COVID-19 virus thread (formerly Wuhan coronavirus)

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@How to know Welcome to Off topic. Thank you for your perspective and contribution to the topic. Where in China do you live?
 
Birdjaguar said:
@How to know Welcome to Off topic. Thank you for your perspective and contribution to the topic. Where in China do you live?
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Thank you for the welcome. I live In Guangzhou, the 3rd Biggest in China. So far my city have got 40 confirmed patients, although compare to the 14 millions population I was expecting it to be much higher.

I live in sub-urban area so I am fairly safe, but being away from all sorts of shops and supermarket is a big problem. Thank to the new year we brought two weeks worth of stuff for celebrations, and since celebrations are no more I can live from it for another 3 weeks without any shopping, even shopping in the city is safe in theory.
 
@How to know
Shenzhen to Guangzhou

IMG_1087.JPG IMG_1078.JPG
 
How to know said:
I hope the second image is not suggesting you are in Shenzhen, from what I know Shenzhen is quite tense right now because of the plague. :shifty:

As for the first, that big donut is not so absurd if you look at it hard enough... There are many other wonders in Guangzhou.:crazyeye:
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No, both pics are from 2018. :)
 
My boss's cousin sent him some link/clip/whatever to his phone today. Guy raving about how people were dying in the streets and making comparisons to the black plague. He suggested running down to Home Depot and getting dust masks while there was still time. I'm guessing he was a PR flack for Home Depot, or possibly a dust mask manufacturer.
 
Still in exponential phase, 4500 confirmed cases.
At this rate, in next 2-3 days it's going to exceed number of SARS cases reported for entire half a year long outbreak.
 
Commodore said:
My wife sent me this. I got a chuckle out of it. I don't think too many people here will, but I'm going to post it anyway:
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Its Ironic because the unregulated industrial pollution is making its population Sick
is something that is lost on Trump supporters.

Hopefully this will act as a wake up call for the Chinese.
 
China's per-capita CO2 emission is twice lower than US, Australia and Canada, by the way.
Not to mention that blaming China for industrial pollution and continue to import its industrial goods is quite hypocritical.
 
red_elk said:
China's per-capita CO2 emission is twice lower than US, Australia and Canada, by the way.
Not to mention that blaming China for industrial pollution and continue to import its industrial goods is quite hypocritical.
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Those figures are skewed by the fact that they have a ridiculously large population and aren't as industrialized as Western nations. For example about 33% of Chinese people are not living an "industrialized" lifestyle, compared to just 2% in the US.

As for the second point: I've made it clear in other discussions that the rest of the world should start boycotting Chinese goods until they correct the numerous political, economic, and social failings they have.
 
Commodore said:
For example about 33% of Chinese people are not living an "industrialized" lifestyle, compared to just 2% in the US.
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Well, yes, industrial lifestyle is a much bigger burden to the planet than agrarian one. Not sure how this skew the figures.

Commodore said:
As for the second point: I've made it clear in other discussions that the rest of the world should start boycotting Chinese goods until they correct the numerous political, economic, and social failings they have.
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By all means, buy less cheap Chinese stuff and produce your own, hopefully using more ecological-friendly industry.
 
red_elk said:
Well, yes, industrial lifestyle is a much bigger burden to the planet than agrarian one. Not sure how this skew the figures.
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Because statistics are made based on averages. And averages lie. Do you know how the average wage in america is calculated? (Trump + beggar) / 2 exaggerated analogy In case of the PRC they have an absolutely vast territory and population and thus can have regions with extremely low population density which still have millions of people that dilute the averages. Furthermore, it's not all about CO2. In fact, CO2 in general isn't what makes you sick. It makes the planet warmer, sure. But it's not a health concern, just an environmental one. What's actually poisonous for humans are things like solid particulates of lead and sulfur in the air and other such stuff.

There is a reason why every couple years China produces a new respiratory plague (anyone remember sars?). And that reason is that they have a large population crowded into cities that are extremely polluted from not just industry but also the traffic and support infrastructure like electricity and central heating required to maintain those people. And this leads to both compromised immunity and a propensity to respiratory problems which in turn allows respiratory illness to flourish. It's sort of like 19th century London really.
 
