See also: SARS-CoV-2

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The disease was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, the capital of China's Hubei province, and has since spread globally, resulting in the ongoing 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic.

Quotes

Disease characteristics

  • I say "possibly" (for the SARS-CoV-2 to more dangerous to humans than the other coronaviruses) because so far, not only do we not know how dangerous it is, we can't know. Outbreaks of new viral diseases are like the steel balls in a pinball machine: You can slap your flippers at them, rock the machine on its legs and bonk the balls to the jittery rings, but where they end up dropping depends on 11 levels of chance as well as on anything you do. This is true with coronaviruses in particular: They mutate often while they replicate, and can evolve as quickly as a nightmare ghoul.
  • It's still unclear whether that takes place (that COVID-19 can spread before people show sings of being infected). But if it does, that might explain why the disease is spreading so quickly.
  • China must have realized the epidemic did not originate in that Wuhan Huanan seafood market. The presumed rapid spread of the (COVID-19) virus apparently for the first time from the Huanan seafood market in December (2019) did not occur. Instead, the virus was already silently spreading in Wuhan, hidden amid many other patients with pneumonia at this time of year. The virus came into that marketplace before it came out of that marketplace.

Evacuations from and travel restrictions within Mainland China

Virus containment and fighting efforts

  • When the UN security council and the G7 group sought to agree a global response to the coronavirus pandemic, the efforts stumbled on the US insistence on describing the threat as distinctively Chinese... the focus on labelling the virus Chinese and blaming China pursued by the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, helped ensure there would be no meaningful collective response from the world’s most powerful nations.
  • The President wanted to make sure that we had the people doing the best jobs, and making sure that we had the right people focused on all the things that needed to happen to make sure that we can deliver in these unusual times for the American people. The President also instructed me to make sure that I break down every barrier needed to make sure that the teams can succeed. This is an effort where the government is doing things that the government doesn’t normally do, where we are stretching, we’re acting very quickly. And the President wants to make sure that the White House is fully behind the different people running the different lines of effort to make sure that we get everything done in a speed that the President demands. The President also wanted us to make sure we think outside the box, make sure we’re finding all the best thinkers in the country, making sure we’re getting all the best ideas, and that we’re doing everything possible to make sure that we can keep Americans safe, and make sure we bring a quick end to this in the best way possible, and balance all the different aspects that need to be thought of while we do this. This truly is a historic challenge. We have not seen something like this in a very, very long time. But I am very confident that, by bringing innovative solutions to these hard problems, we will make progress.
  • The President has been very, very hands on in this. He’s really instructed us to leave no stone unturned. Just this morning — very early this morning — I got a call from the President. He told me he was hearing from friends of his in New York that the New York public hospital system was running low on critical supply. He instructed me this morning. I called Dr. Katz, who runs the system, asked him which supply was the most supply he was nervous about. He told me it was the N95 masks. I asked what his daily burn was. And I basically got that number, called up Admiral Polowczyk, made sure we had the inventory. We went to the President today, and earlier today,the President called Mayor de Blasio to inform him that we were going to send a month of supply to the New York public hospital system, to make sure that the workers on the frontline can rest assured that they have the N95 masks that they need to get through the next month. We’ll be doing similar things with all the different public hospitals that are in the hotspot zones and making sure that we’re constantly in communications with the local communities.
  • One thing I will say, just based on data, is that we’ve been getting a lot of data from different governors and from different mayors and from different cities. One thing I’ve seen FEMA do very, very well, over the last week or so, is now we’re getting real-time data from a lot of cities. People who have requests for different products and supplies, a lot of them are doing it based on projections, which are not the realistic projections. The projections change every day as we see the cases, as we see the impacts of the “stop the spread” effort that this task force recommended and the President has been pushing forward. So I do think that we’ll see that. Hopefully, there’ll be impact of that. And the task force has been working very hard, through the FEMA group, with Admiral Polowczyk to make sure that we’re getting the supplies to people before they run out, and making sure that we’re doing it in a proper way.
  • And what they’ve done over the last 13 days has been really extraordinary. We’ve done things that the government has never done before, quicker than they’ve ever done it before. And what we’re seeing now is we found a lot of supplies in the country. We’ve been distributing them where we anticipate there will be needs, and also trying to make sure that we’re hitting places where there are needs. So I can tell you the people on the — in the task force, they’re working day and night. You’ve got a lot of people in the government. We recognize the challenge that America faces right now. We know what a lot of the people on the frontlines are facing, the fear that they have that they won’t have the supplies they need. And our goal is to work as hard as we can to make sure that we don’t let them down.
  • At the time of the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) virus outbreak (in 2002-2003), we (Government of Macau) also did not prohibit the entry of people from Hong Kong and we refused to think of establishing a quota for entries from the neighboring Special Administrative Region for the time being (due to COVID-19 outbreak).
  • The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!
  • World Health Organization — because they really are — they called it wrong. They called it wrong. They really — they missed the call. They could have called it months earlier. They would have known, and they should have known. And they probably did know, so we'll be looking into that very carefully. And we're going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO. [When asked later in the same press briefing if freezing money to the WHO during a pandemic was a good idea he replied, "No, maybe not. I mean, I'm not saying I'm going to do it, but we're going to look at it."]
  • We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors.
  • From the perspective of continued understanding of the (COVID-19) situation, it is only at this time that everyone realizes it is so dangerous. If we (the Government of Wuhan) knew at first from the virus spread that it would be so serious, finding effective control and prevention methods of course would be good, but the problem is usually we cannot realize the severity from the outset.
  • We (Centers for Disease Control) are warning that anyone who refuses to cooperate with our quarantine officers or is disrespectful toward them (for the examination of COVID-19) will be strictly punished according to the law. Disease prevention is not a game, so we will impose the heaviest punishment for obstructing public officers in discharging their duties.
  • Those (anyone who returns from Wuhan being isolated for 14 days with all necessary medical attention) are the sorts of measures that will protect countries from the introduction of the (COVID-19) virus and onward transmission. There's always a balance between the draconian measures of public health and what people might want to do, and obviously it's regrettable if people who turn out not to have the virus are quarantined unnecessarily.
  • The public has criticised us (Wuhan government) a lot ... why? It was because some of our work was not done well. What have we not done well? At present, the contradiction between supply and demand of hospital beds has remained conspicuous. Honestly, we are in pain and feel regrettable that a lot of the patients who have been confirmed infected or were suspected to have contracted the (COVID-19) coronavirus were unable to receive proper treatment at hospitals. This problem definitely has remained unresolved.
  • My administration has done a job on really working across government and with the private sector, and it’s been incredible. It’s a beautiful thing to watch, I have to say. Unfortunately, the end result of the group we’re fighting — which are hundreds of billions and trillions of germs, or whatever you want to call them — they are bad news. This virus is bad news and it moves quickly, and it spreads as easily as anything anyone has ever seen.

