Wuhan Virus Watch: Infected Toll Now Tops 20,000
The first American patient is steadily recovering from his coronavirus infection.
As of Tuesday morning, the world has 20,626 cases of the Wuhan coronavirus in various countries reported from 27 countries and administrative states, with 426 deaths.
Reports say 2,790 of those patients are in critical condition.
***We will update this post with new information
The virus is not a bioweapon: It evolved from a bat pathogen.
One of the most disturbing stories distributed widely on social media was that the virus was a bio-weapon genetically modified from HIV (human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS). Further evaluation shows that China’s coronavirus came from bats, with a 96% genetic match to samples of the pathogen.
Now, using samples from seven patients with severe pneumonia caused by the coronavirus, scientists have found striking similarities to coronavirus found in bats.
The DNA is also 79.5 per cent identical with the deadly SARS coronavirus, which suggests vaccines for the now non-existent virus may help with this epidemic.
…Although scientists stress the animal source of the recent outbreak in China is yet to be officially declared, experts have confirmed a wholesale animal market in Wuhan city is to blame.
A menagerie of live animals including koalas, rats and wolf pups were available at the Huanan Seafood Market in central Wuhan – the outbreak’s epicentre.
The timing is also suggestive as well. Legal Insurrection readers will recall that China has suffered from the African Swine Fever epidemic, and pork is an essential part of the Chinese diet. The Chinese were using wild animals as alternative protein sources.
The first American patient is recovering from his coronavirus infection.
The first recorded case in the US was that of a Seattle-area man. Good news: He is well on the road to recovery after the innovative use of antiviral treatment.
After testing positive for the deadly coronavirus, the patient was admitted to an isolation unit at Providence Regional Medical Center. On his sixth day of hospitalization, according to the NEJM, “clinicians pursued compassionate use of an investigational antiviral therapy.”
After treatment with the antiviral, Remdesivir, “the patient’s clinical condition improved.” The patient is still in the hospital, but all of his symptoms except a cough have resolved.
Remdesivir is made by the drug company Gilead Sciences. It is not yet licensed or approved but it is being tested as a coronavirus treatment.
China has agreed to allow American health experts into the country.
With concern growing that China has been hiding the scale of the outbreak, it is welcome news that the nation has agreed to allow American health experts into the country.
“China has accepted the United States’ offer to incorporate a group of experts into a World Health Organisation mission to China to learn more about and combat the virus,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said.
..The CDC meanwhile has sent four teams to US Defence Department facilities in preparation for the return of more Americans from the central city of Wuhan in Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak, after the arrival last week of the first batch of 195 Americans on a government-chartered plane.
The new evacuees will be under mandatory quarantine for 14 days just like the 195 people, who are staying at March Air Reserve Base in California, Messonnier said.
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Legal Insurrection readers will recall that China has suffered from the African Swine Fever epidemic, and pork is an essential part of the Chinese diet.
Bats aren’t.
Alternative meats sources are though, when pork is not available. And Bat soup is consumed in China.
Boiling bat meat doesn’t kill the virus?
The bat-sellers were exposed to live bats for prolonged periods of time…so that is likely when the virus crossed over into humans.
As I noted in the following sentence: “The Chinese were using wild animals as alternative protein sources.”
Huh. Well I guess the additional data points are in.
(Back at the first reports, I had commented that it was too early then to say it might be a pandemic.)
How contagious is the Wuhan Coronavirus? (Ro) Now estimated at 4.06, that each infected person will average infecting 4.06 people. Ro for the common flu is 1.3
Child on China flight to March AFB bumped fever and being observed at local hospital. Interesting but have to wait and see since it is the cold and flu season anyway.
Reports are that drugs developed for aids may work to treat coronavirus (2019-nCoV), but they are reported to have lots of undesirable side effects.
https://www.healthline.com/health/hiv-aids/antiretroviral-drugs-side-effects-adherence#managing-side-effects
AIDS drugs have to be taken on schedule, daily, for decades. The dosing for this virus will be for a matter of days.
I agree, but some people will have adverse reactions, as was the case with one of the three people they were using them on.
Another link of interest.
https://fortune.com/2020/02/03/wuhan-coronavirus-treatment-thailand/
It responds to HIV treatment, because the virus has HIV in it. DOI has an abstract of 10 of scientists who sequenced the virus at https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871, but you probably can’t see it. The authors say that the HIV is “unlikely to be fortuitous in nature”. So the virus was most likely concocted in a lab. That doesn’t mean it was released on purpose, or that it is a military weapon, or that the survivors will have HIV. The abstract does not yet have peer review.
Thanks for the link, the paper has been pulled to clarify it in light of comments. While I am a math and science type (physics), I do not have expertise in this area but the comments are still up and are interesting.
with a 96% genetic match to samples of the pathogen.
