new deadly human-to-human-transmissible coronavirus emerges out of China

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UPDATED: Tuesday, May 5, 2026 22:21
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1KIKI

Tuesday, January 21, 2020 10:15 AM

new deadly human-to-human-transmissible coronavirus emerges out of China

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/20/world/asia/coronavirus-china-sympto
ms.html
China Confirms New Coronavirus Spreads From Humans to Humans

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/21/china-coronavirus-human-to-human-trans
mission-confirmed.html
China confirms coronavirus can pass person-to-person as fourth death reported
The Geneva-based U.N. agency convened an emergency committee for Wednesday to assess whether the outbreak constitutes an international health emergency and what measures should be taken to manage it.
So far, the WHO has not recommended trade or travel restrictions, but a panel of independent experts could do so or make other recommendations to limit spread.

https://nypost.com/2020/01/20/british-tourist-feared-to-be-victim-of-d
eadly-new-chinese-coronavirus/
British tourist feared to be victim of deadly new Chinese coronavirus

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/01/wuhan-outbreak-triples-as-new-
coronavirus-found-to-spread-human-to-human/
Outbreak of new virus explodes in China; human-to-human spread confirmed
Researchers raced to identify the virus behind the outbreak, confirming quickly that the culprit is a never-before-seen coronavirus—a relative of the virus that caused the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak in 2003. Like SARS, experts suspect that the new coronavirus leapt from animals at the market to humans, sparking the outbreak.
But until this weekend, there were reasons to be optimistic that the new outbreak could be easily managed. ... That has all changed. As the case tally shot up over the last few days, officials say that there is clear evidence that the virus is spreading from person to person, and at least 14 medical staff members contracted the virus.
“We expect the number of infected cases will increase over the Lunar New Year travel period, and we need to prevent the emergence of a super-spreader of the virus,” Zhong said. Millions are expected to travel during the holiday period.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-coronavirus-kills-third-person-spre
ads-to-more-cities-11579494221
Coronavirus Is Spreading Quickly Across China as Confirmed Cases Triple
One reason for the rapid increase in reported cases is that a diagnostic test for the virus is now available.
Health authorities in Wuhan, a densely populated city of 19 million people, said Monday that the number of patients infected with the new coronavirus jumped to 198, from 62 on Sunday. The statement said 35 of those cases were severe, while nine were critical.
The newly discovered coronavirus so far is significantly less deadly than SARS. However, it is in the same class of pathogens, and this outbreak is clearly larger than scientists and officials initially believed.

1KIKI

Wednesday, January 22, 2020 4:12 AM

CDC: Chinese coronavirus outbreak has reached the U.S.
https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-01-21/china-coronavirus-out
break-us

SIGNYM

Wednesday, January 22, 2020 5:07 AM

Sometimes I feel like I'm patient zero in the USA. I can't believe what I have is just influenza B Victoria.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

Happy New Year, WISHY. I edited out your psychopathic screed!

6IXSTRINGJACK

Wednesday, January 22, 2020 7:21 AM

I wouldn't worry about the corona virus.

But, what do I know. We're probably due for a mass extinction event or two.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

1KIKI

Wednesday, January 22, 2020 10:19 AM

I just kinda am interested in this stuff. It's been an interest since I was a small child, sitting on the floor with my mother's HUGE physiology book covering my entire lap, looking at the pictures.

1KIKI

Thursday, January 23, 2020 2:58 AM

CNN today:

China shuts down public transit and flights in Wuhan as virus outbreak grows
• Life inside ground zero of deadly virus outbreak
The city government announced a series of new measures Tuesday to contain the outbreak -- efforts some critics say came too late -- the virus has already spread to a dozen provinces across the country. (I'd say it's far too late to stop the spread out of Wuhan.)
• Deadly virus sparks fears of possible pandemic
However, the World Health Organization (WHO) has not yet declared the virus a "public health emergency of international concern" ... The organization's emergency committee met Wednesday in Geneva, but decided more information was needed... It is expected to take up the matter again on Thursday. (If this is an actual emergency, the WHO is acting far too cautiously. There's kind of a decision process one can use, which is to decide a default response ahead of time in the absence of additional information. Their default response is 'do nothing', though I don't think it was actively decided - it's just inertia.)
• What to know about the mysterious virus
The Wuhan coronavirus fatality rate is (currently) lower than for SARS and MERS, but still comparable to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, explains Neil Ferguson ... he highlights that novel viruses spread much faster through a population.

NYTimes today:

- China Closing Off City of 11 Million, Center of Deadly Outbreak
- As the virus spreads, Beijing is silencing and punishing those who veer from the official line.
- At least 17 people have died, and the World Health Organization is considering declaring a global emergency.

