When will the threat of coronavirus end? It might return every winter

[NCC1701A]

  "...many researchers said 2019-nCoV might be here to stay. Like swine flu, it could become a regular ingredient in a winter soup of respiratory bugs that cause common colds and other illnesses – only without the fanfare of travel restrictions and global commerce disruption."

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/02/06/coronavirus-wuhan-china-recurring-winter-illness-flu/4665482002/

 

 

 

[Denim]

To look at another perspective here is a screenshot I just took from yahoo:

 

 

[allanos]

We must be thankful for modern medicine and a greater awareness of hygiene in our lives.  The state of our immune systems also plays a critical role.

 

The Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 killed somewhere between 20 and 50 millions, having infected half a billion persons altogether. 

 

In the USA alone, 675 000 people died from this virus.

[Brunolem]

On 2/7/2020 at 10:01 AM, Denim said:

To look at another perspective here is a screenshot I just took from yahoo:

 

 

And China is putting around 400 million people (as of yesterday) under lockdown, together with its economy, because of an average virus that officially kills much less than the run of the mill flu???

 

Journalists are parrots, paid to not think, but that doesn't mean that we are also dispensed to think...and put two and two together...

[CanadaSam]

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security modeled a hypothetical pandemic on a computer as part of research last October — their simulation predicted the deaths of some 65 million people worldwide in just 18 months.  

 

For full story click this link:  LINK TO FULL STORY

[Kalasin Jo]

21 hours ago, CanadaSam said:

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security modeled a hypothetical pandemic on a computer as part of research last October — their simulation predicted the deaths of some 65 million people worldwide in just 18 months.  

 

For full story click this link:  LINK TO FULL STORY

Thanks for scaring us all!

[CanadaSam]

It isn't about scaring people, its about making people aware.

 

The actual fact is, this new virus kills far fewer people (2%) than either SARS (10%) or MERS (35%).

 

But, the rate at which it spreads is what makes it so very alarming.

 

Here is a graph showing the infection rate of all the 3 viruses mentioned above, from Reuters:

 

[sirineou]

5 hours ago, allanos said:

We must be thankful for modern medicine and a greater awareness of hygiene in our lives.  The state of our immune systems also plays a critical role.

 

The Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 killed somewhere between 20 and 50 millions, having infected half a billion persons altogether. 

 

In the USA alone, 675 000 people died from this virus.

As you said ," We must be thankful for modern medicine and a greater awareness of hygiene in our lives"

When the spanish flu epidemic occurred,very little  of what you mentioned existed , including ,  communications, organisation, and infrastructure, if it had , the spanish Flu would not had being as deadly as it was..

 If the CoronaVirus were to become an annual occurrence, lets not forget that a vaccine will be developed, and that those who get it will develop an immunity to it , thus reducing the available poll of hosts. The biggest threat might be from resistant or more viral  mutations IMO.

 

[nobodysfriend]

Everything is connected... If you see the earth as a living being that once was in perfect balance and had the ability to create life , our human race are just parasites and deeply disturbing this creative balance ...

Now this planet's ecosystem is becoming increasingly unbalanced and the human's will suffer from that ... Who knows , may be the new virus is a creation of nature to fight against it's human infection ...? May be there are many more , and more dangerous ones , to come ...?

The humans , being the dominant species on this planet , inherited the responsability to keep it in balance and good condition.

But what did we do ?

We have to pay for what we've done ... fair enough .

[runamok27]

5 hours ago, CanadaSam said:

It isn't about scaring people, its about making people aware.

 

The actual fact is, this new virus kills far fewer people (2%) than either SARS (10%) or MERS (35%).

 

But, the rate at which it spreads is what makes it so very alarming.

 

Here is a graph showing the infection rate of all the 3 viruses mentioned above, from Reuters:

 

I saw an interview with a CDC official and he spoke to this very thing. He was saying that the speed at which a virus spreads is inversely proportional to its severity, which you can clearly see from the graph that you are showing. MERS was the most severe and it spread very slowly and SARS was a little less severe and spread a little quicker, so we can surmise from the rapid spread of this new corona virus that it looks to not be very severe due to the rapidity with which it spreads. A more severe virus doesn't allow the host to move about and infect as many people because they are so sick they can't do anything whereas a less severe virus like this corona virus allows the host to go about their business even when they are well into the illness and infect a large number of other people. Now people will try and bring up asymptomatic transmission but that has not been confirmed and in fact, the cases that supposedly showed asymptomatic transmission were later debunked. There is no proof that this corona virus can be transmitted during the incubation period.

