COVID-19 – China’s Story

Sometime in December of 2019, someone in China purchased a live bat for their dinner, a vendor killed it, put it in a bag and then one of those people got sick.

No one even knew what kind of illness it was yet. Just a weird case of pneumonia. Soon there were three people with a similar illness.  Dr Li Wenliang, one of the doctors who noticed the very first cases of this weird pneumonia, was arrested after getting a message out on social media to some of his university colleagues.  China at the time did not want anyone to know.

Even so, the Chinese Government did notify the World Health Organization about this strange illness on December 31 2019.

Dr Gabriel Leung, a top expert on coronaviruses, said in an interview that he first heard rumours about a possible new type of pneumonia back in December. Others say it’s possible that there were cases as far back as November 2019, but that seems to be just a rumour for now.

The very next day, New Years Day, The World Health Organization received another report from China about the new illness and there were dozens of new cases.

An investigation found that two-thirds of the first patients were vendors at the Huanan Seafood market. It was permanently closed on January 1, 2020. At the time, they thought the people who were sick contracted it from an animal and it was not contagious between humans.

The first person to die was on January 11, 2020, and we don’t even know that person’s name. Ten days later, there were 17 people dead. By January 2o, there were over 500 cases in China and as it turns out, COVID-19 was super contagious.

 

Fast forward to March 1, 2020 and China reports just over 80,000 cases of COVID-19.

Two weeks later, they are holding at around 80,000.

Just 4 days after that, Thursday March 19, China makes the claim that they have seen no new cases and they have beaten COVID-19. The Chinese Government announces they are heading back to work and re-opening tourist attractions.

But check out this graph. The numbers went up steadily for months from December to February, then they start dropping and suddenly spike at 15,000 new cases in a single day and then just as suddenly, the numbers take a nosedive. Very odd don’t you agree?

The Chinese laid the hammer down and put Wuhan City into a lockdown back in January. Within a day or so, they announced new lockdowns across the country, closed airports, and halted travel.

China was keeping this under wraps as much as possible and telling the world that it wasn’t too bad and not to worry, they had it all under control. They were building 2 special new hospitals in just a couple of days and everything would be fine.

However, pictures and stories were leaking out on social media that painted a very different picture. China had arrested people, including Dr Li Wenliang who first rang the alarm. Another doctor in Wuhan, Dr Ai Fen, was reprimanded for sending a picture of a test result to her colleague back in December.

2 filmmakers in Wuhan City documented life inside the lockdown for 50 days and sent their documentary to the BBC, who aired it and posted it to youtube. That doc, shows that a single hospital in Wuhan had 200 COVID-19 patients back in late January. At that same hospital, over 200 health care workers had contracted the virus. That’s a single hospital. One. Before anything ever happened, there were and still are 20 hospitals in Wuhan. Let’s pretend they each treated 200 patients with the new SARS-like coronavirus. That’s 4000.

In January. If we look back at the graph, China officially reported around 10,000 cases for the whole country that day. The country was already locked down entirely and 2 new hospitals were being built. One hospital had 1400 medical staff and the second had 1600 beds. In total, 16 temporary hospitals were set up in Wuhan alone that each had the capacity for close to 1000 patients at a time.

In March, Dr Ai Fen gave an interview to Renwu, the Chinese version of People Magazine. In that interview she stated that in preparation for a visit from the Chinese President, many patients were simply discharged, sick or not, to make it look like there were fewer people suffering from COVID-19 than there really were.

China has kicked out journalists and inside the locked-down areas, things were wild. When government officials visited locked-down areas to brag about the success and make a big show of delivering food and supplies, residents opened their windows and yelled “Fake! Fake! It’s all Fake!”

Is it all fake? Did China lie about their numbers of COVID-19 cases and then lie about having stopped the spread of the virus?

Well, we know that only about 20% of COVID-19 patients require hospital care.

We also know from the BBC documentary filmed inside the lockdown area of Wuhan, that there were people reaching out online to each other and anti-viral drugs were being delivered to patients all over the city who could not get into hospitals.  Let’s say because we saw that video and now we believe that many people were sick and were not admitted to hospitals.

