On twitter, there are a few photos suggesting that in Iran people are collapsing in the streets. The semiofficial news agencies are reporting the death toll in Qom alone is 50, but the official toll stands at 12, out of 61 reported cases. Iranian officials deny that Qom’s death toll is 50, but admitted 900 suspected cases were being tested. Some of the deaths are reported to be doctors and some of the infected are officials suggesting the virus has been spreading for weeks and is underreported. For example: the Chancellor of Qom’s Medical Sciences University, Dr. Mohammad-Reza Ghadir, had tested positive.
If official stats are correct the death rate is 20%. It almost certainly isn’t, but either this virus is deadlier than ever, or Iranian officials are hiding a broader spread. Either way, every nation with high risk people (say, people over 60 years old) might consider suspending the flights til we know more. We would all probably be dealing with what Iran is right now if we had not closed flights to China weeks ago.
The infection from Iran has spread to six countries so far –– Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, Canada and Oman. But flights from China to Iran are apparently still open. Given the risk, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Oman, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Jordan, Ankara, Georgia and Tajikistan have stopped flights from Iran. Lebanon has reduced flights. However medical safety standards are lower in the USA, Australia, etc where it is fine for infected people to fly in without quarantine. Cheapest flights from Tehran to Melbourne are $761.
The US CDC says it’s OK to fly to and from Iran, though older people should “consider” postponing their trip. Travellers should stay away from sick people and use hand sanitizer etc. That’s Alert Level 2. They have raised the alert to level 3 for travel to South Korea. “Avoid non-essential travel” — but hey, go if you really want to. There is seemingly no warning on CDC Travel Notices that people traveling to these countries risk getting caught inside them if flights are stopped or internal borders shut. Will we do rescue flights in plastic wrapped planes?
Australian authorities say “reconsider your need to travel” and sternly warn “If you travel to Iran despite our advice, you will be screened for coronavirus (COVID-19) at airports. ” Which means someone will check your temperature, but not whether you have taken a panadol 2 hours ago and not whether you are an asymptomatic carrier.
Flights from Iran are already cartoonized on twitter:
Iranian flights already mocked in cartoons @BeholdIsrael
RadioFree Europe reports that Iran may be covering up infections
Apparently, Iranian health officials think quarantine is too old fashioned. For that reason alone we should stop all flights from Iran from entry.
Amirabadi-Farahani [Qom lawmaker, who spoke in Parliament] said Qom should be quarantined, while also suggesting that nurses and other health-care workers lacked the necessary protective gear to treat coronavirus patients.
[Deputy Health Minister Iraj] Harirchi told journalists that a quarantine in the holy city — where many senior ayatollahs and thousands of religious students are based — is unlikely to be efficient in controlling the spread of the disease that emerged in China in December.
“We do not agree with quarantining Qom; the practice of using a quarantine is pre-World War I for the plague and cholera and Chinese [officials] are also unhappy with the quarantines imposed [in their country],” Harirchi said.
The son of an 83-year-old woman who died in Qom over the weekend after being infected with the coronavirus told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda that she died while in quarantine in a hospital.
He said doctors did not test him even though he had taken care of his mother before she was transferred to the hospital. “They asked me if I coughed and asked a few other questions,” the man, who identified himself as Reza, said. “Then they said, ‘You can go.'”
‘Recipe for a Massive Viral Outbreak’: Iran Emerges as a Worldwide Threat
David D. Kirkpatrick, Farnaz Fasshiki and Mujib Mashal, NY Times
Experts worry that few Middle Eastern countries are ready to respond effectively to the threat posed by the virus.
“How ready are these countries?” asked Dr. Montaser Bilbisi, an American-trained infectious disease specialist practicing in Amman, Jordan. “In all honesty, I have not seen the level of readiness that I have seen in China or elsewhere, and even some of the personal protective equipment is lacking.”
