Novel Corona Virus (COVID-19) Update

So Novel Corona Virus (2019) has an official title now: COVID-19. Not as snappy as NCoV but hey, officialdom isn't renown for it's snappiness...

So, an update: The Southampton school was deep-disinfected because some kids had a cold when they came back from Singapore. Fair play, better safe then sorry.

Mr Super-spreader has been given the all-clear and sent home. He's no longer infectious. Hopefully.

There's a prisoner in Bullingdon jail that is suspected of having the virus after being shipped over from Thailand. We'll see how that pans out.

A bunch of people (apparently foreign tourists) in London are in isolation at St. Thomas' after having flu-like symptoms after coming back from the far East.

So, thankfully it appears the UK is on top of the situation.

Thankfully we closed down direct flights from China some days ago. I was surprised to see a video that insinuated that the USA hadn't closed down air links to China. A bad move, considering anyone can walk through the border without symptoms but still be carrying the virus.

Even indirect flights might be a risk as it's a way of subverting the bio-security afforded by the closure of direct links.

I've actually got a car part coming from Hong Kong. Hopefully it'll be in the post long enough so the virus won't be a risk factor. ;-) Maybe I'll give it a wipe with a disinfectant wipe, just in case...

But hopefully as we reach the limits of the quarantine/incubation period, the UK will emerge COVID-19 clear.

Then we just nuke China... sorry, I mean hopefully the Chinese can get on top of the virus and get back to normality.

The Gamechanger: Novel Corona Virus.

The New infectious disease, the Novel Corona Virus that originated in the Wuhan region of China, is a real gamechanger amongst infectious diseases.

The more we hear about it, the more it seems the "precautions" advised by the World Health Organisation and the various foreign governments are following the curve, rather than ahead of it.

Standard procedures for this sort of thing used in the past for the SARS and MARS outbreaks don't work with NCoV.

Both SARS and MARS weren't infectious until symptoms emerged. That's why an effective method of spotting infected cases at airports and the like was to use temperature sensors.

The first scary thing with NCoV is that those sort of checks don't work with NCoV. Patients are without symptoms (asymptomatic) and still infectious. So a carrier can walk around without a temperature, or a cough or any other symptoms and still spread the virus.

That means the virus is hard to contain. If it's spread without symptoms, ANYONE could be a carrier no matter how healthy they look or feel. The only way to contain it is to contain and isolate the area of the outbreak.

For cases that arrive in new countries, the only effective way to contain the virus is to close down the area around the cases and let the virus run it's course. The current practice of taking patients to hospitals outside the infected area is bad. Believe me, it's very bad. You just end up creating new hotspots.

Travel into and out of infected areas should be stopped.

In the UK we've already seen how a person can pick up the virus in an area away from the initial outbreak (in this case Singapore), then flew to France (possibly infecting a new bunch of people on that flight), he then stopped off in France infecting a whole ski-chalet's worth of people, one of whom flew back to Spain (again possibly infecting a flight's worth of people). The Brit then climbed aboard an EasyJet flight back to the UK, most likely infecting another bunch of people because by now we know he was infectious from the cases in France.

The Brit then infected another person in the UK. There's now a link with a Doctor's surgery in Brighton and a school in Southampton. The details are sketchy at the moment, but if this is true, then the virus is already out in the wild in the UK. We may never isolate the virus or stop it from spreading. Not without drastic measures.

But even if this person infected 10, 20, 30 or even a hundred people on the flights he took between countries and then infected a bunch more wherever he landed, this UK case proves the infectious nature of the virus. The WHO infection rating of 2-3 is way off the mark. How many other people will these new infections go on to infect?

The second scary thing about NCoV is that if you are infected and survive, unlike the flu, you don't get immunity. China has already reported instances of re-infection. Whether this is just people with colds wrongly diagnosed as NCoV sufferers going on to contract NCo after being dragged onto plague wards with NCoV sufferers, or whether it truly is re-infectious we have yet to really confirm. But governments should be treating it like it is. The best defence is not to get infected, so isolation of infected areas needs to happen and happen quick.

The thing is, if the virus is re-infectious and kills off a small percentage of it's victims. You can be in the first wave and survive, a small percentage dies. In the second wave of re-infections, another small percentage dies off. But if you don't get immunity from previous infection, that cycle continues until there is no-one to infect. EVERYONE DIES FROM NCoV EVENTUALLY.

The third scary thing about NCoV is (and it is only supposition at the moment), but if satellite pictures coming out of Wuhan are correct, there is a chance that even dead bodies are infectious. It seems that China may now be burning dead bodies  on a large scale. This suggest that even dead bodies are not safe to handle and the only way to "sterilise" them is to burn them.

That suggests the virus can live without the host being alive for some time. A very scary thought.

Not only for the management of the bodies of victims, but also for the spread of the virus. If it can live on without a live host, then it can live on door handles and other public surfaces for some time and be passed onto people without direct contact.

The Final scary thing is the incubation period seems to be very long. Initially it was thought to be 12-14 days before patients exhibited symptoms. But reports suggest that patients can actually go as long as 24 days without exhibiting symptoms but still be infectious. So in China, patient that had been released from quarantine after not exhibiting symptoms, went on to not only become symptomatic, but also infect any close contacts at the same time.

The more information we get about NCoV the more scary it gets. The more it seems a very efficient virus. Spreading easily, hardy enough to infect without direct contact and able to re-infect. Fatal in a small number of cases, but with the ability to re-infect ad-infinitum and chip away at the numbers of victims until there are no hosts left.

The amazing thing is I see no action from governments to get a handle on the problem. Right now, the situation is fluid and the more we hear about NCoV, the more it seems the "standard" precautions are inadequate.