China has a total of 33,000 hospitals not counting any of the temporary hospitals set up just for COVID-19 patients. Let’s just say each hospital in china only admitted 200 people with COVID-19.  My reasoning is that because China suddenly built 16 temporary hospitals in Hubei Province. They didn’t do that for no reason.  That means 6 million 6 hundred thousand people were hospitalized BEFORE we count the patients who went to temporary hospitals.

That sounds crazy. Let’s pretend each hospital in China admitted only 50 patients with coronavirus over the course of the epidemic.  That’s roughly 16 patients per month from January to March. Why would they would need 16 extra hospitals in that case, is beyond me, but whatever. I’m not psychic. I don’t know what they were thinking.

Let’s say that each temporary hospital treated just 1000 patients each. Even though we know some had higher capacity and not every patient stayed for a whole month. More likely, they stayed 2 weeks each or less and we should double the number, but we won’t worry about that for now.

That means there were 25,600 patients with COVID-19 to add to the previous number of 1,650,000. So – our ultra-conservative number of COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized is 1,675,600.00. That represents 20% of the total number of cases of COVID-19 in China, which they say is 81,054.  You tell me? Is China lying?

 

 

 

 

India Keeps COVID-19 Numbers Low

India continues to report only a small number of COVID-19 cases. Interesting because the population of India is over 1.3 billion. Has anyone ever seen a picture from anywhere in India that didn’t show huge crowds of people? Their population alone dictates that their numbers should be a lot higher.

Would you be shocked to learn India is performing fewer COVID-19 tests than any other country in Asia, if not the entire world?

India’s policy has been only to test travellers who have visited COVID-19 affected countries. If a patient is ill with coronavirus symptoms, as long as they hadn’t been outside the country in the previous few weeks, it is still only considered a “suspect case”.  Even in cases where a patient is on a ventilator,  and on their deathbed, they are not isolated and there are no special protocols.  Doctors are losing it.

People who have been exposed to COVID-19 and have not presented symptoms are having their hands stamped with a government seal indicating that they are under quarantine. Personally, I don’t think it’s really doing anything other than freaking people out.

India’s attitude seems to be No Test = No Covid-19.

The Government of India website does have information on how to slow the spread of the virus, but it’s all quite odd.

Then there is also this video with a cheerful little theme song, put out on youtube by the Government of India.

Even with the Government of India posting such sobering  <insert eyeroll here> information online, citizens at large are responding to the outbreak in a variety of ways.  On one hand, you still have people sharing non-sensical cures and preventions like garlic water or hosting cow urine drinking events.

Thank whatever God you want for a team of PHD Students out of India who have been using actual science to look for solutions. They created a brand new and less invasive test for the COVID-19 virus, that is better, cheaper and faster than the current one.

On Thursday, March 19, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a curfew starting at 7 am Sunday, March 22. Problem; it ends at 9 pm the same day.

Delhi, has a slightly longer curfew that will start Monday, March 23 and last until March 31.

Even so, the Government is handing out meals to large groups of people. So much for social distancing.

While some areas have been locked down, others have not. The lockdowns are only in place for one week. The Indian Government has cancelled all visas. Existing visas have all been suspended. Yet, according to a Union Home Ministry notification, those visas have been extended. That mixed message has led to foreigners being kicked out of their accommodations and unable to leave the country.

Simultaneously, India is welcoming planeloads of ex-pats back into the country from places like Italy.

Some, (I would guess many)  in India are hoping that Modi’s Janata Curfew is just a trial run for a national lockdown to at least try and slow the spread the COVID-19 a little bit. Like something. Please.

As the rest of the world reacts to COVID-19 and the number of cases climbs day after day, many countries have closed borders and imposed various self-quarantine and social distancing rules. Everyone is looking hopefully at China since they made the claim that they have defeated COVID-19 after laying the hammer down.

Then we all shift our gaze to Italy and Spain allowing us a glimpse into our own futures. India should peer into that same crystal ball.

