Visconti

Agreed.

Any speculation/guests/conjectures on the odds this may spread to city like Shanghai, to the point where the it may be sealed off?

Granted this is pure speculation on my part, I'm just trying to gauge the odds of this thing spreading quickly enough for a city like Shanghai to be quarantined. While I'd wager even if contracted, I'm at an age and in good enough health where I'd ultimately survive, but certainly would rather not risk it or having to endure the suffering. There's an element of risk even with all the necessary precautions, e.g., N95 surgical masks (picked up the 3M green ones, looks like crap), constant hand washing, carrying around desanitizer, sunglasses.

For the time being, I just may avoid dining in overly public places or on the plane. Even indoors, keep my mask & sun glasses on even while speaking.

trueblu

If it comes to quarantining Shanghai, this thing will be completely global by then...so it's never going to happen. There may well be short-term disruption of flights etc when one could get stranded: that's actually my biggest concern with an upcoming trip I have: I don't want to be stuck in Europe with my family back in Beijing...

tb

Visconti

Perfectly understandable.

But, what's the old adage? The definition of a professional is one who does his best work even when he doesn't feel like it. I certainly don't feel like having to risk contracting exotic viruses, but the one thing in life that's absolutely essential is showing up. There's no way I'm going to flake and be branded yellow (no pun intended) for the rest of my life--so, let's roll the dice and hope I won't come up snake-eyes!

percysmith

Chinese Bamboo Rat, labelled wrongly

https://topick.hket.com/article/2176...AA%BF%E6%9F%A5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bamboo_rat

(I admit to being a banana - I have no idea why anybody wants to eat that.)

trueblu

My honest advice is, it depends...depends on what the 'showing up' is for, and the relative risks.

I'm a physician-scientist. I would/ have always turned up to medical work -- remember being sl. freaked out in 2014 during the Ebola outbreak, although thankfully never actually dealt with any cases, but just got on with it. But if it's non-essential travel and you don't live in China, even though I think absolute risks are low, no shame in re-scheduling...

tb

Stgermainparis

I couldn’t resist. From Daily Mail. : |

Revolting footage shows Chinese woman eating a bat
https://mol.im/a/7920573

Visconti

We share a common belief then.

This isn't a leisure trip and while it's a social event, it's one that's important to my (our Firm's) host and I'm counted upon to foster and build this relationship. It's a trip where I have events in Japan and HK, and it would be a tremendous lost of face for my (my Firm's) host if I didn't show for his event while I did for the others. Since I'd take that as an affront, I'd expect nothing less from anyone else.

My only out where everyone saves face would be if the US were to restrict travel to the area or if the PRC designate Shanghai off limits.

PS - Since you're a pro, may I ask you to purely speculate on something? As a middle aged male in perfect health, even I were to contract this virus, I'd still have good odds at surviving, right?

percysmith

Taiwan just declared entry restriction on Wuhan residents. PRC travellers will be checked for their resident city on their Mainland Resident Travel Permits at boarding or if they're travelling by some other document, their PRC identity cards (NowTV HK).

anacapamalibu

Crew members in biohazard suits? Really!
This is absurd.

The travel industry is stepping up precautionary measures against the virus originating from central China that’s killed four people and infected hundreds, with at least one airline starting to equip planes with hazardous-materials suits for cabin crew.

Visconti

LOL...not a joking matter, I know; but, which Airline?

trueblu

Going by cases so far, older people with co-morbidities are the ones who have died...but it's only a handful of confirmed deaths so far. If we're talking thousands and thousands of deaths, I would put younger/ healthy as lower risk, but nothing is certain in these issues...

tb

anacapamalibu

Korean Air Lines is equipping planes with hazmat suits and plans to carry out daily disinfection of planes flying to Wuhan - as opposed to monthly. The country saw its first confirmed case of the new coronavirus on Monday.
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/ai...ps-planes-with

Can you imagine boarding an airliner, where flight crew are wearing parachutes..or boarding a cruise liner where captain of ship is wearing a life vest?

STS-134

Well the thing is, there's a big difference between when this type of stuff happens in say rural Africa, vs in one of the largest cities in China, and one that's well connected globally, with an international airport and is a HSR hub to the rest of the most populous country on Earth. If something jumps from animals to humans in rural Africa, and it happens to be as deadly as Ebola and have the same basic reproduction number as mumps or rubella, you might have some hope of containing it, since people there don't travel very far or fast.

But allowing this to happen in a city the size of New York, where people are wealthy enough to come and go every day, is simply irresponsible. I'm not sure if China can immediately get rid of the practice nationwide but it should be able to rid at least its major cities with airports and HSR stations of such things. It is definitely wealthy enough to do at least that much. Plus it's already illegal to sell certain types of animals in this manner and every report I've seen says that officials turned a blind eye to it. Who are those folks and why did they not enforce the law? Those are the folks you need to nail to the wall after you finally contain this.

invisible

Things are going in interesting direction....

Singapore (hello from here), India and Saudi Arabia are reporting their first cases.

news.bbc.com has live reporting now.

BuildingMyBento

China + illegal animal markets? You don't say?

I'm amazed the region (including ASEAN) doesn't have more coronaviruses, considering how valuable endangered species/tusks/ingredients for male "virility" can be.

Anyway, the bug has spread to Guangdong, too. HK border closure imminent? I know that mainland numbers to the HKSAR(S) has dropped, but there's still traffic.