Coronavirus (COVID-19) Respiratory illness - Effect on Travel

And tonight the PM announces an extension of another 7 days of the arrivals ban for anyone who has been in mainland China. To be assessed weekly from here on.

This is bad news for tourism and education and bad news for my business as I have a key staff member stuck there.

Not surprised sadly.
 
I overlooked one detail in this lancet article which I posted earlier

Males seem to be affected to a greater extent than females. More smoking and other illnesses in Men. And Women get more autoimmune problems - in other words a more vigorous immune system than men which may be (speculatively) beneficial

Covid-19 might be the worst strain of the ManFlu!!
 
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This is the year to be building a new house! Quite a large build budget, so travel would have been more of a luxury than the normal affair.

Can't see us travelling in the short term, and if this thing continues to pick up pace - we'll be cancelling all of our already booked SQ suite rides for the year.
 
Quickstatus said:
Males seem to be affected to a greater extent than females. More smoking and other illnesses in Men. And Women get more autoimmune problems - in other words a more vigorous immune system than men which may be (speculatively) beneficial
Click to expand...

I thought I'd seen a subsquent article debunking this theory. But in any event, in China, IME lots of men smoke a lot. It's the main place in the world we're I've been to meetings and they've had a packet of cigarettes on the table for each participant, and where you can still smell smoke wafting through the corridors of many of the non smoking floors of hotels (particularly outside of BJ & SH) .
 
Quickstatus said:
I overlooked one detail in this lancet article which I posted earlier

Males seem to be affected to a greater extent than females. More smoking and other illnesses in Men. And Women get more autoimmune problems - in other words a more vigorous immune system than men which may be (speculatively) beneficial

Covid-19 might be the worst strain of the ManFlu!!
Click to expand...
I think that’s still the case that males seem over represented. And smoking. But try tell that to a smoker. The issue with women/people having autoimmune issues is that when they are treated then immunity is lowered. And I did read somewhere that the female factor was either hormonal or chromosomal protection.
 
Must try to get hold of some hand sanitiser today. And hubby came back from the GP with band-aids all over him from travel vaccinations. I need to get on that quick sticks as well I guess. Though I'm already taking anti-malarials (not that I would have bothered anyway with that for a week in Thailand).
 
p--and--t said:
So does that mean we should see the "suspected" figure to drop in concert with the policy change?
Click to expand...

I think WHO has answered my question....


How to interpret the 15,152 surge in COVID-19 new cases of February 12
China reported 15,152 new cases for February 12, in an apparent 600% surge over the preceding day. However, this spike does not represent a change in the trend.


In fact, 13,332 of these new cases are clinically (rather than laboratory) confirmed cases, reported for the first time as an effect of a change in how cases are diagnosed and reported in Hubei province starting on February 12.

Of the 15,152 new cases reported, only 1,820 are new laboratory confirmed cases (1,508 in Hubei province and 312 elsewhere in China).

These 1,820 new laboratory confirmed cases actually represent a decline of 26% over the preceding day (when 2,467 cases, all laboratory confirmed, were reported).

Change in how cases are diagnosed and reported
Starting on February 12, in the Hubei province only, a trained medical professional can now classify a suspected case of COVID-19 as a clinically confirmed case on the basis of chest imaging, rather than having to have a laboratory confirmation.

This allows clinicians to move and report cases more quickly - not having to wait for lab confirmation - ensuring that people get adequate care more quickly and also allows for public health responses - such as contact-tracing - to be initiated.

Redistribution of the surge in new cases
Most of these 13,332 clinically confirmed cases relate to a period going back days and weeks, but were all retrospectively reported as cases on a single day, but they need to be redistributed over the entire preceding period.

WHO is currently working with Chinese health officials to see exactly how those numbers are spread out across those days and weeks.

Worldometer is awaiting the result of this analysis before making adjustments to the historical graphs and tables.

In the rest of the world, laboratory confirmation for reporting is still required, and WHO will continue to track both laboratory and clinically confirmed cases in Hubei province.

Caution when looking at numbers
Who warned, in its February 13 press conference, that we need to be cautious when drawing conclusions from daily reported numbers and when interpreting any extremes, be in the incubation period (a study had reported a range of up to 24 days), be it in daily numbers.

We must take all numbers into account, look at numbers seriously, but we must also try to always interpret what those numbers mean and not react directly to the number itself without proper context.
 
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p--and--t said:
I think WHO has answered my question....


How to interpret the 15,152 surge in COVID-19 new cases of February 12
China reported 15,152 new cases for February 12, in an apparent 600% surge over the preceding day. However, this spike does not represent a change in the trend.


In fact, 13,332 of these new cases are clinically (rather than laboratory) confirmed cases, reported for the first time as an effect of a change in how cases are diagnosed and reported in Hubei province starting on February 12.

Of the 15,152 new cases reported, only 1,820 are new laboratory confirmed cases (1,508 in Hubei province and 312 elsewhere in China).

These 1,820 new laboratory confirmed cases actually represent a decline of 26% over the preceding day (when 2,467 cases, all laboratory confirmed, were reported).

Change in how cases are diagnosed and reported
Starting on February 12, in the Hubei province only, a trained medical professional can now classify a suspected case of COVID-19 as a clinically confirmed case on the basis of chest imaging, rather than having to have a laboratory confirmation.

