To think we shouldn't be bringing brits back from China

[MozzchopsThirty]

I see the US are rescuing their citizens.
How does this work?
Do they quarantine the plane, crew & passengers

Surely this just creates more risk

IMHO lockdown should mean lockdown

@LiquoricePickle

We have 6.5 million people in our city and 10 cases of the virus

Everyone likes to scaremonger and blame the Chinese government, but the way it seems here (actually in China) the government are doing everything quickly to prevent further spread rather than as a panicked response to the situation

And you actually think the Chinese Govt are telling the people in China the truth?

I don’t.

It seems to me on MN some people swoop to label anything racist / sexist / etc which even has a tiny link, without thinking through it properly. As in this case, as it was about someone asking why these viruses often originate from China. and they reply was then considered racist / against the Chinese perhaps.

not a tiny link, I mean could possibly be seen as

@littlejalapeno

*I wish people would stop hyping up this flu thing. It’s winter in the norther hemisphere and there’s a lot of flu about. The media are going overboard on this one though. Helps their pro-brexit agenda to keep us scared and wanting isolation from all those “dirty foreigners.”

It’s Chinese New Year so they’re taking longer holidays and shutting down public spaces as a precaution and as part of the three week long festivities. It plays a nice narrative of precaution on their part and inspiring some fear in the rest of the world to play it up as a quarantine situation.*

Actually this is not a flu virus, and I’m starting to realise that it’s unhelpful to call it the Wuhan flu and such like, as it makes it sound like something it’s not. Influenza has vaccines and treatment. This new virus doesn’t.

Second of all, you are completely wrong to say that things are being shut “as part of 3 week long festivities”. I live in China and the current level of closures, lockdown, etc has nothing to do with CNY. It is in fact unprecedented in world history to have a lockdown of this scale.

In Hong Kong, schools are closed for at least two weeks, postal service is cancelled, most government services are too, as are courts, museums, parks, Disneyland etc, and all businesses have been told to let workers WFH. The government is building 3 quarantine facilities. That’s not “nice narrative precaution”, it’s extremely disruptive, unpopular and costly.

nearly all viruses that give us disease come from animals.
About 60 percent of all human diseases and 75 percent of all emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic, ie come from animals
anywhere that humans and animals live in closer proximity than in the wild is a potential risk for a virus to hop species.

There are 5 & 1/2 million who have left Wuhan for the new year celebrations. no one knows where or how well they are.
There is a case of German being diagnosed today, he was in a training programme in Germany with a Chinese colleague who had recently visited her parents before coming to Europe.

We get daily updates from the local government about cases in our city. They tell us which district they were in, their ages, and if they had contact with Wuhan. I have friends who are working 8 the hospital. I have no reason to disbelieve them. I mean, I'm literally here experiencing it.

And to the person who called someone else "fucking ridiculous" for saying that shops are closed as precautions but also as a result of spring festival.... That's literally true. Shops are often closed right now. Nobody wants mass travel right now, it's an obvious and presumably effective way of preventing spread.

@Orangeblossom78

I can't be bothered to argue with you but maybe if you feel like educating yourself, you could read this instead of going "weird Chinese food caused".

foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/27/dont-blame-bat-soup-for-the-wuhan-virus

I thought that 'ridiculous' comment was odd too! It is everywhere that they have extended their New Year holiday...

It could last years, what if one of your children was out there teaching or something, would you want them home or not? It won't be a case of sticking them on a normal flight and letting them travel home straight away- it's controlled.

To be clear, this level of lockdown is intense and definitely not normal for new year, but if it happened at any other time of year we wouldn't be expecting so many people to travel. The closures are to do with new year in the sense that normally millions of people wouldn't traveling like this.

@LiquoricePickle, they don’t normally close for 3 weeks though!

I hardly think the BBC is giving a 'racist meme' to be honest.

