Posted on 02/15/2020 5:18:43 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
HONOLULU -- A man who visited Hawaii was confirmed to have coronavirus when he returned home to Japan, Hawaii officials said Friday.
Health officials were tracking down details about his travel in the Aloha State, including his flight information and people with whom he had close contact.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified Hawaii about the man having the illness known as COVID-19 on Friday morning, Hawaii Health Director Bruce Anderson said.
The man was in Hawaii Jan. 28 to Feb. 7. He first visited the island of Maui, where he had no symptoms, Anderson said. He was on Oahu, the state's most populated island, Feb. 3-7. While on Oahu, he had cold-like symptoms, but no fever, Anderson said.
He developed more serious symptoms when he returned to Japan, where he was tested and found to be positive for the illness, Anderson. He did not seek medical care in Hawaii, Anderson said.
Because of when his symptoms began, officials believe he became infected in Japan or while in transit to Hawaii, said state epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Park.
He is from Japan's Aichi Prefecture. The man was traveling with his wife, and while on Oahu, they stayed in Grand Waikikian By Hilton, officials said.
“Our focus at this point is to try and understand who potentially this person may have had close, prolonged contact," Park said, adding that they're concentrating on his whereabouts while on Oahu because that's where he developed symptoms.
If any close contacts are identified, those people would be isolated for 14 days, Anderson said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
“Our focus at this point is to try and understand who potentially this person may have had close, prolonged contact,” Park said
...
In other words, it’s not as easily transmissible as some people fear.
China is in big trouble with this disease. Nobody has developed a cure for them to steal yet and getting ideas on their own that don’t involve intellectual property theft isn’t their strong suit. That is what happens when you teach your best and brightest how to spy and cheat rather than think and innovate.
They might also want to check the guy’s sanitary sewer system.
From Hong Kong:
“Health officials called it a precautionary measure after a 62-year-old woman diagnosed with the virus Tuesday was found living 10 floors directly below a man who was earlier confirmed with the virus. The woman’s son and daughter-in-law who live with her were among seven new cases reported Thursday, raising the city’s total tally to 49.
As in 2003 [SARS], officials suspect the building’s plumbing may be to blame.
The 34 households evacuated live vertically above or below the woman and share the same sewage system. A modified toilet drainage pipe in her unit may have helped spread the virus and officials are checking if any other units have made such alternations while they disinfect the building.”
In other words, it’s not as easily transmissible as some people fear.
Yep
Very politically incorrect question but absolutely imperative to answer if this disease is to be truly understood. Have the non Chinese Westerners who live and work in Wusan become infected and die at the same rate of genetic Chinese? So far, even though data has not been forthcoming , it would appear that Caucasians and Africans have a much lower susceptibility to this virus than genetic Asiatics. There was much travel between Wusan, the US and Europe between Dec 15 thru Jan 15. No doubt infected people travelled to Europe and North America. Thus far there has been no widespread out breaks in the predominantly non Asiatic endemic populations. Surely where concentrations of Asiatics congregate in North America and Europe special surveillance is necessary.
It would be WHO’s worse nightmare if this particular coronavirus actually infected mostly Asians and not Caucasians. It would be feared that Europe and America, despite pieties, would not mobilize in the way necessary to overcome or check this disease as it dis with HIV.
This disease will have catastrophic consequences for the world economy. Trade will suffer, there will be less air travel especially to the Pacific. Companies heavily invested in China will suffer badly. There will also be pharmaceutical shortages in the US. Many drugs are manufactured in China. Also its a likelihood that the summer Olympics in Japan will be cancelled.
When winter is over, so will be the disease.
Come Spring, it will be over
Part of the susceptibility is that Chinese males smoke a LOT more than Westerners/Caucasians. Nothing to do with genetics in those cases, everything to do with smoking. I suspect the infection rates are broadly similar, but the death rates are much higher among smokers due to reduced lung capacity.
Smokers also tend to be at more risk during ‘normal’ annual flu epidemics, all around the world, and have higher mortality rates from flu and other respiratory infections.
Except if it gets into the Southern Hemisphere, which it already has albeit not much, it will be fall and then soon winter. That’s how what ended up being called the 1918 flu kept going for so long - it actually came back in several waves.
Bring Out Your Dead
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
If a quarantine saves just one child's life, it's worth it.
Come Spring, it will be over
Why?
Singapore has it, and it isn't exactly snowy 95 miles from the equator.
You guys remind me of that old movie, “Being There” I think it was called. Where the press followed that wise old sage, Chauncy Gardner.
“In the fall the signs lead to winter. But in the spring there is an awakening.”
You very well might be right. Although the 1918 pandemic lasted a year and a half - but I think the winters were worse.
Aloha.
Oy!
Wait, what?
No, in other words, we're afraid to quarantine two islands while we find out how bad it spread. So we're hoping for a best case scenario.
“In other words, it’s not as easily transmissible as some people fear.”
~~~~~~
No, in other words, we’re afraid to quarantine two islands while we find out how bad it spread. So we’re hoping for a best case scenario.
Spot on, Danny.
Nope. It’s airborne and that’s what the authorities are trying to downplay. Why do you think the airliners are in quarantine at Heathrow or the cruise ship in Japan.
Several interesting notes, about this article and case...
First....this is the first article, that I have come across that actually names a hotel, where a confirmed case has stayed (in the US).
Second...the article doesn’t mention whether the man had ever travelled to China. I take it that he did not, so this is a community, not direct contact in China case, if so.
Also, where is the ‘contact tracability’ going on with Maui and Oahu? This guy flew on a plane, with many others, from Japan to Maui...while in Maui (and Oahu) used facilities, touched surfaces, was likely in areas with multiple people (on tours, at restaurants, etc), flew a Hawaiian Airlines flight from OGG to HNL (Maui to Oahu), before boarding a flight - with many people - back to Japan.
The horse is out of the barn.
Barn is on fire.
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