COVID-19 26 Feb Developments

Well good afternoon everyone a warm welcome thank you for coming back it's Wednesday 26th February now a little update on some different countries and what seems to be happening so the virus is Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome - the disease is covered. 19 corona virus disease 19 now these are the current confirmed cases in China but now of course there are also cases in other parts of the world and the best thing about China right now is that we are going to look in more detail at the number of cases is decreasing or the increase is decreasing, there are still more cases, but the rate of increase is slowing down dramatically and we will see the reasons for that, accumulated confirmed cases, suspected cases and again, this is just data from China, that suspicious number, but current serious cases not formally diagnosed in China now this number continues to worry me the relationship between that number there should be a common, of course, 8750 with the cases which is a fairly large percentage of that number there, so the number of people who those formally diagnosed contract serious illnesses remain a major concern.

Confirmed deaths worldwide from the Johns Hopkins website. There are two thousand seven hundred and sixty-three recovered mainly from Chinese data. It must be said that there are 30,257 countries affected. Now it's 14. basic reproductive number I was giving a figure of our zero is equal to approximately two point six now remember yesterday this figure R zero is the average number of uninfected people that an infected person will infect and indicates the speed of the epidemic, but Yes we analyzed the data yesterday that showed that the R nothing in the early parts of the epidemic in China was much higher than that, so it depends hugely on the circumstances that people are in, so if there are good containment like the ones there are now in China, no, I don't know.

I have a figure, but I guess the iron that should be in China now is probably about making a particular is growing slowly. It is growing slowly. In China there might be about 1.2 fish or something because of a lot of lockdowns, but we know this virus can. they have much higher Arnauts than the failures we saw in yesterday's data, that happened in the early stages in China, so they are not in Iran, we have no idea what they are not in Iran, but it could absolutely be anything, but it could be good, let's just say it could be way above that number quite above that number, we don't know exactly what it is, but it could be 3 4 5 6, we just don't know, so I just put massively variable but in that water, so Those are the basic numbers for today, now we'll move on to other things in the news and what this helps us understand about the virus.

Now, the World Health Organization has told us that this is a rapidly expanding outbreak, that is the word they use outbreak with risk. of becoming a pandemic, so having said that they no longer use the term pandemic, they have now said that this is at risk of becoming a pandemic. Now we go to Japan. 178 confirmed cases now in Japan. Sports events canceled for two weeks. The first Minister. said that there is a big risk of infection if sporting events go ahead and of course the Olympics will be held there in July so there is a lot of anxiety in Japan at the moment for various reasons and a fourth death of a passenger who was on the diamond princess, many of them, of course, are still isolated in Japan, so unfortunately I think we are seeing a contagion spreading in Japan and moving to South Korea.

Now in South Korea thirty-seven days have passed since the first confirmed case on January 27th and yesterday there were 253 additional cases, making it one hundred 1261 cases on Wednesday February 26th there have been 12 deaths now Koreans are very honest about this In fact, of all the countries where the virus has gone, it seems that the Koreans are the most direct in their reporting and have very important diagnostic facilities. I would say more than any other country other than China, so there is widespread testing going on. Now this sect in this city started spreading this virus. The tests, oh, I think it's 200,000.

The members of this sect will be tested, which means that in addition to the tens of thousands of tests they have already done, they will do another 200,000 tests, which is a significant capacity to test a significant capacity of the Korean Center for Diseases. Disease Control has told people to avoid public gatherings and it looks like they are putting up tents outside the hospital so the infection doesn't get into the hospital, which is a good thing, so in Korea there is still quite a bit of reasonably localized spread , but now it has spread to everyone. career provinces, but this is good because this is all very reliable data from the air of the South Koreans who are now heading to Iran.

The Islamic Republic of Iran. We just said that South Korea is very direct and very transparent, while Iran is more questionable, they say they have 95 cases and it turns out that I, Banan Piers, got it, the deputy health ministers got it. It just so happens that the people who went to Canada met some of these 95 people simply by rapping at the people who are infected. in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates also met these 95 people, this is simply not credible, so we can infer a lot about the data, a lot about the number of cases in a country by the number of spread, the amount of spread in travelers and in the case of Iran, it has spread widely, so we know that these cases are much higher than what the Iranians claim and the other thing about Iran is that it has a fairly high mortality rate, so what I'm really worried about is that it's a mutant virus. more pathogen that has a greater pathogenicity a greater ability to cause more severe disease and if that is the case, it is the last form of the virus, the last what we call a zero type of virus that we want to spread, so let's hope that that is not the case. but it seems that from some cases that I've had, the mortality rate is reportedly higher, the case fatality rate is higher than other places.

Now this guy here is the Iranian Deputy Deputy Minister and Minister of Health, he just tested positive and in his press conference yesterday he claimed that Iran had the outbreak under control and then an hour later he tested the cobras after they tested positive . The Health Minister himself, this guy Raj, had said that he would resign if the numbers and this gentleman had been covered up. who is very high in the Iranian Ministry of Health said that the quarantine does not work, it is a method from the Second World War and they have gone beyond that now, he seems to think, but a parliamentarian tested positive, which means that other members of the Iranian parliament could well have been affected by this panic buying in supermarkets, but there is no massive lockdown like in China.