WaPo today:

Chinese city at the center of coronavirus outbreak to suspend outbound travel
• As families tell of pneumonia-like deaths in Wuhan, some wonder if China virus count is too low
• Graphic: Mapping the virus’s spread
What you need to know about the deadly coronavirus found in the U.S.

Business Insider

The Wuhan coronavirus has killed 17 people and infected more than 540. Here's everything we know about the outbreak.

1KIKI

Thursday, January 23, 2020 4:08 AM

I thought that this article had the most technical and up-to-date information, with an abundance of links.

https://gizmodo.com/deadly-wuhan-virus-in-china-may-have-come-from-sna
kes-1841161392

Deadly Wuhan Virus in China May Have Come from Snakes, Scientists Say

As an outbreak of a newly discovered SARS-like virus threatens to spiral out of control in China, some scientists think they’ve uncovered its animal origins. Their new research suggests the virus is native to snakes.

The germ in question, dubbed 2019-nCoV for now, is a type of coronavirus. While most coronaviruses that sicken people cause little more than a common cold, they’re potentially very dangerous. These viruses also infect a wide variety of animals, and if an animal-borne coronavirus successfully jumps over to people, our immune systems may be less able to beat them effectively. That unfamiliarity can make them especially virulent, though not necessarily contagious. It’s a pattern that already happened with the related coronaviruses that cause SARS and MERS, which killed anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of their human victims during their initial outbreaks.

When the first cases of 2019 n-CoV began showing up last December in the Wuhan region of China, doctors immediately suspected that it was spread through animals. Many of the first victims had visited a local food market—since shut down—that frequently hosted all sorts of live animals. Since then, the number of new documented victims has erupted, with more than 400 cases overall as of January 21, according to the Chinese government, while at least 17 people have died. Even more worrying is that 2019-nCoV is infecting people who had never visited the market, confirming it’s capable of spreading from person to person like a typical flu.

The new study, published Wednesday in the Journal of Medical Virology, looks at the genetic code of 2019-nCoV, which was identified by scientists working for the Chinese government and shared with the global research community earlier this month.

The researchers, all in China, compared the genetic sequence of 2019-nCoV to other known species of coronavirus. Their initial analysis found that the virus is a mix between a coronavirus that originates in bats and another coronavirus whose host origin is unknown—a process called recombination. This recombination seems most apparent in the part of the virus’ RNA that lets it recognize a cell’s surface receptors. They then concluded that the virus’s most likely natural host is a snake, based on patterns of RNA that the virus shares with other snake-borne coronaviruses. Snakes, perhaps not incidentally, are commonly farmed and sold in China as food and alternative medicine remedies.

Viruses evolve to recognize and hijack their specific host’s cells and make more of themselves. That’s why a dog virus typically can’t make people sick and vice-versa. But sometimes, a virus’s existing genetic machinery can help it infect other animals. Other times, mutations or recombination can give a strain of virus a newfound ability to cross the species barrier.

The genetic shuffling seen in 2019-nCoV, the researchers wrote, “may contribute to cross-species transmission from snake to humans.”

According to Brandon Brown, a public health researcher and epidemiologist at the University of California Riverside, there are still many unsolved questions about 2019-nCoV and its potential for disaster.

SARS and MERS were hard-hitting, for instance, but neither mutated into a strain that was both virulent and incredibly contagious—a scenario that could have very well turned into a globe-spanning pandemic. Initially, 2019-nCoV appeared to be far milder than SARS or MERS, but the reported death toll has risen quickly in recent days. And although we know that 2019-nCoV can spread between people, we don’t know how contagious it is, nor its risk of mutating further.

Regardless, Brown told Gizmodo via email that he sees no reason to delay

1KIKI

Thursday, January 23, 2020 5:19 AM

Just in general -

With the number of infected people in China exploding rapidly, it's obvious (to me) that they haven't all visited the live-animal market in Wuhan where the virus is thought to have been centered. Considering the market in question has been closed since January 1 2020 'for decontamination' ... yet cases continue to spike ... either the virus has a really, REALLY ridiculously long latent period (3 weeks), OR it's being spread outside of the market. Obviously (to me) the virus is fairly easily (explosively) spreading person-to-person, despite all the cautious statements about unknown contagiousness. CIDRAP reports Wuhan probably has 4000 symptomatic cases. http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/01/who-decision-ncov-e
mergency-delayed-cases-spike

It's also fairly obvious (to me) that both the number of cases and number of deaths are significantly under-reported. Information-gathering can't help but be behind the curve in a rapidly developing situation, even assuming authorities are being upfront with information.

