Yes....apparently I DO have too much time on my hands before today's game.
Presenting the Rhinovirus.
Which may be one of the most successful of the Corona Virii out there.
It has a high transmission rate (sometimes as high as 56%)
Can survive outside of a host for long period of time on surfaces...just waiting for you to touch that countertop or door knob...and then your face.
And the most effective characteristic of all...it will make you cough, and sneeze, and your nose run...making you the perfect vector...but it doesn't actually KILL you.
(...which in virus-world is kind of an evolutionary symbiotic drawback...)
You want to know why we don't try to CURE the common cold
(...besides the fact is is a virus and we have never successfully CURED a virus...)
Mutations.
Virii level up.
And one thing we don't want is one of the over 100 subtypes of the cold virus to become Bad Bad Leroy Brown...and kill the whole damn town.
OK?
Example:
Filovirus: Ebola Zaire
then
Filovirus: Marburg
"Hold my beer...and watch THIS."
Marburg spread through 11 countries with an 80% fatality rate.
Luckily the mortality rate was the exact thing that saved humanity from this "bug"
It killed so fast and so well that it literally burned itself out.
Villages died...and the World was saved.
There is a lab in Maryland literally bulldozed beneath the earth after a containment issue with this microscopic monster.
Back to Corona Virii
Maybe you already have.
He is a master of disguise...mutating often...every year scientists cook up the latest and greatest vaccine...and every year (like Fred Astaire) the flu virus dances skillfully around it.
Last year's flu vaccine was 10% effective.
Sometimes he mutates into a Pandemic...like The Spanish or Hong Kong flu.
Sometimes he just kills people.
A random serial killer
10,000 or so in the US last year...unless it was someone we loved...we barely notice anymore.
and his Middle Eastern Cousin MERS
The latter infecting over 762,000,000 people in 214 countries...although it only had a 0.02% kill rate...284,000+ died.
Proving that statistics don't mean a thing if you happen to be patient #283,999.
And we all remember the Bird Flu scare
Although, technically, not the End of the World...
H1N1 had an over 50% fatality rate and for 455 people over 18 countries,
It WAS.
(...and we all clutched our Tamiflu doses, we had wheedled from our physicians, like pharmaceutical rosaries and we prayed...)
With brings us to
2019 nCoV
Beautiful and proving itself fast spreading...and somewhat deadly. Killing about 1 in 45 confirmed infections.
New and improved...this virus can spread from animal, to human to human, and from human to pet...and is transmissible even before symptoms are visible.
(...stealthy...)
Up to 14 days.
(...seriously, there are dog masks now in China...)
My Sofi-Cat says
"Oh, hell no..."
Maybe there is a reason they don't have cat masks...
Anyway, from the first confirmed case on December 31, 2019
until currently
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
These are the current numbers.
John Hopkins updates fairly regularly.
Encouraged to see the recovery rate climbing higher than the death rate...a recent occurrence.
Still almost inconceivable to jump from 1 confirmed to 14,657 in 25 countries in one month.
We have 11 confirmed cases in the US, now.
California (6)
Washington State (1)
Arizona (1)
Illinois (2)
and a student in Boston MA. (1)
And I have to admit...as irrational as it sounds...the tiny bird-song voices and laughter of our Chinese students who often used the transit here
(...where you can close your eyes and it is just like being in a bus in Hong Kong...)
suddenly look like so-many-vectors...
(...omg...did you just COUGH...???)
That's it... I'm filling your mouth with hand-bac and spraying you with Lysol!
(...okay...not really...)
BREATHE
Catch everyone after the game!
Meanwhile, while we watched the game
Yeah...I know.
UPDATE 2/03/2020
and at 9:30 PM