Virus-infected patients

  • From observations, the (COVID-19) virus is capable of transmission even during incubation period. Some patients have normal temperatures and there are many milder cases. There are hidden carriers. There are signs showing the virus is becoming more transmissible. These walking "contagious agents" (hidden carriers) make controlling the outbreak a lot more difficult.
  • Fatality rate of the 2019-CoV infection is relatively low, at slightly more than three percent, suggesting the possibility that those who died could have other predispositions. Most (of the patients) would fully recover.
  • In six months, it's impossible to produce a vaccine against the (COVID-19) coronavirus. It takes a year to develop a vaccine. As for Thailand, we have no staff, no people who are experts in this field. But we expect that China will be able to develop a vaccine within one year. The best we can do is to treat patients based on their symptoms and diagnosis, and develop examination methods which are rapid and accurate.
  • One thing about this (COVID-19) that's somewhat unprecedented is the speed at which new data is coming out and becoming available for mass consumption. In that article, there's not a lot of detail about when the initial patient returning to China became symptomatic. It's really hard to tell. People don't always accurately report. That's not on purpose or anything, but people aren't so self-aware that they're going to notice a single sneeze, or every little cough, or clearing their throat, or their nose is running and they think it's allergies. There are a lot of reasons why people might not necessarily recognize that they are symptomatic when they actually are.
  • We need to get a better idea of how many people are discharged from hospital and a better understanding of how many mild cases have been missed (from this COVID-19), while we focused on more severe disease (until this moment (3 February 2020)). When we find that out will depend on China giving us more details, because that's where most cases are, and so far, a decent number of cases outside of China have not seemed as severe.
  • Take a look at the death toll now (as of 5 February 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak), there are almost no children. A nine-month-old baby is the youngest known patient, and the baby's still alive. The youngest patients who died are about 30 years old. Most of them have congenital diseases, such as brain disorders, heart diseases, lung diseases, diabetes or cancer. There are patients who are over 80 years old. At first, more than half of them were over 80 years old. Many cases are 89. If you ask me, some 89-year-old people happen to fall and die. So, don't panic about the number of fatalities. A majority of them have congenital diseases, pneumonia or influenza. Their depth of breathing is lower than normal, and there's a possibility that they want to eliminate excess phlegm. This can pose a life-threatening risk. Most fatalities are not young people. There's not much difference from the common influenza. If people who are 89 or 90 years old have influenza, that's not good.