[Number 6]

1 hour ago, runamok27 said:

There is no proof that this corona virus can be transmitted during the incubation period.

WHAT?!!?

[geriatrickid]

To answer the OP: If this illness becomes an annual risk, then we will probably have a vaccine to deal with it by then and it can be managed  in a manner similar to how we manage seasonal flu.

 

Focusing on the fatality rate of the disease doesn't mean much.  The key characteristic here is the severity of infection as it requires for 50% hospitalization care for patients and 25% ICU care. This chews up resources.

 

1 hour ago, runamok27 said:

Now people will try and bring up asymptomatic transmission but that has not been confirmed and in fact, the cases that supposedly showed asymptomatic transmission were later debunked. There is no proof that this corona virus can be transmitted during the incubation period.

Not exactly. Nothing has been debunked. On the contrary, legitimate  concerns have been identified.  To more specifically answer, the initial concern was raised by the German researchers on January 30;

This case of 2019-nCoV infection was diagnosed in Germany and transmitted outside Asia. However, it is notable that the infection appears to have been transmitted during the incubation period of the index patient, in whom the illness was brief and nonspecific.3

The fact that asymptomatic persons are potential sources of 2019-nCoV infection may warrant a reassessment of transmission dynamics of the current outbreak. In this context, the detection of 2019-nCoV and a high sputum viral load in a convalescent patient (Patient 1) arouse concern about prolonged shedding of 2019-nCoV after recovery. Yet, the viability of 2019-nCoV detected on qRT-PCR in this patient remains to be proved by means of viral culture.

 

A few days later, a report was published in the USA of the discovery of an infected 10 year old in New York city. His family had returned from Wuhan. The family members aged 33-66 all had  visible symptoms of infection. The boy did not.  At the family insistence the child was tested and was discovered to be infected.  Upon investigation, it was found that he had signs of viral pneumonia in the lungs,  but no outward symptoms and was "shedding" virus capable of causing infection.   It is believed that the infection manifests differently in Children.

 

 

 

 

[soalbundy]

Invest in face masks

[Denim]

 

But not corona virus

1 hour ago, soalbundy said:

Invest in face masks

 

Invest in face mask futures even better.

[WaveHunter]

9 hours ago, runamok27 said:

I saw an interview with a CDC official and he spoke to this very thing. He was saying that the speed at which a virus spreads is inversely proportional to its severity, which you can clearly see from the graph that you are showing. MERS was the most severe and it spread very slowly and SARS was a little less severe and spread a little quicker, so we can surmise from the rapid spread of this new corona virus that it looks to not be very severe due to the rapidity with which it spreads. A more severe virus doesn't allow the host to move about and infect as many people because they are so sick they can't do anything whereas a less severe virus like this corona virus allows the host to go about their business even when they are well into the illness and infect a large number of other people. Now people will try and bring up asymptomatic transmission but that has not been confirmed and in fact, the cases that supposedly showed asymptomatic transmission were later debunked. There is no proof that this corona virus can be transmitted during the incubation period.

Your assertion that nCoV can not be transmitted from an infected asymptomatic person is utter rubbish!  You need to become better informed, and stop spreading dangerous misinformation.

 

Asymptomatic transmissibility is proving to be one of the hallmark features of this virus that distinguishing from it from SARS and which make it far more dangerous.  It is one of the main reason that the virus has rapidly spread to other provinces outside of Hubei province through city seeding despite containment efforts, and is increasingly finding its' way outside of China.

 

Furthermore, your assumption that nCoV is not so serious based on the CDC official's statement about severity vs speed of transmission is also a case of grossly misinterpreted his remarks.

 

You fail to understand that this virus is not only extremely transmissible but also has a high Serious Complication Rate (SCR).

 

Given its' R-Naught of 2.6 or greater makes this virus highly infectious.  An R-naught of 2.6+ means that for each index case of infection, close to 3 healthy people will become infected, and each of those newly infected will go on to pass it to 3 more healthy people, and so on, and so on.

