Questions about the Coronavirus, Wuhan, and US Quarantines and Vaccines.
We have great sympathy for the people of Wuhan, Hubei, and China suffering from the Coronavirus infection, and applaud their outstanding efforts to combat it for themselves and the world.
The Wuhan and its surrounding Hubei Province quarantines are actually going to be great experiments in confining such attacks. But, they are also going to be a great experiment in preventing the spread and death rate from the ordinary flus. They may also reduce production, and the very serious local air pollution. We have to see if that has sociological effects also.
As of today, 8,000 people in China have been identified with the Coronavirus, 20% have become seriously ill, and 170, or about 2%, have died from it. Presumably, the Chinese medical community is getting better at identifying the virus, isolating patients, and protecting against the serious side effects that can lead to death.
All of the measures that they are taking would also limit the spreading of ordinary winter flus. They affect millions, and cause tens of thousands of deaths. Nobody has ever taken such cautionary measures for the flu, and this will show how effective they can be. These include everybody wearing masks, presumably detecting and isolating people with symptoms and fevers, avoiding mass events, reducing New Years travel in the winter, and early examinations and hospitalization. This could save many lives, somewhat balancing the eventual losses from the Coronavirus.
A University of California expert says that coronavirus deaths come from pneumonia. We wonder what the vaccination rates against pneumonia are in China, also considering that there are two vaccines to more completely cover this. We also wonder if they can step up such vaccinations in the areas affected.
With possible slowdowns in manufacturing and other activities, coal energy generation and subsequent air pollution will be reduced. Also, traffic air pollution will be reduced. The Wuhan Air Quality Index (AQI) today (from aqicn.org) is a red colored 163, meaning Unhealthy for everybody. The worst Chinese readings reach 500. Over the last three days it has been mostly in the red color, maxing out at 171, for lung attacking PM2.5 microscopic particles. I actually am the only person that I know of that has a Flickr photo album of air pollution readings from around the world. As best as I can determine from a former China map covered with readings, the current reading is about standard for this area. If air pollution is significantly reduced, people there might realize what could be accomplished by switching to cleaner power sources.
We jump to the US. Since these viruses can end up in pneumonia, what is the pneumonia vaccination rate in the US? Pneumonia has the second most common hospital admission rate, second to women giving birth. One million Americans are hospitalized from it a year, and 50,000 die from it. In 2017, the pneumococcal vaccination coverage for adults aged 19-64 years was only 24.5%, based on interviews. For those over 65, 69.0% were vaccinated. I have no idea if there is enough vaccine available if it is deemed necessary for a Coronavirus outbreak here.
For flu exposures, the CDC, examining data from 2010 to the present, calls it a substantial burden on the health of people. Each year, there are between 9.3-45.0 million flu illnesses, between 140,000-810,000 hospitalizations, and between 12,000-61,000 deaths annually. The 2017-2018 season was the worst, with 2018-2019 being the runner up, with 35.5 million illnesses. This year is also bad, and the vaccine does not cover the main and serious flu. It is not comforting that the last two years and this year may be the worst. Maybe the Coronavirus scare in the US will finally cause us to carry out more preventative measures for the regular flu. The above data shows that the flu can affect 14% of our population, can hospitalize 1.8% of those infected, and can kill 0.14% of those infected. With the Coronavirus hospitalizing 20% and killing 2% of the infected in China, it is at least 10 times worse than the normal flus that we deal with.
While the US response to our evacuation flight of personnel from Wuhan is to confine them to March Air Force Base as a start, they say that they are only holding them for three days, instead of the 14 days of possible incubation elsewhere. They also seem to be holding them all together, rather than breaking them up and confining them to the smallest groups possible. Sure, it is inconvenient to those held, but look at China to see how terrible it is to deal with the Coronavirus when it is spreading rapidly.
While President Trump is passing the virus challenge off as being handled, perhaps he should be planning a strategy to handle this should it start to be rapidly spread. Well, today Trump appointed a task force. The WHO declared it a worldwide emergency. It has also been suggested that we appropriate a billion dollars to work on this problem, including funding rapid and thorough efforts to produce a vaccine for it. Estimates are that it would even require three months to test it on humans.
Trump has proposed cuts in the CDC budgets, but Congress has overridden them. However, he has eliminated the office of pandemic response, created after the Ebola epidemic of 2014. He has scaled back the CDC overseas outbreak prevention efforts from 49 countries to 10! People are afraid that the worst casualties from the Coronavirus would be in Africa. We know that some people in Africa are so suspicious that they do not even take the Ebola virus vaccination.
The overall US health picture is that President Trump keeps trying to remove parts of the Affordable Care Act coverage. Since Republican states often refuse to use the provisions to provide coverage for those that can’t afford it, the poor will suffer more from all of the conditions above. This, and more, actually show up in lower life spans in Republican states, as shown by Paul Krugman. Clinton voting states now have four years more of life expectancy than Trump voting states, 80 years versus 76 years. Comparable countries beat us at 82 year life spans.
It is an old saying, that “we are only as healthy as the poorest health cared people in the world”.
