t hold risk-off at bay, we are in for a colossal beat down,” Stephen Innes of AxiCorp. said in a client note Sunday.
He noted that any major drop shortly after the markets reopen would be a “catch up.”
“It’s not the earthquake at the open but rather the aftershocks that will drive risk sentiment on Monday,” he said.
China readies cushion for virus shock when markets re-open
- By Associated Press
- Today
-
ASSOCIATED PRESS
An investor monitors stock prices at a brokerage in Beijing on Jan. 16.
BEIJING >> China’s central bank announced plans today to inject 1.2 trillion yuan ($173 billion) into the economy to cushion the shock to financial markets from the outbreak of a new virus when trading resumes on Monday after a prolonged Lunar New Year holiday.
The People’s Bank of China announced several measures over the weekend aimed at stabilizing the economy as the impact of the virus spreads with cancelled flights, stepped up quarantines and other controls.
Beijing extended the usual week-long holiday by three days but markets are due to reopen Monday and many expect they will drop sharply. Elsewhere in the region, worries over the potential harm to businesses and trade from the outbreak have triggered wide swings in share prices.
On Friday, jitters over the virus caused share prices to plunge.
The central bank statement issued today said the open market operation was aimed at ensuring sufficient liquidity.
In a separate statement Saturday, the PBOC said that while markets would reopen, financial institutions should follow local quarantine regulations and try to minimize gatherings to reduce risks of spreading the virus, which has infected more than 14,000 people and killed more than 300.
That includes allowing rotating shifts, working online from home and other strategies, it said.
Regulators have also urged banks and other financial institutions to boost lending and avoid calling in debts in areas severely affected by the pandemic.
Some cities, particularly the central Chinese city Wuhan where the disease first surfaced, and nearby cities, are still in lockdown. Shanghai authorities extended the Lunar New Year holiday until Feb. 9. Universities remain closed for now.
Mainland China’s main share benchmark, the Shanghai Composite index, sank 2.8% to 2,976.53 on Jan. 23, its last day of trading before the Lunar New Year.
Chinese authorities have massive resources for intervening to staunch panic selling of shares and have deployed them in past times of crisis.
A large share of the 1.2 trillion yuan to be injected into markets will go to meeting payment obligations falling due on Monday, analysts said.
But it’s still a massive amount of funding.
“This is well beyond the band-aid fix, and if this deluge doesn’t hold risk-off at bay, we are in for a colossal beat down,” Stephen Innes of AxiCorp. said in a client note Sunday.
He noted that any major drop shortly after the markets reopen would be a “catch up.”
“It’s not the earthquake at the open but rather the aftershocks that will drive risk sentiment on Monday,” he said.
bw
Fringe Ranger
Remaining ignorant is easy until it becomes painful.
marsh
On TB every waking moment
One of the problems with the importation of food is that the shipping vessels will have little to haul back on their return trips. This will be very expensive shipping costs.
Tristan
Has No Life - Lives on TB
People are strange.
Never in history has it been easier for people to look into things for themselves.
They simply decide to outsource the decision making to others (MSM) because it's easy and easier to go with the flow (fit in) than it is to deal with the cognitive dissonance with doing it themselves.
mzkitty
I give up.
Woman suspected of being infected refuses to go to the isolation center, shouting: "I don't want to go, I don't want to go"
Video:
twitter.com
Video:
Ⓝ ⓂⒺⓃⒶ·۰•●○ (@Nws_MENA) | Twitter
The latest Tweets from Ⓝ ⓂⒺⓃⒶ·۰•●○ (@Nws_MENA). Veille & Disseminating info #WorldConflicts #Mena #Economy. France
twitter.com
20Gauge
TB Fanatic
Yep you are correct. Maybe they will let them starve like they did a few decades ago.
bw
Fringe Ranger
I wasn't counting on it. I pointed out what looked like armed cops, and someone replied that the cops in China aren't armed. I don't have a dog in that fight.
bw
Fringe Ranger
Dying center, reportedly. I wouldn't care to go either.
1911user
Veteran Member
I also run adblockplus and javascript control. What has mostly worked for me with "teaser" articles is to do a search for the exact title. Often I can find the full article using a different link.
Tarryn
Senior Member
Ohio coronavirus test results to be announced tonight at Miami University
Ohio coronavirus test results to be announced tonight at Miami University
Today 5:45 PM
This illustration provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in January 2020 shows the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV). This virus was identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan, China. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via AP)
By Laura Hancock, cleveland.com
A news conference is scheduled for 7 p.m. on campus, and cleveland.com will be there.
Officials from the Ohio Department of Health, Miami University, Butler County General Health, the Middletown Health Department and the Hamilton City Health Department will provide the update. The tests were performed by the Centers for Disease Control.
The two Miami University students had reported mild flu-like symptoms to the campus health center Monday. They had recently returned to Ohio from China.
If the tests are positive, they would be the first cases of the illness in Ohio. The virus continues to spread rapidly around the world and in the U.S. since first reported in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. The virus is likely to become a pandemic, the New York Times reported, citing infectious disease experts.
The Ohio Department of Health recently decided to require hospitals, clinics and doctors to report any suspected case of the infection to their local health department.
Comments
Ohio coronavirus test results to be announced tonight at Miami University
Today 5:45 PM
By Laura Hancock, cleveland.com
-
-
-
-
-
- CLOSEMore share options:
A news conference is scheduled for 7 p.m. on campus, and cleveland.com will be there.
Officials from the Ohio Department of Health, Miami University, Butler County General Health, the Middletown Health Department and the Hamilton City Health Department will provide the update. The tests were performed by the Centers for Disease Control.
The two Miami University students had reported mild flu-like symptoms to the campus health center Monday. They had recently returned to Ohio from China.
If the tests are positive, they would be the first cases of the illness in Ohio. The virus continues to spread rapidly around the world and in the U.S. since first reported in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. The virus is likely to become a pandemic, the New York Times reported, citing infectious disease experts.
The Ohio Department of Health recently decided to require hospitals, clinics and doctors to report any suspected case of the infection to their local health department.
Comments
Jubilee on Earth
Veteran Member
Don't want any news spoiling SuperBowl Sunday now, would you?
mzkitty
I give up.
They're WELDING people in. Get a load of this!!!!
twitter.com
China, welding people in, 51 seconds:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOUgj_xSAIM&feature=emb_title
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOUgj_xSAIM&feature=emb_title
1800GETTRIGGERED THESE COLORS DONT RUN AMERICA (@800GETTRIGGERED) | Twitter
The latest Tweets from 1800GETTRIGGERED THESE COLORS DONT RUN AMERICA (@800GETTRIGGERED). #REDNECKSUPERMAN #KAG #maga #deplorable #USA #AMERICA #scorpioaf #jamiehicks @amythyst2381 #rhec #redneck #rednecknation #Amazon #Etsy IG REDNECKSUPERMAN007. BEHIND ENEMY LINES DEEP UNDERGROUND FEMA REGION 4
twitter.com
China, welding people in, 51 seconds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOUgj_xSAIM&feature=emb_title