China locks down two cities at epicentre of virus outbreak

[RubbaJohnny]

Time to revise menus, As the year of the Rat looms.

4 suspected cases in Scotland also 

https://www.scotsman.com/health/coronavirus-4-patients-in-scotland-tested-for-deadly-disease-from-china-1-5079699

 

Jock's Trapped ?

[Traubert]

25 minutes ago, RubbaJohnny said:

Time to revise menus, As the year of the Rat looms.

4 suspected cases in Scotland also 

https://www.scotsman.com/health/coronavirus-4-patients-in-scotland-tested-for-deadly-disease-from-china-1-5079699

 

Jock's Trapped ?

Paywall. What does it say? ESL Teachers from Wuhan? Dear God no!!

 

A generation of Chinese kids saying See yu Jim, you lukin at me eh?

[Emdog]

Maybe time to stock up on some essentials... ah, but for how long a time period?

Anyone know if soaking noodles enough to make edible in case power goes?

This does provide opportunity to test if any validity to "Six degrees of separation" theory.

Always look on the bright side of life....

[Kelsall]

Here's some insight into why the Chinese authorities are now taking drastic action.

 

"Infected people seen 'dead in streets' in quarantined Chinese virus city"

 

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/infected-people-seen-dead-streets-21345585

 

 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2020 by Kelsall

[URMySunshine]

10 hours ago, Traubert said:

Not being too critical here, but I've been in China a long time and never heard of Free WeChat. WeChat is P2P, not open, maybe you or your nephew is thinking of Sina Weibo? Of course there are news groups on WeChat but you have to 'follow' them and they're not open to comment.

 

Whatever, the fact that people are angry is not disputed. What would happen if someone cancelled Christmas? However everyone knows it wasn't the government that was flogging dead wild animals in a market, their anger is probably directed at the nationally hated 'cheng guan' or market police.

 

When it's all dies down there will be heads rolling there.

He called it 'free WeChat' in my conversation so it is no doubt as you say. Uncensored was his point I think and therefore deemed to be one yardstick of testing the temperature of true public feeling. Of course the internet is very bad in amplifying news feed without analysis or context and if I was locked down with food shortages and panic buying I would no doubt be angry and afraid.  With what we know so far the Chinese authorities seem to be doing the best they can maybe partly down to the amount of criticism they received for their handling of SARS.

 

So long as they dont cover stuff up, and release info in a timely manner, I won't criticise them over stuff this time. Because contrary to the wording some articles will no doubt use when taking a blame angle, I don't think there are any countries that could manage to suppress an outbreak of a new infectious respiratory disease if it develops the ability to spread between people with ease. We never have managed such a thing before, to my knowledge. But you still have to try anyway because if it turns out to not be such a good spreader, but is rather deadly, then control and containment may be viable, and the stakes are different.

[Kelsall]

2 minutes ago, URMySunshine said:

He called it 'free WeChat' in my conversation so it is no doubt as you say. Uncensored was his point I think and therefore deemed to be one yardstick of testing the temperature of true public feeling. Of course the internet is very bad in amplifying news feed without analysis or context and if I was locked down with food shortages and panic buying I would no doubt be angry and afraid.  With what we know so far the Chinese authorities seem to be doing the best they can maybe partly down to the amount of criticism they received for their handling of SARS.

 

So long as they dont cover stuff up, and release info in a timely manner, I won't criticise them over stuff this time. Because contrary to the wording some articles will no doubt use when taking a blame angle, I don't think there are any countries that could manage to suppress an outbreak of a new infectious respiratory disease if it develops the ability to spread between people with ease. We never have managed such a thing before, to my knowledge. But you still have to try anyway because if it turns out to not be such a good spreader, but is rather deadly, then control and containment may be viable, and the stakes are different.

"the best they can" isn't good enough.  See post #34.

[URMySunshine]

24 minutes ago, Kelsall said:

Here's some insight into why the Chinese authorities are now taking drastic action.

 

"Infected people seen 'dead in streets' in quarantined Chinese virus city"

 

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/infected-people-seen-dead-streets-21345585

 

 

 

 

Crikey that doesn't look good. That said I'm buying a good supply of face masks and hand gel today. 

[URMySunshine]

8 minutes ago, Kelsall said:

"the best they can" isn't good enough.  See post #34.

That's all we got though. What can they do shoot people and burn the bodies ?

 

I'm just reading the Sino Weibo feed for Wuhan - auto translated.....

 

https://s.weibo.com/weibo/%E6%AD%A6%E6%BC%A2?topnav=1&wvr=6&b=1

 

http://t.cn/A6PwC3ya

Edited January 24, 2020 by URMySunshine

[zydeco]

35 minutes ago, Kelsall said:

Here's some insight into why the Chinese authorities are now taking drastic action.

