CoronaVirus 101
Since late Dec 2019, the Corona Virus gradually became an outbreak in Wuhan City as well as Hubei Province. Please note Wuhan is the capital city of Hubei province and has a population of 11 million. When the city is shutdown in Jan 23 (2 days before Chinese new year Jan 25), there was still 9 millon people in Wuhan. More than 2 million people left Wuhan and headed to other cities or towns, or villiages in Hubei province. The Virus has claimed almost 3,000 people's lives in China, again mostly in Wuhan / Hubei. There were about 80,000 confirmed cases, mostly in China, with the overseas outbreak seems more like a reality (Iran, Italy and South Korea).
The US, being the most advanced / powerful country and half way across the globe from China, had about 62 confirmed cases, but the recent worry is there is such thing called community based transmission (people cannot tell where they got virus).
I am not a doctor nor a scientist: but I am an engieer that is trained in Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST, incidentally based in Wuhan). HUST is considered as one of the best engineering colleges in China. I am pragmatic software engineer with about 20 years of engineering experience in the US. Reading the news on Corona Virus is not easy, as I still have family and friends in China including Wuhan. But we all learn more as time goes (as long as we like to learn from the experts).
Ways to prevent the infection Wash hands, avoid rub eyes, noses, and mouths. When coughing cover with elbow (not hand or not cough openly)
Avoid crowd, for example, concert, games, marathon races. Avoid close contact with people.
Avoid places that have a lot of people using the central air, a good example is the cruise ship.
Deadth rate The current overall death rate is about 2%, which is higher than the so called 0.1% deadth rate in the US. Both numbers can be skcrewed though. The 2% rate needs to be re-examined because the initial death rate in Wuhan / Hubei was high due to overwhelming of the healthcare facilities. So a lot people probably would have survived if they were in Zhejiang province (my hometown) between Jan 20 to Feb 10. The healthcare facilities and people issues are solved by the help from all over the country. Also it takes sometime for the doctor to come up with ways to treat or allieviate the symptoms.
Cure There is no known medicine. There is some experiment medicines, such as the HIV medicine or the Gilead new medicine. The more important part, seems to me, from watching a video of Wuhan hospital, is to have an uplifting spritit and listen to the doctor (good doctor :-)
So that did the doctor say: basically they told the patient to fight while be positive. The reporotory disease is usually painful, from my personal experience. The doctors and nurses tried to help the patient be positive, by talking to them, by encouraging them to use the device properly, or to partiipate some group activies.
Article
Responding to Covid-19 — A Once-in-a-Century Pandemic? (Bill Gates)
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2003762
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca (note the flatten curve, which is very much relevant as we have already seen what happened to Wuhan/Hubei, and Italy)
Stats
John Hopkins keeps a live map
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
And the website supports the map is here
https://systems.jhu.edu/research/public-health/ncov/
Another good visualization of world wide infection
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR2rVxjcDWpcP01QKxQ2-uDGZJkZ2T_mUvC6ixBTNcYrOx3BQTUkIQgPP_Q
Also wiki China stats (in Chinese) https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E5%86%A0%E7%8B%80%E7%97%85%E6%AF%92%E7%97%85%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E5%A4%A7%E9%99%B8%E7%97%85%E4%BE%8B
qq in Chinese, has both China and global data
https://news.qq.com/zt2020/page/feiyan.htm#/global
https://www.coronainusa.com/?from=timeline&isappinstalled=0
The Virus Will Win
Americans are pretending that the pandemic is over. It certainly is not.
JUNE 12, 2020
Yascha Mounk
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/virus-will-win/612946/
Act now. Save lives.
https://covidactnow.org
(health center in the US, I think those are community health center) https://www.findahealthcenter.hrsa.gov
The Covid Tracking Project
https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1239657352673906688
https://covidtracking.com/data/
also
Covid 2019 Tests
https://twitter.com/COVID2019tests
(I was going to read up on the various tests, and to understand the shortage). I do understand in China a quick CT scan is readily available to confirm (CT scan is less accessible in the US, due to various reasons). See below.
https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1238604080571772928
nytimes https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
Spain https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/world/europe/spain-coronavirus-emergency.html (NYTimes)
There is also a very good visual that's available on Tencents News (needs WeChat or Tencents News app)
Videos
Chinese
Introduction to corona virus by paperclip in Chinese
https://www.bilibili.com/video/av86216616/
Conspiracy theory (from Taiwan)
http://t.cn/A67GD09G
source:
https://www.weibo.com/tv/v/4477007225094162?fid=1034:4477007225094162 (无心简影)
A person keeled down for the medical team leaving Wuhan
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/3_hFvTZZQpaaKyV_brMX-Q
English
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UubQNkK0wy0
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/with-the-coronavirus-pay-attention-to-the-basics
I am also aware of a Stanford video (I will put up the link if I find them, it's a zoom meeting video)
Interesting Read
https://www.morozkoforge.com/post/the-curve-is-already-flat
more info around testing
https://www.wired.com/story/everything-you-need-to-know-about-coronavirus-testing/
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/testing-in-us.html
https://www.sciencealert.com/how-does-the-coronavirus-test-work
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing-source-data
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/16/cdc-who-coronavirus-tests/
Origin of the virus
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2022/origins-of-sars-cov-2
NPR事实核查：中国国产新冠疫苗有效性究竟如何？ https://www.npr.org/2023/01/06/1146914365/npr?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social (there is a lot of misconception on the efficacy of China vaccines, it seems their capability to prevent sickness is similar to the western vaccines, per the Hong Kong study)
About me
Some more background: please note I am not a medical doctor, but I am a trained engineer and believe in science. I believe people like Bill Gates are making a difference in the access to healthcare esp. vaccine in the developing countries (or poor countries). Born and raised in China in 1970s, the economy of China is a bit like Cuba at the time, but we all got free vaccine from the village doctor(s). All of them are my mom's friends (my mom was like the leading lady in the village, someday I can explain more). The doctors will chase me to give me the vaccine shots before I attended the elementary school. I stopped running after I started the elementary school, as I was the class president and had to lead by example (no tears or cry)...