Posted February 15, 2020
Responding to the corona virus.
As of standing the cases are largely contained within China and other nations have not dropped the ball in quarantine procedures.
This however only covers the initial step of separation & identification.
There is still no cure for ncov-1 which i believe is what it is generally being called.
It spreads via water vapor which can survive on surfaces an estimate of 9 days, longer in the right generally cool moist temperatures preferred by people to live in.
It can easily be cleansed from these surfaces, but must be done so & disposed of in light of it's highly contagious nature.
Two victims spread roughly to five others and as such as a contagion event it is exponential.
Currently it has over 60,000 confirmed cases and a mortality around 30%; as such with with the time it will likely take not only to effectively create a treatment, but to with by that time the increasing need to manufacture sufficient supply you are looking at least at 20,000 dead.
The current amount of confirmed cases is about 0.004% of china's population so even if china isn't containing these current people it would take 5 cycles ([2.5^5]x0.004) to reach close to half a percent of china's population; so the explosion of it as an epidemic is quite premature.
The largest problem of course is it's diverse spread (globally) where it can find area's less capable of it's containment and worse present resistance to efforts of treatment.
For example Africa might become problematic; countries in upheavals will become problematic.
If this becomes the case there is a real danger in it becoming uncontained and being a virus changing to a more benign strain which would actually be worse because people would take it less seriously.
Just because it may become less harmful doesn't mean it won't stay less harmful or there won't be cases where there is exception; it would likely become as prevalent in such a case as the 'flu'.
The big center to watch is India and the reason being is that it's expected to be big in China, it's spread far within their borders and external separation so far from china seems to be doing it's job; but if it gets through to enough of the Indian population the realistic trade impact globally of both China and India will start causing possibly enough strain that most of the world will be forced to instead of not doing trade with those countries, switching to 'taking precautions'.
In Australia we have already had a case of Hepatitus-B being shipped in frozen fruit from China; it is natural to assume that there will be mistakes or worse 'shortcuts taken'.
China & England are both fairly big on the surveillance state which helps track down spread; but many countries simply don't have that infrastructure, or want/permit such infrastructure.
So if in 6 months time we firstly don't have an easily deployed solution and secondly if India is growing similarly to how China is now; it would be a safe thing to say that ncov-1 will have attained effective global spread and thus be a full epidemic.
Reports that it will effect 60% of the worlds population though I personally roll my eyes at, not just for the fact of how massively mishandled the spread would have to be, but the fact that you don't need it to reach 60% of the population to radically change countries in a myriad of damaging ways including spurring on an Orwellian surveillance state or triggering a depression that might prove even worse in some countries from a casualty perspective than the virus.
As of standing the cases are largely contained within China and other nations have not dropped the ball in quarantine procedures.
This however only covers the initial step of separation & identification.
There is still no cure for ncov-1 which i believe is what it is generally being called.
It spreads via water vapor which can survive on surfaces an estimate of 9 days, longer in the right generally cool moist temperatures preferred by people to live in.
It can easily be cleansed from these surfaces, but must be done so & disposed of in light of it's highly contagious nature.
Two victims spread roughly to five others and as such as a contagion event it is exponential.
Currently it has over 60,000 confirmed cases and a mortality around 30%; as such with with the time it will likely take not only to effectively create a treatment, but to with by that time the increasing need to manufacture sufficient supply you are looking at least at 20,000 dead.
The current amount of confirmed cases is about 0.004% of china's population so even if china isn't containing these current people it would take 5 cycles ([2.5^5]x0.004) to reach close to half a percent of china's population; so the explosion of it as an epidemic is quite premature.
The largest problem of course is it's diverse spread (globally) where it can find area's less capable of it's containment and worse present resistance to efforts of treatment.
For example Africa might become problematic; countries in upheavals will become problematic.
If this becomes the case there is a real danger in it becoming uncontained and being a virus changing to a more benign strain which would actually be worse because people would take it less seriously.
Just because it may become less harmful doesn't mean it won't stay less harmful or there won't be cases where there is exception; it would likely become as prevalent in such a case as the 'flu'.
The big center to watch is India and the reason being is that it's expected to be big in China, it's spread far within their borders and external separation so far from china seems to be doing it's job; but if it gets through to enough of the Indian population the realistic trade impact globally of both China and India will start causing possibly enough strain that most of the world will be forced to instead of not doing trade with those countries, switching to 'taking precautions'.
In Australia we have already had a case of Hepatitus-B being shipped in frozen fruit from China; it is natural to assume that there will be mistakes or worse 'shortcuts taken'.
China & England are both fairly big on the surveillance state which helps track down spread; but many countries simply don't have that infrastructure, or want/permit such infrastructure.
So if in 6 months time we firstly don't have an easily deployed solution and secondly if India is growing similarly to how China is now; it would be a safe thing to say that ncov-1 will have attained effective global spread and thus be a full epidemic.
Reports that it will effect 60% of the worlds population though I personally roll my eyes at, not just for the fact of how massively mishandled the spread would have to be, but the fact that you don't need it to reach 60% of the population to radically change countries in a myriad of damaging ways including spurring on an Orwellian surveillance state or triggering a depression that might prove even worse in some countries from a casualty perspective than the virus.