31st March Most Iraqis coming from Syria have Covid-19 but the official Syrian count is 10 cases. The EU is now treating Syrian refugees as plague carriers (See Cyprus pushes Syrian refugees back at sea due to Coronavirus). There is increasing evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was performing "gain of function" experiments on viruses - see Chinese biological experiments exposed.
27th March It is now clear that the way to stop Covid-19 is to locate all the contacts of each case and isolate and test them. See the entry for 7th February which expected the NHS and Health Services to do this in the UK. The WHO recommended this approach and it was successful in China, Korea, Japan etc. . Europe and the USA have dithered.
26th March The Diamond Princess passengers and crew have now experienced 10 deaths out of 712 infections, a 1.4% death rate in a relatively healthy but fairly elderly population. About 18% of those on the ship had the disease without symptoms. Italy is still enduring a growing crisis with 80,539 cases and 8165 deaths. The UK has 9,849 cases and 477 deaths. The USA has 75,665 cases and will be the country with the biggest problem by Monday, there is little sign that the infection is under control in the USA. The lack of reporting from sub-saharan Africa is probably a reflection of the quality of health services.
22nd March The pandemic is now fully under way. The Chinese cracked it by testing and moving anyone with the virus to makeshift "hospitals" (forcibly if necessary) and locking the population down. The South Koreans cracked it by testing, tracking and isolating all contacts.
18th March The UK now has over 2000 cases and 71 deaths. The infection is growing explosively in the EU. There are approximately 31000 cases in Italy, 14000 in Spain 10000 in Germany.
17th March Spain (11000 cases), Italy (27000) and Iran (16000) are the main centres of Covid-19. The UK, with 22.7 cases per million of population is doing very well in controlling the epidemic at the moment (Italy 462 per million).
13th March
Here is an excerpt from Worldometer Coronavirus Cases for today, Friday 13th:
It looks bad, Africa, South/Central America and South Asia have the disease. The real issue is whether a vaccination etc. will be found by next Autumn. If not all of the control measures are pointless except to slow down the peak of infection in the next couple of months. The UK government is clearly assuming a reprise of Covid-19 in September. The WHO Ebola public emergency was declared on 29th March 2014 and an effective vaccine was developed by July 2015. A similar schedule would expose us to Covid-19 this Autumn without a vaccine. Older people might self-quarantine until the infection ameliorates in the Summer then repeat quarantine in the Autumn.
10th March As of 6 pm UK has 373 cases and 6 deaths.
9th March UK has 321 cases. No country is doing as well as China at controlling the spread of the virus. Italy and South Korea have three times more infections per head than the Chinese and the epidemic has not yet peaked in Italy.
8th March UK has 278 cases and 3 deaths. France, Spain and Germany have around 1000 cases each. China is getting the epidemic under control with only 44 new cases. India, South & Central America and Africa have the disease. Covid-19 is going to be a very nasty seasonal flu in the next few years before it ameliorates in severity. A vaccine will probably be available by about this time next year. Italy's mortality rate is almost 5% - why? The best guess seems to be that it has a relatively old population with a culture of families coming together so that younger members can pass on infections to older members.
7th March It seems that Syria does have cases of Covid-19, see Corona in the air… A new crisis added to the Syrians’ crises. When these will be declared officially is anyone's guess. There are 206 cases in the UK today, its time to wear those face masks in public, confined spaces (See 5th March below for other measures to take). There are ominous warnings from Iran that there is a full scale epidemic in Tehran.
There are three lessons to be learnt from the coronavirus outbreak:
There should be much tighter controls on virology experimentation, especially "gain of function studies" such as seemed to have been undertaken at the Wuhan Virology Institute. This applies even if coronavirus is entirely natural.
China is a danger to us all and not just from flu - see We need to talk about China.
Globalisation is inherently unstable, being affected by everything from US home loans to coronavirus. The Extremist Internationalism must be stopped - see Time to roll back globalisation? Coronavirus is a wake up call.
6th March Cases in the UK leapt to 163 today. What do we really know about Covid-19?
