At least I'm pretty sure Madagascar is safe.
/joke
At least I'm pretty sure Madagascar is safe.
/joke
I hear Greenland is nice this time of year.Originally Posted by Yung
Speaking of the black humor of Plague Inc., I always start in China.
REPETITION CREATES BELIEF
REPETITION BUILDS THE SEPARATE WORLDS WE LIVE AND DIE IN
NO EXCEPTIONS
The president of Madagascar just closed off the ports this morning 😂
World War Z: Cuba and Israel were pretty safe places.
If we have to march off into the next world, let us walk there on the bodies of our enemies.
H1N1, H5N1, H7N9... how many H's and N's are in this version?
"Sapiens dicit: 'Ignoscere divinum est, sed noli pretium plenum pro pizza sero allata solvere.'" - Michelangelo
As of now, CDC and WHO are calling it "2019 nCoV" for "2019 novel Coronavirus" per https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/summary.html The Chinese have provided the genome per the CDC, and China CDC National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention has isolated and reported five genomes. It appears to be a member of Beta-CoV lineage B. I have no idea what any of that means, being an engineer and not a doctor, but I know we have members who can expound and expand on the information.
The article I read this morning confirms the virus is now passing from human to human instead of just animal to human. Several healthcare workers have caught it.
My posts only represent my personal opinion and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or official policies of any employer, past or present. Obvious spelling errors are likely the result of an iPhone keyboard.
the HxNx nomenclature is specific to influenza (H = hemagglutinin, N= neuraminidase; two proteins the flu makes that mediate infection and have a reasonable degree of structural variation). Per below this is a coronavirus so no Hs or Ns in this guy.
Coronaviruses are a + sense RNA virus species that includes SARS and MERS. That said, as with many other viral species, there are a legion of less well known coronaviruses out there that are either restricted to non-human hosts or do not cause clinically significant disease in humans. If you reflect back on the hundreds and hundreds of vague, annoying, but mostly harmless upper respiratory infections you've gotten over your life, there is a good chance some flavor of coronavirus was responsible for some % of them.
AFAIK the scary coronaviruses (SARS/MERS) were zoonotic infections, i.e. animal → human transmission. Not clear what the deal with the new virus is. Also not clear if the three patients who died from this new coronavirus died from primary viral infection or from a secondary bacterial infection +/- consequences of pre-existing comorbidities.
To put all this in perspective, regular old influenza was responsible for ~45,000 deaths during the 2018-2019 flu season in the United States alone. Get your fucking flu shot and don't worry about some new virus in China you are unlikely to remember in 3 months' time.
My only concern is I have team members going to and from Suzhou and Shenzhen on a regular basis, so person-to-person transmission is a concern.
Unfortunately not a lot you can do about it beyond basic common sense precautions. Still more likely to run into more common pathogenic viruses (aka flu, measles, etc) than this virus anyway. Per CDC the overall public health risk is still very low; wouldn't lose sleep over it.
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