Expert's opinions on the coronavirus outbreak

[defacto7]

Expanded answers can be accessed at this site at this site.

All predictions are important. Most predictions are wrong. And I think we must be careful with that.

[asked about prediction that Covid-19 could affect 2/3 of world's population]

Dr. Michael Ryan

Executive Director
WHO Health Emergencies Programme
Feb. 17, 2020

I think it is likely we will see a global pandemic. If a pandemic happens, 40% to 70% of people world-wide are likely to be infected in the coming year. What proportion is asymptomatic, I can't give a good number

Prof. Marc Lipsitch

Prof. of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health
Head, Harvard Ctr. Communicable Disease Dynamics
Feb. 14, 2020

I think this virus is probably with us beyond this season, beyond this year, and I think eventually the virus will find a foothold and we'll get community based transmission and you can start to think about it like seasonal flu. The only difference is we don't understand this virus

Dr. Robert Redfield

Director, CDC
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Feb. 13, 2020

This is really a global problem that’s not going to go away in a week or two.

What makes this one perhaps harder to control than SARS is that it may be possible to transmit before you are sick.

I think we should be prepared for the equivalent of a very, very bad flu season, or maybe the worst-ever flu season in modern times.

Prof. Marc Lipsitch

Prof. of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health
Head, Harvard Ctr. Communicable Disease Dynamics
Feb. 11, 2020

I hope this outbreak may be over in something like April

Prof. Nanshan Zhong

Leading epidemiologist, first to describe SARS coronavirus
Feb. 11, 2020

It could infect 60% of global population if unchecked

Prof. Gabriel Leung

Expert on coronavirus epidemics
Chair of Public Health Medicine
Hong Kong University
Feb. 11, 2020

It’s a new virus. We don’t know much about it, and therefore we’re all concerned to make certain it doesn’t evolve into something even worse

Prof. W. Ian Lipkin

Epidemiology Director
Columbia University
Feb. 10, 2020

We are estimating that about 50,000 new infections per day are occurring in China. [...] It will probably peak in its epicenter, Wuhan, in about one month time; maybe a month or two later in the whole of China. The rest of the world will see epidemics at various times after that.

Prof. Niall Ferguson

Director, Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics
Imperial College, LondonFeb. 6, 2020

This looks far more like H1N1’s spread than SARS, and I am increasingly alarmed

Dr. Peter Piot

(Director, The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
Feb. 2, 2020

It sounds and looks as if it’s going to be a very highly transmissible virus [...] This virus may still be learning what it can do, we don’t know its full potential yet.

Robert Webster

(Infectious disease and avian flu expert at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital)
Feb. 2, 2020

Increasingly unlikely that the virus can be contained

Dr. Thomas R. Frieden

(Former Director of CDC)
Feb. 2, 2020

It’s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic. But will it be catastrophic? I don’t know

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci

(Director, National Inst. Allergy and Infectious Disease)
Feb. 2, 2020

Until [containment] is impossible, we should keep trying

Dr. Mike Ryan

(Head of the WHO’s Emergencies Program)
Feb. 1, 2020

[abqtommy]

1. The good news for me is that medical teams in Thailand have reported success in treating

this new coronavirus using flu vaccines and HIV medications together. Other folks are also using
and exploring this approach. Too bad so many professionals just don't know...

[defacto7]

3. I read that it was successful in some

unsuccessful in others and is a few cases made it worse. I think the professionals are just not sure what is happening there. Supposedly 80% of the genome is identical to SARS which makes the SARS vaccine pretty close to what they're looking for in a new vaccine.

[abqtommy]

11. I think a lot of the success is due to the Placebo Effect, ya know, which mandates that if a person

THINKS it's doing good then it does.

[Mariana]

9. Have there been any recent stories about this treatment? nt.

[abqtommy]

10. Unless your computer is one of the early coal-fired models you should have a functioning

search mode. I'll give you some slack this time..,.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffhp&q=latest+news+about+the+thai+flu%2Fhiv+tratment+for+the+new+coronavirus&ia=news

[Mariana]

13. Those were published more than two weeks ago.

Have there been any recent stories about this treatment?

[abqtommy]

14. Looked like new info to me. Let me know what you come up with.

[Mariana]

16. We have very different ideas of what constitutes "new info" then.

Do you really consider a two week old story to be "new info" in this context?

[tblue37]

17. An atomic scale map of the virus has been developed, which is a critical step toward a vaccine and

treatments.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/scientists-announce-breakthrough-atomic-map-of-coronavirus/ar-BB10aq39

US scientists announced Wednesday they had created the first 3D atomic scale map of the part of the novel coronavirus that attaches to and infects human cells, a critical step toward developing vaccines and treatments.

[smirkymonkey]

2. K&R

[soryang]

4. Japan infectious disease specialist describes his day on the Diamond Princess

Link to tweet

[defacto7]

5. That's an eye opener.

[soryang]

6. I'm not surprised at all.

I had watched some South Korean youtube yesterday that was based on Japanese sources that was critical of Abe treating the Diamond Princess as a police or security matter to be "stopped at the waterfront" rather than being managed as a public health problem. The shortage of experts on infectious disease in their government, and the fact that no one with expert credentials was managing the health problem on the ship were mentioned here and there in other news media but were not put together in the English language press.

[defacto7]

7. I get the impression that English language press

Is carefully trying to downplay the whole thing. Not a lot but just what they can get away with. There was a full report on msn that was saying that the death toll in China was falling and was under 100 for the first time since Jan. But their numbers were incorrect by 2. They stated 98 deaths reported. The number was actually 100 which changed the whole narative of their story. It's not much of a difference but they were able to downplay it in their article just by lowering the number by 2. All I want are the facts.

[soryang]

8. right

i can understand when reporters on the scene may not yet have the latest facts when they are preparing for a live broadcast but anything other than facts is to be avoided when there are so many unknowns at this point.

The US used it's political pull with Japan to get our people off the ship. The presence of a US doctor on board with some experience studying an older epidemic, i'm sure helped decision makers.

I think there is a desire to get to the bottom of any misrepresentations or coverup on the Chinese side, but the bias goes the other way toward Japan.

[moondust]

12. Need home testing kits.

As long as they work and aren't fakes.

[wackadoo wabbit]

15. I wish I could rec this more than once (n/t)