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California is Monitoring Many People Who Traveled to China Just in Case

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There are 33 confirmed coronavirus cases in California and 8400 people are being monitored as possible cases of Coronavirus. Most of the confirmed cases were people who caught it on the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

Newsom said his top priority is expanding the ability to do tests for the virus, saying the state currently only has and inadequate 200 testing kits.

He said his team spoke to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday and they assured the state that many more tests will soon be made available.

Statistically, if there were a million people infected with Coronavirus in China in urban areas then the rate would be 0.2%, then the expectation would be that 16 of the 8400 people would be infected. It clearly is prudent to monitor and contain as much as possible.

30 thoughts on “California is Monitoring Many People Who Traveled to China Just in Case”

  1. I can’t remember the search term I used. I may have put in Western Australia as whole words, not thinking that it could be somewhere else.

    Anyway, I’m grimly confirming my prediction that a couple more of the European countries would start rapid growth once they get above 100 is looking valid, with France and Germany both jumping to 130 within a day.

  2. I would be surprised if tracking people was something that was actually possible. Given the resources, training, and past performance.

  3. I switched duckduck search region to Australia and it still popped up “ducking” for “50 covid cases in wa” for me. But yeah, I should have spelled it out.

  4. Washington state just had a COVID-19 death, 50 more in the same nursing facility sick and being tested. So we’re likely about to see a big jump in US total cases, when they get the test results back.

    The US has so far just contained known cases and quarantined those with high-likelihood of exposure. Regretfully, that’s not enough. There are COVID-19 carriers out there, and without stringent measures in place their numbers are no doubt growing.

    The US could nip this in the bud if we were willing to ‘panic’ as officials would call it (apparently out of fear of being blamed for the economic damage if the disease is then kept under control).

    Impose a 7-day, nationwide, non-essential-travel shut-down to identify other areas with the virus. 14 days for cities that already have the virus, split them into isolated ‘containment zones’ and further lock-down all with active cases. Get Mexico and Canada to do the same, close the borders, and set mandatory prison sentences for illegal crossing, doubled if sick.

    This also identifies cities which probably do NOT yet have the virus (which is hopefully still most of them), so they can safely return to cautious normality with less concern of it coming there from infected places. Keep international travel shut down to countries that do not take similar steps to ‘clear’ infection-free cities for travel.

    A certain but small economic damage now – or very likely massive damage only a few months later as people *really* panic.

  5. I’m not going to pretend I have any idea why 100 cases looks like a breaking point, but I’d be very surprised if the USA acts like a single country in this respect. My guess would be that it would behave much like the EU, with each state being independent, though with huge amounts of travel between them.

  6. HEPA filters are great for filtering out virii… providing you can and do replace them very regularly.

    And have enough head in your airflow system to force all your air through a 1u filter.

    And have a few pre-filters to clear out all the dust that would completely block the final fine filter. These need regular replacement too.

    For a building HVAC system that is asking a lot. A hospital or something MIGHT stick to the maintenance schedule. Residential or retail buildings are another thing all together.

    My first choice would be to look at UV lights within the ducting.

    (Source: I worked on infection control HEPA filters and sterilization technology for a SARS project.)

  7. I would expect this to happen again and again until there is a law saying that anyone designated “a person of interest” is required to notify the authorities of their movements.

  8. Ah. I misunderstood. You meant WA = Washington state in the USA. I assumed you meant Western Australia.
    Explains why I couldn’t find it.

    Clearly we need more letters if multiple states throughout the world are using the same initials.

  10. I haven’t heard about that (and can’t find it with a brief duckduck) but I’m not surprised. All it takes is one insufficiently reclusive person.

    And we are waiting on the results from that beautician situation in the Gold Coast.

    (For those not following, woman went on a trip to Iran, came back worked in her beauty parlour giving 40 people close physical attention such as facials. Then she gets sick and oops…)

  12. Optimist.

    For no good theoretical reason, the pattern seen so far is that once a country goes over 100 cases they seem to lose control and start doubling every couple of days.

    Italy is clearly doing this. But France is at 100, and Germany and Spain are well on their way.

    We could see up to 3 more Euro countries reach Italian levels within 1 to 2 weeks. 3-5 weeks is the good outcome.

    On the same pattern, Hong Kong and Singapore were holding on by their fingernails, creeping up towards the 100 cases mark by ones and twos. But Singapore just jumped over the threshold.

    I wonder to what extent HK is lucky here. Because of the Chinese political crackdown they were already under lockdown. They might look back and be glad.

  13. Did anyone else read the source linked above?
    Quote immediately following that copied above:
    “five people who tested positive have since moved out of the state”
    Uh…Wut???
    I mean – maybe they were ‘recovered’ cases? But it sure sounds like they’re saying “We lost track of 5 infected people and they are out there somewhere, probably spreading the virus…”

  14. New restrictions in place now – Iran blocked, strong recommendations not to travel to Italy or South Korea. I would not be surprised if everyone who comes from the latter two are being tracked, regardless of what is said publically.

  15. OK, that looks good.
    I was going for a slightly more ambitious interpretation of “chickens and pigs that are sufficiently different from humans that we can’t share diseases” but your finding there looks great for the bird flu itself.

  16. I don’t understand why we’re still allowing flights from there, Korea & Italy. Sick people ARE coming in from there undetected, and they are going to make us sick. Stupid.

  17. They should be monitoring people who’ve been to South Korea and Italy recently as well. Probably few enough that it wouldn’t be a big added burden.