This allows clinicians to move and report cases more quickly - not having to wait for lab confirmation - ensuring that people get adequate care more quickly and also allows for public health responses - such as contact-tracing - to be initiated.

Redistribution of the surge in new cases
Most of these 13,332 clinically confirmed cases relate to a period going back days and weeks, but were all retrospectively reported as cases on a single day, but they need to be redistributed over the entire preceding period.

WHO is currently working with Chinese health officials to see exactly how those numbers are spread out across those days and weeks.

Worldometer is awaiting the result of this analysis before making adjustments to the historical graphs and tables.

In the rest of the world, laboratory confirmation for reporting is still required, and WHO will continue to track both laboratory and clinically confirmed cases in Hubei province.

Caution when looking at numbers
Who warned, in its February 13 press conference, that we need to be cautious when drawing conclusions from daily reported numbers and when interpreting any extremes, be in the incubation period (a study had reported a range of up to 24 days), be it in daily numbers.

We must take all numbers into account, look at numbers seriously, but we must also try to always interpret what those numbers mean and not react directly to the number itself without proper context.
Click to expand...

This really needs to be highlighted because right now the world looks at things at face value and/or what the media throws into the headlines. The finer details escapes them. Can you see the media saying “don’t worry about the numbers, they are reducing“ if that’s what is shown to be the case. That stuff doesn’t sell papers nor provide clicks.
 
Todays news …..

Exec summary ( for those in the bar ) :
There seems to have been been a lot of grey diagnosis and the following reports suggest that testing is not/ may not be reliable… 🥺

www.bbc.com

Are coronavirus tests flawed?

Concerns are being raised about the accuracy of the tests for the coronavirus.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com

Stories in several countries suggest people are having up to six negative results before finally being diagnosed.
Meanwhile, officials in the epicentre of the epidemic, Hubei province, China, have started counting people with symptoms rather than using the tests for final confirmation.
As a result, nearly 15,000 new cases were reported on a single day - a quarter of all cases in this epidemic.

Abstract
Some patients with positive chest CT findings may present with negative results of real time reverse-transcription–polymerase chain- reaction (RT-PCR) for 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). In this report, we present chest CT findings from five patients with 2019-nCoV infection who had initial negative RT-PCR results. All five patients had typical imaging findings, including ground-glass opacity (GGO) (5 patients) and/or mixed GGO and mixed consolidation (2 patients). After isolation for presumed 2019-nCoV pneumonia, all patients were eventually confirmed with 2019-nCoV infection by repeated swab tests. A combination of repeated swab tests and CT scanning may be helpful when for individuals with high clinical suspicion of nCoV infection but negative RT-PCR screening
 
Pushka said:
Shame the media can’t pick up on the “good news” but bad news sells better.
Click to expand...
...because we, the punters, are hard wired to respond to bad news (and narky feedback).

China has a huge task convincing it’s punters that the tide is turning, even when it does. That is made a great deal harder by Dr Zhong “she’ll be right” Nanshan’s predictions - twice so far - that they will turn the corner in the next week or two.

cheers skip
 
China reports 5,090 new coronavirus cases in mainland

SHANGHAI, Feb 14 (Reuters) - China saw 5,090 new coronavirus cases in the mainland on Feb. 13, with 121 new deaths, the National Health Commission said on Friday.
Hubei province, which is at the epicentre of the outbreak, earlier reported 4,823 new cases with 116 deaths.
Click to expand...

5.090 new cases and 121 new deaths - not exactly good news...
 
alert-plus.png
The National Health Commission of China, in its February 14 official report, deducted 108 previously reported deaths and 1,043 previously reported cases from the total in Hubei Province due to "repeated statistics." We have updated the daily (Feb. 12 and Feb. 13) and coughulative totals accordingly.


www.worldometers.info

Coronavirus Update (Live): 131,307,090 Cases and 2,857,945 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer

Live statistics and coronavirus news tracking the number of confirmed cases, recovered patients, tests, and death toll due to the COVID-19 coronavirus from Wuhan, China. Coronavirus counter with new cases, deaths, and number of tests per 1 Million population. Historical data and info. Daily...
www.worldometers.info www.worldometers.info
 
From the FT:

China says 'asymptomatic carriers' are not counted in public data

China has said that people who test positive for the new coronavirus strain but who do not have symptoms are not counted in public data.

Zeng Yixin, deputy-head of China’s National Health Commission, said so-called "asymptomatic carriers" must be quarantined for 14 days and cases reported through the national reporting network, but there is "no need" to make them public.

“According to the relevant regulations concerning disclosures about the epidemic, we only make public confirmed and suspected cases of the novel coronavirus," he said.

He made the remarks at a press conference attended by the FT's Yuan Yang.

Mr Zeng also explained why the reporting methodology was changed in Hubei, the province at the centre of the outbreak, to include cases that have been clinically diagnosed in addition to laboratory confirmed ones.

He said:

The aim [of changing the reporting categories] is to let patients be diagnosed early and treated early, to standardise treatment, and to raise the effectiveness of treatment….At present, we have not set this category of clinically diagnosed cases for other provinces.
Click to expand...
The change in reporting standards in Hubei caused a large increase in the number of cases reported in the data release on Thursday.
 
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