AIBU to ask you if you are worried about the new Coronavirus?

[IvyBush123]

I am not sure if there is reason to worry about the new Coronavirus. I am not a medical expert but to be honest feel a bit scared because we know so little and some experts seem worried. How do you think?

@HasaDigaEebowai they are making up what?

That BTW is not saying NCP is flu. Its saying the people who would have died anyway in a normal flu season can't die twice. They would die that year either way because their health was too poor for them to survive either. Thus whether it was NCP or flu that ultimately kills them is irrelevant in statistical terms.

@RedToothBrush

Great post. Thank you.

You are comparing the outcomes of a flu season with the outcomes of an NCP outbreak rather than comparing the two viruses as being of the same type.

The news. They're making it up apparently (clearly they're not but apparently discussing the situation and the potential implications for us constitutes hysterical behaviour by idiots who believe both the official the news reports and the information being leaked).

When the royals stop going on walkabouts and shaking hands with us plebs then I will start to worry. Has anyone seen them out and about in the last few days?

The article in the Sunday times this morning is a scary and worrying read and I really hope it doesn’t get as bad as they say

We're due to be in central London the last weekend of half term. I must admit that I now don't really want to go to a swarming tourist area. Tell me I'm being stupid. (Obviously I know people are still living their everyday lives all across the city, but it seems different to choose to take the risk.)

Most of my colleagues are in and out of central London on a daily basis

Friends are still travelling to Thailand and Singapore for holidays and coming back as if it’s nothing

Bicester village (just down the road) is still having daily visitors of tourists from China

The only airlines that have stopped flights out of mainland China to Britain is BA and virgin but still plenty of planes coming in.

How will they ever contain it?

I’m worried on a personal level as I have an operation in May and another operation in June booked in.

Also being pregnant is major factor or if my worrying too

I don’t think avoiding London makes any difference at this stage. You could live in a tiny village and find that another family has just travelled from an area where they have been exposed. Unless and until this gets to a point where we are advised to stay indoors it’s difficult. Having said that Ds1 has a residential trip to London in three weeks’ time and I’ll assess that closer to the time.

Yes I don't think avoiding places will help unfortunately

@MGC31
I'm quite surprised you're heavily involved in the front line and you claim not to care or know what other countries are doing.
Other than at a very junior level, and even so, I'd expect people to have some knowledge, at the very least to have an idea of what to expect and when.

How will they ever contain it?

The risk from travellers is very low atm, as seen by the number of cases that have shown up in Europe, compared to the number of travellers.

I'm sure governments and the WHO are likely to change travel should the situation change.

The main containment issue atm seems to be whether China will control it internally or not.
The focus could change to another country at some point.

Could people in affected areas of mainland China effectively use Britain for tourism healthcare with the concern they have that they aren’t able to get the hospital beds over there?

It also seems concerning that the pockets of people in France and Spain who have contributed sac red the virus are all British

If its going to be a pandemic the reality is there isn't going to be a huge amount you can do to avoid it.

Also if its a pandemic it's not simply about what happens next week. Its an ongoing thing. Viruses typically (though not always) disappear in the summer and return in the winter. Annually. You might not get it one year, but might the next and you are more vulnerable to any virus the first time you are exposed to it because you have no immunity. Viruses also mutant and can become weaker or more virulent. For example the first wave of Spanish flu was mild, and those who caught it earlier had some immunity against it than those who caught it in the stronger second wave which was more deadly.

My point being that if it has 'escaped' and is now completely out of control, there is a very limited amount anyone can do to protect themselves until a vaccine is available.

It's like trying to stop yourself from getting wet against the tide.

There is little point in panicking over it at this point for that reason. You have to hope that it's a lot less deadly than some speculate.

It might turn out be our 'black death' which wipes out 50% of the population, but if that's the case then the wheels are already in motion and frankly I'd rather enjoy normality whilst it lasts because even if you survived that, it would be incredibly grim to live through and life afterwards would be vastly different (there might be very few doctors left, so any future minor illness you get could be deadly anyway).

If it's as infectious as its claimed then the reality is that even the royals can't hide away from it either. If you want to be really doomsday about it then maybe we should be preparing for the corona-tion of Queen Eugene.

In theory yes, people are known to go elsewhere for treatment in emergencies, notably fleeing ebola. The WHO are well aware of that and so will governments who pay attention to what experts tell them.
But first they need to be able to travel, then they have to pass controls and in any case, like previous cases that have shown up in Europe, they're likely to be contained and contacts followed up.
It's important that people don't feel they have to lie and that health professionals don't assume patients always tell the truth.

So I see the British family in the Alps have all been named and plastered over the press. (French authorities releasing details I guess). Even the school that the child goes to (and the school has been closed)

Yet the Brighton man who has taken multiple flights, and been all over Brighton in the past few weeks remains anonymous. I wonder why the government here are taking this policy?

I am still wondering how contagious this is. Will it be caught by circulating air on the plane? The Brighton man will have used he toilets on the plane?

The school having been closed is a major red flag.
Everyone there will know why and who are responsible.
The media can easily get that information, no need for authorities to release it.

If a man has been in a flight, releasing his name is virtually useless. I won't know who I sat next to on a flight.
They are better off getting passengers contacts through the airline and contacting them directly.

Yes that makes sense. I’m just pondering the different responses by different countries.

I would have thought it would be helpful to contact everyone the Brighton man was on a flight with and get them to self quarantine but then I guess with the incubation period it was too late by then anyway.

The Brighton, actually Hove, man is in the local paper, as is the pub he popped into for a couple of hours

The Brighton, actually Hove, man is in the local paper, as is the pub he popped into for a couple of hours

The fact that the pub was contacted to say they had been exposed is quite reassuring though. At least they seem to be making an effort to trace people.

Please don’t believe everything you see in the media. 90% is absolute nonsense. The risk to the UK public is extremely low.

The risk is only low at the moment because not many people have been affected. It may not stay low if more people get infected though. We don't know the fatality rate yet but if it is the suggested 2% it will not be like seasonal flu.

There's something incredibly off about the reports coming out of china. I'm a medic and I've worked in London, with a population of about 8m vs Wuhan's 11m.

They chose to lock down the city on the 23rd Jan when the reported cases were at around 500 and the deaths less than 20.

In the middle of flu season, with that sized population, we wouldn't even have noticed 500 excess cases and 20 excess deaths, let alone chosen to quarantine the city and tank our whole economy.

Either those 500 cases were so far beyond normal flu that they stuck out like red flags (meaning this is a very serious infection), or the numbers reported are being massively deflated.