[am1m]

Originally Posted by GrammarNazi

This Twitter thread gives a very realistic & thoughtful understanding of the nature of N-Coronavirus, how it spreads and the reality of how it'll be dealt with.
Link

Wow, that's gold! Thanks for sharing, have bookmarked!

Personally, am very sure this whole thing will just die down like the SARS outbreak. Ebola I thought was truly scary, especially because the outbreak was in a region where medical facilities were not great. Since this is China and Singapore, both being authoritarian governments, ironically they'll be better placed to contain the spread because authoritarian regimes/dictatorships can more easily monitor/control their people and take extreme measures faster. (Not a good reason for any country to transition to a dictatorship though! )

[ruzbehxyz]

Indian drug companies get enquries on supplies of anti-HIV drugs for Coronavirus treatment.

China's National Health Commission is repurposing the antiretroviral combination of Lopinavir and Ritonavir, which is meant to treat HIV, as a possible treatment for the symptoms of the coronavirus.

The Lopinavir/Ritonavir combination sold under brand names Aluvia and Kaletra by US-drug maker AbbVie works by blocking an enzyme that the coronavirus needs to reproduce.

“We remain in active touch with the government and the World Health Organisation (WHO). This is a matter where all of us have to support,” said Kedar Upadhye, Global CFO of Cipla to Moneycontrol.

Upadhye said Cipla has already made the donations of the two drugs to public health agencies.

He further added that the Chinese government hasn't approached them directly, but they are working through the Indian government and WHO.

Laurus Labs, which is one of the world’s largest producer of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for anti-HIV drugs also said it has started getting enquires. The company declined to comment further.

Indian drugmakers such as Cipla, Hetero, Aurobindo Pharma, Laurus Labs, Strides are among the top suppliers of generic anti-HIV drugs globally.

Source: https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/bu...t-4932931.html

[BoneCollector]

The latest toll to Coronavirus is the Chinese F1 GP. It's been called off. This thing is turning deadlier with every passing day. I hope that it subsides with increase in temperature across the areas concerned.

Chinese F1

[Su-47]

Prediction that says that the onset of summer will help contain the spread:
https://www.accuweather.com/en/healt...-months/679415

Coronavirus expert says he knows when the virus 'will burn itself out,' according to leaked analysis

"Three things the virus does not like: 1. Sunlight, 2. Temperature, and 3. Humidity," Nicholls said in response to a question about when he thinks confirmed cases will peak, the transcript showed.


"The virus can remain intact at 4 degrees (39 degrees Fahrenheit) or 10 degrees (50 F) for a longer period of time," Nicholls said, referring to Celsius measurements, according to the transcript. "But at 30 degrees (86 degrees F) then you get inactivation. And high humidity -- the virus doesn't like it either," he added, the transcript of the call showed.

And, surprised to see labeling errors while handling serious stuff:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...iego-released/

U.S. coronavirus patient was mistakenly discharged from hospital because of lab error, CDC says

A CDC spokeswoman, Kristen Nordlund, said Tuesday that blood samples from the three patients were inadvertently omitted from a large test run because they were incorrectly labeled.

[V.Narayan]

I have a very different take on this media frenzy over coronavirus. First as some one who works in the social impact healthcare for the econimically deprived sections my heart and prayers go out to the hapless citizens of Wuhan and all others suffering from this disease for which humans do not seems to have a natural immunity. The noise around this is directly linked, IMHO, to the fact that Westerners and the upper classes in the world do not have a defense mechanism against the current new mutation of the coronavirus.

Please read on...

Malaria kills 1.0 million people each year; tuberculosis kills 1.5 million each year - most in South Asia and Africa. These two infectious diseases between them kill 700 a day all year round. Why do these diseases never get reported by the media or spoken about so enthusiastically as coronavirus or SARS. At the end of the day SARS killed 800 people in all. The reason is that coronavirus, SARS,MERS affect the well off in the third world and the developed nations as there is no cure and hence the excitement and panic and focus. Malaria, TB among others are infectious diseases of the poor which the rich (including you and me, readers) don't have to worry about and hence it is of little interest to the media or the powers that be. For the poor with no financial access to modern medicine (and its costs) malaria is as much a real life coronavirus.

I am not trying to run down those hapless Chinese trapped in Wuhan just making a point of how the media thinks and behaves. And how we as consumers of that western media lose perspective.
__________________

[ValarMorghulis]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

...coronavirus, SARS,MERS affect the well off in the third world and the developed nations as there is no cure

First of all, hats off to you for helping people out. Kudos to you sir.
That said, malaria and TB have a cure and are treatable.The reason SARS, Covid-19 (present strain of Coronavirus) and Ebola Zaire get so much media coverage and news attention is that there is no cure for it sir! No cure, no treatment and there is no mechanism to prevent it (like rabies) once you contract it. The mortality rate of Ebola Zaire is between 60-90%!! Thank the heavens it doesn't spread through or it might as well have been a 'bye-bye' humans event!

