Originally Posted by invisible

Make your bets, how much time will it take for UA to cancel flights from Singapore
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news...sment-12405180

Originally Posted by ashkale

Thats a lot of effort from the authorities for all and sundry with flu, time to get grip with reality!

Originally Posted by 889

If you're an infectious disease physician, then you can certainly read and understand the various studies of Amoy Gardens: there are several. Then we can have a serious discussion here, not an ad hominen dismissal of concerns.

Originally Posted by invisible

So if there is an infection at a ship currently at international waters, what they are going to do - leave it there until virus (and some people) dies out? Is this legal?

Originally Posted by GinFizz

Iwould be very surprised if Japan refuses to accept passengers that require medical treatment - but I can also understand that it was a sensible course of action for them to get an idea of the number of potential infected passengers, and the spread intra-ship, before allowing any disembarkation (and making plans for handling the medical arrangements).

It certainly though must be an unpleasant time for the remaining passengers and my sympathies are with them.

On the issue of spreading of infection on a ship vs. plane, the other aspect to note is that on an airplane, you may be sat within 1m of maybe 9-10 other people - and any food served is presented to you. On a cruise ship (I am told by a friend who works on one) activities are sometimes purposely arranged to rotate passenger groupings, and over the course of several days you may have close (defined by the same "less than 1m" criterion (whether or not that is an appropriate number to take) with many more people. And lunch/breakfast (sometimes dinner) are buffet style ... don't need to go there in terms of the health implications.

I still find the number of transmissions (61 so far) stunning - as I mentioned earlier, the results from the other cruise ship, when they come out, may be informative here.

EDIT: On the first point above I have seen now an article on the BBC News website reporting that passengers in small cabins without windows or natural ventilation are allowed on the deck with some restrictions:

• "Passengers in the small inside cabins have no window, there is no daylight, and no fresh air... but the captain has announced those passengers will be allowed access to open deck for exercise and fresh air."

• "If we are permitted out on open deck, we have to wear a mask when we're outside. We have to keep one metre apart from everyone else and are not allowed to congregate in groups."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51409800

Originally Posted by trueblu

Even if this is the apocalypse, as you suggest, the number of cases of common cold and influenza, in China, even in Hubei (let alone other provinces) almost certainly outnumber number of nCoV cases.

Nothing in the report suggests the authorities knew what they were doing or what they were treating...they seem to have panicked with someone presenting with non-specific symptoms, who got better after a while. Which is as one would expect for nCoV, the cold or influenza. Or did your magic 8 ball tell you what the pathogen was?

tb

Originally Posted by ashkale

​​​​​The symptoms, common flu detection ability are some easy markers. Anyways pls do share photos of your city if you are indeed in China.

Originally Posted by Visconti

Well, if some American Pilots are reticent and refuse to fly into HK, why would they agree to fly into Singapore?

Originally Posted by helvetic

American doesn't fly to Singapore, only United does.

Originally Posted by moondog

While it's true that "American" is the name of an airline, the far more common usage of the term = USA citizen.

Originally Posted by helvetic

The only pilots that have made a fuss about the safety of flying to HK have been from the airline named American. I'm not aware of any similar action at United.

Originally Posted by bocastephen

So I have a friend who spent the holiday in Yangzhou and then went to Nanning, and shortly thereafter vanished from online. Just messaged me tonight that they are safe but were sick and were quarantined. It appears once forcibly quarantined, they were cut off from the outside world and required to take medicine which they were not told what it was, and as they recovered, they were not told what they had - therefore they have no idea if they were infected with coronavirus or just had cold or flu. I�m now pretty certain the real numbers are being substantially fudged and there is a cover up occurring on a grand scale

Originally Posted by GinFizz

....
I still find the number of transmissions (61 so far) stunning - as I mentioned earlier, the results from the other cruise ship, when they come out, may be informative here.

Originally Posted by trueblu

The Amoy garden case (which not everyone 100% takes at face value, but it made a superstar of the HK physician who came up with the idea) was that flushing of the toilet, due to poor drainage, caused a 'jet stream' (for want of a better word) across the complex to the other side. This was with a person with severe diarrhea who was expelling billions (trillions?) of infectious particles per loo visit. That's not quite the same as general airborne risk. I remember that for the next few months we (I was an infectious diseases physician in training and doing my PhD at the time) all chose to 'close the lid' on the loo, just in case, and still do, to this day when 'symptomatic'.

With regards to the cruise ship...I'm not convinced this is one single outbreak, but more probably a limited chain of transmission: patient zero to a cluster of 5-10 people, each of which then infected a similar number of people before the alarm was raised. Remember that although there is talk of incubation period of 14 days, this is the outlier time-line. Most infected patients with coronavirus (typically) start showing symptoms within 2-6 days, with some as early as 1 day, and the vast majority by 10-11 days with a few stragglers. Some of the early data on nCoV suggests a similar pattern, but with perhaps a sl. fatter tail.

The cruise ship also may shed light on why we are seeing relatively limited chains of transmission outside of China: a) close quarters/ crowding is a major risk factor, b) hand to mouth/ nose transmission may be a more significant factor than inhalation risk [can't fully parse that one out], c) age-related?? Are elderly people not only more susceptible but more likely to transmit??

I hope that if they do let people off the ship after 14 days, they insist on being able to track down every individual: pax and crew, for another week or so and perhaps check-in with each of them by phone afterwards. Otherwise, this ship may be the single biggest source of potential onward transmission outside mainland China!!

tb

tb