In Jordan, for example, he said that he had not yet seen a fully protective hazardous materials suit. “So health care workers would be at very high risk for infection.”
In Afghanistan, officials said the first confirmed case of the virus was a 35-year-old man from the western province of Herat who had recently traveled to Qom. Health officials declared a state of emergency in Herat. The government on Sunday had already suspended all air and ground travel to and from Iran.
But the border is difficult to seal. Thousands cross every week for religious pilgrimages, trade, jobs and study — about 30,000 in January alone, the International Organization of Migration, an intergovernmental agency, reported.
“In the past two weeks, more than a 1,000 people have visited or traveled to Qom from Herat, which means they come into closer contact with the virus,” the Afghan heath minister, Ferozuddin Feroz, said on Monday at a news conference in Kabul.
In July many many thousands of Iranians along with Muslims from every corner of the globe would normally undertake the Islamic Haj pilgrimage to Mecca for a couple of weeks and swirl around the Kaaba packed in like sardines. Will they cancel it, wear face masks? I doubt it. Then those approximately three million people will hop on planes and head home – to wherever that is.
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All the world is travelling Matty. And so is the Corona virus.
This from the Thai medical site:
Many British epidemiologist are now speculating that the new coronavirus is not going anywhere soon but instead could be still wreaking havoc globally for the next 15 months or even longer, with even a renewed vigor.
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/warning-as-coronavirus-spreads-worldwide,-it-is-evolving-and-new-anomalies-being-reported–british-epidemiologist-are-predicting-that-coronavirus-coul
One can only hope that Western governments will act with a little more caution than appears to be the case with the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) guidance.
60
Nearly 100,000 Iranians will make the pilgrimage !!
60
Sam
There is already talk of delaying or cancelling the Tokyo Olympics. Closer to home (for me) is the
jamboree known as COP26 when 30000 are expected in Glasgow from all countries, but predominantly from under developed nations
with possibly lower medical standards.
As a precautionary measure, given what British epidemiologists are saying, should not COP26 be cancelled?
After all climatologists are very keen on the precautionary principle and would it not be awful if one of the
stars of this event, 93 yar old Attenborough, succumbed to a virus that preferentially eliminates the elderly.
110
Good idea. We can’t have Covid-19 coming to Glasgow in the name of virtue signalling climate saviours.
20
Why does Iran need a nuclear program
Just have unlimited travel to the west during this crisis
110
Would the ayatollahs really hide it until it had reached biblical proportions?
50
Would they regard it as the wrath of their god ?
40
No, but they might like to portray it as such if they were able to fit it in a rocket and deliver to Tell Aviv.
40
They can just walk it in.
00
.
Because the Shia of Iran are eschatologists – they believe in a final armageddon.
They believe that Ali, the Mahdi, the last descendant of Muhummad, has been hiding down a well in Iran for the last 1,100 years (since 872). And he can only come out of the well after a cataclysmic world war in which there are vast explosions in the sky and all of lsrael is destroyed.
Many Shia, including former President lmadinnerjacket, viewed this ancient prophesy as lsrael being destroyed by nuclear weapons. Only then will the Mahdi emerge from the well and lead shia lslam to dominate the whole world. That is why lmadinnerjacket viewed the development of nuclear weapons as being of the highest priority, and their deployment on lsrael as the greatest imperative.
They WANT the world to end – that is why they are so dangerous, and can never be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
Ralph
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Even if all flights are grounded, there are other ways to get around.
‘The Silk Road then runs southwest from Central Asia to northern Iran before swinging west through Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. From Istanbul, the Silk Road crosses the Bosporus Strait and heads northwest through Europe, including Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Germany.
‘Reaching Duisburg in Germany, it swings north to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. From Rotterdam, the path runs south to Venice, Italy — where it meets up with the equally ambitious Maritime Silk Road.
The Diplomat
60
Just check the passport stamps…
90
How would that work on the borders of the US? And Germnany? And all those other nations that have lots of immigrants wondering in who are not screened for really communicable diseases, much less a stealth virus.