Link to a thread about the reasons why the link to the seafood market may not be correct anyway

twitter.com/drericding/status/1221990534643929089?s=21

Adjusts tin foil hat.

Maybe the Chinese government are orchestrating a dry run for a more serious epidemic, which they believe may be imminent or likely?

That article basically agrees about the markets and further mentions

"And when it comes to disease, it’s not what’s being eaten that matters as much as the conditions—such as the standards workers are trained to meet, the lack of barriers at markets, and the absence or bribing of regulators and health inspectors."

And I agree, yes it may be a combination. Not sure that article is any argument against what was already said.

Anyway, not much of an argument really. But consider it 'racist' if you want to.

@PopcornAcademic,

This IS the serious epidemic.

No they don't, but most of them are just not opening after new year, rather than closing down. I mean, it's not abnormal for shops near me to be classes for two weeks after CNY and we're still in that period

In our town supermarkets, pharmacies and fruit and veg shops are all still open. Buses are running. The gov. just suggest not making unnecessary trips and not going to crowded places.

They've been sending out health advice and regular updates.

Also, I've never heard of anyone eating bat or koala or anything else like that. I'm not saying out doesn't happen, I'm just saying that most people just eat the standard meats that we eat in the UK.

The issue we will really have is when (rather than if IMO) it hits Africa and India.

Mega cities with the same overcrowding issues as in China but without the authoritarian Govt and funds/infrastructure to impose the same level of quarantine.

There is lots of travel between Africa & China and India & China.

From a UK perspective it's easier to contain coming from one country but once it spreads to others like various African countries and India/Pakistan it will be much harder to stop it spreading here.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are already local epidemic clusters starting in India and Africa that we don't know about yet.

We've already seen H2H transmission in Germany and Japan announced today.

@Orangeblossom78 I wasn't referring tot he article but to the research paper about 2/3rd down the Twitter thread that is explained in the thread.

Basically that it is related to bat Coronavirus but is not as straightforward as having jumped to humans from bats. You need to read the whole Twitter thread rather than the first article.

The article I saw on TV said "expats" want to come home, surely, they have made China their home, does this mean if you now live in Australia, you want to come back to the UK because of the fires, and so on. Yes, its flu, another strain. The viruses will keep on mutating, swapping from animals to humans. You asked how does quarantine at airports work. Back in the early 80s, I was pregnant, my (ex) H was a taxi driver at Gatwick. I get a call to say, he has been quaranteened, he was made to drive his taxi to the end of the runway, he vitals were taken, I was told I had to ring Port of Health Authority on his days off with a temp reading. Asked what this was about, especially because I had young children and was pregnant. Said they could not tell me. Later discovered it was because of Lassa and Green Monkey fever, believed to be aboard the plane he took a passenger from. Had to to this for 14 days. Doesnt seem to happen these days.

@wheresmymojo, you make a good point about India. The health system is beyond the reaches of many people there, p,us it’s incredibly crowded in cities. They have several suspected case, once they start being confirmed it could precipitate contagion.

Interestingly, India is pulling its citizens out of Wuhan.

I wouldn't want to be on a plane, sharing the same recycled air as 280 other passengers who are all from the outbreak area. Given that symptoms don't show immediately. I'd rather stay alone in my Chinese accommodation and wait it out.

There are some incredibly stupid comments on this thread.

You can’t take too much extra medication than you need through customs anyway. They think you’re taking it in to sell.

Grotty food practices in the uk caused the four and mouth episode, so we can hardly cast stones.

Saying all flights and ships in and out of China should be stopped is like saying all flights in the uk should be grounded because there’s an outbreak in Greece. Plus we import loads of things for daily life from over there.

I went to Hong Kong two weeks ago. I’ve now got a streaming cold. Anyone want to impound me!

Stop bloody panicking!

@nannybeach it is NOT THE FLU. It’s not “a type of flu”. It’s something different that can cause pneumonia and respiratory failure.