Monday, January 27, 2020

CORONA VIRUS UPDATE

by Bob Walsh

There are now 41 known deaths from this virus in China. The Chinese authorities are building two brand new hospitals on an emergency basis to deal with what they believe will be the intake from the disease.

It seems to be fairly easy to transmit. In one case in China the entire operating theater staff who were operating on a patient who was not known at the time to have the virus came down with it and they were all (presumably) wearing routine surgical protective clothing during the operation.

It is most dangerous to people who already have a crappy immune system. It presents first as a mild cough that turns into pneumonia-like symptoms including serious shortness of breath, which normally leads to contact with the health care system.

There are now 15 cities in various forms of travel restriction in China. There are at least two known cases in the U. S., with several dozen more suspected cases. Travelers from China are being screened at U S airports that accept flights from China.

The virus is thought to be less virulent than the SARS virus that killed 774 people in Asia 17 years ago. The death rate of the SARS virus was about 1% of those known to be infected.

2 comments:

Trey Rusk said...

I saw where SW Airlines forced a Chinese woman off a plane because she was showing flu like symptoms.

bob walsh said...

Seems reasonable to me. There are now five known cases in the U.S.