The "asymptomatic" carrier of Covid-19 now seems to really be a pre-symptomatic carrier. There are indeed asymptomatic carriers but the WHO Director General's Report made a point of explaining this:
".. COVID-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza, from the data we have so far. With influenza, people who are infected but not yet sick are major drivers of transmission, which does not appear to be the case for COVID-19.
Evidence from China is that only 1% of reported cases do not have symptoms, and most of those cases develop symptoms within 2 days."
The WHO has announced a mortality rate (proportion of those infected who die) of 3.4% overall.
The Chinese Centre for Disease Control has published a summary of the epidemic in China in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In China the overall mortality rate was 2.3%. By comparison, the mortality rate on the Diamond Princess cruise ship where all those infected were identified seems to have stabilised at 0.9% (so far). About 50% of seriously ill patients recovered in China.
The death rates from Covid-19 are wildly discrepant between countries. Italy has 3858 cases of whom 148 have already died so the mortality rate is over 3.8% whilst South Korea has 6593 cases with 42 deaths which is a 0.6% mortality rate. The proportion of people who are over 60 in Italy is about twice that of South Korea.
On the basis of current figures the mortality rate of Covid-19 is about 20-30 times that of seasonal flu in each age group:
The long term effects of Covid-19 are unknown. Before those under 40 start congratulating themselves on their relatively high chance of survival they should consider that a low percentage of survivors of flu can develop a whole range of health problems afterwards from catatonia to brain and lung damage although they will probably still live to a ripe old age. Even if you are happy to infect your grandmother there is no guarantee that you will be completely protected.
5th March Covid-19 is much more dangerous than seasonal flu. That is why countries are shutting down in response to it. If the current rate of growth of Covid-19 in the UK continues (ie: more than 200 cases by Monday) we should each implement a full, personal reaction. The UK has 115 cases today. Information to help react to coronavirus is given below.
Symptoms: The most common symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, tiredness, and dry cough. Some patients may have aches and pains, nasal congestion, runny nose, sore throat or diarrhea. Self isolate, including from other family members, if you have these symptoms. Phone NHS on 111 if infected. It may take up to 14 days from infection to the appearance of symptoms. It can take as long as a month to recover but this is highly variable.
Hand washing: wash hands after touching surfaces and objects that may have been touched by others. Soap and water are adequate. Keep finger nails trimmed.
Face touching: wash your hands before touching your face, especially eyes, nose and mouth.
Cleaning: the virus survives from a few hours to several days on surfaces. Wash outer clothing after indoor contacts.
Face Masks: Direct droplet infection in enclosed spaces is less likely when face masks are worn. Save your masks for unavoidable indoor contacts. Don't touch the front of masks after use.
Places to avoid: Enclosed spaces with other people.
Smoking: As smokers know, your lungs are far more susceptible to respiratory infections if you smoke.
Keep your social distance: don't shake hands, don't kiss acquaintances and friends, stay over a metre away from people.
Family solidarity: All of the above are pointless if a member of the family refuses to act.
Summary: don't touch your face until you have washed your hands, don't go where there are large numbers of people, avoid contact with strangers in enclosed spaces.
Dogs and cats can be weakly infected with coronavirus but do not pass it on. Do not kiss a cat or dog from a family with a Covid-19 infection :) .
4th March India now has an epidemic with 21 new cases in a day, bringing the total to 28. The WHO has sent a special team to Iran which is now beginning to treat the outbreak seriously. The UK now has 85 cases.
The WHO puts coronavirus mortality at 3.4% of infections. Seasonal flu mortality is about 0.1%. Coronavirus is also highly infectious.
3rd March There are hints that Covid-19 is in Syria - Lebanon turns back bus. It would be a miracle if this were not the case. There seemed to be a lull in cases this morning but that was an artefact of reporting. There are 51 cases in the UK and it is time to take measures - wash hands and don't touch your face unless hands have been washed, keep a social distance.
