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SvennoJ on 26 February 2020
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John2290 said:
SvennoJ said:

The experts don't share the same faith though. Testing all arriving passengers (2.7 million airline passengers daily) is beyond our modern capabilities and no one wants to shut the borders down since the economy is more important.

18 months is already a very optimistic estimate to assemble a vaccine that then still has to be mass produced and distributed, while convincing the anti vaxxers as well. The WHO is doing a great job so far but the odds are heavily stacked against them.

Meanwhile the commercials to promote cheap holidays continue as usual, the economy comes first. I wonder if Trump is going to downplay the whole thing tonight and just spout some of the usual usa is great nonsense.

With an incubation period of 2 to 14 days, let's say a week before getting contagious and only infecting 2 others, it would take 33 weeks for one case to turn into 8 billion. 95% of people will be all right, but yep, it can get ugly. Slowing it down is the current strategy.

Are you sure it's 18 months? I've been reading 9 months with 3 months for mass production...

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/25/21153035/coronavirus-response-trump-vaccine-covid19-cdc-who-health-crisis
"The CDC estimates that a vaccine for the new coronavirus is unlikely to be available in the next 12-18 months, far too late to be useful in preventing an outbreak in the US.”

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/25/business/moderna-coronavirus-vaccine/index.htmlhttps://www.cnn.com/2020/02/25/business/moderna-coronavirus-vaccine/index.html
"But even when proceeding at an "emergency speed," a vaccine would not be available for use for at least a year or 18 months"

Early tests start in April, if all goes well (it actually works with few negative side effects), it will still be at least a year.


Some estimates say that the Coronovirus could peak as soon as May in China (40% of the population infected)
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00361-5
(That was over a week ago, the optimistic scenario seems done for atm)
Since it's already going on for 2 months there, 5 to 6 months for the virus to peak in the rest of the world is possible.

Whether or not to start calling it pandemic
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00551-1
"But other scientists say the surge in international cases marks a tipping point in the 2-month-old outbreak. “Whatever WHO says, I think the epidemiological conditions for a pandemic are met,” says Marc Lipsitch, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. “Under almost any reasonable definition of pandemic, there’s now evidence of it happening.”


This is pretty worrying as well, apparently tests are not perfect either, they were cleared to leave

  • 4 new cases in Hong Kong: 2 of which from the Diamond Princess cruise ship: [source]
    - a 21-year-old woman who had a fever on board the ship on Feb. 12 and was fine afterwards.
    - a 16-year-old man (youngest confirmed patient to date in Hong Kong) who had runny nose on the ship on Feb. 17 and is currently hospitalized at Queen Mary Hospital.
  • 1 new case in Australia is a former passenger of the Diamond Princess cruise ship. 8 of the 23 cases in Australia had been on the ship. [source]
    3 new cases in the United States: 2 from the Diamond Princess cruise ship

Last edited by SvennoJ - on 26 February 2020