 

UPDATE March 24, 2020

India has announced a sudden and total lockdown of the entire country. President Modi said in a press conference today “If we are not able to manage this pandemic in the next 21 days, the country and your family will be setback by 21 years”.  Only the very essential businesses will remain open and interstate transit is suspended.

 

 

 

Say it Don’t Spray it

A handy guide for social distancing during the COVID 19 pandemic so you can avoid getting it or giving it to others.

We all need to do our part to prevent the spread of coronavirus COVID-19. If you don’t believe that yet, please click this link. If you are already convinced, then read on to learn all the ways this virus is spread so you can be careful and do your best to avoid getting it.

The predictions are dire for all of us. Scientists are saying they expect 60% of the world’s population will contract COVID-19 and at least 45 million people will die. 

Hospitals do not have room to treat 60% of the population at the same time. If the numbers keep increasing at the rate they are now, the death toll will be much, much higher in just a few short weeks. We all need to do our best to slow down the spread of COVID-19.

Covid-19 is super contagious. The list of ways it can spread is ever-growing. Scientists all over the world are working on this. Countless doctors and nurses around the world treating patients with COVID-19 in hospitals everywhere. New information is hitting the internet at an unprecedented rate. I’ve gathered what we know so far to save weeks of catching up for you.

This is how it spreads:

Coughing – someone who has the virus coughs and an invisible droplet of their saliva lands on you, or lands on something that you touch. Like your clothes, a doorknob, an Interac pin pad, a can of soup, a pole on the subway or bus or streetcar, a toy, anything.

Sneezing – someone who has the virus sneezes and an invisible droplet of their saliva lands on you, or lands on something that you touch. Like your car door handle, an elevator button, a door, a piece of paper, a shopping cart, literally anything.

Touching other people – Stay 6 feet away from each other. Touching doesn’t always mean reaching out with your hand and poking someone with your finger. Maybe you brushed past some asshole on the street who wouldn’t move to one side because he thinks he’s more important than you and you shouldn’t be using what he considers to be his personal sidewalk. Maybe, that guy has the virus and doesn’t even know it because he’s one of the lucky ones with no symptoms.

Touching a surface that someone with the virus has touched before you got there. Although, there is new evidence that the virus can be tucked inside a single live skin cell that falls off of someone who walks by and that virus can stay active for days.

Strands of hair that get left behind. Let’s pretend you didn’t cancel that hair appointment. At the salon, there is generally lots of hair on the floor from previous clients. Yes, it all gets swept up over and over again, but it’s there. You see it. COVID-19 can live on a strand of hair and the person who touches that hair is at risk of catching the virus. Yep. It might be you as a client, but more likely, it will be you or someone like you who passes the virus to your hairdresser.

Breathing. Yes, some scientists are saying they have seen evidence that COVID-19 is airborne and can stay in the air for up to 3 hours.

     Not many of us walk around with a microscope in our purse to check every surface before we lean on it or touch it. So to be on the safe side, practise social distancing.

Stand six feet or 2 meters away from the person nearest you in line, on the bus, at the mall, at the food court. Maybe just wait for the next elevator.

Don’t touch anything! Super hard to do. that would mean you couldn’t open the door or press the elevator button or anything. Wash your hands as soon as you can. Wash them with soap and for a good 20 seconds or so. Sing a song if you must.

Don’t let anything or anyone touch you when you are out of your home. It’s another tough one. Guaranteed some jerk will brush past you on the sidewalk. change your clothes and wash, wash, wash.

Wipe things down whenever you can. If you have a pack of disinfectant wipes, then use them. Wipe your doorknob, your doorbell, your car door handles, anything you think needs it. Wipe off the things you pick up at the store too.

Don’t visit your friends. Don’t visit your family. No playdates, no dating, no coffee klatch’s, no book club, no kickboxing class, nothing. You don’t have to cut them off entirely. Call them, text them, facetime, whatever. Just not in person.

You could be one of those who have the COVID-19, don’t realize it and are infecting other people. If you are lucky and get the virus and don’t get sick, as you walk around and touch things, you shed tiny skin cells, maybe a strand of hair or you sneeze. Whatever you do, you are leaving invisible DNA molecules behind on bus seats, doorknobs, shopping bags, a package you pick up at a store and then put back, a glass your drink came in, anything.