2nd March Coronavirus is now epidemic in Europe. Cases in Italy (1694) and Germany (150) increased by about 50% over the weekend. The UK has 36 cases, again a rise of about 50%. If there are 50 or more cases in the UK tomorrow it is time to start using those face masks and gloves that many people have bought. The key advice is to keep your distance from other people and don't rub your eyes, eat or pick your nose until you have washed your hands.
The death rate from the disease is very uneven and seems, to some extent, to reflect health care. The Chinese death rate looks like it is going to stabilise at 6% of reported cases. This is not the true death rate because many people have the virus without symptoms. The cruise ship Diamond Princess is a population that has had every member tested.
1% of those infected on the ship have already died. We know that about 30 to 50% of serious cases die so the likely final death rate is 2.5 to 3.5% of all those infected which is about the same as for Spanish Flu in 1919 (however, see entry for 6th March above, the cases have been reduced to 696 and deaths to 6 leaving the mortality rate at about 1% which seems to have stabilised). If the infection were uncontrolled in the UK there would be about 500,000 to 1 million deaths so we should be grateful if our town is shut down and we are made to stay indoors, the disease is serious. Money and a social life are no good to you if you are dead.
Iran probably has more than 10000 cases and is still not acting to control the epidemic. The disease must now be in Syria given that it is everywhere else around Iran. Egypt and Algeria have reported one extra case each.
1st March Europe is threatened with a wave of refugees from Syria via Turkey. Erdogan knows that, with the threat of coronavirus, either the EU will need to help Turkey in the Syrian conflict or stump up more money for them to stay in Turkey.
28th February It is possible that a Japanese woman has been re-infected with Covid-19 (Reuters). This has been hyped and is probably of little concern, it is usual for a small number of victims of other coronaviruses to be infected twice and usual for the second infection to be milder than the first (there are 4 other types of coronaviruses endemic in the human population). The mutation rate of SARS-CoV-2 is relatively low so there are good prospects for a successful vaccine.
Covid-19 is bad but it is not terrible, it is no Black Death. Control measures in the West will keep deaths well below the usual number for seasonal flu, if controls occur they may even reduce the 10,000 or so seasonal flu deaths in the UK. It is probably time for the media to ease off but as we saw with the media coverage of Brexit over the past 3 years, the media are psycho once they start feeding on an issue.
27th February Pakistan now has 2 coronavirus cases, Afghanistan has 5 or 6 cases and other Middle Eastern countries are picking up extra infections from Iran. The Iranians have failed to tackle the disease at all and have announced that they do not really intend to tackle it. So Covid-19 is truly pandemic. The mass media will cash in over the coming months with hours of pictures of hospitals full of dying Syrians and Yemenis before switching to the disaster in Africa.
26th February There is a pandemic. Many parts of the world such as Syria could lose 2% of their population. Developed countries will probably suffer fewer casualties than seasonal flu provided they lock down and shut down as epidemics occur. The consequences of such a response for the global economy are dire and may cost many lives globally.
25th February Al Arabiya reports that Iran is the epicentre of Covid-19 infections in the Middle East.
Iran reported 95 cases in total today with 15 deaths but these figures do not represent the scale of what is happening. 27 people in the Middle East have been tested positive for coronavirus after visiting Iran so there must be a full epidemic underway in Iran if tourists and business visitors are getting infected so easily. (4 new cases confirmed today in Iraq). It is now very likely that Syria has a coronavirus epidemic. As many as 500,000 have died in Syria's civil war and at least this number may die from covid-19 if it becomes an uncontrolled epidemic.
24th February It is probable that the pandemic has begun. Iran officially reported 12 deaths in total from Covid-19 today but only 61 infected cases were identified instead of about 500 as would be expected from the mortality rate for Covid-19. There is evidence that Iran is covering up the scale of the epidemic, the MP for Qom, the centre of the Iranian outbreak, said of the Deputy Health Minister: "I have given the names of 40 dead people to the deputy minister. Now, we await his resignation,". 40 deaths suggest thousands are infected. Kuwait and other Middle Eastern countries are reporting infections acquired in Iran. Iran supplies thousands of troops to Syria (Iran has lost over 2000 troops in the conflict). Sadly we should expect a catastrophe in Syria.