In the US, even if there are plans to quarantine folks, the US Federal Court System has enjoined the US Government from locating travelers in designated quarantine areas.
50
Simple solutiiom : put the judges in quarantine !
Problem solved !
30
Isn’t there an even more ambitious airborne silk road?
20
One belt, one road, one virus
They never mentioned the last part >.<
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24 Feb: Investor’sBusinessDaily: Moderna Stock Rockets As Biotech Plans To Test Coronavirus Vaccine
by ALLISON GATLIN
Moderna (MRNA) shipped the first batch of an experimental coronavirus vaccine to the U.S. government on Monday — sending MRNA stock rocketing in after-hours action.
In preparation for a clinical test, Moderna sent hundreds of coronavirus vaccine vials to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Maryland, according to the Wall Street Journal. The institute is planning to test the drug in 20-25 healthy volunteers by the end of April.
The institute is hoping two shots of the experimental drug will ward off the new coronavirus, called Covid-19…
In after-hours trading on the stock market today, MRNA stock rocketed nearly 16% to 21.50. During the regular session, shares of Gilead Sciences (GILD) jumped after a World Health Organization official said Gilead’s coronavirus treatment could be the best candidate…READ ON
https://www.investors.com/news/technology/mrna-stock-rockets-plans-test-coronavirus-vaccine/
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this is possible.
00
It maybe probable.
00
The oil producing countries in the middle east (Saudi, Qatar, UAE etc.)have big camps to accommodate the workers, largely from the subcontinent, who do most of the unskilled and semi skilled work in these countries. They sleep 4 to a room! When (not if)the coronavirus starts infecting these camps, the outcome could be horrific.
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Well we can’t afford to offend a Muslim nation by denying their right to travel here (only other Muslim nations are allowed to do that)
00
establishment politicians are too busy virtue signaling about Bettina Arndt to worry about an emerging public health crisis.
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My email to Tim Smith MP (member for Kew in the Victorian Legislative Assembly).
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The power of Indonesian Prayer remains strong!
30
Dr John Campbell referred to medics in Iran to whom he had spoken – he kept their names anonymous for obvious reasons. The quote was of “death by the hour”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C-NpadSNuA
Check from the 07:13 mark for Iran.
40
Major stuff up in South Korea !
Total diagnosed infected 977
Deaths 11
New Cases today 144
Critical 23
And suspected infected now over 300,000 people.
Our Commonwealth government needs urgently to suspend all entries to Australia of people from South Korea.
Ditto for Iran.
Ditto for Italy
The only way to stop this disease is to suspend international travel fom countries where the disease is present.
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/south-korea-coronavirus-epidemic-situation-gravely-serious,-3-new-deaths,-144-new-cases-total-deaths-now-11,-infected-977,-critical-23,-suspected-cas
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Isn’t ‘suspected infected’ a bit of a stretch for all those awaiting testing that might have cross paths with known cases?
20
I think we understand that Eddie. Just a matter of semantics.
20
OK Ta. Like whether we are in a pandemic or not.
00
One of the real problems with this pandemic disease is the natural human
Response to a crisis :
SEEK REFUGE ELSEWHERE !
People fear the disease and so seek to escape it by going elsewhere.
And in the process take the disease with them ,
Carried by those who have the virus with no symptoms.
Applying that to Australia’s unique circumstances
I wonder if we will see a big increase in applications for visas
Student visas, Tourist visas business visas, business visas, partner visas
And even asylum seeker visas.
From persons in countries where the virus is already established
Or nearby countries.
There are two alternative policies if we face this situation
1: Ban all entrants for a period
2: Require all persons from such countries to live a period in quarantine isolation for 14 days at a designated quarantine facility.