 

"Infected people seen 'dead in streets' in quarantined Chinese virus city"

 

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/infected-people-seen-dead-streets-21345585

 

 

 

 

I think I'll wait until these pictures are substantiated and appear in other news sources. The Daily Star, whence these photos came, also has as its lead stories, "Mutant Goat Born with Human Face" and "Sex Robots with Identical Human Appearance."

[rabas]

21 minutes ago, zydeco said:

I think I'll wait until these pictures are substantiated and appear in other news sources. The Daily Star, whence these photos came, also has as its lead stories, "Mutant Goat Born with Human Face" and "Sex Robots with Identical Human Appearance."

The mutant goat story was true, it's a rare genetic disorder.

 

But the guy lying lifeless in front of a closed ticket counter died of heart attack after learning he couldn't return home to his wife who will now learn about his Wuhan mistress.  

 

But seriously there will be loss of life from the huge disruptions of daily life in quarantined cities.

[URMySunshine]

I think until we know more prudent behaviour and a watching brief are in order. 

 

Prudent behaviour would be to;

 

stock up on good quality face masks and hand gel 

stock up on bottled water and food

avoid large crowded places particularly if they are frequented by mainland Chinese

on returning to your home scrub up well particularly your hands

 

 

It may all turn out to be a storm in a teacup if so we have supplies for the next time and any extra stocks of water and food can easily be eaten. Well that's what I'm doing and probably not obsessing by the story as it can only make you scared if you follow every single incident and every single gory internet post. 

 

 

[TheDark]

35 minutes ago, zydeco said:

I think I'll wait until these pictures are substantiated and appear in other news sources. The Daily Star, whence these photos came, also has as its lead stories, "Mutant Goat Born with Human Face" and "Sex Robots with Identical Human Appearance."

This. Notoriously sensational and bad British press also wrote about Corona virus in Phi Phi islands, which turned out not to be true. 

 

It's best to get information from more reliable sources. 

[rabas]

35 minutes ago, URMySunshine said:

That's all we got though. What can they do shoot people and burn the bodies ?

 

I'm just reading the Sino Weibo feed for Wuhan - auto translated.....

 

https://s.weibo.com/weibo/%E6%AD%A6%E6%BC%A2?topnav=1&wvr=6&b=1

 

http://t.cn/A6PwC3ya

I had to put them in google chrome to auto translate but but your links really show the fear and desperation these people face. 

 

I've been reading elsewhere about conditions inside hospitals from healthcare workers. This is also the normal cold and flu season. Hospital hallways are packed with 1000s of people waiting hours to see doctors, only to be sent home unless they are critical, isolation beds are all full. I wonder how many went to the hospital with an ordinary cold and return home having just contracted nCoV (the new virus). Hard times.

 

[URMySunshine]

6 minutes ago, rabas said:

I had to put them in google chrome to auto translate but but your links really show the fear and desperation these people face. 

 

I've been reading elsewhere about conditions inside hospitals from healthcare workers. This is also the normal cold and flu season. Hospital hallways are packed with 1000s of people waiting hours to see doctors, only to be sent home unless they are critical, isolation beds are all full. I wonder how many went to the hospital with an ordinary cold and return home having just contracted nCoV (the new virus). Hard times.

 

It's grim to watch unfiltered feeds from the frontline and not recommended for those that are easily frightened or obsessive as it's not a movie but reality. They don't mess around.... they are building a 1000 bed hospital in front of your eyes. 

 

https://live.weibo.com/show?id=1042152:5592fadbfc781bd33bdbdd1199b92585

Edited January 24, 2020 by URMySunshine

[Traubert]

1 hour ago, Kelsall said:

Here's some insight into why the Chinese authorities are now taking drastic action.

 

"Infected people seen 'dead in streets' in quarantined Chinese virus city"

 

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/infected-people-seen-dead-streets-21345585

 

 

 

 

The Daily Star.

 

Dear God, we've had the Sun, the Mirror, the Express, and now the Star. There are less credible news sources of course. The Onion, the Daily Mash.........

[Traubert]

1 hour ago, URMySunshine said:

He called it 'free WeChat' in my conversation so it is no doubt as you say. Uncensored was his point I think and therefore deemed to be one yardstick of testing the temperature of true public feeling. Of course the internet is very bad in amplifying news feed without analysis or context and if I was locked down with food shortages and panic buying I would no doubt be angry and afraid.  With what we know so far the Chinese authorities seem to be doing the best they can maybe partly down to the amount of criticism they received for their handling of SARS.