BBC News has said that Covid-19 is no more deadly than seasonal flu. Seasonal flu has a mortality rate of approximately 0.1% so at over 2% mortality Covid-19 is at least 20 times more deadly. If it becomes as widespread as seasonal flu it will kill 10 million people or more.
23rd February Iran reports 43 infections and 8 deaths. Either Iran has a very high death rate for coronavirus or they are missing most of the infections. 8 deaths imply that the virus has been in Iran for a couple of weeks and even if the death rate were as high as 5% there would be 160 infections and at 2% 400 infections. It can only be assumed that the virus is uncontrolled in Iran and spreading.
ZeroHedge describes various warnings about Chinese virus research.
The spread of Coronavirus outside China looks out of control:
21st February It is becoming increasingly certain that the SARS CoV-2 virus (Coronavirus) epidemic in China did not begin at the Wuhan Hua Nan market. The first outbreak probably occurred around 8th December 2019 and the Hua Nan market was a superspreader event. (See Decoding evolution and transmissions of novel pneumonia coronavirus using the whole genomic data). Bizarrely the Chinese were working at the Virology Institute in Wuhan on producing a SARS strain that might be pandemic so that they could deal with such a virus if it happened...
19th February: The start of the pandemic?
Thailand now reports 35 cases, Singapore 81. It looks like an epidemic is beginning in SE Asia.
16th February: 17 Indians found to be symptomatic for Covid-19 in Delhi.
"As of Saturday (15th Feb), the latest figures reported by each government's health authority were 1,523 deaths among 66,492 cases in mainland China, mostly in the central province of Hubei; 56 cases including 1 death in Hong Kong; 10 in Macao; 1 death and 259 cases in Japan, including 218 from a cruise ship docked in Yokohama; 67 in Singapore; 33 in Thailand; 28 in South Korea; 21 in Malaysia; 18 in Taiwan; 16 in Vietnam; 16 in Germany; 15 in the United States while separately, one U.S. citizen has died in China; 14 in Australia; 11 in France; 9 in the United Kingdom; 8 in the United Arab Emirates; 8 in Canada; 3 cases including 1 death in the Philippines; 3 in India; 3 in Italy; 2 in Russia; 2 in Spain; 1 in Belgium; 1 in Nepal; 1 in Sri Lanka; 1 in Sweden; 1 in Cambodia; 1 in Finland and 1 in Egypt." Euronews
The Chinese have done well, if the UK could do as well there would only be about 3300 cases and 70 deaths in the UK for a similar outbreak, given the relative sizes of the UK and Chinese populations.
13th February: Chinese revise infection count upwards. It now appears the disease may not be under control or it is possible that the massive increase in cases is due to a change in diagnostic methods...
10th February: 40,649 infected, 910 died, mortality rate 2.2%.
Compare this with mortality rates for other viral infections: SARS 9.6% MERS 34% Swine Flu 0.02%
7th February: c.18000 infected. The death rate from this virus is between 2% and 14%. The higher figure has been mooted because 95% of those hospitalised have not yet recovered or died. Don't believe the higher figure, its just the absolutely scariest possibility. Lets guess at 2-4%. This could mean as many as 0.5-2 million deaths in the UK. Should we worry? Probably not because the UK has some of the best epidemic control systems in the world, but we should pay attention as events unfold because the economic consequences might be severe and those caught in the epidemics deserve our sympathy.
It is looking increasingly unlikely that the virus will be contained. Our best hope in the longer term is for drugs or a vaccine. Drugs that ameliorate the disease are being trialled and work on a vaccine is under way but vaccinations take about a year to be developed.
Given that this is a disease that could cause huge numbers of deaths over the next year yet be curable in two years time it is essential that the next year is managed as well as possible.
We should pour resources into treatment regimes, vaccine production and drug therapies.
If an epidemic does occur in the UK and seems to be getting out of control we should double down on contact chasing and quarantine and never give up. Within a year there will be a cure so almost all deaths will be due to a failure of disease control. "Superspreaders", those in retail, education, deliveries and other public contact roles, should be given full protective clothing including FFP3 or better masks for work. The government undoubtedly has plans for sealing off affected areas and cutting international and domestic travel to the bare minimum and for emergency hospital facilities in the event of an epidemic.