 

Couple that fact with the Serious Complication Rate (SCR) of nCoV which is around 20%, meaning that 20% of confirmed infections will go on to develop serious complications (i.e.: pneumonia and ARDS) requiring ICU care.

 

The significance of this complication rate is that, even though the virus may only produce mild symptoms in many people, at least 20% of confirmed cases are currently ending up as cases requiring ICU care, and those cases will require intensive medical attention for a week or longer! 

 

This means that as the number of confirmed cases rapidly escalates, there simply won't be enough ICU beds for patients needing them.  That is when the mortality rate will rapidly soar form what it is now!

 

Right now, one of the biggest problems in fighting the virus is misinformation and downplaying the seriousness of it.  If people don't take this threat seriously, they will not take personal precautions seriously either.  With such an infectious virus, all it takes is one person becoming infected and transmitting it to others for things to rapidly escalate out of control. 

[MikeN]

14 hours ago, CanadaSam said:

It isn't about scaring people, its about making people aware.

 

The actual fact is, this new virus kills far fewer people (2%) than either SARS (10%) or MERS (35%).

 

But, the rate at which it spreads is what makes it so very alarming.

 

Here is a graph showing the infection rate of all the 3 viruses mentioned above, from Reuters:

 

I can’t find it again now, but a few days ago I saw a graph showing the infection vs fatality rates of various diseases and viruses, from the common cold, flu, up to Ebola, and comparing them to the estimated range for coronavirus. That was quite a broad range as scientists still don’t know for sure just how infectious or fatal this is, but at the lower range end for both axis coronavirus was ranked just below the ordinary flu, and well above it at the higher estimated range.

 As a comparison, Ebola was in the middle of the possible coronavirus infection range, but much higher in the fatality rate.

SARS was a similar comparison. Measles and chickenpox were many times higher in the infection rate but in the low to middle of the coronavirus mortality range.

[Haecksler]

6 hours ago, WaveHunter said:

The significance of this complication rate is that, even though the virus may only produce mild symptoms in many people, at least 20% of confirmed cases are currently ending up as cases requiring ICU care, and those cases will require intensive medical attention for a week or longer! 

 

This means that as the number of confirmed cases rapidly escalates, there simply won't be enough ICU beds for patients needing them.  That is when the mortality rate will rapidly soar form what it is now!

Can't be more agree.

Common sense just common sense I don't understand that people refuse to think by them self instead of that bouncing around with numbers which are not verified at all.

Where is the point in taking that risk? We do not know enough about that virus to give all-clear-signal.

Therefore stay away from the risk incl. your family and wait what happen.

If nothing happen (what I still hope) then you are fine.

If the situation gets worse you are prepared. I think that is not rocket science.

[WaveHunter]

26 minutes ago, Haecksler said:

...If the situation gets worse you are prepared. I think that is not rocket science. ...

Exactly, "Plan for the Worst; Hope for the Best"  Any sane and intelligent person will follow this dictum with all crises they face, including this one which is a very clear and present danger, not just for China but the entire global community.  Only stupid people will ignorantly put on a "happy face" and be in denial of reality, pretending there is nothing to worry about.

 

Right now, the containment efforts in China are failing miserably.  Most experts believe it will fail, and are increasingly concerned about it becoming a major pandemic.

 

If they are correct, it is estimated through computer modelling that this crisis in Wuhan will reach its' peak by April. Other areas in CHina where city seeding has occurred will lag a couple of weeks behind Wuhan.

 

Mostly it will peak due to "herd immunity" effect, meaning that as more and more are infected but recover, their immunity will greatly diminish the chance of them becoming re-infected and thus lower the R-Naught (infectiousness) in the community as a whole from where it currently is at around 2.6, down to around 1.3. (I am just describing this in broad theoretical strokes mind you, and probably not doing a great job of it...but you should get the point and Google it further if you wish). 

 

In other words, instead of one index case causing three healthy people to become infected, only 1.3 people will become infected.  An epidemic ends when R-Naught = 1.0

 

However, the real issue is how many people will die between now and then in China, and will the global community become involved in the same scenario!

 

BTW, This all comes from reports I've read in The Lancet, , which is probably the most well-regarded and factual peer-reviewed medical journal in the world.

