invisible

15 new cases in South Korea. Any details?

bosleto

I think it's up to 20 new cases now today in Korea. At least 15 of which are linked to one person infecting 14 people at a church and 1 person at a hospital.

invisible

How conveniently this came on the same day of releasing inmates from Wuhan Princess, right?

bosleto

Not sure I follow to be honest.

narvik

I am getting more and more convinced that the major source of spread is done by a small percentage of infected people, i.e. super-spreaders.

helvetic

That's illegal and wouldn't stand up in court. It goes against every American value.

helvetic

I am also starting to feel like that's a major factor.

trueblu

Thanks. We now know that symptomatic screening for COVID-19 is essentially useless. That does beg the question of whether we should resign to our fate and open all borders or just hope for the best.

tb

trueblu

OK, having woken up to a post-Diamond Princess world, here's my attempt to stop my mind unravelling:

We are already seeing local transmission in Japan with no clear-cut chain: Worst-case scenario that 400 of the remaining DP pax and crew are infected adds fuel to the fire, but basically only brings things forward by a week or two in terms of epidemic spread. Being positive, assuming that the failure of quarantine on the ship was _ship-specific_, dispersing the passengers will actually reduce the burden going forwards. Whilst neither of these scenarios are preferable compared with land-based quarantine, it is what it is.

New paper in NEJM suggests that symptomatic screening is essentially useless. As such, I think we've lost containment. It also may mean that the 80% are mild is a vast under-estimate, it may be that 95% of cases are mild.

I'm now just praying that this virus is seasonal, which will buy us about 6 months of time (in the Northern hemisphere, sorry Antipodes!) so that we can try to mitigate the eventual spread by either therapeutic means or vaccines...

The irony of US not imposing a Japan travel ban is interesting: by far the most dangerous place to be now....

tb

trueblu

79 new positives from DP: no idea when samples were taken. But even if in the last 3-4 days, it would really stretch the current model we have of ANY coronavirus incubation period to have this many coming up at that time, and suggest that probably 1000 people were already infected by 4th February (impossible that we've captured every case with current sampling and testing). Of course, that's the official Japanese narrative. Occam would suggest that there was no effective quarantine, and of the 800 released today, at least a good proportion: 20? 40? 80? 160? are infected by SARS-CoV2.

tb

GadgetFreak

I can’t help but think that Japan’s inability to deal with this is dooming maybe millions of people. I’ve become despondent watching this unfold. Sort of like watching a car crash happening. While I’m in the car.

bosleto

I feel like I’m in that car without a seatbelt. Time to make some difficult personal decisions.

GetSetJetSet

Sounds like it’s time to cancel my July trip to Japan.

MSPeconomist

I'm starting to wonder whether I should add South Korea to my "avoid travel" list. Approximately twenty new cases in one day doesn't sound good either.

iahphx

But we seem to be the "only" people who care. Every day In America, tens of millions of people are outraged over whatever trivial and largely meaningless thing President Trump has done that day. But try to find ANY expressions of concern for what's going on with the Diamond Princess. And this was a country that was very scared by the trivial ebola risk a few years ago. Now, crickets. And I see the global financial markets are trending up this morning.

Several days ago, I said that the Japanese decision to leave everyone aboard the Diamond Princess despite overwhelming evidence that it had become a breeding ground for WuFlu could be considered a crime against humanity. If that was indeed the case, and I think it was, how can I describe their decision to now simply release hundreds of likely infected passengers into the general population with no restrictions?

Humanity sure could use a lucky break here. Hopefully, whatever strain of WuFlu that is on that boat is not as contagious off the boat. And hopefully the strain is mild, so that even if it spreads like flu throughout Japan, not many people will get seriously ill. With the cat now out of the bag, I don't think we have any options other than hope.