It is still faintly possible that the disease will not become pandemic. All eyes should be on places like India, Africa and Central America, the moment any of these get an epidemic the pandemic has begun - it probably has begun (15th Feb) but we cannot be certain until another week or two has passed.
Some might say we have seen all this before with the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak which killed around 3% of the global population. True, and we can stop such a catastrophe being repeated in 2020 in the UK.
Nomenclature: The virus is called SARS-CoV-2 (it shares c.80% of its RNA code with SARS) and the disease is called Covid-19.
Postscript: Wuhan has a major virology centre and it has been suggested by ZeroHedge that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is an escape, perhaps developed for biowarfare. Who knows? But what we do know is that Twitter immediately banned Zero Hedge from Tweeting. Is Twitter protecting us from fake news or responding to Chinese pressure or is it the empire of some hapless billionaires who do what they want? We only know that the third option is definitely true.
7/2/2020
27th March It is now clear that the way to stop Covid-19 is to locate all the contacts of each case and isolate and test them. See the entry for 7th February which expected the NHS and Health Services to do this in the UK. The WHO recommended this approach and it was successful in China, Korea, Japan etc. . Europe and the USA have dithered.
26th March The Diamond Princess passengers and crew have now experienced 10 deaths out of 712 infections, a 1.4% death rate in a relatively healthy but fairly elderly population. About 18% of those on the ship had the disease without symptoms. Italy is still enduring a growing crisis with 80,539 cases and 8165 deaths. The UK has 9,849 cases and 477 deaths. The USA has 75,665 cases and will be the country with the biggest problem by Monday, there is little sign that the infection is under control in the USA. The lack of reporting from sub-saharan Africa is probably a reflection of the quality of health services.
22nd March The pandemic is now fully under way. The Chinese cracked it by testing and moving anyone with the virus to makeshift "hospitals" (forcibly if necessary) and locking the population down. The South Koreans cracked it by testing, tracking and isolating all contacts.
18th March The UK now has over 2000 cases and 71 deaths. The infection is growing explosively in the EU. There are approximately 31000 cases in Italy, 14000 in Spain 10000 in Germany.
17th March Spain (11000 cases), Italy (27000) and Iran (16000) are the main centres of Covid-19. The UK, with 22.7 cases per million of population is doing very well in controlling the epidemic at the moment (Italy 462 per million).
13th March
Here is an excerpt from Worldometer Coronavirus Cases for today, Friday 13th:
10th March As of 6 pm UK has 373 cases and 6 deaths.
9th March UK has 321 cases. No country is doing as well as China at controlling the spread of the virus. Italy and South Korea have three times more infections per head than the Chinese and the epidemic has not yet peaked in Italy.
8th March UK has 278 cases and 3 deaths. France, Spain and Germany have around 1000 cases each. China is getting the epidemic under control with only 44 new cases. India, South & Central America and Africa have the disease. Covid-19 is going to be a very nasty seasonal flu in the next few years before it ameliorates in severity. A vaccine will probably be available by about this time next year. Italy's mortality rate is almost 5% - why? The best guess seems to be that it has a relatively old population with a culture of families coming together so that younger members can pass on infections to older members.
7th March It seems that Syria does have cases of Covid-19, see Corona in the air… A new crisis added to the Syrians’ crises. When these will be declared officially is anyone's guess. There are 206 cases in the UK today, its time to wear those face masks in public, confined spaces (See 5th March below for other measures to take). There are ominous warnings from Iran that there is a full scale epidemic in Tehran.
There are three lessons to be learnt from the coronavirus outbreak:
There should be much tighter controls on virology experimentation, especially "gain of function studies" such as seemed to have been undertaken at the Wuhan Virology Institute. This applies even if coronavirus is entirely natural.
China is a danger to us all and not just from flu - see We need to talk about China.