Scientists tell us that live virus cells are in these invisible, tiny DNA bits everywhere and that the virus somehow manages to stay alive up to 6 days to infect the next unsuspecting person who comes along after you. That unsuspecting person may just be the one who gets the full wrath of this virus/immune response lottery.

What are the symptoms? Fever, a dry cough and difficulty breathing are the big ones that health authorities are looking for. There are less serious symptoms like headache and sore throat, but so far those people are not being given tests.

 

COVID-19 – What the Hell Is It?

COVID-19 is a betacoronavirus and the scientific name for it is SARS-CoV-2. There are many coronaviruses, each of them slightly different. All coronaviruses are animal viruses that have made the leap to humans. COVID-19 was just a bat virus. Meaning that until December 2019, only bats could pass this virus around amongst themselves. That’s a proven fact.
The virus had to mutate in order to make the leap from bat to human.

COVID-19 is highly contagious and spreads quickly and easily. In less than three short months of its existence, COVID-19 has spread to 160 countries. Because it is so new, no one knows for sure all the ways it can spread. As more and more people contract this virus and more and more people recover or die, scientists have been gathering information just as quickly.

COVID-19 is a virus and the symptoms sound pretty ordinary. Fever and a cough. Maybe a headache or a sore throat. Here’s the kicker, it’s a high fever that can come on suddenly and go away the next and then come back a few times. The cough? Well, it’s a dry cough. OK. Doesn’t sound too bad and for some its not. That’s the extent of it. For others that fever is crazy and the cough is triggered by bi-lateral fibrosis in the lungs of up to 45%. That means the tissue of your lungs gets really stiff and that makes it really hard to breathe.

When the human immune system detects a virus, it makes a battle plan, arms itself and starts to fight back. Because this was a bat virus, the human immune system has no experience fighting it off and doesn’t quite know what to do. It literally freaks out. Sometimes, it takes a scorched earth approach, throwing every weapon it has at this thing. When that happens, the immune system fills the lungs with fluid to try to expel the virus. That’s called a cytokine storm. Really tough to get oxygen into lungs that are rock hard and filled with fluid. The lungs already have trouble expanding and contracting and on top of that, fluid has taken up space in those lungs. Where will the oxygen even go? This is how people die from COVID-19.

Some scientists say it has since mutated at least once more to become airborne. Other scientists are already thinking there may have been a third mutation and that there are possibly already 2 strains going around. One of them may even be more deadly. No one really knows yet. Scientists have found 2 strains that simultaneously infected a single patient in Iceland.

After many guesses, experiments and tests from January until March, it was thought that the virus lived on most surfaces for a matter of hours. On steel and other hard surfaces, it could live for several days. After having the opportunity to test the Diamond Princess Cruise Ship, scientists have found that the virus can still be found on surfaces after 17 days.

The Diamond Princess is cruise ship that experienced an outbreak of 712 cases of coronavirus. After moving passengers to hospital, the ship remained docked in Japan. It presented a unique opportunity to gather information about COVID-19 because it was an outbreak in an enclosed area.

No one really knows what the death toll will be or how many people will get it because this virus is so brand new to us. The current problem across the world seems to be a shortage of test kits, surgical masks and gloves.  This is a result of factories having been closed for months and many borders being closed. China used a great deal of masks and gloves during their months-long lockdown.  More than 50% of surgical masks are made in China. Factories, they say are re-opening now, but it takes about 33 days to get a shipment out of a factory in China that is in normal production. From there, it is a 2-4 week sea voyage and then customs clearance. Once the shipment arrives in the country, trains and trucks have to disperse the products to distribution centres and hosptials.

Depending on what reports you read, some say it’s no big deal and others say it is. I choose to believe Dr. Gabriel Leung, the world’s leading expert on coronaviruses. He is the doctor who led the fight against SARS. He estimates that 60% of the world’s population will get this virus and even if the death rate turns out to be 1% (which it isn’t), we will have about 45 million deaths to look forward to.