As viruses go, this is not a particularly close match.
It certainly doesn’t rule out the possibility that something from bats was being developed as a bioweapon.
Nobody starts building a virus from bottles of chemicals. They all start with a natural virus.
I’m not saying that the coronavirus is or is not weaponized BUT there are some important people (the guy who wrote the US bioweapons act in 1989 for one) who are arguing that it is:
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/creator-bioweapons-act-says-coronavirus-biological-warfare-weapon
Who knows what is true. But to declare that bats have been positively linked to this outbreak is very premature. Chinese scientists were deported from Canada for stealing this virus from a research lab and smuggling it to that WHO lab in Wuhan where the main scientist there was conducting research on why bats are immune to so many deadly viruses and developing a formula to overcome that immunity.
Seems to me the jury is still out. Far too early to be making declarations one way or the other.
This outbreak could be due to a failed SARS vaccine.
Immunization with SARS Coronavirus Vaccines Leads to Pulmonary Immunopathology on Challenge with the SARS Virus
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3335060/
<<<Clinicians persued compassionate use of an investigational antivirus therapy.<<<
Haha! Grinder of inartful dog-sausage! The lawyer who wrote that sentence should be introduced to the learning side of a lash!
Translation, patient is going o croak, so why not use them as a ginny pig.
Multiply that number times 10 and I think you’ll be close to an accurate count of infected. Same goes with the deaths. They can’t cremate the bodies fast enough running 24/7 and they’re piling up. Seen reports of pollution fog over Wuhan today. This is a city that has banned travel and work for everyday people. Yet the sulfur content of the pollution is off the charts! That comes from cremation of humans in high volume. Sulfur is a byproduct of incineration. Like I said, the numbers reported are nowhere close to accurate.
So, 21000 people out of a global population 8 BILLION have contracted this disease and suddenly, it is the end of the world. The world is going insane. This is a media driven epidemic which, just like the apocalyptic measles “epidemic” of 2019, is total, steaming odoriferous B**LS**T. It is contrived. It is engineered by the media. Yes there is a localized outbreak of a disease. The second, or third, rate Chinese medical system is unable to cope with it, in that province. If it was widely introduced into a third or even second world country with a second, third or fourth rate medical system that country will have a problem. But, globally, the Coronavirus is still a big nothing burger.
Potential risk is high, 4x4x4x4…. now 24,000x4x4…..
That is what happens if we lose control of the situation. It is still possible to lose control. It looks like coronavirus 2019 is close to being under control, but it would be stupid to relax yet.
Potential. Let’s talk about potential. Thhe fatality rate of, this particular strain of the coronavirus is about 2% of those infected. This is in China, which does not have nearly as good a medical care system as the US. So, lets say that the entire population of the USA becomes infected. And lets say that the fatality rate is 3%, not 2. That would result in less than 10 million people. Now this is a big number. but that still leaves 320000000 million people alive in this country. An order of magnitude, or two, higher than the fatality rate. Of course, this is not necessarily what would occur. It is much more likely that the fatality rate would be much lower than 3%, in the US. And, of course, it is also unlikely that the entire population, or even a majority of the population would be infected. What happens in the rest of the world is the responsibility of the UN, not the USA.
You gloss over the fact that this type of virus has a high mutation rate, and that it could become much worse.
And this is an example of how we could lose control:
“February 4:
Japan has confirmed at least 10 cases of coronavirus from a cruise ship in the port of Yokohama near Tokyo. A 80-year-old Hong Kong man on the ship, who tested positive to the virus, infected a number of other people. Earlier on the day, Japanese authorities had quarantined some 3,700 passengers in an attempt to contain the virus from causing an outbreak.”
Please. Now you are arguing that this virus is so terribly dangerous because it MIGHT have a high mutation rate?
Look, this virus MIGHT be a cause for concern, IF we were seeing fatality rates of 20% or greater. But, even in the 2nd world medical system in China, we are seeing only ~2%, or possibly as high as 5% depending upon how badly the Chinese have been fudging their fatality figures. While this is cause for a limited concern, this is still only marginally greater than seasonal flu fatalities in the US. H7N9 [Bird Flu] had a fatality rate of 42%, in China.
Every single year, for the last decade, the medial community, led by the CDC, has been trumpeting the next great epidemic. It was SARS, Swine flu, bird flu, measles, mumps, etc. Every single year. And every single year, no lethal epidemic appears. Even Ebola remains confined to a relatively small area of Africa. Is the current coronavirus a potential pandemic threat? Certainly. Is it the next apocalypse? I seriously doubt it. Between modern medicine and good hygiene, the coronavirus should be another medical non–event, a global scale.
I’m thankful my everyday meat choices are chicken, beef and pork. And venison when I can get it in the fall.