Birdjaguar said:
My mother had the Spanish flu as a young child. She survived.
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That's the point. She was a young child. It was the young adults who died. My great-grandmother was one of them, thanks to it spreading when the Prairie-based soldiers came back from Europe (one of the drawbacks of having the train is that it spread much faster across the country).

This left my great-aunt to help raise my grandmother and great-uncle, while my great-grandfather kept up the farm.

aimeeandbeatles said:
Yes but it's too cold.
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Put on a sweater and get on with everything (or however many layers may be necessary).

The_J said:
Just wanted to say: If you wanted to lock down 11 million people here, you basically need to close the borders of the Netherlands :lol:.
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If you wanted to lock down 11 million people in my province, you'd have to import most of them first.

That said, if you wanted to lock down my city, you'd need to do the entire perimeter. We have a lot of rural area around the city, plus a still-navigable river that is usable for most of the year (it's only dangerous in early winter, late winter, and early spring, from thin ice or debris from spring breakup).

How to know said:
I am a Chinese citizen, so I guess I might be able to give some insights on this issue.

Firstly, the first infected who has shown symptoms of it was find in Wuhan around Christmas. The original outbreak was located to a food market in Wuhan almost immediately, after a few days the virus was identified as a new member of the coronavirus. The market was closed and inspected for only a few days and then it went back to business as usual. If I remember it correctly the infected number was around 10-ish, there was certainly no death. There was some early concerns from both the public and medical experts but since no more patients was found the general opinion was it was things are under control. The New Year holiday was coming so we just want to move on.

From January things start to went south. Things were quite chaotic and it’s impossible to make a clear timeline of what happened for now, the facts that people in China are agree with is patients were found in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hongkong, so more experts were sent to investigate by the government, and they found it quite horrible locally. There was some explanations and warnings on the national news channel but was largely ignored. I remember not many people in Guangzhou was wearing mask before 23rd of Jan despite the warnings, I guess it was the same for Shanghai and Beijing but I can be very wrong.

The cause of the whole affair goes back to the food market. We are now certain that the virus was coming from some bats, then the bats spread it to another type of mammals of which type we are uncertain of. The point is the market was selling wild animal meats illegally and someone was foolish enough to eat them raw, hence the start of this mayhem.

Many people blamed the local government of Wuhan for good reasons. The first thing is they did not closed the market for good when the first patients was found, it was the earliest stage of the contagion process so if it was done well we would not be seeing this. The second thing is in Wuhan there was a tradition that at the night prior to the new year all families goes together to the street and share their food together, a perfect chance for the virus to spread, this event was NOT CANCELLED despite experts’ warnings and was even encouraged in order to ease the public anxiety on this particular issue. Thirdly, when the central government gave order to quarantine Wuhan, the local government gave warning to the citizens 13 hours before implementing it, so of course people panicked and over three hundred thousand people escaped Wuhan under disguise, starting from that it had become impossible to track the disease. The last goes to corruption, as local government officials themselves were escaping Wuhan with their family.

The situation in China is mostly stable. I haven’t been to Wuhan so I won’t pretend to know lots about there, but according to my friends there it was not too bad, streets are empty and many shop are closed, but no corpses on streets, they are staying at home safely. We are accustomed to staying at home during Chinese New Year so staying a bit longer is endurable for us. The food price did rose for a little bit but is still affordable for most people, but the masks had become insanely expensive, and it is now illegal to walk on public spaces without putting your mask on, so that is very annoying. Other places are much more relaxing, although the mask policy are implemented in many provinces. More on economy, the restaurant and tourism industry went very bad for obvious reasons, there are fear of bankruptcy from these business which are very true, and we haven’t heard any policies for helping these businesses yet, the manufacturers were affected due to travel bans, but it’s too early to tell how deep their wound will be, other businesses are doing okay afaik.