 

[rvaviator]

19 hours ago, Brunolem said:

And China is putting around 400 million people (as of yesterday) under lockdown, together with its economy, because of an average virus that officially kills much less than the run of the mill flu???

 

Journalists are parrots, paid to not think, but that doesn't mean that we are also dispensed to think...and put two and two together...

Sorry if I am asking a stupid question - but what exactly do you interpret the action of 'lockdown' to be ?

[WaveHunter]

On 2/7/2020 at 10:01 AM, Denim said:

To look at another perspective here is a screenshot I just took from yahoo:

 

 

Reports like this one through Yahoo are almost criminal because they downplay the clear and present danger of the n-CoV virus!  It is true that we don't yet know much about it, but that is exactly one of the reasons it should be taken seriously, not merely shrug it off with stupid comparisons to the Influenza virus.

 

While Influenza may kill more people per year, it is also a known virus.  We basically know how it works, know how to recognize it, and we have a vaccine for it.

 

By contrast, we know very little about n-CoV but what we are learning is indeed very concerning!

 

It is proven to spread through infected people that are asymptomatic, so infected people can be spreading it during the 5-14 day incubation period with no outward signs that they are even sick, and spotting in in airport screenings or just out in the general population is very difficult during this period. 

 

That is why the number of confirmed cases are rapidly growing outside of Hubei province despite containment efforts.

 

One of the reasons SARS was not as serious as it could have been is because people could not spread the virus until they became symptomatic, so it was far easier to prevent its' spread.

 

Most importantly, we will not have a vaccine for months if not years, and we currently have no anti-viral treatments proven to be effective yet. 

 

But there is a much more serious reason to be concerned.

 

It may be true that many people will only have minor symptoms, and the mortality rate is currently relatively low in comparison with Influenza but assessing the danger on this basis is incredibly mypic and stupid, and here is why:

 

Consider the fact that n-CoV is highly contagious, having an R-Naught of 2.6 or greater, and it is transmissible from asymptomatic people who are infected. 

 

Furthermore, consider that the Serious Complication Rate (SCR) for confirmed cases is presently around 20% (meaning that 20% of confirmed cases are currently going on to becoming serious complication cases requiring ICU care (i.e.: for pneumonia and ARDS) for an extended period of a week or more.

 

It does not take a rocket scientist to realize how quickly ICU cases will grow beyond the number of available ICU beds in the health care system as a whole. 

 

The healthcare system would then become overwhelmed, and THAT is when the real mortality rate for the n-CoV virus will emerge.  THAT is when the true danger of this virus would be realized!

 

People need to stop blindly accepting such irresponsible reporting in public media, and especially the propaganda coming out of China right now.  This IS a serious situation right now and should be treated as such...by everyone!

 

[Brunolem]

2 hours ago, rvaviator said:

Sorry if I am asking a stupid question - but what exactly do you interpret the action of 'lockdown' to be ?

People are told to stay home, and one person per household is authorized to go buy food and essentials, once every 3 days! 

 

Now, if you believe, like many above seem to do, that China is going to such great length, including shutting down its economy, because of 800 deaths, then you are ready to believe in anything... 

[rvaviator]

34 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

People are told to stay home, and one person per household is authorized to go buy food and essentials, once every 3 days! 

 

Now, if you believe, like many above seem to do, that China is going to such great length, including shutting down its economy, because of 800 deaths, then you are ready to believe in fairies... 

Thanks for your reply of your understanding of the issue - I came across this link which some may find of interest.  From Beijing ...

 

https://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2020/01/22/coronavirus-count-in-beijing

 

Interesting perspective from inside the  "Great Wall"

[WaveHunter]

4 hours ago, rvaviator said:

Sorry if I am asking a stupid question - but what exactly do you interpret the action of 'lockdown' to be ?

What is it meant to accomplish?  Is that what you mean?  At this point in Wuhan at least, it is accomplishing very little in terms of containing the virus unfortunately. 

 

The Chinese government acted too late and actually allowed over 5 million residents to leave Wuhan before lockdown was implemented.

 

What's more, even with the so-called lockdown, many Chinese residents are actually bragging on social media and providing tips about how they were able "game the system" and get out, even how they were able to get out of the country! 

 

Such people are really despicable scum showing no care at all for their fellow citizens in the provinces they have escaped to, let alone the global community IMO! 