These untreatable viral diseases deserve the attention lest people start taking them lightly.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by ValarMorghulis

First of all, hats off to you for helping people out. Kudos to you sir.

Thank you@ValarMorghulia. Just doing my job.

That said, malaria and TB have a cure and are treatable.The reason SARS, Covid-19 (present strain of Coronavirus) and Ebola Zaire get so much media coverage and news attention is that there is no cure for it sir! No cure, no treatment and there is no mechanism to prevent it (like rabies) once you contract it.

Maybe I did not do a good enough job in my communication. There are several degrees of inaccessibility to a cure :-

(1) Lack of a cure itself; this is what we the well off are most familiar with and encounter only rarely in our lifetimes.

(2) Inaccessibility due to financial shortfalls; this only the poor are familiar with. A cure exists but it costs Rs XXX much beyond your means and availability at a Govt hospital is nil (often the case). For that poor citizen #2 is as traumatizing and fateful as #1 is for us. A cure that is available at a hospital you cannot afford to enter is the same as no cure at all.

We the well-off don't grasp this usually. Any way I was just trying to provide a different perspective.

[AnandB]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Malaria kills 1.0 million people each year; tuberculosis kills 1.5 million each year - most in South Asia and Africa. These two infectious diseases between them kill 700 a day all year round. Why do these diseases never get reported by the media or spoken about so enthusiastically as coronavirus or SARS. At the end of the day SARS killed 800 people in all. The reason is that coronavirus, SARS,MERS affect the well off in the third world and the developed nations as there is no cure and hence the excitement and panic and focus. Malaria, TB among others are infectious diseases of the poor which the rich (including you and me, readers) don't have to worry about and hence it is of little interest to the media or the powers that be. For the poor with no financial access to modern medicine (and its costs) malaria is as much a real life coronavirus.
__________________

Brilliantly said. What you said is not news worthy because people who are able to watch the news probably don't have to worry about malaria and TB. Coronavirus is much much scary.

[keroo1099]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Malaria kills 1.0 million people each year; tuberculosis kills 1.5 million each year - most in South Asia and Africa. These two infectious diseases between them kill 700 a day all year round. Why do these diseases never get reported by the media or spoken about so enthusiastically as coronavirus or SARS.
__________________

Well put, and just to add to what you said something that I consider worse than any disease kills more children forget people than the above two combined.

Malnutrition kills a child every 10 seconds. That's over 8,600 kids every day which is never talked about. I digress, but let that sink in

[Nissan1180]

I think the worry here is the lack of cure. You have a cure for malaria, malnutrition etc. But you do not have one for this virus yet. So you may be a perfectly healthy individual who gets debilitated by the virus, and doctors cannot help you.
Also, for other more deadly diseases, the vectors are known. Here doctors are still not sure if wearing a mask can help, because not much is known about the transmission methods.

Hence it is rather serious.

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Malaria kills 1.0 million people each year; tuberculosis kills 1.5 million each year - most in South Asia and Africa. These two infectious diseases between them kill 700 a day all year round. Why do these diseases never get reported by the media or spoken about so enthusiastically as coronavirus or SARS. At the end of the day SARS killed 800 people in all.

Originally Posted by keroo1099

Malnutrition kills a child every 10 seconds. That's over 8,600 kids every day which is never talked about. I digress, but let that sink in

All are valid points on their own, numerically speaking, but you can't compare these to Coronavirus. The reason Coronavirus is scary and rightfully in the headlines is because it doesn't have a cure as yet and is highly contagious. It has the potential to wipe out a large section of human population (or even entire human race!) if not controlled unlike the examples mentioned here.

The examples of Malaria, TB, malnutrition (or even people dying of road accidents everyday!) - although they represent big numbers, they don't spread like Coronavirus does. They don't have same potential of exponentially spreading to large populations. It's a different matter that they are not getting required financial aid, which is more of a commentary on how the human society functions than anything else.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by keroo1099

Well put, and just to add to what you said something that I consider worse than any disease kills more children forget people than the above two combined.

Malnutrition kills a child every 10 seconds. That's over 8,600 kids every day which is never talked about. I digress, but let that sink in

Thank you for bringing this up. For a country like India that for all practical purposes has a food surplus it is a crime that any child ought to die of hunger. An absolute crime for which our politicians and bureaucrats are squarely responsible.

I wonder if coronavirus had originated in USA or some other leading Western nation whether the hue and cry and beating the source nation (China in this case) would have been different. The fatality rate is 2% which incidentally is the same as the infant mortality rate in some parts of India only for babies born with a congenital heart defect.

