The above two links are the New England Journal of Medicine’s publication on the findings from the cases in Germany of the 2019-nCoV patients. They also have a brief article about the ongoing case in Washington with pneumonia. The second link is to Justice.Gov. It is a press release by the US Department of Justice on January 28th, 2019, regarding the arrest of a Harvard chemistry professor and two Chinese students working with the Wuhan University of Technology. One Chinese student escaped back to China. The other is being held. The arrests center around the sale of US Military Secrets to China, vials the escaped Chinese student escaped with, and the setting up of a bio research lab in Wuhan. The timeline of events in the DOJ press release is fairly alarming. It’s worth a read.
From the start of this outbreak, the first two concerns are containing the outbreak and keeping the public from panicking. I don’t know about the rest of the world, but Americans can be irrational and violent when they panic. Panic is pointless.
Here is my problem with the reporting of this virus in the US. Does anyone remember the Ebola outbreak? We flew a couple of victims back to the US where they were treated and cured. Does anyone remember the H1N1 outbreak? Does anyone remember the first SARS outbreak? Our news media did everything in their power to get people to be fearful, worry, panic, and watch their news coverage. We knew names and personal histories of victims and their families. We knew the progression of their illnesses in great detail. Anyone but me notice the difference on this outbreak? The reporting is completely different. The general response is don’t worry about this but worry about the flu. The flu, the flu, the flu…. OK, I’m pretty cranky right now because I’ve got the flu as I write this post. I’ll be over it in a couple of days. I’m really not concerned. I have a child in grade school. Flu was almost inevitable. I’ll live. I do not live in an area where there has been any travelers or exposure to people having travelled to China. I am fed up with the BS we are being fed about 2019-nCoV.
The most current number of recovered victims is 259. At least, that is the most current number that I can find. This virus started in December, 2019. Does no one see a problem with this number? The media is focused on total number of confirmed cases vs total number of confirmed deaths. That is a pretty meaningless number considering we don’t know how many victims of this virus are going to live or die. We have over 14,000 people infected with 259 cured. We do not know the mortality rate of this virus. Normally, our news media tries to inflate numbers instead of downplaying numbers. That’s a pretty big red flag to me. The media is telling people to focus on the flu virus.
The other problem is that China is known to downplay the severity of outbreaks. Any new deaths are being updated with the numbers of new outbreaks. That keeps the mortality rate of this virus held at a low percentage but it remains inaccurate. We don’t know the cure rate. We don’t know the mortality rate.
China warned everyone that people are communicable from the time they are infected not from the time they show symptoms. They stated this from the beginning. There was no motivation for them to lie about that fact. It wasn’t until the White House Press conference a couple of days ago, that the CDC admitted to this fact. They also admitted that this is a new virus and the test kits are not always accurate. This is why people are being quarantined. We simply do not know until the incubation period is up. Hopefully, they are correct about the incubation period. We can contain this virus if we stop lying and inform people. Most countries outside of China are being very effective at containing the spread of 2019-nCoV. We cannot slow it down or control the virus if our own news media and government continue to assure us that people deboarding flights have been checked for a fever. If they don’t have a fever, they are not communicable. China told everyone from the beginning that was not true. President Trump is correct in ordering quarantines of people having travelled from infected areas. WHO can get over itself on fighting him on quarantines and travel bans.
The straw that breaks the camel’s back for me is the connection between the German case study and the total number of people who have recovered. I provided the case study link at the top of this post. The patients in the case study did pass on the virus before showing symptoms. We already knew that was true if we listened to China. Then they had FLU symptoms for several days and recovered from the symptoms. They still are producing and shedding the virus. They are still communicable. They still have the virus. They are not cured even though they are now asymptomatic. That’s a huge problem. Frankly, I had assumed that China was lying about total deaths and they well maybe. They may not be lying, but instead do not know how to classify people who are still carrying the virus but are now asymptomatic. We don’t know at this point. What do we do with these people? Are they going to go ahead and fight off the virus over the next few weeks or are they going to carry the virus and remain communicable for years as is the case with HIV and Herpes? Does the virus go dormant or continue to do damage to the body? People cannot live indefinitely carrying a viral load. It will eventually cause damage and kill you. The latest information says the people in the German case study are still producing and shedding the virus and are communicable. That’s a problem and maybe a problem for years if we don’t find a vaccine. We have two choices. We can keep people quarantined or we can release them back into the general population to further spread the virus. Eventually, everyone will have the virus if we release them without quarantine. We don’t know if everyone continues to have the virus after they recover from symptoms or if it’s only a portion. This virus is brand new and we just do not know. This case study does provide a possible explanation for the low cure rate.
The DOJ press release I included at the top of this post maybe the key to gaining more information on this virus. The timeline of events in the press release and the timeline of events in the viral outbreak are too close for comfort. I’m not big on conspiracy theories but I do believe the simplest explanation is usually the correct explanation. We had a chemist at Harvard working with the Chinese government and two Chinese nationals also working with WUT. We had vials walk out of the country. We cannot afford to ignore the correlation of the chemists working with viruses, the location of ground zero, and the emergence of a new virus in which we still have been unable to decode one portion of the DNA strand. Absolutely, it could just be a coincidence. If not, we just caught a chemist who might have some answers. That’s actually a positive. No, the two might not be related at all. We don’t know.
I do know that the symptoms of the Flu and the symptoms of the 2019-nCoV are the same. Of course we are being advised to focus on the flu. Kind of a no brainer right there. Hope everyone stays healthy and we continue to prevent or slow the spread of this virus while we search for answers. Don’t panic. Enjoy your life!
update: I just read a news story saying that Thailand is having success using a combo of flu and HIV meds. I’m glad I’m not the only one who sees this virus as acting like the HIV virus in terms of how it presents as flu then goes asymptomatic etc.
Middle of the Muddy Road 