 

It has already spread out of the Hubei province and been seeded to other provinces with growing nodes of new infections in many of the major cities. 

 

Most experts believe that the Wuhan lockdown will now have minimal effect at preventing the situation from getting worse.

 

It seems that the primary goal of the Government at this point is to "put on a show" so to speak. 

 

Firstly, they want to avoid public internal panic by reassuring Chinese citizens, not only in the Hubei province but all throughout China, that the government is taking strong, decisive action to protect them, when actually they are really more concerned about "saving face" for how poorly they handled this early on.

 

Secondly, they are trying to show the world that they have things under control when they really do not, again, saving face on the international front is far more important to them than protecting their citizens or this crisis would not have gotten out of control in the first place.

 

BTW, just curious...are you an RV enthusiast or a pilot, or do you have some sort of magical RV that also flies?  LOL...sorry, couldn't resists messing with your profile name ????

 

 

[blackcab]

An off topic post has been removed.

[Why Me]

4 hours ago, WaveHunter said:

Furthermore, consider that the Serious Complication Rate (SCR) for confirmed cases is presently around 20% (meaning that 20% of confirmed cases are currently going on to becoming serious complication cases requiring ICU care (i.e.: for pneumonia and ARDS) for an extended period of a week or more.

I am not a med person but I have a question about this based on the following assumption: A healthy person is less likely to catch n-CoV than someone less so (old, infant, ill, compromised immune system, etc.)  from the same amount of exposure.

 

I guess this is true for most infections. If this be so then the SCR rate is based on a pool of persons already "biased toward sickness".

 

In other words, a healthy person going down with n-CoV will have x% chance of running into serious complications vs. y% for an unhealthy one where x << y. The x and y can surely be teased out by further breaking down the SCR data pool.

 

All of which stands to reason if n-CoV causes flu-like symptoms as do the other coronaviruses. Flu sucks but at the end of the day an otherwise healthy person should be able to beat it back with rest, fluids and paracetamol.

 

I don't mean to downplay the seriousness of n-CoV as WaveHunter explains but I just want this in perspective.

 

[WaveHunter]

16 minutes ago, Why Me said:

I am not a med person but I have a question about this based on the following assumption: A healthy person is less likely to catch n-CoV than someone less so (old, infant, ill, compromised immune system, etc.)  from the same amount of exposure.

 

I guess this is true for most infections. If this be so then the SCR rate is based on a pool of persons already "biased toward sickness".

 

In other words, a healthy person going down with n-CoV will have x% chance of running into serious complications vs. y% for an unhealthy one where x << y. The x and y can surely be teased out by further breaking down the SCR data pool.

 

All of which stands to reason if n-CoV causes flu-like symptoms as do the other coronaviruses. Flu sucks but at the end of the day an otherwise healthy person should be able to beat it back with rest, fluids and paracetamol.

 

I don't mean to downplay the seriousness of n-CoV as WaveHunter explains but I just want this in perspective.

 

I am not a medical professional either, just to be clear.  The SCR is simply based on the number of "confirmed infections" that go on to require ICU care...period.  Whether or not the SCR is biased to the subgroups you describe would seem irrelevant to the outcome. 

 

So, irregardless of bias, 20% of confirmed infections will still require ICU care, and that number will eventually become greater than the capacity of the healthcare system to provide adequate care. 

 

Keep in mind that "adequate care" typically involves a week or more of time for each patient, not just a day or two.  That will amount to a lot of people over a period of time, and If adequate care for ICU cases is compromised, the mortality rate for the virus will rapidly rise from what it is now.

[rickudon]

An example of how quickly the virus can spread and that it probably does so before symptoms appear, is the latest UK man to be diagnosed. He spent 4 days in Singapore, then 4 days at a ski resort in France before returning to the UK. One week later he was diagnosed with CV. French authorities then tested the residents at the ski lodge, and 5 have so far been confirmed as having CV.

[Why Me]

9 minutes ago, WaveHunter said:

So, irregardless of bias, 20% of confirmed infections will still require ICU care, and that number will eventually become greater than the capacity of the healthcare system to provide adequate care. 

Will? It's hard to say for sure:-)

 

In any case, some cherry-picked good bits from

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/asia/china-coronavirus-contain.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

 

While the virus is a serious public health concern, the risk to most people outside China remains very low, and seasonal flu is a more immediate threat.

