The coronavirus questions that scientists are racing to answer

[Shiloh]

Source: https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/28/the-coronavirus-questions-that-scientists-are-racing-to-answer/

The coronavirus questions that scientists are racing to answer
By Helen Branswell @HelenBranswell and Andrew Joseph @DrewQJoseph
January 28, 2020

The outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China and its spread to more than a dozen countries has presented health experts with a rapidly evolving and complex challenge.

That means there are a lot of unknowns.

Here are some of the outstanding questions that doctors, scientists, and health agencies are rushing to answer. (And a reminder that, already, they’ve learned quite a lot.)

When are people contagious?

One of the luckiest breaks the world got with the SARS outbreak of 2002-2003 was that people weren’t contagious until they developed symptoms. The same is true of MERS. As a result, it became easier for health officials to try to limit spread once they identified a new case.

Public health experts watching this outbreak unfold have been hoping 2019-nCoV, which is a member of the same virus family, would follow that pattern. Now they’re not so sure...

 

[kiwibird]

Strategies for containment of the virus and reduction of numbers infected. I have copied most of an excellent article below. There are some very creative and thoughtful measures being taken to contain this outbreak and countries outside the initial area of infection have an opportunity to look at different actions taken - see what works and what doesn't and think about how to adapt these measures for different communities .

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3870441

snip.....
Wenzhou is the second city to take the above travel control after Huanggang, Hubei. However, compared with the previous round of closure, Wenzhou ’s measures this time are relatively soft. Even though citizens ’travel is restricted, the highway interchange connecting Wenzhou is not completely blocked, and people can still enter and exit the area. Wenzhou ’s "closure" is to prevent the epidemic from spreading internally.

Hangzhou also issued a notice of 10 measures today to implement closed management of the city's communities. And this is another "closed city" state different from Wenzhou. First of all, for each household sending someone out to purchase, the word used in the notice is "advocacy" instead of "regulations." Secondly, both intra-city and inter-city transportation will continue to operate.

Zhou Baohua, president of the Hangzhou Taiwanese Businessmen Association, bluntly stated that Hangzhou has not yet reached the level of "closing the city." At this stage, the focus is on the strict control of the entry of people and vehicles from Wuhan, Hubei Province and Wenzhou. Unlike Wuhan and Wenzhou, Hangzhou's "closure" is an input to prevent epidemics, and self-defense means a lot.

This afternoon, Linyi, Shandong also released 9 travel control measures, the content of which is similar to the 10 measures in Hangzhou.

The 9th was originally scheduled to start in China. People will return to working cities in the near future, with huge crowds and the risk of another epidemic spreading, which is why many cities have recently issued related measures.

For cities that are not in the worst-hit areas, a hard-closing approach like Wuhan may seriously damage the local economy and cause controversy. Therefore, a self-defense closed city like Hangzhou is likely to be adopted by more cities in the near future. (Edit: Qiu Guoqiang) 1090204

 

[Shiloh]

Source: https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-coronavirus-isnt-contained/
Experts envision two scenarios if the new coronavirus isn’t contained
By Sharon Begley
February 4, 2020

With the new coronavirus spreading from person to person (possibly including from people without symptoms), reaching four continents, and traveling faster than SARS, driving it out of existence is looking increasingly unlikely.

It’s still possible that quarantines and travel bans will first halt the outbreak and then eradicate the microbe, and the world will never see 2019-nCoV again, as epidemiologist Dr. Mike Ryan, head of health emergencies at the World Health Organization, told STAT on Saturday. That’s what happened with SARS in 2003.

Many experts, however, view that happy outcome as increasingly unlikely. “Independent self-sustaining outbreaks [of 2019-nCoV] in major cities globally could become inevitable because of substantial exportation of pre-symptomatic cases,” scientists at the University of Hong Kong concluded in a paper published in The Lancet last week...