The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday that the world has nearly 17,400 confirmed cases of the Novel Coronavirus. More than 99 percent of those cases were reported in China.
Compare that to the number of people infected with influenza in the United States. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates the flu has sickened between 19,000,000 and 26,000,000 people since October 1.
CDC officials also report that up to 25,000 people have died because of an infection during the four-month period. Officials note that, in an average year, the flu kills up to 56,000 people nationwide.
As of Sunday, there were 360 deaths from the coronavirus, mostly in China. There are currently 11 confirmed cases in the United States, but no deaths from the virus.
An aerial view shows the newly completed Huoshenshan Hospital, a dedicated hospital built in 8 days to treat coronavirus patients, in Wuhan, Hubei province, China February 2, 2020. China Daily via REUTERS
Experts are well prepared
Last October, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security held an exercise to help prepare health experts for what is happening today. It was called Event 201. Johns Hopkins University worked in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to organize the event.
Event 201 brought together government experts, business leaders and representatives of non-governmental organizations. The purpose was to talk about how the world would react to a serious epidemic.
Crystal R. Watson, DrPH, Senior Associate at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering.
Crystal R. Watson is a doctor and an Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She said the event was meant to help leaders prepare for what is happening now.
“The purpose of the exercise…was to raise issues of preparedness and response for those leaders so they could start working on making sure that we can develop medical countermeasures, drugs and vaccines, quickly in a severe outbreak, that we can respond and take care of the people who become sick.”
Life goes on in China and elsewhere
News stories about the coronavirus note some of the steps governments and health officials have planned for many years.
People flying to the United States from China now have to stop at one of seven airports. CDC workers are measuring the temperature of each passenger and looking for signs of breathing problems.
Travelers who are coughing or have other symptoms may be taken to a hospital for more testing.
One person who recently returned from China is Nick Caputo. He works for Sunrise International Education. He directs camps in China for students to learn about debate.
Caputo was hoping to stay in China longer. But when the travel restrictions were announced, his company decided that he should return to the U.S. at once. He said, “That way I would have time to go through a self-quarantine and make sure I wasn’t infected before I ran my program here.”
A cancer patient and her mother coming from Hubei province cross a checkpoint at the Jiujiang Yangtze River Bridge in Jiujiang, Jiangxi province, China, as the country is hit by an outbreak of a new coronavirus, February 1, 2020.
Schedule change for university life in China
Craig Blacklock teaches English at Wenzhou-Kean University in Wenzhou, China. He says the university has changed the beginning of its spring term from February 9 to March 1. He said the school also is helping its teachers and employees get much-needed supplies and food.
Blacklock told VOA that people around Wenzhou are taking temperatures and following the advice of the government to reduce the spread of the virus.
How to protect yourself and others
While governments are taking steps to limit travel and reduce infections, Crystal Watson thinks there are things private citizens can do.
“The average person should also be just taking general measures to prevent infection with respiratory diseases. We are in the middle of cold and flu season as well and so – just good practices of covering your cough and sneeze, washing your hands very frequently, avoiding people who have a cough – and just trying to stay well in the midst of cold and flu season.”
Officials from Health Department of Bangladesh screen arriving passengers from abroad in Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka on January 22, 2020
Serious cases get the most attention at first
With the novel coronavirus, one that did not affect people until now, doctors often pay more attention to the serious cases.
“We are still learning a lot about this new virus…one thing that happens early on in an outbreak, a novel outbreak like this is that you see there’s a bias toward seeing the more severe cases and death. So we’re seeing those now. But as we go through and gather more…data, we’re going to find that there are many more mild cases that are not being now detected. So we anticipate that that fatality rate will decrease significantly as this continues to spread.”
The world is better prepared now
Crystal Watson says that the world is better prepared now than it was over 15 years ago when faced with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, known as SARS.
“There are definitely very important steps that the world has taken over the last 10 years to get better prepared. We can always do more, but I think people are taking this very seriously and responding in the best way that we can.”
I’m Jill Robbins.
Jill Robbins reported on this story for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.
VANCOUVER – Mayors and other leaders from several British Columbia communities say the provincial and federal governments need to take “immediate action” to tackle mental health and public safety issues that have reached crisis levels.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim says it’s become “abundantly clear” that mental health and addiction issues and public safety have caused crises that are “gripping” Vancouver, and he and other politicians, First Nations leaders and law enforcement officials are pleading for federal and provincial help.
In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier David Eby, mayors say there are “three critical fronts” that require action including “mandatory care” for people with severe mental health and addiction issues.
The letter says senior governments also need to bring in “meaningful bail reform” for repeat offenders, and the federal government must improve policing at Metro Vancouver ports to stop illicit drugs from coming in and stolen vehicles from being exported.
Sim says the “current system” has failed British Columbians, and the number of people dealing with severe mental health and addiction issues due to lack of proper care has “reached a critical point.”
Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer says repeat violent offenders are too often released on bail due to a “revolving door of justice,” and a new approach is needed to deal with mentally ill people who “pose a serious and immediate danger to themselves and others.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