  20. genetically modify the chickens and ducks so they are not susceptible

    I’m not a geneticist but I suspect that it would be much easier to start with something that is already less susceptible (cows? goats?) and modify them to give the characteristics you desire in chickens and pigs. Ducks are a bit more difficult, maybe start with beavers or platypus?

  21. I am OK with them having a mandatory professionally run quarantine for arrivals from places other than the Americas for 15 days where they are tested before and at the end. Each day’s arrivals should be isolated from any of the other day’s, and the people providing necessities should not serve more than one day’s.
    I don’t know who wants to go through that much bother, but it should be an option.
    Maybe 3 or 4 entry locations.

    We can’t possibly close the Mexican boarder (incredible disruption, and there are probably dozens of tunnels), so we need to get the other countries in the Americas to adopt the same procedures…and assist them.

    If Australia and New Zealand continue to stay relatively clean…include them too.

    You need to have something that can be maintained for up to a year. Complete isolation just will not work. Too many pressures.

  23. I want to be an optimist and say we can contain this. China is doing their part. As are many countries. Iran…very delayed. Probably too delayed. And too much cultural baggage working against containment. Beards interfering with close fitting masks, a fatalistic belief that there is no running from death…if it is your time…that is it. And I got to think that the economic pressure the US had felt compelled to use may have interfered with nutrition. Not blaming anyone…just an unfortunate place for this to take root.

    But, even if we can’t contain this, we should make every rational effort, because delay can save lives. It takes months to put together effective countermeasures to the virus.
    I think we should have been making this kind of effort for many viruses. The flu is made anew every year and travels here from Southeast Asia. They have never bothered to try to prevent its arrival.
    Probably more effective to genetically modify the chickens and ducks so they are not susceptible (it results when chicken/ducks, pigs and humans live in the same hut…which is common in poor areas).
    Most explanations gloss over the details. This one is pretty decent, but it ignores that other Southeast Asian countries are involved rather than just China. And with increased prosperity/urbanization in China, the recent flu strains probably were from the other countries: http://old.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20010429chinafluhealth3.asp

  24. Fortunately CA has warm and dry weather right now.

    Basically good weather to kill viruses.

    On the downside if the virus gets to the homeless population….. its game over.

  25. I tend to agree. Would have been nice if CCP hadn’t let it spread unchecked for the first two months but here we are.

    At this point in time we need to isolate wherever possible, educate people on cleanliness, push for increased social distancing, test more antiviral combinations, pursue vaccines, and stockpile food and necessities so we aren’t caught unprepared.

    Oh do we think we don’t need have a meet and greet with our inner prepper? Well clearly people haven’t been following the #Wuhan tweets for the month of Feburary.

    Things #Wuhan taught me:

    You can fit 3 children in to an adult body bag
    The elderly will jump to their deaths when the alternative is starvation
    The police will shoot you if you aren’t wearing a mask
    If you chain people together to take them to the camps then they can’t run away

  27. Running ozone through a buildings ventilation system and putting UV lights in public areas could be a start. We can’t stop its spread but we can slow it down.

  28. My thought is that (listening carefully to both the CID and CDC), as well as reading up on SARS and MERS, that this outbreak is particularly “out of control” whether we like to admit it or not, because of 4 hard facts:

    • 2 week incubation time, before showing ‘signs’ of infection
    • 50% or more of adults are asymptomatic, yet transmitters
    • 80% or more of kids are sub-symptomatic, infectuous.
    • the COVID–19 capsid (viral coat) is particularly well armored.

    Combine those with what are looking like “pop-up hotspots”, which really aren’t but simply weren’t recognized as harboring active person-to-person transmission only 2 weeks prior to being “hotspots”. This particular management model is the hard one to get-to-grips with.

    So together in the long, long, long winded discussions I’ve been having with peeps, I think it is the CDC’s view that many of us are destined to get this, once it really starts to nucleate and take off. 20% or more of Hômo.  With mean mortality of 2.5%.  35 million or so, worldwide.

    1917 Great Influenza Pandemic, step aside.
    And to whit… consider the “other side” of high-mortality plagues.

    • Orphanages.
    • Hollowed out medical facilities.
    • Open air internment camps.
    • Rationing.
    • Higher rates of house-fires.
    • Collapse of social-engagement venues.
    … cruise ships
    … vacation air-travel firms
    … theatres
    … stadiums

    Wanna catch the virus by accident? 
    … Go to an emergency room!

    ⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
    ⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅

  29. Agreed, especially to and from Italy, which has been the main source of the latest spread all over the world. It being a tourist hub, as well as having its own citizens flying around on various business trips and so forth. I’d like to see Italy take responsibility, and close its own borders, since it seems the rest of europe doesn’t want to do that.

    But I’m afraid it may be too late at this point. Still, the more the virus is constrained, the easier it’ll be to eventually stop.

  30. We really ought to cut international air-travel, sooner rather than later. Both ways. Zip it up.  

    This sounds Draconian, for sure. But consider … there are likely now tens of thousands of people no longer in Qom Old Persia, who went to the shrine, and rubbed faces against the icons and mystic stones housed there. As they are required to do. Then, infected, back to their home communities. To suffer the outbreak in silence.  

    I’m not worried so much about the Qom visitors, as I am about what they represent, taken more largely.  A huge body worldwide of international air travelers, who may have been unwittingly infected, and are carriers. By the gazillions.  Without yet showing signs. Or for some, maybe the majority, never showing sign.  

    Wanna keep those almost-exclusively-elective holiday air travelers airports open?  It just feels irresponsibly imprudent to do so. 

    ⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
    ⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅

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