Coronavirus not yet pandemic according to World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said the coronavirus outbreak that has spread from China does not yet constitute a pandemic. Three more Asian countries – Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand – have confirmed infections among citizens who had not traveled to China. Officials say 425 people have died in China and one in Hong Kong. One death has also been confirmed in the Philippines. Among new developments, Taiwan said it would deny entry to all foreign nationals who have been to mainland China in the past 14 days. Macau, a special administrative region of China and one of Asia’s largest gambling hubs, announced it would temporarily close all casinos. Many nations continue to evacuate their citizens from affected areas of China. Top leadership in China admitted “shortcomings and deficiencies” in the country’s response to the outbreak. It also ordered a “severe” crackdown on illegal wildfire markets where the virus is thought to have originated. Read more here.
Coronavirus sparks more aggressive global response than flu due to uncertainty
The number of people infected with the new coronavirus is minimized by those affected by the far more common seasonal flu. There are more than 5 million severe flu cases worldwide each year and hundreds of thousands of deaths. However, a major factor in the vast global response to the coronavirus is the uncertainty surrounding the novel virus. Health officials don’t know how deadly this new virus is. Read more here.
Experts envision two scenarios if coronavirus isn’t contained
Researchers are asking what a world with endemic 2019-nCoV circulating in the human population will be like. They see two possibilities. One in which 2019-nCoV joins the four coronaviruses now circulating in people and it just becomes the fifth endemic human coronavirus. Little known outside of the healthcare and virology circles, the current four are part of the winter-spring seasonal landscape of respiratory disease. Two of them, OC43 and 229E, were discovered in the 1960s but had circulated in bats and cows for centuries. The others, HKU1 and NL63, were found after the SARS outbreak in 2003 and 2004, also after circulating in animals. A second scenario, and one more likely according to experts, is 2019-nCoV returns repeatedly like seasonal flu. The seasonal reflects the fact that viruses cannot tolerate the high heat and humidity, preferring the cool and dry conditions of winter and spring. If the new coronavirus follows suit, then containment efforts and the arrival of summer should drive the infections to near zero. Read more from this STAT article here.
Mask shortage could spread globally amid coronavirus fears
Chinese manufacturing is the source of most of the world’s masks and respirators. Now that the vast country is using more masks than ever before due to the coronavirus outbreak, fewer of them will likely be available to the countries that have been China’s regular customers, including the U.S. According to HHS, 95% of the surgical masks used in the U.S. and 70% of the respirators are made overseas, which leaves mask supply vulnerable to disruption if a pandemic sickens manufacturing workers and if a foreign government decides to keep its own stock at home. Demand for masks in China is enormous. Manufacturing has ramped up with factories making 20 million masks per day. However, the Chinese foreign ministry said masks and safety googles for doctors were running out within the country this week and it has issued an international appeal for more. Read more here.
The most important way to stop spread of coronavirus according to former WHO official
The “most important” way to stop the spread of China’s coronavirus is to wash your hands, according to the professor who headed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) global response to SARS. David Heymann, who led WHO’s infectious disease unit at the time of the SARS epidemic in 2002-2003, said at a Chatham House press briefing in London (England) this week, “if you touch a patient, if you shake hands, if you touch a door that has a droplet on it – which theoretically could happen – then you touch your face (or) your mouth and you become infected. So, handwashing is the most important. And second is, people who are suspected as being patients, be very careful when you are dealing with them. Avoid face-to-face contact and wash hands when you’re treating. It is very important that people understand that they can prevent themselves from being infected if they follow a few simple measures.” Read more here.
More coronavirus resources from The Journal of Healthcare Contracting:
- Day-by-day Timeline of major events
- FAQ/Insights – Helpful and relevant links to help you keep track of the ongoing epidemic