Right now there are thousands of doctors and nurses volunteered to go to Wuhan, medical equipment manufacturers are now exempt from tax, the army were mobilised to maintain the quarantine action, two hospitals are being built and were planning to be finished in 6 days, the resting kit for the virus are being sent to all major cities and affected countries like Japan and Australia, these are more or less confirmed. The scientists are still looking for the animal that first infected people in that market, though many believe it is impossible, they also claimed to have successfully separate the virus strain from human cells, if that’s true it will help the making of cure and vaccines tremendously, but even that it will take at least months.

the last thing I want to say is there really is no need to worry about your life. Right now there are over 80 deaths due to this virus, within them over 70 are in Wuhan, almost all of them are either aged or already suffering other respiratory diseases, so if you are heathy now, the chance for you to get killed by it is very low.
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Okay, I'm wondering a few things:

1. Who eats bats, of all things? Why? I can't imagine any human having a reason to eat them, unless starvation is compelling them to do that.

2. Whenever I see footage on TV of people in masks but no gloves, it gives me the shudders. If people really want to be safe, they should also be wearing gloves, to minimize the risk of touching an infected surface and then introducing the virus into their body if they absentmindedly touch their mouth, nose, or eyes.

Not many people here wear masks during flu season. But the health authorities constantly remind people to get flu shots and wash their hands frequently. Many public buildings have hand sanitizers available (I don't use it because of allergies). I try to avoid touching public door handles, elevator buttons, pay phones, etc. as much as possible, I wash ASAP after using a debit machine, and I really prefer NOT to shake hands with people. Some consider these precautions excessive, but at least I haven't had the flu in years (I'm in the at-risk category, so that's why I take such precautions; I don't want to end up in the hospital).


The regions of Canada where people are most worried are close to international airports where there's a lot of travel to and from China. I'm not worried here in Red Deer, because we don't have an airport within the city limits, and it's just a small one. We're a two-day drive to the west coast, and this is the time of year when people are vigilant about flu season anyway so they're already taking extra precautions.

As with SARS, it's the cities of Toronto and Vancouver that are most at risk, and both have reported confirmed cases. The Canadian government has decided to help evacuate Canadians from China (at least those in Wuhan) and quarantine them elsewhere before letting them return home.
 
PPQ_Purple said:
There is a reason why every couple years China produces a new respiratory plague (anyone remember sars?). And that reason is that they have a large population crowded into cities that are extremely polluted from not just industry but also the traffic and support infrastructure like electricity and central heating required to maintain those people. And this leads to both compromised immunity and a propensity to respiratory problems which in turn allows respiratory illness to flourish. It's sort of like 19th century London really.
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While this is A reason, but not the whole reason and not likely the big one. Another, that I think is bigger, is that they have a very big population and much of that population lives in close proximity to viral reservoirs. Those reservoirs are pigs and chickens (mainly a problem for influenza viruses) and eaten wild animals as seems to be the source here and for SARS.
 
PPQ_Purple said:
In case of the PRC they have an absolutely vast territory and population and thus can have regions with extremely low population density which still have millions of people that dilute the averages.
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Yes, there are millions of people in China who live in non-industrialized areas and "dilute the averages". Making CO2 emission per capita half of American. That's the point.
 
red_elk said:
Yes, there are millions of people in China who live in non-industrialized areas and "dilute the averages". Making CO2 emission per capita half of American. That's the point.
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You said you were not sure how that skewed the figures. This implied that you did not believe it did or understand how it did. I explained.
 
red_elk said:
Well, yes, industrial lifestyle is a much bigger burden to the planet than agrarian one. Not sure how this skew the figures
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You seemed to be implying that China produced less pollution per capita because they are somehow a more environmentally conscious nation. They aren't. I'm sure if you took the agrarian population of both nations out of the equation, the pollution per capita would probably be roughly equal. Probably worse on China's end since they operate with almost no environmental restrictions.

I would also say per capita numbers are largely irrelevant when it comes to pollution. Consider this: Say I lived alone in my household and produced 100 pounds of garbage a month. The house next to me has five people living in it and produces 400 pounds of garbage a month. "Per capita" that household is producing less garbage than mine, but they are still causing more damage to the environment overall just by the mere virtue of having more people living there and producing more garbage on a per household basis. So it would still be entirely accurate to say that household is a bigger polluter than my household.
 
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