 

So long as they dont cover stuff up, and release info in a timely manner, I won't criticise them over stuff this time. Because contrary to the wording some articles will no doubt use when taking a blame angle, I don't think there are any countries that could manage to suppress an outbreak of a new infectious respiratory disease if it develops the ability to spread between people with ease. We never have managed such a thing before, to my knowledge. But you still have to try anyway because if it turns out to not be such a good spreader, but is rather deadly, then control and containment may be viable, and the stakes are different.

Yeah, WeChat is unencrypted but to go into the details would be off topic and hardly relevant to what's going on anyway. Point being your nephew has a line into the centre.

 

I think at the moment there's little more they can do from the Chinese authorities point of view. The are very much taking action that the WHO recommends. As Mr Rabas says above there will be enormous pressure on medical staff. A little insight here into the Chinese mentality might be in order.

 

The Government has declared that the cost of treatment for the disease will not be borne by the sufferer. Instantly, and particularly among the elderly and middle aged, the light goes on, 'I can get a free check' and off they'll go to the local hospital. It's a very 'me first' society. In this case and because the youngest fatality so far is 48, you can see their point, but the clamour they will raise will be deafening, and the longer they wait the more fear will spread. Even in normal times IV rooms across the country are full of people with a slight sniffle.

 

It's a country full of hypochondriacs. Not ideal in a situation like this.

[toofarnorth]

13 hours ago, URMySunshine said:

The horse has probably already bolted. Because when you see hundreds of cases showing up, that usually means there have actually been many thousands of cases already (because plenty will be asymptomatic or too mild to have raised any flags). The number of cases detected abroad (people who travelled from Wuhan) gives further clues to the scale of the problem at source (larger than originally suggested for sure, hence rising estimates in recent days).

 

Initial mortality data (which should be taken with a pinch of salt at this stage) suggests the usual picture - the old, and those with chronic underlying health problems are most likely to end up with severe consequences after catching this coronavirus. The wider picture will take a while to become clear. For example one possible scenario is that this coronavirus could quickly become endemic, joining the other things which we have always lumped together as 'the common cold'. Possible with not very different mortality and severe disease rates to what we already have to deal with. Slightly or much worse scenarios exist too though.

 

A lot of this 'noise' is going to be the phenomenon of internet amplification hopefully and it will turn out to be over hyped and ruthlessly controlled. Let's hope so time will soon tell. My nephew who is married to a chinese girl and can speak fluent chinese is monitoring free wechat which is the stuff that passes chinese censorship and he tells me that the news on the ground from millions of lock down folk is fear,panic and anger at the government. And he feels whatever the outcome it is damaging the chinese people's faith in their all powerful government. Let's hope so mahk mahk. With the fires in Australia, smog over Thailand and now this these are certainly interesting times to be alive.

 

2 Timothy 3v1    ' Know this , in the last days , critical times hard to deal with will be here , men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money . '  etc.

[englishoak]

Just in China is closing down access to the forbidden city until further notice... 10 Chinese cities now under quarantine. Thats currently 30 million people. plenty in quarantine zones trying to get away from the epidemic by any means possible, they will lie and do whatever they can to get out as things worsen. Suspect cases now reported in 10 other countries and Chinese new year starts today with millions travelling all over the globe already.  

 

News cycle over the coming weeks is going to be dominated by this outbreak and China is going into lockdown and rumours of the internet in the Wuhan region is going to be shut down are circulating. 

 

Respirator machines are already in short supply along with doctors and nurses already doing quadruple shifts and things are only going to get worse. Then there is the question of logistics as regions in lockdown begin to experience shortages, desertion and esperation etc. On top of all this it is also the season for virus, flu and cold outbreaks which will only confuse diagnosis and add to the panic. 

 

Sidenote SARS took out about 1% of Chinas Gdp during that crisis and its growth has been slowing and accelerating due to the trade war. This crisis could not have come at a worse time for China.

 

Xi is going to have a lot of angry and desperate people very soon. The CCP is not a very forgiving regime and is apt to find blame where it can.. Xi with 1.2 billion looking to him for a solution must be feeling a bit under pressure atm and his mandate of heaven isnt looking so secure all of a sudden. 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2020 by englishoak

[rabas]

China shutters all 70,000 movie theatres.

Wow.

 

And now this from the South China Post's (HK) most expert medical reporters:

 

China coronavirus: Wuhan medical staff being infected at much faster pace than reported as national death toll hits 25

 

A description of conditions in Wuhan hospitals. They have assigned a special ward for infected medical personnel.

[DrTuner]

Will be interesting to see what the result after CNY is. Death toll will increase as well as the percentage, as it takes weeks to croak from the flu. The mass migration provides a perfect platform for the virus to spread. Other countries should start preparing travel bans.