20
Where is there any optimism? My post is to report on this theme, because it will surprise many that there are several sources. Joanne has rightly cited Singapore as a singular bright spot in the looming horror of Covid19 viral spread. Four days of declining new case/hospitalized ratios, for instance. Furthermore, Singapore, I believe also employs rewards (or “carrots”) to encourage people to come forwards, get tested EARLY and get treated! So far, do good?
Are there any other bright spots? I think the head of WHO rightly said that the window to prevent pandemic was closing, and this week and possible next are the critical days.
Again, Joanne has cited Trump for leading on protecting borders by stopping flights from China. Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton attended a US Senate briefing this morning after Trump’s press conference with PM Modi in India.
Senator Cotton praised Trump for these actions, stopping 20,000 people a day from entering the US, limiting the risk of some 1500 people landing in New York directly from Wuhan in January.
Cotten, on Fox News Channel, went on to say there are additional reasons for optimism in the fight against this deadly disease. First, Trump helped buy time. Second, between Trump and Congress, $2.5 billion in fund are going behind the two pronged effort. First, fast tracking vaccine development, building on the science to do this for MERS and SARS disease threats. And Second, some 500 people have been tested and screened for the virus. And 50 cases (including Cruise Ship infections returned from Japan) have been found, and with Singapore, close to zero deaths.Monies to expand virus tasing are critical frontline tools to keep it from becoming epidemic in North America.
Elsewhere, I have read that the US has quietly set up a sentinel system in the 50 largest cities. These are hospitals set up to conduct Covid19 testing and identify outbreaks early.
Now if all the above is true and competently pursued and emulated, and iff production of antivirals – the only bright spot identified out of Chinese data in a recent Lancet paper – is ramped up, then the “closing window” WHO warns us about may be widening during these critical days and weeks of this health crisis.
50
Unfortunately Jo has been quite alarmist about this. Australia had 15 cases all recovered because we have a first world health system and IT’S SUMMER. Singapore has done fine BECAUSE ITS TROPICAL it’s HOT there, as is Indonesia. The CDC says corona virus cant survive longer than a few minutes outside the body in a hot environment. Survival at 3C is much longer.
This disease will subside in the NH over the NH summer just like SARS did but we will have to be careful over our winter not to create a infective pool to carry this over to the next NH winter. It’s fortunate that Australia isn’t really cold (sub-zero) over winter except perhaps in Canberra and we have year round hot tropical regions in which to do quarantine.
Let’s not panic, yet anyway
21
Bob I too am hopeful that this virus cannot survive in warm parts of the earth.
Hopeful !
But it is NOT alarmist of Jo to post about a new pandemic disease
Which we have no immunity to.
Which there is no vaccine for.
Which behaves in ways which we do not yet understand,
Which has killed ~ 50,000 people in China alone if the cremation rates are accurate,
And which has spread to a number of other countries such as Iran, Italy, South Korea is a rapid and completely unpredicted way.
Thinking about these facts I think your comment is an insult to Jo.
I suggest an apology is needed by you !
00
“HOW THE CORONA VIRUS MIGHT SPREAD,” a visualisation of vectors via air travel, appeared at fortune.com. Dirk Brockmann at Humboldt University in Berlin is the source cited. Paris is the most important node in Europe. But, unfortunately for our friends Down Under, Australia is unlabelled and buried among red disks in Asian and Ocean. Perhaps someone will query the source and share here?
https://fortune.com/longform/how-coronavirus-spread-map/
10
Interesting way of looking at it. France is reporting only 12 cases though which have all been resolved and weren’t they mostly from the Brighton ‘Superspreader’in the Alpine resort Les Contamines Mont Joie?
00
Back in the UK: if you don’t look for it you won’t find it! A friend’s daughter works in a big City office where the entire staff were given their annual flu shots in autumn yet they all came down with flu’y symptoms, some lasting weeks. Several requested Sars-covid testing but as no one had travelled to China recently this was declined, that they shared the office block with the headquarters of a Chinese megafirm was dismissed as irrelevant.
