I found this to be a very well written article about the likelihood of this becoming a pandemic, about moving on from containment to decreasing transmission and pushing for more preparedness. Included in the article was a link to The Singapore Ministry of Health's FAQ which I do agree they did a good job on explaining to the public about the virus and use of face masks and more.



https://virologydownunder.com/past-time ... epare-now/

https://www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/faqs

This was another article that referenced a lot of different graphs and quotes in his article that went well. I do agree with Helen Branswell that the virus could actually have a lower fatality rate as mild symptoms and asymptomatic individuals probably have not been diagnosed. As the times I had the flu unless I needed a Doctor's note I just stayed home rested and self medicated as there is very little a doctor can do unless you catch it early and I never catch it early

https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/23/what- ... -hits/amp/

On the brink of a pandemic, but hay hoe there isn't any virus here !!!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/heal ... 53906.html



Every cloud has a silver ( Well Gold ) lining,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/24/gold-ma ... focus.html

Coronavirus: Iran denies cover-up as seven deaths reported in Italy
Tehran rejects claim death toll is more than four times higher than official figures suggest
Sam Jones, Aamna Mohdin and agencies
Mon 24 Feb 2020 14.38 GMT

The Iranian government has denied trying to cover up the full extent of an outbreak of the coronavirus, as Italy reported a seventh death and officials across the Middle East and Europe scrambled to limit its spread.

On Monday, a lawmaker from Qom – a Shia holy city 75 miles (120 km) south of the capital, Tehran, accused Iran’s health minister of lying about the scale of the outbreak.

According to the semi-official Ilna news agency, which is close to reformists, the lawmaker, Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani, said there had been 50 deaths from the coronavirus in Qom alone.

“The rest of the media have not published this figure, but we prefer not to censor what concerns the coronavirus because people’s lives are in danger,” the Ilna editor Fatemeh Madiani told Agence France-Presse.

But the country’s deputy health minister rejected the report. In a news conference broadcast live on state television, Iraj Harirchi said 12 people had died from the coronavirus and 66 had been infected. “I categorically deny this information,” he said, adding: “This is not the time for political confrontations. The coronavirus is a national problem.”

Elsewhere in the Middle East on Monday, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq reported their first cases – all involving people who had come from Iran. In Italy, which has become the focal point of the outbreak in Europe, officials said 219 people had tested positive and the death toll was raised to seven.

Iran’s government pledged to be transparent about the outbreak. “We will announce any figures [we have] on the number of deaths throughout the country. We pledge to be transparent about the reporting of figures,” the spokesman Ali Rabiei said.

Iran has been scrambling to contain the Covid-19 outbreak since it announced the first two deaths in Qom on Wednesday last week. Since then, it has said 12 people have died from the virus among 61 infections.

Authorities have closed schools across much of the country for a second day, as neighbouring countries reported infections from travellers from Iran, prompting several to shut their borders to Iranian citizens.

The number of deaths compared with the number of confirmed infections from the virus is higher in Iran than in any other country, including China and South Korea, where the outbreak is far more widespread.

Iranian health officials have not said whether health workers in Qom who first came in contact with infected people had taken precautionary measures in treating those who died of the virus. Iran also has not said how many people are in quarantine across the country overall.

On Sunday, experts warned that the disease was outpacing attempts to contain it.

“The tipping point after which our ability to prevent a global pandemic ends seems a lot closer after the past 24 hours,” said Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia and an authority on the new coronavirus.

Hunter said the situation in Iran would have major implications for the Middle East.

“It is unlikely that Iran will have the resources and facilities to adequately identify cases and adequately manage them if case numbers are large,” he said.

“A further problem with the Iranian cases is wider armed conflicts in the region. During armed conflicts borders between countries become porous and urban and healthcare facilities are often targeted and destroyed. As we have seen with Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and poliomyelitis in Syria, war facilitates the spread of infectious disease and hampers public health responses.”

Italian authorities are also rushing to contain the continent’s first major outbreak of the disease after a seventh death in the country. Italy has so far recorded 219 confirmed cases, the most of any European country.

The Italian government has introduced stringent internal travel restrictions, closing off the worst-hit areas in the northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto. About 50,000 people in 11 north Italian towns have been under lockdown since Friday night, with police patrolling the streets and fines being imposed on anyone caught entering or leaving outbreak areas.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... ity-of-qom

Coronavirus outbreak a pandemic 'in all but name', says expert
While WHO says virus still containable, sudden cases in Iran and Italy causing alarm
Sarah Boseley Health editor
Mon 24 Feb 2020 18.43 GMT
Last modified on Mon 24 Feb 2020 23.39 GMT

The World Health Organization has played down fears of a coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world, despite sudden serious outbreaks in Italy and Iran, but some experts said they believed it was now inevitable.

“Using the word pandemic now does not fit the facts, but it may certainly cause fear,” said the WHO’s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at a briefing.

We are not there yet, said Tedros. “What we see are epidemics in different parts of the world affecting different countries in different ways.”

The word pandemic is used to describe a serious disease that is spreading in an uncontrolled way around the world. China, he pointed out, appeared to have contained it. The international team sent in by the WHO, which is about to report its findings, has said the virus probably peaked between 23 January and 2 February.

Tedros added, however, that “the sudden increase in new cases is certainly very concerning”.

Most worrying is the arrival of the coronavirus in Italy and Iran with no prior warning, presumably spread by people who were asymptomatic carriers. Italy now has 219 cases and seven people have died. The figures in Iran are disputed, but some reports claimed there had been 50 deaths in the city of Qom, which is a pilgrimage site.

Other experts said it was hard to believe that Covid-19 would not now spread worldwide.

“We now consider this to be a pandemic in all but name, and it’s only a matter of time before the World Health Organization starts to use the term in its communications,” said Dr Bharat Pankhania, from the University of Exeter Medical School.
Full article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... ays-expert

Well that's UAE and Kuwait now issuing travel restrictions to Thailand, so another fairly big tourism market for the country now being impacted. It would appear a number of countries, Israel being the first, either don't believe the figures of affected being officially reported by Thailand or view the continued admittance of Chinese into the country as posing too much of a risk to their citizens. A friend of mine living downstairs has cancelled his latest trip back to work in Bahrain this week as the company required him to spend 14 days effective quarantine out of Thailand before being allowed in.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 20024539v1

still early, but stats are starting to show some sense, 21.3% severity, 4.8% mortality
i think it will come down, but it looks like this is really not just the 'flu

Found this web site that tracks all the infected and deaths, per China province, and per country in the world. Updated as the new data come in:
https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/t ... rus-cases/

phuketrichard wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2020 5:41 pm Good time to be traveling here as discounts on air fares and hotels/resorts are back to low season rates
and the baht is the lowest since last May,( around 31.5-31.7/US$)

Another price cut in my regular Chinatown Bangkok hotel, its gone from 1,475 to 1,075 to 900 now. Good value at that price and I wonder what the occupancy levels are down to to induce these continued price cuts.

Looking forward to all these discounts