new deadly human-to-human-transmissible coronavirus emerges out of China
POSTED BY: 1KIKI
UPDATED: Tuesday, May 5, 2026 22:21
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*To note - these recovered people are subject to a second, and worse reinfection.
And here's some more of my personal opinion. I think the reason why older people die more frequently, aside from being in overall poorer health, why reinfection is worse, AND WHY CHILDREN SEEM PARTICULARLY SPARED is this - cytokine* storm. (A cytokine is a small protein that creates inflammation, fever, modulates heart function etc.) Cytokine storm is a body-wide "potentially fatal hyperrelease of inflammatory mediators in response to stimulation of T cells and macrophages by pathogens and immune insults". In other words, there's a flood of inflammatory small proteins that can devastate normal body functions.
Generally, it takes a while for the body to develop an immune response, while the body disassembles the agent into bits and pieces, and creates cells that react to those bits and pieces with anti-bodies - things that coat the invader, inactivate it, and target it for destruction.
So a first exposure creates a slow-moving immune reaction.
But that immune response lurks in the background via 'memory cells'. So the next exposures quickly ramp up a strong immune reaction.
SARS-COV-2 probably has protein bits and pieces that resemble other protein bits and pieces on other coronaviruses. Over the years, people get exposed to those other coronaviruses with those protein bits and pieces, and develop an immune response. Or they get exposed to SARS-COV-2 itself and develop an immune response. And it's just waiting for resembling protein bits and pieces. And if the body is exposed to another round of resembling protein bits and pieces, that quietly-waiting, quickly ramping-up immune response can trigger what's called a cytokine storm. And while a bit of inflammation is good, too much destroys body systems and can cause death.
Children OTOH generally have what's called naive - unexposed - immune systems, and so their response will be the initial-exposure, slow-moving kind.
This has outfalls in normal flu vaccines imo. Older people have a lesser immune response, not because they have tired immune systems, but because their immune systems have seen 'something like' the vaccine many times before, and they just mop the vaccine up before they can develop a response to the particulars of that vaccine.
But I also think this may have negative implications for SARS-COV-2 vaccine development. It has to be 'neutralizing' - in other words, it can inactivate the virus before it takes hold of a person and becomes infectious, without triggering a cytokine storm.
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Not from China.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/6th-presumptive-case-covid-19-002551499.html
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Hopefully she was exposed in Iran and not in BC Canada, and her contacts can be traced, self-quarantined, and monitored.
At least Canada has a health system people can avail themselves of freely - figuratively and literally.
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Quote:Is Iran a known source of the virus?
Originally posted by 1KIKI:
Hopefully she was exposed in Iran and not in BC Canada, and her contacts can be traced, self-quarantined, and monitored.
At least Canada has a health system people can avail themselves of freely - figuratively and literally.
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Quote:Yeah, they seem to have a minor(?) outbreak going on ... though given the state of the technology, perhaps their medical system, and perhaps their news reporting, it could be larger than people imagine.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Is Iran a known source of the virus?
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Iran, total cases 18 / new cases (last 24 hours) 13 (appx double in the last 24 hours).
Signy's back calculation scheme was - given a roughly 2.4% death rate, and Iran's present 4 fatalities, they have roughly 167 cases, and not the 18 they're reporting.
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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/02/21/coronavirus-who-c
ontain-outbreak-iran-deaths-south-korea-cases/4829278002/
CDC is preparing for the 'likely' spread of coronavirus in the US, officials say
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters Friday that U.S. health officials are preparing for the coronavirus to become a pandemic.
“We’re not seeing community spread here in the United States, yet, but it’s very possible, even likely, that it may eventually happen,” she said. “Our goal continues to be slowing the introduction of the virus into the U.S. This buys us more time to prepare communities for more cases and possibly sustained spread.”
She said the “day may come” here where we have to shut down schools and businesses like China has done.
