I’m going to try to summarize what we know about the coronavirus outbreak that began in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China and is now spreading to other countries in the region and around the world. Most of the information is drawn from this article from the Associated Press.
By now there have been at least 78,000 cases of the disease, mostly in China, and more than 2,300 deaths, also mostly in China.
Outside of China there are substantial outbreaks in Japan and South Korea, with lesser outbreaks in Singapore, the United States, Thailand, Taiwan, and Australia. Recently, there has been a rash of cases in Italy.
Some people are blithely making projections of the disease’s trajectory, based on insufficient information. At this point all we can say confidently is that there have been a large number of cases and a large number of deaths in China and the contagion is spreading beyond China’s borders. We don’t honestly know whether the number of new cases and fatalities is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same.
The CDC’s guidelines for controlling the spread of the disease are here. They’re pretty boilerplate for respiratory infections. The facemasks you see pictures of people using, particularly in China, probably don’t do much, at least as they appear to be being used. I wonder if they’re helping psychologically or hurting due to moral hazard.
There have been reports of people contracting the disease again after recovering from it. I’m not sure how one could ever make confident projects of the contagion’s trajectory if there’s a substantial likelihood of reinfection.
I’m hearing a lot of complaints from people who clearly don’t understand the concept of risk.
And an outbreak in Iran.
There are going to be tough choices soon on the next possible measures here in the US.
Do you put travel restrictions on Italy, Japan, South Korea, all treaty allies? What about US troops stationed in those countries?
There are other alternatives. We could just take our chances. Or we could impose a quarantine on everyone coming here from abroad including American citizens.
The most optimistic estimate I’ve seen is six months for a vaccine. Perhaps a year. So yes, in the meantime just take our chances or the brute force quarantine approach.
Interesting link, look for coronavirus tab at top.
https://www.worldometers.info/
I don’t know how one can rely on the graphs presented at that site (I’ve been visiting it from time to time over the last several weeks). They’re already full of artifacts that derive from the changing reporting methodologies being used.
The photos and videos of hordes of Chinese wearing masks is eerily reminiscent of photos from the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic, when everyone from policemen to nurses masked up, to no discernible effect (I believe the vector was not yet known).
The origin of the Spanish Flu was never conclusively determined although there are many hypotheses and theories. Wuhan flu is different because the Empire has engaged in a campaign of misinformation regarding its origins and spread in their country. Secondarily the outbreak has given Tyrant Xi an excuse to clamp down on dissension. I also suspect the Chinese government is starting to hoard their medicines and medical personnel to protect the higher-ups and leaving the proletariat to their fate.