wco81

After SARS, did the authorities give any consideration more restrictive laws on housing or having livestock in bigger cities?

anacapamalibu

"Livestock" are farm animals.
In this case they are reporting "wild" animals.The Huanan Seafood Market advertised a variety of live animals, including dogs, peacocks, otters, camels, and koalas, according to The South China Morning Post.

Photos posted to social media also suggest the market was selling live ,

trueblu

Imagine the indignation if NYC was shut-down in the run up to "the holidays"...and this may be after the horse has already bolted, but suggests that the govnt wants, now at least, not to be seen as not having done enough.

The govnt has also released 30M RMB in emergency research funds into the virus: ironically, the best lab in China to handle research into this virus is in Wuhan...although colleagues in Fudan have already jumped on the bandwagon.

The biggest irony for me is that if you ask the average or even educated Chinese, which of these measures will best prevent the outbreak:
a) shut down Wuhan (sure!), b) buy all the respirators on taobao (sold out, but sure!), c) panic (why not?!), d) wash your hands thoroughly and regularly (what!!!)

Yep, the single most effective thing, regular and scrupulous hand-washing just can't penetrate the regular habit of almost all folks. One of my students is panicking, because his family (in Anhui) just laughed at him when he suggested they all wash hands more frequently, so the agreed compromise was that when he gets home from Beijing tomorrow, to douse him in alcohol before entering the house (sigh).

tb

889

Wuhan has been effectively quarantined: if you're there you can't leave for who knows how long.

Nobody knows how this will develop. But if the epidemic does spread, it's proper caution to assume other big cities will be similarly closed, hard as that is to practically imagine.

So myself, I'd strongly suggest anyone thinking of travelling to China in the coming weeks to think again and again. Especially if considering travel to places like Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, or Shenzhen.

Remember that as with Wuhan, the government takes these quarantine measures without warning. You could just wake up one morning and find you are stuck.

wco81

Well weren't chickens implicated in the bird flu?

But yes, SARS is associated with undomesticated animals. Yet they wanted them alive in a city market so that it's "fresh"?

Even in the case of domesticated animals, there are city codes against for instance keeping cows, lamb, pigs, etc. in big cities.

When you go through airport screening, they specifically ask you whether you've been to farms recently IIRC. Not sure if they asked specifically about livestock though but of course these were measures taken with various livestock scares like Mad Cow disease, hoof and mouth, etc.

anacapamalibu

I am sure there are codes regarding common farm animals in the big cities. From what I have read this distinct virus is related to bats and snakes. If in fact they were selling live camels , wolves , koala bears in the center of a huge metropolis...don't believe that's allowed.
I have scene plenty of snakes in markets but don't recall any bats.

trueblu

I don't think anyone yet knows the animal reservoir of 2019-nCoV. For SARS, civets were initially implicated, but it is now thought that the (wild) civets were infected by bats...so it's conveivable the same scenario here if it is indeed a bat reservoir. Bat infects XXX wild animal (probably a mammal), and this in turn gets captured and sold in the market...and facilitates transmission to humans.

tb

wco81

ebola is thought to come from monkeys and you have these fools visiting Monkey Beach and trying to pet wild monkeys.

anacapamalibu

People have asked me before about monkeys in China..never seen them except at zoos. Find it hard to believe live bats are sold. Bats are notorious for carrying diseases not something you would want as a pet or surely not to eat.

STS-134

That link doesn't point at anything, I think you meant to post this:


They still produce good content, even though they no longer live in China. I watch most of their videos.

My wife (who reads Chinese news and websites) told me that word got out about the Wuhan quarantine the night before it went into effect. And that the highway to Shanghai was jammed with cars at 1 in the morning. So it didn't exactly happen without warning...but that kinda defeats the purpose. They should have pounced on this thing as soon as it was identified as something more dangerous than a common sickness, told everyone in the city who feels ill to go in for medical treatment, immediately put people who come in under quarantine and watch them carefully to make sure they don't die, etc. The whole city should never have had to be put under quarantine because they should have quickly isolated the first patients and anyone who came into contact with those specific people 4+ weeks ago. Putting the city under quarantine now is like closing the barn door after half of the horses already got out.

STS-134

And now we have a travel waiver. Which includes outright cash refunds too.
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...29-2020-a.html

I'm not exactly sure how UA can offer a waiver on tickets to WUH though, given that they don't even fly there. I suppose they could have issued a 016 ticket on CA, but a lot of folks who were planning on going there might have purchased a separate ticket or have been planning to take the HSR.

helvetic

Pretty surprised they gave 8h warning in Wuhan. Why would you want to give a bunch of sick people a warning to escape.

percysmith

KA axing Wuhan flights

889

A disturbing but probably not atypical report in the HK Standard:

"Another netizen said he had left [Wuhan] with a friend. He said both of them were having fever. 'We’ve escaped the epidemic zone after taking some fever reducers. I’ll visit the doctor in Shanghai if my fever doesn’t go away a week later,' she wrote. She also wrote that they plan to visit the Disneyland before that."

https://www.thestandard.com.hk/break...uncontrollably

helvetic

Hoping it's a troll…