What matters is that there is a new virus spreading
That's the claim but its seems questionable that if there has been an outbreak in China that it hasn't already spread around the world.
Yes I understand that the claim is that it is being quarantined in China to stop it spreading but the actions being taken in China are not incompatible with the controls that can be implemented there which in other countries would be considered dubious and potentially totalitarian.
that if it goes world wide may kill around 100 million people, and, importantly, the spread is not so fast that there is no chance of containing it.
Yes there is always that possibility but what real evidence is there of that.
Would you be happy to see the government implement drone surveillance here to make sure people aern't on the streets, compulsory testing in public, camps being built for the purpose of isolation as they are doing in China for a virus that appears to be less deadly than the flu. At least that's what the evidence is presenting. Potentially compulsory vaccines in the future. What if they tell us that the detection period has to be one month, or two or....
Obviously none of that is happening here but to me that says something about what the people in this country think the real risk is. The precaution is for the what if narrative which unfortunatly spreads the ridiculous fear porn.
This is not a scientific based argument its a political one that has one presentation in China and another outside of China which is a red flag of a massive contradiction in my opinion.
I suspect that the main reason why flu is not analogous is that flu spreads like wildfire with maybe 10-20 million people affected in the UK within three weeks of the virus arriving. There is no point in trying to contain flu and we have resources to deal with regular seasonal types. There may be a way to control the coronavirus and there is a possibility that if we do not our systems will have no way of coping.
Why such fear then? Surely statistically that means it has less potential that the flu to kill people and in such a circumstances most figures are likely to be "suspected cases" not confirmed cases.
As far as I know it is a PCR based test for specific RNA. That means that the machinery to do the test was already there. As soon as someone sequenced a new set of RNA in China, and so identified a new virus, labs all over the world could be ready to read off this new sequence pretty much immediately. My nephew Al Edwards has been working on what he calls a smartphone based assay for coronaviruses like MERS. I don't know what that involves but I suspect you use your standard PCR machine, read off a sequence and ask your Phone App to say what virus you have.
I remember back to the XMRV issue and how we where being told how easy it is to get false positives yet with this issue with coronavirus it seems to be immediately accepted that it has suddenly jumped species?
Who is the someone who sequenced the new virus in China and how was it so quickly validated?
I think people have been testing large numbers for the various coronavirus sequences for a decade or more now.
In humans? If so then its not a new virus in humans as we are being told in the media.
Once you have had the virus and recovered is it being claimed that you are then immune for life? Or are you a potential carrier for life or could you recontract it just like the flu.
I agree that the media are hopeless on this but from what I have seen journalists seem to be underplaying the problem. Certainly Kekule and my nephew are taking this very seriously. Just the process of looking after cases in the UK might require a hundred thousand intensive care unit beds and staff that at present do not exist - the system could not possibly cope.
Ah then we need camps built immediately?
Whom amongst us all that is not symptomatic is ready to undergo this test and volunteer to be detained as long as it is deemed necessary?
Which politician is allowed to give this order?
Oh boy!