Globalisation is inherently unstable, being affected by everything from US home loans to coronavirus. The Extremist Internationalism must be stopped - see Time to roll back globalisation? Coronavirus is a wake up call.
 |
| Stock markets fall. |
6th March Cases in the UK leapt to 163 today. What do we really know about Covid-19?
The "asymptomatic" carrier of Covid-19 now seems to really be a pre-symptomatic carrier. There are indeed asymptomatic carriers but the WHO Director General's Report made a point of explaining this:
".. COVID-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza, from the data we have so far. With influenza, people who are infected but not yet sick are major drivers of transmission, which does not appear to be the case for COVID-19.
Evidence from China is that only 1% of reported cases do not have symptoms, and most of those cases develop symptoms within 2 days."
The WHO has announced a mortality rate (proportion of those infected who die) of 3.4% overall.
The Chinese Centre for Disease Control has published a summary of the epidemic in China in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In China the overall mortality rate was 2.3%. By comparison, the mortality rate on the Diamond Princess cruise ship where all those infected were identified seems to have stabilised at 0.9% (so far). About 50% of seriously ill patients recovered in China.
The death rates from Covid-19 are wildly discrepant between countries. Italy has 3858 cases of whom 148 have already died so the mortality rate is over 3.8% whilst South Korea has 6593 cases with 42 deaths which is a 0.6% mortality rate. The proportion of people who are over 60 in Italy is about twice that of South Korea.
On the basis of current figures the mortality rate of Covid-19 is about 20-30 times that of seasonal flu in each age group:
5th March Covid-19 is much more dangerous than seasonal flu. That is why countries are shutting down in response to it. If the current rate of growth of Covid-19 in the UK continues (ie: more than 200 cases by Monday) we should each implement a full, personal reaction. The UK has 115 cases today. Information to help react to coronavirus is given below.
Symptoms: The most common symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, tiredness, and dry cough. Some patients may have aches and pains, nasal congestion, runny nose, sore throat or diarrhea. Self isolate, including from other family members, if you have these symptoms. Phone NHS on 111 if infected. It may take up to 14 days from infection to the appearance of symptoms. It can take as long as a month to recover but this is highly variable.
Hand washing: wash hands after touching surfaces and objects that may have been touched by others. Soap and water are adequate. Keep finger nails trimmed.
Face touching: wash your hands before touching your face, especially eyes, nose and mouth.
Cleaning: the virus survives from a few hours to several days on surfaces. Wash outer clothing after indoor contacts.
Face Masks: Direct droplet infection in enclosed spaces is less likely when face masks are worn. Save your masks for unavoidable indoor contacts. Don't touch the front of masks after use.
Places to avoid: Enclosed spaces with other people.
Smoking: As smokers know, your lungs are far more susceptible to respiratory infections if you smoke.
Keep your social distance: don't shake hands, don't kiss acquaintances and friends, stay over a metre away from people.
Family solidarity: All of the above are pointless if a member of the family refuses to act.
Summary: don't touch your face until you have washed your hands, don't go where there are large numbers of people, avoid contact with strangers in enclosed spaces.
Dogs and cats can be weakly infected with coronavirus but do not pass it on. Do not kiss a cat or dog from a family with a Covid-19 infection :) .
4th March India now has an epidemic with 21 new cases in a day, bringing the total to 28. The WHO has sent a special team to Iran which is now beginning to treat the outbreak seriously. The UK now has 85 cases.
The WHO puts coronavirus mortality at 3.4% of infections. Seasonal flu mortality is about 0.1%. Coronavirus is also highly infectious.
3rd March There are hints that Covid-19 is in Syria - Lebanon turns back bus. It would be a miracle if this were not the case. There seemed to be a lull in cases this morning but that was an artefact of reporting. There are 51 cases in the UK and it is time to take measures - wash hands and don't touch your face unless hands have been washed, keep a social distance.
2nd March Coronavirus is now epidemic in Europe. Cases in Italy (1694) and Germany (150) increased by about 50% over the weekend. The UK has 36 cases, again a rise of about 50%. If there are 50 or more cases in the UK tomorrow it is time to start using those face masks and gloves that many people have bought. The key advice is to keep your distance from other people and don't rub your eyes, eat or pick your nose until you have washed your hands.