More worrisome is that Chinese scientists are reporting that the virus is undergoing significant mutation as it spreads.

Looking backwards - there are still no anti-viral drugs to combat the previous corona-virus outbreaks SARS (first reported 2002) and MERS (first reported 2012). And as best I can tell, there are no vaccines to date after all this time, either.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/mers/about/prevention.html
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/11/7/pdfs/05-0219.pdf
So, if I use past experience with previous corona-virus outbreaks to predict the forward path of this corona-virus "2019-nCoV" outbreak, we have neither drugs nor vaccines to combat it, nor are we likely to have any in the future.

If I had to guess, I'd say this thing has been noodling around at a low level until the Chinese Lunar New Year brought people out in force doing their pre-holiday shopping. "And then it exploded."

But this kind of thing is predictable in the generic sense. Round about the time in 1995 when people found out there was a monkey-to-human air-transmissible Ebola virus outbreak in Reston Virginia (The Hot Zone), Garrett came out with a book showing how 1) increased intrusion of humans into animal-disease-space along with 2) increased international travel made pandemic disease a matter of when, not if (The Coming Plague).

We may not be there yet. But how many abortive starts do we need to get a clue? We need to be better prepared, and we need to be doing things differently than we are now. Because as far as I can tell, what we're doing is to just continue on like always, with fingers crossed.

1KIKI

Thursday, January 23, 2020 11:15 PM

CNN today:
Coronavirus spreads more easily from person to person than previously thought, says WHO official
https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-intl-hnk/h_274
8e6c7898fd744e47b47a135c75203

Ya' think, Sherlock?

1KIKI

Saturday, January 25, 2020 12:45 AM

CNN today

Tens of millions under lockdown
https://edition.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-hnk-intl-0
1-24-20/index.html

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - JANUARY 24: Disinfection workers wearing protective gears spray anti-septic solution in an train terminal amid rising public concerns over the spread of China's Wuhan Coronavirus at SRT train station on January 24, 2020 in Seoul, South Korea. The number of cases of a deadly new coronavirus rose to over 800 in mainland China as health officials stepped up efforts to contain the spread of the pneumonia-like disease which medicals experts confirmed can be passed from human to human. The number of those who have died from the virus in China climbed to twenty five on Wednesday and cases have been reported in other countries including the United States,Thailand, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

Dozens of people are dead in China and more than 800 infected as the Wuhan virus continues to spread
https://edition.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-hnk-intl-0
1-24-20/index.html

Video appears to show desperation of patients in Wuhan
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2020/01/24/china-wuhan-coronaviru
s-hospital-overcrowd-culver-nr-vpx.cnn

Wuhan to build hospital dedicated to virus outbreak in six days
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/24/china/wuhan-coronavirus-update-intl
-hnk/index.html

What is the coronavirus and is it worse than SARS?
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/22/world/wuhan-coronavirus-visual-guid
e-intl/index.html

https://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/Wuhan-quarantine-expands-as
-Chinese-fear-14997682.php
A bigger outbreak is certain," said Guan Yi, a virologist who helped identify severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003. He estimated - "conservatively," he said - that this outbreak could be 10 times bigger than the SARS epidemic because that virus was transmitted by only a few "super spreaders" in a more defined part of the country.

"We have passed through the 'golden period' for prevention and control," he told Caixin magazine from self-imposed quarantine after visiting Wuhan. "What's more, we've got the holiday traffic rush and a dereliction of duty from certain officials."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that health officials in Texas notified it about a potential case of coronavirus. CDC said in a statement that it is in communication with state health officials and will share more information as it becomes available.

Health officials in Brazos County, Texas - which is where Texas A&M University is located and is about 100 miles northwest of Houston - said they are investigating a patient who meets the definition of a potential case of the new virus. The patient contracted a respiratory illness within two weeks of traveling in Wuhan and is being isolated at home in accordance with recommendations from the CDC.

In Geneva, the World Health Organization cited Chinese efforts to prevent transmission and the limited number of cases recorded abroad as its reasons for not declaring Thursday that the outbreak was a public health emergency of international concern.

But WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference that the decision "should not be taken as a sign that WHO does not think the outbreak is serious or that we're not taking it seriously. Nothing could be further from the truth."

He said the emergency committee was divided on whether the outbreak deserved the special designation, but said regardless, the outbreak amounts to "an emergency in China.""It has not yet become a global health emergency, but it may become one."

https://news.yahoo.com/virologist-helped-identify-sars-coronavirus-225
800266.html

Experts are seeing shocking similarities between the coronavirus that has now spread beyond China and the SARS outbreak of 2003.

Like the infectious pneum

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