On the genuine science front, there's a general feeling that the Chinese habit of selling wild animals in markets which have exposed sales of meat and fish is a particularly bad idea...Pangolins (raise your hand if you have one) have special scrutiny right now...going to the market today, but no pangolins on the list.
A lot has been written in the past about how various flu strains get into the human population...often it starts in ducks, who transmit it to swine (via the miracle of duck poop) and then on to humans.
Have you ever walked through the hall of confiscated wildlife and wildlife parts at Atlanta Hartsfield airport? Pretty arresting. The Chinese government announced some bans on wildlife trade and consumption, which is good news for a lot of reasons.
Asian markets are one of the biggest threats to certain species today...like the pangolin you mention.
According to this, it's over in Concourse E. I seem to recall seeing it walking in that long hallway from the international to the domestic terminals. The article is from 2010 but I saw the exhibit as recently as a few years ago but it could have been removed by now...
Not just hospitals. Clinics, Urgent Care, Doctor’s offices are all swamped. My niece is in day care and it’s been half full for weeks.
Back to the topic. It’s a positive but isn’t it strange that the current recovery rate for kids is virtually 100%? The elderly and kids are the most vulnerable but kids are currently fairing better.
I'd love to see that...I'll look for it my next time thru.
As far as the Chinese gov't banning some wildlife trade and consumption, that won't be easy....there are a lot of old habits in China that won't die easily...(don't get me started on rhino horns...complicated topic)
The Atlantic has an excellent breakdown our current efforts to combat COVID 19. Here's the money quote regarding containment efforts:
There's also a good summary of current efforts to develop a vaccine. Bottom line? We are at least 12 to 18 months from the development of a safe and effective vaccine. Longer for manufacturing and distribution.The Harvard epidemiology professor Marc Lipsitch is exacting in his diction, even for an epidemiologist. Twice in our conversation he started to say something, then paused and said, “Actually, let me start again.” So it’s striking when one of the points he wanted to get exactly right was this: “I think the likely outcome is that it will ultimately not be containable...
Lipsitch predicts that, within the coming year, some 40 to 70 percent of people around the world will be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. But, he clarifies emphatically, this does not mean that all will have severe illnesses. “It’s likely that many will have mild disease, or may be asymptomatic,” he said...
Lipsitch is far from alone in his belief that this virus will continue to spread widely. The emerging consensus among epidemiologists is that the most likely outcome of this outbreak is a new seasonal disease—a fifth “endemic” coronavirus. With the other four, people are not known to develop long-lasting immunity. If this one follows suit, and if the disease continues to be as severe as it is now, “cold and flu season” could become “cold and flu and COVID-19 season.”
There's another very good section on how to think about CDC and NIH funding relative to vaccine development. Read the whole thing.
I make custom furniture in my (rare) spare time. Went to Home Depot today to get more N95 masks for all the sanding I have to do. Haha. Silly me. Empty shelves. The guy there said some dude recently came in and literally bought their entire stock to send back to China. They have no clue when they’ll get more. And online people are selling boxes of ten at $50-100 per box. Normally cost me less than $20. Crazy.
“Coach said no 3s.” - Zion on The Block
Started watching a docuseries on Netflix called Pandemic. We’ll see if it catches.
WHO says cases have peaked in China but warns other nations to be prepared. I'm not sure other countries could execute a quarantine on the scope, scale, and severity of China but hopefully they won't need to.
Now I'm scared:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/new...cid=spartandhp
If Tom Cruise interrupts filming a Mission Impossible movie (I think this one is #37) it must be serious.