Prepping for pandemic...

[wheresmymojo]

I was quite blasé about the novel corona virus outbreak but things I've read today have changed my mind.

I'm not usually a prepper but best things to stock up on for a pandemic?

Surgical face masks?
Latex gloves?
Anti bac wipes and hand wash?

My mental health is properly bad over this. DH is about to have a transplant. Full chemo, neutropenia, everything. I suffer health anxiety anyway. I’m living in a sort of mental hell at the moment.
Privately however. I’m managing, just, to hold it together. 😞

So I’ve fallen down the twitter rabbit hole of this and there is a n American senator stating that patient zero had no contact with the wet market where they say this came from and a report that some Indian scientists have found inserts into the nCoV virus that shouldn’t be there naturally. I know it’s twitter and to take it all with a pinch of salt but ffs.

I'm getting increasingly worried.

The first death outside China is in the Philippines. The victim was a Chinese national from.Wuhan who was visiting the Philippines. I'm .not saying it's not of concern but it's not as worrying as if the victim had not been from Wuhan.

I would have thought it impossible to find patient zero.

Yeah well, we do have evidence that not all USA politicians are smart already.

I've just come across this website which sells different medical supplies, they have loads of wipes and things that kill viruses. The prices aren't too bad and most stuff is in stock

www.gompels.co.uk/wipes-infection-control/?sort=p.sort_order&order=ASC&page=1&end=3

From what I've read though many people have mild symptoms and recover within a week, so I don't think that global infrastructures will collapse if and when the disease spreads.

About a quarter apparently experience more severe symptoms and the death rate is currently about 1 in 45.

That’s what some sources say, but others tell a different story.

The first cases in France and the US are in intensive care. The man in the US appeared to have a mild illness at first then developed pneumonia, which seems to have improved after he was given an experimental drug.
I haven’t seen any updates on the patients in France.

The first German patient only seemed to be ill for a short time, but still had the virus in his sputum. I hope he is still well.

Also the man who died in the Philippines was actually from Wuhan and, although only 44, had underlying health problems.

My friend said that daytime tv tends to be reassuring...

@mynameinjune dh's Chinese colleagues reckon it's a virus that's escaped from a lab in Wuhan. There is a government one there. There have been many statements that the very first case had no connection with the wet market.
There's a completely new section of RNA in the middle of this Corona virus that may alter it's behaviour. This may be one reason why the Chinese were prepared to act like this and isolate Wuhan so quickly.

@teta yes I’ve seen that about the Virology lab across the river from the wet market where they say this originated. I don’t think it’s a totally put there suggestion that it could have been released from the lab through negligence.

Both France (6 cases) and Germany (8 cases) have now had ongoing transmission. In France it is a doctor, in Germany it is a child of an autoworker who was infected by the person who came over from China.

www.stmgp.bayern.de/presse/aktuelle-informationen-zur-coronavirus-lage-in-bayern-bayerisches-gesundheitsministerium-8/

www.bfmtv.com/sante/coronavirus-en-france-un-sixieme-cas-confirme-1849755.html

Also the DM are reporting a third, unrelated to the other two cases, infection here in England.

Teta can you elaborate on this bit:

"There's a completely new section of RNA in the middle of this Corona virus that may alter it's behaviour."

Getting worried now...

There's been a fabricated rumour about the make up of this virus. It's just one of those rumours designed to alarm people.

@RevolutionofourTime Fascinating to hear! Glad to hear you are on your way out and will be ok, but concerning that people think that the government is so crap so the only way is to leave. :(

On travel, I am almost scared to ask this, given the responses on some other threads. DS is due to go to France and German next month. Should I be concerned? Both countries have many more cases than the UK

Yes, it may be prefabricated but dh's mainland Chinese very well educated colleagues believe there may be an element of truth in it.
I don't think anyone knows much about how this virus differs to the other Corona virus's but scientists are trying to find out. There's interesting articles in Nature, New Scientist and the Lancet that are being updated all the time. A lot of labs are sharing samples of the virus isolate at the moment.

I'm not convinced that the people passing away all had underlying health problems.

The article I read said "thought to have underlying health problems" not defo had them. I think the media are downplaying some things hopefully I'm wrong.

@NotYourTypicalNerd, thank you!

I really wouldn’t be concerned about the infection risk in Germany and France. Even when I lived in Canada during the SARS outbreak, I was never concerned as I lived about 900 kilometres from the epicentre where there were around 300 cases. The contagion risk in large Western countries is much, much small than in super densely populated places, like Hong Kong and Singapore.

I would venture a guess that it won’t be long before there are as many cases in the UK as in continental Europe anyway.

I dont think people need to worry about this being released from a lab. Labs work with viruses, anthrax, Ebola all round the world. That's how we find vaccines. Viruses change their RNA and hoc each time they come into contact with a similar virus. That's nature. That's how they evole. It's in no ones interests to create a virus that can spread around the world. If that was true why isn't there Ebola cases in our scientists? We dont have enough good scientists to expose them to this level of risk. I think we need to mindful of all the fake Brexit news we saw.

The best study to date on age and health of people with Coronavirus is this study in the Lancet on 99 people who had it in the early days...

www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30211-7/fulltext

@wheresmymojo, on mortgage payments, you can potentially derive some comfort from the 2008 financial crisis. There were very clear directives given to banks that they were not to pursue mortgage enforcement action against people who defaulted. All the banks agreed to act in accordance with the directives. For years, virtually no house was repossessed in the UK.

They just put mortgage enforcement lawyers out of business instead 😁

About to leave for the airport now. It’s very bittersweet as DH is staying here. I keep reminding DCs not to make stupid jokes about feeling unwell when we’re at passport control 😁

The Lancet mentions that the deaths were in line with the MuLBSTA score.

On further investigation this stands for:

• Multilobular infiltration (?)
• Hypo Lymphocytosis (?)
• Bacterial co-infection
• Smoking history (believe it counts both current smokers and previous smokers with the former higher than the latter)
• Hypertension (high blood pressure)
• Age (60+)

@Legoandloldolls population control is a good reason.