Tedros, speaking to reporters in Geneva, said the new cases in Iran show how the virus, which originated in Wuhan, China, is now moving not only to second countries, but to third countries in a lengthening chain of transmission.
Minoo Mohraz, an Iranian health ministry official, said the virus “possibly came from Chinese workers who work in Qom and traveled to China.” She did not elaborate. A Chinese company has been building a solar power plant in Qom.
“The cases that we see in the rest of the world, although the numbers are small, but not linked to Wuhan or China, it’s very worrisome,” Tedros said. “These dots are actually very concerning.”
The Global Health Security Index, which was issued last year, found that only 13 of nearly 200 countries score in the top tier https://www.ghsindex.org/ , suggesting that most of the world would struggle to deal with a major outbreak of a deadly infectious disease such as Ebola.
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Just a comment: I have read of people being reinfected literally within a week or being cured. Maybe it doesn't happen very often, but that does kind of imply that vaccines might not be very successful.
I assume the CDC is pursuing that kind of info more carefully than I can, and if that's the case then they would be focusing on antivirals, not vaccines. We might be able to tell what's going on by watching whether CDC zigs, or zags.
Just trying to read the tea leaves. Extracting maximum info from controlled press is a necessary art form. For example, they were WAAAY more forthcoming about the Zika virus, which is kind of an inverse indication how worried they are now, when the info comes out as clipped mixed messages: There's nothing to worry about and we're taking heroic measures!
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
Happy New Year, WISHY. I edited out your psychopathic screed!
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I tried to summarize salient points to see where we are so far ...
If I've missed anything, please interpolate it if you repost this. THANKS.
WHO had an insupportable conflict of interest and was too laggard in declaring SARS-COV-2 a global health emergency. The genie is out of the bottle, with community spread in different countries. The next step is pandemic, which may or may not be avoidable at this point (Clade X suggests not).
The virus is extremely infectious. The consensus is people can be infectious before developing symptoms, or despite having no symptoms or only very minor ones. People can also be reinfected.
The viral RNA swabs used for testing are imo extraordinarily inaccurate. A positive test is meaningful, but imo a negative test is meaningless.
Because of the test's inaccuracy, and limited availability, doing random population testing would be extremely ineffective, if not impossible and meaningless. (The only benefit might be early identification of community spread when you stumble on a nugget of a positive test or two.) Even testing of limited populations, like a cruise ship, is infeasible at this point. Because of that, nobody has basic data on infection rates and death rates, or how one important number to know - R0 - varies with control measures.
The CDC has set up some surveillance for cause - people who come in with flu symptoms who test negative for the flu may possibly be further tested for SARS-COV-2; and people with a history of possible/ actual exposure are put under some kind of quarantine and monitored / tested. But another block to adequately tracking infections in a population is unavailability / high cost of medical care in the US, leading sick people to not seek care.
The shortest time between exposure and a positive test according to the Diamond Princess timetable is between 10-14 days. The longest is (after a quick search to confirm) still 24 days.
They're still not entirely sure how it spreads specifically. The Diamond Princess was one horrific example of how infectious the virus is, where everything was done wrong and everyone on the ship may be assumed to have been exposed. OTOH quarantine facilities in the US appear to be doing a good job keeping people from infecting each other.
Old people and the previously infected, as well as people with health issues, clinically are at higher risk of dying.
There are no vaccines or medications currently available. Vaccines could potentially be counter-productive, triggering a 'cytokine storm' if a vaccinated person is exposed to the virus if reinfection death rates are an indicator; or vaccines might be ineffective, if brisk reinfection is an indicator.
If there's a PlanB, after viral surveillance, contact tracing, and some type of quarantine, and I haven't read about it.
The CDC states it's between "very possible, even likely" that SARS-COV-2 will get out into the general population.