[englishoak]

BREAKING: Jingzhou, population 6 million people, will be put on lockdown from 5 p.m.

 

At this rate the entire country will be locked down by the end of its new year... Given China tends to underplay things that affect its image its likely to be worse than reports so probably not such a bad move at this stage tbh. This is definitely now a major crisis in China and new year could easily make the headaches much bigger as many will want and expect to be on the move during new year and after. Will be surprised if WHO drags its heels much longer. 

[URMySunshine]

1 hour ago, englishoak said:

Just in China is closing down access to the forbidden city until further notice... 10 Chinese cities now under quarantine. Thats currently 30 million people. plenty in quarantine zones trying to get away from the epidemic by any means possible, they will lie and do whatever they can to get out as things worsen. Suspect cases now reported in 10 other countries and Chinese new year starts today with millions travelling all over the globe already.  

 

News cycle over the coming weeks is going to be dominated by this outbreak and China is going into lockdown and rumours of the internet in the Wuhan region is going to be shut down are circulating. 

 

Respirator machines are already in short supply along with doctors and nurses already doing quadruple shifts and things are only going to get worse. Then there is the question of logistics as regions in lockdown begin to experience shortages, desertion and esperation etc. On top of all this it is also the season for virus, flu and cold outbreaks which will only confuse diagnosis and add to the panic. 

 

Sidenote SARS took out about 1% of Chinas Gdp during that crisis and its growth has been slowing and accelerating due to the trade war. This crisis could not have come at a worse time for China.

 

Xi is going to have a lot of angry and desperate people very soon. The CCP is not a very forgiving regime and is apt to find blame where it can.. Xi with 1.2 billion looking to him for a solution must be feeling a bit under pressure atm and his mandate of heaven isnt looking so secure all of a sudden. 

 

 

 

 

Hence maybe the 'theatre' of building a thousand bed hospital in Wuhan if that is what it is with dozens of diggers. I would have thought tented temporary field hospitals like the army have would be a better use of resources than that. But like a lot of what will be in the next few weeks there will be a lot of speculation for sure. But what is certain we have never seen a response like this ever and I'm not sure whether that portends good or bad. 

[DrTuner]

6 minutes ago, URMySunshine said:

Hence maybe the 'theatre' of building a thousand bed hospital in Wuhan if that is what it is with dozens of diggers.

It's not usually hospital beds if they are digging holes in the ground..more like a morgue.

Edited January 24, 2020 by DrTuner

[rabas]

9 minutes ago, URMySunshine said:

Hence maybe the 'theatre' of building a thousand bed hospital in Wuhan if that is what it is with dozens of diggers. I would have thought tented temporary field hospitals like the army have would be a better use of resources than that. But like a lot of what will be in the next few weeks there will be a lot of speculation for sure. But what is certain we have never seen a response like this ever and I'm not sure whether that portends good or bad. 

A few years back a Chinese company developed methods for extremely rapid high rise building constitution. They built a 57 story skyscraper in 19 days as a demo.  I think they are serious, and worried.

 

[URMySunshine]

31 minutes ago, rabas said:

China shutters all 70,000 movie theatres.

Wow.

 

And now this from the South China Post's (HK) most expert medical reporters:

 

China coronavirus: Wuhan medical staff being infected at much faster pace than reported as national death toll hits 25

 

A description of conditions in Wuhan hospitals. They have assigned a special ward for infected medical personnel.

One wonders is there an element of hysteria here that is fuelling the response - inflamed by the rise of social media amplifying and feeding back everything. If it it 10x worse than SARS then that would only be 8000 deaths in the final reckoning. Not good but no different form an average flu epidemic. Or maybe this time it is different with higher rates of mortality and their response is proportionate or maybe even not enough. The best minds in the world and medical folk need to be fully engaged and fast for sure. 

[metisdead]

Posts in violation of fair use policy have been removed:

 

14) You will not post any copyrighted material except as fair use laws apply (as in the case of news articles). Please only post a link, the headline and the first three sentences.

[DrTuner]

49 minutes ago, rhyddid said:

By the way, i understood virus paranoia is up to the sky, but have you notice that each main stream media got a different figures, we can play them at lotto ! 

Well they do have to make a guess as the Chinese figures are as good as playing lotto. With the certainty no number wins.

[Kinnock]

[URMySunshine]

This is what panic looks like - they are in the worse possible place if they don't have the disease sadly. 

 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2020 by URMySunshine

[DrTuner]

5 minutes ago, Kinnock said:

People stopping to eat exotic wildlife - even more impressive. I think they managed to do that in the west a century or two ago.