Professor Marc Lipsitch says that the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) "will ultimately not be containable" and that "within the coming year, some 40 to 70 percent of people around the world will be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19," he's quoted as saying by The Atlantic.
An expert in epidemiology, Lipsitch warns that the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) is especially dangerous because some of the people who become infected carriers never actually manifest any symptoms.
At the same time, not everyone who contracts the disease will die from it. Instead, "many will have mild disease, or may be asymptomatic," Lipsitch contends.
It all depends on how effectively governments of the world are able to contain the disease before it spreads out of control. In Italy, for instance, some people are being barred from leaving their hometowns, which could help to prevent the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) from spreading to pandemic levels.
On the other hand, the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) might just be the dreaded "Disease X" that experts have been warning about for years.
"Whether it will be contained or not, this outbreak is rapidly becoming the first true pandemic challenge that fits the Disease X category, listed to the WHO's priority list of diseases for which we need to prepare in our current globalised society," writes Professor Marion Koopmans.
Listen below as Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, talks about how Chinese people are preparing for the worst even as Americans do next to nothing to protect themselves:
Community spread of coronavirus is happening right now in America
After initially denying it, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is now saying that there may, indeed, be community transmission of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) here in the U.S., which would only make Prof. Lipsitch's predictions more likely.
A person in California, the media is now reporting, has contracted the novel disease despite having not traveled abroad any time recently. Not only did this person not travel to China, but he or she did not travel anywhere, which means the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) is probably now spreading from person to person.
"At this point, the patient's exposure is unknown," the CDC said in a statement. "The case was detected through the U.S. public health system and picked up by astute clinicians."
The CDC made this announcement not long after President Trump delivered his own press briefing about the global emergency, insisting that public health containment measures and travel entry restrictions have somehow been successful in limiting the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) here on U.S. soil.
Despite President Trump's insistence that there are only about 10 cases of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) here in America, and that the whole thing will probably die out by the time spring arrives, there are now 60 confirmed cases of the disease in our country, including the 45 Americans who were recently repatriated from both Wuhan and the Diamond Princess cruise ship that was carrying infected travelers.
Up until this point, public health officials have been able to trace every known case of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) in the U.S. to either recent travel abroad or direct exposure to someone who recently traveled abroad. But this latest case is the first to occur outside of these parameters.
"The thing that would immediately make all of us uneasy is if this person has no direct contact with someone who comes from an affected country," laments Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University.
To access more news about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), be sure to check out Pandemic.news.
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