Officials are attempting to trace people who had close contact with two Chinese nationals diagnosed with the new strain of coronavirus in the UK.
The pair, who are related, were taken ill while staying at a hotel in York on Friday.
Public Health England (PHE) said anyone who had close contact – defined as being within two metres of those infected for at least 15 minutes – will receive health advice.
Professor Sharon Peacock, director of the national infection service at PHE, said: “Public Health England is contacting people who had close contact with the confirmed cases.
“Close contacts will be given health advice about symptoms and emergency contact details to use if they become unwell in the 14 days after contact with the confirmed cases.”
As far as I’m concerned, PHE is a racket like ASH. The idea of them having any sort of role in the coronavirus epidemic is very disturbing. I think it means that the UK will almost certainly have an epidemic.
Frank Davis 
Professor Sharon Peacock, director of the national infection service at PHE, said: “Public Health England is contacting people who had close contact with the confirmed cases.”
That will be quite a few people in York?
https ://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7951403/Coronavirus-hits-UK.html
The pair, believed to be Chinese nationals, had been staying at a budget hotel in York which remained open on Friday because officials reportedly refused to tell the owners their guests were the coronavirus patients.
Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, has blasted the Government’s ‘worrying’ response after it emerged the £49-a-night Staycity hotel has remained open since a Chinese man fell ill there on Wednesday night and rooms can still be booked for tonight.
Is the media already going crazy or has PHE not really planned ahead as well as it could?
As far as I’m concerned, PHE is a racket like ASH. The idea of them having any sort of role in the coronavirus epidemic is very disturbing. I think it means that the UK will almost certainly have an epidemic.
One thing truly baffled me. The Britons flown home from Wuhan (a youtube video was uploaded from a young passenger on that plane) praised the boarding/named seating arrangement and crew of this plane. After an 11 hour flight they finally arrived at the Brize Norton RAF base near LONDON to then spend another 5+ hours on a coach by the company “Horseman Coaches” to their quarantine quarters at Arrowe Park hospital.
The rest was bound to happen.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/people-slammed-mocking-coaches-used-21401111
It would seem that in the event of an epidemic the PHE will unwittingly add to the Coronavirus Memes currently being uploaded!!!
That reminds me of a short text conversation yesterday with my niece watching the news in Germany as she texted me:
———————————————————————
|*tear-smilie* Bye-bye…|
|Oh… wait…. News….|
|What do you mean?|
|Welcome back. You have 2 cases.|
———————————————————————
Back to more serious: I just checked the site (Thank you, JoeL for providing it!)
Confirmed total cases: 12024
Confirmed cases outside China: 164
The rising number in Thailand may also add to an increase of cases outside China due to Thailand’s number of international tourists and there is no such thing as social security provided for it’s population.
Apologies, I meant to add about the coaches taking the Brits to Arrowe Park Hospital that the drivers (Horseman company stated the drivers volunteered) were not cladded up. It is not known whether they will be monitored/tested/are in quarantine as well.
No protection whatsoever.
https://www.liveleak.com/view?t=usJyG_1580485336
I note some are in buses and some in ambulances, so they may have screened them and the bus people have no symptoms. Or the drivers just want two weeks R & R.
There’s another video showing the buses going through a decontamination spray and they’re being driven through it. The buses will need that inside as well, or maybe just take them out of service for a good while. (Not found that yet).
Musta costa packet.
i read somewhere today that the buses were being de-contaminated and taken out of service for 2 weeks.
So far as I know none of the repatriated Brits has tested positive for coronavirus. If that remains the case , then the buses wouldn’t have needed to be decontaminated.
What an absolute farce. The authorities in China must be deluded if they think those masks provide any protection against a virus. Same for the hazmat suits, you’d need a filter so tight that breathing would be near impossible. Its just a hyped up scare story – anyone remember swine and bird flu?
And SARS … and MERS …
I’ve read that N95 face masks are selling out all over the world. Even if one imagines that they can get a perfect seal around the sides of the mask, N95 can only filter particles larger than 0.3 microns, but coronaviruses are ~0.12 microns in diameter, so the mask is practically ineffective. Oh, and an N95 mask provides zero protection of the mucuous membranes in one’s eyes.
I’ve read that N95 face masks are selling out all over the world.
Faith(-masks) move mountains!!