If I was an isolated country with no cases, somewhere like Iceland, I'd close the borders now. No-one in or out. No flights, no boats, nothing. If necessary for up to 6 months. Let the rest of the world find out how infectious the disease is and how deadly it is.

For the rest of us, well only time will tell. Hopefully on one of the waves of infection the virus will mutate into a harmless version, or possibly it mutates into a version that allows our immune system to recognise the virus and create some immunity.

Without it and without some pretty serious quarantine measures, we are pretty much toast.

We certainly need to get some truthful and open information from the Chinese authorities about numbers of infections, mortality rates, infection rating, re-infections rates, incubation period, longevity out of the body and other information about the virus, otherwise how could we hope to ever contain it. W eneed to be ahead of the information curve, not behind it.

A final note is about the conspiracy theories about NCoV, especially the rumours about it being a Bioweapon accidentally released. It has all the hallmarks of one: being hard to spot, hard to contain, highly infectious, hardy and finally fatal. But a natural-occurring virus transferring between species also has the same traits.

Normally a virus doesn't kill it's host and probably in the original carrier (Supposedly Bats) and probably in the host organism it doesn't kill them all off. But when transferring to humans, there is no such guarantee. The virus could wipe out this new host quite easily, unless it has the chance to mutate into a less deadly version, or something happens to trigger our immune system to fight it off.

It's not necessarily the trait of a bioweapon, just the risk you take when you transfer a disease from one host to another. Bad animal husbandry is a very effective way to initiate this transfer between species. Just remember that the next time you eat one of your eggs from a battery hen...

UPDATE

Doing a mental exercise here: just think if the Government gave out advice to anyone in contact with an NCoV carrier to self-quarantine. Who would pay their wages while they were waiting the two weeks or a month to see if they had contracted the virus? How would the government stop or encourage people to stay indoors?

Given the severity of the virus and the infectious nature, surely another step for the government would be to underwrite any loss in pay and/or benefits for those that had to self-quarantine?

Otherwise people will just go to work as normal.

The Absolute Contempt of The Political Elite.

The contempt of the Political Elite knows no bounds. Here in the UK we had 3 years of the elites trying to overturn the referendum result to leave the EU. Three years in which they used Parliament in league with the speaker of the house John Bercow to try and reverse the Brexit vote.

After seemingly siding with the voting population and enabling article 50. It's almost as if they knew a general election was coming up later in 2017.

However, after enabling article 50 and then saying they would honour the referendum result in the election of 2017, we had attempt after attempt to try and get a second referendum, they tied Parliament up in knots refusing any legislation to leave the EU. Some MPs changed sides or created new parties and basically shat on the voters that put then into Westminster.

We even had non-politicians involving themselves in the political process. Gina Miller used the courts to give MPs a say in the process, which spectacularly backfired on her. She was also involved in the case to prevent the proroguing of Parliament. For 5 extra days. Having won that case, Parliament sat for that extra week and used the time to do sweet F.A. Well worth taxpayers money to defend in court and pay the attendance money to the MPS and Lords.

Parliament for two years was a shambles, brought about by the political elite in the UK refusing to accept the decision of the people. MPs thought they knew better, they thought the people had made the wrong choice.

THAT DECISION WAS NOT FOR THEM TO MAKE. THE PEOPLE HAD SPOKEN.

Of course 2016 had another bombshell popular vote. The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency of the USA.

And again, the political elites on both sides of the political spectrum in the US were appalled. How could a non-politician be voted into such a position?

Again they thought the people had made the wrong decision. Again they were against the people. Again, they plotted (and continue to plot) to overturn the vote by the people.

Ostensibly led by the Democrats, but not really opposed by the Republican side, there was the initial "Russiagate" investigation. Which came to nothing.

Then when "Russiagate" petered out and no wrongdoing could be found, the Democrats started the impeachment process, with no evidence whatsoever. It was doomed to fail, but  hey, it was worth the Political Suicide of the Democrats. Now the people have seen what desperate measures the political elite will go to in order to overturn popular public decisions. Will the public vote for those politicians in enough numbers next time?

In the UK, ALL the turncoats that changed party or created new parties and shat on their voters in the 2017 election were removed from office. In some cases so badly they lost their deposits. The most famous being Jo Swinson, the Lib-Dem party leader who was very public in saying her party would just ignore the 2016 referendum and just continue to stay in the EU. Wrong move as it turned out.

In the USA, if I was a democrat politician that had been very vocal in trying to overturn the publicly elected President, I would be having sleepless nights. The people might have something to say about your conduct and your attitude to democracy.

Finally the real indicator of the Snooty, stuck-up, condescending attitude of the Political elite was highlighted by Nancy Pelosi's tearing up of Donald Trump's State of the Union speech. A stunt she had planned in advance.

This is a President democratically elected by the people. By tearing up the speech she highlighted her contempt for the democratically elected leader of the US and the office of President. She doesn't care, she just disagrees with the people's choice and nothing else matters. She thinks the people are wrong and she will do everything she can to overturn their decision.

She showed her contempt for the President and the contents of his speech including the praising of those who put their lives on the line in the name of duty, she showed her contempt for the numbers of new jobs created by the President's policies.

She showed her contempt for everything the President stands for and the people that voted for him.

Just like with Brexit, it is not for her, or her fellow politicians to say whether the people of the USA were wrong to vote for Trump or not. It is her job to accept the democratic will of the people and get on with her job. Without contempt or prejudice.

So, 2020 will be interesting. Will the Democrats now accept the will of the people and accept the President is here at least until the next election? Will they try and pull another stunt to remove him from office? Will (as the conspiracy theorists theorise) Donald Trump be assassinated?

Anything is possible in the next 12 months.