Soooooo when can NZ start taking the Wuhan virus seriously without being accused of Xenophobia?
Oh look at that, Wuhan Virus could kill 45million globally – are we still playing the ‘this-isn’t-serious-and-you-are- racist-for-thinking-it-is’ game on social media?
Coronavirus could kill 45m warns top Hong Kong medical official
Covid-19, the name given to the novel coronavirus, could kill 45 million people worldwide and infect 60 per cent of the global population if it can’t be contained, a leading expert has warned.
Professor Gabriel Leung, chair of public health medicine in Hong Kong, made the comments while en route to a meeting of the World Health Organisation.
He warned that an “attack rate” of 60-80 per cent meant that even if the fatality rate was as low as 1 per cent, the death toll would be staggering.
There is an argument floated by the woke that any criticism of the Wuhan virus is racist xenophobia and that it doesn’t kill as many people as other virus do, you dirty racist scumbags.
I’d humbly suggest this isn’t an Identity Politics issue as it is an economic and public health emergency.
Our response to measles was a despicable incompetence and it’s becoming glaringly apparent that our response to the Wuhan virus is equally farcical…
Scientists call for ‘urgent review’ of how NZ is protecting itself from coronavirus
Two University of Otago scientists are calling for an “urgent review” of how New Zealand is protecting itself from coronavirus.
Professors Nick Wilson and Michael Baker wrote an article published yesterday on Sciblogs, saying the country needs to introduce a “pandemic plan” to protect against the “highly uncertain” virus.
“Now is the time for maximum proactivity. There is still time to upgrade the weaker aspects of the response and to maximise the chance of protecting the population,” they wrote.
The researchers said the Government’s response so far is lacking in several areas and needs to be reviewed to ensure people are kept safe.
They also criticised New Zealand’s 14-day “self-isolation” requirement for travellers returning from coronavirus-affected areas, saying quarantine supervision “may need to be markedly increased”.
“The nature of this quarantine…needs urgent review, monitoring and evaluation to ensure it is adequate to minimise the risk of disease transmission.”
New Zealand continues to allow citizens, permanent residents and immediate family back into the country after they have travelled to areas where coronavirus is still being actively transmitted.
The Department of Public Health professors said border controls also need to be reviewed to further limit the range of people allowed entry to New Zealand.
The coronavirus has now claimed more than 1000 lives with 42,638 cases confirmed worldwide.
…because China is an authoritarian communist regime that puts human rights behind grim cohesion and slavish devotion to the Party, we can’t trust anything they are telling us regarding how lethal this virus actually is and how many people are actually infected.
We still don’t know how its being transmitted, it looks like its gained aerosol spreading capacity.
Look, with so little actually known, shouldn’t we be on a far more heightened alert here for a virus we don’t have any natural protection to whatsoever?
Don’t take my word for it, take the bloody above Scientists word for it.
The demand to ‘not panic’ should not be greater than the effort to prepare us for a rapidly emerging pandemic!
I trust Trump more than I trust China’s unelected president (spoiler alert: I don’t trust the Mango Moron as far as I could throw him!)
http://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/viral-alarm-when-fury-overcomes-fear
Simonm it may pay to check out Chinafile,com as just another Western based source of unbalanced criticism of China as well as being a platform to anti China propaganda.
What would you consider to be a balanced source of information about China, John?
The serious problem is that our hospitals barely cope with beds for winter flu patients (wards understaffed) and staff cannot be vaccinated for this new virus – so would soon have their ranks decimated meaning our hospitals would cease to function (people will die in their homes of either flu, other medical conditions left untreated, or this virus as they already are in China). And we know even infected young staff who continue to work with infected patients can die because of exhaustion (MD whistleblower in China). The only way for the system to cope is to schedule the infection of staff and give them rest and treatment (in quarantine) and then when immune they are ready for the later mass infection of the public – but who would dare apply this option?
(Maybe a few medical and other support workers to immunity and who manage quarantineed hospital treatment centres – separate from the rest of the health system)
The only other option is not to have it reach pandemic levels here, but limiting the numbers of cases – so which one will it be?
The economic pressure will be to continue with trade – because a global recession would be prolonged without this, and which will make containment more difficult. Already the Chinese Ambassador wants us to follow WHO advice to let trade and travel continue.
No surprises it’s been a completely lame government response so far, the coalition government are absolutely hopeless.
