Off-Topic Discussion > General Discussion
Coronavirus Outbreak
perihelion:
My only (known) experience with coronavirus is in the feline infectious form. For the most part, it is an annoying but harmless but that tends to give cats the runs. Unless finds an immunocompromised host, such as one that had a previously undiagnosed case of FIV. In that case, it doesn't get fought off effectively by the immune system, it just sticks around in the lower GI tract doing what viruses do: making bad copies of itself. Eventually one of those bad copies happens to be a version that can cross the epithelial lining in the peritoneum. Once the peritonitis starts, there is no way to stop it. It is currently always fatal. After two weeks of feeding him via a feeding tube and watching this once lively and happy creature struggling to find any way to lay down that didn't hurt... putting him down was one of the hardest things I've ever done.
George was only 4 or 5 years old. We'd only had him for 2 of those years. We were looking for a hard-luck case from the local animal shelter, an older cat since those so seldom get adopted. He was a sweet, very very affectionate boy. He must have had the FIV that made him vulnerable when we adopted him, and some how he gave a false negative when he was tested.
As far as I know, human coronavirus has no such tendencies to mutate into something lethal that can cross into the peritoneum. I've done a superficial search of the online literature, and I haven't found anything yet. Feline coronavirus and human corona virus are not the same thing, they just have a lot in common. For the most part, I expect it is just going to give people upset bowels until their immune systems fight it off.
The E:
--- Quote from: perihelion on January 26, 2020, 08:23:01 pm ---For the most part, I expect it is just going to give people upset bowels until their immune systems fight it off.
--- End quote ---
It's quite a bit more serious than that though. This particular bug has an incubation period of 11 days or so and is infectious during it, meaning that people carrying it will infect others during that time. That makes it extraordinarily difficult to control the spread of the infection; if the chinese quarantine measures seem harsh, it's because anything less than that can't work.
Also, at this moment, there are around 2800 known infected people (i.e. people that actually show the symptoms), 80 of which have died. Care to guess how many more cases we'll see over the coming days, taking the above into account?
It's not the end of the world, no. After all, the disease is treatable. But to downplay its seriousness is a bad idea.
QuakeIV:
Related handy website to track how its progressing: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Colonol Dekker:
--- Quote from: karajorma on January 26, 2020, 02:03:43 am ---It's not really much worse than the flu. It's just that the world already has the flu. We don't need another one.
That said it's really weird cause I'm on holiday in Lijiang (China's number one tourist destination this time of year) and they've shut down the entire old town because of two cases.
--- End quote ---
I kept meaning to message you to check you're OK bud 👍
soilder198:
https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/30/who-declares-coronavirus-outbreak-a-global-health-emergency/
WHO updated its classification of the outbreak.
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