[vivek95]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Please read on...

Malaria kills 1.0 million people each year; tuberculosis kills 1.5 million each year - most in South Asia and Africa. These two infectious diseases between them kill 700 a day all year round. Why do these diseases never get reported by the media or spoken about so enthusiastically as coronavirus or SARS. At the end of the day SARS killed 800 people in all. The reason is that coronavirus, SARS,MERS affect the well off in the third world and the developed nations as there is no cure and hence the excitement and panic and focus. Malaria, TB among others are infectious diseases of the poor which the rich (including you and me, readers) don't have to worry about and hence it is of little interest to the media or the powers that be. For the poor with no financial access to modern medicine (and its costs) malaria is as much a real life coronavirus.

I am a Doctor ( Emergency physician ), so let me clear your concerns and wrong notions on this one, with all due respects to you Sir. This whole Coronavirus thing has absolutely nothing to do with the first world or third world countries, rich and poor etc. No, not even one bit.

Novel Coronavirus ( 2019-nCov / COVID-19) and SARS indeed deserve much more attention than Malaria by all accounts. I do not mean that we can simply dismiss the burden of Malaria on public health. But there are many factors we should keep in mind when dealing with an epidemic outbreak.

Firstly, it's not just the statistics of Malaria vs Coronavirus that we need to compare when establishing the severity of a public health problem but many other important aspects like mode of transmission, host and environment factors, case fatality rate, availability of treatment.

Factually speaking, Novel Corona virus killed 1370 and affected 60000 people since December 2019 alone. This is a way higher incidence and mortality rate within a short span of time as compared to Malaria and also higher than SARS outbreak that happened in 2003.

Coronavirus 2019 is a novel virus, so presently there is no definitive and specific antiviral drug or vaccine available to counter it. Absolutely not, trials are still underway !!!! The disease spreads via droplet and also via fomites. Droplet infection in simple terms is a disease that spreads from person to person merely by coming in close contact or speaking, sneezing, coughing and virtually anything that causes the virus to be spit out of patient's mouth/nose via a tiny droplet that is let free in air or to settle on any surface. Thus, the magnitude of the infection and mode of transmission is way rapid than Malaria. Malaria transmits via mosquito bites and not when a patient comes into contact or even hugs a normal individual. On the contrary, Coronavirus can spread right left and centre merely when a patient comes in close proximity with a healthy individual, as mentioned earlier.

Wuhan city is completely lockeddown. Healthcare staff dealing with Coronavirus is not let out of the hospitals since weeks to contain the infection as much as possible. Nurses are shaving their heads to prevent transmission. Malaria never posed this kind of a challenge or severity. So media's attention is justified. A common man should always be more worried about a respiratory infection epidemic than anything else. Remember 2018 Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala ?? Watch Malayalam movie "Virus" on Amazon prime with English subtitles to get an idea why Coronavirus is given so much attention. That is one awesome movie made on an epidemic outbreak and us Doctors.

I can go into more details but presently I could reply only this much due to time constraints.

[GutsyGibbon]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Thank you for bringing this up. For a country like India that for all practical purposes has a food surplus it is a crime that any child ought to die of hunger. An absolute crime for which our politicians and bureaucrats are squarely responsible.

I wonder if coronavirus had originated in USA or some other leading Western nation whether the hue and cry and beating the source nation (China in this case) would have been different. The fatality rate is 2% which incidentally is the same as the infant mortality rate in some parts of India only for babies born with a congenital heart defect.

Things are never put in perspective. The things that we have accepted to ignore are huge. 35 million Americans died in the last 5 years from preventable illness that have a cure. We let them die because they are poor.

The Swine FLU did originate in the US, we did not criticize the diet of Americans, because the American farmer and his diet is sacrosanct.

That said, today authorities that try to control information, and squash facts need to be frowned upon. People shedding a light on real conditions, cannot go missing. They are not enemies of state for seeking attention towards their conditions. Not everything needs to be seen through the colored glasses of national pride.

[phamilyman]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

The fatality rate is 2% which incidentally is the same as the infant mortality rate in some parts of India only for babies born with a congenital heart defect.

Sir,


here's some data.

a. Fatality rate in Wuhan is 18% (range: 11-81%!!!!!)
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-globa...n-coronavirus/
b. Infection rate is 3.77 (MINIMUM estimate of 95% confidence interval is 3.5!)
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....10.20021675v1
That said, this second paper still concludes: Compared with SARS-CoV, 2019-nCoV had comparable transmissibility and lower CFR (case fatality rate).




This is potentially an extinction level event for us as a species if some are to be believed. Not something to be taken lightly.