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You can be sure there are thousands of people doing the exact same speculation as you are. Oh for cheap testing?! But it is winter (in the North) and there must be all the usual flu’s.
The vaccine is only ever partial effective — different strains and all. If there were wild nCOv-19 on the loose surely we would see a rise in pnumonia cases? Can anyone find weekly stats on pnumonia cases?
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The US has seen an increase in pneumonia cases during this typical flu season.
https://www.contagionlive.com/news/us-flu-cases-increased-by-4-million-over-the-last-week
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PULL QUOTE for my last post: “The modern transportation network is how infectious diseases get to faraway places,” says Dirk Brockmann, a German physicist and professor at the Institute for Theoretical Biology at Humboldt University of Berlin, who specializes in complex systems.
https://fortune.com/longform/how-coronavirus-spread-map/
20
Radio Free Europe is an Anglo-Saxon propaganda outlet. Every opportunity to damage Iran will be taken.
01
I just listened an ABC report on Corvid19. A health spokesperson was playing it all down. The reason, well the disease is not really that serious, except perhaps for a small % of the population who will succumb to the virus and die. That is of course the elderly. Good way to prune the world population perhaps . . .
GeoffW
70
Comment take two.
There are certain religions around the world that belive in fatalism ergo if a virus sweeps over their country and they live or die then that is the will of a deity.
Why bother with quarantine with this outlook on life.
(Jo sorry about previous comment did not think any lines were crossed i hope this comment is vague enough, but not too vague to have no meaning)
70
Millenarianism is a major theme that runs through the entire gamut of classical Christian and Islamic civilisations.
20
Most religions have this as a core belief .
30
I think you only have a vague understanding of what this means ElGordo. Most members of the public get their view of this from some sect or Hollywood. Neither a particularly reliable or accurate source.
10
Its off topic so I’ll confine myself to a few key words: Revelations, Taiping Rebellion and Cargo Cult.
00
This is because prior to modern medicine you had to be fatalistic about disease – most people died. Of course all religions adopted this fatalistic view in order to comfort their flock in times of need.
50
Which did not stop many of those same religions
opposing modern medical based treatment of many medical conditions.
00
The ABC are reporting that Irans deputy health minister has just been tested positive for the virus .
30
‘European countries have upped their coronavirus preparations as a further four elderly Northern Italians died overnight and confirmed cases of the virus have now been detected in Croatia, Austria and Switzerland.
‘In Iran, the deputy health minister Iraj Harirchi tested positive for coronavirus, hours after he appeared on television wiping away sweat and coughing, to insist the Iranian government had the outbreak under control. Another Iranian parliamentarian, Mahmoud Sadeghi, is also suffering from the virus and said on Twitter: “My corona test is positive … I don’t have a lot of hope of continuing life in this world.’’
Oz
40
I trust that people here are aware that a pneumonia vaccine is available?
My GP recommended it to me in 2019 when I was also given the influenza vaccination which I agree to have not every year, but last year my GP strongly recommended it.
20
I like this article from WUWT it makes more sense than the media panic merchants. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/25/blockbuster-news-from-china-about-covid-19/
10
Sorry George; it lost me at the point that TDS reared its ugly head. Also, do remember that the WHO didn’t see any reason to reduce international travel; now we see cases of the coronavirus all over the place. I don’t trust the WHO one little bit.
80
True Annie. I suspect the reduction in reported cases in China is due to their recent change back to only reporting cases confirmed by lab test rather than clinical diagnosis. With 50 million odd people in lockdown quarantine and hundreds of millions subject to movement restrictions it is hard to see how they can provide enough test kits or analyse the same. Like all UN instrumentalities the WHO is controlled by corrupt individuals from nations where saving face or doing the bidding of the nation that owns your countries debt (aka China) has priority.
50
Confucius say man who not have test not have test result.