People continue to come and go to holy places in Iran. Now it goes without saying that this kind of thinking from a senior health official is frightening and potentially devastating for many people. In this world it is incredible that someone could have such an unscientific view of this. I don't know if it's a possible side effect of theocratic rule in Iran. I have a kind of fatalistic attitude, but rejecting scientific methods is simply that there is nothing to be done. Let's say now Afghanistan has an open border with Iran and Afghanistan has a very limited infrastructure, there is already a confirmed case and if it enters Afghanistan it will be very difficult to stop it, people tend to live in complexes and family groups and say the limited care infrastructure medical doesn't begin to describe it and of course the huge security problems there now in Tenerife too.

I saw videos of people walking around this hotel talking to each other where these people isolated themselves after the Italian doctor tested positive, that is worrying and there is also a confirmed case in Barcelona, ​​they are both there because they are both Spain, like I said . I hope the Spanish authorities in Tenerife have learned from the failure of the Diamond Princess and are learning from this, but people are not allowed to leave the hotel grounds. now these police are outside, many of them at this moment we assume that they will not be infected, so do not get infected, so let's move on to the situation now in Italy, this big outbreak in the north of Italy, but unfortunately now we know that there are also one case in Sicily or more cases, I am not sure and also in the south of Italy and mainly in the north, but three hundred and twenty-three confirmed cases have already spread in Italy with eleven deaths and it seems that this disease has probably been in Italy for longer than people thought, so it's probably a matter of recognition, this insect disease could have been there for several weeks, we're not quite sure and they haven't been able to contact the index case or case zero, so which is still a bit of a mystery how this infection 19 came undercover.

Selene, good quality measures are literally being taken, which is of course very reassuring. Austria there is a closed hotel in Innsbruck with an Italian receptionist, so again we are seeing spread from Italy, Switzerland, Croatia reported that there is positive. cases now Australia the Australian government has activated its emergency response plan to an imminent coronavirus pandemic are the virus the words they are using so it looks like Australia is starting to take this pandemic seriously and I'm glad to see that the United States DS States Center Fizz's Control Atlanta is also taking it seriously. This is one of the CDC spokespersons.

It's not so much a question of whether this will happen anymore, but rather when exactly it will happen and how many people in this country. will have a serious illness. This is exactly what I've been saying for weeks. The question is how many people are going to get seriously ill because it is going to be very difficult to care for many of them at the same time. Now we move on to China, the number of new cases in China is massively decreasing 406 new cases on Wednesday excellent decrease in the number of new cases, which means that each infected person in China is affecting on average many fewer people in other words, the R nothing is going down now yesterday I read a letter from Beijing and an email from Beijing and we talked about 95% of the city being closed, businesses, restaurants, bars, 95% of the passes needed to enter the residential districts temperature is checked when you leave the residential district when you go to the supermarket when you return needing identity cards and identification and drastic measures are taken against what is happening in China, although some people are allowed to go to work and this was praised by the WHO and I actually agree with this now in China, the level of well-being that it had.

I'm going to say mismanagement, but it's more that that deliberate cover-up in China was appalling and that gave this epidemic time to start. It could have been nipped in the bud and eradicated if local authorities adopted a different attitude. It is a tragic missed opportunity. but now China is taking surprising steps to try to limit it, praised by WHI. I spoke about that case yesterday in Beijing. This one is from Shanghai. I am currently in Shanghai. Just look, there is a recent video update where an email is read from someone in Beijing, everything they mentioned in their email is happening here too, so the situation is the same in Shanghai, one of the other cities most big from China.

It's been incredible to see people's collective response in taking action. It's been incredible. I see the collective response of people in taking action against the spread of the disease and I agree that it's hard to believe that any city in America would be as fervent in their efforts as I've seen here, so I really We have to extend our thanks. and recognition to ordinary citizens in China who are making extraordinary efforts now and even the nari Chinese central government is making extraordinary efforts using powers in a positive way after the tragic missed opportunity in the early stages now new testing in the UK of symptomatic people so that people with any symptoms now of cough or fever are reported to the GPS and 11 hospitals in the country are being tested for 19 covered viruses, so basically this begs the question: is the virus already spreading in the country, are some of the normal clinical features that we see at this time.

The time of year actually covered 19 and we should know that those results will be out in about 48 hours so it's good surveillance so the question is is the virus spreading a lot in the UK we don't know, but this should answer it, hopefully, and they have. It is not specified that the UK authorities are not particularly specific, but it is strongly suspected that they have been selected to be representative of the country as a whole, so it will be reasonable to take these samples as representative samples of the country as a whole, now thateight schools are closed.

In the UK, pupils have visited northern Italy, very happy to see that school principals are being proactive. This is not coming from the country's chief medical officer, but from the initiative taken by the schools themselves, which I applaud, it is good. We are closing schools in case children are working from home and their teachers can teach them from home online now just to end this update on the vaccine situation now that a vaccine has been developed in the United States and in China, and as far as I know there are a couple dozen more labs around the world working on this and my understanding is that the US vaccine and the Chinese vaccine are now being tested for safety in animals.

Now the next stage after this in early spring will be phase one trials in humans. In phase one clinical trials, the drug or vaccine in this case is given to a relatively small number of healthy volunteers to ensure that it is safe to test on a larger number of volunteers, but then its effectiveness has to be tested. tested for side effects, this is not a quick process, so realistically we will not see a mass vaccine ready for the public this year, it will be next year when we have this vaccine available.