Effects of the virus outbreak

See also: 2020 stock market crash and Strikes during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic
  • We (Government of Macau) don't know if this is the peak of the (COVID-19) disease. I think it could be only after Lunar New Year (CNY) because now people are moving a lot. If there is contagion it is now, during these travels, but maybe the most critical time could be registered after the CNY. That's why we took the hard decision to cancel CNY festivities, to prevent further aggravation of the disease.
  • The impact on the (China's) economy (by this COVID-19 outbreak) is gaining weight, especially on transport, tourism, hotels, catering and entertainment. But, the impact will be temporary and will not change the positive foundation of China's economy. Many have tried to estimate the impact (of this COVID-19 outbreak) based on the impact of SARS in 2003, but China's economic power and ability to handle such an outbreak is significantly stronger than in those days.
  • There is (currently) indeed a shortage of surgical masks (in New Taipei due to COVID-19 outbreak). There is a lack of transparency on information about mask manufacturers and distribution. The (Republic of China) central government should clearly tell people how many masks each person can purchase.

Individual virus prevention efforts

  • I don't think there's any need to panic (because of the COVID-19 pandemic). We manage these things the same as we manage influenza. The sensible thing (to do) at this point is to increase awareness of what is going on overseas. We can't treat the (COVID-19) virus at the present time, so what we can do is use simple personal protection and public health interventions ... should it enter New Zealand.
  • No human-to-human transmission of the (COVID-19) novel coronavirus has been reported in the country (Malaysia, as of 2 February 2020), and thus there is no need for the public to panic and start wearing masks. However, those with such symptoms, must wear the masks to prevent infecting others, as it is also the influenza season. What is more important is to keep on washing hands properly using soap.
  • The confirmed local (COVID-19 infection) cases (in Taiwan so far as of 5 February 2020) are mostly people who were infected overseas before returning to Taiwan and the only two indigenous cases are people who were infected by other members of their household. Therefore, the (Central Epidemic Command) center does not recommend foreign nationals traveling in Taiwan wear masks, but they can prepare masks and bring them on their own if they are concerned.

International encouragement

  • And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.
    And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.
    And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.”
  • There are two ways this could go. We could, as some people have done, double down on denial. Some of those who have dismissed other threats, such as climate breakdown, also seek to downplay the threat of Covid-19... Or this could be the moment when we begin to see ourselves, once more, as governed by biology and physics, and dependent on a habitable planet. Never again should we listen to the liars and the deniers. Never again should we allow a comforting falsehood to trounce a painful truth. No longer can we afford to be dominated by those who put money ahead of life.
  • The Coronavirus is serious enough but it's worth recalling that there is a much greater horror approaching, we are racing to the edge of disaster, far worse than anything that's ever happened in human history... the corona virus is a horrible... can have terrifying consequences but there will be recovery, while the others won't be recovered... If we don't deal with them we're done.
  • The w:queen of England ... "this time is different this time we join all nations in a vcommon endeavour"...[1]

Lockdowns /self-isolation

Number of deaths

  • President Trump: .."think of the number 2.2 million people"..."when I heard that I felt even better about what we did last week with the 2.2 trillion dollars"..."so we are talking about 2.2 million people"... "if we can hold that down to 100 thousand".. "between 100 thousand and 200 thousand then we all would have done a good job"..."2.2 million deaths"...[2]
  • President Trump (solemn): "There will be a lot of deaths unfortunately, but a lot less deaths"...[3]

Availability of ventilators/respirators

See also

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