The death rate from the disease is very uneven and seems, to some extent, to reflect health care. The Chinese death rate looks like it is going to stabilise at 6% of reported cases. This is not the true death rate because many people have the virus without symptoms. The cruise ship Diamond Princess is a population that has had every member tested.
Iran probably has more than 10000 cases and is still not acting to control the epidemic. The disease must now be in Syria given that it is everywhere else around Iran. Egypt and Algeria have reported one extra case each.
1st March Europe is threatened with a wave of refugees from Syria via Turkey. Erdogan knows that, with the threat of coronavirus, either the EU will need to help Turkey in the Syrian conflict or stump up more money for them to stay in Turkey.
28th February It is possible that a Japanese woman has been re-infected with Covid-19 (Reuters). This has been hyped and is probably of little concern, it is usual for a small number of victims of other coronaviruses to be infected twice and usual for the second infection to be milder than the first (there are 4 other types of coronaviruses endemic in the human population). The mutation rate of SARS-CoV-2 is relatively low so there are good prospects for a successful vaccine.
Covid-19 is bad but it is not terrible, it is no Black Death. Control measures in the West will keep deaths well below the usual number for seasonal flu, if controls occur they may even reduce the 10,000 or so seasonal flu deaths in the UK. It is probably time for the media to ease off but as we saw with the media coverage of Brexit over the past 3 years, the media are psycho once they start feeding on an issue.
27th February Pakistan now has 2 coronavirus cases, Afghanistan has 5 or 6 cases and other Middle Eastern countries are picking up extra infections from Iran. The Iranians have failed to tackle the disease at all and have announced that they do not really intend to tackle it. So Covid-19 is truly pandemic. The mass media will cash in over the coming months with hours of pictures of hospitals full of dying Syrians and Yemenis before switching to the disaster in Africa.
26th February There is a pandemic. Many parts of the world such as Syria could lose 2% of their population. Developed countries will probably suffer fewer casualties than seasonal flu provided they lock down and shut down as epidemics occur. The consequences of such a response for the global economy are dire and may cost many lives globally.
25th February Al Arabiya reports that Iran is the epicentre of Covid-19 infections in the Middle East.
 |
| Al Arabiya |
24th February It is probable that the pandemic has begun. Iran officially reported 12 deaths in total from Covid-19 today but only 61 infected cases were identified instead of about 500 as would be expected from the mortality rate for Covid-19. There is evidence that Iran is covering up the scale of the epidemic, the MP for Qom, the centre of the Iranian outbreak, said of the Deputy Health Minister: "I have given the names of 40 dead people to the deputy minister. Now, we await his resignation,". 40 deaths suggest thousands are infected. Kuwait and other Middle Eastern countries are reporting infections acquired in Iran. Iran supplies thousands of troops to Syria (Iran has lost over 2000 troops in the conflict). Sadly we should expect a catastrophe in Syria.
BBC News has said that Covid-19 is no more deadly than seasonal flu. Seasonal flu has a mortality rate of approximately 0.1% so at over 2% mortality Covid-19 is at least 20 times more deadly. If it becomes as widespread as seasonal flu it will kill 10 million people or more.
23rd February Iran reports 43 infections and 8 deaths. Either Iran has a very high death rate for coronavirus or they are missing most of the infections. 8 deaths imply that the virus has been in Iran for a couple of weeks and even if the death rate were as high as 5% there would be 160 infections and at 2% 400 infections. It can only be assumed that the virus is uncontrolled in Iran and spreading.
ZeroHedge describes various warnings about Chinese virus research.
The spread of Coronavirus outside China looks out of control:
 |
| Graph from @Jodigraphics15 |
21st February It is becoming increasingly certain that the SARS CoV-2 virus (Coronavirus) epidemic in China did not begin at the Wuhan Hua Nan market. The first outbreak probably occurred around 8th December 2019 and the Hua Nan market was a superspreader event. (See Decoding evolution and transmissions of novel pneumonia coronavirus using the whole genomic data). Bizarrely the Chinese were working at the Virology Institute in Wuhan on producing a SARS strain that might be pandemic so that they could deal with such a virus if it happened...
