889

"There's way too much useful discussion that is somehow off limits here."

This is a branch about China and a thread about how the virus affects China. When folks discuss everything under the sun here, the thread loses its focus and becomes useless for those of us interested in the situation in China.

To discuss everything under the sun related to the virus (or not), there's the Omni forum.

yosithezet

Well, OMNI is for off topic stuff. I could see much of this discussion perhaps in TravelBuzz but I don’t wade into the OMNI cesspool more than once a year, not everyone has access and it isn’t captured in search engines.

747FC

Because of the odor, Mrs747FC refused to use it on our airplane seats or hotel room. So much for utility.

bosleto

+123 more cases in Korea just announced.

nk15

Ok, I looked around and found some interesting stuff. I am not sure how well this info is vetted and scientifically tested, or it may refer to corona viruses in general, even though it comes from seemingly credible sources. You should evaluate all resources and info at own risk:

Interim List of Household Products and Active Ingredients for Disinfection of COVID-19 (National Environmental Agency of Singapore)
https://www.nea.gov.sg/our-services/...on-of-covid-19

Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)—Fighting Products
https://www.americanchemistry.com/No...ducts-List.pdf

FBI has ordered $40,000 in hand sanitizer and face masks ‘in case the coronavirus becomes a pandemic in the United States’
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/20/fbi-...mic-in-us.html

Interesting side story: More than 100 wild animals in China died from poisoning in a mass die-off seemingly triggered by coronavirus disinfectant
https://www.businessinsider.com/disi...s-china-2020-2

Other interesting info for prevention and first responders:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...nt-spread.html
https://www.iaff.org/coronavirus/

A few of things I noticed by perusing products on Amazon:

Some of the stronger surface sanitizing wipes used by hospitals/medical settings but also people at home, it is recommended to use gloves as they may have carcinogenic or other medical side effects (comments often made by nurses reviewing them).

Be mindful of differences between hand sanitizing wipes and surface disinfecting ones, they are different categories (said Captain Obvious).

From a practical standpoint, prices around 5 cents/wipe are better deals, but some are around 10 cents/wipe, but they may be worth it...

Personally, I am drawn more towards products that contain alcohol...

747FC

Earlier in this thread, there was some debate about whether or not masks provide any benefit to the wearer. I just came across the following:

"When infection rates were tracked among workers who wore N95 respirators, workers who wore medical masks, and workers who wore neither, N95 respirators were found to be significantly protective against bacterial and viral infections, while surgical masks were not." See attached 3M Technical Bulletin, citing the below study:

MacIntyre, C.R., Wang, Q., Rahman, B., Seale, H., Ridda, I., Gao, Z., Yang, P., Shi, W., Pang, X., Zhang, Y., Moa, A., and D.E. Dwyer. Efficacy of face masks and respirators in preventing upper respiratory tract bacterial colonization and co-infection in hospital healthcare workers. Preventive Medicine. 62:1-7; 2014.

The attached Technical Data sheet is quite interesting, whether or not one believes the statement above.

narvik

To save money, one can buy "Flushable Wipes", and pour some isopropyl alcohol into the container/package.

invisible

Would you mind to post here most interesting ones? Co far the only cost estimate was shown is $30b losses for airlines.
I would love to know to read estimates of how it is going to impact GDP growth in China and elsewhere, affect on currency exchanges, etc.

BTW, regarding currency exchanges - Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 decimated exchange rates of SEA countries vs USD to the point that for some countries (like Indonesia) it never recovered. We have completely different situation on hands now, with the global event. Question would be - how the financial/exchange markets are and will be affected. China for example has highest foreign currency reserves in the world. Are they going to tap into it while fighting epidemic?

invisible

BTW, if such declaration happens, what does it carry? What are countries' obligations? How does it affect people movements, if any? What are protocols?

helvetic

Israel has banned Korea and Japan and sent back a KE plane full of Koreans after it landed from ICN.

CDC has raised alert on KR and JP to lvl 2, higher than SG/HK for the record!

invisible

I would say that for me and good number of the people in the world, 'jet age' came into existence just two decades ago, with arrival of LCC/ULCC. In US four decades ago flying from coast to coast was an ordinary thing, but for the rest of the world it was not. Just 25 years ago, in Russia for example where I was that time, it would take an average two month income to afford plane ticket to take 4h long international flight. And now I've flown from JHB to KUL on AirAsia for... $5 ticket (no joke).

You can do it if you live in US/Brazil/South Africa/Russia/Argentina.For the rest of the world, there is no such luxury of available free space.

Iran worries me more than Korea and Japan. Yesterday I was speaking with my brother who lives in a country where Iranian citizens can visit without a visa. Government still debates if they need to stop flights from Iran. Considering that on average about 1000 people from Iran arrive in the country daily, I told him that it is too late already.
Israel on other side acted very quickly, but again, could be too late...

invisible

I have a serious question - how much 'scarce funds' one might need? Let's start with the assumption that we have credit cards as well deposits in checking/savings accounts sufficient to cover recurring/daily/ordinary expenses - rent, food, utilities for at least for six month. Is this enough?

Looking at Hubei and now in Italy, one can say that lockdown means that all essencia/critical/life support infrastructure (supermarkets, utilities, banking) continue operating. There is no banking collapse or shortage of food. You are just sitting home, bored to oblivion. So the question is - if you have sufficient funds covering such 'activity', even when you do not have income, is this sufficient?

MrJBoy

I heard the ban for Japan and Korea was withdrawn, but I am not sure why...

doctoravios

The decision as to whether to block travel to and from countries is largely political rather than grounded in evidence-based public health. This is why it is possible to maintain strict closures around China but the threshold will be much higher to bar travel to/from Korea and Japan. For example, I imagine it would take a lot for the US to close the border to flights from Japan. The powers that be seem to have this mistaken belief that microbes somehow respect political alliances/conflict. The reality is there are no border checks for bacteria/viruses and no amount of exerting human control over freedom of movement will prevent the spread of Covid-19.

But none of this matters. Containment is not possible and, in my opinion, has never been possible following escalation of the situation escalated in Hubei. I think the handling of the Diamond Princess, while regrettable, is not something which would have changed the eventual outcome to a pandemic followed by (in my opinion) endemic establishment of the virus.

The best we can do now is to slow down transmission so that we do not overwhelm healthcare services with seriously unwell people. If we can maintain the flow of infected individuals with serious symptoms into and out of high dependency medical care then hopefully in a year or so things will settle down and Covid-19 will just become another circulating pathogen which we will manage in the same way as all the other prevailing infections we have to deal with as a society.

yosithezet

Is there a source for this?

My quick check of Hebrew and English press only reported the ban of people arriving from Japan and South Korea. We have the Korean Airline plane that had 200 pax turned away at TLV airport some hours ago as evidence of the current situation I think.


https://www.ynetnews.com/article/HJYoiRCmL

I just advised my 70 year-old aunt that this is not the time for a 6 month trip around Israel and Europe. This after she already canceled the plan to come to Singapore and SE Asia to kick off the excursion.