Sui-Lee Wee
1. I've been covering the coronavirus outbreak in China since last December but I think what's going on outside China is really worrying, and revealing. My latest with @imakiky What a Party in Japan May Tell Us About the Coronavirus’s Spread
2. First of all, there are many anecdotal reports from Japan that many of these people had no symptoms. Many found out later that they had the virus only after being tested. Public health experts say there's no evidence that asymptomatic people can spread the virus but ...
3. The accounts of asymptomatic people from Japan gel with what Chinese doctors are reporting from some of their patients.
4. SARS spread mostly through prolonged, close contact or in hospital-based settings. This virus seems to spread through more casual contact. In 1 case, a doctor in his 60s tested positive after dining with someone who was infected. He, too, did not have symptoms.
5. Japan says they can't fully trace transmissions in more than 1 case and that it has entered a "new phase" in its fight against the coronavirus. So we can expect more social distancing measures to be announced. eg. work from home, canceling unnecessary meetings.
6. Japan and Singapore are incredibly transparent with reporting information about their clusters. Public health experts are looking to these countries to tell them a lot about the virus: transmissibility, severity, how if affects the young vs old, among others.
<a class="break-all" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/world/asia/japan-coronavirus-clusters.html#click=t.co/IZhw0uL3Ia" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/world/asia/japan-coronavirus-clusters.html#click=t.co/IZhw0uL3Ia
What a Party in Japan May Tell Us About the Coronavirus’s Spread
Will the virus spiral beyond China? Public health experts are closely studying cluster cases in other Asian countries.
Rain was falling on the night of Jan. 18, so the windows of the Tokyo party boat were shut. Inside were about 90 guests of a local taxi association who were celebrating the new year as the vessel floated down the Sumida River. Also on board, unbeknown to them, was a coronavirus capable of spreading ferociously.
It did just that. A driver in his 70s soon fell ill with fever; he later tested positive. The same day as his diagnosis, his mother-in-law died; she also was infected. Officials then discovered that 10 others from the boat were, too, including an employee who had served passengers from Wuhan, China. Still more who did not attend the party caught the virus after coming into contact with those who did.
And
Four days after the river cruise, on Jan. 22, the mother-in-law of the taxi driver in his 70s said she felt fatigued. Six days later, the woman, who was in her 80s, sought medical help but was told to monitor her condition. On Feb. 1, she was hospitalized after being given a diagnosis of pneumonia.
Her respiratory condition worsened, and she was moved to another hospital on Feb. 6. She was given the coronavirus test on Feb. 12. A day later, she died, and the results of her test soon came back positive. Her death was the first from the virus in Japan.
After health officials in Tokyo discovered that the infected taxi driver was the son-in-law of the woman who had died, they started tracing his contacts. They discovered that he had attended the boat party, and tested everyone who had been there. Seven others who were confirmed infected said they had no symptoms.
Others, like a female employee of the taxi drivers association who did not attend the party, contracted the virus after having casual interactions with those who did. In yet another case, a doctor in his 60s tested positive after dining with a nurse — the wife of a taxi driver — who had been at the party. He, too, did not have symptoms.
And
Another cluster of cases in Japan has occurred in Wakayama Prefecture, where a surgeon in a hospital, a colleague of his, the colleague’s wife and their child tested positive for the virus, as well as two patients who visited the hospital. One of them was a farmer in his 70s who went to the hospital after the first doctor had stopped working.
The mother, wife and younger brother of a patient in his 60s from the same hospital also came down with the coronavirus, as did a nurse in his 30s who had temporarily worked on the Diamond Princess as part of the disaster response.
Yoshinobu Nisaka, the prefecture’s governor, said he could not rule out the possibility that infections had occurred within the hospital. “We’re having trouble tracking down how these people were infected,” he said at a news conference on Saturday.
The issue is any cluster that hasn't been identified. As the situation with the woman in the cult is demonstrating...