Much to the amusement of family members in Germany face masks there are now in short supply. Apparently a commonly used phrase of the people buying them is: “Oh, I’m not worried, it’s just in case….”
Well, they offer virtually no protection against the virus. What makes these people think this changes when there is a case near them?
Oh, and an N95 mask provides zero protection of the mucous membranes in one’s eyes.
Ah, thanks for reminding me! I must text my relatives to suggest to the “just-in-case buyers” to use 2 face masks at once: 1 for mouth and nose and the other one for eyes and forehead.
Similar to the risk averse concepts of bourgeois purity and irrational fear of smoke behind global bullying of “unclean” smokers, financially exploited social pariahs. That’s how the Gulag started. 😷
Trying to keep this one short, so please excuse the crude explanations. Too tired to go into it any further.
Today I came across a video citing a paper which would support JoeL’s suspicion.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1
However, first alarm bell:
Disclaimer
bioRxiv is receiving many new papers on coronavirus 2019-nCoV. A reminder: these are preliminary reports that have not been peer-reviewed. They should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or be reported in news media as established information.
The abstract alone states that this “paper” is nonsense.
We found 4 insertions in the spike glycoprotein (S) which are unique to the 2019-nCoV and are not present in other coronaviruses. Importantly, amino acid residues in all the 4 inserts have identity or similarity to those in the HIV-1 gp120 or HIV-1 Gag.
Corona virus has mutated previously and these are the points. Well known fact. No tampering.
Next: 2019-nCoV receptor (entry point to cells) is Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2), HiV virus requires CD4 + either of 2 other co-receptors. The latter is sex independent
, the former is not. The ongoing 2019-nCoV epidemic is showing more males than females affected.
(Sorry lads, even egalitarians do not wish to level there. Mother/Father nature takes care of that for a good reason)
Apart from Pneumonia (final stage HiV due to collapse of immune system caused by the virus after xx months/years!!) the clinical pictures presented have nothing else in common.
There is a comment section. Peruse. Do not stop after the first few.
I am with the ones who call for retraction of this “paper”. REAL Science takes REAL time.
I am happy to go into more details as the above is extremely limited by omission if anybody wishes to know. Perhaps next weekend with a beer in “our” bar?
As of 2.2.2020 06:30 GMT
Total number of confirmed cases: 14568
Total number of confirmed cases outside China: 173
It would be interesting to see the decrease over time of viral load during and after recovery.
Thanks for the link, Brigitte. I came across that paper yesterday also. I agree that the paper has its flaws. It’s not yet peer-reviewed–but I don’t think it’s a bad thing that scientists publish studies like this (as long as they’re honest and up-front about it, which it seems these folks were), especially in instances like 2019-nCoV, where very little is known about it, and it has the potential to become a global pandemic. Quickly publishing findings like these can inspire other scientists to investigate aspects of the virus that they might not have considered otherwise. In my opinion, this is true science: sharing discoveries, knowledge and insights in an unbiased manner.
Certainly, there are those who have made their minds up one way or the other who will claim this study “proves” the virus was bioengineered or that the study is complete bullshit, but those are the same closed-minded types who believe smoking causes every disease known to man.
My personal take on this study is that the protein sequences that appear to match HIV-1 are very short, and it is therefore by no means a smoking gun. But I’m happy to see people thinking critically, exploring all avenues and sharing their findings.
While I still have a suspicion 2019-nCoV may have been bioengineered, until there are peer-reviewed and repeatable experiments that support it, I remain open-minded and I hope my suspicions are wrong.
Quickly publishing findings like these can inspire other scientists to investigate aspects of the virus that they might not have considered otherwise. In my opinion, this is true science: sharing discoveries, knowledge and insights in an unbiased manner.
There is a race for the winning publication, thus securing funding for future projects. If you try to reproduce a result from a paper published using only the cited methods and materials you will fail. You will need to establish contact to the author and his/her team.
I have just clicked on
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1
to copy the sentence which suggests the accidental release from the research facility (close to the wet market) in Wuhan and point out that this is not a fact but an assumption.
and found:
Abstract
This paper has been withdrawn by its authors. They intend to revise it in response to comments received from the research community on their technical approach and their interpretation of the results. If you have any questions, please contact the corresponding author.