 

But the transmission numbers of any disease aren’t set in stone. ... When global health authorities methodically tracked and isolated people infected with SARS in 2003, they were able to bring the average number each sick person infected down to 0.4, enough to stop the outbreak.

Surely some thing of this sort will kick in with n-CoV within weeks.

 

Among 17,000 people who were infected in China, 82 percent had mild infections, 15 percent had severe symptoms and 3 percent were classified as critical, said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, acting head of emerging diseases at the World Health Organization, on Feb. 7. Less than 2 percent of the people with confirmed infections had died. Many of those who died were older men with underlying health problems, Dr. Van Kerkhove said.

The 3% surely needed ICU but it's not clear about the 15% severe. But unlikely 20% to ICU as you suggest.

[WaveHunter]

37 minutes ago, Why Me said:

Will? It's hard to say for sure:-)

 

In any case, some cherry-picked good bits from

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/asia/china-coronavirus-contain.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

 

While the virus is a serious public health concern, the risk to most people outside China remains very low, and seasonal flu is a more immediate threat.

 

But the transmission numbers of any disease aren’t set in stone. ... When global health authorities methodically tracked and isolated people infected with SARS in 2003, they were able to bring the average number each sick person infected down to 0.4, enough to stop the outbreak.

Surely some thing of this sort will kick in with n-CoV within weeks.

 

Among 17,000 people who were infected in China, 82 percent had mild infections, 15 percent had severe symptoms and 3 percent were classified as critical, said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, acting head of emerging diseases at the World Health Organization, on Feb. 7. Less than 2 percent of the people with confirmed infections had died. Many of those who died were older men with underlying health problems, Dr. Van Kerkhove said.

The 3% surely needed ICU but it's not clear about the 15% severe. But unlikely 20% to ICU as you suggest.

With all due respect...do some more reading.  These sort of assumptions being made by mass media such as the New York Times are pure rubbish, and it's almost criminal for them to imply that this is less dangerous than Influenza, and that the public should not be too concerned.  That is how the Chinese Central government handled this all in the beginning.  It didn't turn out so well for them, did it?

 

Influenza is a known virus with a track record.  Doctors know how it works, what to expect, and have vaccines to prevent infection.  None of that is true with n-CoV.

 

As for SARS, the only reason it did not escalate out of control was that it could not be spread until the infected person was symptomatic which greatly helped identify infected people and contain them before they could infect others.

 

Such is not the case with n-CoV and that is one of the reasons it is so dangerous!  Think about how many people can be infected from one infection during the period of time the index case remain asymptomatic (which can be up to 14 days).  With an R-Naught factor of 2.6, that means that for every index case, they will infect three healthy people, and eact of those people will go on to infect three more, and so on, and so on

 

And as for the mention about how many confirmed cases go on to require ICU care the correct statistic is 20%, not 3%.  Don't trust a fake-news source like the New York TImes.  If you really want to know the truth, refer to science-based sources, like The Lancet, which is considered to be the pre-eminent source of peer-reviwed medical studies and information in the world.  That's where I got the 20% Serious Complication Rate for n-CoV from.

 

You have to understand that it is not what the mortality rate is right now with this virus, but what it will soon become in order to understand how dangerous this virus really is.

 

With a 20% Serious Complication Rate, it means that 20% of those with confirmed infections will go on to require ICU care, not just a couple of days of ICU but a week or more.  As the number of such cases grown, they will quickly overwhelm the healthcare system, and then that is when the real mortality rate will escalate rapidly.

 

Please understand...no personal affront intended.  It just makes me crazy how many people are just buying into all the misinformation out there on the internet and mass media right now.  It just is unbelievable.  I think the internet and Mass Media have taken a step beyond the Information Age so that it is now the Misinformation Age.

 

I keep posting about all of this because too many people are just blindly buying into all of this mass media and internet nonsense that is mostly based on propaganda and gross misreporting of actual statistics coming out of China.

 

On the contrary, it is a real and present danger, not only for people of China, but the entire global community.

 

[Why Me]

21 minutes ago, WaveHunter said:

These sort of assumptions being made by mass media such as the New York Times are pure rubbish, and it's almost criminal ...

At this time I shall declare you the winner and quietly walk backward without taking my eyes off you.