19th February: The start of the pandemic?
Thailand now reports 35 cases, Singapore 81. It looks like an epidemic is beginning in SE Asia.
"As of Saturday (15th Feb), the latest figures reported by each government's health authority were 1,523 deaths among 66,492 cases in mainland China, mostly in the central province of Hubei; 56 cases including 1 death in Hong Kong; 10 in Macao; 1 death and 259 cases in Japan, including 218 from a cruise ship docked in Yokohama; 67 in Singapore; 33 in Thailand; 28 in South Korea; 21 in Malaysia; 18 in Taiwan; 16 in Vietnam; 16 in Germany; 15 in the United States while separately, one U.S. citizen has died in China; 14 in Australia; 11 in France; 9 in the United Kingdom; 8 in the United Arab Emirates; 8 in Canada; 3 cases including 1 death in the Philippines; 3 in India; 3 in Italy; 2 in Russia; 2 in Spain; 1 in Belgium; 1 in Nepal; 1 in Sri Lanka; 1 in Sweden; 1 in Cambodia; 1 in Finland and 1 in Egypt." Euronews
The Chinese have done well, if the UK could do as well there would only be about 3300 cases and 70 deaths in the UK for a similar outbreak, given the relative sizes of the UK and Chinese populations.
13th February: Chinese revise infection count upwards. It now appears the disease may not be under control or it is possible that the massive increase in cases is due to a change in diagnostic methods...
10th February: 40,649 infected, 910 died, mortality rate 2.2%.
Compare this with mortality rates for other viral infections: SARS 9.6% MERS 34% Swine Flu 0.02%
7th February: c.18000 infected. The death rate from this virus is between 2% and 14%. The higher figure has been mooted because 95% of those hospitalised have not yet recovered or died. Don't believe the higher figure, its just the absolutely scariest possibility. Lets guess at 2-4%. This could mean as many as 0.5-2 million deaths in the UK. Should we worry? Probably not because the UK has some of the best epidemic control systems in the world, but we should pay attention as events unfold because the economic consequences might be severe and those caught in the epidemics deserve our sympathy.
It is looking increasingly unlikely that the virus will be contained. Our best hope in the longer term is for drugs or a vaccine. Drugs that ameliorate the disease are being trialled and work on a vaccine is under way but vaccinations take about a year to be developed.
Given that this is a disease that could cause huge numbers of deaths over the next year yet be curable in two years time it is essential that the next year is managed as well as possible.
We should pour resources into treatment regimes, vaccine production and drug therapies.
If an epidemic does occur in the UK and seems to be getting out of control we should double down on contact chasing and quarantine and never give up. Within a year there will be a cure so almost all deaths will be due to a failure of disease control. "Superspreaders", those in retail, education, deliveries and other public contact roles, should be given full protective clothing including FFP3 or better masks for work. The government undoubtedly has plans for sealing off affected areas and cutting international and domestic travel to the bare minimum and for emergency hospital facilities in the event of an epidemic.
It is still faintly possible that the disease will not become pandemic. All eyes should be on places like India, Africa and Central America, the moment any of these get an epidemic the pandemic has begun - it probably has begun (15th Feb) but we cannot be certain until another week or two has passed.
Some might say we have seen all this before with the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak which killed around 3% of the global population. True, and we can stop such a catastrophe being repeated in 2020 in the UK.
Nomenclature: The virus is called SARS-CoV-2 (it shares c.80% of its RNA code with SARS) and the disease is called Covid-19.
Postscript: Wuhan has a major virology centre and it has been suggested by ZeroHedge that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is an escape, perhaps developed for biowarfare. Who knows? But what we do know is that Twitter immediately banned Zero Hedge from Tweeting. Is Twitter protecting us from fake news or responding to Chinese pressure or is it the empire of some hapless billionaires who do what they want? We only know that the third option is definitely true.
7/2/2020
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