This paper was picked up by a conspiracy theorist (not a scientist!) and it made it into the media. An undesired side effect when dealing with a novel virus.
Just as Frank is obsessed with his (to me lay-person plausible) ice age model (it is inspiring to read more about it) I am becoming obsessed with following the ongoing epidemic. (It is a novel virus!) I have collected basic data (which may or may not turn out to have deviated from actual data in future) and follow my own trail of thoughts.
Chances are very high that I am plain wrong!!when it comes to my latest idea. There are not only many different caged animals in close proximity in the Chinese wet markets, there are also roaming rats.
I am just starting an extensive search on this mode of transmission:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/immunology-and-microbiology/rat-coronavirus
———————————————-
I just checked the John Hopkins site. It has been updated.
Total number of confirmed cases: 14637
Total number of confirmed cases outside China: 177
Total number of deaths remains the same as this morning (305)
I do hope that this is the first tender sign that the epidemic is burning itself out and not just a hick-up.
As far as I can make out, the Chinese have simply lost count of how many people that have died. They don’t seem to have enough test kits to confirm coronavirus cases, and when people die in Wuhan they’re sent straight to the incinerator.
Several horror stories I’ve seen today:
https://metro.co.uk/2020/02/02/wuhan-woman-screams-chinese-authorities-barricade-inside-home-12162599/
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/are-you-humans-or-devils-chinese-woman-lashes-out-authorities-after-relatives-die-virus
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-bans-funerals-for-coronavirus-victims-as-death-toll-rises-2020-2?r=US&IR=T
I have come across them, too.
The WHO has known for at least 2 weeks that test kits and protective suits are in short supply. The money set aside for further humiliation of smokers and vapers would provide a surplus of kits and suits etc.
This
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-bans-funerals-for-coronavirus-victims-as-death-toll-rises-2020-2?r=US&IR=T
I read here:
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/coronavirus-outbreak/china-bans-funerals-for-coronavirus-victims
as they do not request for my ad blocker to be turned off in order to read it.
The last time something like this happened was during the Ebola epidemic in Liberia 2014.
Further down into the article:
Meanwhile, in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, the Chinese government has also reported a significant outbreak of H5N1 bird flu on a farm in Hunan province, bordering Hubei.
Unfortunately, yes, today’s figures provided may well be a data-acquire-hick-up.
Yes, Frank. There are some truly horrifying stories and videos that have surfaced. For China to take such drastic, uber-draconian measures (quarantining entire cities, physically barricading people inside their own apartments), I have to believe the Chinese government knows something about this virus that it is neither sharing with its own citizens nor the rest of the world. They didn’t do anything nearly this drastic for the H1N1 or SARS outbreaks.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-01/zero-hedge-permanently-suspended-from-twitter-for-harassment
The libertarian financial website Zero Hedge was permanently suspended from Twitter on Friday after it published an article questioning the involvement of a Chinese scientist in the outbreak of the deadly novel coronavirus.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/zerohedge-permanently-suspended-abuse
The article — published Wednesday titled, “Is This The Man Behind The Global Coronavirus Pandemic?” — shared the name and personal information of a Chinese doctor and researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and linked him to a theory claiming the new virus is an engineered bioweapon. (bold my emphasis)
REALLY?
I have not found the article in question but am horrified.
https: //www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/01/twitter-zero-hedge-coronavirus/
https: //www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7958953/Zero-Hedge-banned-Twitter-posting-article-linked-scientist-coronavirus-outbreak.html
etc etc, etc,
This is something else:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/thai-doctors-cure-coronavirus-patient-using-powerful-aids-drugs
Another unusual trait: the virus binds to the same receptors as HIV.
It does not and it cannot. ACE2 is the corona virus receptor, HiV binds to CD4 + either one of two co-receptors.
Some have suggested that these oddities indicate nCoV was possibly engineered by scientists working to create a powerful new bioweapon – though these claims have been ridiculed and dismissed out of hand by the mainstream press.
And the scientific community.
This paper was retracted.
And finally the last sentence:
So, the coronavirus responds to a combination of meds used to treat the flu and AIDS? If we were going to create a super frankenvirus, that’s where we’d probably start.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11714208
Lopinavir-Ritonavir: a new protease inhibitor.