20
Worth a look in my opinion. Global implications of the CCP’s cover up.
https://youtu.be/QlF0LcQO9Tg
10
Thanks for posting, definitely worth the time to put the wider situation in perspective. The implications of the now unavoidable “social separation” (a managed quarantine of billions) will be with us for years.
20
00
00
Courtesy of E M Smith at Chiefio:
“Worldometers.info has things still climbing:
S. Korea 1,146
Diamond Princess 691
Italy 323
Japan 161
So S. Korea breaks a thousand and Italy is 1/3 of the way there.”
00
Now that we are all in thrall to pandemic hype and obfuscation is a real agenda about to be revealed?
01
Trump’s Corona Virus Team’s 4 point plan:
Tucker Carson at Fox News Channel spends 3 minutes with economist Peter Navarro who sits on President Trump’s Corona virus crisis team. He outlines 4 ambitious steps in the plan to deal with the killer virus, and step two includes 3 treatment innovations of antivirals and monoclonal antibodies to boost immune systems. This is needed, comprehensive, and Navarro says to be completed in “Trump time.” While I doubt the likelihood of the last, this really is The Manhattan style project that this emergency calls for.
Special abbreviations: RFP=formal government purchase contract from the market. HHS= Cabinet level department of Health and Human Services.
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6135954780001
This TV segment is mislabeled as virus prevention. Really, it is all about protection of human lives after that killer virus is in the USA.
01
Some may not grasp “The Manhattan Project” reference to my last post, especially the young reader. It was the secret code name of the project to built the first atomic bomb. In 1939, Albert Einstein warned President Roosevelt that the Germans were developing such a new weapon. By 1942, the Project was launched. Some 6,000 scientists and engineers, 130,000 people, and over 37 facilities were involved.
My vague recollection is that one-third of US GDP, or one-third of US electricity, or another unimaginably large figure has been cited to explain how immense the mission was and all the war resources it consumed.
Anyway, while a paltry $2.5 billion dollars public health effort (currently scheduled) is very small to compared to that. But add in state and local resources and soon enough private medical resources…and the label might not be too far off. Such comparisons with government led maximum efforts at protection and defense of the nation to The Manhattan Project have been made, perhaps, every generation since World War II.
00
Meanwhile the ABC is propagating propaganda
An excellent example is this ‘Analysis” by an ABC reporter
Who is taking his wife & 2 small kids to Italy in March for a holiday !
No doubt when caught up in the quarantine
He will be whining to be rescued at public expense by the Australian government !
Bloody dumbnut !
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-26/coronavirus-covid-19-travelling-to-italy-with-small-children/12001516
00
A VERY good read here:
Logistical and technical analysis of the nCov-19 origins
00
In Singapore there is some good news !
Singapore has developed a new serological test to establish links between cases. The test can detect antibodies in blood samples for contact tracing and establishing links between cases.
One of the medical tools needed to get a grip on this disease !
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3052311/coronavirus-singapore-bans-visitors-south-korean
00
What has been suspected for while:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/leaked-documents-reveal-chinas-shandong-province-faked-coronavirus-infection-data-real-numbers-up-to-52-times-higher_3251354.html
00
Mortality of closed cases outside China :
2.86%
3.14%
3.85%
4.85%
5.98%
7.43%
9.51%
13.19%
13.83%
15.47%
TheEpochTimes.com today claim to have internal Chinese documents showing under reporting officially up to 50 times.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/leaked-documents-reveal-chinas-shandong-province-faked-coronavirus-infection-data-real-numbers-up-to-52-times-higher_3251354.html
New cases per day after Feb 18th outside China :
134
117
125
250
314
379
275
268
564
I now also save numbers per country.
00
Come on, everyone knows RFE/RL is a propaganda tool.
It bears to wonder why Iran and Italy are hit hard beyond China.
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
China? What a coincidence, right on time.
Iran what a coincidence!
Italy? Is it payback for Salvini’s unruly behavior?
00