The Coronavirus outbreak. This seems potentially very scary. There's no vaccine against it at present. What do others think about thhis issue.

Could get very nasty indeed.

There's a thread on this in the Science Forum.

We don't know enough about how easily it can be passed between people but the fact that it's jumped from an animal species and managed to achieve human transmission is a concern. The unknown is the virulence (it seems not to be especially dangerous) - plus the ease (or otherwise) of transmission.

Repent now!

SARS only killed 800 throughout the world. This is similar. Its not a flu pandemic and most people who get it recover

Its utter media hysteria

Give us a break - I need to do more sinning first, Xioni....

Apparently Wuhan is a transport hub for train and air transport as well as having a major port.

You need to hurry up, not much time left!

It is way too soon to be making such a comment.  You may be right or you may not.

Putting it into perspective:

17 deaths from "Wuhan 'flu" so far.  

Compared with 14 deaths from normal 'flu in the UK in the first week of 2020.

The Chinese are telling us 17. The fact they've acted to put 3 cities in lockdown tells us that a) this virus is potentially very serious and b) the actual figure could be 100 times that

The lockdown is partly because its Chinese New Year, which is bigger than our Christmas celebrations with significant numbers of people travelling to be with friends and family.

The Chinese learned a hard lesson with SARS and I think the reporting is more ‘genuine’ now. It might still be underreported just because of the nature of the illness: if it presents initially like influenza then only lab tests will show if it’s the new virus or not.

Surely mortality rate is the relevant measure with this, assuming it spreads significantly or otherwise..

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/23/what-is-the-wuhan-coronavirus-and-how-worried-should-we-be?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Quite a balanced take on things. 

No need to panic. Yet. 

Mortality rates need a careful look, Bowser. If those who are dying are mainly folks with particular vulnerability, that is a risk factor of the host, not of the "agent". Were we to see significant growth in mortality rates in the healthy individuals that would have quite another implication. 'Nuff said! I shall be sticking with the other thread but you are welcome to PM me. Roger

Difficult decision but we don't want two threads. As (a) most people seem to look at UIA ather than science (shame!) and (b) more importantly, the debate seems to have moved to the political rather than scientific aspects, I've decided to keep this one and lock the one in the Science Forum to avoid duplication

... and there's another (5th) Uk case, a Chinese national in NI

I think there is more to this than meets the eye. Seriously worrying times.

Isn’t it just the case of China being more cautious after SARS? 

“Rather” worrying, rather that seriously so, at this stage. 

It’s all too tempting for stories like this to get blown up and exaggerated by the press. It’s a sexy story. 

Regarding any new virus strain there is (understandably) a large fear of the unknown in terms of “how contagious” and “what mortality rate”. Until these are known, the safest and best but most dramatic response is to prepare for the worst (and hope it doesn’t happen!). Time will tell how big this issue is because at the moment I’m not sure anyone really knows. I would say that in terms of mortality at least there is no real reason to panic.

I agree. Any virus making the jump to humans for the first time is concerning but how many endemics have there been in the past 20 years that ultimately just petered out? Swine flu? Ebola? Zika? SARS? 

I thought mad cow disease was far more concerning at the time given it is invariably fatal. For the most part it appears the fatalities from this new virus are elderly and immuno-compromised, as you would expect.

The WHO has decided not to declare an emergency at this stage. 

That is because China has persuaded them not to and it explains the draconian measures taken within China to try to stem the spread.

However, the genie is out of the bottle and if cases start appearing in India and Africa, it will be game over, since that would make managing the spread of the virus completely impossible.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/health/flu-australia-america.html 

For context