China coronavirus spread is accelerating, Xi Jinping warns.

Because ever since SARS Asians in general have imagined that masks would provide some protection, they don't really as the virus particles are far to small to be stopped by these masks, they offer minimal protection at best.

Also I would bet that the actual number of cases is far higher, they probably don't have the resources to identify cases even if people were coming forward which they won't because they can't afford the medical fees.

It'll only become obvious when enough people are dying to make it noticeable.

Masks were also widely used during the recent Taal eruption which is actually a sensible use of them as anything to restrict the amount of volcanic ash getting in the lungs is a good thing, they are also used a lot in Manila anyway because of the general air quality in the street.

edit: I am being unnecessarily and unfairly cynical about the Philippines ability to track Covid-19 this is closer to the current situation https://filipinotimes.net/news/2020/02/13/suspected-cases-covid-19-philippines-jumps-441-doh/ 230 cases so far and it is everywhere now, almost all over the country.

That's some good and accurate science reporting for once.

No the correct perspective is to be alarmed it is clearly easily transmitted and only 80% of diagnosed cases are mild, 16% have severe symptoms and up to 4% are critically ill requiring hospitalisation i.e. oxygen ventilation, of those 4% a quarter to a half are dying, generally the elderly or those with pre-existing health issues.

It's an epidemic, indeed it is a pandemic even if the WHO won't admit it, given that they can state that 80% of diagnosed cases are mild there will be at least 2 to three times as many unreported cases that have not yet resulted in fatalities or reported illness, a lot of countries won't even have the resources to even test or to have any accurate idea of the number of cases.

Nobody gives a monkey's about the flu because of the 1,000,000,000 (billion or so) people who get it every year only about 600,000 die, less than one tenth of 1 percent more accurately 0.06% usually again the elderly and already ill.

This thing at a mortality rate of 1% would be 16 times worse than the flu, at 2% it's 32 times worse then the flu, at the 4% or higher, numbers that are coming out of Iran, you're looking at 64 time worse than the flu and the Iran numbers could be for a more virulent strain.

The number of cases so far means nothing, what matters is the size of the foothold and the transmissibility, there is some evidence so far to show that the incubation period can be much longer than the 14 days quarantine so far being used, some think it could be up to 24 days, which if correct means that the measures taken so far were worthless in terms of containment.

This thing will spread it will be uncontainable and unless we get very lucky a lot of people will die.

The "thick plottens"..............

A British chap on that cruise ship in Japan has just died I hope it is not the chap that had been shown many times on the TV news for over a week while in quarantine.

He and his wife were removed to a hospital after both being diagnosed quite late on in the quarantine period.

Malcolm the Chinese are a totalitarian state, they put the entire country in lockdown cases are at this point in time falling, they actually did the right thing, western countries will never attain that level of discipline.

And, there is no guarantee that they really are on top of it, it could emerge again elsewhere in China as they are now trying to let people get back to work.

78,000 cases and over 2700 dead in Hubei province, likelihood of many more unreported cases in that province, that is 0.025% of the 11 million in Wuhan smaller than flu, but that is not the issue.

It's already out and spreading in many many countries now, countries with far less top down authority.

The problem is that a virus can and usually does spread in an exponential fashion, the main factor determining that spread is how easily it spreads from person to person and a secondary factor is can it spread without the host showing symptoms, for SARS it was quite hard to catch it from an infected individual, for Covid-19 we don't have enough data yet to know how easily it spreads, but we do know it spreads much faster than SARS.

The ratio of diagnosed infections to deaths will likely remain pretty much the same no matter how many get infected, the issue is to prevent the number of infected people increasing, the WHO still think it can be contained, well lets hope so.

Preventing it spreading needs the kind of draconian measures they have taken in China, so do you think Africa will be able to do that when it arrives there, how about India or for that matter the Philippines where it's already arrived, or Iran where it looks out of control and has been there for at least 2 weeks.

Most Flu seasons fizzle out as warmer weather arrives let's hope this Covid-19 virus is true to form for the family of coronaviruses to which it belongs.

An additional real danger is that this virus becomes seasonal, taking 2% of the population per annum, it will be at least a year before there is a vaccine and longer before there is enough vaccine to act as a barrier.

edit: vaccines work not just by protecting individuals but in doing so they act as a barrier to transmission, if in any group of people 3 or 4 are vaccinated and effectively immune the number of vectors or paths for the virus to travel are greatly reduced.