It’s disingenuous of some people to equate this to flu:
Although seasonal flu may kill some tens of thousands in America (where good statistics are available) a year, it infects up to about 40 million people to do it.
Seasonal flu average mortality rate is 0.13 percent eg: it kills just over one in 1000 infected people.
Wuhan coronavirus with the sketchy info at hand has killed around 1000 of the 40000 infected, a mortality rate of 2.5 percent or 25 people in every 1000 infected.
More than twenty times more lethal.
Yes more severe strains of influenza have killed millions after infecting the globe, but a new bug with no “herd immunity” that kills one in 40 infected people must be cause for caution.
Do the math on this one infecting the globe.
Yes , and the only effective methods to control this are containment and isolation techniques in lieu of a workable vaccine.
Interesting fact. In both Marco Polo’s time and in the 20th century, when the Chinese went against Mongolian shamans seasonal restrictions on hunting Marmots for their fur,… in BOTH cases ,… incidences of Black Death broke out.
The devastating Black Death of the Middle Ages was caused by meat products of,- and more importantly , – demand for Marmot fur for luxury items by the Europeans. Thus shiploads of that produce were imported into Europe, and thus the Great Plague pandemic. Spread by traders to the far east.
The Marmot is a rodent vector of the disease. In other words it is part of the transmitted disease cycle. Its well known now. In America, it is transmitted by its counterpart the Prairie dogs , – and other rodents. To which the ancient Native American shamans also placed seasonal restrictions on in hunting them. They were no fools. They did not have modern laboratory’s but they DID have keen observatory skills.
And so it is with corona-virus.
There will be a disease cycle and a vector. There will be a dormancy period , and an infectious period. Many bacterium and viral diseases leap species. Ebola is a classic modern example.
ALL bacterium and viral species mutate over time, for some, they become benign regards humans, for others? – they usually reach a peak after devastating depopulation then wane… but still remain virulent. A good example is Yersinia Pestis ( the Great Plague / Black Death ) ,… which even now kills several hundreds of people every year in both America and China ,- and county’s beyond in the year 2020.
Further reading :
http://www.npr.org › bubonic-plague-strikes-in-mongolia-why-is-it-still-a-threat
Bubonic Plague Kills Two In Mongolia Who Hunted And Ate …
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What stopped the plague?
…’How did it end? The most popular theory of how the plague ended is through the implementation of quarantines. The uninfected would typically remain in their homes and only leave when it was necessary, while those who could afford to do so would leave the more densely populated areas and live in greater isolation’…
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Containment and isolation in absence of a working vaccine is the most practical form of minimizing an infectious, deadly disease. Nothing has changed since the Great Plague 700 years ago. And until a vaccine is developed, this is the standard operating procedure.
Just a matter of time now. NZ Government are dragging the chain on this. Seem to be putting Commerce before the health of our people.
Completely agree and the ‘measures’ the govt have take so far have been pitiful.
People also need to get over their fear of being labelled racist / xenophobic, fear of these words is stifling open debate and is now also contributing to NZ potentially / probably introducing a virus that poses a very real and significant risk.
Great question.
We’ve been led to believe yet another deadly virus has it’s epicenter at a diabolical Chinese wildlife market. Exactly the sort of market that sees Chinese diners view live animals such as wolf cubs and koalas kept in barbaric conditions and then request the animal being killed with a club or knife or both and then served up to them on a plate. Most of the world find this very common action in China appalling and reprehensible animal cruelty. It now appears this type of sickening action has been the catalyst for the Coronavirus which is being felt in dozens of innocent countries outside of China.
I appreciate some Chinese are not feeling the usual love they feel from others but that is 100% understandable and has zero to do with racism and xenophobia. How dare people have the audacity to be worried, fearful, frustrated and angry how this situation has almost certainly come about.
I would suggest that the latent vector for the disease would be a species of rodent. Not so much the slaughtered animals in the market. I would suggest that at one point there was a leap of the virus from rodents to pork products, less wild game such as wolves or ‘ koala’s ‘.
Pigs share a very similar genetic make up to humans, – as do rodents. Which is why rodents are used in labs for testing of drugs, vaccines and the like for humans.
I would suggest that either pork products or live rodents were the catalyst for the leap to human hosts.
I would say that between ‘porcine products’ and live rodents,… you will find your answer as to the spread of this viral disease.
Is not killing animals and eating or exporting dead meat a national pastime in NZ, vegans to one side.