The Virus

                                        The Virus

A 53-year-old fitness trainer died on Wednesday after checking into a hospital in Wuhan a little more than a week earlier, said his niece. His family had expected the death certificate to reflect the deadly coronavirus because as his condition deteriorated, his doctors told his family he was suffering from an untreatable virus in his lungs.

Instead, it recorded “severe pneumonia” as the cause of death, she said. The relatives of two other people who died in separate hospitals in Wuhan this week also described similar situations, saying the causes of death had been given as “viral pneumonia.”

The relatives of all three said the deceased hadn’t been included in China’s official count of 41 deaths attributed to coronavirus.

The Beijing News, a newspaper, reported this week that many patients weren’t officially labeled as carrying the new virus, even though their doctors and nurses said they were.

So, it is going to be hard to get objective information here. That said....

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Dr. Dena Grayson is an M.D. and researcher who has years of training developing Ebola treatments. Unfortunately, she is also a politician. In 2016, she ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for the United States House of Representatives for Florida's 9th congressional district. With that caveat, here are some of her tweets about this coronavirus:

a. Having YEARS of experience developing an Ebola treatment, I was concerned about this Coronavirus Outbreak from the outset, because this coronavirus strain is very contagious, causes severe illness, and NO treatments or vaccines are available.

b. Unlike H5N1 "bird flu" (which does not spread easily between people) or SARS (which was spread by only a handful of "super spreaders"), this coronavirus DOES appear to spread easily between people, even after making the jump from an animal (this is not common).

c. In addition to being highly contagious, this novel coronavirus can cause a SEVERE infection that can kill even healthy people. It's rare to see BOTH of these (bad) attributes in the same novel virus. Usually, it's one or the other.

d. Per @CDCgov, "Early on, many of the patients in the outbreak in Wuhan, China reportedly had some link to a large seafood/animal market, suggesting animal-to-person spread." Now, many newly diagnosed patients have NO connection to the market, supporting human-human spread = BAD

e. Ominous signs. Forbidden City (major tourist attraction) is now closed, and tours in #Beijing are now canceled. I fear that #Beijing soon may be locked down, joining at least 11 of cities in #China with a collective 50+ million people