The (?confirmed) mode of treating corona virus patients with a flu/protease inhibitor makes sense. It boosts the immune system. There is no way of creating a Super Frankenvirus this way.
I used to respect Zerohedge.
Frank, Part 1 of my comment landed in the black hole again.
I am aware that the data we can find now about the coronavirus may deviate from actual data. One fine day we will find out.
I am sorry, the scientific information obtained on Zerohedge is about as useful as a skunk in a space shuttle.
Via https://www.zerohedge.com/health/creator-bioweapons-act-says-coronavirus-biological-warfare-weapon
I have no idea whether there’s any truth in this:
Zerohedge.
At this point in time I have major problems with his scientific posts.
This interview does not convince me.
Just picking one thing (at ca 33:00). To state that “using DNA genetic engineered vaccines … they’ll be using live corona viruses, probably, and sticking it in there and giving you some live corona virus on the theory of developing immunity…” the sentence then develops into something even weirder.
Back to the drawing board. Lets all do a search on vaccine development – small pox, diphteria, polio etc.etc. Different methods. Then progress to the methods for currently used vaccines.
Question 1: Do you believe this? I hear only statements.
Question 2: Do you think this makes a difference to the ongoing epidemic, just as it looks like more figures are released from the Chinese government?
We all know that the actual infection rate is higher (due to a number of reasons!!) and so is the death rate (no kits – no diagnosis). That crematoriums in Wuhan are pushed to the limit is not surprising. It’s a city with 11 million people and on top of the epidemic also has a natural death rate. This (+ ? are burials now not permitted, etc etc) must be taken into account.
Question 3: Is all this important right now?
I have come across this young man. He seems far more level-headed and reads Chinese.
I’d rather observe than becoming embroiled into wild speculations.
———————-
Update:
Total confirmed cases: 20,001 (at 01:15 hrs 20,202)
Total number of deaths: 426
Anyone who has an interest into reading up, here a crash course:
Please start with the basics.
How does the virus replication cycle work? Which enzyme(s} from host cell is/are required? DNA/RNA replication of virus? how does the replicated viruses leave the cell?
Once this makes sense move on to Corona viruses. Go through the above again.
This guy is actually into crypto currency (means nothing to me!) and does not pretend to do or understand science.
I like his common sense approach.
——————————————————–
This morning:
Total confirmed cases: 20,636
Total number of deaths: 427
This morning’s update from the young man.
Total confirmed cases: 24,560
Total number of deaths: 493
For a little amusement:
I just had a curious experience when looking up updates on the corona virus.
This headline caught my attention:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-news-live-uk-china-virus-symptoms-japan-cruise-ship-latest-today-a9318046.html
so I thought I have a read.
I have an ad blocker as the amounts of ads on web sites just simply annoys me. I already stopped watching anything on youtube that has more than the one (skippable) ad at the beginning. If I want whatever I am watching to be disrupted by ads, I watch ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5.
I guess ads are still more important than making information available. Never mind, I’ll find another site to catch up with that.
Here another site for data and a little more when scrolling down
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Latest Updates:
February 5:
1 new case in the United States (Wisconsin)
1 Japanese man in his 20s who deals with tourists is the 35th case in Japan. He had not been to China recently.
3 new coronavirus cases in South Korea; 2 men had travelled to Singapore for conference.
4 new cases confirmed in Singapore, including a six-month-old child of an infected couple.
2 new cases in Malaysia, 1 new case in Australia (Queensland).
1 death reported from Tianjin, China: the patient had developed fever and cough after shopping in a department store on January 22. The patient had a history of type 2 diabetes and hypertension.
February 4:
Today’s update and crash course on virus replication.
This, however, I find a little disturbing that Christopher Martenson’s Wikipage has been deleted.
I followed his videos on the Corona virus on his “Peak Prosperity” channel. His video last night:
I have checked his Wiki page and sure enough, his page has recently been deleted.
Checking on Wikipedia’s claim that Chris Martenson never published a paper led me to this:
https ://www.nature.com/articles/366066a0
(Nature is about the most prestigious journal for science publications)
Published: 04 November 1993
Fast axonal transport is required for growth cone advance
Chris Martenson, Kimberly Stone, Mary Reedy & Michael Sheetz
Nature volume 366, pages66–69(1993)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Martenson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Christopher_Martenson