Some possible solutions are:
at-home quarantine and testing, (supplies and basic care), rather than putting everyone in the same medical stewpot (doctor's office, ER, clinic, hospital)
closing non-essential functions and travel
requiring protective gear and sanitizers to keep people from potentially spreading the virus
cordon sanitaire
Whether or not the virus becomes endemic in the US, globally, vital manufacturing and supply chains can be expected to be disrupted.
Tuesday, January 21, 2020 12:15 AM
new deadly human-to-human-transmissible coronavirus emerges out of China
Wednesday, January 22, 2020 4:58 PM
I'd say it's far too late to stop the spread out of Wuhan.
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 activ
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With 4 Deaths in Iran and More Cases on 3 Continents, Fears of Coronavirus Pandemic Rise
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/world/asia/china-coronavirus-iran.h
tml
Iran
Four reported deaths probably mean at least 200 cases, said Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. If the virus kills about 2 percent of known victims, as Chinese doctors have reported, then the number of deaths can be multiplied by 50 to get a rough case estimate, he explained. (But) “People don’t die right away of this virus — it usually takes two or three weeks after cases start to spread for the first death,” Mr. Osterholm said. “So there may be a lot more cases, and a lot more deaths on the way. And we didn’t even know there was a problem in Iran before yesterday.”
Minou Mohrez, who is on the infectious disease committee of the Iranian Health Ministry, told the official IRNA news agency on Friday that it was clear the virus was spreading across Iran’s cities. “A coronavirus epidemic has started in the country,” she said. “It’s possible that it exists in all cities in Iran.”
People have already tested positive in Qom, Tehran and Gilan, near the Caspian Sea, said Mr. Jahanpur, the Health Ministry spokesman. “Most of these people were residents of Qom or they had traveled to Qom in the past days or weeks,” he said.
Dr. Sylvie Briand, the director of infectious hazards management for the W.H.O., said ... “We are wondering what the extent of the outbreak in Iran is,” she told reporters on Friday. “We are wondering about the potential for more cases to be exported in the coming days. We want all countries to be aware of this and to put in place detailed measures to pick up these cases as early as possible.”
China
Officials in China ... announced a new front in its war on the virus on Friday as officials reported clusters of infections in at least four prisons in three provinces.
South Korea
In South Korea, the total number of cases surpassed 340 on Saturday morning, and the authorities were racing to trace all the people who had come in contact with members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus. Members of that church, along with their relatives and others who got the virus from them, account for more than half of the country’s confirmed infections.
More than 1,250 other church members have reported potential symptoms, health officials said, raising the possibility that the nation’s caseload could skyrocket.
As of Saturday, more than 700 members of Shincheonji ... still could not be reached ...
United States
(Dr. Osterholm said) Even in the U.S., we’re testing travel cases — but we’re not testing in any meaningful way that will pick up cases that we didn’t suspect were there.”
Global
The new global clusters showed, again, the difficulty in judging the true number of infections, amid concerns about underreporting and rapidly shifting definitions of confirmed cases.
Further bolstering the idea that the virus is spreading widely, an epidemiological modeling team from Imperial College in London estimated Friday that two-thirds of the people infected with coronavirus who left mainland China before restrictions were imposed had traveled throughout the world without being detected.
The team, one of several modeling groups regularly consulted by the W.H.O., calculated how many cases were detected in different countries and how many should have been detected based on flights that left Wuhan just before most air travel out of China ended.
Detection failures “potentially resulted in multiple chains of as-yet-undetected human-to-human transmission,” the modeling team’s study concluded.
The almost random nature of new reports and new deaths is an indication the virus is moving much faster than countries are reporting to the W.H.O., Dr. Osterholm said.
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So, anyway.
As I see it, the next 2 steps which it seems we should all hope to avoid are 1) community spread in many other countries around the world, and 2) community spread in our respective countries.
I'll still be following the story but I won't be posting as much. I hope anyone with an interest has gotten most of the story as I and others have been able to discern it. I think if the situation takes a dramatic turn, I'll probably post, but if that happens we'll probably find out about it from the news anyway.
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